From: Pellinor Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 09:29:34 +0100 Subject: NEW: Tour of Duty (1/1) Post-End Humor "Tour of Duty" (1/1) - a post-End humour piece. Really. By Pellinor (Pellinor@astolat.demon.co.uk ___ RATING: PG, for vague references to Mulder's video collection CLASSIFICATION: SH SUMMARY: Mulder gets an.... um.... _interesting_ new assignment SPOILERS: "Folie a Deux" and "The End" ___ Disclaimer: Not mine. No profit. Blah blah Notes and thanks follow at the end ****** Fox Mulder sighed, his shoulders sagging, and corrected himself. A few weeks ago, he'd thought that Hell was all fire, and that was the worst of it. Now, he knew better. He had passed through the fire of his office and emerged into something far worse. Fire was just Hell's antechamber; flames were Hell's secretary, with fingers of smoke, and.... He ran his tongue across his lips, temporarily distracted. "That's the last of them, Fox." He sighed, and put on a plastic smile, turning to face the thirty-strong crowd of school children. "Welcome to the FBI. My name is...." He exhaled slowly, whistling it through gritted teeth. ".... Fox. I'm your tour guide for the next hour." They stared blankly at him. On his first tour, he'd almost felt a glimmer of interest at that, knowing that a stare that blank could only belong to a zombie. For the duration of that tour, he'd done his best, surreptitiously peering at the backs of necks, speaking in a whisper so he could listen for the tell-tale purring of a giant insectoid monster, but, even then, it had been half-hearted at the best. Now, he felt no such hope. It was the standard blank stare of tour groups the world over, and nothing more. He shared that look. So soon, and they had infected him, dragged him down. He had been shocked, lost, his defences down, or he would have recognised it as a conspiracy right from the start. "Agent Mulder." Skinner had looked uncharacteristically nervous. "You are aware, of course, that the public are permitted into certain controlled areas of the FBI, when accompanied at all times by a tour guide." Mulder has nodded warily. "These guides are usually College students," Skinner had continued, twisting a pen in his fingers. "As a result of Finals, we were currently facing a severe shortage of suitable guides." He'd twisted it again, his fingers tense. "We wouldn't normally assign an Agent, but since you're...." A delicate cough. ".... between assignments at the moment...." "Only temporarily, sir." He'd raised his chin, pressed his hand to the small bag of ash in his breast pocket, and almost heard sweeping violins and horns. "The X-Files will be reborn, sir. They will rise from the ashes like a phoenix." He had said the same to Scully, earlier, showing her the ashes that were now more dear to him that the picture of his sister. "They did it with the dinosaurs in 'Jurassic Park', Scully. Just a single piece of DNA...." Scully had shaken her head ruefully, warily. "I don't think it's quite the same, Mulder. You can't genetically engineer a million words from a tiny handful of ash." Like everyone, she had thought he had been so devastated that he was beyond joking. "They will be resurrected," he'd said to Skinner, then, echoing those earlier words. "Perhaps." Skinner had lowered his voice. "Someone told.... I have a.... very strong feeling that your fate will be decided in a few weeks. The date June 19th seems important. Don't rock the boat until then, Agent Mulder. Don't challenge; don't look for the truth." He'd looked uncomfortable, though earnest. Mulder had looked at Skinner consideringly, remembering. Standing in the wreckage of his office, immobile with shock, something inside him had screamed at him not to move, not to speak, not to react, not to feel, not to.... _anything_..... until.... Clear, like a voice in his head. Now, hearing that same date from Skinner, he'd wondered if this was, in fact, _the date_ - if, by psychic suggestion, people were being programmed to expect something wonderful and momentous on that date. Like mindless drones, they would stand in line, waiting the promise of whatever they held most dear, and.... "Until then, Agent Mulder....." Skinner's voice had pulled him out of his reverie. "Until then, you have nothing else to do, so I am assigning you to the position of tour guide." And he had nodded - _he had nodded_. Still half in that strange limbo of immobility, smoke still scratching the back of his throat, he had nodded, failing to see that this was their greatest triumph over him yet. Boredom and school children would break him like no torture would. "Hey!" A child blew a bubble and popped it. The pattern in the bubble looked like an alien, but he could no longer bring himself to care, feeling his mind eroded day by day like butter under a table knife. "Hey, Fox! Are we going to see the A+ Cases?" He sighed deeply. It was the same question every day, every tour. "The A+ Cases" was a popular show on the Fox Network, and its fans flocked to the FBI, wanting to see the workplace of their heroes. It hadn't even been funny on the first tour. "No," he said, his voice dull, his mind speaking by rote. "There is no division in the FBI called the A+ Cases, nor does the real FBI function anything like the FBI you see on the television. You won't find agents in _our_ Bureau getting inspected, or disciplined, or trained, or sticking to a so-called chain of command, or being _assigned_ to cases, or doing paperwork, or...." He let his mind drift, remembering happier times - how he and Scully had laughed together over the excesses of the show. _His_ favourite had been the cliffhanging season finale when Agent Carter awaited the results of a lengthy disciplinary procedure following the - and this was the funniest part - the loss of his gun. "Remember the DNA test!" Scully had laughed in a way he had never seen before, and which he had instantly loved. "They sent it off half way through season one and...." She'd pressed her fist against her mouth, but laughter had escaped like butterflies round the sides of her fingers. "And... and.... it didn't come back until the start of season two!" "Or when Agent Bowman was shot?" He'd shared the warmth of her laughter. "Remember? He was shot in the leg, and took six months off work to recover!" he'd gestured at his thigh. "I was shot in real life. Lucas Henry shattered my thigh bone and shredded my femoral artery, but I was back at work the following week chasing those sex-changing aliens. It didn't even hurt." Remembering, now, his breathing caught. "You mean it's not _true_?" A sign of life in his audience's faces at last, but it was outrage and shock. "No." On the first tour, it had given him a certain pleasure to puncture their expectations. Now, he was worn down beyond the ability even to feel _sadistic_ emotions. "All lies. That season finale with the gun?" He reached for his gun, finding only an empty holster, and shrugged. No matter. "I can speak from experience that the only time the real FBI has disciplinary hearings is when the Consortium corrupts them and makes them come up with trumped-up charges like assaulting your boss, or.... or.... breaching so-called national security." "The Consortium?" A child raised his hand. "What's that?" Mulder started, realising that he'd departed from the guide's speech that he had had to memorise - a hard job. He had an intermittent photographic memory, just as he had intermittent colour-blindness. Despite the old movie poster in the public area of the FBI which stated that "G-Men Never Forget", his memory was currently stubbornly non-photographic, ever since that unfortunate incident when he'd forgotten where to find the phrase "hiding in the light." "The Consortium." He took a deep breath, then decided. They might bring him down with boredom, but he would go down telling the truth. "The Consortium. The secret masters of the FBI, and the police, and the army, and everything around you." He scanned their faces slowly. "Your principal may be one of them - either that, or an alien. The date is coming. They're watching us all, now, plotting our doom." The teacher coughed loudly, forcibly. "Tell us about the FBI's Ten Most Wanted." He gave a sharp bark of laughter. "Ignore them," he said, bluntly. "They're rapists, murderers - nasty people. I should know, since I profiled all of them." He gave a resigned sigh. "I seem to have profiled every killer in America. They're all out to get me, blaming me for their capture. A few of them come after me every year." He shrugged. "They're nothing. The true enemies of the people are the government, and those in authority, and they're here, watching you." Thirty pairs of eyes darted round, anxiously. One child stifled a scream. "You!" He thrust out a finger, pointing at a teenage girl who reminded him of his favourite video. "With a figure like that, they'd want you for your eggs. They'd rape you with a machine, then...." The memory made his stomach contract with an almost physical pain. "After your return," he said, blinking back sudden tears, " remember not to take the implant out, or you'll die of cancer." The girl started crying. He knew it hurt to learn the truth, but it had to be done. Ignorance was death. Whispers ran through the crowd. He heard an older voice murmur the words "only" and "kidding." "Are we going to see anything else?" a boy asked, his voice strangely trembling, though whether with excitement or fear he couldn't tell. "Any, like, private bits?" Mulder paused. "Yes," he said, at last. All along, almost as bad as the boredom had been the knowledge that he was doing _their_ work, protecting secrets. "They say you can't, but it's time to overthrown that tyranny." He raised his arm, and imagined again those horns. "I'll take you to the labs. I'll take you to the computer records centre, and you can look up your friends and neighbours and see what secrets _they_ are keeping. The public need to know. Secrets are iniquitous." The children spoke - a dozens of conflicting voices - but he no longer heard them. He was musing, wondering where he could go. His office was.... nothing. Someone had pinned a notice to the door which read "The Charred Files." "I'll take you to my boss's office," he said, out loud. "He's away today. You can read his files and look through his drawers. He won't mind. We have an.... understanding." There was some suppressed sniggering. "Is he your _boyfriend_?" a boy asked, his mouth behind his hands. "Do you dress up in women's clothes together like Hoover did?" Deep breath. Mulder took another, and another. "No," he said, at last. "He supports me. I'm allowed to beat him, and he doesn't mind. The first time, he knew it was just the drugs." He lowered his voice. "The last time, with the monstrous _thing_.... He just held me down, his hands on my throat, until he could have me restrained in bed. Like I say, we have an.... understanding." He frowned, wondering why the children were edging away, why sniggers or tears were on every face. "Come on." He stepped forward, pointing at the escalator. "There's little time, not if the water you drank in the lobby was drugged...." He spread his hands. "It probably was, but be careful with dangling shoelaces on the escalator, anyway. I killed someone underneath one, once - squashed him dead." No-one followed. His shoulders sagged. The date was coming, but the future generation was so weak, so cowardly. There was so little hope for the world - so little at all. He forced a smile. "The labs are upstairs. If we creep up and they don't hear us coming, we might even see an experiment on a live human." He pointed forward, fist held aloft like a standard. "The truth is here. You need to know - you _need_ to." Somewhere, a door opened. Somewhere, closer and closer, was the sound of feet. ****** "I thought he said they didn't get disciplined in the real FBI," said a child to his friend as they waited for the school bus. "He must have lied." The boy ran a stick up and down in the dust, tracing patterns. "They don't carry agents away in strait jackets in 'The A+ Cases', though." His friend shrugged. "No.... Strange...." "Strange...." ****** END ****** NOTES and THANKS: The Friday before the season finale, I went on the FBI tour with fellow fanfic writers Mary Ruth Keller and Rebecca Rusnak (and some assorted husbands). At one point, Mary gestured at our very-bored-looking guide and said, "Imagine Mulder having to do that." We did, and promptly collapsed into helpless laughter. So, Mary should take the entire credit for the idea and inspiration for this story. It is also completely true that, when we were there, most of the guides were doing Finals, meaning that there were hardly any tours running that day. There _is_ a poster that declares "G-Men Never Forget", the guides _do_ warn us very strongly to beware of trailing shoelaces on the escalators, and everyone on the tour _does_ seem to drink from the drinking fountain in the lobby. In addition, the guide said that, on every tour, someone asks about the X-Files, and that all the guides are very fed up with it. Oh - and this is getting to be a habit.... Thanks to Rebecca for, once again, pointing out my rather amusing typo. ****** Pellinor@astolat.demon.co.uk Deep Background (X-Files Fanfic research and episode summaries) http://www.astolat.demon.co.uk/ For my X-Files Fanfic: http://www.carbonek.demon.co.uk/