From: Megan Kennedy Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 17:24:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: "Why..." Source: direct Title: "Why I Hate My Job" Author: Megan E. Kennedy Email: mekamorph@yahoo.com Rating: G Keywords: None Spoilers: One Son Summary: Two agents, two other agents, and bugs. Lots and lots of bugs. 1999 File Under 'X' Award nominee Disclaimer: None of them are mine, except for Klinefelter and Hodgeson, and I don't care about them. "Why I Hate My Job" by Megan E. Kennedy I hate my job. I really do. Fifty-one weeks out of the year I spend spitting in dim rooms and cramped vans listening to other people's conversations, and then somebody in the State Department finds a bug and Director Freeh decides to sweep the Hoover building. And who better to conduct a sweep than the jerks on electronic surveillance? So me and my partner, Klinefelter, spend a week disrupting everyone else's work while we do and electronic bug sweep. Radio and micro-wave detectors in hand, we roam the halls, pissing off everybody in our path. "What's today?" "Basement." I look at him incredulously. "Basement? What is there to bug in the basement?" Klinefelter shrugs. "Somebody's got an office down there. We're supposed to sweep it." I groan. "Not Spooky Mulder's office. Please, not Spooky's office." Klinefelter looks at me like I'm nuts, and I remember he's just transferred back after eight years in the American Samoa. "Spooky Mulder is this crackpot profiler. He believes in vampires, Bigfoot and little green men. I think he's a half-step away from being fired." "So? What's so wrong with that?" "Klinefelter, everything Spooky touches he destroys. Ever heard of Agent Tom Colton?" "No." "Not surprised. He had a nervous breakdown after a case with Spooky and left the Bureau. He sells lightbulbs over the phone now." "Ouch." "And supposedly this agent named Creighton or something completely disappeared after partnering with Spooky. Just gone, man." "Ooo-kay." "And what about Spender and Fowley? You knew them, right? Well, she hasn't set foot in this building in months and he resigned without any warning. Turned in one crappy letter and no one's seen him since. White Collar did the odds and says he's in Uzbekistan. And AD Skinner- -" "Look, Hodgeson, I'm already creeped out, I don't need to hear any more." "Oh, fine. Let's just get this over with." So we check out the equipment and troop down, and Klinefelter just stops dead at the door. All it says is "X-Files Division. Special Agent Fox Mulder. Special Agent Dana Scully." "Knock," I say. "You knock." Inside, we hear a crash. "Why're you afraid to knock?" "Why're you whispering?" Inside, we hear a woman saying "Mulder, for God's sake--" "Just knock already." "Why don't you knock?" Inside, we head a man yelling "Scully, look out--" and another crash. I gird up my loins (figuratively, of course--I don't even know how one would go about girding anything, and I'm rather protective of my loins, thank you) and knock. Spooky himself answers, and inside we see Agent Scully buried under a pile of manila folders and cardboard boxes, directly below a very large projected image of a human head in a fright wig mounted on a pike, with sign below it that read "Missouri's Adopt-A-Highway Program. This stretch of highway adopted by Girl Scout Troop 941." Spooky is standing in the middle of a sea of yellow #2 pencils, like eight hundred of them--God knows where they all came from. Klinefelter makes this little whimpery noise in the back of his throat. "Can I help you gentlemen?" he asks. I cough. "Uh--yeah. We're here to do a bug sweep." I just shove the letter in his face. My voice hasn't cracked like that since the tenth grade. Mulder reads it and shrugs. "Okay. Make it quick." Then he just turns around and starts helping Scully unearth herself. I look at Klinefelter, who shrugs helplessly. I pick up the radio detector and turn it on, and there is a complete wash-out of noise. Spooky and the Ice Queen turn and stare at me, and Klinefelter about jumps out of his skivvies. I clear my throat. "Sounds like there's a bug." I turn down the gain and start waving it around, while Klinefelter squirms and Spooky stares at me. The first bug I find is in the leg of a chair. The next one is in a vent. The next is attached to a lamp bulb and Klinefelter has to help me get it out. We start lining 'em up on Spooky's desk (if Scully has a desk it ain't in the office). I suggest Klinefelter give it a go with the device for high-band microwaves and there's pretty much the same result. Mulder and Scully pitch in and by the time we're done, there's at least twenty-seven bugs lines up on the desk, including one that was inside the slide projector (which meant no more head-on-a-pike). We've gone through every drawer, every corner, and even everyone's briefcases and pockets. "Wow," Klinefelter mutters. "What are we going to put in the report?" I say. Mulder Looks and Scully and she Looks back at him. "You know, why do you even have to make a report?" Spooky asks. "Why can't we keep this our little secret, huh?" Me and Klinefelter just stare at him. "You'd do that? For us?" Mulder asks, and he puts his arm around Scully really awkward-like. They give us these totally fake Kodak smiles. I look at Klinefelter. He looks at me. "Sure," I mumble, grabbing the detectors. Mulder nods, and Scully beams at us, and the shove all the bugs into an evidence bag which disappears into Mulder's pockets. I'm not about to go after them--I mean, who knows what he's got in there? The secret of the universe? So we leave, and we submit our reports to AD Von Reulike saying that all's well and there's nothing wrong and we didn't find any bugs, nope, not a single one, especially not in Spooky's office. He tells us to give the detectors back to the quartermaster's office. The next Monday the quartermaster's office calls us in and wants to know what the hell we did to the bug-detectors. I don't know and neither does Klinefelter. So this snipey little clerk suggests we open them up and look. She gives us a screwdriver and we do. They're both bugged. I hate my job. Klinefelter's transferred back to Samoa, and I think I'm going to move to Uzbekistan. I may not come back.