From: "Gerry Hill" <fox42@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 22:16:13 -0700
Subject: xfc: NEW: "Sin Nombre" (1/3) by Gerry Hill
Source: xfc

October 20, 2000

TITLE:  SIN NOMBRE (1/3)
AUTHOR:  Gerry Hill
E-MAIL ADDRESS:   fox42@ix.netcom.com
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT:   Gossamer, texfiles,
Muldertorture Anonymous.  Anywhere else, let me know.
RATING:   PG-13
CLASSIFICATION:   X, MSR, A
SPOILER WARNING:   Everything up to "Requiem."
SUMMARY:   Someone is trying to cover up a hantavirus
outbreak in New Mexico.  Did they think that Mulder and
Scully would *ignore* this?   :-)
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on the characters and
situations created by Chris Carter, the Fox Network and
Ten Thirteen Productions.  As such, the characters named
are the property of those entities and are used without
permission, although no copyright infringements are
intended.  The following work is for the distribution and
entertainment of fanfic members only.  Any further
distribution of this work without the author's consent is in
violation of international law.

THANKS: To Guy Goodboe and to my brother Michael,
for answering some technical questions about C-130
airplanes; to Laurie Haynes, since this story wouldn't have
been written otherwise; and my profound gratitude to my
wonderful and long-suffering beta readers: Jo-Ann Lassiter,
Helen Wills, nikki, Ten, and Macspooky.


SIN NOMBRE   (1/3)
by Gerry Hill   (fox42@ix.netcom.com)

20,000 Feet Above North Texas
June 29, 2000, 4:00 AM

The instrument panels all around the flight crew glowed
with numerous red, green and white indicator lights.  The
drone of the four engines provided a monotonous
background to their intermittent conversation.  Behind
them, in the fuselage of the C-130 cargo plane, crates,
containers and equipment were lined up in rows, ready for
delivery at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New
Mexico.  At the rear of the plane, on a wooden pallet, sat
several large orange and white plastic containers.  The
loadmaster on this flight, Sgt. James DeBarge, had been
ordered to make room for them after the rest of the cargo
had been stowed away.  Since the flight was well under the
weight limit and there had been a good-sized gap over in the
aft section, he had easily managed to do so.

In the cockpit, the conversation had picked up a little.  Sgt.
Manuel Vasquez, the flight engineer, was airing his
grievances.

"Man, I can't believe it.  Little Rock to
Albuquerque...straight shot, no sweat.  But then they bump
us down at Sheppard in Wichita Falls just to pick up a
couple of boxes..."  He made a rude sound.

The pilot, Captain Willis Goodson, a burly African
American with a relaxed attitude towards life, gave the
engineer a sidelong glance and mildly said, "A diversion
isn't that unusual, Sergeant."

"Yeah, yeah.  No big deal.  But you have to admit that was
weird when those guys in suits tucked that cargo in like a
baby.  Thought they'd shoot me when I touched the thing."

Lt. Carol Markov, the co-pilot, knew something about what
was in those containers.  She gave a nervous laugh at
Vasquez's comment and said, "Well, you know that men in
black have no sense of humor, Vasquez."

The sergeant didn't answer, however.  He was preoccupied
with the instrument panel after feeling a change in the
plane's vibration.

"There's a torque flux on Number 1 engine," he suddenly
said.  "Crossfeed is okay," he muttered, studying the
indicators intently.  Checking the system and adjusting a few
switches in the overhead panel, his voice was tighter when
he said, "I'm putting Number 1 propeller in mechanical
governing."

The other crew members were running through their own
checks, trying to find the problem in either the fuel or
electrical systems.

"Fuel flow to Number 1 has gone to shit," Vasquez
suddenly called out.  A sheen of sweat had appeared on his
forehead.  "Fuel flow to Number 2 lost also.  Negative
torque.  I'm shutting down Number 1."

The whole crew was well aware of the different feel of the
airplane now.  Besides the ride being rougher and the engine
noise dropping, they sensed an overall wrongness to the
fragile shell holding them thousands of feet above the
ground.

"Dammit!  They're all losing torque!"  Vasquez frantically
worked to find the right combination of adjustments that
would keep them flying.

The Captain twisted toward the man who had been silent up
to this point and asked, "Is Cannon AFB the nearest
airstrip, Angelli?"

Already checking his charts, the navigator quickly verified
that the air base was about twenty minutes away.  Captain
Goodson made a call to Cannon, declaring an in-flight
emergency and their intent to divert to the base, then began
the long, shallow turn to adjust their flight path.

Lt. Markov said quickly, "I'm going to check the cargo and
let the loadmaster know what's going on."  She kept her
eyes lowered as she scrambled out of the cockpit so her
fellow crew members wouldn't see the naked fear in them.

"The torque on Numbers 3 and 4 is better," Vasquez
commented during the turn.  "Maybe we won't have to fly
on one engine like they say this baby can do."

Back in the cargo area, Lt. Markov was briskly moving with
Sgt. DeBarge toward the aft section, telling him, "We've
got engine trouble.  Emergency landing at Cannon in twenty
minutes or so. Believe me, you do not want to come down
hard with that stuff on board.  Get the ramp open, ASAP."

DeBarge knew it was illegal to transport hazardous
substances on this plane, but he was not a stupid man.  The
way the containers had been loaded in the middle of the
night by those mysterious men in suits had him wondering
about the nature of the load.  With the lieutenant's
determination to ditch the stuff before coming down, he was
now certain the containers held some sort of toxic material.

"But what if the container is breached when it hits below?
There might be people...."

"If we hurry, we're over a fairly desolate area and there
shouldn't be any harm in dumping it here," she lied.  Well, it
*was* fairly desolate, but for all she knew, there could be a
small town right below them.  Better them than me, she
thought.

DeBarge quickly had the rear door raised and secured to the
bulkhead, and then began lowering the ramp.

He was distracted when the non-essential lighting suddenly
flickered and went out, but the main equipment kept
functioning through the backup system.  The right wing
dipped, staggering his footing.

"What the hell....."

"Hurry up!  Get this stuff out now!"  Markov had slashed
the straps around the containers and was pulling one off the
pallet.  She had to jockey the heavy load back and forth in
order to move it, and could feel the contents shifting
around.  She couldn't keep from shuddering.

"Aren't you going to drop the whole thing with a
parachute?  The rig is ready to go."

"No.  Just help me, dammit!"

With DeBarge's muscles, they were able to quickly shove
the containers to the ramp and out into the night air, where
they tumbled swiftly out of their sight into the darkness.

In the cockpit, Vasquez hit the panel frame with the palm of
his hand, cursing his inability to raise the torque on Number
3, the aircraft's last functioning engine, which had dropped
below the 94% level.  Electric power had failed, then came
back to essential equipment via the battery connection.

In the back of his mind, the captain noticed the indicator for
the aft ramp was lit, but it was quickly forgotten as the
horror of their situation hit home.  They weren't going to
make it.

The plane, with all its engines shut down, began its
inevitable plunge to the desert below.

*****************

Apt. 42
July 1, 2000, 9:35 AM

While two of the three men kept nervous watch up and
down the corridor, the third, Byers, knocked on the door to
apartment number 42.  After a pause they heard the lock
disengaging, but instead of the man they expected to see,
Agent Dana Scully was revealed as the door swung open.

Her hair was wet and making a damp spot on the gray tee
shirt she was wearing.  The guys' eyes roved downward
over the jeans to the bare feet with pink-colored toenails.

Scully's mouth twitched, but she managed to keep the smile
at bay, enjoying the Gunmen's befuddlement.

"What's up, guys?" she asked, wondering just how big
Frohike's eyes could get.

Byers politely asked, "Where's Mulder?  We've got
something for him."

"He's in the shower.  He should be out soon.  Come on in."
She turned and walked back into the living room, beginning
to feel the tightness in her muscles from the long run they
had taken that morning.

Once inside, Langly chose to stand near the window,
glancing outside every now and then, while Byers sat in the
desk chair and Frohike took the couch.  There was a
moment of uncomfortable silence and then Mulder walked
in from the bedroom.  He was shirtless, top button of his
jeans unfastened, and rubbing his hair with a towel.

"Hey, Scully.  Have you seen my..." His sentence died as he
saw that he had visitors.

Grinning at what they must be thinking, he spotted his tee
shirt draped over the back of a chair.  He snatched it up,
pulled it over his head, and said, "Don't tell me; let me
guess.  You've succeeded in hacking into the unpublished,
secret jpg files of 'Celebrity Skin' magazine."

Byers glanced at his compatriots and, ignoring Mulder's
cornier-than-usual comment, said, "You've heard of the spy
satellite 'Echelon,' haven't you?"

"Yeah.  But you might sing it again, because I don't think
Scully has heard that tune."

At her shrug, Byers began his explanation.

"'Echelon' is an officially-denied spy satellite system that's
run by the U.S., the U.K., and also involves Canada,
Australia and New Zealand.  It allows NSA and the U.K.'s
Government Communications HQ to listen to telephone
calls and read faxes and e-mails anywhere in the world."

Scully's eyebrow achieved new heights, but she kept silent.

"The communications are scanned for recognizable
keywords such as, um,  'assassinate President Clinton,' with
advanced multi-lingual voice recognition software."

Langly spoke up with a leering grin.  "Yeah, and guess who
finally managed to hack into this high-tech spy system?"

"You hacked into 'Echelon?' " Mulder exclaimed, clearly
impressed.  "And you're not in a federal penitentiary yet?"

Langly made a 'ha, ha' face and said, "We selected only
English-language data from the millions of phone calls,
faxes and e-mail flowing through the system.  We even
added a few keywords of our own for recognition," he
proudly noted.

"Yeah, and one of the words was 'Mulder,' " Frohike spoke
up.  "Only two days after we began checking the
downloads, we came up with a conversation which included
your name."

Now it was Mulder's turn to raise an eyebrow.

"The communication was snagged from a phone system
located at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico," Frohike
said, as he removed a small tape recorder from the pocket
of his jacket and set it on the coffee table.

"You can hear it for yourself," he said, as he hit the 'play'
button.

The voices that filled the room were distorted, but easily
understandable.

"Kurtzweil told Mulder about the virus being the trigger for
FEMA to step in when colonization begins."

"Yeah.  On a holiday.  Guess what falls on the 4th of July?"

There was a brief pause, and then the first voice said, "Of all
the freaking things to happen right now...He'll be on this
like a leech and we don't want him exposing this to the
public."

"I'll take care of it," the second voice said.

Frohike hit the "stop" button, and a brief silence fell.

Mulder locked eyes with Scully.  They read fear and
determination in each other's expressions.

"Hantavirus," he quietly said.

"Do you think that 'taking care of it' means permanently
getting rid of you?" Byers asked Mulder.

"Nah.  They're covering something up just as fast as their
little hands can work the shovels.  We need to get down
there, now.  Have you guys heard any rumbling from that
part of the country lately?"

"Already researched that," Frohike smugly said.  "Nothing
in the media but a small blurb about the phone lines having
been out for a few days in the area of a small town in New
Mexico called Deer Mesa.  That's about 40 to 45 miles
from Cannon AFB.  But the more interesting tidbit was
from someone we know with the FAA, who said there had
been some kind of military cargo plane crash out in that
area.  It's under investigation, but so far they've succeeded
in keeping a lid on it."

While Frohike was speaking, Mulder was rummaging in his
desk, finally pulling out several maps.

He tapped a finger on the air base location, then said,
"We'll probably have to fly into Dallas/Fort Worth, take a
commuter plane to Lubbock, then drive the two hours or so
to Deer Mesa."

Looking over his shoulder, Scully commented, "We had
better book a motel in Clovis; we don't want to be out in
the desert looking for God-knows-what in the dark."

"You don't like to fool around in the dark, Agent Scully?"
he murmured into her ear.

She flushed, jabbed him in the waist, and walked to the
other side of the room, where she picked up a green duffel
bag which had been lying on the floor.

"I'm going home to pack.  Hadn't I better stop by the
Bureau and pick up some hazmat gear for us?  If it's really
hantavirus, we'll need respiratory equipment."

"Good idea, Scully.  I won't want to take the time to go
through local law enforcement or the Dallas Bureau; plus, I
want us to keep a low profile.  If this is the alien virus and
the beginning of colonization..."

She nodded, everyone in the room aware of just how
serious things might suddenly be.

After Scully left, Mulder went into his bedroom to make a
call to Skinner.  The Gunmen exchanged looks when they
heard what sounded like one side of a very heated
argument.  After the phone receiver banged down, they
expected him to storm out of the back room, madder than
hell, but his face was expressionless when he quietly re-
entered the living room.

Frohike, with as much tact as ever, asked, "So, he shot you
down?"

Mulder impatiently gave a negative shake of his head and
turned to Langly.  "Can you use your connections and
arrange for airline tickets, a car rental, and motel?  You
have my credit card information from last time."

"Sure," Langly replied.  "I'm on it.  I'll get you some
roomy wheels, too, so all your equipment will fit inside.
The Skinman got up on the Dark Side of the Force today,
eh?"

Mulder winced, and said, "Don't ever let him hear you call
him that.  I'm a dead man if you do."

"Ah.  Blackmail opportunity," Langly snickered.

As they headed for the door, the agent surprised them by
saying, "Thanks, guys.  You did good.  Let's just hope this
isn't what it sounds like."

Since Mulder never praised them in words, they took it as a
sign that he was reading this situation to be a worst-case
scenario.  They exchanged meaningful glances as they
crowded out the door.


I-84, NW of Lubbock, Texas
Saturday, July 1, 4:15 PM

Scully was deep in thought as she drove, having grown
bored with the flat, monotonous brown and beige scrub land
surrounding them as far as she could see.  A low chuckle
from her right caught her attention and she glanced toward
her partner.  She was a little surprised at the grin on his
face, since the grim reality of what they might find down
here had been weighing on both of their spirits all day.

"Something amusing you?" she asked, ready for any kind of
diversion.

"Yeah," he said.  "You look like you were born to sit
behind the wheel of this big-assed van, riding the highways
and byways of the U. S. of A., stopping at every tourist trap
along the way, collecting ash trays and shot glasses from
each state.  Frightening, isn't it?"

She was grinning along with him by then, knowing what she
must look like.  After landing in Lubbock, they had found
that Langly, true to his word, had leased a large panel-type
van for them.  It was forest green and nearly brand new.
Mulder hadn't been too sure about using such a large
vehicle given the secretive nature of their jaunt, but Scully
had pointed out that the large hazmat cases, the related
equipment, and their own bags would never have fit into the
standard trunk of a car.  So they loaded their gear, tossed a
coin, and Scully wound up in the driver's seat.  The little
smirk she tossed him as she climbed up into the van was
worth not being able to drive this time, he thought.

"But don't expect any fast get-aways if we're chased,
Mulder," she had warned.   She wore a baseball cap over
her head for some protection from the glaring sun.  Tank
top, jeans and tennis shoes completed the outfit.  Mulder
wore similar garb, only he sported a tan tee shirt with black,
ten-inch-high letters proclaiming "BEER" on the front.

He had been reading through files and printouts during most
of the trip and Scully finally asked, "So, do you think you
know everything ever written about hantavirus now?"

He looked up from the current stack of papers with a smile
and said, "Yeah.  Did you realize that deer mice have a
fascinating sex life, Scully?"

She snorted.  "I should have figured that would be the one
fact you'd latch onto."

"It's gratifying to have my talent recognized," he said with a
smirk.

Then he startled her by abruptly saying, "That's our turn."

"Huh?" was her clever reply, as she looked wildly around
for the road sign that had just whipped past.

She wound up having to stop and back up, and then make a
left turn onto the two-lane farm road.  A guy in a red pickup
truck gave them the finger as he sped by, probably because
he'd had to slow down until they made the belated turn.
Mulder hid a grin at Scully's own one-finger salute out the
window at the disappearing motorist.

They gradually picked up speed again, and she said, "I
thought we were going to our motel in Clovis, Mulder."

"Well, it's early, with enough light left in the day to check
out Deer Mesa first.  Or was there something you'd rather
be doing in a cozy motel room?"

Completely ignoring the leer which accompanied his
innuendo, she calmly said, "Oh, heaven forbid we might
actually relax for a few minutes...have dinner...get some
rest..."  She laid on the sarcasm so that he knew she wasn't
really concerned about the change in plans.

After a few miles, Scully asked, "Shouldn't you contact
Skinner or whoever is leading our backup unit?"

He didn't answer.  A glance his way revealed an
uncomfortable-looking Mulder who clearly was hiding
something.

"Mulder?"

Still no answer.

"Godammit, Mulder!"  With a sick feeling in the pit of her
stomach, she pulled to the gravel shoulder, jerking them in
their seats as she braked a little more sharply than may have
been wise.  Gravel spit from their tires and the van slewed
slightly before stopping.

"Shit, Scully, you could have killed us!"

She turned to face him, clearly furious.

"Not if you beat me to it.  Tell me what's going on.
Skinner didn't sanction this trip, did he?"

Mulder shrugged, and she felt like wiping the unconcerned
expression from his face.

"Does he even know we're down here?"

Mulder looked at the seat belt buckle that he was picking at
and mumbled, "Not exactly."  He looked up then and
blurted, "He denied the request and told me he didn't want
us to even contact the military, much less come down here
and stir things up."

She could only stare at him, mouth slightly open, and eyes
wide in incredulity.

He rushed to explain himself.  "Scully.  You know we have
to find out if this is more than a viral outbreak.  There
wasn't a choice to be made.  We had to be here.  Skinner
should have understood that; I can't believe he took the
stance he did.  Maybe 'They're' watching him and he had to
put on a show.  None of that matters.  We're here and we
need to bear witness, to sound an alarm if the unthinkable is
actually happening."

Her shoulders slumped as if the weight of the world were on
them.  Maybe it is, she glumly thought.  Although she
would never admit it to her partner, she had seen and
experienced too much not to believe that something very
bad might be happening out here.  And she knew he was
right about doing all they could to stop or at least expose
the threat.  Screw their jobs.  Without a word, she pulled
back out onto the road and bore down on the gas pedal.

An hour later, after wandering around four different farm
roads and scattering a family of deer, Scully was tired and
had a headache.  They had passed only three other vehicles
in all that time; one huge flat-bed truck hauling hay, an RV
with a yawning middle-aged woman at the wheel, and a
beat-up brown Honda full of kids.

She was beginning to suspect that Mulder had gotten them
lost in this seeming wasteland, but a small white sign
reading "Deer Mesa 1 mile" suddenly appeared ahead.  It
was riddled with the requisite bullet holes and tilted slightly,
but the crow perched atop the post didn't seem to mind.

Mulder shoved the map into the holder between the seats
and sat up a bit straighter.

There was a turnoff coming up on their right, with another
sign for Deer Mesa and an arrow.  At the road juncture a
cluster of military vehicles were parked in such a manner as
to block entrance to the side road.  About half a dozen men
in uniform carrying weapons were standing near the
vehicles, all eyes on the approaching van.  They looked far
from friendly.

"Just keep going; don't turn or slow down," Mulder said,
his full attention on the roadblock.  She nodded, having
already decided on the same plan.

As they passed the hard-eyed men Mulder couldn't resist
giving them a little wave and a silly grin. Suddenly a Navy
jet screamed in low over the scene and nearly gave them
both heart attacks.

After it had disappeared to the north and they had put a
little distance between the van and the roadblock, Scully
commented, "F-111."

"I knew that," her partner smugly said.  "That's what they
mostly fly out of Cannon, according to the internet."

He kept an eye on the road behind them as he spoke.  The
ground had gradually been sloping and after a mile and a
half or so, their van was out of sight of the roadblock.

"Turn here," he said, pointing off to the right, over rough
dirt and rock terrain.  "We're going overland."

He had expected an argument, but Scully merely slowed to
fifteen miles an hour and then eased the van off the road.
The vehicle rocked and bucked over an initial washboard of
hard-packed dirt, but then the way was relatively smoother.
She was kept busy for awhile dodging low scrub growth
and as many of the larger rocks she could avoid.

Once they were completely out of sight of the road, she
said, "Hadn't we better slip into that hazmat gear?  I'm not
comfortable going any closer until we know what we're
dealing with here."

"Yeah, you're right.  I didn't see any protective gear on the
roadblock crew, but we're a lot closer to the town now."

As she slowed to a stop, she cautioned, "Let's change in the
back of the van one at a time while we keep the air
conditioner running.  It's too hot to shut it off yet.
Anyway, it's on a closed system, so we're breathing very
little outside air."

He nodded and climbed into the back, where he began
unpacking one of the large cases.

"These enclosed suits are going to be hell in this heat,
Scully.  Can't we just use the respirator masks instead?"
Mulder hopefully asked, while laying out the various parts
and pieces.

"We don't know what we'll be facing here.  If we knew it
was hantavirus, we could possibly get away with wearing
just the respiratory protective equipment, but if it's
something else...I'll help you get the compressed air
breathing apparatus and the respirator mask on when you're
ready, and then you can help me.  Your gear should be a
good fit, since I managed to get the same equipment that we
checked out last time."

He sighed, looking at the unfashionable, baggy suit.  "I
wonder if Armani would consider designing one of these?"

Her look told him what she thought of his vanity.

He removed his shoes and socks and began unbuttoning his
jeans.

"What are you doing?" she asked, eyebrow raised.

He looked up and gave her a pout.  "It's too hot to seal
ourselves into that gear with all our clothes on."

"Nevertheless, you have to stay dressed.  We may need to
shed the equipment in a hurry and then what?  You'd be
running around in your boxers.  And although that might
sound appealing to some people, I don't think that's a good
idea at the moment."

"Some people?"  He gave her a smoldering look from under
his eyelashes.  She assumed it was meant to be sexy.  Hell, it
*was* sexy.  She turned her head back toward the front to
hide her smile as he grumpily re-buttoned his jeans.

Once he had the suit on with the hood up around his face,
Scully told him to shift over as she joined him.

"Remember that the system is only good for about two
hours, so we'll need to get a move on once we're suited
up," she told him as her hips wiggled into the voluminous
white material.

Mulder tried not to smile and stifled the urge to make the
risque comment that was dying to get out.

She helped him slip his arms through the shoulder straps of
the compressed air breathing apparatus and settle it onto his
back  Then he helped secure her suit and backpack
equipment before they both donned the respiratory masks,
adjusted the fastenings, and switched on the system.

It took a little contortion on Mulder's part, but after moving
the seat back as far as it would go, he and his hazmat outfit
were able to fit behind the steering wheel in order to drive
another mile or so.

They finally reached a narrow dirt road and a few minutes
later saw their first house.  It was set back from the road
and appeared deserted.  Several more houses lay beyond,
and beyond those houses the dirt road joined a paved street,
with the town a short distance farther on.

They didn't see a single person anywhere in this landscape.
When he shut down the van's engine and air conditioning,
they peered at each other through the clear face plates of
their respirators. Words weren't necessary to understand
each other in the brief, intense gaze they shared.

Then Mulder said, "The heat is going to kill us before very
long.  As much as I'd like to stay together, we can save time
by each going to a separate house to see what we can
initially discover.  Why don't you check out that blue one
just up the road there?  I can do an air sample with the filter
apparatus, and you could get some dust and dirt samples.
I'll start with this house on the left, and then meet you."

"Sounds good."

Breathing the filtered air with a shooop, whoosh, pshhhh
sound, Scully's voice was eerily hollow to Mulder's ears
when she said, "Let's go" and opened the van door.


(Continued in Part 2)

SIN NOMBRE (2/3)
by Gerry Hill   (fox42@ix.netcom.com)


The wall of heat was enough to stagger them, even through
the protective gear.  They were both perspiring freely as
they awkwardly walked toward their respective goals.

Besides being highly uncomfortable, Scully was feeling
conspicuous in the white "spaceman" outfit and hoped she
didn't scare some elderly person into a coronary when they
saw her.

As she approached the front porch of her target house, she
saw that it was fairly dilapidated.  The wood frame building
had peeling paint everywhere and the roof was badly
deteriorated.  She caught a movement on the ground in the
corner of her eye but it was gone by the time she looked
over at the shrub next to the house.  A faint scurrying sound
reached her ears.  Probably a lizard.

The wooden steps of the front porch seemed sturdy enough,
as did the porch itself.  There was a rag doll lying under a
rusty lawn chair by the door and a tricycle just beyond that,
she noticed.  An old styrofoam cooler with a hole in the
bottom lay empty on its side and a couple of rag rugs lay
limply over the porch railing.

In the strange white noise world of her suit, she could feel
the perspiration coating her skin, soaking her clothes, and
running down her face.  They needed to hurry this process
up and get re-hydrated.

Since the door was standing open she cautiously walked
into the front room, and looked around.  There was a sense
of abandonment to the place, with a chair overturned and a
thin layer of dust on everything.

But the place also looked lived-in, and recently.  She was
positive that someone had been living here and had been
compelled for whatever reason to move away abruptly.

As she shifted from the doorway, slanted sunlight fell on the
hallway floor and she noticed a trail of disturbed dust
leading toward the back of the house.

Scully pushed the button in the small device attached to the
strap on her chest.  It activated the two-way radio and she
whispered, "Mulder?  There may be someone here.  I'm
going to check the bedrooms."  She released the button and
quietly walked down the dim hallway. There was no one in
the small bathroom so she turned to continue down the hall,
only to run full force into a young man in military fatigues.

For a few heart-stopping seconds his startled blue eyes
stared into her own.  Then he dropped the sample flask he
had been carrying and grabbed for her.  Simultaneously she
took a step back, so that his right hand came up with a tight
hold on her respiratory gear.  This gave him a solid grip and
he slammed her against the wall, causing her teeth to snap
together with the impact.  Stunned, she could offer no
resistance as he yanked her away from the wall.  Her mask
had loosened with the rough treatment, and when he yanked
her head sideways to pull her to the floor, the whole
apparatus was torn off.

She fell to the floor with one hand on the communications
button, but the attacker dropped onto her back, trapping her
arm under her body.  The air pack was pressed hard into her
back with the man's weight, and her face was against the
dirty, dusty floor.  Scully didn't have time to worry about
what viral components she could be breathing right then.
Fighting hard to get any air at all into her body took every
ounce of concentration.  The arm under her chest and the
air pack forced against her back were affecting her ability to
breathe.

"Who the hell are you?" the man kept saying, but all she
could do was gasp.

He must have finally realized her predicament because she
suddenly felt most of the crushing weight lift, but the
unmistakable feel of a gun muzzle was jabbing her in the
back of the neck.

"This is a secure area.  I want to know who you are and
what you're doing here."

*************

The house that Mulder inspected was in better shape than
Scully's, but it too was dusty and its owners missing.  He
didn't bother checking the telephone after having seen the
cut wires on the overhead pole outside.  Besides, there was
a sizeable spider on the wall right above the instrument and
he intended to give it a wide berth.  After setting up the air
contaminant measuring device, he poked around in the
refrigerator and found still-fresh food, much unlike his own
fridge at his apartment.  There were even some recent
DVDs like "The Sixth Sense" over in the cabinet by the
television.  But no sign that anyone had lived in the house
for at least a few days.

Scully's voice in his ear startled him, and she cut off before
he could reply.  Someone in the house with her?  Why did
that fact raise the hairs on the back of his neck?  His
protective mode firmly in place, he hurried out the front
door and quickly headed toward her location.

Mulder cursed the suit's gloves as he fumbled at the belt
where he had secured his weapon.  By the time he reached
the blue house, he was holding the gun with both hands and
moving more cautiously.

After squinting in the bright westering sun outside, the
interior of the house was like a dark cave.  Eyes quickly
adjusting, however, he moved toward the back, where
Scully had said she was going to check next.  His own harsh
breaths were all he could hear within the suit's confines.

Mulder nearly stepped on them when he entered the
hallway.  Fear washed over him when his mind absorbed the
fact that a guy in desert camouflage uniform was pinning
Scully to the floor with a gun shoved into her neck.

"Get that gun off her," Mulder commanded, leveling his
own weapon at the man's back.  His voice sounded strange
to his own ears, coming through the mask's audio system.

The man froze for a second, and then seemed to be
obediently removing the muzzle of the gun from his
partner's neck.  But the weapon kept moving, swiveling
toward Mulder's position.

"Shit," he muttered, not wanting to fire in Scully's
direction, but seeing no choice in the split second before the
other man finished pulling the trigger.  Mulder quickly
aimed high and fired, going for the head or shoulder, while
dropping back against the wall to make a smaller target.  A
bullet ripped through the wall an inch from his face.

No further gunfire followed that initial burst, and the
uniformed man was now half-sprawled over Scully's body.
With his ears still ringing from the weapons being fired in
such a confined space, Mulder approached the two prone
figures.  The fact that neither one was moving made his
stomach tighten painfully.

He knelt by their sides and saw that the man had taken a
glancing shot to the temple.  He was alive, but unconscious.
Some of his blood had sprayed onto his partner, but she
seemed all right, especially when her own brand of curses
reached his ears.  She began struggling to free herself of the
dead weight on her back.

"Shit!  I can't breathe!  Help me get this bleeping guy off
me, Mulder!"

With a relieved grin, he shifted the wounded man to the side
and helped Scully to turn over and sit up.

That's when he realized that she wasn't wearing a respirator
any more.

She was wiping a spatter of blood from her cheek when she
saw the concern and fear in her partner's eyes as he stared
at her.  Misunderstanding, she said, "This isn't my blood,
Mulder.  It's okay."

He shook his head and tapped his respirator mask.  Sudden
comprehension flooded her face and she explained, "He
ripped it off.  It may be damaged."

She busied herself with retrieving the apparatus and
checking it over thoroughly, but Mulder could see that her
hands were shaking.  He felt sick at the possibility that she
might be infected.

Finally she looked up and shrugged.  "It's not going to seal
around my nose and mouth properly, so there's no reason to
use it anymore."  She didn't add, "Anyway, the damage has
already been done," but they both were thinking it.

At his stricken expression, she attempted to make light of
the situation.

"Mulder, that man who attacked me is a Captain in the Air
Force, from the markings on his collar.  He was apparently
collecting samples of the dust in here, but you'll notice that
he's not wearing any protective gear."  Another thought
occurred to her then.  "He was all alone here.  I wonder if a
team is working around the town and they dropped him off
to take his samples.  They may be back to pick him up
soon."

He fiddled with the fastenings at the front of his suit while
mulling the situation over.  Scully's hand covered his own,
stilling it, when she said, "Don't even think about doing
away with your own equipment.  If I should become
infected with...whatever, I'll need you healthy and whole to
get us out of here."

Mulder knew she was right, but briefly closed his eyes to
hide his panic.  When he re-opened them, he managed a
smile as he said, "You just want me to be sweltering in this
shrink-wrap while you're cavorting around and gloating in
that little tank top."

"Yeah, that's it, Mulder.  You saw right through me."

He lent her a hand in removing the rest of her gear, saying,
"Maybe I should be glad I'm not breathing outside air if you
smell as bad as you look."

That drew a hurt glance, but she *was* covered in
perspiration, and her clothes stuck uncomfortably to her
body.

"We had better get moving if we plan to check any more of
this place out before your air system is exhausted, Mulder."

"Scully...we don't need to expose you to any more of this
area now that you aren't protected..."

"You'd leave, and risk not being able to get back in later?"

He had the grace to look embarrassed.

"Just as I thought," she said, her eyes narrowing.  "You
want to go on by yourself, right?  Well, forget that idea.  If
there's anything out here, I've already been exposed to it,
so we're going to back each other up and see if we can
figure out what's the hell is going on."

It was obvious to him that she wasn't going to budge on the
matter, so he merely nodded his agreement, smothering the
urge to argue about it with her.  He would only lose.

Figuring that he had about another hour and a quarter,
maybe more, in his air pack, they decided they'd have
enough time to do some more exploring if they left the
wounded man behind, and picked him up later.  They took
his weapon and then handcuffed him to a pipe in the
kitchen.

"You brought handcuffs with you?" Mulder commented,
once the man had been secured.

"Of course."

Smugly ignoring Mulder's surprised look, Scully tucked a
pillow under the still-unconscious man's head and cleaned
his wound as best as she could before they left.  They would
deal with the repercussions later, after finishing their
investigation.

Scully left her suit and respirator behind, but slipped the air
pack on her back just in case her partner needed it later on.
For the time being, she tucked her weapon into the
waistband of her jeans.

One more residence sat alongside the dirt road before they
reached the town.  They hurriedly approached its door,
planning to quickly walk through it, looking for inhabitants.
Finding that the front rooms and kitchen were deserted,
they headed down the hall to check the bedrooms.  Mulder
tried to take the lead, but Scully beat him to it.  After what
had happened at the previous house, the similar situation
put her on edge and she wanted to conquer that feeling.

When she saw that the last bedroom door was closed, she
motioned to Mulder with her weapon.  She covered him as
he kicked the door near the knob, easily smashing it inward
against the wall.

Then they both stared at the small, whining, tan and white
dog whose tail was hanging dejectedly.  It stood in the
middle of the room, looking up at them with soulful eyes.
The dog was forgotten, however, when they saw that the
room was occupied by two people.

Mulder kept an eye on the dog while Scully took a closer
look at the woman and the boy who lay side by side on the
king-sized bed.

The woman was in her mid-fifties or maybe a little older.
She moaned as Scully put a hand to her burning forehead,
and this seemed to set off a painful bout of coughing.  The
boy's breathing was heavy, and he also had a fever, but he
was shivering.  Chills, Scully realized.  He looked about ten,
with a splash of freckles shockingly evident on his pale face.

She wished there were some medical tools handy, like a
stethoscope.  Instead, she put her ear against the woman's
chest and then the boy's, listening for congestion.

Mulder didn't like the looks of this.  Whether it was a
contagious disease or a form of the alien infestation, he
wanted Scully out of there.

Just as he put his gloved hand on her shoulder, the boy
opened his eyes and stared at these two strangely-garbed
beings.  Apparently accepting any help available in his
moment of need, he gasped, "Can you help my gramma?
She's awfully sick."

With that plea, Mulder knew there was nothing he would be
able to do or say to get her to leave these suffering people.

The woman's coughing had grown worse, and now she
rolled to the opposite edge of the bed and vomited over the
side into a pan that had apparently been set there for that
purpose.  She was ghastly white when she collapsed onto
her back once more.

The boy was on his elbow and leaning toward his
grandmother, patting her hand.

"Someone's here to help us.  We'll be okay," he was saying.

Then he lay back against his pillow, exhausted from the
simple effort.

"My name is Dana Scully and this is Fox Mulder," she told
him.

"I'm Jack.  My gramma's name is Delilah Parker."  He
paused to cough and gasp for more air.  "We took the
horses and went camping.  We saw a big explosion out in
the desert before dawn a few days ago."  Painful coughing
brought tears to his eyes and he lay there for a moment, just
panting.

Scully was about to tell him to rest and not try to talk, when
he began again with his story.

"We got back here a few hours ago, coming in the back
way...no one was around...it wasn't long before we got
sick.  When the soldiers came, we hid in the cellar...until
they left again, 'cause gramma don't trust them as far as she
can throw them."

This time, his coughing led to nausea and Scully helped him
use the wastepaper basket that sat near the bed.
Meanwhile, Mulder had found glasses in the kitchen and
brought some water for the rapidly dehydrating woman and
boy.  When they were more or less resting again, Scully
caught her partner's eye and they sidestepped the dog to
enter the hallway.

"Mulder, this has all the earmarks of hantavirus.  The fever,
chills, cough, vomiting, fatigue....But they're both well
along in the latter stage, with fluid in the lungs.  They'll die
if we don't get help quickly."

"Is there a cure?"

"Well, the Asian strain responds to ribavirun, but it's not
researched for the U.S. type, as far as I know.  There may
have been some breakthroughs recently, but I'm not aware
of any.  Half the people who are infected with it usually die.
What you normally see here in the southwest U.S. is the
'Sin Nombre' or 'nameless' version of the virus.  It takes at
least two weeks and sometimes longer for the symptoms to
show up, so they must have been exposed long before this
military operation began."

She could see him mentally digesting this information,
before he slowly said, "That's what's going on.  They're
testing and experimenting with the virus.  You said the virus
is spread by mouse droppings, isn't it?  You breathe it in
when you're around infected mice?"

"Yes.  Usually from deer mice droppings, or their urine and
saliva."

"I believe that the plane which crashed carried an
aerosolized version of the virus that the military had
mutated, developed, whatever.  When it crashed, the people
around here breathed it in.  The mutated virus must work
far faster than the normal stuff does.  They were hauled off
so the media wouldn't get wind of this.  I don't think this is
a precursor to colonization after all; the military is just
trying to cover up their illegal activities, as usual."

"But wouldn't the FAA and other investigative groups have
discovered this 'secret' by now, with their study of the
downed aircraft?"

He thought about that for a minute.

"If any of the flight crew knew what they were carrying,
would they have wanted to crash with the stuff on board?
The FAA isn't going to find anything suspicious in the
wreckage; I'll bet it was jettisoned, right on top of this little
town, before the crash.  Of course, another scenario is that
the townspeople were deliberately exposed in order to test
the mutated virus, but I doubt it.  Not because of any
problem with the morality issue, but because it would be too
public, with a danger of exposure.  No, I think this was an
accident.  Remember the recording that Frohike played for
us?  One of the voices said, 'Of all the freaking things to
happen right now...'  This wasn't a planned incident, I'm
sure of it."

Scully wasn't so positive about his conclusions, but couldn't
dismiss them out of hand.  She was a little preoccupied
anyway, having been fighting an urge to cough for the past
few minutes, knowing that Mulder would go on alert and
presume the worst.  She didn't want to admit that she ached
all over and desired nothing more than to sit down and let
the world go by without her for awhile.

"Nevertheless, Mulder, your air supply will be running low
and we need help for these people.  Why don't you go get
the van and bring it up here, so we can take them to the
nearest hospital?  In the meantime, I can call Skinner on my
cel phone to let him know what's going on."

Then the urge couldn't be suppressed any longer, and she
erupted into a dry spasm of coughing.  Sure enough, she felt
his hand on her arm and heard his concerned voice saying,
"God, Scully.  You're..."

She shook him off, took a deep breath to make sure that the
coughing had stopped, and met his gaze.  His eyes were
dark with anguish.

"If you hurry, I can get treatment all the sooner and should
be all right," she lied.  She knew her chances were 50-50 at
best, and so did he.

Mulder finally tore himself away, but only got as far as the
front porch.  He stopped dead when he saw that there were
a dozen men in uniform, carrying very large weapons,
headed directly toward him from the town.  He had the
sudden vision of these men shooting the old woman, the
boy, Scully, and himself, and then setting fire to the place,
to make sure that no loose ends in this little operation
would be left behind.

Drawing his weapon, he went back inside and told Scully,
"We've got company."

She went to the front windows and saw the approaching
group.  Moving quickly, she checked the back of the house
and saw another dozen or so uniformed men fanning out
across the yard.

"They've got our exits covered, Mulder," she shouted.

For a second, he had the weird feeling that he and Scully
had somehow been transported into one of those old-time
movie serials, where the good guy goes over a cliff, but in
the next Saturday's installment he opens a parachute on the
way down.  They could use a parachute right now.  The bad
guys were moving in on them, there were a couple of very
ill people in the house who desperately needed a hospital,
his own air was running out, and, worst of all, his
partner...his life...had also contracted the illness.  Help us,
Hopalong, or Roy, or even Flash.

Scully joined him where he was standing with his back
against the front wall.  He nudged the door open a crack
with his foot, and at his nod, she yelled, "We're federal
agents and we're armed.  Don't come any closer."

That stopped the advancing group dead in their tracks.
There was a general scramble to take cover, but other than
a small shed and a beat-up old Buick, there weren't many
places that offered concealment.  Most just hugged the
ground.

"Tell the men at the rear of the house to back off, too," she
shouted.  "There are very sick people in here and we need
medical help, not some military intimidation crap."

"Scully!" Mulder murmured, impressed.

His smile disappeared, however, when she began coughing
again.  The raspy sounds seemed to be ripping her throat
out.  He couldn't keep from wincing at the sound.  When he
helped her into a chair, she finally admitted that she was
running a fever and ached all over.

"Hantavirus just can't act this fast.  It can't.  Either this is
something else entirely, or you're right about its having
been mutated somehow."

"Whatever it is, the stuff is deadly, and those guys..." he
aimed his thumb back over his shoulder "...are involved
with developing it and setting it loose on innocent citizens.
Scully, I'm afraid they're not going to let us leave here."

She grimly nodded in agreement as she set her cel phone
down on an end table.  She gestured toward it and said,
"More bad news.  We must be in a 'dead zone' because I
can't get anything on the phone."

Then her face grew pale as she rapidly swallowed several
times.  Without another word, she turned, hand to mouth,
and ran for the bathroom.

Mulder knew she wouldn't want an audience, so he went to
the windows to check on their unwelcome visitors.  He
figured that, being military, they'd need time to regroup and
call for orders to fit the situation before taking any action.
He was positive, however, that the action, when it came,
would be violent and over quickly.

The sounds of Scully being sick were awful.  He nearly
went to her several times but made himself stare unseeingly
out the window.  He felt so helpless in the face of this illness
and was tormented by his inability to relieve her distress.

After a few minutes the retching sounds from the bathroom
had ceased and water was running.  Mulder realized then
that he had been staring at a rusty horseshoe that hung on a
nail over the front steps without registering what it was.  He
quickly glanced around the landscape and decided that there
was nothing new happening outside, and headed for the
bedroom.  When he walked through the door, the dog
looked up at him with his soulful doggy eyes, seeming to
beg him to *do* something.

"Seen any 'Lassie' movies?" he murmured to the animal,
whose ears were cocked, listening to him.  "Know what
'Go get help, girl!' means?  Didn't think so."

His own lungs hurt in sympathy, watching the struggle Ms.
Parker was having just to find another breath.  The boy
wasn't quite so bad, but he was catching up fast.  Jack was
shivering from chills at the moment, and Mulder knew fever
had to be causing that.  He gently touched his gloved hand
to the boy's chest in a gesture of comfort, and Jack
managed to give him a shaky smile.

There was a sudden loud electronic noise outside and then
someone's voice announced, "You people are in a
contaminated zone and are in extreme danger.  We have
medical facilities which can care for anyone affected.  Please
surrender yourselves immediately."

Mulder wondered if they'd shoot them as they came out of
the house, or wait until they were gathered all together.

Scully, looking even paler than before, walked to his side
and asked, "How's your air supply?"

He shrugged.  "The alarm went off a few minutes ago, so
there's probably five or ten minutes'-worth left."

"Let's get your air supply switched with my pack..."

Her words were interrupted by the tremendous noise of
smashing wood and glass as something came through the
closed window on the right side of the room.  The dog was
instantly up and snarling, but kept a protective stance next
to the bed.

Both agents reacted by drawing their weapons and backing
up to the wall, before they saw what lay on the floor in front
of them.  It was a fist-sized rock, irregular in shape, with
some paper folded around one side of it and fastened with
thin wire.

Mulder sounded a little hysterical to his own ears when he
commented, "High-tech communication."  Telling himself to
get a grip, he snagged the rock and sat on the floor by the
foot of the bed, where Scully joined him.

He could see that trying to untwist the wire while wearing
the gloves would be difficult, so he handed the rock to his
partner.  She had the wire off in seconds, and then freed the
paper and unfolded it.

The light was getting dimmer as the sun was setting, but the
clear, concise handwriting on the stark white paper was easy
to read.  They shared a quick glance at the first few words
"To Agents Mulder and Scully."

The rest of the text was brief.  "We don't want to harm any
of you.  Let our medical staff take care of those who are ill.
Time is running out.  Our cleanup efforts were only half-
completed when you violated our quarantine.  Let us help
you before it's too late."  It was signed by Major James D.
Blankenship, USAF.

Scully's tortured cough tore Mulder's attention from the
note.  This time there was blood on her hands when she
took them from her mouth.  She was visibly shivering, her
face was flushed, and it seemed to hurt her to move.

He took her trembling hand in his, the gloves creating a
barrier he wanted to rip away.

Without another word, he gathered her up and carried her
to the sofa in the living room.  When she was settled
comfortably in the cushions, he stood back, placed his gun
on the lamp table, and began disconnecting and removing
his air pack and mask.

"Mulder!" she protested.

Free of the confining equipment, he gave her a lopsided grin
and said, "The air was done for and I don't think those guys
out there are going to wait much longer.  When they come
in, I don't think it'll matter if I'm wearing this stuff or not."

He had the suit unfastened and was exaggerating a bump
and grind movement to entertain her as he worked his way
out of it.  Like his partner when she emerged from the
confining suit, he was soaked with perspiration.

Kneeling by her side, he brushed a lock of hair from her face
with his finger and gave her a kiss on the nose.

"They might actually have an antidote, you know, Scully."

Fighting to hold back her tears, she nodded and released his
hand.

"Go."

He held her gaze for a moment longer, and then got to his
feet.  Without hurrying, he reached the front door, took a
deep breath, and slowly opened it.


(Concluded in Part 3)

SIN NOMBRE (3/3)
by Gerry Hill   (fox42@ix.netcom.com)


Holding his arms above his head, he ambled out onto the
porch and shouted, "Come on in, boys, but you'd better
damn well wipe your feet first and get rid of the chewing
gum."

Whether they shot him now or not, he was dying inside.  He
hadn't protected Scully.  Hell, he hadn't protected anyone
in the house.  He had been blowing patriotic noises out his
ass about saving the world from colonization, and he'd only
managed to put Scully right into an infected zone, at the
mercy of the military.

And here they came.  Dusk was gathering, but he could still
see clearly enough to note that none of the military or
civilians were wearing protective gear.  Two uniformed men
with semi-automatic weapons pulled Mulder's arms to his
side and tried to lead him down the steps, but he balked at
that, not wanting to leave Scully.

"I need to see that my partner is all right."

When they ignored him and began to manhandle him down
the steps, he insisted on going to his partner, shoving back
into one of them and tripping the other.  He didn't see the
third guy behind him; the one with the butt of his weapon
raised.

There was a moment when a splitting pain ripped through
the back of his head.  Then all he felt was an overwhelming
sense of grief as he succumbed to absolute nothingness.

**********************

Sunday, 9:40 A.M.
Cannon Air Force Base

Consciousness slowly returning, the first thing Mulder fully
realized was that he shouldn't move his eyes because it
made his head hurt even worse.  And opening them was out
of the question, since the light from beyond his closed lids
promised more torture.

He lay there for a few minutes, knowing he wasn't in his
own apartment, but unsure about anything else.  A
repetitive sound finally registered, and he realized it was a
basketball being dribbled.  The squeak of tennis shoes
against a wood floor interspersed the sound of the bouncing
basketball.

Now thoroughly confused, he opened his eyes just enough
to see the lights and the ceiling far, far above his head.  He
was in a gymnasium?

"He's coming around."

"Finally.  Let's get this done so I can return to
Washington."

Everything came rushing back to Mulder in a flash and the
pain transferred from his head to his heart.  Scully.  She was
horribly sick by now, or she had died from the virus.  He
was surprised to find that they hadn't killed him.  Yet.  They
must want something first.  He felt a hand on his arm.

He forced his eyes open and turned his head toward the
touch, ignoring the splitting pain that lanced through his
skull with the movement.  The figure who stood at his
bedside was familiar...Skinner?!

His pissed-off-looking boss leaned close to Mulder's ear
and whispered, "Good thing you're alive, Agent Mulder.
It'll be more enjoyable when I kick your ass."

He stood upright and moved back a step, his expression
looking more than usual like someone had rammed a cactus
up his butt.

Mulder managed one word; one name.  It was all he cared
about at the moment.

"Scully?"

"She's recovering and will be fine, no thanks to you,"
Skinner grumped.  "She's over in sick bay."

At Mulder's still-tense posture and unbelieving expression,
his boss grudgingly added, "Really, she'll be fine.  She's
already ordering people around and demanding to see you."

All the tension flowed from his body at being told Scully
would be all right.  He closed his eyes for a few seconds and
then reopened them as he smiled.  "All this just to recruit
me for their team?" he mumbled, glancing over at a group
of men practicing at the other end of the large area.

A throat cleared behind Skinner, and another man moved
into Mulder's view.  He was tall and slender with ebony
skin and an Armani suit.  He had a pinched expression and
glanced at his watch, probably not for the first time that day.

Following Mulder's gaze, the man commented, "With all
the townspeople so sick, the military turned this gym into a
field hospital.  There were beds and cots everywhere.  The
place has almost returned to normal now, except for some
equipment and a few beds at this end."

Mulder could see now that there were several more beds
nearby, all empty, with medical equipment here and there.
Electrical cords crisscrossed the floor and were taped down.

"Agent Mulder, I am Kenneth Serbeck, Special Assistant to
the President.  He sent me to oversee this operation, which
has now been successfully concluded.  I need some input
from you, however, so the last loose ends can be tied up."

The *White House* was involved in this?!  What the hell?
Mulder's aching head didn't seem able to process that
concept.  Images of men, women and children lying dead,
ravaged by the virus, kept surging into his fractured
thoughts.

"All those people in the town..." Mulder began.

"Are doing well.  We caught the disease in time to stop it,
thank God.  The same faction who mutated the virus also
had an antidote.  All the people responsible for this outrage
against humanity will be punished, believe me."

Oh.  Along with understanding, Mulder also wondered why
he found it hard to believe that the bad guys would pay.

"How did you find out about all...this?"

"One of the scientists involved in mutating the virus told
someone else about it.  Word filtered to my ears and we
were able to track the shipment to Wichita Falls, Texas;
however, we didn't reach it in time to stop the plane from
leaving with the virus.  You know or have guessed the rest,
I believe, or you wouldn't be here."

Mulder's mind was still preoccupied with the victims.  "You
said that the townspeople were okay.  But Ms. Parker was
minutes from dying when I last checked her."

"She's still struggling, unfortunately.  We're hoping that the
antidote was administered in time before the damage it did
was irreversible.  By the way, I had the medical staff give
you the antidote, on the way to this base."

Shouts reached their ears from the far end of the gym as the
basketball practice ended and the group of players made
their way out of the main part of the gym.

Mulder struggled to sit up, trying to ignore the jackhammer
in his head that was trying to punch its way out.  He waved
the helping hands off and managed to sit on the side of the
bed, feet on the floor.  He was barefoot, but still wore his
jeans and the BEER tee shirt.  He squinted in pain at
Serbeck, who shrugged and shook his head.

"We apologize for your injury.  You weren't supposed to
be harmed.  However, one of the officers was upset about
the fact that you shot his buddy.  You put up a fight, which
gave him an excuse to deliver a little payback."

Mulder sighed.  "What about the plane?" he asked.

"No survivors.  The FAA is investigating the crash, which
took place thirty miles from here.  There will be nothing
found at the site to connect the plane to the virus.  And if
any of the Deer Mesa citizens should be asked about what
happened in their town, all they can reply is that a bad flu
outbreak occurred and that the military stepped in to help."

Mulder ran his hand over his forehead.  After a moment, he
firmly said, "I have to go see Scully."

"Wait a minute.  I need to debrief you first."

Mulder stood up, saying, "No, you don't.  I won't reveal
my sources, and you already know everything else".

Whatever Serbeck was about to say was interrupted by the
sudden arrival of a noisy trio of people through the main
gymnasium doors midway down the wall to their left.

"Get your hands off me!  I did *not* almost faint!  Where's
Agent Mulder?!"

A petite, ticked-off redheaded woman had burst into the
gym, accompanied by two large officers in khaki uniform.
One of them, the blond lieutenant, was apparently trying to
dissuade her from her course, talking in low, reassuring
tones.  The other, a captain, was evidently not amused,
since he had a scowl on his face.

Scully was wearing her jeans, but a man's uniform shirt had
replaced the tank top.  The shirt's sleeves were rolled up to
accommodate her shorter arms and the garment covered her
nearly to the knees.

Scully suddenly spotted her partner and took a step in his
direction before having to double over with a wrenching
cough.  Each spasm seemed to be ripping her apart. He was
by her side in a few moments, shoving the blond guy out of
the way.

He successfully stifled the urge to sweep her into his arms
and lay her down on one of the beds, since she'd be
humiliated at such a show of weakness in front of their boss,
the officers, and the White House representative.  So
instead, he put an arm around her spasming shoulders until
the coughing stopped.  He noticed how warm she was and
figured that she was still running a fever.

Instead of pushing him away after she had control of the
cough, Scully surprised him by continuing to lean into his
body for support.  They slowly walked over to the nearest
bed and sat down side by side.

Still with an arm around her and his attention completely
focused on his partner, he didn't notice when the scowling
captain pulled out his sidearm, put it to the back of the
blond officer's head, and pulled the trigger.  The loud
'crack!' of the shot resounded throughout the gym.

Mulder knew what it was instantly and didn't hesitate to
pull Scully over the back of the bed to the floor with him.
Several more shots rang out, and Mulder found himself
staring across the floor into Serbeck's blank, unseeing eyes
from several feet away.  Blood was running across the
man's face and it looked as though the President was going
to need another special assistant.  He wondered if Skinner
had gone down, too.

Scully was beginning to struggle in order to free herself
from the weight of his body, but he refused to move as he
watched someone's khaki-clad legs and highly-polished
shoes moved around the bed toward them.  Without a
weapon, all he could do was protect Scully as best he could.
Meanwhile, where the hell was Skinner?

Then he was hit by a revelation.  That uncomfortably hard
object that was jutting into his right hip was Scully's
weapon, and she was trying to break free so she could get at
it.

Just as the man stepped into view, Mulder reached down,
yanked the hem of his partner's shirt up and grabbed the
gun.  By the time he was able to swing it up and fire, the
captain was also firing down at the pair on the floor.  At
least four or five shots rang out in the echoing gymnasium,
in an explosion of sound.

Unlike Mulder's earlier shoot-out with the military, a round
from the Captain's weapon didn't miss him.  He grunted as
a bullet slammed into his arm and lodged in his upper chest.
There was surprisingly little blood at first, but the
unbelievable pain kicked in with a vengeance all too soon.

"Son of a bitch," he gritted, as he tried to see through the
haze of agony whether they were still threatened by their
attacker.  The other guy was down and not moving.  Good.
Now he could pass out.

But he was forgetting something.  Scully.  He was crushing
her with his weight.  Had to shift.  White hot pain shot
jaggedly through the left side of his chest, but he managed
to roll away from the warm, squirming body before finally
blacking out.


**********************
Amarillo, Texas
Northwest Texas Healthcare System
Sunday, 5:12 P.M.

This time when Mulder awoke, he wasn't disoriented at all.
He knew he was in a hospital and he remembered the
shooting in the gym.  A deep ache in his upper left chest and
arm also reminded him of his wound.  The cast on his arm,
the large chest bandage, and the IV were further reminders.
He had expected to die and was still absorbing the fact that
he had survived when he caught a movement in the corner
of his eye.

Turning his head slightly, he saw his partner standing at the
lone window.  She appeared to be intently watching
something that was going on outside.

The sun was setting her hair on fire and his throat ached at
the sight of her ageless beauty.  He must have made some
sort of sound, because she looked over at him then, and
graced him with a glorious smile when she saw that he was
awake.  She stepped to his side and touched his undamaged
arm as he asked her, "What were you watching?"  His voice
sounded raw and scratchy, even to his own ears.

 She slightly raised the bed so he could take a sip of water,
and said, "Jack's mom is here to take him home.  He just
tore out of the building into the parking lot, opened the
door to this huge old station wagon, and his dog leaped out,
knocking him down.  They rolled around together before
climbing into the car.  Four other kids were in the back, and
it was one big kids-and-dog jumble before the mom got in
and sorted them out."

She had a wistful look on her face, and then surprised him
by leaning over and gently kissing him on the corner of the
mouth.  Before he could react, she was standing upright
once more and asking him how he felt.

Shit, Scully, he thought.  That's a damned silly question.
Could she still not know how her kisses affected him?

Deciding on continuing the 'silly' theme, he pathetically
asked, "Will I ever play the tuba again?"

When he saw her smile waver, he thought, oh, shit, I'm
dying, aren't I?  That's why she kissed me in a public place.
But I don't feel so bad...well, except for this pain ripping
through my upper body...

"You came so close, Mulder.  So close to dying," she was
saying in a slightly unsteady voice.  "The bullet penetrated
your arm, was deflected when it hit and cracked the
humerus, and then it embedded itself in muscle tissue in the
upper chest.  It had been on a direct path to your heart
before hitting the bone."

He nodded, understanding how shaken she was; however,
Mulder wasn't concerned with 'might-have-beens.  He
asked, "But what about the virus, Scully?  How are *you*
doing?"

She shrugged, allowing herself to be sidetracked.
"Whatever they gave me at the base seems to be working.
The fever is gone and there's just a slight bit of congestion
left in my chest.  The only person still having trouble is Ms.
Parker.  She's down the hall in another room.  When they
flew you up here to Amarillo in an Air Force helicopter,
they took her along, since she hadn't been responding to
treatment as well as they had hoped."

He raised an eyebrow at that.

"Exposing themselves to public scrutiny that way?!  This
isn't the military we've come to know and love."

"Even if the media were to hear about Ms. Parker, a single
hantavirus victim isn't all that much news.  There'd have to
be an outbreak to go national with the story, and there's no
evidence left of what actually happened.  I also understand
that, after a period of time, there's a degradation of the viral
toxicity, so that samples taken from the town wouldn't
show anything unusual."

"But...what about your blood?  Ms. Parker's blood?  The
virus isn't normal..."

"I have already looked at samples of our blood under the
microscope.  All I can say is that the antidote did its job
well."

There was a rapping at the doorframe and they looked up to
see AD Skinner entering the room.  Mulder noted several
bruises on his face, and a cut that ran down the left side of
his forehead.  His glasses were the slightest bit askew,
hinting at inexperienced attempts to straighten out some
kinks.

"What happened to you?" Mulder asked.

"Just some bumps from the melee at the gym," he gruffly
replied.  "I have more important things to discuss with you
than my scrapes, though.  Has Agent Scully filled you in on
what's been going on?"

"We were just getting started, sir," she volunteered.

"Good.  Continue, please, while I go downstairs to speak
with a contingent from the White House.  They're not
happy with us, to put it mildly.  I'll be back later to find out
how you two are going to justify signing out the hazmat
equipment for a case I didn't authorize.  And then there's
the little matter of reimbursing the Bureau for the
equipment, to the tune of $7,000 for each unit."

Still looking fierce, Skinner added, "By the way; for what
it's worth, I'm glad they didn't kill either one of you."

He pulled his cel phone out of his inner pocket as he left the
room, muttering something about 'bureaucrats.'

There was a pause while they absorbed what Skinner had
said.  Before Mulder could explode about the hazmat gear
expense, Scully began telling him what she knew of recent
events.

"The White House rep is dead, Mulder.  We don't know if
he was the principle target of that assassin, or if Serbeck
was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.  We haven't
been able to identify the killer yet.  His fingerprints weren't
on file, and his ID was fake.  He might have been trying to
expose the virus coverup, or he might have been hired by
the consortium to shut us up, or maybe he was a terrorist,
intent on violence and intimidation."

"Did I kill him?"

She bit her lip, then said, "You didn't even come close to
hitting him, Mulder.  Skinner took him out.  He put three
rounds into the assassin."

"Then where did he get the scrapes and bruises?"

She gave an un-Scully-like snicker, which delighted her
partner.  This should be good.

"The basketball team had gone to shower and change.  They
heard the gunfire and came back into the gym to see Skinner
with a gun and people on the floor, bleeding.  They rushed
him en masse and roughed him up a bit before I could
explain the situation.  I think they were about to use his
head as a substitute basketball."

Mulder snorted at the mental image of Skinner, a large man,
having to be rescued from a mob of even more large men by
Scully, a petite woman.  Then he moaned with pain as a
bubble of laughter built up in his chest, but he couldn't seem
to curb his amusement.

"Oh.  Oh.  Don't make me laugh, Scully."

"What if I mention the $7,000 you owe the government?
Think that'll sober you up?"

That stopped the laughter, but then he began bitching and
moaning about how unfair it would be, having to pay for the
equipment.  They'd have to fight it.  A little creative
accounting perhaps?  Or maybe they could go back and
retrieve the equipment before they left for home?

Unsympathetic, she commented, "Actually, since you're the
one who had me check the equipment out under false
pretenses, I think it's only fair that you pay for *all* the
hazmat gear."

Mulder could only stare at her, speechless.

A nurse bustled into the room before he could say anything,
and the 300-pound woman with muscles that Skinner would
envy ordered Scully out of the room while she 'took care of
Mr. Mulder here.'

With a vengeful little smile, Scully ignored Mulder's pitiful
pleas and left him with the Amazon of mercy while she went
in search of coffee and a sandwich.

*********************
6:28 P.M.

As Scully walked up the hall toward her partner's room, she
saw someone leave with Mulder's dinner tray.  It didn't
appear as though much had been eaten.  She looked down
at the bag she carried, glad she had thought to pick up a
hamburger with all the trimmings for him.  A fleeting evil
urge to leave it outside the door and tease him first was
banished when she peeked around the doorframe and saw
how pitiful he looked.  His hair was spiky, like a ruffled
hedgehog, probably from the scrubbing the nurse recently
gave it.  And he was definitely pouting.

Mulder's eyes lit up, however, when he saw Scully at the
door with a brown paper bag in her hand.

"The rude treatment I suffered from the muscular hands of
Florence Nightenmare will not have been in vain, Scully, if
you have what I think you have in that bag."

He happily began munching down the food, but gradually
slowed down until he stopped altogether about halfway
through.  Paler than before, he set the remainder of the
burger on the tray at the side of the bed and lay back on the
pillow, looking exhausted.  Scully knew the unorthodox
meal wouldn't hurt him, but wasn't surprised when he
couldn't finish it.  Her partner had to still be feeling a little
queasy from the anaesthetic he'd been given before surgery
when they'd dug the bullet out of him.

After a few minutes of silence, Mulder finally broached the
subject that he knew was bothering his partner.

"So, when do I get the reaming-out from you about being
too protective?"

The sweet smile on his pale face, along with the gratitude
she felt that he was still alive and in her life, nearly caused
her to back off, but then that same manipulative smile
managed to tick her off.

"Okay.  I guess that would be now, Mulder.  Just tell me
what the hell you were doing, throwing your bony ass on
top of me so I couldn't reach my weapon?"

His concerned expression made her feel that she was getting
through to him, until he indignantly said, "I have a bony
ass?"

She threw her hands up in exasperation.

"It's a figure of speech.  Dammit, Mulder.  After all this
time you'd think we'd be equals when confronted with an
armed attack.  You would probably never have been shot if
you had let me reach my gun!"

"I didn't know you had a gun.  I just thought you were
trying to grope me."

"Dammit, Mulder, I'm serious!  You just can't be my big,
macho protector every time someone sneezes!"

Sounding annoyed, he said, "Well, he did a little more than
sneeze, Scully, and what I did was an instinctual thing.
Reflex, if you will.  There was no time to sit there and
wonder, 'Will I offend Scully if I shove us over the back of
the bed so we don't get shot?' "

She took a deep breath, trying to calm down, knowing she
was in a losing battle.  Under normal circumstances he did
respect her ability to protect herself, she had to admit.
Probably more so than any other male partner would have.
And there probably hadn't been time to pull her weapon out
and shoot the assassin before he would have shot them both.
She hated it when he was right when it involved her deeply-
held feelings about an issue.

When in doubt, change the subject.

"I'm going back to Deer Mesa and interview the
townspeople, Mulder.  I'd like to document their symptoms
and search for any evidence that might have been left behind
by the military.  We need..."

"You need to drop the whole thing, agent," Skinner said, as
he entered the room.  "You're not going back to Deer Mesa
or Cannon Air Force Base.  You and Mulder are to write up
your report.  Given Agent Mulder's condition, you have
two days before it has to be e-mailed to me.  Agent Scully,
you are to report to work in D.C. on Wednesday morning.
Agent Mulder will stay here until well enough to travel, and
then I expect to see him in my office for further
instructions."

"The White House must really be on your ass, huh?"
Mulder said.

"I hope you get well quickly, Agent Mulder," was all he
said, and then he turned to leave.

"Sir," Scully said, causing him to pause and look at her,
impatiently waiting.

"We still don't know the motives of the shooter, right?  I
mean, he could very well have been trying to eliminate
Mulder and myself.  If that's the case, they may try to finish
the job, and I'd feel much better watching Mulder's back
until he's completely well again."

There was a pause, and then Skinner said, "All right.
However, I'll still expect to see that report the day after
tomorrow, and then you two are to fly back to D.C. the
minute the doctor releases Agent Mulder."

He had barely disappeared out the door before Mulder was
asking, "You really think that someone is out to get us?"

"Nope.  I just got a look at the new nurse who will regularly
be tending to you, and there's no way I'm leaving you in her
clutches."

He looked extremely interested at that bulletin and
wondered if the new nurse was really a babe or if his partner
was cruelly getting his hopes up.

Leaving him to wonder, she said, "You need to rest if you
expect to get out of here anytime soon."  But he stopped
her as she began lowering the bed.

"There's something that has been bothering me about all
this, Scully.  The military had to have been involved with
whoever caused this mutated virus to be developed, right?"

She thought about that for a moment, and nodded.  "How
else could a military transport plane have been used to move
the stuff?"

"Right. Unless...we're dealing with someone who can tell
the military what to do."

Scully held his steady gaze as an image of the White House
came to mind.

"After the plane crash and all those people were infected,
Serbeck must have shown up to keep a lid on things...make
it look as though they were the good guys and do the
cleanup.  I had wondered how they obtained and
administered the antidote so quickly."

Scully dropped into the chair next to the bed and said, "And
then Serbeck was silenced once everything was under
control again."

"I wonder how high this thing goes in D.C.?  Serbeck was a
special assistant to the President, for God's sake."

"With Serbeck dead, I doubt that you'd ever get an answer
to that.  Or, at least, anything provable."

The gloomy silence was broken by a huge yawn from
Mulder, and she began to step back from the bed so he
could get some rest.

Before she could move away, however, he sleepily said,
"Hey, did you know that Roswell isn't very far from here?"

"Don't even think about it, Mulder.  When you're well
enough to travel, we're on the first plane out of here to
D.C., got it?"

His eyes still sparkling, he said, "Sure, whatever you say."
Like a little boy with a secret, he crossed his fingers under
the sheet.

********************

Sunday
Washington, D.C.
Sunday, 10:55 P.M.

In the corner of the room, among scattered electronic
components and wiring, Langly was listening to the daily
capture of phone conversations from the satellite
interception system.  His eyes widened and his complexion
grew paler than usual when he heard, "We need to do
something about those geeky buddies of Mulder's.  Their
interference in our business is becoming more than just
irritating lately."  A pause, and then a second voice was
heard, saying, "Consider it done."

************

THE END