Disclaimer: These are Chris Carter's characters and I am using them without his expressed consent, but I mean no harm. Summary: The title says it all. Thoughts in the Key of X Pamela Olumoya (polumoya@umd5.umd.edu) The fight with Mulder about the "tool" took more out of him than he wanted to admit. Sighing, he went to the bathroom for two aspirin. In that light, he examined his face and hands and applied antiseptic with cotton balls thinking it was all in a day's work and nothing more. He undressed in the darkness of his bedroom. Pulling back the comforter, he settled into sheets that welcomed his tired and injured body. He slept. He dreamed: The man was very close to the Washington Monument, but even when X walked faster trying to catch him, the distance between them remained unchanged. The man stopped once or twice and looked back expectantly, like he was hoping for a companion, but then he'd turn and continue on. "This is a waste of my time," X thought, disgustedly. "I'm going back." He turned and walked right into the gray-suited man he'd been following. He hated being caught off guard like that, but he knew this man to be a master of subterfuge. X smiled because skill like that had to be appreciated. It didn't matter that it made him look bad. "Your life plowed the way right next to mine." X said to his acquaintance. "I know about my life," the man said. "It's your life I'm curious about. Sit, tell me what I need to know." On the Mall, a bench was only a few feet away. The man sat down and opened a briefcase. Inside were pictures of people X knew, or had known, causing X's heart to beat faster. But, as always, he was cool. "What's this about?" X asked in a manner cultivated to establish himself as a man not to be messed with. "What it has always been about," the man said, matter of factly. "Information. Knowledge. Power." X replied. "Precisely." The man looked up and met his gaze. "Tell me the stories behind these pictures." He held several of them in both hands, offering them to X. X took them and saw his family and people he worked with. He was actually disappointed that only three of them showed him in intimate circumstances with women. They came and went so quickly it was nice to be reminded. The request, nevertheless, didn't sit right with X. He knew he was being somehow coerced into revealing things about himself that he never talked about. At the same time, he felt compelled to cooperate. He felt about it like he did a proctologist's exam- -he could or he could not agree to it, but not to wouldn't help anything and could make matters worse. He sighed deeply, releasing all the tension he normally held close. This man knew enough about him to make keeping details a secret insignificant. Deciding to go with it, X sat down and got comfortable. He rested both elbows on the back of the bench as he sat, one leg crossed at a right angle over the other one. Then, he unzipped the jacket of his blue nylon jogging suit exposing more deep chocolate skin and curly chest hair. He almost asked the man if there was a beer or two in that case, then he could really ease into this. But, knowing the answer, he didn't bother. "Let's start with your ...trademark, shall we?" the man suggested. And so X began and the man listened with a solemn expression throughout: X is my trademark. To others I'm the unknown entity. Hmm...a man of mystery, that's me. My life, these 40 odd years, has been tied up with something close to unhappiness, a sadness and yet an acceptance of life's unfairness if you will, but I overcome that with a strange mix of purpose, patriotism and pride. How did it all start? Thank my mother for the strong work ethic that taught me that work was the one constant in life, and that it was the key to survival. I get the job done, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I don't think that killing people for a living is what M'dear had in mind, though. Not that it was my first choice either. I had loftier goals in mind when I started, before I got sucked into this maze where the trick is to find your way out alive. I miss my mother. She died from a stroke at the age of 49. It was just me and my twin sister then. My father? He made an effort. He and my mother divorced when I was 5. He remarried, I even have three half siblings, although I wouldn't know them from Adam and vice versa. My father paid for my books in college, which was all he could afford to do, and he'd come up to see me every other month or so. We had some good conversations throughout the years. He taught me the value of honest self-evaluation, about seeing where you are and moving toward where you want to be. He also taught me how to gracefully let go of this life. I was with my father when he died last year. Home...family...they told me all that would fall into place once I was a working man. It never did. Now it would be way too dangerous for someone to be involved with me on a long term basis, and besides, who would understand my life? Yeah, a couple of women have said they *wanted* to understand, but I usually do something to piss them off long before enough time passes and I can begin to let the warmth of loving arms melt my armor. I'm a brave man in the field, but in my personal life, such as it is, I'm afraid. The person inside that armor is how I define myself, without it I don't know who I am, or how or what to be. I'd have to question the values of anyone who could accept what I do for a living anyway. Ha! Life is funny. Minus a genuine persona, the other option, which I exercise frequently, isto create one. One of my favorite alternate-life scenarios has me beingthe buyer for a Lagos based telecommunications company. Women seem to likea man with an international flare or at least the ones I'm attracted to do. They're the inquisitive, well-educated ones who like to talk about places they've been and the things they've seen. I can add to the discussion without revealing too much. I also like the vivacious, friendly kind as long as they don't talk too much. They counterbalance my tendency to remain aloof. I keep thinking maybe when I retire to a few acres somewhere in the South-I don't like cold weather-something or someone will turn up and return a semblance of normalcy to my life. The stakes are high. They don't get any higher. I feed Mulder what I want him to know, doing my bit to help the civilians because no one group should be that powerful. Especially a group of old white men. Jesus! Even you would have to agree with me there. Anyway, that's where the purpose and the patriotism come in. At the same time, I carry out my orders, efficiently, never missing a beat, because that's what I do well. Enter pride. Some think the government is the glue that holds us all together, right? Well, I'm in glue production so to speak; I make pieces of lies and pieces of truth stick together to create the picture deemed appropriate for public viewing. I insulate this government and try to undermine the powers that be while I try to protect myself from predators more lethal than I. It's exciting. It's dangerous. And it's my whole life. It's me. You know a little bit about that yourself, don't you? Yeah, I'm good and I'm careful, but you know, sometimes I wonder exactly who *would* come to my funeral? My sister would leave Barbados long enough to bury me. Mulder would probably come, if he knew about it. He says he thinks I'm a coward, that I send him to do the work I'm too scared to do. But he knows better. He knows that my information is vital and that I would no longer have access to it if I did the work he is trying to do. Yeah, Mulder would come, unless of course, he's already dead. Everybody's luck runs out sometime. I even worry that one day I'll get the order to take him out. Then what would I do? I don't know. But, it would be handled, one way or the other, be sure of that. Cancer Man would come just to see who else was there and, of course, to make sure that it was really my body inside the box. He's never trusted me completely. I never gave him a reason to. We all agree what the first rule of the game is, especially when you're a double agent: trust no one. The chances are excellent that he would have ordered the hit on my life anyway. I do get weary. Mulder is talented and persistent: failure after failure and he keeps going. Someone said that that's the mark of true success but it doesn't count for shit in my book. But, as long as he hangs in there, I'll use him. He doesn't work alone though, and his partner is just one more obstacle for me to deal with, like I'm not dealing with enough already. And, Skinner may mean well, but he's just in my way most of the time. Sometimes I wonder what it's like to be free, to have a regular life. I wonder if I made the right choice years ago. Sometimes it's like I'm on this train and when I'm ready to get off I can't. Body guard to the rich and famous? Security analyst? Even Secret Service detail sounds good some days. I'm told the train simply doesn't stop there, so I have to keep going. I want to retire to a few acres somewhere in the South one day, did I mention that? I think that will only happen one of three ways: My death becomes more trouble than it's worth in terms of the damage I can render from my grave via evidence left behind. I out live the group members and their successors dismiss me as being old and a non-threat. Mulder is successful in uncovering "the truth". You care to place a bet? A warning siren screamed through the air preventing the man from answering, if, indeed, he had planned to answer this time. X looked up and saw the dark rolling clouds tinged with pink and thought of a tornado, the wind was picking up. The man straighted the pictures and put them back into the case, then heclosed it. He had a new sense of urgency about him, as if that warning siren was meant just for him. "You know exactly who and what you must be." he said. "What's that supposed to mean?" X asked. "Others toil beside you for a justice new day." "Justice who? What are you talking about?" The raindrops pelted him like soft bullets and X was momentarily distracted. When he looked back at his interviewer, the man was walking away. X reached out to him, or he thought he had. In reality he had turned over to shut off his alarm and touched something soft and furry. His black and white cat, Sasha, sat on his bed instead of on the window sill, her preferred spot. The early morning thunderstorm frightened and excited her as the wind made the blue vertical blinds dance about in an enticing manner. As X moved to close the windows in his immaculate and expensively- decorated apartment, he remembered his dream. He recalled his mostly one-sided conversation with Deep Throat. While he drank his coffee, he recorded what he could remember in the dream journal he'd been keeping for sometime now. This one held a lot of insight he thought. It could represent his way of dealing with death that seemed to coexist with him in the shadows. Maybe he needed not to feel so all alone or maybe he just needed to confirm that his life did and would have meaning. He found an old photo album he hadn't looked at in years. He smiled, turning the pages. Later, he'd call his sister, Denise. It had been awhile. After that, he'd deal with Mulder.