Slim Dickens
J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building
Washington, D.C.
5:12 p.m.Dec. 24
The irony of a Marley turning up in Mulder's caseload on the day
before Christmas was too great for the special agent to resist,
especially as said Pierre Marley was a Jamaican drug dealer who
had apparently dropped from a planeless, chopperless New York
sky, his back scored with yet-un-identified talon marks. Skinner
was no Dickensian slavemaster, and Mulder's Christmas Eve
presence in the basement of the J. Edgar Hoover was purely a
labor of academic love.
Mulder thus was vexed by the unannounced arrival of Willis
Dorritt, just as his own theory - involving pterodactyls and
global warming - was taking shape and his Yuletide Bacon Cheese
Double Patty beckoned on the desk blotter. Ordinarily, Dorritt's
fantastic tale might have been the plum in Mulder's Christmas
pudding, but his nails drummed impatiently on the Marley folder
as the pudgy middle-aged man meandered, side-barred, and
detoured.
"So basically, you believe you've been scrooged," the agent
deadpanned.
Dorritt sighed. "I realize how crazy this must sound. I really
do. That's why I called you."
Mulder paused to consider the quality of this compliment. "You
also must realize there is no practical legal recourse you could
take even if I could prove it was true."
"I haven't thought it through that far. But I've read a few
things about you and your work on the web. You know how many hits
I came up with when I googled 'Fox Mulder'?"
It was too easy a set-up. Mulder shifted in his chair and
consulted the wall clock. "OK, I got an hour before my roommate
takes the figgy pudding out of the oven. You believe Charles
Dickens was part of an elaborate conspiracy to cheat your family
out of its fortune."
"Our potential fortune. And I don't think Dickens was involved,
beyond reporting the crime."
"Uh huh. I know Dickens was a journalist in London for a time,
before he started cranking out bestsellers. What got you going on
this - some 19th Century newspaper piece?"
"No, it was in one of his novels. A novelette, actually. You've
read A Christmas Carol?"
"Well, sure." Actually, Mulder had seen the George C. Scott
version twice and the Bill Murray adaptation a round half-dozen
times. "You're trying to tell me Ebenezer Scrooge was a real
person?"
"Not by that name, of course. As you noted, Dickens was a
journalist, but before that, he was a clerk with a London law
firm. Well, one of the firm's clients was a businessman named
Aloysius Dodge."
"Ebenezer Scrooge," Mulder murmured. "Same syllabic rhythm.
Sorry, go on."
"Well, although Dickens and Dodge traveled in different circles
and Dodge was reputed to be a ruthless tyrant with his own
employees, he took a shine to the young Dickens. Dodge was too
big a cheapskate to be Dickens' true patron, but they kept touch
as Dickens evolved into a writer and then a popular author. And
then, in 1843, Dodge and Dickens had a parting of the ways,
reportedly on bad terms."
"Same year A Christmas Carol was published."
Dorritt nodded, then reached into the large manila envelope that
rested intriguingly beside his left shoe. He displayed a small,
silk- covered book with brittle yellow pages. "Aloysius Dodge's
journal. In it, he relates how Dickens betrayed his confidence.
In print."
Mulder leaned back, an incredulous grin forming. "Get out."
Dorritt carefully leafed through the diary. "This is from 1854,
shortly before Dodge died. 'With reckless disregard for my
standing in the London business community, Dickens exploited my
preternatural experience for his own gain. I would have sought
the services of his former colleagues at law to take him before
the Queen's bench, but I fear I would be judged to have been of
questionable sanity or, worse, to have been under the influence
of absinthe or opium. The damage to my reputation would be
inestimable. It would appear I have no remedy against this
scurrilous opportunist.' He goes on like this for three pages,
then starts ranting about Parliament, taxes, and meat pies."
"Are you trying to tell me Dodge actually encountered the ghosts
of Christmas Past, Present, and Future? That A Christmas Carol
was actually a factual account of a genuine supernatural
visitation. God save us, every one."
"I'm sure Dickens took considerable license with the story. But
my research shows Dodge went through a very Scroogelike change in
1842. He became one of London's most prominent philanthropists -
gave big lumps to the local hospital and orphanage every year,
endowed a scholarship at Dartmouth. And get this: His chief
bookkeeper's daughter had been crippled in a coach accident when
she was six, and after his Christmas 'visits,' Dodge paid for her
to get an operation from one of Europe's top surgeons."
"Holy Tiny Tim," Mulder murmured. "Well, I guess it's reasonable
to assume Dickens would have real-life models for his characters.
But my question remains, why the FBI? We don't have the
geographical jurisdiction, I'm reasonably sure neither
ectoplasmic housebreaking nor Dickensian defamation are criminal
matters, and even if they were, I'm even more certain the statute
of limitations would have passed."
Dorritt frowned and fidgeted. "You still don't get it, Agent
Mulder. See, Aloysius Dodge was my great-great-grand uncle on my
mother's side, and I recently came across this journal in a bunch
of boxes Grandma sent Mom 30 or 40 years ago. Since then, I've
been trying to find evidence of my theory."
"Which is?" Mulder coaxed, glancing not so covertly at the office
clock. Scully's temper would reach Orange Alert in roughly
another half-hour.
Dorritt leaned forward. "That Aloysius Dodge's Christmas Eve
'visitation' was no supernatural occurrence, but rather a
carefully calculated, cleverly orchestrated plot to cheat our
family out of its future financial legacy."
"O-kay," Mulder nodded, formulating an excuse for Scully.
Fox Mulder/Dana Scully apartment
Washington, D.C.
7:41 p.m.
"So this is why you couldn't stop off at the market for yams or
drop off Cousin Elena's present for me," Scully concluded, hands
on hips, in a lethally neutral tone. Mulder's coat stopped
halfway to the closet rod.
"How could I know the guy would just show up on Christmas Eve?"
he squeaked. "I was just wrapping up the Marley case when the
idiot security guard sent him down."
"And just how did the Marley case come out?" his partner posed,
cocking a brow.
"That," Mulder began, "That's beside the point, Scully. Dorritt's
a taxpayer, a citizen. I had to hear him out."
"Of course. So what's our plan? You take the Ghost of Christmas
Past and I get Christmas Future? Let's see, big black cloak, no
distinguishing facial features. Or face, for that matter."
"All right, jeez. So he thought I might be intellectually
intrigued by his whacko theory."
"And why would he assume that?" Scully breathed.
Mulder gave her an extended withering look. She finally sighed.
"So, give already with the whacko theory."
"Goes something like this," Mulder said, plopping onto the couch.
"At the time of his yuletide revelation, Aloysius Dodge had been
working on developing lubricants for locomotive and factory
equipment. He was something of a mechanical whiz for his time - a
virtual 19th Century Ron Popeil."
"I have yams to peel. Quit playing Pocket Fisherman and cut to
the chase."
Mulder exhaled. "Dodge's entrepreneurial spirit disappeared with
his spiritual rebirth. He sold one of his laboratories to help
shelter unwed mothers, and even after the afterglow wore off, he
never really got his capitalist groove back.
"But a few years after Dodge liquidated his lubricant lab, his
head chemist - get this - Robert Thatchett..."
"No way."
"Yes, way. Bob Thatchett. Thatchett came to New York and promptly
patented a series of mechanical innovations that provided the
capital he needed to start his own company. In America, mind you
- out of the reach of the British courts. WWith the Industrial
Revolution, Thatchett made a pile, and he became as rich, if not
as famous, as the Rockefellers and Carnegies."
"And 150 years or so later..."
"Hold on, hold on. Do you want to know the name of his company?"
"Actually..."
"Thatchett named it after his late wife - Regina Works and
Mechanical Ltd. Over the years, it was modified and streamlined.
Today, you know it as..."
Scully's jaw dropped open. "Shut up."
"Yup. Reginex. Last year's Fortune 50 Playmate of the Year. Makes
everything from CPUs and airline engines to microwaveable meals.
Owns three major cable networks and has a basketball stadium
named for it. Rupert Murdoch wets his Armani suit at the mere
mention of the company."
His partner plopped onto the sofa. "And this Dorritt, he thinks
somehow his great- great- great-granduncle would own Reginex
today if he hadn't had the dickens scared out of him."
"Maybe, maybe not. But the potential was there."
"And how, Mulder, did this Thatchett devise, much less carry off,
a scam of such elaborate proportions?"
"Well, we know cocaine, laudanum, and other controlled substances
were commonly used back in Dickens' London. Maybe Thatchett
slipped Aloysius the queen mother of all hallucinogenic
cocktails. He was a chemist. If we're to assume Dickens stuck
closely to Dodge's story, there may be evidence he was drugged.
Remember, Scrooge suggested his ghostly visitors might have been
no more than 'a bit of undigested beef'? What if Dodge suffered
gastric distress as a side effect of the hallucinogen?"
Scully's cheeks puffed. "Yeah, I'm gonna get power of attorney
one of these days. Mulder, do you honestly believe Thatchett and
his cronies could have created a series of hallucinations so
convincing and yet coherent that they could influence him to give
up the bulk of his worldly goods? And that, as a result,
Thatchett could steal Dodge's invention, run off to the Big
Apple, and become the Victorian Donald Trump? That would require
some pretty powerful foresight, Mulder."
Mulder began to retort (though his retort had not yet been fully
formed), then clamped his mouth shut and slapped his forehead.
"Rebooting, Mulder?" Scully inquired, dryly.
Mulder grinned. "My partner in cohabitation. I think I'll keep
her. You're a freaking genius, Scully."
"To have determined the true depths of your dementia?'
"No," Mulder said flatly. "Scully, don't you see? It couldn't
have been foresight."
"Mulder, what the-" Scully's profanity was interrupted by the
warble of Mulder's cell phone.
"Mulder," her partner snapped.
"Yeah, Special Agent Mulder?" The voice was two pack-a-day
gravelly, the tone cautiously brusque. "This's Sgt. Micawber with
the DCPD. You know a guy named Dorritt?"
Mulder stumbled to a chair. "Yeah, he visited me today. Something
happen?"
"The big something," the cop supplied. "Maid here at the Capitol
Holiday Inn heard a ruckus coming from his room, called
management, and they found him."
Mulder jumped up. "Be right down."
Micawber was suddenly solicitous. "Aw, jeez, Agent, no. We got it
under control. It's Christmas Eve."
"Nothing's going on. I'll be right down."
"Nothing's going on?" Scully squeaked. Mulder swatted at her.
"Where are you going?"
"No, seriously. I don't wanna interfere with your holiday.
Really."
"It's OK. Sgt. Micawber, right?"
"I just wanna know why Dorritt came to see you. He's got your
card, even though it looks like an old one."
Mulder's brow creased. Printing had just delivered new cards two
days before. "I'm coming down."
"No," Micawber blurted. "I mean, you should be celebrating in
the, um, the bosom of your family."
"The only bosom here won't let me anywhere near it. Be right
there."
The detective sighed loudly, aggrieved. "OK. What if I said I
didn't want some effing fed tromping all over my homicide? What
would you say to that, huh?"
"Bah, humbug," Mulder countered, disconnecting
Capitol Holiday Inn
Washington, D.C.
8:23 p.m.
"Where's his head?" Mulder demanded upon inspecting the body,
which was sitting up at the base of the bed in a spreading pool
of blood.
"I dunno," Sgt. Micawber sulked. "Guess he musta misplaced it.
Look, how you figure this is a federal case?"
"Remember the Tulley case, Scully?"
Scully, kneeling by the oddly positioned corpse, looked up.
"Tulley shot him in the skull, switched clothes, removed the head
like the series of serial decapitations they'd had in the area.
He was trying to confuse the vic's identity, eliminate the
ballistics evidence, and fake his suicide in one stroke."
"More like about 15 strokes, unless he was stronger than he
looked. You think this could be the same thing?"
Micawber dug his foot angrily at the hotel carpet. "Oughtta be
able to get a DNA match. If there's something to match it to,
that is. Besides, door was bolted from the inside. How'd the perp
get out, especially with a head?"
Mulder grinned. "You think he cut himself shaving?"
Micawber muttered something obscene and anatomically impossible.
"He couldn't have cut himself, Sarge," a lanky patrolman called
from the bathroom. "No bathroom kit. Not even any luggage."
"Treese, you freakin' idiot, wait outside," Micawber growled.
"Wait," Mulder murmured. He peered around the room. "No bags, no
change of clothes, no bathroom stuff. Door's locked from the
inside." The agent perched on the edge of the bed. "Sergeant,
could you check the tub drain, please."
"Ah, geez, you're the boss," Micawber groused, stalking out of
the room.
"What do you think he'll find?" Scully asked as Mulder dropped to
the floor beside the body. "Mulder, what in hell are you doing?
You're robbing the victim? Mulder!"
"Shut it, Scully," Mulder whispered, pocketing a money clip full
of bills.
"Dry as a bone," Micawber reported as Mulder quickly stood.
"Neither the sink nor the crapper look like they been used, and
all the cups and soap and shit are still wrapped."
Mulder nodded as Scully gaped. "Well, all right then. Looks like
you've got everything in hand. We'll just say adios."
The bags beneath Micawber's eyes darkened. "What? Just like
that?"
"Your jurisdiction, your case," Mulder chirped. "You'll clear it
-- all you need are a few good leads and a little head."
**"Mulder, I've seen some real surprises from you, and not only
at Christmas," Scully finally commented, calmly, after 10 minutes
of silence. "Stealing money from a corpse on Christmas Eve and
then ditching a case?"
"There is a Dickensian precedent for robbing the dead, Scully,
and that boxed set of Crossing Jordan: Season One you wanted was
pretty pricey," Mulder murmured, turning on K Street. "But I
wasn't looking for pocket change on the unfortunate Mr. Dorritt.
I was trying to prove a theory - one the good Sgt. Micawber
wasn't likely to buy."
Scully shook her head, hopelessly. "All right. Give."
"You said it before, Scully," he began without further prompting.
"A scheme like Dorritt proposed would have required superhuman
foresight - to be able to predict Aloysius Dodge's reaction to
his 'supernatural' experience would have been impossible. Doris
Day was right - que sera, sera. The future's not ours to see."
"We have to have some Tylenol left."
"And even if Dodge was drugged, look at the incredible staging
and special effects the Christmas 'ghosts' would have had to
bring off. No, it wasn't foresight behind this. It was
hindsight."
Scully stopped rubbing her temple, and she looked at her partner,
bathed in a strobe of passing streetlights. "You're not
suggesting...?"
"Time travel, Scully. The ghosts of Christmas past, present, and
future were conmen from the future. Only they'd have the
technology to create Aloysius Dodge's elaborate and vivid
'vision.' Only people from the future would know the ultimate
consequences of Dodge's actions and their impact on Bob Thatchett
and his heirs. I believe they were his heirs. In an alternate
timeline, I suspect Aloysius Dodge marketed his little
innovations and raked in a buttload of money, while the Thatchett
clan lived on in relative obscurity and poverty."
"Mulder," Scully sighed, "I was going to offer you pity sex when
we got home, but I think instead we'll devote the time to a crash
course on quantum physics. I suppose you're going to suggest next
that these time-traveling ghosts found out Dorritt had come to
you and were afraid the great Fox Mulder would thwart their
scheme to rule the consumer electronics market."
"Nobody likes a bitchy Scully, girly-girl. No, I'm not conceited
enough to believe I could somehow prevent a 160-year-old crime
committed by futuristic bunco artists. Even if somehow, I could
build a case for fraud, what could he do? Hire Johnny Cochran and
go on Larry King? No, there's only one way Dorritt could do
anything to regain his family fortune.
"Besides, you saw the crime scene, Scully. Locked room, head
missing, no easy means of removing the head from the premises.
Once again, wrong premise. It isn't a question of where Dorritt's
head is - it's a question of when. He didn't bring any bags or
personal effects to the hotel because he didn't need them.
Toilets are probably cleaner in the future, and I know I prefer
to use the john at home."
Scully's fingers instinctually went for her temples again. "So
what are you saying, Mulder? That the ghosts found out Dorritt
was onto them, and they whacked him, taking along the head to
hide, what, raygun marks?"
"No. Suspend your disbelief for a moment, Scully, and go back to
the Tulley case. Remember how many whacks it took to sever the
victim's head? Well, you saw Dorritt's body. How many strokes
would you say that took?"
Scully's eyes opened, and her fingers quit massaging. "Well, I
suppose it looked pretty clean, almost surgical." She sat up. "In
fact, if it wasn't impossible, it looked almost like what I've
seen in auto accidents where someone's stuck their head out the
window and had it sheared off by a passing truck or utility
pole."
Mulder smiled. "Or maybe if someone were interrupted while
attempting to make a time leap, stuck their head out of the time
machine, and had their head sheared off by a time anomaly."
"Yeah, yeah," Scully said, eyes widening, bolting up straight.
"That just has to be it. You call Skinner, I'll put out an APB on
Scott Bakula."
"Sure, fine, whatever," Mulder grumbled.
Fox Mulder/Dana Scully apartment
12:01 a.m.
Dec. 25
Mulder awoke with a dry mouth, his undigested burger and theories
still rolling in his gut. Scully was snoring softly but regularly
beside him. Neither pity sex nor quantum physics nor any
combination thereof had followed their return home, and Mulder
had ended Christmas Eve with the Cartoon Network.
He padded into the darkened living room in search of leftover
Domino's, stumbling on the ottoman. As Mulder uttered a curse to
all superfluous furnishings, the lights blazed on.
"Thanks," he muttered before jumping back. The tall figure by the
switch was cloaked entirely in black, its face shrouded in
shadow. One long hand gestured toward Mulder, beckoning.
"Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, right?" Mulder finally yawned.
"Want a brewski?"
The specter's fingers froze, then resumed beckoning.
"Diet Sprite, then," Mulder nodded, jerking his head toward the
kitchen. The phantom paused, then followed the agent.
Mulder popped the top on the can, and turned. "You like a lot of
ice? I don't. C'mon, the jig's up. Speak, boy."
"I-" the cloaked figure stammered. "Oh, shit."
"Want a little 'za?" Mulder inquired, pulling a flat box from the
fridge.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come sighed and slumped into a
chair. "My God, no. I mean, it's in cardboard. Cardboard. You
know how many organisms are crawling on that mozzarella Petri
dish?"
Mulder ripped off a huge bite. "I gargled earlier. Sho, how are
da kidsh?"
"I want the money." It wasn't so much of a demand as it
was a whine. The "spirit" flipped his hood down. "Just give me
the money, and I'll get out of here."
"Was it an accident?" Mulder asked, wiping tomato sauce from the
corner of his mouth.
"What? Yes. Of course. We surprised him as he was about to come
back, and the morph turned around as the temporal drive engaged.
The quark field lopped his head right off."
"It happens."
"Look, you're messing with time here," the ghost protested. "You
have no idea what you could do to the space-time continuum..."
Mulder grinned. "I watch the Sci-Fi Network, too. Just because
I'm a primitive entity doesn't mean I'm stupid. Besides, what
have you and Larry and Curly think you've been doing to the
space-time continuum?"
"Larry? Curly?" The G.O.C.Y.T.C. tapped the earpiece of his thick
glasses, appeared to scan something on the inside of his lens,
and frowned. "Hey. Look, we only undid Dodge's fuckup."
"Dodge's?" Mulder sat up.
"Yeah," the tall stranger said emphatically. "He called himself
Dorritt. Guess he had his great-great-great-great-...oh, shit --
Aloysius Dodge's ingenuity. He was Regina's top technology
development manager, and he started screwing around with the
submolecular fields. He'd found Dodge's journal - the one from our
original timeline - and realized how Robert Thatchett had pirated
his inventions while he was recovering from a minor case of
consumption. Dodge went back and planted enough evidence for
Aloysius to uncover Thatchett's plans. Well, he underestimated
his great-great-you know's temper: Aloysius confronted Thatchett
and shot him, then keeled over dead from cardiac failure. You know
the crap they ate back then? His heart must've looked like a
nuclear test site."
"Glad to see carb-counting isn't just a fad."
"He managed to erase Thatchett's family line, and without Dodge's
charitable contributions - he wasn't quite the tyrant that hack
Dickens made him out to be - thousands of orphans, widows, unwed
mothers, and sick children died, turned to crime, failed to reach
the potential for which history had destined them."
"And what happened?" Mulder asked.
"Hey, I'm sure you're smart enough to know I can't tell you that.
Just suffice it to say it was pretty effed up."
"So how'd you guys get back here?"
"The chronotech lab's superaccelerated boson membrane produced a
temporal tesseract that -- you wouldn't understand," he said
simply. "But we knew that somehow, we had to shift the continuum
back into line."
"And that's what you came up with," Mulder observed.
"Hey, we were dealing with virtual cavemen here," the ghost
pointed out, witheringly. "Aloysius didn't even maintain basic
oral hygiene - his breath could cause a temporal rift. We preyed
on his 19th Century sense of superstition and pre-Victorian
guilt. It worked, didn't it? And now, everything's pretty much
right again - pretty much. And when I get back, we're going to
take Dodge's machine apart and recycle the parts into proton
ovens. That is, if you'll just give me the money and leave things
alone."
"Look, I'd like to oblige, but how do I know what you guys may
have in mind next? Maybe you're bent on world domination, maybe
you think a Fourth Reich'd kind of spice things up. You seem to
have some pretty fanatical views on nutrition - maybe you arrange
a little accident for Harlan Sanders or Ray Kroc, wipe the
Thickburger completely from man's memory."
The time traveler's jaw tightened. "OK. I understand. We studied
up on you - we knew you were the only person who might be, ah,
open-minded enough to help Dodge figure out how to readjust the
continuum. Would it convince you of our goodwill if we could help
you put your career back on track? Maybe if you had a second
chance to investigate your sister's disappearance with a little
more discretion, you could rise to a position of authority where
you could command the resources necessary to find out what
happened to her."
Mulder merely smiled.
"Or better yet," the visitor persisted, "what if you could go
back to 1973, go back to when Samantha disappeared? What if you
could have been there to protect her? To remove her from harm's
way?"
Mulder's smile froze. Then he remembered to breathe. The agent
stood up, walked out into the hall, and opened the front door
closet. Mulder returned a moment later and flipped Dodge's small
roll of bills across the table. The ghost riffled through the
currency, sighing loudly, then pocketed it and looked back at
Mulder.
"And that's it?" he asked, suspiciously.
Mulder smiled again, leaning back. "You guys are all scientists,
right? You and the ghosts of Christmas past and present?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, then, you ought to understand. I've got what I need here.
Answers. The Truth. I don't need to alter the truth, tweak it,
head it off at the pass. I just want it to show itself."
For the first time, The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come smiled, as
if the two had transcended some temporal boundary.
"I hope you mean it," Mulder added. "That you'll destroy the time
machine. Doris Day was right."
"Que sera, sera."
Mulder grinned. "Geez, maybe there is hope."
The time traveler tipped his head and folded into nothing. Mulder
stared at the vacant space for a moment, then picked up a slice
and chewed. He pulled a rectangle of paper from his T-shirt
pocket and smoothed it on the table.
"Santa's gonna open a big can of whoopass, he finds you up this
late," said Scully, yawning and rubbing against the kitchen
doorjam. " 'Case' still bugging you?"
Mulder shook his head. "It's Christmas morning, Scully. The past
and the future don't matter. Mankind should be our business."
"Jacob Marley," Scully nodded, impressed.
"John Forsythe, Scrooged."
"Ah huh. Look, Mulder, you still want that pity sex?"
Mulder's chair squeaked back. "God bless us everyone."
Scully pursed her lips. "Shut up, Mulder. You had me at John
Forsythe." She glanced at the bill on the table, picked it up,
squinted, and let it float back onto the formica, smirking. "Cute
- Frohike give you this? Treasury might nott think it was so
funny, you accidentally spend it."
Mulder smiled, watching her disappear back into the bedroom. He
took one last look at the square-jawed visage engraved onto the
U.S. tender - the one he'd withheld from his midnight visitor --
before sliding it back into his T-shirt.
He could have sworn President Schwarzenegger smiled back.
end
(
geocities.com/xmas_files)