From: Brandon Ray Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2000 18:53:09 -0600 Subject: NEW: Walking in Your Footsteps (1 of 1) NOT SONGFIC Source: xff Reply To: publius@avalon.net TITLE: Walking in Your Footsteps AUTHOR: Brandon D. Ray EMAIL ADDRESS: publius@avalon.net DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Do not archive at gossamer; I've already sent it there. Anywhere else is fine, so long as my name stays on it and no money changes hands. FEEDBACK: Go ahead; knock yourself out. Ephemeral: *FEEDBACK*publius@avalon.net SPOILER STATEMENT: Small one for "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" RATING: PG CONTENT STATEMENT: CSM. Post-Colonization. Character death. CLASSIFICATION: VA SUMMARY: They all were cogs, in the end, each turning in his own predestined way; each contributing helplessly to the completion of a plan that had long ago passed beyond human control. A plan that held no hope for humanity, but only deluded its authors, and pacified them into acquiescence. AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is not songfic, in the conventional sense. You will not find song lyrics broken out between the paragraphs. But it is inspired or informed or something like that by the song of the same title by The Police, and if you're familiar with that song, you'll probably hear echoes of it here and there. Is it a successful experiment? You tell me. Also ... this is the second story in a series. The first, "Synchronicity I", can be found at my website. Finally, you can view a picture of the Smithsonian's Allosaurus fragilis skeleton here: http://www.nmnh.si.edu/paleo/dino/allonew.htm THANKS: To Sharon, for the quick beta. DISCLAIMER: In my dreams... Walking in Your Footsteps by Brandon D. Ray There's no one left to tell him not to smoke. And the pity of it all is that he can no longer get tobacco. He wonders, now, as he walks through the deserted halls of the Smithsonian, why it never occurred to him that this would be a problem. Lord knows he was aware of his addiction to nicotine; he tried to break the habit on more than one occasion, before the fall of humanity, but he always failed. In retrospect, he thinks his dependency was symbolic of some essential character flaw, something that even now eludes his best efforts at self-analysis. Not that he's had much time for introspection in recent years. As a young man, he was different. Of course, everyone is different when they're younger, he reflects, unabashed at his own cynicism. But as a young man he was thoughtful and considerate, and always very concerned that he do the right thing. He still has that concern, of course, but over the years his expression of it has ... mutated. Yes, he thinks with a nod and an ironic quirk of the lips. That's a good word for it. He turns a corner into another hall of the great, empty museum, and finds himself confronted by the reassembled bones of a dinosaur. Allosaurus fragilis, he remembers, before he even sees the sign. Even before the Date came and passed, he used to visit this place, and he has long since committed the details of his preferred exhibits to memory. The allosaurus was always one of his favorites. He well remembers when it was finally unveiled to the public, more than twenty years past. A hundred and fifty million years ago it walked across the planet, one of the largest carnivores that ever lived. It was Lord of all it could see, and for many years he felt a kinship for this long-dead animal. As if he were walking in its footsteps. Walking in its footsteps. Hey, Mr. Dinosaur, he calls out in his mind, as he comes to a halt just outside the decaying remnants of the velvet rope. There's no reason for him to think the words instead of speaking them, of course, just as there's no reason for him to stop at the rope. But somehow it seems the right way to conduct this conversation, and so when he continues, it is in silence. You really couldn't ask for more, he thinks to the long-dead monster. You were God's favorite creature, after all. You stalked across the landscape, striking terror into the walnut-sized brains of the lesser animals that shared the world with you. You fed when and how you pleased, and you feared nothing, because you were the king. But you didn't have a future. That, of course, is the rub, he acknowledges. This is where that feeling of kinship with the dinosaurs starts to feel uncomfortable. Because although they were the unchallenged masters of the earth for tens of millions of years, in the end they perished, for reasons that now will never be fully understood. Just as humanity, it seems, is now destined to perish -- although in man's case, the cause of impending death is all too clear. He wonders, from time to time, if he could have stopped it, or even made a difference. He was never as powerful and influential among his associates as Mulder believed; he was never as much in control as even he fancied himself to be. He began as a simple assassin, but as he gradually moved up the shadowy, poorly-defined ranks of the Project, he remained a cog. They all were cogs, in the end, each turning in his own predestined way; each contributing helplessly to the completion of a plan that had long ago passed beyond human control. A plan that held no hope for humanity, but only deluded its authors, and pacified them into acquiescence. He and his colleagues were more like the brontosaurus than the allosaurus, he realizes now. They were not the carnivores they thought themselves to be; they were, rather, leaf-eaters, placidly moving through swamps of their own creation, stubbornly unheedful of the true predators who were efficiently and quietly herding them all to the slaughter. They thought they could somehow make a deal that would protect their own loved ones, while the rest of the world went down the gutter. They were like the prominente -- the prison trustees at Auschwitz. The group that devised and carried out the Project actually thought they would benefit from the arrangement they'd made, he thinks now, in bitter amazement. He, along with all the others, truly believed that they would be allowed to rule, and that their rule would last. They took no lessons from history. They saw the fate of puppet leaders from Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany and a score of other places, but they denied that it could happen to them. They were fools. And in the end, just like the harmless brontosaurus, these self-styled rulers of the world couldn't hurt a fly. Their atomic weapons, the pride of the human arsenal, were useless , as the Colonists moved in quickly and effectively, with an entirely alien lack of pity or remorse. In his mind's eye he can see it all again: the bright flashes of light, high in the stratosphere; the huge, silent ships descending simultaneously on every important center of population; the hopeless resistence of human armies; the beaten faces of mothers, fathers and children, as entire nations were herded into camps, so that they could be more efficiently exterminated. The fire. The blood. The death. Through it all, a few survived, himself among them. Not from planning, of course, but from good fortune. From good fortune, and from the fact that the Colonists haven't yet found it worth the time and trouble to hunt down the last few remnants of humanity; those pitiful people clinging to existence in the ruins of their former civilization. Sometimes he wonders who else might have survived. He knows that Skinner is dead, and also Krycek. The Assistant Director sacrificed himself in the beautifully symbolic but ultimately futile defense of the Capitol Building, while Krycek .... He stops that train of thought and shudders. The less he thinks about Krycek's fate, the better he will sleep tonight. But he doesn't know what happened to Mulder or Scully. He doubts that he ever will. They were in the field the day the Colonists came, and the last words he heard from either of them were Scully's, on a tape of a monitored cell phone conversation. She was calm, of course, as she told her boss about the impossible things she was seeing. Calm and cool and unflappable, as always. If anyone kept her head that day, he reflects, it was her. Perhaps she, at least, is still alive. Somewhere. But her report ended in mid-sentence. He sighs and shakes his head. There's no use in dwelling on such things -- nor should he have taken the time away from his daily chores to take this walk through the museum. The small group to which he belongs will remain alive only as long as its members continue to work as hard as they can, all day, every day. He really has to go. He pauses for one more minute, though, and looks up again at the allosaurus, as it seems to leer down at him through the mists of time. A hundred and fifty million years, he thinks. A hundred and fifty million years. Through all those eons of pre-history, the dinosaurs walked across the planet; they ruled the world -- and even after their demise, they lived on for a while in museums. Man thought he could emulate them; he thought he could walk in their footsteps, and rule the kingdom with power and glory, forever. Man was wrong. Horribly, tragically, inevtably wrong. And suddenly all he can think, as he turns and walks slowly towards the exit, is that he wishes he had a cigarette. Fini -- It's a story of romance, rebellion and household appliances! -- Hardware Wars ========================== And yes, my fanfic *does* include romance and rebellion: http://www.avalon.net/~publius/MyStories.html And here's my page of recs: http://www.avalon.net/~publius/MyRecs.html