From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: 31 Aug 2001 05:54:55 -0000
Subject: Wiss-ka-tjon (1/2) by Rutabaga
Source: direct

Reply To: rutabaga1999@yahoo.ca

Title: "Wiss-ka-tjon" (1/2)
Author: Rutabaga [rutabaga1999@yahoo.ca]
Rating: PG
Archive: Ephemeral, Gossamer, XFMU, others by request
Category: X-file, mytharc
Keywords: None
Spoilers: "Existence"
Summary: An FBI employee missing for ten years is found, the Lone
Gunmen get a new toy, and Reyes drags a reluctant Doggett off in
search of "Monkey-Man". But then things get complicated...


CASSELMAN BRIDGE STATE PARK, MARYLAND
8:12 PM

Summer holidays should go on forever, thought Michael as he cast
his lure into the river. The line trailed a delicate, shimmering
'V' of gold as he slowly reeled it in. The orange sun was hanging
low in the soft, blue sky, dropping brilliant pennies in the
ripples. Insects hovered like fizz over the flashing surface of
the water. A second lure plopped into the river and was gently
reeled in by Jeff, Michael's older brother. The quiet was
punctuated by the occasional muffled slap and slosh of the two
muskies already trapped in a bucket behind them. They could have
caught dick all and it would still be an awesome day, Michael
reflected. He breathed a deep, contented sigh and allowed himself
to be hypnotised by the steady, ticking rhythm of the turning
reels.

Suddenly his line snagged. "Aw crap!" He grunted to his feet,
irritated, and yanked on the rod several times but the line just
zoinged and sliced the water.

"I'll get it", said Jeff as he hooked his lure to his rod and set
it on the grass. He stripped off his shirt and stepped gingerly
into the water, sucking in his breath as he did so. "Man, you owe
me one!"

"Cold, is it?"

"Oh, it's nice once you're in!" Jeff replied through clenched
teeth. He was up to his armpits, his arms over his head. Finally
he took a deep breath and ducked  under.

He held Michael's line between his fingers and traced it towards
a dark, boxy object several feet below the water. It was some
kind of junk, difficult to make out without goggles on. As he
swam closer, it resolved itself into a car, sunk up to its
windows in the weeds. Why did people have to dump their crap in
the river, thought Jeff. This was instantly followed by the
creepy thought that maybe it was some mob victim sent to join the
fishes. His imagination was unfortunately inspired; there did
seem to be a figure in the passenger seat. His  heart beat faster
with fear and waning blood oxygen. He followed the fishing line
to the passenger side window of the car, which was rolled down an
inch. It was probably just the headrest and some weeds, he
thought, distorted by all of the crud on the window. He rubbed
the algae and silt away.

Even without goggles he knew he was looking into the empty eye
sockets of a corpse.

It raised its hand.

He screamed.



9:53PM

Dazzling crystal fins of water spurted from the doorframes of the
1989 Ford Taurus as it was winched out of the lake and into the
glare of harsh white lights. Dr. White snapped on a pair of latex
gloves and scanned the twilight disco of strobing red and blue
lights for Detective Bingham. He was approaching with a strange
grin on his face. "What's so funny?" asked White.

"If you find a Red Devil lure, hold onto it. It won't have
anything to do with the crime anyway."

"What?"

"There were two kids fishing here and when one of them snagged
his lure, the other dove in to get it. It led him right to the
car. Unfortunately, the lure was caught on the corpse so when his
brother yanked on the line it made the corpse move. Scared the
crap out of the poor kid, of course. His brother still wants the
lure back, though. Somehow snagging a corpse and scaring the piss
out of his big brother has made it extra lucky."

White shook her head, bemused, and walked towards the car which
was just about finished draining. As she opened the passenger
side door, the last muddy dregs sloshed out. She let out a quiet
curse. The corpse had been reduced to a skeleton and most of the
lower skull was missing. The lower jaw and upper palette were
gone leaving a ragged fringe of bone beneath the eye sockets.
Something metallic glinted through the slime. Using a small
dental tool, she pried a tiny ball of lead from the cheekbone and
examined it. "Shotgun blast. Maybe more than one shot. Doesn't
leave us with a lot to make an ID, which was the idea, I
suspect."

She lifted a length of fishing line and the skeletal arm rose
with it. She had to chuckle as she imagined the corpse saluting.
She unhooked the lure from the greasy jacket sleeve. She patted
the chest and felt something on the lapel... a clip... for an ID
badge. She held it up to the light and rubbed the film of algae
away with her thumb.

"Holy crow," breathed Bingham as he leaned in over White's
shoulder.

"I guess this isn't our investigation anymore," said White,
disappointed and relieved at the same time.

Though some moisture had seeped into the lamination and begun to
blacken the paper and dissolve the photo, it was still legible.
The photo was of a blonde woman in her late twenties. The name on
the card was Dr. Janine Lafleur, Research Team Leader,
Investigative Services Division for the FBI.



FBI HEADQUARTERS
WASHINGTON, D.C.

Doggett stood at the back of the briefing room, sipping his
coffee, and noted that he wasn't the only one who'd dropped in to
observe. Assistant Director Skinner ran a scowl over the
unnecessary crowd, but his face softened to show a trace of
understanding.

"Janine Lafleur was one of our own. Her murder may be a decade
old, but the news of Dr. Lafleur's death comes as a fresh shock,
particularly to those of us who worked with her and maintained
the hope that she might emerge alive.

"Dr. Lafleur and research assistant Rebecca Hill were last seen
alive on October 17th, 1990, at 5:30PM as they left the FBI
Academy at Quantico.

"Last night, their vehicle was found 150 miles away at the bottom
of a river in Garrett County, Maryland. Lafleur's body was in the
passenger seat.

"Some of you may not be familiar with Lafleur and Hill, but every
one of you has used models and information management tools that
they developed. Both of them were passionate about combating
cyber crime and espionage long before most people in this country
even knew what e-mail was. They were instrumental in ushering the
science of criminal investigation into the era of information
technology. Their disappearance came as a huge blow to the
Bureau.

"Now we have found Dr. Lafleur-- dead. The coroner has determined
that her death was likely due to a shotgun blast to the head at
point blank range."

As Skinner spoke, a series of slides of the car, Lafleur's body,
the river, and beads of shot flashed on the screen behind him.
"Rebecca Hill is considered a suspect--"

Chatter erupted in the room.

Skinner raised his voice above the din. "Rebecca Hill is
considered suspect at this moment only because she is still
missing." The babble died down and Skinner's voice dropped a
notch. "We hope that the discovery of the vehicle and the body as
well as a public appeal for information, will yield fresh leads
and new suspects."

Doggett's phone rang. He grabbed it before it could ring again
and answered it even as he was quietly exiting the briefing room.
"Yeah?"

Reyes' irritated voice asked: "Are you working today or not?"

"Keep your pants on, I'm on my way down right now." He flipped
the phone shut and strode towards the elevator.

Doggett was still mulling over the Lafleur-Hill case when he
entered the darkened X-files office, so it came as something of a
mental side-swipe when he looked up into a bright picture of what
might possibly be a gorilla, projected on the wall.

"It's Monkey-Man!" Reyes' excitement pierced the gloom.

"Monkey-Man?" Doggett shared barely a grain of her excitement.

"He's been terrorising a small town in northern Washington for
weeks. One man and an elderly woman have gone missing, as well as
several family pets. This is the first photographic evidence of
his existence. The local PD haven't actually requested our help
yet, but I've booked us on a flight to Seattle on Monday
morning."

"So are we now using taxpayers' money to run down wack-job
stories for supermarket tabloids? Why the hell are we
investigating Monkey-Man, especially when we haven't been asked
to?" Doggett began shuffling through the thin stack of papers in
his in-box, hoping that a worthwhile case might be lurking there.

"This is the *X-files* office, Agent Doggett, and this is an
*X-file*. I know it's just a matter of time before they call us
in."

Doggett stared at a strikingly similar photo of a sasquatch that
Mulder had left pinned to the bulletin board and Doggett hadn't
bothered to remove. "They grow some funny weeds in the forests of
Washington, Agent Reyes", mused Doggett, mostly to himself. Reyes
stepped between him and the bulletin board and glared at him as
she held the case file under his chin.

"I believe that this case may be connected to an earlier,
critical X-file."

Reluctantly, Doggett took the file from her. She stepped over to
the filing cabinet, yanked open a drawer and began flipping
through the files until she found the one she was looking for.
She slapped it down on the desk and began leafing through it.

"When Mulder and Scully first investigated the case of abductions
in Bellefleur, Oregon, they exhumed the grave of one of the
abductees. When they opened the casket--"

Doggett cut her off with a laugh. "You're not connecting this to
that orangutan corpse with the metal implants in it? What are you
saying-- that this could be some alien, mutant space-gorilla?"

Reyes' stare dropped the ambient air temperature by 20 degrees.
"Be packed and ready to go by 6 AM Monday." She stalked out of
the office.

Doggett sighed and set down his coffee. He was normally more
patient with Reyes, but today he just wasn't in the mood. He
flipped through the file.  There were a few more photos which
could have been of a guy in an ape suit, or a monkey at the zoo.
In these days of digital photo manipulation, photos weren't worth
anything anyway. He skimmed the police reports. It read like
classic mass hysteria.

He flipped the file onto the desk and turned back to the bulletin
board. He took down the sasquatch photo and was about to toss it
in the trash but his conscience twinged and instead he put it in
the 'to file' tray on top of the filing cabinet.

He looked at the wall again. Mulder's 'I WANT TO BELIEVE' poster
loomed large. He picked up a staple remover and reached for the
top corner of the poster. He hesitated, then withdrew the staple
remover and stared at the poster for a moment. He noticed that
one of the staples had torn through on the bottom of the poster.
He smoothed down the curled corner and fixed it with a new
staple.



That evening, Doggett arrived home, hung his coat in the closet
and placed his shoes on the rack. He threw his jacket over the
back of the armchair and loosened his tie. He pressed the 'Play'
button on his answering machine and went into the kitchen. As he
rummaged in the refrigerator, the machine informed him that he
had no new messages. He twisted the cap off of a bottle of beer,
took a deep draught and leaned against the counter. It was the
weekend, Friday night, and he had no particular plans. What to
do, what to do? He chomped thoughtfully on a piece of cold pizza.

The doorbell rang. It wasn't the two-tone of the front door, it
was the single tone of the back door. He could see the back door
from where he stood and there was no one beyond the window.
Puzzled, he approached the door. Probably some kids fooling
around. He peered through the window, looking to either side...
and into the grinning garden gnome face of Frohike, who was
flattened up against the wall.

Doggett yanked the door open. "Whaddya want?" he asked in
exasperation.

Frohike peered past him into the kitchen and then glanced all
around the back yard, as though he expected to be ambushed by a
team of ninjas at any moment. "You've gotta come over to the
office!" he wheezed urgently.

"It's Friday night! Why the hell would I want to spend it with
you guys?!"

"There's been a VERY interesting development. Someone wants to
meet you!"

"Development in WHAT? Who?!"

"We can't discuss it here. This place isn't clean."

The very thought of the Lone Gunmen tested the limits of
Doggett's patience. "For the record, my housekeeping is a helluva
lot better than yours and I don't see what the hell that has to
do with anything!"

"Listen, Martha Stewart," hissed Frohike. "I'm sure you sweep the
dust and cobwebs out every day, but when was the last time you
swept your place for bugs?" He glared past Doggett at the corners
of the kitchen, as though he expected a listening device to fall
out of its hiding place and prove him right.

Doggett knew what he meant, but just to be contrary he said: "I
had it fumigated last month." Knowing the joke was lame he added,
grudgingly: "Hang on, I'll get my jacket." He doubted that there
was any reason to suspect that his home wasn't secure, but he
knew that there was no use in arguing with the pathological
paranoiac. As he put on his shoes he heard the little wacko
calling from the back door:

"Ooo, and bring that pizza!"



As he entered the office of the Lone Gunmen behind Frohike,
Doggett was only mildly surprised to see Langly, Byers... and no
one else. "So where's this person I'm supposed to meet?"

"Not HERE!" Langly's expression proclaimed that that was like
suggesting that QUEEN ELIZABETH meet him at the Lone Gunmen
office. Byers and Frohike shook their heads and chuckled at
Doggett's naivete.

"He's arranged to meet you on Sunday, but we needed to brief you
ahead of time," explained Byers.

"Brief me on what? Who is this guy?"

The Lone Gunmen exchanged glances, as though they weren't sure
how much they should reveal. Frohike took the ball. "He goes by
the nickname of Whiskeyjack. We've been in contact with him for
the last six years, but we've never met him face to face."

Byers continued: "He's passed us information which we believe he
could only have access to if he worked inside one of the federal
security agencies."

"Or he's figured out how to crack into them," interjected Langly.
"And that would be not just one, but a whole series of
mother-sized hacks," he added with admiration.

Byers nodded in enthusiastic agreement. "The items he's delivered
have originated from inside the FBI, the CIA, the NSA. Then
there's some material he's passed on that we believe even those
agencies aren't aware of." Byers intoned these last words with
particular gravity.

Doggett maintained his role of hardened skeptic. "What makes you
believe this guy's for real, that he's not just stringing you
along?"

Byers replied: "He's informed us of technologies a year in
advance of the military announcing that they're even
*researching* them."

Langly nodded. "We knew that the election was going to go to hell
in Florida even before people went to the polls."

"Which is why we didn't bother voting," said Frohike. Doggett was
surprised to learn that these three even *considered* exercising
their democratic right.

"Anyway, all he ever gave us was snippets, nothing concrete to
support the information and never enough to prove anything,"
finished Byers.

"Then why tell you anything at all?" asked Doggett.

"He wanted to gain our trust and test our loyalties," said
Frohike.

"It seems that we've passed his test," said Langly. "He's shown
us the tip of the iceberg, now he wants to give us the whole
enchilada."

Doggett frowned at the mixed metaphor and rubbed his forehead
which was beginning to ache. Nothing was ever straightforward
with the Lone Gunmen. It always had to be unnecessarily
labyrinthine. "So why the hell does he want to meet me? What have
I done to prove to him that *I* can be trusted?"

Byers eyes were bright. "From what Whiskeyjack has told us so
far, we believe he's assembled a collection of solid *proof* of
an orchestrated deception of the American public and the world."

Doggett couldn't resist. "Michael and Latoya are the same
person?"

Byers wasn't amused. "Please appreciate the significance of this,
Agent Doggett. Whiskeyjack may be about to deliver the ammunition
that Mulder sought for eight years, the weapon needed to
undermine the hidden, powerful elite that has been making
God-like decisions about the fate of this planet!"

Doggett gave up and played along. "Okay, but why me?"

"You work in the X-files office. You worked with Agent Mulder and
Agent Scully and have some appreciation for what they have been
fighting against. You may have been relegated to a dark corner of
the FBI headquarters, but at least you are still *inside* the
FBI. Whiskeyjack needs a secure channel to get this material out
to the world and you are that channel. He knows about you."

"Knows what?"

Frohike coughed. "Uh, I'd say everything, probably. This guy's
hooked into every bit of data on the planet."

Byers looked almost pleading. "Whiskeyjack knows, we know and
*you* know that the Lone Gunmen don't have the credibility to be
divulging this information to the public."

Doggett had to agree on that point, but he failed to see how
someone who worked in the X-files office, regarded as Nutcake
Central by the rest of the world, would have any *more*
credibility. Or who he was supposed to share this 'material' with
when no one could be trusted. He took a deep breath. "So exactly
when and where am I supposed to meet this guy?"

"Oh, well, you'll *like* this part!" Frohike rubbed his hands
together. "We're meeting him at the NASCAR race in Delaware,
Sunday afternoon at 2."

Doggett had to admit he *did* see some merit in the arrangement,
except for one detail. "Whaddya mean, 'we'?"

"Well, one of us has to go with you." Frohike shuffled his feet.
"Uh, to vouch for you, umm, so hey! it'll be like a guy's day
out. We can scope out babes together!"

Doggett looked vaguely ill.



DOVER DOWNS INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY, DELAWARE
SUNDAY, 1:37PM

The roar and whine of engines filled the air. Doggett trailed
Frohike through the crowd, taking care not to spill his beer. He
marvelled at how Frohike managed to navigate the jostling elbows
without dumping the beer, fries, soft pretzel and nacho sombrero
that he was balancing. Doggett glanced at his watch but resisted
scanning the crowd. It was still too early for the meeting
anyway. He ran into Frohike as he was brought up suddenly by a
large man with a stroller. As though on gimbals, Frohike
maneuvered to counter-act the momentum of the falling food and
managed to catch it in mid-spill. He glared up at Doggett.
Doggett shrugged apologetically. However, Frohike was no longer
glaring at Doggett, but staring past him with what could only be
described as awe. Doggett turned and followed his gaze.

A woman of average height was striding towards them. Height was
the only thing average about her. Her teased out jet black hair
was streaked with day-glo orange. Her eyes had suffered a vicious
attack of mascara and eyeliner and her mouth was a disturbing
slash of purple. Her all-black wardrobe was supplied by several
dead cows, though The Sons of Freedom's 1990 tour had supplied
the T- shirt. Yet her attire was not her most striking
characteristic. No, the inspiration for Frohike's awe was the
pair of cantaloupes she was smuggling in the T-shirt. Frohike
went cross-eyed as she got closer.

"Frohike!" she shouted and threw her arms wide, merchandise
bobbing.

When she entered his three-foot radius he dropped the beer,
fries, soft pretzel and the sombrero spun around on the tarmac
like a lost hubcap. When she engulfed Frohike in a hug, Doggett
feared he would never see him alive again.

"How ya been, little guy?!" She held him back, examining him like
a maiden aunt might scrutinize a startled nephew at a family
reunion. "I haven't seen you since COMDEX last year!"

"Urk?" burbled Frohike.

The woman turned to Doggett but didn't release Frohike. "Who's
your friend here?"

All of Frohike's consonants and vowels were doing a maypole dance
in a dirty meadow in his mind and it took several seconds for
them to marshal themselves into words. "Uh, this is uh, A--"

"John Doggett," Doggett finished for him.

"A. John Doggett." She released Frohike to shake Doggett's hand.
"What does the 'A' stand for?"

Doggett opened his mouth--

"Argyle," inserted Frohike, his wits finally rallying.

"Ah, I see why you go by your middle name."

Doggett glared at Frohike, but Frohike had locked his eyes back
on the targets.

"Wow, it's so cool that I ran into you, Frohike! You won't
believe this but... I've got something for you!"

While one part of Frohike's fevered brain went on a wonderful
tour of what this present might be, another part of his brain
tried to remember meeting this woman who would talk to him a
*second* time of her own free will. Meanwhile, a third part of
his brain was punching his language center and rocking it back
and forth, trying to get something intelligent to fall out.

"Oh, really?" He made an unsuccessful bid to appear suave.

Doggett observed this exchange with rapidly increasing curiosity
and noted that he couldn't help but linger a few seconds longer
on the woman's side of the conversation. Her very well-endowed
side. He managed to tear his gaze away just as she looked at him
and he smiled sheepishly and scratched his head, then coughed and
scrutinized a nearby concrete wall.

She reached into her leather jacket and leaned closer to Frohike,
who was having trouble focusing. "Check this out!" She lowered
her voice and slipped a slim packet into his hand. "They said it
would never see the light of day, but I've got friends who've
reverse engineered the chip and hacked all the code. This baby
was born to be free! I'm giving copies to everyone I know! Share
the goodness!"

Suddenly Frohike's mind was mostly free of breasts. "No way..."
He looked at the packet and then glanced around. "This isn't..."

She nodded and grinned like the Cheshire Cat.

"Oh ho ho ho!"

Frohike's laugh was disturbingly diabolical. Doggett noted that
he looked even more troll-like than usual. He glanced at his
watch. They had to lose this woman. "Uh," he began.

She fixed him with a feline stare and a sly smile. "Oh don't
worry, Argyle, Mrs. Claus didn't forget you!" She reached into
another pocket and pulled out a NASCAR souvenir acrylic keychain
and held it out to him.

"Uh, thanks."

He smiled uncertainly and reached for the keychain, wondering
feverishly how they could ditch her. It was 2:03. His fingers
were on the fob, but she wasn't letting go of it. She pulled him
towards her and put her hand on his. He gulped. "I'm sorry that I
can't offer you a better... *option*," she purred as she pushed
his fingers across the smooth acrylic surface. There was a faint
ridge around the top of the fob. She let him go.

"Uh," he coughed, and yanked the keychain away. "Er, that's okay.
Uh, thanks again."

She stepped back and turned to Frohike. Doggett was surprised to
see Frohike had all of his attention fixed on the packet. The
woman grabbed his head in her hands and kissed him on the
forehead, leaving a mark that brought to mind Russian leaders of
cold wars gone by. Strangely, this didn't elicit much of a
reaction from Frohike, at least not as much as it might have ten
minutes ago.

"Oh ho ho ho, thaaaanks!! Hee hee hee! This is SO AWESOME!" he
enthused. He clutched the packet to his chest like it was a rare
1977 Star Wars action figure still in its original packaging.

"You're welcome!" she said in a creepy school girl voice and then
with a little wave, she turned and disappeared into the crowd.

Frohike stomped his foot. "Aw crap! I didn't get her ICQ number!"

Doggett didn't say anything. He was thoughtfully hefting the
NASCAR keychain in his palm, testing the weight of it.

Frohike's mind changed gears. "Hey, it's past two o'clock! Where
the hell's our man?" He looked around. He looked at Doggett.

Doggett shook his head and smiled. "I think we just met her."



Frohike burst into the Lone Gunmen office like a kid returning
from Disney World. By the time Doggett entered, the other two
were crowded around Frohike and gushing over his souvenir.

Byers was breathless. "I thought Microsoft bought this project
and then destroyed it because it was going to leapfrog Linux
ahead of Windows!"

Langly shook his head. "No, I heard that Sony and Nintendo
secretly joined forces and wiped out all of their code with a
virus!"

"You guys are both wrong," Frohike said as he shuffled around the
room, moving computers and parts of computers. "The Pentagon made
this and everyone involved with it disappear because the chip was
designed based on leaked plans from reverse-engineered alien
navigational systems taken from the ship at Roswell!"

"What the hell *is* it?" Doggett interjected.

All three looked at him like he'd didn't know what tribble was.

"Only the greatest gaming system ever designed!" exclaimed
Langly.

"A *gaming* system?" Doggett had to laugh. "This is the weapon
needed to undermine the hidden, powerful elite? I never would
have suspected that the hidden, powerful elite were thirteen year
old boys, but now it all makes sense!"

Frohike pouted. "Like I said, it was reverse engineered from
alien technology! Imagine how it could be used in the wrong
hands!"

"So in the *right* hands it can be used to keep kids away from
the great outdoors?"

Frohike grumbled something unintelligible and tinkered with a
circuit board. In a few minutes he had affixed the new chip to
the board and replaced it in its box. "Let's see what this baby
can do". He turned on the computer. "Whoa, baby! Go 'til it
giga-hertz!! She's SCREAMIN'!" He punched open a DVD drive and
dropped in the disk. Software loaded quickly and soon a loud,
sweeping techno beat was thumping from the speakers. "Yeee-AH!"
Frohike readied his gaming console. In moments he was lost in a
world of exploding, flying, psychedelia. Langly and Byers leaned
over his shoulders, kibitzing game play suggestions and
occasionally grabbing for the console which elicited loud,
irritated yells from Frohike.

Doggett set the keychain down on the table and aimed an
articulated desk lamp at it. There was definitely a faint seam in
the acrylic. He took out his Swiss Army knife and carefully
worked the blade into the seam. It cracked. The acrylic came off
like a sleeve, revealling a flat plug of metal-wrapped plastic
lined with golden contacts.

Byers looked away from the digital mayhem for a moment to see
what Doggett was up to and was surprised to see what he was
holding up to the light. He walked away from the game. Langly
looked up to see what could possibly be a better distraction, and
then he too left Frohike to his toy.

"Wow," said Byers. "A USB mini-drive."

Doggett frowned. "This is a hard drive?"

"Yeah," said Langly, reaching out for it. "Handy for transferring
small files, since most computers don't have floppy drives
anymore."

Byers looked over Langly's shoulder. "I've never see one like
that before."

"Definitely custom," said Langly. He slotted it into a USB port
on his computer. "Hmmmm, it's got 4 megabytes of space, but
there's just a small text file on here. All the other sectors are
totally blank. Let's see what you are, little file." He double
clicked on the file's icon.

"Is that code?" asked Doggett as a list of short phrases of
characters and numbers scrolled down. Next to each phrase was a
word or two, such as 'disruptor', 'hydrogen cell', 'shield
enhancement', 'EMP blaster', 'longevity'.

"Yeah, cheat codes," replied Langly with distaste. "Seems like a
lot of trouble to go to for lousy cheat code list."

"Print it out," said Byers.

Langly did so and took the list over to Frohike. "Here, try some
of these."

Frohike looked at the list and scowled. "No way man. Cheat codes
are for kids."

"I don't think this is just a game," said Doggett. "I think those
codes might reveal something."

"Okay, okay." Frohike put down the console and tapped in the
first key code. His player acquired a new gun.

"Try the next one," said Byers.

"Yeah, hold your horses," growled Frohike. He keyed in another
one. The 'energy' indicator at the top of the screen changed to
'unlimited'. Frohike snorted derisively. He keyed several more
and each one only resulted in another weapon or player
enhancement. "These are just cheat codes. She gave 'em to *you*,
Doggett. She must have spotted you for a newbie and figured you'd
need 'em."

"When she gave them to me she said something about an 'option'.
Try holding down the 'option' key when you type it in."

Frohike let out an exasperated sigh. "Whose present is this
anyway?!" He keyed in the first code again while holding down the
'option' key. It gave him a different gun this time. He shook his
head.

"Try just one more. Pick a totally different one this time."

"Okay!" replied Frohike, not convinced. He typed in one from
halfway down the list. The screen was filled with a somewhat
fish-eyed aerial view of a living room. Doggett scowled and drew
closer. A little figure entered the top of the screen and tossed
a jacket on the armchair.

"What the hell!?" exclaimed Doggett. "That's my frickin' place!"

Frohike looked smug. "I told you it wasn't clean."

"Shut up. Try the other codes."

Frohike did so. A few of them just modified the game, but most of
them brought up video surveillance clips from Doggett's kitchen,
bedroom, living room, front and back entrance ("Damn!" said
Frohike), the X-files office and even his car in a view that
suggested the camera was hidden in the rear view mirror. None of
the clips was more than a couple of minutes long and none showed
Doggett doing anything more that mundane activities, to Doggett's
relief.

Frohike tapped the screen. "See, EVERYONE picks their nose!"

Doggett rubbed his forehead. "Just key in that last code."

Once again they were looking down at the X-files office. Reyes
sat at her desk off to one side. Doggett was absent. A man
entered the office and Reyes stood up to meet him halfway across
the room. His face was turned away from the camera. Reyes
looked... afraid? It could just be a trick of the grainy video.

"Well?" said Reyes.

The figure said nothing but handed her a small packet. She opened
it and shook something out. After a pause she said: "Thanks". The
figure turned and left the room, but did so in a manner that kept
his face away from the camera and then in shadow and out of focus
on the edge of the picture.

"What the hell was that about?" Doggett wondered aloud.

"Maybe it was just the mail boy," suggested Langly, but like the
other three, he knew this was highly unlikely.

"Whiskeyjack wouldn't have included that clip if it wasn't
significant," Byers pointed out.

"Why is Whiskeyjack spying on me and then giving me the footage
anyway?"

Langly shook his head. "I don't think she placed those cameras. I
think she..." Langly's mind was sidetracked momentarily by a
different thought. "Er... she has accessed the cameras, or the
archived digital files from them, and has sent you this stuff so
you know to watch out."

Langly then pursued the thought that had interrupted him. "So,
tell us about this Whiskeyjack woman."

Frohike eyes shone as his mind travelled to a happy place. "Well,
she's, uh, has, er..." He groped the air in front of him as
though he was sculpting watermelons and then shrugged. "What can
I say? She's HOT!"

Doggett rolled his eyes.

Langly had his finger on his chin. "I bet she digs retro." He got
a dreamy look on his face. "I bet she's got an Apple IIe emulator
running on a G4 cube just so she can play 'Conan the Barbarian'."

"Or classic 'Lode Runner'," mused Byers, caught up in the
fantasy.

Doggett needed to change the subject. "So can you guys do a sweep
of my place and remove the bugs? I don't think I can trust
someone from the Bureau."

Byers' eyes were wide. "Oh no! You can't let them know that you
know. You'll just have to be careful--"

"--without *looking* like you're being careful," Langly chimed
in.

Doggett looked at his watch. "Okay, I guess. I've gotta go home
and pack. I'm headed to Seattle in the morning. We'll talk about
this some more when I get back."

Byers frowned. "What's happening in Seattle?"

Doggett hesitated. The dime dropped for Langly first. "You're not
looking into the *Monkey-Man*, are you?"

"Why? Do you know something about it?"

Frohike laughed. "Yeah! We know the guy in the suit!"

"Man! That one's a classic!" Langly slapped his knee. "Give him a
few more days to let it make national headlines before you arrest
him, okay?"

Doggett said nothing and left the office.


Back at home, he did his best not to look at the places where he
knew the cameras were hidden. It was even more difficult not to
behave self-consciously. Finally he climbed into bed and lay
there staring up at the light fixture that he knew was staring
back at him. Then he rolled over, pulled the sheets up to his
ears and fell asleep.



PACIFIC COAST AIR FLIGHT 182
WASHINGTON TO SEATTLE
8:41 AM

Doggett flipped absently through the airline magazine and glanced
at Reyes. She was looking out the window. He touched her arm and
she turned to face him.

"Uh, there's something you should know about this case."

Reyes frowned. "What?"

"I have it from a--" He swallowed. "--Uh, reliable authority that
this monkey guy thing is a hoax."

Reyes was indignant. "It is a *fact* that these people are
missing, Agent Doggett. This isn't some innocent prank."

"Right, exactly! I'm just saying that we should be prepared to
look for a regular human being in this case and not let ourselves
get caught up in the hysteria."

Reyes clenched her teeth and seemed to be about to say something
but instead she turned away and resumed staring out the window,
though it was plain that she was fuming. Doggett nodded to
himself and thought, Whatever, and studied the emergency
procedures card.



SPIRIT RIVER, WASHINGTON
1:16 PM

The agents pulled into the parking lot in front of the sheriff's
office just as the sheriff's Ford Explorer was peeling out onto
the highway. The two agents watched it disappear around a bend as
they entered the office. A middle-aged woman with blonde hair and
dark roots shot through with grey sat at a desk.

Agent Reyes held up her badge. "Good afternoon. I'm Special Agent
Monica Reyes and this is Special Agent John Doggett. We're with
the FBI. I believe you're expecting us."

"Oh yeah, hi. Yeah, I'm Sue, by the way. Yeah, you just missed
the guys. They got a call about a bear over by the dump." She
looked apologetic and scratched her head idly with her pen.
"Yeah, we're figuring that the bear might be what's causing all
the trouble so you folks might have come in for nothing, I'm
afraid."

Reyes looked stunned. "A bear? How do they know it's a bear? Are
they sure?"

"Oh yeah. Got a good eyewitness: the sheriff's wife! Saw the bear
this morning and it was mauling the neighbor's shi-tzu, poor
little thing. Anyway, before Sheriff Dodgeson could get after it
with his gun it had disappeared into the woods. But a bear gone
bad gets pretty predictable and so sure enough, he's turned up at
the dump, so they've gone out to get him."

Reyes mouth was agape. She turned to Doggett. He shrugged. He
couldn't get angry about it. At this stage, he couldn't see the
point.

"Well--"

Reyes was interrupted by a squawk from the police radio. Sue held
up her finger and mouthed, "just a minute" and clicked on the
transmitter. "Yeah, Sue here."

"Hey Sue, we've just missed the bear again. He spooked off as
soon as we pulled up. Could you call up the Wildlife Control guys
and get them to bring in a trap? We're gonna have to just catch
this thing and then relocate it or destroy it."

"Okay, Reg. I'll get on it. Hey, the FBI's here. Whaddya want
them to do?"

"Aw shoot. Uhhh, have them wait and I'll chat with them when I
get back. Don't suppose they'd like to hang around for a bear
hunt?"



SPIRIT RIVER MUNICIPAL DUMP
3:27PM

Reyes and Doggett sat in their rental Grand Am, watching as
wildlife control officers unloaded a large live trap from a
flatbed truck.

"Y'know, if we leave now we could at least spend the night in a
decent hotel in Seattle and catch the first flight out in the
morning," said Doggett.

Reyes closed her eyes and made a frustrated noise. "Just give me
a few more hours."

Doggett looked at her in disbelief. "I don't get it. There's no
crime here! We are not 'Federal Bear Investigators'. It's
unfortunate that it got these people but *those* guys are the
ones who'll get the perp." He gestured at the trap. "There's
nothing more for us to do here."

"We haven't found any bodies yet, Agent Doggett! I *know* that a
bear is not the problem here. Why can't you trust me when I say
I've got a feeling about something?"

"Well I've got a feeling that we're seriously wasting our time."

Before Reyes could fire back a reply, Deputy Ludwick rapped on
the window. He looked excited. Reyes lowered the window.

"We've got a sighting of something out at Mile 40 that might just
be the bear, but our witness says he's dead sure that it's the
Monkey Man!"

Reyes shot Doggett an 'I told you so' look as she turned the key
in the ignition.


By the time they reached the mile marker, the sheriff and the
deputy were already out of their truck. The sheriff ran up to a
man who was standing next to an ancient blue Ford pick-up. The
man gestured at the woods on the left side of the road. As Reyes
and Doggett got out of their car, the sheriff waved at them to
follow. He began jogging towards the woods as soon as they drew
close.

"Terry there says it was just ambling along," he huffed. "He just
lost sight of it a minute ago so it couldn't have gone far."

The small group fanned out and moved among the giant trees up a
low hill. As they crested the rise, the deputy shouted. The other
three ran to join him. He was standing in the middle of a
campsite that appeared to be recently inhabited.

"Could be a hunter," said the sheriff.

"Could it be the man you said was missing?" asked Doggett.

"Wayne Baydalla?" The sheriff scuffed thoughtfully at the dead
coals in the firepit. "I suppose, though he's not really the
camping type."

"Wayne's an odd duck," said Ludwick. "He ran the local
convenience store up until he had to close it a couple of weeks
ago. Then he came to us with one of the first photos of the
Monkey Man. The day after that he disappeared."

Doggett had a thought. "Did Wayne have a computer?"

Sheriff Dodgeson frowned. "Well, yeah, as a matter of fact, he
did. That's what was odd about him. He didn't socialise much.
When we checked his house after he went missing we found lots of
computer equipment." A light went on in the sheriff's eyes. "I
was wondering why you people showed up. You're investigating him,
right? You think he's some kind of terrorist?"

Reyes shook her head and cast an irritated look at Doggett. "No
that's not why we're here. We're here looking into the Monkey
Man."

Doggett turned to her, exasperated. "And I think that Mr.
Baydalla is the guy in the suit, wasting our time with this
stupid stunt."

Reyes squinted at him in disbelief. "What about the missing
woman?"

"I think--"

Reyes put her hand on his arm, and raised her other hand to
indicate silence. She scanned the still, green forest around
them. The other three also began looking around, trying to see or
hear what had caught her attention. A breeze stirred a muted roar
from the treetops high above them.

"Oh God!!... HELP ME!!!"

The four exchanged startled glances.

The broke into a run through the brush in the direction the cry
had come from. They tripped and stumbled over moss-covered logs,
then fanned out, moving more slowly through the lush covering of
ferns, drawing their weapons as they walked.

"Over here!" shouted Reyes.

The others joined her where she knelt over a dark, hairy form
huddled on the ground. She pulled at the shoulder and the body
rolled towards them. It had no head. Doggett stepped past her and
pushed the ferns aside. He picked up a black, furry shape from
where it had rolled against a stump. He shook it. A man's head
fell out and bounced on the soft moss. Doggett was left holding a
mask.

The sheriff gently nudged the head over with his toe. "It's
Wayne," he rasped.

Doggett scanned the stunned faces. "No bear did this."

The deputy tried a couple of times to get a word out and finally
managed: "I'll go get back-up." He jerked his thumb over his
shoulder in the direction of the highway.

Doggett nodded. "You go do that."

As the deputy sprinted off into the woods, the other three turned
and headed in the opposite direction.

The three separated but remained in sight of one another. They
moved as quickly as they dared, scanning the dark avenues between
the towering trees. Reyes ducked around behind a massive cedar
and found nothing. She circled the tree until she could see the
sheriff thirty yards away. She'd lost sight of Doggett. She moved
forward, expecting to see him reappear from behind a tree.

"Agent Doggett?!"

There was no reply.

"AGENT DOGGETT!"

The sheriff was looking at her.

"Can you see him from where you are?!" she yelled.

The sheriff shook his head.


Doggett emerged from the dripping cedars into a meadow. A large
farmhouse, silver with age, hunched at the far end of the field
up against the dark wall of trees. Its windows had the startled
look of abandonment. Doggett moved towards the house, keeping
under the cover of the brush on the perimeter of the clearing. He
slipped towards the corner of the building and flattened himself
against the wall. He rolled slowly towards the window and peered
through a shattered window pane. The interior of the house was
dark as night. He rolled away from the window and around the
corner of the house. He crouched and ducked beneath another
window and moved towards the door. It was slightly ajar, though
the leaf litter piled against it suggested that it hadn't been
moved in some time. He kicked it open and recoiled so that the
wall was between himself and whoever might be inside. There was
no noise but the soft hiss of dust resettling. He turned on his
flashlight and swept through the door, gun ready.

He froze and lowered his gun. He slowly panned the gloom with his
flashlight, illuminating the front hall, the front room, up the
stairs. Against every wall, piled from floor to ceiling like fire
wood, were human bones and skulls.

He whirled, gun ready, as a movement caught his eye. A tiny old
woman stood in the door of the front room, her hands clasped in
front of her, her head tilted to one side and a gentle smile on
her face. She wore a faded pink flowered dress which hung
shapelessly around her knees. The stockings on her bandy legs
didn't quite reach to its hem. Over the dress she wore a fuzzy
old Cowichan sweater. Her thinning silver hair was pulled up with
blue plastic butterfly barrettes. Her face was as wrinkled and
brown as a walnut. Her eyes glittered as black and as bright as
crow's. They were framed by ancient tortoise-shell glasses. The
warmth in her smile somehow over-rode the horror of the wall of
bones behind her.

She held out her arms. "John!" She said it like he was her son,
finally come to visit.

Doggett lowered his weapon and slowly approached her. He was
shocked and confused, but for some reason, he was not afraid. She
clasped his arms and gazed up into his face. He opened his mouth,
but couldn't find any words.

The light filtering into the room grew brighter as the sun began
to emerge from the clouds. The old woman looked off to one side.
"Oh!" she exclaimed happily. "Isn't that beautiful?!"

Doggett turned his head slowly. In a gap in the stack of skeletal
remains on the stairway was a small, stained-glass window. It
depicted a pair of robins fluttering around a nest containing
three eggs. The nest was surrounded by apple blossoms. The glass
eggs were brilliant blue crystals that sparkled in the
strengthening sunlight.

Doggett gazed at the window. Suddenly, he was overcome by a wave
of terrible, inexplicable grief. He gasped and collapsed to his
knees. "Oh God!" he cried. "What's happening?! What is this
place?!"

The old woman put her hand on his face and turned his head
towards her. His eyes were filled with anguish. He choked for
breath. She stroked his cheek. "Shhhhh, there now, it's all
right." She stooped and slipped her arm under his. "Now, now, get
up on your feet." He stood. "That's a good fellow, now come along
with me."

She took his hand in hers and led him towards the back of the
house. He followed in a daze. They passed down a hallway of bones
and into the kitchen. There was a table and several chairs in the
middle of the room. She pulled one of the chairs away from the
table and guided Doggett by the hand. "Now you just sit here and
rest."

Doggett sat obediently, helplessly. Something was terribly,
horribly wrong, more than just this incredible mausoleum. He
didn't know this woman and yet he felt that he did. He watched
her in horror as she bustled about the kitchen, opening cupboards
to reveal more skulls piled on top of one another. She pulled
open drawers that rattled with loose ribs, femurs, metatarsi. She
mumbled to herself: "Now where did I put it?" as she picked
through a sink full of scapulae like they were dishes left to
drip dry. She grabbed an old sugar tin from the counter and shook
it. It rattled. "Aaahhh," she said with satisfaction as she pried
the lid off and tipped something shiny into her hand. She
shuffled towards Doggett.

"I want you to have this." She took his hand in hers and pushed a
small object into his palm.

He slowly opened his hand. It was a small metal disk with a hole
in its center. It was the size and thickness of a nickel, but
rounded, like a flattened doughnut. It was as shiny and
unblemished as mercury. Doggett looked up at her and finally
found his voice.

"What is this?"

She laughed, a bright bubbly sound. "Oh, you might find it comes
in handy someday," she said in playfully conspiratorial sort of
voice. She laughed again.

Doggett polished it with his thumb. It was smooth as glass.
Smoother, in fact. It felt like melting ice, except that it was
slightly warm, almost as though it was alive. Doggett suddenly
realised that the unexplained feeling of grief had passed. He
felt remarkably calm.

She took his hand and pulled gently. "Come!"

Doggett rose and followed her. They picked their way up through
the narrow space on the stairway next to the ghastly pile. The
second floor was filled with the same horror as the first. On the
landing, Doggett stopped. The woman turned and looked at him
patiently, as though she knew what he was going to say.

"Who are these people?" Doggett gestured at the staring ivory
faces that surrounded them.

The woman's smile faded. Her face was veiled in sadness. "These
are the people you have to save," she said as her dark eyes
penetrated his. "And the people you must sacrifice." She turned
again and led him into a room, towards a window. She indicated
with her hand that he should look through it.

There was another field beyond the trees. Hundreds of vehicles
were parked there. New arrivals turned into the field from a dirt
road that ran along the far side of the field. People were
emerging from the parked vehicles and walking towards a large
barn.

Doggett turned to the old woman who smiled brightly, expectantly
at him. "What's going on there?" he asked.

Her eyes glittered and her mouth pulled tight. "Nothing good, you
can be sure," she replied as she patted his hand. She released
it, turned and walked out of the room.

Doggett followed her down the stairs to the front door which she
held open for him. He paused on the porch and looked at the metal
disk in his hand. He did not understand what was happening, but
somehow, it didn't seem to matter. He looked up at her. "Thank
you," he said.

She gazed at him with the solemn weight of centuries. It rested
on him like a comforting blanket. "Do not worry, John," she said
softly. "You are not alone."

Doggett nodded. Some deeper part of him understood. He turned and
descended to the yard. He looked back. The woman still stood
there in the door, smiling at him. She made a gesture like a
mother would make to her child to tell him to hurry along.
Doggett nodded again and dropped the disk in his pocket loped
back across the field. He had to get the others.

He ducked under the overhanging cedar branches and wove in and
out among the mossy trunks. He heard his name being called.

"YEAH!" he shouted, and began running towards the voices. The
responding shouts now carried a note of recognition. He spotted
Reyes and then the sheriff.

"Where did you go?!" Reyes was frantic.

Doggett gestured over his shoulder. "There's a house back there.
It's--." He couldn't tell them the rest. They had to see it.
"It's not far." He began walking quickly, back towards the field.
"And there's something going on. Lots of cars. People gathering
for something. You got some kind of farm fair on around here,
Sheriff Dodgeson?"

The sheriff shook his head. "No, I don't know what it could be."

The radio on the sheriff's belt crackled. It was Ludwick
returning with back-up. "I'll go and tell them where we are." The
sheriff turned and retreated into the ferns. Doggett and Reyes
ran towards the field.

When they finally reached the open, Doggett ran ahead of Reyes to
the house. He burst through the door and halted. It was empty. He
looked at the wall above the stairway where the stained-glass
window should have been, but there was just a gaping frame. He
ran down the hallway to the kitchen and found the counters bare
and nothing in the sink but dead leaves. He frantically tore open
cupboards and drawers. Empty. Then he reached into his pocket and
pulled out the metal disk.

Reyes caught up with him. "What did you find here? What's that?"

Doggett looked at the rusty metal washer in his palm. "Nothing."
He turned it over in his fingers. "It's just junk." He hurled it
through the broken window above the sink. "C'mon." He ran out of
the house before Reyes could say anything else.

They reached the edge of the impromptu parking lot and stopped to
survey the scene. There didn't seem to be anyone outside.

"They're in there." Doggett nodded towards the barn.

He and Reyes drew their weapons and began moving across the
field, taking cover behind the parked vehicles. There wasn't a
lot of noise coming from the barn even though there should have
been hundreds of people inside. Just as they were a few car
lengths from the building, the large door slid open and people
began pouring out, headed in the direction of the cars. They were
male and female, of all races, mostly adults, but quite a few
were elderly and several were teenagers. Everyone was oddly
silent. Their faces were blank masks.

Reyes and Doggett retreated to the trees.

"What do we do?" asked Reyes as she watched the people climbing
into cars without a word of 'goodbye' to their neighbors.

"What *can* we do?" replied Doggett. "We don't even know if they
were doing anything illegal."

Cars and trucks began pulling out of the field. Headlights
slashed the mist.

"We could get the sheriff to set up road blocks. There can't be
many roads out of the area," suggested Reyes.

"And what should they be on the look out for?"

Reyes said nothing.

"Let's get out of here." Doggett frowned at the departing cars
and headed back into the woods.



SPIRIT RIVER SHERIFF'S OFFICE
8:33 PM

The two agents, the sheriff and several other county law
enforcement officers stood around a table in a simple meeting
room.

"Well, we'll keep an eye on that farm," said Dodgeson. "We
haven't had any trouble there before. I don't know what could be
going on. But we don't want any Aryan Nations guys setting up
shop in our back yard."

Reyes shook her head. "These weren't Aryan Nations."

Dodgeson looked puzzled. "So who are they?"

Reyes opened her mouth, but hesitated. Finally she said: "We
don't know. If you could just keep an eye out and let us know if
you see anything unusual, it would be appreciated."

"You probably won't see anything," said Doggett. Reyes looked at
him, surprised. "They knew we were there," he said to her. "They
won't come back."

"What about Wayne's murder?" asked the deputy. "Do you think
someone from that farm might be the killer?"

Doggett let out an exhausted sigh. Yes, what about that?
"Unfortunately, we're unable to carry on that investigation."
Reyes glared at him as though this was news to her; he frowned
back to indicate that she shouldn't argue. "But we'll be passing
it along to a couple of agents from the local field office."

Reyes opened her mouth as if to protest, but instead said: "We'll
be filing a report, of course."

"Yeah, we'll let you know what happens," continued Doggett. "The
other agents should be here first thing tomorrow." He nodded at
Reyes and began walking towards the door.

"Fine. Thanks for your help," said the sheriff, puzzled. He shook
their hands as they left.



Once they were out of the building, Reyes turned on Doggett.
"What are you doing? Why are we dropping this investigation?"

"You know as well as I do where this is going to lead. The
coroner's going to find that that guy's head didn't get cut off
with any conventional weapon. We both know the killer was in that
barn but they're never gonna find him. Even if they did, they'll
wish they hadn't."

"That's the conclusion you've reached, is it?"

"We're not even supposed to be *out* here. We should leave this
to the local office." Doggett unlocked the car and climbed in.

Reyes followed suit. She was livid. "They won't have a clue what
they're dealing with. At least we have some idea where to begin."

Doggett turned the ignition and engaged the drive. "We're going
back to D.C."

Reyes could barely contain her frustration and rage. "What is it
that you're afraid of, John? What are you avoiding? Why can't we
function as a team? You make these decisions without my input and
then boom!" She slapped her fist in her hand. "John Doggett's
word is law. I'm beginning to think that you're deliberately
stifling X-file investigations. You KNOW there was something
*monumental* going on in that barn and now you're just running
away!"

Doggett tried to keep his voice level. "We'll discuss it with
Skinner when we get back."



FBI HEADQUARTERS
ONE DAY LATER

In the parking garage, Doggett climbed into his car. He noted the
rearview mirror was turned away from him and thought of the
hidden camera. He adjusted it and was startled to see the
reflection of a woman scrunched down in the back seat.

"Hi, Argyle."

Doggett whipped around as he reached for his gun. It was
Whiskeyjack, minus the Hallowe'en makeup, leather, orange hair,
and about three cup-sizes.

"Relax. It's just me. Face forward so you don't draw attention."

"What about..." He nodded at the rearview mirror.

"I've disabled it with a localised electromagnetic pulse. They'll
think it malfunctioned. I did a sweep and it's the only bug in
the car, but when they come in to fix it tonight, you can bet
they'll install a back-up."

Doggett shuddered at the thought of covert 'repairmen' invading
his home and his vehicle as he slept.

"What do you want?"

"I'm here to warn you that something big is about to hit the fan.
You've been betrayed."

"What? What are you talking about?"

She swore under her breath as her attention was suddenly focused
on something outside the car. Just as Doggett turned to look at
what had distracted her she said: "Here. You dropped this."

She threw something onto the front passenger seat but it overshot
the seat and slid across the floor. As Doggett leaned forward to
get it she said: "You need to have more faith, John."

The object winked at him in the shadow. He picked it up. It was
the silver disk, smooth and perfect.

"How did you get--?"

He sat up and looked at the rearview mirror but couldn't see her.
He looked back. She was gone. He faced forward again to see
Skinner and three other agents, including Reyes, approaching the
car. He slipped the disk into his pocket. Skinner gestured for
him to roll the window down. He didn't look pleased.

"Agent Doggett, what are you doing?"

"I'm just heading home, sir."

"Get out of the car."

Doggett climbed out. Skinner leaned forward and looked into the
car. "I could have sworn I saw someone in here."

Doggett kept his face blank. "It must have been a trick of the
light, sir." He looked at Reyes. She looked upset. "What's--"

One of the other two agents grabbed him and spun him. "Hands on
the car!"

"HEY! What the hell's going on here?!"

The agent took his gun, patted down his sides, his arms, his
back, down his legs to his ankles, took another gun, and then
pulled Doggett's hands down and slapped on hand-cuffs. "You're
under arrest for the murder of Dr. Janine Lafleur."

"WHAT?! What is this b.s., Skinner?!"

The agent tried to turn Doggett away from Skinner. "You have the
right to--" he began.

Doggett lunged at Skinner. "I thought you were the one person
left in the Bureau with any integrity, but there's no one left!"

"YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT--" yelled the agent, pulling
Doggett back.

"You're on strings just like everyone else!" Doggett was taut
with rage.

Skinner said nothing.

The agent restraining Doggett struggled to pull him away.

"ANYTHING YOU SAY--"

"Is Kersh behind this?! Is this him getting back at me?!"

Skinner bared his teeth and looked off to the side, then back to
Doggett.

"--CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU IN A COURT OF LAW--"

"SHUT UP!" interrupted Skinner, glaring at the agent. He faced
Doggett. "I want to believe that you're innocent in this! I've
seen this happen before, to Scully and to Mulder! But I'm afraid
that the evidence is... compelling."

"WHAT evidence?!"

Skinner opened his mouth and hesitated. "I can't."

Doggett looked at him in disbelief. "Can't what? Find a spine?!
Can't pull your head out of your ASS and see what's happening
here?!"

Skinner turned away.

"GO TO HELL, SKINNER!!"

Reyes stepped forward. Her eyes showed conflicting emotions.

Doggett looked at her, his face contorted with anger and
disbelief. "Reyes? What the hell's going on?"

"John, I'm sorry."

Doggett said nothing. The two agents pulled him away.

"You have the right to remain silent..."



TO BE CONTINUED

Title: "Ashes to ashes" (2/2 - conclusion of "Wiss-ka-tjon") 
Author: Rutabaga [rutabaga1999@yahoo.ca]
Rating: PG
Archive: Gossamer, XFMU, others by request
Category: X-file, mytharc
Keywords: none
Spoilers: "Existence"
Summary: Now to try and sort things out: Doggett fights a murder
charge, Skinner and Reyes get information from a startling
source, and the Lone Gunmen wish they'd practiced safe software. 



OFFICE OF THE LONE GUNMEN
3:27AM

The empty office was quiet except for the chorus of humming
cooling fans. Green, red and orange equipment lights winked
softly in the darkness. Screensavers swirled, folded, bounced and
repeated ad infinitum.

On Langly's screen, Itchy chased Scratchy in and out of folder
icons. Scratchy hid in the trash can icon. Itchy dropped a bomb
into it. It blew up. A smoldering Scratchy climbed out, picked up
his eyeballs and headed for the hard drive icon. Itchy popped out
of a folder wielding an axe and--

The screen went black. The computer beeped. The hard drive
clicked and whirred. The desktop appeared. Programs opened
themselves, modified files and then closed. Another beep, this
time from across the room as another hard drive spun to life.
Soon the room was filled with the sound of spinning and grinding
hard drives. Every screen flashed as files spontaneously opened
and closed and data rearranged itself.



9:17AM

A dark line of pines marched up the lower slopes of the hill.
Bright sunshine baked shimmering air out of the powdery earth. A
pair of bright blue butterflies danced in the still, dry grass.
They floated towards the little old woman standing at the top of
the hill. A massive column of dark smoke boiled behind her. She
gestured for him to follow, then turned and disappeared over the
crest of the hill. The smoke billowed thick and black. The sun
became a red disk. Ashes fell from the sky.

"John Doggett."

Doggett sat up on the bench in the holding cell, instantly
overcome by a splitting headache. The guard held the door of the
cell open. Archie Freeman, Doggett's lawyer, waited for him.
Doggett rose and followed him down the hall.



9:44AM

Doggett sat at the table in the interrogation room, rubbing his
temples. Freeman was scowling at the investigator.

"It's strictly coincidence that my client was in Garrett County
at the time of their disappearance. The car could have been
dumped there later."

"I'd like Mr. Doggett to clarify the point himself, if you don't
mind." He looked at Doggett. "What were you doing at Deep Creek
Lake on October 17, 1990?" asked the investigator.

Doggett sighed. "I was on a fishing trip with my son."

"Was anyone else with you?"

"No."

"We understand that your son is dead, Mr. Doggett. Did you meet
with anyone else who could confirm your whereabouts on that day?"

"You think I took my son along to commit a murder?"

Freeman put his hand on Doggett's arm. "John..."

"You could help us by answering the question, Mr. Doggett."

"No, I didn't meet with anyone else."

The investigator lifted a sheet in the file with his pen. "You
have a Winchester Defender, which you've owned since 1988--"

Freeman interrupted. "Listen, you can't prove it's the murder
weapon, you didn't find anything at my client's home, nothing but
circumstantial--"

"What about these?" The investigator flipped two evidence bags
onto the table. One contained a small piece of paper with a
Virginia license plate number on it. The other was a
topographical chart of Garrett County with a circle pencilled
around a deep area of the river. "That's Lafleur's car," he said,
pointing to the paper scrap. "And that's where the car was
found." He tapped the circle on the chart. "We found both of
these in your home office. I suppose you wanted to be sure the
car was going to be under deep enough. Turns out it wasn't." The
investigator smirked.

"Any dumbass could see this stuff was planted," said Doggett.
"Why the hell would I hold onto this crap? If I was a murderer,
why wouldn't I destroy it?"

"Good questions that you should be asking yourself in preparation
for your defence."  

"You don't have anything," said Freeman.

The investigator looked smug. He tossed a bundle of bank
statements held together with a bull clip onto the table. "Also
from your office." He shook his head with mock concern. "Very
sloppy. A numbered account, off-shore, opened September of that
year that now contains 1.4 million dollars."

Doggett pulled his head back in shock. His eyes were wide.

The investigator's lip curled. "What does a federal employee do
to make that kind of money?"

Doggett was incredulous. "What're you talking about! I don't
*have* that kind of money!"

"Yeah, you do, and there were transactions for fourty grand one
day before and one day after Lafleur went missing and quite a few
more since. We're cross-checking the transaction dates with the
cold case files. It looks like you've been moonlighting, Agent
Doggett."

Doggett lunged across the table. The investigator leaped back,
knocking over his chair. Freeman grabbed at Doggett. Papers and
evidence bags flew off of the table.

Doggett's face was twisted with rage. "Christ, this is such an
obvious frickin' SET UP!--"

"John--" Freeman pulled at his shoulder.

The investigator straightened his jacket. "Somebody's set you up
pretty generously; 1.4 mill--"

"--What the hell kind of investigators are you?! I didn't even
frickin' KNOW the woman! I wasn't in the frickin' FBI!"

"John!"

The investigator's eyes narrowed. "Hitmen don't usually know
their victims."

Doggett laughed bitterly. "Yeah right, I'm a frickin' hitman!"

"JOHN!" shouted Freeman. He faced the investigator. "My client is
not saying anything more!" He motioned for the guard to open the
door. He pulled Doggett away from the table.

Reyes and Skinner watched from behind the mirror. 

"I don't believe it. In all the time that I've worked with Agent
Doggett I've *never* had reason to doubt his integrity," said
Skinner, though his voice betrayed a shade of doubt.

Reyes' shoulders dropped with exhaustion. "I don't know. That
tape... It seems to be genuine."

"Yeah, 'seems'," said Skinner from between clenched teeth.



OFFICE OF THE LONE GUNMEN
10:46AM

Langly and Byers sat and watched as data danced across the
monitors. Frohike stumbled through the door, bleary-eyed and more
dishevelled than usual. 

"What's so urgent I had to get up before noon?" he mumbled.

Langly looked disgusted. "We've been infected."

Frohike was suddenly awake. "WHAT?! How?!"

"It would seem that it's a gift from Whiskeyjack," said Byers.

Frohike looked from him to the computers with disbelief. "Nooooo,
she wouldn't do that to us."

Langly was impatient. "Well, she did, and she did a good job of
it too."

Frohike looked sour. "So much for your 'impenetrable' wall, eh
Ringo?"

Langly looked affronted. "Hey man, that code is rock solid. She
was devious about this." His expression softened. "Actually, it's
pretty damned impressive."

Byers nodded in agreement. "It's quite clever. It's modelled on
the behaviour of a real virus. It could only infect the proper
host: us, and only under the right conditions."

Langly gestured at his own buzzing and blinking machine. "I admit
I should have paid more attention to that mini-drive. It carried
a bit more than just that file."

"It's very elegant," continued Byers. "The fragment on the
mini-drive was a trigger for the virus base contained in the
gaming chip."

"But there was a time delay." Langly's mouth turned up in
amusement. "My guess is that *you* put the whole thing into high
gear last night when you hit a certain score on the game."

Frohike scowled. He gestured at the activity on the monitors. "So
now what's it doing?"

Langly grinned. "The bits from the chip and the drive have
modified the game. It's not a game anymore."

The flashing screens reflected in Byers eyes. "Each fragment on
its own is innocuous, meaningless."

Frohike's impatience mounted. "Okay, but what's it DOING?!"

Byers nodded towards the monitor. "It's stitching together new
data using host data scattered around our network--" He paused
significantly. "All the material that Whiskeyjack has sent us
over the years."

Langly's eyes glowed. "It's putting the puzzle together."

"Why aren't you guys doing something to stop it? Why haven't you
pulled the plugs?" Frohike looked a bit frantic.

In reply, Langly reached over and clicked the mouse. An alert box
appeared: "Don't sweat, guys, I won't trash your precious porn.
Just let this little guy do his job. Love, WJ"

Langly looked at Frohike. Frohike seemed to be mollified. Happy,
in fact.

He giggled. "She said 'love'!"



FBI HEADQUARTERS
2:02PM

Skinner, Reyes, the investigator, Doggett and Freeman were
assembled in a conference room. A monitor and VCR sat on one end
of the table. Doggett was glaring at Skinner.

Skinner cleared his throat. "Agent Doggett, against the protests
of those who are investigating this case, I've decided to show
you this videotape. I'm hoping that you'll be able to explain
it."

Reyes pressed 'play' on the VCR.

The monitor displayed a shopping mall parking lot at night. A
light coloured Chevrolet Caprice pulled into a space and the
lights went off. The video was grainy, but it was still clear
that it was Doggett who emerged from the vehicle; it was his face
and his distinctive gait. He walked to a dark Ford Crown Victoria
parked several stalls away, facing the camera. He climbed into
the passenger seat. His face was in light, but the person in the
driver's seat was in shadow. The driver passed an envelope to
Doggett. A soft pinpoint of light bloomed in the middle of the
driver's silhouetted head. 

Doggett was saying something to the driver. The little light
bobbed up and down in reply-- the glowing ember of a cigarette.
They talked for several minutes. Doggett then climbed out of the
car and returned to his car, started it and pulled away. A few
moments passed and then the Crown Vic also started and pulled
away. As the car turned in front of the camera, the light fell in
the driver's window and grazed a portion of his face for a
moment. It was the Cigarette Smoking Man.

The tape ended.

Skinner looked hard at Doggett. "Is that you, Agent Doggett?"

Doggett looked very tired. "Yeah, that's me. But that was in
'97."

"What were you doing?"

Doggett stared at the table top for a moment. Then he looked at
the monitor, now blank. "He approached me. He made me an offer,
but it was unspecified, like he was just testing the waters."

"What kind of offer?"

Freeman leaned over to Doggett. "John, don't answer that."

Doggett looked at him. "No, I want to get this cleared up." He
took a breath and faced Skinner. "Like I said, it was
unspecified. I don't know, he was offering me... money, power, I
guess, except that he only implied things, he never said anything
straight out. He just hinted that if I did the right things for
the right people, things would go right for me." Doggett leaned
towards Skinner. His voice was hard as steel: "I told him I
wasn't interested."

"Had you met that man before?"

Doggett's eyes flickered and there was a fatal pause. "No."

"You're sure," said Skinner.

"Yeah."

Skinner fidgeted absently with his coffee cup. "Fine." He jerked
his head in the direction of the door. "You can go."

Doggett and his lawyer rose and left.

The investigator stood up. "Well, *that* was useful," he said
sarcastically. He left.

Reyes and Skinner sat in silence for a moment. Reyes flipped back
a page in her notepad. She frowned. 

"Did you write this?"

She slid the pad in front of Skinner. He looked at it. Written in
large letters across the top of the page was the word 'HOTDOGS'.

Skinner smirked. "No!"

Reyes looked at the pad thoughtfully. "I left this here while I
went to get a cable for the VCR. No one else was in the room when
I left."

"Why would someone write 'hotdogs'? What the hell kind of message
is that?"

Reyes raised her eyebrows. "There's a hotdog stand right across
the street." She looked at Skinner and smiled. "Let me buy you
lunch."



2:53PM

The silver Chevrolet Impala was parked with a clear view of the
entrance to the J. Edgar Hoover building. The driver did not
match the nondescriptness of the vehicle. Whiskeyjack wore lurid
make-up, full punk gear and black sunglasses. She scanned the
radio until she hit an eighties retro program. She drummed on the
steering wheel and scrutinised the people exiting the building.

    "4, 3, 2, 1...
    Earth below us
    Drifting, falling
    Floating weightless
    Calling, calling home..."

Skinner and Reyes emerged from the building and crossed the
street to the hotdog stand on the corner. Whiskeyjack put the car
in drive, waited for a gap in traffic, and then pulled around to
the curb in front of them. She lowered the passenger side window.
First Reyes and then Skinner looked at her in puzzlement. They
approached the car.

"Get in," she ordered.

"Who the hell are you?" asked Skinner, scowling.

"That's irrelevant. Get in and I'll take you to meet someone who
can help you help Agent Doggett."

Skinner looked at Reyes. She shrugged. They turned away for a
moment and spoke in low tones. Whiskeyjack tapped the steering
wheel irritably.

    "Starting to collect
    Requested data
    'What will it affect
    When all is done?'
    Thinks Major Tom..."
    
Reyes pointed at the hotdog stand. "Just let me pay for my
hotdog." Whiskeyjack rolled her eyes. Skinner opened the door and
got into the passenger seat. There was a tell-tale click of a
safety being disengaged. Whiskeyjack looked to see Skinner's gun
pointed at her. She smiled at him. Skinner smiled back.

    "Back at ground control
    There is a problem
    'Go to rockets full'
    Not responding
    'Hello Major Tom
    Are you receiving?
    Turn the thrusters on
    We are standing by'
    There's no reply..."

Reyes climbed in the back seat. "What do you know about Agent
Doggett?" she asked.

Whiskeyjack shifted into drive. "What I know is of no use to you.
You're going to meet the guy with all the answers."

She turned up the radio to discourage further conversation.

    "4, 3, 2, 1...
    Earth below us
    Drifting, falling
    Floating weightless
    Calling, calling home..."

She looked into the rearview mirror and noted the black Chevy
Tahoe following three car-lengths behind them. She stomped the
accelerator. Skinner and Reyes yelled as she ran a red light. The
traffic snarled in her wake. The Tahoe was cut off. She grinned
with satisfaction.

"What the hell are you doing?!" cried Skinner.

"Keeping the party to a manageable size."



OFFICE OF THE LONE GUNMEN
3:22PM

Byers sat at his computer, opening and closing the newly created
files. Langly and Frohike stood behind him, watching. All of
their mouths were hanging open.

"Holy Mother of God," breathed Frohike.

Langly shook his head. "No... Holy SH--"



CHATEAU POTOMAC MOTEL
3:24 PM

Whiskeyjack parked the Impala in front of room number 22. The
three of them climbed out. Whiskeyjack reached the door first,
key ready, and stopped. She turned to face Reyes and Skinner. She
looked pointedly at Skinner's gun.

"I'd appreciate it if you'd put your weapon away."

"Why?" 

"I'm afraid you'll be tempted to use it when you see who's behind
door number 22."

Skinner hesitated and then slipped the gun into its holster. He
left it unclipped.

Whiskeyjack opened the door and entered the room. The others
followed. Reyes almost bumped into Skinner as he came to a dead
halt just inside the door.

"YOU!" Skinner's voice boiled with rage.

Propped up in the bed, fed by an IV tube, was a frail skeleton:
the Cigarette Smoking Man.

Reyes stared in awe at the man she had only read about in files.

"It's been a long time, Mr. Skinner." Without his larynx, CSM's
voice sounded like gravel being stirred in a bucket.

Skinner glared at Whiskeyjack. "What are *you* doing with him?"

Whiskeyjack crossed the room and sat in a chair at CSM's bedside.
She patted his thin hand. CSM snatched it away. Whiskeyjack
feigned hurt. "Hell was freezing over, so Satan's Little Helper
decided to come in from the cold." She looked at Skinner and
smiled thinly. "I took him in."

CSM's face was dark. He stared at Whiskeyjack with unveiled, cold
hatred. "My *penance*!" He spat the word.

Whiskeyjack sat back in the chair and folded her arms. "I collect
and collate data," she said matter-of-fact-ly. "I want him alive
for the same reason that so many other people want him dead-- for
what he knows. As far as I'm concerned, he's just a data storage
device."

Reyes stepped forward. She cleared her throat. As physically weak
as CSM was, he still managed to project an intimidating presence.
"Why is Agent Doggett being framed?"

CSM laughed. It was a horrible sound, like burnt lasagna being
scraped out of a pan. "They wish to kill two birds with one
stone. They eliminate Doggett and they eliminate the questions
raised by Lafleur's murder."

"Who are 'they'?" asked Skinner impatiently.

CSM smirked. "How should I know?"

"*You* set him up." Skinner stated it as a fact.

"Don't be ridiculous," rasped CSM contemptuously. "I would never
be so heavy-handed! So... imprecise and careless! Amateurs! As it
is, I am no longer in a position to make such arrangements."

Skinner frowned. "But you met with him at least once in the last
ten years. You asked him to work for you."

"Doggett showed promise. But he's a flawed man. He has a childish
belief in some sort of... simplistic *justice*. He fancies
himself to be a contemporary Eliot Ness, as if we're caught in
the midst of a gang *turf war*, as though we're dealing with
thick-headed goons squabbling over liquor and whores!" CSM broke
into a fit of coughs. Whiskeyjack watched him dispassionately and
made no move to help. He gasped and swallowed, then rested a
moment before continuing. "He missed a valuable opportunity. He
could have been a key player."

"He could have been *dead* like the rest of your cronies," said
Reyes.

"And damned to eternal hell," added Skinner.

"So tell us what really happed to Dr. Lafleur and Rebecca Hill,"
said Reyes. She was beginning to see through CSM's tattered cloak
of evil.

"I shot them both. However, one of them survived, apparently."

Reyes and Skinner were stunned.

"I can't let you arrest him you know," said Whiskeyjack. "As soon
as he's in custody, he's dead."

Reyes and Skinner said nothing for a moment. Her shock now
passed, Reyes ventured a question.

"How could you miss at point blank range?"

CSM huffed indignantly. "Point blank range? I was fifty metres
away!"

Reyes frowned. "Lafleur's skull was shattered by a shot gun blast
at point blank range."

CSM scowled. "Post mortem! I was using a rifle. I didn't get a
clean shot at Lafleur, but I hit her in the neck. I was...
distracted. I was rushed to take the second shot. Still, I hit
Hill, center of mass."

"What distracted you?" asked Reyes.

CSM looked sour. "Someone *else* was shooting at *me*."

Skinner grunted. "Too bad he was such a lousy shot."

CSM directed a flat stare at Skinner. "He shared your regret. I
shot him as well."

"What about the account in Doggett's name containing 1.4 million
dollars?" asked Reyes.

CSM raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Somebody has activated the
account? That was an... emergency fund. So far as I know, I'm the
only one still alive who has access to that money... Curious."

"Listen," said Whiskeyjack, facing Reyes and Skinner. "The only
thing sloppier than your investigation of this case is the
perpetrators' fabrication of the evidence. It's pretty easy to
fudge bank account transactions and dates *electronically*, but
it's much more difficult to rewrite a paper trail."

"Easy?" Reyes was incredulous.

Whiskeyjack waved her hand in the air. "Well, relatively
speaking, I mean. C'mon, all you have to do is *dig*. It
shouldn't take too much effort to prove all the evidence was
forged."

Skinner leaned forward. "Why didn't we find any slugs or bullet
holes in the car?"

CSM looked at him like he was a hopelessly inept student. "They
weren't *in* the car when I shot them."

"Casselman Bridge wasn't the crime scene," added Whiskeyjack.

"So where were they when you shot them?" asked Reyes.

"Prince William Forest Park," said CSM, between coughs. "Just off
of Breckenridge Road."

"Why would they go there?" asked Skinner.

CSM smiled. "They were given an invitation, of course."

"How did their car and Lafleur's body end up over 100 miles away
in Garrett County?" asked Reyes.

"You'd have to ask *them* about that." CSM began to laugh but
broke into an especially violent fit of coughing. Whiskeyjack
poured some water for him. She grinned at Reyes and Skinner.

"Sometimes, if he's *really* good, I let him have a little bit of
morphine."

Skinner stared at her. "How can you care for this--" He gestured
at CSM like he was a dungheap. "--Man?!"

Whiskeyjack laughed. "*Care* for him?! Oh no. I keep him barely
ticking. Anyway, he amuses me. You should have seen him when he
went through nicotine withdrawal!"

Reyes looked faintly disgusted. "Is that all you're going to give
us?" she asked.

Whiskeyjack's face darkened. "You need me to draw you a picture?"

Skinner touched Reyes' elbow. "Let's go."

Reyes nodded and got to her feet.

Whiskeyjack stood up.

Skinner held up his hand. "We'll take a cab."

"Fine with me." She looked at CSM and back at Skinner. "We'll be
gone by the time you phone this in."

Skinner nodded, then turned and left. Reyes followed him out.



CHOPAWAMSIC BACKCOUNTRY AREA
PRINCE WILLIAM FOREST PARK, VIRGINIA
6:41PM

Reyes stumbled after Skinner through the brush. "What can we
possibly hope to find out here?" she called to him. "It's been
over ten years!"

Skinner stopped and waited for her to catch up. He swapped the
metal detector he was carrying from one hand to the other. "Quite
honestly, Agent Reyes, I'm desperate. I've got somebody going
through the bank's papers, and the lab's analysing the other
pieces, but I'm afraid that isn't going to be enough. I don't
want Doggett to be shadowed by doubt." 

"Why are you even out here, Mr. Skinner? You aren't supposed to
be out in the field."

"Doggett needs all the help he can get and I'm afraid you and I
are it." Skinner began walking along the path again. "This case
is being deliberately cocked up, Agent Reyes."

They entered a clearing signposted as a designated tenting area. 

"Here," said Reyes as she strode towards a fire pit. "They found
the John Doe right here." She consulted her notebook and turned
and walked past Skinner to a large oak tree. "They found three
shell casings and several fresh Morley cigarette butts here."

Skinner surveyed the scene. "Three shell casings, but only one
bullet in the John Doe." He joined Reyes where she stood next to
the oak, faced the firepit, then he turned ninety degrees and
began pacing out into the clearing. Reyes followed him until he
came to a stop.

"Based on Cancerman's description, I'm guessing the women were
about here."

He put on the headphones and switched on the metal detector. He
began sweeping it in wide arcs as he moved slowly forward. Reyes
moved through the grass in another direction, pushing the long
grass back with a stick and scuffing the dirt with her toes.

Skinner stopped. He set down the metal detector and took a small
trowel out of the pocket of his Gortex jacket. Reyes came and
stood at his shoulder. Skinner shook a scoop of dirt until a
metallic object surfaced. He picked it out. It was a bottle cap.
He threw it away.

He and Reyes resumed searching.



OFFICE OF THE LONE GUNMEN
7:22PM

The three Lone Gunmen stood in thoughtful silence around the
table. Behind them, their computers were finally at rest.

Frohike looked at the other two. "Who the hell do we go to with
this?"

Langly shrugged. "To be honest, I'm scared to even stick my nose
out the door in case somebody blows it off. Having this stuff is
suicide."

"But we've got it, nonetheless," said Byers. "We've been
*entrusted* with it."

"*Cursed*, you mean." Frohike fidgeted with a retractable pen.
"Doggett's in jail, I don't know that Reyes chick from Adam, and
Skinner's been really weird lately."

"The press?" suggested Langly.

Byers rubbed his palm on his forehead. "I don't think the world
can *handle* this. It's not a question of belief. I'm afraid they
*will* believe." He swallowed. "And then all hell will break
loose."

"Man," moaned Frohike. "I wish Scully and Mulder were here."



CHOPAWAMSIC BACKCOUNTRY AREA
8:53PM

Dusk was closing on the clearing. Skinner and Reyes had ranged a
few dozen yards apart. Skinner took out a flashlight and turned
it on.

Reyes stopped. She looked up at the deepening purple of the sky.
She scanned the trees around her. She looked back over the ground
she had covered. Her mouth was pursed in frustration. She reached
into her jacket pocket, withdrew a pack of Morleys and shook one
out. She put the cigarette between her lips,  lifted a lighter to
the tip, and hesitated. She lowered the lighter, removed the
cigarette from her mouth and let out a sigh.

She flexed her shoulders several times and then rolled her head
from side to side. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and
then slowly released it. She opened her eyes. She turned and
began walking slowly but purposefully across the clearing. She
accelerated, closing on a spot several yards from where Skinner
stood. She pounced and began picking at the hard earth with the
stick. Skinner hurried to her side.

"Here, use this." He gave her the trowel.

She chipped away at the dirt. Skinner directed the flashlight on
the shallow hole. Something golden gleamed.

"That!" Skinner pointed. "That's something!"

Reyes dug quickly and carefully, revealing more of the object. It
was a thick, flat, gold chain. She grasped the loose end and
pulled. It was a gold-plated necklace. She pinched chunks of dirt
off of it. Skinner moved closer with the flashlight. 

The two lengths of chain were still fastened at the clasp. 

"It would take some force to break a chain that thick," noted
Skinner.

"Yeah," said Reyes, examining it. "Looks like it was severed."

Skinner squinted at the chain. It looked as though it had been
punched through with a round tool. "Oh my God," he breathed. "He
said he shot her in the neck..."

Reyes smiled. "If this is hers, then Doggett has an alibi. The
investigation has established he was already in Maryland on the
day the John Doe was shot. We still have to figure out what
happened to Rebecca after she dumped the body, but at least
Doggett's in the clear."

"What about the post mortem shot gun blast?"

Reyes wasn't listening to him. She turned and stared into the
dark woods. Skinner panned the flashlight in the direction she
was looking.

"What is it?" he asked.

Reyes narrowed her eyes and searched the darkness. "Nothing. I
thought I... heard something, but it was nothing. Just an
animal."

Skinner shone the flashlight on the necklace again. He looked at
Reyes. "How did you know this was here?"

Reyes shrugged and shook her head. "It..." she gestured
helplessly at the ground. "I just-- I don't know."

Skinner studied her for a moment and then took the necklace and
held it up to the light. "Well, let's see if someone in her
family recognises it."

A figure watching from the trees melted into the shadows. 



FBI HEADQUARTERS
TWO DAYS LATER

Reyes sat at her desk drumming on her desk blotter with a pen.
The door opened and Doggett walked in. Reyes sat up.

"Good morning," she said.

"Good morning, Agent Reyes," replied Doggett without looking at
her. He hung up his coat and then went to his desk and sat down.
He immediately began shuffling through the papers in his in-box,
reading them, and tossing them in the waste basket.

Reyes swallowed. "Um, it's good to have you back." She smiled
earnestly.

Doggett stopped what he was doing and looked at her. "Sure." He
pulled open a desk drawer, took out a pen, and began making notes
on a notepad as he flipped through a case file.

"Uh, all the charges have been dropped, then?"

Doggett did not look up. "Yep."

Reyes scribbled spirals on a sheet of paper. "I got a call from
the Seattle office... about the case in Spirit River." She looked
at Doggett expectantly.

Doggett kept writing. He stopped. He looked up at her. "And?"

"They found... well... so far they've got squat." She laughed
hesitantly.

Doggett raised his eyebrows and nodded, then returned to his
paperwork. 

Reyes scratched her ear. "But I've been doing some research,
looking into reports of suspicious gatherings, eliminating Klan
sort of stuff and cross-referencing with any homicides involving
decapitation and I've found a few potential hotspots that might
be worth checking out. One of them's just in North Carolina--"

Doggett let out a loud sigh and pushed himself back from his
desk. "Reyes." He stood up. "Agent Reyes, I'm going out. I don't
think I'll be back today, so if anyone calls, take a message,
will you?"

"Agent Doggett--"

Doggett pulled on his coat. "Now that I think of it, I won't be
back tomorrow either." He headed for the door. "I've got a
headache and I think I need to get some rest."

"Well, I guess--" The door closed and Reyes was left speaking to
an empty office. "I guess you could use a day off," she finished
to herself. She threw her pen angrily across the room and rested
her forehead on her hand.



OFFICE OF THE LONE GUNMEN
11:02AM

Doggett walked into the office to find the Lone Gunmen sitting
around in silence. They hardly glanced at him as he came in.
"Hi," said Byers half-heartedly.

Doggett surveyed the despondent group. His forehead creased in
concern. "Sorry about your friend Wayne."

"Yeah, that sucked, man," said Langly. His off-hand tone
suggested the man's death wasn't their current concern.

Doggett frowned and sat down on the table. "Uh, I got your
messages--"

"You missed it," said Langly. He shook his head in disgust and
swivelled around to face his computer.

Frohike rocked in his chair and stared darkly at an R2-D2
collector's cup.

"We had it," said Byers morosely.

Doggett frowned. "Had what?"

Byers looked at him sadly. "Everything!"

Langly spun around from his computer. "She gave it all to us and
then--" He grasped the air. "YOINK! She just ripped it away!"

"Every piece of information we'd ever hoped to find," continued
Byers. "The documentation, the diagrams, the formulae, the code--
*everything*!"

"Well, not *everything*," amended Langly. "I mean, we don't know
for sure what was there and what wasn't. We only got to skim
through the stuff. I mean there were *gigabytes* of it!"

"We *haven't* lost it," growled Frohike. "That's the pisser!
We've still *got* it, but in meaningless little--" He wiggled his
fingers in the air and made a face like he was gesturing at
maggots. "--Bits!"

Byers read the puzzled expression on Doggett's face. "That
videogame, and the keychain, together formed a virus which went
through our network and put together all of the pieces that
Whiskeyjack had already given us. When it was all assembled, we
had classified government files distilled from a jumble of email,
high resolution spy-sat images of military installations resolved
from video captures of Battlestar Galactica... it was amazing! It
took straw and spun it into gold!"

Doggett glanced at the other two. "Then what happened?"

Frohike fidgeted and stared at his knees.

Langly jerked his head at Frohike. "DUMB-ass here got an email
from Whiskeyjack last night."

Doggett had a feeling he knew where this was going. "What'd it
say?"

"'Thanks for everything, guys. The attached file should clear
things up,'" Byers recited bitterly.

Doggett had to supress a smile. "And so Frohike opened the
attachment?"

Langly leaned towards Frohike's ear. "Cardinal rule, man!"
Frohike cringed.

Byers rolled a pencil around on the desk. He sighed. "It reversed
the assembly process. It broke everything down."

"Why would she do that?" asked Doggett.

The Lone Gunmen didn't have an answer.

"Can you reactivate the key?" asked Doggett.

"Tried it!" exclaimed Frohike. "We've recreated every condition
that activated it the first time, but the file attachment must
have killed it. She'll have to give us a new key."

"But why did she go through all that?" asked Langly. "Why did she
re-encode the information? Why wait to divulge that information
to the public?"

Doggett shrugged. "Maybe she isn't ready."

Byers gazed into the middle distance. "Maybe the *world* isn't
ready."



TAFT HOTEL AND ROOMING HOUSE
COLUMBUS, OHIO
12:29PM

Whiskeyjack wheeled CSM into the room and brought the wheelchair
to a rough halt next to the bed. She set the brakes and then
lifted CSM out of the chair like he was a bundle of sticks. She
ignored his noises of protest as she sat him down on the bed none
too gently. She yanked the sheets up to his chest and stuffed
pillows around him.

CSM glared at her as she moved to the table and began began
connecting various pieces of hardware to a laptop. "Why don't you
just let me die?"

She glanced at him. "Because you *wouldn't* die. That's the
problem. God knows I've *tried* to just let you die. I haven't
put *that* much effort into keeping you alive, but your body
refuses to give up. It's not my fault." She took some items from
a suitcase, went into the bathroom and then re-emerged. "Why are
you so keen to die anyway? Your cancer's in remission. Against
all cosmic justice, you've been given a second chance!"

"I'd be free of *you*," growled CSM. "You've caused me more pain
than my disease ever has!"

Whiskeyjack sat on the second bed. "Y'know, Hamlet said that he
couldn't kill himself for fear that no matter how bad it might be
in this world, for all he knew, it might be a helluva lot worse
in the next."

"There *is* no 'next world'."

"You're certain about that, eh? Don't you think it would be a
real shame to pop off and suddenly find out otherwise? Especially
for you, since if there *is* a hell, they've got the executive
suite ready and waiting for you."

"I've feared nothing in life, and I certainly fear nothing in
death. It's a termination. Blankness! Nothing!"

Whiskeyjack laughed. "So even if everybody you've ever hurt was
waiting for you in the tunnel of light, waiting for you to go by
so they can kick your ass for the rest of eternity-- you're not
scared of that?"

CSM snorted. "Tunnel of light! An afterlife! It's all lies, fed
to us by aliens."

"Yeah, yeah," said Whiskeyjack tiredly. "So you've rambled to me
before. Y'know, I'm surprised that you're so eager to rush off to
that undiscovered country when there is the possibility of
meeting the one person that I *know* scares the piss out of you."

CSM laughed like he was working up a ball of spit. "I'm
frightened of no one! Not you! Not anyone!"

Whiskeyjack narrowed her eyes. "You're not afraid of looking into
her face and seeing her judgement there?"

CSM's eyes narrowed. "No," he wheezed.

Whiskeyjack stood up and moved towards him. "What if you had to
look into her eyes for the rest of eternity--"

"Shut up."

Whiskeyjack was inches from his face.

"What if she asked you... 'Why?'"

"Shut up!"

"And she--"

"SHUT!! UP!! SHUT!! UP!!" CSM shrieked in barely audible gasps.
His face was purple. His eyes were bloodshot and runny. His
twisted mouth was wet with spittle. His body shook like a
cloth-draped scaffolding on the verge of collapse. His sobs
sounded like knuckles dragging over a washboard. A thin strand of
saliva stretched from his lip and stuck to his chest.

Whiskeyjack sat back on the bed and observed him with sadness.



PEARL, NORTH CAROLINA
1:24AM

The maroon Mercury Sable was parked at the end of an overgrown
driveway, just off of the main road. From this point, Reyes had a
clear view of the Pearl Community Hall fifty yards away. It stood
dark and silent in the orange glow of the sodium street light. A
cloud of insects swirled around the fly-blown porch light above
the door. The sign for the gas station next door was dark. The
security light inside the shop glowed a dull blue. Next to the
road, a spinning black and orange sign reading 'SNACKS' flipped
rapidly in the breeze. Further down the road, a watery green yard
light winked through the swaying tree branches. The road was
empty in both directions.

Reyes turned on the interior light and examined her notebook.
Then she  consulted a map. She set the map down on the passenger
seat next to a pack of Morleys. She looked at the Morleys for a
moment, turned out the light, leaned back and stared at the empty
community hall. She puffed out her cheeks and tapped the steering
wheel.

Finally she reached a decision and turned the key in the
ignition. She adjusted the heater dial, then picked up the pack
of Morleys. She shook one out and put to her lips. She held a
lighter to the tip and thumbed the flint. The lighter slipped
from her hand. She cursed and leaned forward to pick it up off of
the floor.

A hand punched through the driver's side window and slashed
through the air where her head had been.

In a heartbeat, Reyes drew her gun, twisted, and fired. The man
jerked back, then reached towards the car again. She fired three
more rounds. The man staggered backwards with each shot and
finally dropped to the ground.

She sat up and jerked the stick shift into drive. The roaring car
surged onto the gravel road. The headlights swept around and lit
up a man and a woman striding with deadly purpose towards her.
She flattened the accelerator and grimaced as the first and then
second body thumped under the car. The steering wheel jerked from
her hands. The car skidded in an arc, slid over the shoulder, and
splashed to a halt in the ditch. The rear end was sunk up to the
wheel wells in water. One front tire carved into the wet grass
and mud while the other spun an inch off of the shoulder of the
road. The headlights illuminated the two hunched forms laying in
the middle of the road. They were moving.

Reyes shifted from drive to reverse and back to drive, pulsing
the gas, trying to rock the car forward. The car slid sideways.
The high wheel met the gravel, found purchase, and suddenly the
whole car slithered up out of the ditch and stalled.

Reyes turned the key and held it as the ignition pulsed
ineffectually. The bodies on the road were unfolding. She
released the key and turned it again. The man she had shot rose
up and began walking towards the car. The other two also stood.
Joints popped back into place, limbs untwisted and torn flesh
resealed as the three bore down on the car.

Reyes climbed out of the car and began firing. The three
shuddered and jerked as bullets slammed into them, but still they
came on. The gun clicked. The clip was empty. She took several
steps back, turned and broke into a run but immediately slid to a
halt when she saw a fourth figure running towards her, cutting
off escape. She turned back to see if she could regain the car,
but the two men and the woman were only a few yards from where
she stood.

She felt a deep vibration in her chest. It made her teeth ache
and her stomach heave. The vibration seemed to increase in
frequency until her fingernails buzzed and her eyes couldn't
focus. There was a loud, wet, metallic noise, like the sound of a
can of soup bursting, as the first man's head jerked forward. He
crumpled to the ground. There were two more juicy popping noises
as the other two slammed their chins to their chests. They
slumped against each other and then collapsed in a heap. Gory
craters glistened where their cervical vertebrae used to be.

The vibration stopped.

Reyes still shook.

"Go, Agent Reyes."

Reyes tore her eyes from the inert bodies and looked up at the
fourth figure silhouetted against the orange glow of the street
lamp.

"Leave this alone. We are not yet ready to engage them. Please
don't force our hand, Agent Reyes." The voice paused. "Do you
understand?"

Reyes' mouth was frozen but she swallowed and nodded. She backed
away from the figure and got into the car. She looked back. The
figure hadn't moved. She turned the key and the engine caught.
She shifted into drive and pulled away.

She looked in the rear view mirror. The figure still stood there
among the bodies, watching.

The road curved and blackness filled the mirror.



DEEP CREEK LAKE STATE PARK, MARYLAND
2:43PM

Doggett walked down to the lakeshore and sat on a log. He watched
windsurfers gliding back and forth in the breeze. In a bay across
the lake, fishing boats bobbed like ducks.

Doggett's attention was caught by a loud splash not far from
where he sat. It was a black lab swimming after a ball. Doggett
watched as the dog grabbed the ball and then bobbed in a slow
circle until he was paddling towards the shore. His paws caught
the sandy bottom. He burst from the water, bounded to where his
master stood, dropped the ball and then looked up expectantly,
tail whipping. The woman picked up the ball. The dog closed his
mouth, every brain cell focused on the ball. His head swayed as
he followed his master's wind-up. The woman threw the ball. The
dog shot into the water. 

Doggett turned his gaze in the other direction, to the boat dock
thirty yards away. A fisherman bumped his aluminum bass boat
against the dock and threw a line around a cleat.

Doggett reached into his pocket and withdrew the silver disk. He
turned it back and forth, watching it flash in the sun. He rubbed
it with his thumb. He looked up at the dock.

An old woman and a boy walked down the ramp towards a dinghy. The
boy held the old woman's arm and helped her into the boat. The
sun glowed on his blonde hair. He pulled the painter from a ring
and climbed in after her. He lifted an oar from the bottom of the
boat and set the pin in its lock. He did the same with a second
oar as the boat drifted away from the dock. The boat floated and
turned until the boy was facing Doggett.

Doggett flinched. He stood up and began walking towards the dock.
The boy put the oars in the water and pulled. Doggett broke into
a run. The boat surged out across the lake. Doggett sprinted down
the ramp. The rowboat was already some distance away.

"HEY!" shouted Doggett.

The old woman turned around. Her tortoise-shell glasses glinted
in the sun.

Doggett waved, then cupped his hands around his mouth. "COME
BACK!!"

The old woman waved in return and then turned to face the boy
again. The boy dropped an oar and waved too, then picked up the
oar and continued rowing.

"Who're you yelling at?"

Doggett spun around to see the fisherman sitting in his boat,
squinting at him with curiosity. Doggett turned back and looked
across the lake. He scanned the flashing water. The rowboat was
gone.

"Beautiful day to be at the lake, eh?"

"Yeah," replied Doggett without turning. He held his hand out to
cut the dazzling reflection and searched desperately. There was
nothing.

"You gonna do some fishing?"

Doggett glanced back at the fisherman. "Uh, no." His voice was
thick with emotion. He began walking away.

"Aw you should!" the fisherman called after him. "They're biting
just about anything!"

Doggett walked up the ramp. He stopped at the top and looked back
at the lake once more. His cheeks were wet. He turned and headed
for his truck.

Out on the lake, in a fracture in the rippling summer air, the
little old woman smiled at the young boy.

Luke Doggett smiled back.



24 HOURS LATER

Doggett entered the X-files office. Reyes was out. He hung up his
coat, glanced at the camera he assumed was hidden in the fire
alarm on the ceiling and strode across the room to his desk.
There were a few papers in his in-box. He flipped through them
idly, dropping them into the waste paper basket one after
another. He reached the last one and froze. He scanned it
quickly, dropped it on the desk and then grabbed his jacket and
hurried from the room.

The paper was a funeral notice for Dr. Janine Lafleur. The
service was at 3:00pm. Xeroxing had flattened the accompanying
photograph to blobs of black and white, but it was a younger,
conservative-looking Whiskeyjack.



Doggett drove slowly through the cemetery, peering through the
trees until he saw a large group of people in black. He parked
the car and began walking between the headstones towards the
group. A dark shape in the distance on his left caught his eye.
It was a woman, dressed in black, kneeling at the corner of a
mausoleum. He walked towards her. As he drew close she looked up.
It was Whiskeyjack, her face streaked with tears. She took her
hand away from her ear and set a shotgun microphone down on the
ground. 

"Hi Argyle."

"Hi." Doggett glanced towards the crowd of mourning FBI agents in
the distance. "Aren't you taking a huge risk being here?"

She smiled through her tears. "I couldn't pass up the chance to
listen in on my own funeral." Her voice was thick. "My brother
delivered a great eulogy." She choked. "Too bad I'm not dead."

Doggett stood with his hands in his pockets and said nothing, but
his eyes were sympathetic. Finally he asked: "Who else knows?"

She stood up. "Just you." She smiled. "Even if any of them
thought there was something familiar about me, their brains just
cancel out what can't possibly be true: 'She's dead; it can't be
her'."

"So who are they burying?" Doggett nodded at the cluster of
black.

Dr. Janine Lafleur sighed. "Rebecca."

Doggett frowned. "I don't understand. Reyes and Skinner told me
what the Cigarette Smoking Man said--"

Whiskeyjack cut him off with a sad laugh. "For once, he told them
the truth. They just heard it in a way that made sense to
*them*." She pulled her coat back from her neck, revealing a
shining white scar in the hollow above her collar bone. "The
bullet ricocheted, just enough to send it skimming across the top
of my lung and out of my back with not much harm done." She
shrugged her coat back into place. "Rebecca wasn't so lucky."

"There were no bullet holes in her clothes."

"They were *my* clothes. I--" She swallowed. "I was given a
chance to save myself and hide. I... rearranged some information.
If the body had been found sooner, it would have been apparent
that it wasn't me, but luckily time blurs things." She paused.
"Even so, the discovery of her body caught me off guard. I wasn't
finished with my work and I was afraid it would be compromised. I
decoded it for the Lone Gunmen knowing they'd find some way to
use it if... if something happened to me. Now that things have
settled again, I've withdrawn it. They don't need to be in that
danger."

"What about me?"

"I'm sorry that I wasn't able to prevent your arrest."

Doggett traced his finger over the letters cut into the granite
wall of the mausoleum. "That's okay." He looked at her. "I
understand."

"I know," she said quietly.

Doggett took his hand out of his pocket. He held up the silver
disk. "What is this?"

She said nothing for a moment. "It's a reminder."

"A reminder of what?"

Another pause. "That you shouldn't worry so much, John."

Doggett squinted at her. He wore a puzzled smile. "Who *are*
you?"

She laughed and looked towards the funeral again. The crowd was
dispersing.

"I have to go." She extended her hand towards him. "Thanks,
Ground Control."

Doggett wrinkled his brow at the odd remark, but clasped her hand
in his. "Sure," he said. "Good luck."

She turned and walked away.

Doggett stroked the silver disk with his thumb. He looked up just
as Whiskeyjack disappeared behind a stand of trees.

He noticed two men in dark coats had separated from the funeral
party and were walking quickly towards the spot where he lost
sight of her. He broke into a run, drawing his gun as he ran. As
he came through the trees he saw a silver Chevrolet Impala. The
engine roared to life and the car lurched forward just as one of
the men fired a gun, shattering the rear passenger side window.
The car stopped. Doggett took aim and fired. The man dropped. The
Impala roared again, spit gravel and surged ahead. The second man
turned and began firing at Doggett. Doggett spun and crouched
behind a headstone as chips of marble flew around his head. He
peered around the stone in time to see a black Chevy Tahoe pull
up. He ducked as more shots were fired. He looked around again.
The second man helped the injured man to his feet and the two
climbed into the Tahoe even as it was pulling away. Doggett
jumped up and ran. He aimed his gun, but the truck was already
out of range and soon out of sight.



THREE DAYS LATER

There wasn't any view from the top of the hill. The thick veil of
falling snowflakes obscured everything. The hilltop was a white
island in a grey void. Doggett turned to see the little old woman
standing beside him. She smiled but her face was filled with
sadness. She took his hand and helped him to lay down on the
ground. It wasn't cold. It wasn't snow. It was ashes. She knelt
next to him, took his hands and folded them on his chest. Then
she put her hand to his face and gently closed his eyes.

There was a clatter at the front door. Doggett sat up, alarmed.
He realised it was just the mailman. He rubbed his face, got up
off of the couch and went to the door. He opened it and saw Reyes
coming up the front walk. He stepped through the door and reached
into the mailbox as he watched her approach.

Reyes smiled uncertainly. "Hi, John."

"Hi," he replied flatly.

"John, I wanted to come over... to apologise. I mean, I
contributed to your arrest. I'm sorry I didn't trust in you."

Doggett sighed. "It's okay. You were doing what you thought was
right. I would have done the same if the roles were reversed."

Reyes shook her head. "No you wouldn't have. You wouldn't have
taken things at face value. I know I've criticised you in the
past for questioning things and picking things apart, but that's
what a good investigator *should* do. I should have done that
before I jumped to conclusions."

Doggett fidgetted with the corners of the envelopes in his hand.
"It's okay." He took a step back into the house.

Reyes looked pleading. "Can we ever totally trust one another
again?"

Doggett stared at the ground for a moment before he met her gaze.
"I don't know." He retreated another step. "I'll see you tomorrow
morning, Agent Reyes." He closed the door. Reyes stood there for
a moment, looking sadly at the closed door and then turned and
walked away.

Doggett shuffled his mail. Among the white envelopes was a padded
manila envelope with no return address. He ripped it open and
took out an audio cassette. The 'A' side was marked with an
asterisk. He crossed the living room to his stereo, slid the
cassette into the tape bay, closed it and pressed 'play'.

David Bowie sang:

    "Oh no, not again
    I'm stuck with a valuable friend
    'I'm happy, hope you're happy too'..."
    
Doggett smiled faintly and nodded.



END