From drjudd@rainbow.net.au Fri Aug 30 08:51:20 1996
OFFSPRING
DESLEA R. JUDD
drjudd@rainbow.net.au
Copyright 1996
DISCLAIMER
This book is based on The X Files, a creation of Chris Carter owned by
him, Twentieth Century Fox, and Ten-Thirteen Productions. Fox Mulder,
Dana Scully, Walter Skinner, and a number of lesser characters including
Bill Mulder, Mrs Mulder, Samantha Mulder and her clones, Maggie Scully,
Melissa Scully, Captain Scully, Sharon Skinner, Kimberly Cooke, the
Cigarette Smoking (Cancer) Man, the Well Manicured Man and his offsider,
Frohike, Quiqueg, Gautier, Jean Gautier, Ellen, and Alex Krycek remain the
intellectual property of those parties. A number of other characters are
the author's creation and are copyright, and may not be used without her
written permission. These include but are not limited to Dr Karen
Koettig, Agent Grbevski, Melissa Samantha Scully, Grace Skinner, Clone 1
(Cynthia), Clone 3 (Carolyn), Clone 4 (Catherine), Dr Sam Fieldman, Dr
Paul Sturrock, Dr Marion Pieterse, Wendy Tomiris, Serena Ingleburn,
Amarette, Dr Jillian Maitz, Hallie, and Emily Trent. Any queries
concerning ownership of minor characters not mentioned here should be
directed to the author.
(See Pt 1 for complete spoiler, content, and comments info).
A few spoilers from Pilot, Duane Barry, Ascension, One Breath, Colony,
Endgame, Anasazi, Blessing Way, Paper Clip, Nisei, 7.31, Piper Maru,
Apocrypha, and Avatar.
I've rated this book R just to be on the safe side, but I think it's more
PG-13, in truth. There's some low-level sex (three scenes, more
emotional than anatomical), low-level bad language, low-level violence,
and that's about all.
Comments, good and bad, are welcome; but make sure they're constructive,
please! My e-mail is drjudd@rainbow.net.au, but don't worry if you see
something else in your "reply" header like magna.com, because Rainbow.Net
shares a server with another ISP called MagnaData. And if you think my
work's worth stealing, I'm flattered; but don't even think about it.
Archivists, feel free to add this to your collections; but be sure to let
me know.
OFFSPRING BY DESLEA R. JUDD (12/18)
SIX
Assistant Director's Office
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Washington, D.C.
February 10, 1997
Scully sat down in front of Skinner, awkwardly. She moved with a
decided waddle now, trenchcoat or not. She was beginning to wonder if she
should induce birth early. She didn't think she was going to make it
through her last months undetected, and she didn't want to draw attention
to herself by taking leave.
"You're going to love this," she said.
Skinner looked at her, his face a question mark. "Do I really want
to hear this?"
"We've got an I.D. on the genetic mother."
He raised a querying eyebrow.
"Samantha Mulder."
Skinner rested his head in his hands with a groan. "I definitely
didn't want to hear that."
"It's something," she pointed out, her tone less than convincing.
"Not as much of a something as some housewife in downtown D.C. who we
could locate and ask questions. It's about as helpful, in fact, as the
alien DNA hypothesis." He paused. "Does Mulder know?"
Scully nodded. "He's practically beside himself. God forbid she
looks anything like Samantha. He'll probably build her her very own
castle and guard her around the clock."
"Not necessarily a bad idea, in the circumstances."
She became pensive. "Walter, I honestly don't know where we go from
here. We can't afford to be too direct in our approach. If we show our
hand, they may figure out that I did, in fact, become pregnant. If they
suspected that, it wouldn't be that difficult for them to find out. We
could follow up the general abductions angle, but I still don't see how we
can find out what we need to without showing our hand."
Skinner frowned thoughtfully for a moment. "What about the Samantha
Mulder question?"
Scully shook her head decisively. "No. If there was anything there
worth following up on, Mulder would have found it already." She went on
cautiously, "There is the railroad - presumably it went somewhere or came
from somewhere that would shed light on things - but God only knows how
long that thing is. And it's not as though it's mapped. We could spend
years following up all the tracks, even if this e-mail checks out and we
can limit this thing to North Dakota. And if it doesn't, Mulder and I
have found secret Government railroads all over the country. If they all
link up, as they may, we could be there forever." She paused. "There's
something else to consider, too. Possibly everything we need is on the
train itself - the one you found me on in the first place. In that case,
it might come down to finding that - and we have no way of identifying
which one it was, assuming as seems likely that there are many. It's
probably not impossible, but it's an enormous task."
"There is one other possibility."
"Which is?"
Skinner met her gaze. "Give it up."
<<"What?">> Scully demanded, appalled.
"Dana, it doesn't matter. What happened to you can't be changed.
And we certainly can't stop it from happening again. It's bigger than any
of us. They'll kill us all before they'll let that happen. What's the
point?"
She regarded him for a moment. She knew what he was saying. As
little as a year ago she would hve agreed with him. But-
"Walter, no. I need to know what they're trying to do, and why. I
need some answers so that I know what future this child faces, and what I
need to protect her from."
"We," he corrected. "What <> need to protect her from. I'm not
convinced that knowing will help, but all right." He paused. "Do we get
Mulder in on this?"
Scully was puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"Well, of course he knows what's going on," Skinner explained, "and
we have used him as a sounding board; but do we get him in on the
legwork? Keep in mind, Dana, that this is strictly unofficial. I can
fudge your working times to some extent, but a lot of this will be done on
our own time. If your legitimate caseload drops, you risk drawing
attention to yourself. You and I have an interest in this, but for Mulder
- well, it's a lot to ask, that's all. He'd say yes, I know that; but is
it fair?"
Scully thought a moment. "Walter, Mulder and I aren't on those
terms. We're a team. If he needs help, I give it; and if I need help, he
gives it. That's just how it is." She paused. "Besides, he's involved
now, too. Samantha's in it."
"<> in it, Dana. For Mulder, that would be enough."
3170 West 53 Rd, #35
Annapolis, Maryland
March 11, 1997
Scully flicked halfheartedly through the multitudes of options her
television offered.
It was unfortunate that the choices, though plentiful, were so
abysmal. The price, she reflected, of unpredictable hours. She didn't
really know why she subscribed to cable at all.
Scully was in her seventh month of pregnancy - thirty weeks, to be
precise. She carried small, and she had gained only thirteen pounds; but
she felt every one of them. She felt heavy and lethargic and utterly
apathetic. Now, she sat indifferently before the weather channel with a
small bucket of ice cream. Now and then Quiqueg came and whined for a
little, and she gave him a taste from her finger with an indulgent smile,
smirking at the knowledge that she would normally no more share her food
with an animal than she would draw her own blood with a dirty syringe.
That thought reminded her that she hadn't noted the progress of her
pregnancy for a while. She set down the ice cream and stretched awkwardly
over the side of the sofa. She opened a drawer. She withdrew a manila
folder which served, in the absence of an obstetrician, for her antenatal
record. It had the name <> emblazoned across it. It
was a code, and a flimsy one at that: Katherine was her own middle name,
A'Court her grandmother's maiden name. But had she genuinely thought her
home might be searched, she would not have kept it there at all. She drew
a pen and began to write.
<>
She flipped a page to her weight chart. She thought a moment for the
scale's reading that morning, then entered it. She set the chart down and
went to the hallway for her medical bag.
She brought it back and removed a sphygmomanometer, snapping the
leather bag closed again. Scully opened the grey metal casing, wrapped
the gray cuff around her arm and inflated it with her other hand. Taking
her stethoscope, she placed it over the crook of her elbow and listened
for the return of the blood flow through the artery as she awkwardly
released the air from the cuff. She watched the mercury column drop as
she waited for the strange flowing sound.
It came sooner than she expected. She glanced up at the mercury and
automatically noted the reading. Then she stopped and was utterly still.
After a long moment, she released the air from the cuff and repeated
the process. Nervously, she checked the reading.
Scully removed the cuff and set down the gray metal casing with a
clatter on the coffee table. She moved to the bathroom with a calm she
didn't feel. She mounted the scale.
<>
Scully went back to her bag and fumbled around inside it. She drew a
specimen jar and a small cylindrical container. She went to the bathroom
and returned to the loungeroom a couple of minutes later, the jar full.
She dipped a small cardboard stick from the container into the plastic
recepticle. Her brow creased as she waited, her gaze fixed determinedly
(if heedlessly) on the television.
After a minute, she looked down at the cardboard in her hand and
matched it against the legend on the container. Slowly, she set down the
dipstick and the jar, took up her folder, and began to write.
<<21:20: Patient has gained three pounds since reading at 06:30.
Urine shows high concentration of protein. BP 165/110. No noticeable
change in edema. No visual disturbances. Severe acute toxemia is
indicated. BP at 03:30 to confirm diagnosis as per American Committee on
Maternal Welfare guidelines. Patient has no history of hypertensive
disease.>>
With deliberate slowness, Scully gathered together her chart, a pen,
and the sphygmomanometer, turned off the television and the lights, and
went to bed without undressing. She set her alarm for 3:30am and settled
down to wait.
It was a long time before she slept.
3170 West 53 Rd, #35
Annapolis, Maryland
March 12, 1997
<<3:45: BP 170/110. Diagnosis: Severe acute toxemia
(pre-eclampsia). Patient's urinary output decreased. Increased edema of
hands and wrists. Severe headache. Clinician believes patient is
progressing to eclampsia. Treatment by magnesium sulfate to reduce BP.
Steriod therapy to maximise foetal lung development. Induced delivery
within twenty-four hours. Attempt will be made to deliver vaginally.
Patient accepts risks involved. Cesarean section only if necessitated by
foetal or maternal distress.>>
Scully looked at what she had written for a moment. Then, she picked
up the telephone. She dialled a Baltimore number.
"St John's Hospital, can I help you?"
"Karen Koettig, please."
The response was swift and annoyingly chirpy. No-one, Scully
thought, had any business being so happy at ten to four in the morning.
"Dr Koettig is not on duty right now, can someone else help?"
Scully thought a moment. She could try her home; but then, knowing
Karen, she probably wouldn't be there. "Could you page her? It's an
emergency. My name is Dr Dana Scully. She has the number."
"I'll make sure she knows."
Scully rang off.
It was about two hours later that Dr Karen Koettig arrived at
Scully's apartment. She took one look at Scully and said gently, "You
should be in hospital."
Scully nodded. "I know that." She was silent a moment. "Did you
get everything?"
"I did, and all I can say is that you're lucky it was four in the
morning. Do you know how hard it is to sneak out a humidicrib? I mean,
we're not talking promo post-it pads, here."
She suddenly felt ashamed. "I should have thought about the risks to
you, Karen. I'm sorry."
Karen snorted. "Don't be silly. How many essays of yours did I
plagiarise, Dana?" Suddenly serious, she said gently, "We've known each
other too long to worry about that sort of thing - even if it has been
ages since you've been in touch."
"It's been a rough year."
"So I gathered." Her voice became serious. "Are you going to tell
me what's wrong? Why you won't go to the hospital? And what the big
secrecy deal is? Dana, you must know that giving birth prematurely with
toxemia at home is tantamount to suicide."
Scully hung her head, suddenly exhausted. "Karen, wait until we have
everything set up. I'll tell you what I can then."
Karen Koettig was a tall, athletic woman with a mane of chestnut hair
tied back severely in a no-nonsense ponytail. She wore a sensible suit
and sensible shoes, but her makeup was heavy and her jewellry abundant.
As Scully had expected, she had interrupted Karen in a night out on
the town. Some things never changed. In med school, it had been Karen
who just scraped by after too many late nights and too little study, and
Scully who had methodically planned her time, going out partying only at
times which she had allocated for the purpose at the beginning of
semester. Scully had emerged valedictorian. Karen had always joked that
Scully could have lived as she did and she as Scully did, and the result
would have been the same.
For all that, though, Karen was a fine doctor. One of the most
respected OBGYNs on the East coast, she taught and was often invited to
speak at conferences. She had shot to the head of the department at St
John's at a young age. Karen was not an academic. She was something
better than that: she was an expert in the real thing. And she wasn't
afraid to take risks for real people. For her baby's sake, Scully
thought, that was just as well.
About half an hour later, they were sitting in Scully's bedroom.
There were towels draped over the bed, and Scully was sitting up, an IV
protruding from the back of her hand. Karen topped up the magnesium
sulfate. "We'll check on that in a couple of hours," she said. "I'd like
not to induce, in the circumstances, if at all possible; but if your blood
pressure doesn't start to fall I'll give you some dinoprostone to start
the ball rolling. Oxytocin is contraindicated in pre-eclampsia. We've
got the steriod treatment underway, so your baby will be in the best
possible position for delivery if we need to do it."
Scully looked up at her friend, gratefully. "Thank you, Karen. I
couldn't have done this alone, even if I'd had the equipment and the
medication."
The other woman gave her a look which clearly read,
I'm-doing-this-against-my-better-judgement. "I don't like it, Dana. And
I like it even less that you won't tell me why."
Scully regarded her for a moment. This woman, who she hadn't seen in
over a year, had endangered her job and driven from Baltimore in the
middle of the night on a moment's notice to help her. She deserved -
well, she deserved <>. She was silent as she tried to think of
the best way of approaching it.
Finally, she said slowly, "Karen, there's a limit to what I can tell
you for your own safety. I will tell you that it's to do with my work
with the Bureau." She paused, then went on cautiously, "I was - well, I
was involved in some medical experiments - and not altogether
voluntarily. I was also exposed to massive amounts of radiation three
months ago in a separate incident - an accident at a nuclear power plant.
The Kuringai accident."
"The DKS case," Karen murmured, referring to the initials by which
her case had been referred to in the <>. "Dana Katherine Scully."
Scully nodded. "There are people who would be very interested to
know that I was having a child. I can't afford for there to be any
paperwork which might indicate that. That's why I can't go into
hospital. I couldn't even go to antenatal visits - I've been monitoring
myself." She paused. "There's something else."
Karen raised an eyebrow with a do-I-want-to-hear-this air. "What?"
"I had genetic tests. There were certain - anomalies - which raise
questions about the effects of the experiments on the baby." Scully
hesitated, searching for a way to convey the fears she harboured without
expressing the panic she felt. "Karen, I don't know what this child will
look like. If she's - different - then I don't want there to be people
wandering about with that kind of knowledge." Scully paused. "Besides -
I want to be alone when I see her for the first time...when I know. I
wouldn't have had anyone with me at all; but with the toxemia, I can't
take the risk on going into convulsions or coma without backup."
"So you've been hiding this pregnancy all along?" Karen demanded, appalled.
Scully nodded. "Thank God I'm small. I've been on active duty all
along. I couldn't take the risk on drawing attention to myself by
requesting a transfer to desk duty."
"No-one knows?"
Scully stretched out a little. "My partner, Mulder, and the
Assistant Director, Walter - they know. That's all."
Karen's voice was penetrating, incredulous. "Not even your mom?
Your brothers and sister?"
"Not Mom or my brothers. Melissa-" Scully broke off. "Melissa's
dead. They killed her. They were trying to kill me." She looked away,
blinking suddenly. She still couldn't bear to think of Melissa, who had
been killed for being mistaken for her. She still felt a heavy burden of
guilt because she had been away from her apartment after arranging to meet
Melissa there. Maybe, if she'd only been there-
<>
Karen touched her hand, careful to avoid the drip. "I'm sorry,
Dana. It's bad, isn't it?"
Scully turned to face her. "Yes, it's bad."
"Can your boss do anything?"
"Walter? He would if he could. But it goes a lot higher than
that." <> she suddenly wondered. "The project, I would say,
doesn't even exist on paper. It would be paid for out of blind
Congressional funds - funds that don't need to be accounted for, or which
are allocated to a dummy project. Even the Bureau doesn't count for much
when defense is involved. I think that's what the experiments are about.
I think they're to do with biological warfare."
Karen frowned. "What about your partner? What does he do? Could he
do anything?"
Scully was puzzled. "What does he- oh! I see. Mulder isn't my
boyfriend. He's my partner at the Bureau. Walter - I don't know how
you'd describe Walter and I. But he's the baby's father."
"He's the father and he isn't here?" Karen demanded, protectively.
Scully looked away guiltily. "He doesn't know. As far as anyone's
concerned I'm working from home today."
"You don't want him here. Why?"
"I told you. I want to be alone when I know."
Karen became suddenly angry. "And what if she isn't normal, Dana?
What are you going to do then - drown her? Being alone isn't going to
change anything. It's not like you to be superstitious."
"It isn't superstition!" Scully snapped defensively. "If she isn't
normal, I'll tell Walter and Mulder and we'll hide her, or get her
surgery, or do whatever we have to do to protect her. But I don't want to
help anyone else cope until I've coped myself." Her anger died as quickly
as it had arisen. "That must sound very selfish."
Karen shook her head. "No. Not at all." She added pointedly, "But
it sounds lonely."
Scully bowed her head. "Please don't, Karen. Not now."
"All right."
The phone rang.
She touched her side, reaching automatically for her cellular phone.
With her eyes, she acknowledged Karen's smirk as she mouthed, Yuppie, and
shamefacedly pulled the cordless phone from its cradle. They had both
become everything they had sworn at university they wouldn't. "Scully."
"Scully? It's Mulder. Listen, I've had some news on the railroad
question." He was breathless with excitement.
Scully's voice was peremptory. "Tell me."
"Frohike, it seemed, got a little bit intrigued after we got off the
train that night. Quite aside from our asking for help, he's been
watching the railroad, at random moments, ever since - and tracking any
discussions about Government territories on the Net, too. Last night he
hit paydirt. He got a lead from one of his Internet buddies about a
branch line. He followed it cross-country to a waste area north of
Mercer, North Dakota. He found a warehouse of some description. He says
he's found someone with some interesting information, but he won't tell me
anything over the phone."
Scully looked up as Karen took her blood pressure. Her expression
said it all. She held up the tube of dinoprostone. Scully nodded, and
took the applicator from her. Dinoprostone was applied to the cervix
intravaginally, and that was one job Scully intended to do herself. Karen
left the room.
"Scully?"
"What, Mulder?" she asked, preoccupied.
"We've got to get over there. I've booked us a flight."
"I can't go. It's either going to have to wait or you'll have to go
alone."
Mulder was stunned. "Scully, you don't seem to understand-"
She snapped, "Mulder, I understand that it's got to wait. I'm
sorry." Her voice was strained. God, it worked so quickly! She
stiffened, trying to keep her voice steady. "Just trust me," she said
through gritted teeth.
He was silent for a moment. "Something's wrong, isn't it?"
"Nothing's wrong," she said, annoyed. Damn him, how did he know
these things?
"I'm coming over."
"Mulder, don't do that- dammit!"
She threw the phone across the room in uncharacteristic temper. He'd
hung up.
Coming In Part 13: Offspring/Scully's Sacrifice
--
_______________________________________
| |
|Deslea R. Judd (drjudd@rainbow.net.au) |
|"The Owls Are Not What They Seem" |
| - The Log Lady, Twin Peaks) |
|_______________________________________|
(
geocities.com/hollywood)