Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 20:26:30 -0700 Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Slings and Arrows An X-Files Story by Summer Archive: Anywhere Summary: For the Diana Fowley haters of the world, here's a story about her in all her pointless glory. If no one has coined it yet, let's make up the term now: this is Dianangst. Spoilers: A few scattered references to seasons one through five. Nothing specific. Rating: If you watch and enjoy the X-Files, then you are mature enough for anything in this story. Feedback: Please send to summer@paranormal.com . And visit the new official home of all my XF stories, the great archive In Our Humble Opinion: http://home.earthlink.net/~iwonder . "Slings and Arrows" "They must be here to help us," Diana said. "Why else would they come?" The motel room smelled bitter and ashy, the carpets dense with the odor of smoke. Their clothes lay scattered from the door to the bed, shed with a haste that seemed comical now that the afterglow was fading. The AC kicked on with a reluctant moan, pouring out a fresh stream of bone-cold, clammy air. Beside her, the younger man stared up at the ceiling. "What makes you think their intentions are good?" "They're too far ahead of us scientifically to need anything from us. Interplanetary travel implies cold fusion, so they can't need our planet's resources. It would be easier for them to mine an unin- habited world, anyway. Why else would they come so far to visit Earth? They're trying to communicate with us. We just don't understand them yet." "So you're suggesting that maybe their race communicates by giving each other anal probes, and they're just trying to talk to us the same way?" Fox Mulder sighed and reached for the TV remote con- trol, clicking on HBO. He turned the volume down to a murmur. "Why wouldn't they come all this way to wipe us out? Maybe they took those transmissions of _I Love Lucy_ as an insult against their pod-mothers. Or maybe they're planning to kill us for ideological reasons. The US went a long way to slaughter the Vietnamese." "The US lost Vietnam." "Yeah, well, Vietnam lost Vietnam too." Fox tossed the remote control onto the nightstand and pulled himself up, sitting against the headboard. His lighter flared in the dim cathode-ray glow of the TV. Talking around his cigarette, he added, "Now we're about to do the same thing to Iraq. I mean, you can come up with a few obvious reasons for starting trouble with Hussein-- oil, the Kuwaiti ruling family's stock in Western companies, the usual economic bullshit. But this military buildup? It's like the Pentagon's version of a fire sale. Our weaponry is getting creaky, so we're going to bomb the hell out of a whipping boy to get rid of the old stuff and make way for an all-new multi- billion dollar defense budget." He inhaled deeply and immediately coughed. "Fuck, this is one of yours," he growled. Diana propped some pillows behind her and sat up as well, demurely tucking the sheet around her body, and took the offending cigarette from his hand. He examined the packs more carefully this time, making sure to select one of his Benson & Hedges. Diana breathed cool minted smoke, watching him. "So you think the aliens are abducting humans in order to justify some kind of military buildup back on their home planet?" she asked. "Sure, testing us to think up inventive ways to kill us," Fox answered almost cheerfully. "Or maybe they're just researchers trying to keep the grant money coming in. Their society may not have the ethics that we purport to have. Maybe vivisecting your fellow in- telligent biological entities is perfectly acceptable to them." "That's a pretty bleak view." Diana shook her head. "If you believe that, why bother looking for them? Why interview abductees? If they're here to annihilate us, there's nothing we can do." "The US lost Vietnam," he replied with a shrug. "Superior technology isn't everything it's cracked up to be. Who knows? If H.G. Wells was right, all we'll have to do is cough on them." "Maybe that's why they're testing us," Diana said meditative- ly. "To make sure none of our diseases will be able to wipe them out." He drew closer to her, looping an arm around her waist. "Or maybe they're exiles. Cast out from their home planet for unacceptable sexual deviations. Alien rapists, abducting human victims." "I'd love to see you turn in a profile like that to the ISU," she replied, settling against him. "Mars needs women?" "Something like that. I want to see you in DC," he said abruptly. "We've been through this." "Diana," he coaxed, "there's no one else in the world who'd put up with the two of us. Speculating as to the motivations of extra- terrestrials doesn't pass for pillow talk with the vast majority of the dating pool. We belong together." "It would ruin our careers." The protest felt like sand in her mouth. "If you don't want to, say you don't want to." "I do. I would. But no one takes us seriously as it is, and it would only be worse if it got out that we're seeing each other. I'm thinking of the work, Fox." "Sometimes I think you just say that because you know it's the one thing I can't argue with." "I say it because it's true." **** "Don't help me pack." "I'm just trying to make this go as smoothly as possible." "Don't help me fucking pack. It's insulting. Like you can't wait to get me out of here." "You're the one who decided to leave. Not me." "You never wanted to get married in the first place," he shot back, throwing books into a paper sack. "I want to be with you, Fox." Diana dropped into a folding chair and watched him hurl his belongings into bags and boxes. "But it never seemed like a good idea to me, trying to play house and pre- tend that if we just pull the covers over our heads, all the things we've seen will just go away and leave us alone." "That's not what I want. Is this your copy of Van Danikan, or mine?" She waved a hand wearily. "Take it." He tossed it onto her desk. "I'm not afraid of what we've seen in our work. I love the work, for god's sake you of all people should know that. The possibilities we've encountered excite the hell out of me. I never want to give that up. I'm not looking for some kind of childish escape from it. You keep ascribing all these feelings and motivations to me that I just don't have." Diana rose and went to her desk, picking up the Van Danikan book. "That you don't have? Or that you don't want to have?" She dropped the book into one of his suitcases. "Believe me, Di, after seven years at Oxford and three in the ISU, the last thing I need is armchair psychoanalysis. As far as I can tell, the only one looking for a way out is you." "So now I'm projecting." "Yeah." Fox stuffed some t-shirts into his suitcase, came up with the book, scowled and threw it back onto her desk. "That's rich," she retorted, "you're leaving because you keep saying that I want you gone, even though it's you who wants out, and then you accuse _me_ of projecting." "You never wanted me here in the first place!" He zipped up the suitcase on the bed and shoved it onto the floor to make room for his duffel bag. "I had to talk you into eloping, talk you into moving in together, and once we go through with it you act like you're doing me a favor by marrying me. If that was how you felt then why'd you agree to do it?" She seized the Van Danikan book, but squelched the impulse to throw it at him. "I was trying to make you happy." "Bullshit. You wanted to be right. You always have to be right. You think I don't notice how you always word your reports so carefully, so that you always come out being right? And now I say we should spend our lives together and you say it won't work, but you do it anyway, just to prove to me that you were right about what a bad idea it was." His voice climbed, cracked. She hated it when he yelled; it sounded unnatural, like he was faking an anger he didn't feel. "Why do you always have to be right?" he demanded. "Why can't you ever admit to making a mistake?" "I married you, that was a mistake," she answered, the words too easy to hold back. She flipped open the covers of the book and slid her fingers into the spine, pulling hard. The hard- back covers ripped away from the block of glued pages and flapped emptily, like wings without a bird. She thought he'd strike out, but Fox slid onto his knees next to the bed, resting his head against the duffel bag. She felt too tired to go to him. The entire two weeks of their uneasy matri- mony had been spent like this. She was exhausted. "It was so good when we were working together," he said quietly. "What happened?" "I don't know," she said, because she had to say something. **** "You've proven you can be trusted," he said. "Thank you, sir." Mr. Spender swiveled his chair slightly away from her, giving her a view of his contemplative three-quarter profile. "When you joined us after leaving the X-Files investigations behind, many of my colleagues doubted you. They didn't believe you would be willing conceal evidence of... events which might be interpreted as paranormal or supernatural in nature." "As a researcher, I understand the need to investigate thoroughly before releasing any findings," Diana answered. "Pre- mature reporting of paranormal activity can contaminate potential witnesses. I've come to see the wisdom of witholding information for the sake of the work." Spender nodded slowly, reaching for a pack of Morleys. "I have always had the utmost confidence in your abilities," he said, flaring his gold lighter. "Do you smoke?" She nodded and drew out one of her long mentholated cig- arettes. He leaned across the desk and lit it for her, his motions smooth and noiseless. "It's time for you to take the next step," Spender informed her. "You've proven you can be trusted. Now you have the opportunity to prove your commitment." He removed a dossier from a desk drawer and placed it on the gleaming mahogany. "I'm granting you access to priveliged infor- mation about individuals claiming to be alien abductees. I want you to study this information carefully. Learn it completely. Your new assignment will be to interview each of these individuals. We need a set of specific facts from each person. You'll need to gain their trust." He looked at her expectantly. She said, "I'm interested," and he nodded approvingly. Smoke curled around a face scored with time, crazed like tree bark. "These are not people who trust easily. They'll be particu- larly suspicious of you because you're an American. As you know, many of these people believe that the US government is complicit with their supposed extraterrestrial abductions." Diana nodded. "I've had experience with abductees. I'm sure I can gather the information you need." "We will only have one chance with each of these individuals," Spender said gravely. "Further interviews might rouse their suspicions or prejudice their testimony. It's vital that you succeed. To make sure of that, my colleagues and I have decided to set a condition upon your acceptance of this assignment." "Yes?" He continued to look solemn, even concerned, as he swivelled the chair to face her. He folded his hands on the desk blotter and gave her a long, weighted look. "As you'll soon learn, we have verified that some abductees are identifiable by small scars and implants." He slid the dossier across the desk to her. Diana took it and placed it on her lap, opening the leatherbound cover. She scanned it, nodding attentively, as he went on. "The class of abductees whose stories are corroborated by the most physical evidence tend to have a mark on the back of the neck. X-rays show a small metal object in this spot. We have removed and exam- ined some of these objects. They appear to be highly sophisticated com- puter chips, so finely made and delicate that any attempt to test them causes their destruction." She turned a page and discovered a small, flat plastic case held in the dossier with an elastic loop. A computer chip the size of a child's fingernail lay on the gray foam inside. "If you accept this assignment, we will ask you to undergo the insertion of a chip cosmetically identical to that one," Spender said. "If the interviewees refuse to speak to you or appear to be witholding information, you will tell them that you believe yourself to be an abductee as well. They'll ask to see the back of your neck, to verify your claim. You will have the mark and the implant. Their trust will be assured." Diana swallowed. "Is it permanent?" "The scar can be erased with laser surgery," Spender assured her. "When the assignment is complete, we will arrange to have the mark removed. Your next project will afford you an even broader level of access so that you can compare your findings against the bank of information we've already amassed on the abduction phenomenon." She fingered the plastic case. It was a tiny thing, really. "I accept," she said. **** "I'm afraid I don't have much time, Diana. What did you want to see me about?" "Nine minutes," she said, voice seething. Spender raised an eyebrow. "Nine minutes." "I've experienced three episodes of missing time in the past year," Diana spat. "At least three. The last one occurred on March eighth. I was unable to sleep, I looked at the time, and then I looked again and found that nine minutes had passed in an instant." He rose from his chair and opened his briefcase, placing a thick stack of documents carefully inside. "Diana, you're overworked. Your dedication is admirable, but obviously the interviews with these abductees are affecting you. Listening to their stories for extended periods can be highly convincing, even suggestive--" "We can dispense with the convenient fiction that these people are abductees," Diana replied. "They're test subjects. I knew that within the first month of interviews. But you had managed to imply enough about this organization's greater purpose that I believed the tests must be necessary." "They are," Spender answered easily, retrieving his cigarette from the ashtray. "If you have managed to infer enough about this organization's greater purpose to recognize the tests for what they are, then you must realize how much depends on the project." "I realize that I've been given a wide variety of hints so that I can make my own assumptions about the true nature of the project. You've only told me enough to let me fool myself." Spender breathed smoke, regarding her with something like pride. "You know more than you think." "The implant you put in me, to fool the abductees. It was real, wasn't it. You put one of those chips in my neck." "Your scar is gone, Agent Fowley." He placed his spare pack of Morleys in the briefcase. "I can _feel_ it--" "You've had yourself X-rayed. What did you find?" "The X-ray was clean," she said. "It didn't even pick up the steel ball bearing I had concealed under my tongue." Diana reached across the desk and slammed shut the lid of the briefcase. "Did you test me?" she asked. He tapped his cigarette into the ashtray silently. Again, voice almost breaking, "Did you test me?" "We face a threat that most of humanity can hardly imagine," Spender replied. "Sacrifices are necessary to safeguard the greater good." "Why is it always someone else who has to sacrifice for your greater good?" He looked at her with hollow eyes. "The founders of this organization gave up everything for this work. You're aware of that. We gave up our families." "That was an act of cowardice, not sacrifice. You traded them away to save yourselves." Diana stared hard at Spender's withered face. "You know exactly how much I know. I don't have access to the information about your deal with the colonists. Is that what the implant is for? To tell you what I know?" "You've come a long way in this organization in just two years, Diana." Spender fingered the latch on the briefcase; it was broken. "Your instincts are excellent." "So why was this done to me? Because I'm a woman? Why are the test subjects only women?" She hated to be in this position, importuning him for answers. She had joined them in order to be the one who had the answers. "Because the colonists reproduce themselves, our early research made the assumption that they would be genetically closer to female than male," he said flatly. "That conclusion turned out to be erroneous, but by then all our data used female subjects. We concluded that it would be best to continue to test women exclusively. Any ill effects they experienced were usually written off by their doctors as menstrual irregularities. Any emotional problems stemming from the tests were chalked up to hysteria. Our organization did not create misogyny, Diana, we merely exploit it." "If I remove the chip, will I die of cancer like the rest of them?" Spender carried the briefcase to a flat panel in the wall, brushed aluminum, as though a long bank of light switches had been removed and replaced by smooth, featureless metal. He pushed the panel; it clicked and swung open. Spender placed the briefcase in the slot in the wall and pushed it. Diana heard it fall and slide, leather against metal. A sound like crinkling cellophane rose and fell, and she could smell scorched flesh. "What chip?" he asked, closing the panel. "Your X-rays were clean. You have no scar or mark. If you feel a slight lump or shape in the back of your neck, well, even laser surgery can't remove the slight amount of scar tissue that doubtless formed around the temp- orary implant you had for a few months." She stared at him. "You admitted to testing me--" "I defended the validity of the tests. I admitted nothing." Spender walked around the desk, standing close, looking down at her. "I'm glad we had this chance to talk," he said. "But I have business to attend to. Why don't you take a few days off. Relax. Clear your head. This project can't succeed without you." Diana heard the door close behind him. She went to the panel in the wall and pushed, perceived the tiny click, and swung the metal aside. A square of total darkness lay beyond. She stared hard into the void, slid out of her suit jacket and reached deep into the metal chute with her left hand, bracing herself for heat, or blades, or crushing jaws. She grabbed fast and pulled. She came up with a handful of ashes. **** Diana arrived first and ordered for both of them. She hoped the gesture would remind him of their former intimacy. Surveillance showed that he still liked house coffee, black with a shot of espresso. She had suggested drinks, but Fox had declined. "I don't drink these days." Surveillance had told her that too, but she'd thought it was for lack of company. "You don't drink, you quit smoking-- what do you do?" she'd asked teasingly. It came out sounding stiff and cheap, like a whore in one of those cheap porn films he used to enjoy so much. She gritted her teeth and smiled. "I traded in all my old bad habits for a fresh set of new bad habits," he'd answered. "How about coffee, coffee would be good." She checked her watch. If he stood her up, she'd be pulled back to Europe. Her access would be reduced. And she'd lose her- self again, nine minutes at a time. She had no guarantees that they wouldn't conduct the tests on her during this assignment. There had only been hints, significant pauses. Still, she'd become adept at their secret language of implication; Spender had obliquely assured her that the tests would cease in America. It meant working with his intensely annoying son, and crippling the efforts of her former partner and lover. Small price to end six years of sleepless nights. The bell on the door rang as Fox walked in, his eyes darting restlessly over the scattered patrons at scuffed tables. He spotted her and gave her a subdued smile. "Guilty conscience?" she asked as he approached. "Hm?" Diana scanned the cafe, eyeballing each person, imitating his cautious once-over. "Oh. No. Just paranoid." Fox tasted the coffee and flashed her another hangdog half-smile. "So, are you going to tell me some LEG-ATT war stories?" "You first. I've kept up with some of your escapades by way of NICAP newsletters and MUFON meetings, and I'm dying to know the real story behind some of the tall tales I've heard." She covered a grimace with a grin. Her voice sounded meaningless and empty as a parrot's squawk in her own ears; she couldn't imagine how he could possibly be fooled. "Any tall tales in particular?" "Is it true you singlehandedly saved us from the scourge of Homo Superior, as represented by a sanitation worker with a fetish for bile?" Diana fought the urge to press the back of her neck. She frequently found herself touching the small square mass of the implant, a nervous tic that wouldn't go away. Fox might notice, might guess at its significance. He chuckled. "That one was actually Scully's collar. She's a natural profiler. No special training for it, but she's got the knack. Our unsub liked to leave us with a locked-door mystery. No entry, no exit-- every body locked in a secure area. I thought the guy was getting his kicks from the thrill of breaking into and out of each room, so I didn't think he'd revisit the crime scene like your basic average sociopath might. But Scully insisted on staking out the crime scenes, and she was right. The guy came back..." She nodded and "Hmm..."ed in all the right places, tuning out most of the story. Her past six months had been devoted to studying a mountain of transcripts, case files, videotapes and reports, becoming thoroughly acquainted with the past several years of Fox Mulder's life and work. She listened selectively, honing in on the fault lines. "...but Scully sat it on the tests herself, and she had to admit, Tooms' musculature was unique. And his ligaments were extremely elastic. Now, the really interesting thing is that a few years later, we ran across a serial rapist named Eddie Van Blundht who could change his appearance at will. He had a second layer of finely-tuned musculature overlaying a normal physique. But his ligaments and sinews had the same elastic qualities as Eugene Tooms'. By cross-checking their genetic makeup, Scully was able to isolate a particular chromosome which appears to play a key role in muscle structure. All we need are a few more criminally-inclined elastic guys, and we'll have a sample group with some actual statistical significance." "I never expected to find you concerned with statistical significance." Diana watched his thoughts switch, almost visibly, to his partner. It seemed to her that his eyes dilated slightly, but she couldn't be sure. "Agent Scully seems to have instilled a certain scientific rigor in your approach to the work." He grinned, not at all subdued now. "I've just picked up some of the jargon from her. Rigor is Scully's department, in various senses of the word." "I would've liked to've been a fly on the wall when you first hooked up with her," she forced a joking tone, "it must have been an epic battle. How did you wind up working together, anyway?" Her thoughts drifted as he explained how Scully had been assigned to debunk his work, but had instead delivered reports and physical evidence to their superiors, arguing that there was ample reason to continue the X-Files investigations. Their solve rate had always been phenomenal; thanks to his profiling background and her skills in pathology, they closed a number of 'unsolved' cases merely by examining the bagged evidence and reading the reports, finding the missed puncture wound or the suspect's obscurely incriminating remark. They co-authored reports with their recommendations for the case, and within a few months the mystery would be solved. Credit would go to the local field office that made the arrest, but their assistant director would note another closed X-File. Fox didn't speak of this, of course; he focused on the flashy anecdotes, the near- misses, the paranormal occurences he'd witnessed but never sub- stantiated. Diana kept thinking of her meeting with Spender, years before, and the briefcase he'd disposed of. The discreet incinerator, set in the wall of his office. Every move he made was deliberate, portentous. Why had he destroyed the briefcase in front of her? What message was he trying to send? Fox continued to prattle about his partner, their early cases. She sipped her coffee, wanting to smash the mug across his face. If she failed to gain his trust-- regain his trust-- had there been a first time, really? His trust had been free-flowing then. She hadn't had to earn it. She just had to show up. If she failed to gain his trust, she'd be sent back to Europe, back to pacing in the kitchen every night, compulsively feeling the tiny hard shape at the back of her neck. She hated it, hated it, and hated the relief she felt every time she touched it. She had seen the progression of Dana Scully's cancer in the records she had studied, listened to audiotapes of the woman moaning and retching and crying in abject humiliation, all the seams of her illness that Scully had taken care to conceal from Fox. She hated Dana Scully, loathed the kinship she felt for the woman, the urge to spin her around and lift her copper hair and touch the scar on the back of her neck. The urge to seize her pale hand and press her fingers to Diana's own stigmata. She wanted to scream, run, force the other woman to recognize her, she wanted to sink her finger- nails into their skin and tear the chips from their flesh. She wanted freedom, or death, for them both. Diana plastered fascination across her face, bobbing her head as Fox yammered. She couldn't afford the compassion that wrenched her, hearing Dana Scully sob on a spool of surveillance tape. Besides, she might be doing Scully a favor, pushing her away, out of the reach of Fox's leprous touch, the ill luck that visited everyone around him. She heard an opportunity open up as Fox said, "Of course, Scully laughed herself halfway to hysteria when I told her that I thought the sheriff's son did it, the kid who had been in a coma for years..." "It sounds like she did that a lot," Diana interjected. "Laughed at you." "She did laugh at me," he admitted. "But it was different from the shit you and I used to take from other agents. It wasn't derisive or sarcastic. I'd tell her my ideas, and she'd laugh," he was smiling just to think of it, "she'd laugh like she was seized with delight. Even though she didn't believe me, she seemed to get a huge kick out of my theories anyway. We never saw eye-to-eye. But we didn't have to." He looked at her with distant fondness, as though gazing on a photograph of someone he used to know. "And so later when we argued, it wasn't this enormous rift like it was with you and me. It was just me and Scully disagreeing, like we almost always do." "She didn't seem too amused about Gibson Praise." His eyes assessed her. "The past couple of years have been hard," he said finally. "We don't laugh much anymore." Diana reached across the table for his hand. He stared at their twined fingers, unseeing. What she really wanted to know: had Spender planned to incinerate that briefcase? Or had he destroyed it because she broke the clasp? He had placed a pack of cigarettes inside; that suggested he didn't intend to burn it. Yet his movements had been so deliberate, choreographed, and he had dropped the briefcase through the slot without pause or regret. Surely if he had gotten rid of it because she broke it, he would have removed the contents first. She had the pervasive sense that whatever he'd placed in the briefcase was marked for destruction all along. "Take me home with you, Fox," she whispered. Her tone carefully pitched: acceptance, attraction, need. I must be here to help you. Why else would I come? His hand tightened in hers, but he didn't move to answer. Diana waited, the back of her neck throbbing. Her joints ached. He had to say something. But did it matter whether Spender intended to burn the briefcase all along, or had only gotten rid of it because it was broken? The briefcase was ashes either way. Fox's coloring was so regular as to be monochromatic. Skin, hair and eyes all hazel. Water witches used hazel wands to douse for under- ground streams. There was an X-File devoted to dousing. Say yes, she thought silently as he stared at their hands. Say yes and take me back so that I can betray you. It's what you really want, what you've always wanted. Diana wished it were possible to say it all out loud, that he would admit how much he needed to be turned on, and she could tell him how she feared the dark enjoyment that bloomed in her like cancer at the thought of hurting him, the black cherry sweetness she felt listening to audiotapes of another woman's pain. The same fierce fatal pain flooded her now, balanced per- fectly on a sword's edge, waiting for him to choose the future. Nothing hurt more than knowing that she had, quite literally, asked for this. .END.