Sew-Quick, Ltd.
Downtown Los Angeles
121 E. Pico Blvd.
2:38 pm

The smell hit him first. Like a half-forgotten memory wrapped
around a nightmare, the soot hanging in the still air of the
blackened building shrouded the stench of roasted flesh and
singed hair. Mulder followed a sinuous trail in the grime on
the cement floor, the track of fire hoses and rubber boots.
Any water remaining from the efforts of the firefighters had
long since evaporated, and the dust of a half century of
neglectful occupancy mingled with the soot, dogged his steps,
gritted his eyes, and finally provoked a sneeze of deafening
proportions. In the aftermath, as he stood feeling for his
handkerchief, he realized that even he could not produce a
sneeze that loud. With a prickle of foreboding, he recognized
the sound still reverberating down the metal stairs in front
of him as the echo of a gunshot. Forgoing the handkerchief for
a quick swipe with his sleeve, he unholstered his gun and
began a cautious ascent.

The stairway had no railing, and zig-zagged up in dizzying
fashion through the middle of the building, with step-off
landings at each of the three large open floors. The ground
floor, littered with rusted clothes racks and the smashed
remains of shipping crates, offered no cover. Neither did the
second, which housed the burned-out guts of the sweatshop. As
Mulder poked his head cautiously above floor level, a sense of
deja vu washed over him, and the scene took on the
characteristics of a bridge in Pennsylvania, a hangar in West
Virginia. He rocked back in shock and passed a hand over his
eyes, though that didn't stop the stench from sneaking through
his nostrils, twisting through his brain. Like a physical
blow, the odor reminded him of his failure even to try to
protect Scully from a similar fate.

His vision cleared as he rubbed his eyes. Raw shards of metal
twisted across the floor, hulks of industrial sewing machines.
Scattered lumps of charcoal were all that was left of long,
broad cutting tables. Here the light fell through jagged holes
in the large windows, while the rest of the room was in dim
shadow. With a grimace, he realized that the windows on this
floor were painted over. Only the strength of the southern
California sunshine, streaming in broken, irregular swaths
across the floor, allowed him to be sure that no one occupied
this section but himself and the specters of twenty-eight dead
women.

He stood still for a moment. Hearing no sound but his own
harsh breathing, he started up the stairs to the third level.
The light grew brighter as he approached the last landing,
then finally seared his eyes as he peeked above the floor. A
skittering rustle kicked his heart rate up, and it doubled as
a furry brown streak raced past his nose. He shied and
half-turned before his brain caught up with his adrenal glands
in time to stop him from making a headlong flight back down
the stairs.

At that moment, something thumped him between the shoulder
blades, and he had a brief, shuddering fear that it was the
rat. Before he could react, his legs were knocked out from
under him, and he felt himself falling. In a blind panic, he
dropped his gun and scrambled to hang onto the side of the
landing as a body -- a human one -- pushed past him and
hurtled down the stairs in a clanging rush.

Gripping the edge of the stair with all his might and gasping
for breath, Mulder made a feeble effort to yell, "Stop!
Federal agent!'" He gave up when it became clear that his most
pressing need at that moment was to save himself from falling
three stories straight down. A desperate attempt to swing one
leg up and catch a foot on the side of the stairs failed as
his toe hit the edge, bounced off, and his body swung
violently the other way. His second frantic bid succeeded, and
he hauled himself up to slump across stairs, his chest
heaving.

At the sound of his assailant banging open the heavy warehouse
door, he rolled to look over the side, but couldn't see much
through the maze of pillars holding up the staircase.
Frustrated, he peered through the open grid of the stair step
to survey the empty first floor of the warehouse. The instinct
to pursue faded as he realized that his assailant was long
gone. He sat up and studied the deep grooves in his palms and
fingers, cut into the skin by the steel tread of the stair.
The building was quiet once again, and slowly his heart rate
settled along with it.

After retrieving his gun, Mulder started back up the stairs,
intending on finding out what the man -- he assumed it was a
man -- had been up to. Worried that the intruder might have an
accomplice besides the damned rat, he proceeded with every
sense tuned to his surroundings.

The third floor was bathed in sunlight streaming from a row of
high arched windows. This section of the building was much
cleaner than the rest. It didn't appear to have suffered much
fire damage, other than a moderate coating of soot. Streaks at
regular intervals indicated that the sprinklers scattered
across the high ceiling had done their job. He recalled that
the floors below had identical sets of sprinklers, but judging
by the extent of the damage, he wondered if those on the
second floor had been broken or disabled.

It was apparent that part of the open room before him was used
for storage, with large bins and free-standing shelves
providing plenty of cover for anyone who wanted a place to
hide. He moved with care through the maze-like space until he
reached the back of the room, which was sectioned off behind
floor-to-ceiling plastered walls and a heavy wooden door. He
approached with caution, until he was close enough to run a
curious finger along the rough edge of the bullet hole that
marred the smooth surface of the door, next to the massive
lock. No casing on the floor, so his assailant either carried
a revolver or was the tidy sort.

The soot on the floor in front of the door was streaked and
smudged by a variety of footprints, he noted. If what Dales
had told him was true, he and Scully were investigating a case
of apparent mass spontaneous human combustion. So why would
anyone need to get into this room, which seemed to be a
manager's office of some sort? What could possibly be stored
in there that someone would use such a violent, albeit
ineffectual, method to break in? If the combustion itself was
spontaneous, he decided, there seemed to be something going on
in the wake of the tragedy that was anything but. Someone was
hiding something, and someone else was trying to get at it.

He surveyed the door again, puzzled by the lack of a seal. The
front of the building was practically swathed in bannerguard
tape. It hadn't stopped him or his assailant from entering the
building, but it indicated that, as would be expected, a
thorough official investigation followed the fire. So why
hadn't they targeted this door? This room? He decided to leave
the bullet in place, to show to whoever was in charge of the
investigation. The police would have to be contacted now.

That didn't stop him from making an attempt on the lock, using
every pick in his set. He gave up in frustration after a few
minutes, deciding he would need a drill if he wanted to look
inside. And permission from the local authorities, he
supposed.

Pacing back to the landing, he scanned for any evidence the
intruder might have left behind, but the floor was clean. He
pulled out his phone and punched one on rapid dial. With his
head down, while waiting for her to pick up, he noticed for
the first time that his grey suit jacket and blue dress shirt
were covered with grime. With a frown he fingered the small
tear in the knee of his trousers.

After a few more rings of the phone he was rewarded with a
crisp "Scully."

"Hey, Scully, it's me." He dropped down to sit on the landing.
 

"Mulder, are you okay? You sound--"

"I ran into a rat," he said, while brushing ineffectually at
the streaks on his shirt. "Two rats, actually."

"Did it bite you?"

"No, but the big one tried to push me off a third floor
landing."

"Mulder!"

"It's okay, Scully. I survived."

"Did you catch him?"

"Nope. I was too busy trying to remember my monkey bar
skills."

"Mulder, are you sure you're okay? Did you call the local
P.D.?"

He paused for a moment, allowing the concern in her voice to
wash over him. "Not yet, but I think we have to contact them,
at least to get some questions answered. There's obviously
someone interested in this building, but he didn't stop long
enough to tell me why. I'll tell you about it when I come back
to pick you up. Uh...." He paused, remembering the all too
familiar scene on the floor below him, and wondered if he
really wanted an answer. "What's going on with the autopsies?"
 

The small, slick sound coming over the line indicated she was
licking her lips while switching mental gears. His
concentration broke as he pictured the motion, then snapped
back as she announced, "Mulder, there is definitely something
strange about this case."

"Yeah?" His customary eagerness was tempered by caution, and
he wondered at a sudden wish to ditch the whole thing and head
back to D.C. In the old days he would have plowed ahead, but
these weren't the old days. He didn't want to go through this
again, or put Scully through it either, if "this" turned out
to be another consortium mop-up operation. He gave himself a
mental kick for not checking out Dales' wild tale more
thoroughly before getting Scully involved.

"First of all, this is not, of course, spontaneous human
combustion, because there is no such thing... Mulder."

"That's what you used to say about tulpas." Another mental
kick. She didn't tease him very often. He should be able to
respond better than that.

She ignored him anyway. "It is a very strange burn pattern,
I'll grant you that. The Assistant Coroner who oversaw the
autopsies let me look at the photos, and I'm going to convince
him to show me one of the bodies, because what I saw in the
photos was... I'm still not sure what happened here. I need to
see the evidence with my own eyes."

He swallowed hard. "Did the photos tell you anything?"

"These people, Mulder..." All the lightness left her voice,
and the compassion that remained was sadly familiar. "They
started burning internally, that seems clear. The most extreme
carbonization was within and just below the chest cavity, and
in the brain pan."

He heard paper rustling, and assumed she was consulting her
notes.

"Apparently there was a lot of confusion at the scene, and no
one did a careful enough sketch in the aftermath," she
continued, "so we're guessing from the condition of the
victims and photographs of the shop floor that those most
extensively burned were clustered in the center of the group.
There's almost nothing left of them, just portions of the
heavier bones. Several bodies at the periphery sustained less
damage, and they got a few toes from them, so they'll be able
to study the tissue."

"Scully...." He cleared his throat. "Scully, did they take
X-rays? Head and neck?"

There was a long pause. "No microchips, Mulder," her voice was
soft. "Nothing on the X-rays. I'm sorry, I know--"

"I didn't think it would be this bad," he muttered. As he
processed her reply, he slumped back in relief against the
stairs. "Are you going to get to see one of the bodies this
afternoon?" he continued. "Because I still want to try to get
out to Pasadena."

"Well, you can imagine what a political hornet's nest this
case is." She dropped her voice. "They really don't want me
around, and when I got here the A.C. told me the autopsies
were finished. What he forgot to mention was that they're so
chronically backed up the tissue analysis wasn't scheduled for
another day or so."

He bowed his head and rubbed his eyes. He knew she didn't want
to be here, didn't want to acquire cases this way. But he had
thought that a chance to get involved in a real X-file -- he
smiled to himself wistfully -- a "classic" X-file -- would
help put them back on the same track after their enforced
suspension and the subsequent tensions between them.
Unfortunately, this wasn't looking like the right case to do
that. "That's too bad, Scully, since our flight--"

"So I played a jurisdictional trump card," she interrupted,
her voice defiant, "and they agreed to let me help them
prepare the samples for microscopic analysis. They're also
hoping to get the PCR results back from the Sheriff's crime
lab this afternoon, and I want to take a look at those."

He listened in surprised silence to the intensity in her
voice. Dr. Scully was on a roll.

"At least we might eventually get some identities on these
poor women. They couldn't get any prints, obviously. The
forensic dentist who took the skull photos and X-rays said
from the condition of the teeth few of the victims had ever
been to a dentist, so it's going to be tough to do an I.D.
that way. And nobody has claimed any of the bodies, Mulder,
did you know that?"

"No." She's fired up, he thought, with a small thrill of
excitement. Maybe this is working after all. "So, do you have
a theory, Scully?"

"The coroner hasn't gotten a report from the arson
investigators yet on any accelerants in the samples they took
from the building," she said slowly.

"The newspaper article said the people were the source of the
flames, not the building."

"If it's okay with you, Mulder, I'm going to base my theory on
scientific evidence rather than newspaper articles."

"Not going to go with spontaneous human combustion, huh?" He
wondered if she could hear the hopeful smile in his voice.

"Mulder, how could that be? At this point, after looking at
the bodies in the photos, the most plausible theory is that
these people ingested something... or were made to ingest
something that was highly flammable. It was either a horrible
accident or... something truly evil happened here. Either way,
something was made to happen, by someone. I just get the
feeling..."

"A hunch, Scully?"

"A partially informed guess, Mulder. Something that can be
proved or disproved using hard evidence." The emphasis
elicited another small smile from him, one he knew she'd glare
right off his face if she could see him. "That's what makes it
a theory, not a hunch."

"And that non-hunch is?"

"Someone did this, Mulder. Someone is responsible for these
deaths. I'd like to know who."

And make them pay. He heard the unspoken coda to her speech
clearly. "Are you going to need a lot more time down there?"
he asked. "Or do you think you'll be done soon enough to come
with me?"

Her voice turned regretful. "I would like to meet a woman who
worked at the Bureau all those years ago, but I want to stay
here and finish the sample preps. We'll prepare the tissue for
microscopy this afternoon, and the chemical analysis for any
accelerants in the bodies will be done soon, they tell me,
maybe tomorrow. Then I can call in the morning for the results
of all the tests, and we can decide from there whether it's
necessary to change our flight."

Count on Scully to find his ideas a little less harebrained
when faced with desperate victims. In fact, he probably
counted on her for that way too often. It was like counting on
the sun to rise. "Okay," he said. "I'll pick you up in a
couple hours, then."

His finger was a millimeter from the end button when he heard
her say, "Mulder..."

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever... Were you here...?"

He listened with curiosity as her voice trailed off in
confusion. "Here? At the coroner's?" he asked, feeling
confused himself.

Another soft slick. "Never mind. Just... Please be careful."

"I was careful," he said, on the defensive even though she
couldn't possibly know he'd just been doubting his ability to
protect them should the bottom drop out again. "I'm always
careful, Scully. Believe it or not, I know what I'm doing. I'm
a trained agent, just like you, remember?"

"You know perfectly well what I mean." Her impatient tone
echoed his own. "There's a reason we are assigned as partners,
Mulder, and I can't help you if you don't tell me what's going
on."

"I always tell you what's going on." Professionally, anyway.

A frustrated snort traveled over the line. "Bermuda Triangle,
Mulder. Ring any bells?"

He stopped smiling. Jesus. Every time he expected a left she
led with her right. "Scully," he said stiffly, "here is what's
going on. I'm going to go out to Pasadena, check on Mrs.
Bahnsen, and then I'm going to drive back to get you. Okay?"

"Fine."

"Fine," he replied, with mild annoyance born of speaking at
cross-purposes with her yet again. "I'll talk--"

"Are you sure you're okay, Mulder?" she interrupted. There was
the left, the one-eighty degree turn in her voice to genuine
concern. "Maybe you should come back here first so I can check
you out."

He bowed his head and closed his eyes, weighing the attraction
of a Scully-administered trauma check against delaying the
drive to Pasadena any longer. "I better not, Scully, not if I
want to get there and back in time."

Then he took a chance and lowered his voice to a deliberate
leer. "You can check me out later."

He wasn't at all surprised when she hung up on him.

* * *
End Chapter 3
* * *
Chapter 4