"Manifest Destiny" Part 7
by Kelida Flynn and Slippin' Mickeys
Why couldn't it be aliens, Scully thought acidly as the beam from the
searchlight temporarily blinded her. She pressed down on the accelerator
hard once more, but the mini-van was not in a cooperative mood. And
although the speedometer continued to climb higher and faster, it was
still not fast enough.
Elspeth leaned over the middle of the drivers and passengers seat.
"Why are they still chasing us?" she yelled. "I thought we were clear
a long time ago!"
Scully jerked the wheel again, sending Elspeth careening into the back
of the passenger side seat.
"Good God!" Elspeth screamed, "at least give me the chance to buckle
up before you do that again!"
"Why are they still after us?" Scully questioned, a frantic tic in
her voice. A silence amongst the chaos of noise outside of their inner
circle hung between them for a moment. Scully wavered somewhere
between irritation and panic. "Elspeth? Richter?"
"I don't know!" Elspeth said, eyes focusing in on Richter. "Is it
possible that they're after you?" She gestured toward him. "They want
revenge for what you did at the Antioch Hybrid Camp?" There was no
bitterness in her voice now. "Is there anything else you haven't told
us?"
"I don't see why they would go after me. They've had scores of chances
before to kill me or interrogate me." He shook his head fiercely.
"And why would they waste all this effort simply for revenge?"
"Is it possible that they're after you, Elspeth?" Scully yelled as
she jerked the car sharply to the left. "What were you doing before
they took you to the house back in Rhode Island?"
She shook her head hard, hair flying east and west. "I don't see why
they would be after me. I just was a minor player in the resistance
groups. I planned some things, made speeches, but really, I didn't do
anything that would be even close to being worth all this trouble."
"Well they obviously don't want us dead," Richter said, stretching his
hands forward to brace himself against the dashboard as Scully made
another hard evasive maneuver. "I'd like to find out what they want
with us."
"But we don't want them to catch us so we can find out what's behind
door number two," Elspeth said.
Scully was about to respond when suddenly, the lights were gone, sending
them drifting away into an uneasy silence. Scully's breathing became
short and shallow--flickering in and out like a candle flame without
oxygen. She began to slow the car and turned off the lights. Elspeth
and Richter remained silent as though a word could shatter their fragile
luck.
As stealthily as possible Scully turned the car westwardly and began
to scan the dark before them for a possible hiding spot. She was
operating on a thin form of calm panic that she had mustered up in
their predicament. Heart racing wildly, eyes white and large with fear
and apprehension, she finally spied a clearing to hide the van. She
picked up some speed cautiously, their hopes lying in each rotation
of the tires. They could escape on foot after they were out of the
view of danger, Scully reasoned. Although it would be obvious to
their pursuers where they had gone, the long stretch of forest would
buy them time, especially if they had to go on foot through the forest
in order to find them . . . unless they had already thought of that and
had set ambushes for them . . .
But none of this was to be. Destiny had flipped over a new card in
the game, and one not to their favor. The helicopter had reappeared,
roaring out from over the trees, its menacing glare was bearing down
on them directly.
Later Scully would say that in those moments they had screamed, prayed
quickly and silently for there lives, but none of this horror was
actually a spot in her memory. She would conclude from the facts
later that she had pulled sharply to the right, startled, and dropped
the mini-van into a ditch where it slid for a few feet before it rolled
over. She rationalized all of this because when she woke however many
hours or days later, she could not remember anything that had happened
in those few seconds before fate decided to zig instead of zag.
XxXxXxXx
White walls and anesthetic fluorescent lights. It seemed to Scully as
she blinked her eyes opened that she had been transported into a
literary cliché misused by far too many teenagers who were probably
all dead now. As she tried to lift her arms to wipe the sleep from
her eyes, she came into contact with resistance. Arm restraints.
That woke her up. She groaned as she struggled in her bounds. Out
of the corner of her eye, she spotted the gleam of silver--the door,
a slice of blue-green glass hinting there was an out. Then movement
startled her and she became momentarily frightened that after everything,
this was her end, but relief came over her when she saw it was another
person strapped down onto a similar bed. As she focused in, she saw
that it was Richter, who too was trying to fight off his bondage.
Thinking it only logical, she twisted to the other side to see Elspeth--
but Elspeth was not there.
"Richter?" she moaned in a pained voice.
"Dana?" was his weak reply. Then he called out, "Elspeth?"
"She's not here," Scully said, blowing a strand of hair that had
covered her face. "I don't know . . ."
"Agent Scully, I see you've come to."
It wasn't just the voice so much as it was the vicious tone that
accompanied it that chilled Scully's blood and twisted her gut
upside down. She turned toward the voice, eyes narrowed and intense
toward the object of her repressed rage. "Diana," she addressed tartly
as the brunette smirked and folded her arms, waiting for Scully to
continue, "why am I not surprised?"
XxXxXxXxXxX
"Right," Mulder said, "we go to the Island."
Invictus nodded.
"Great," Mulder went on, "HOW?"
"I haven't figured that out yet, now shut up."
The gunfire ceased for the moment, and Invictus shimmied his way up
to the shoulder to have a look.
He watched for several minutes, then motioned for Mulder to come up
and join him.
"Mulder," he said, "get up here."
Mulder shook his head and refused.
"Forget it," he said.
Another wave of bullets roared through the air above them, and still
Invictus waved for him to come up.
"Are you fucking crazy?" Mulder harshly whispered at him.
"Yes," Invictus whispered back, "now get your ass up here."
Mulder threw him a dirty look, and army-crawled his way up to the shoulder.
"Look," Invictus said, pointing to a red pick-up truck parked at an
angle to them, about 35 yards away, "it isn't them after all. It's
some civilian."
Mulder squinted and could just make out the head of a figure with a
large automatic weapon balanced on the bed.
"So why the hell are they shooting at us?" Mulder asked.
Invictus turned to him."How the hell should I know?" He turned back
to watch the figure and muttered, "We've got to get him to stop
though."
"And how," Mulder said, "do you propose we do that?"
"Why don't we try asking him?" the older man countered.
With that, he put his hand slowly up in the air, followed by his
other one, and finally, he stood up facing the shooter.
"Mulder," Invictus muttered quietly without moving his lips, "stand
up. Slowly."
Mulder rolled his eyes and hesitantly mimicked Invictus' earlier movements.
The figure behind the truck seemed to pause, and raised their head.
Then, they removed the gun from the bed of the truck and, continuing
to train it on Mulder and Invictus, walked slowly around the back of
the truck, heading in their direction.
As the figure got closer, Invictus sucked in a breath.
"What?" Mulder asked in a quiet whisper.
"It's a woman," Invictus answered back.
Mulder squinted to get a good look, and then turned slightly back to him.
"Yeah," he said, "has it been that long?"
"As a matter of fact…"
The woman stopped about 10 yards in front of them.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"No one of consequence," Invictus answered.
She seemed to let her guard down a little.
"But the consequences are no longer what they seem to be," she countered.
"Neither are we," Invictus answered.
The woman dropped her weapon to her side and strode forward,
breathing a sigh of relief, holding her hand out to Invictus as she
approached.
"Human or hybrid?" she asked, shaking Invictus' hand.
"What do you think?" Invictus answered.
The woman sighed. "I suppose I should have known. I heard about
Antioch. All of us here did."
Invictus nodded. "It's nice to know the resistance has reached so far
out. Even way up here."
The woman's face fell, and she looked out to the bridge. "It doesn't
take much to persuade people to resist," she said, "just an
Armageddon."
She looked out over the bridge a moment more, then brightened back up,
turning back to Invictus and Mulder.
"So," she said, "who are you? And what the *hell* where you doing out
on the bridge?"
"The name is Invictus. My friend here and I, if you would believe it,
climbed our way up the bridge to escape some, how should I say this…
enamored captors? We'd be glad to join your band of resistance, large
or small though it may be. I'm sure you'll find us," he paused once
again, then smiled at the young woman, "helpful."
She returned his smile tenfold, saying, "We'd be glad for your help.
We need all the help we can get!"
She then turned to Mulder, and back to Invictus.
"Who's your silent friend?" She asked.
Invictus turned to Mulder and said, "Fox Mulder, I'd like to
introduce you to…"
"Cassidy Vincent," she said quickly, as if disregarding her own name,
taking an additional step toward Mulder with wide eyes, then, "Fox
Mulder? *You're* Fox Mulder?! THE Fox Mulder?!?"
Seeing that she would get no response from Mulder, she turned to
Invictus for the answer.
"One in the same," he said.
"Holy shit," she said softly, then, she nearly threw the gun up in
the air, and twirled around excitedly, "Holy SHIT!" She shouted.
Then, she abruptly stopped, and turned back to Invictus.
"What's wrong with him?" She asked.
"They wiped his memory," Invictus said somberly, "in fact, we just
escaped, which makes me think we should probably get out of sight…"
"Of course," Cassidy said, "I'm sorry."
She started down the bank they had just climbed, and started walking
along the rocks lining the water.
"Come on," she said.
As they walked north, always low and close to the water, Cassidy
asked them where they had come from and what exactly was up with
Mulder.
"Well Cassidy," Invictus said, after answering her first question,
which was riddled with questions of her own, "I'm not exactly sure
how we're going to jog his memory, but I have faith that everything
will come back to him eventually."
"Call me Cass," she said, "and lets hope so. Either way, we've got to
get you guys to Madison."
"Wisconsin?" Invictus asked, "Sorry, Cass, but we're on our way to
Lansing."
"Not anymore you're not," she said, stopping, "wait here."
She disappeared underneath some overhanging tree limbs, and emerged a
moment later pulling a canoe along the water.
"Get in," she said.
"Where are we going?" Mulder asked, finally finding his voice.
"First?" She said, "We're going to the Island, I live there and we're
going to need to meet with my group there. And then, we're going to
Madison."
Invictus opened his mouth to protest, but she interrupted him.
"Yes, I did say we, and things have changed since you've been gone,
Vinnie. But get in, I'll tell you all about it later."
"Fine," Invictus said, getting into the stern seat, "but if you don't
find it possible to call me Invictus, then call me McCloud. Do NOT
call me Vinnie."
"Have it your way, Mac," she said, hopping into the front seat and
grabbing the oar there.
Mulder gingerly got into the canoe, and sat on the floor in the
middle. As they shoved off and started rowing for Mackinac Island, he
leaned against his pack.
This is just a bad dream, he thought to himself, a vivid, clear,
unbelievably realistic, bad dream.
XxXxXxXxXxX
As they paddled the seemingly endless length of water from the
mainland of the Upper Peninsula to the Island, Mulder spoke.
"Aren't you afraid the military will come out and investigate all that
gunfire? I mean, with all that you shot at us, I'm surprised they
weren't out in full force."
Cassidy shook her blond ponytail. "No," she said, "there's gunfire
all of the time, and since September, the military hasn't done a damn
thing about. No one has. It's like the frontier all over again. In
more ways than one."
As if to illustrate her point, a couple of distant shots rang out, a
set of dull pops followed by a tearing sound, like God ripping clouds.
"And anyway," she continued, "I've barely seen the military. A couple
of times maybe in the Straits, but more often they're over at Fort
Michilimackinac. It seems that after 200 years, the fort is once
again a military post."
"You know, it's funny," she said, momentarily stopping her paddling
to turn and look at Invictus and Mulder, "now, instead of the French,
the British and the Indians, it's humans, aliens and hybrids. I guess
history does repeat itself."
"True," Invictus said, "but if you'll think back to the history of
that very same fort, you'll find that we're in luck."
Mulder turned to him, and he better illustrated.
"The underdogs won," he said, dipping his oar back in the lake and
stoking hard, "as the Indians so ably pointed out, a little ingenuity
goes a long way."
"You're right about that," Cass answered from the bow, "but it was a
damn bloody battle."
XxXxXxXxXxX
They reached the Island, and dragged the craft up onto the beach
where it couldn't be touched by water.
"This way," Cass said, heading up a path that led to a small log
cabin, with a stable and small barn a little further in. Four horses
came out and whinnied at them when they neared.
She walked up the porch that lined the small house and opened the door
slowly. As soon as she had it open a crack, two black noses appeared
instantly. Cass said something to them in English, but it was too high
pitched for either Mulder, or Invictus to make out.
The dogs swarmed around Cass, leaving the lower half of her body a
blur of ebony, bronze and ivory.
"Gentlemen," she said, turning what little they allowed her toward
the two men, "I'd like to in introduce you to Thunder and Lightning.
Boys," she said, turning back to the dogs, "Mack and Mulder."
At that point, the dogs seemed to just notice them standing there on
the porch. At once they launched themselves at Mulder while Invictus
took a few steps back down the staircase and back into the lawn,
slowly.
Mulder bent down, scratching behind their ears while they instantly
fell in love with him.
Then, they pried themselves from Mulder, and scrambled to the edge of
the porch, stopping. The dogs simply stood there looking at Invictus,
while he did the same back. One of them barked once.
"What seems to be the problem?" Mulder said to Invictus, smiling.
"Come and make nice."
"I told you," Invictus said, still not moving, "they HATE me, Mulder."
"Now *why* would anyone hate *you*?" Mulder asked him back, thoroughly
enjoying himself.
Cass stepped back out onto the porch and shouted.
"Boys! Go to the barn!"
The dogs obediently scrambled off the front porch and ran in the
direction of the stable.
She stood in the door and held it open, allowing Invictus and Mulder
to pass through.
Invictus climbed back up on the porch and brushed by Mulder irritatedly.
"Smartass," he mumbled.
Mulder simply smiled to himself and followed him.
"Welcome to my humble abode," she said, shutting the door behind him and
bolting it. "Bathroom's around the corner."
"Thank God," Invictus said, making a beeline around the corner,
leaving Mulder and Cassidy alone in the foyer.
"So uh, Mulder," Cass started, opening a nearby closet and
depositing her large weapon there. "Any ideas on how we're going to
get your memory back?"
"I just work here," Mulder said, shrugging.
Invictus seemed quite taken with her, but Mulder wasn't quite sure he
trusted the woman yet.
"What's the next order of business?"
The two turned to Invictus who'd emerged from around the corner.
Cass looked at her watch and moved towards the door.
"Now, I'm going to feed the horses," she said. "You two stay put. In
an hour, we'll leave for the meeting. We'll figure things out from
there."
She closed the door behind her, and Mulder and Invictus plopped down
on the couch.
"Oh yeah," Invictus said in ecstasy, squirming his way deeper into the
cushions. "You know how long it's been since I've sat in an actual couch?"
Mulder simply narrowed his eyes at him and swiveled his body to talk
with him.
"What are we doing here, Invictus?" He asked. "I thought we were
supposed to be halfway on our way to Lansing by now."
"Well," Invictus said, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. "She seems to be
with the resistance. And she also seems to know a little more about
what's going on out here than I do. I don't know if I'd told you
this, Mulder, but I've been out of touch."
Invictus' tone irritated Mulder.
"I've trusted you so far, Invictus, because I was offered no other
options. While what you've said hasn't made the least bit of sense,
I've followed you and haven't questioned your decisions. But I don't
know left from right, here. I'm out here swinging in the wind, you
could at least tell me why you think she'd know more about what's
going on than you."
"Fair enough," Invictus answered. "Mulder, before I was captured by
the military for reasons I still don't really know, I was one of the
few people on the planet who was in a position to know about, and
possibly stop this whole colonization. I'm still not sure why they
didn't kill us," he said, pausing and pondering the question for a
moment.
"Anyway," Mulder said impatiently.
"Anyway," Invictus continued, "I wasn't in with the government or
anything like that, like you might be thinking, but I did have… well,
what I guess you could call 'inside sources'. What I'm trying to say
here, is that I was the leader of the resistance before there *was* a
resistance. And before I was captured, I'd managed to network most
parts of the country with other groups of people that didn't think
what I was preaching to them was all horsehockey. We installed a
system that I have to say, I'm pretty damn proud of, to keep us
connected and up to date no matter what was happening around the
world. If Cassidy and these people she's with are connected with that
network, they'll have all of the latest information that I was sadly
lacking down in the depths of the Straits."
"But how did…" Mulder began.
"I know you?" Invictus finished for him.
Mulder nodded.
"Well," Invictus went on, "my association with the resistance is
actually how I met you. I'm afraid it's how we were both captured as
well."
Mulder sucked in a breath and turned sharply to Invictus.
"The colonists had attacked most of the big cities on the eastern
seaboard in one day," Invictus explained. "Ever see Independence Day?"
At Mulder's blank stare, he went on.
"Anyway, I'd managed to get a hold of you through some mutual friends
of ours. They'd actually been the ones to help me set up the whole
resistance network. In any event, you'd set up a meeting with me the
next day. Your partner was actually supposed to be there too, but for
some reason or another- you never got the chance to say- she didn't
make it. You were at the meeting place before I got there, and as
soon as I arrived, they surrounded us, threw us into the back of the
proverbial unmarked van and carted us away. I wasn't being careful.
They must have followed me."
He stopped a moment and looked at Mulder with a small, sad smile on
his face.
"Even if you're not paranoid, Mulder, it doesn't mean they aren't out
to get you."
"What happened then?" Mulder asked.
"I think you know the rest," Invictus said. "They gathered us with
the rest of the poor shmucks that knew too much, wiped our memories-
well, *most* of our memories- and sank us down into the big lake
never to be heard from again."
Mulder nodded. "How'd you manage to keep yours?" He asked. "Your
memory, I mean. You never said."
"An old trick they used to use to beat polygraphs. I really didn't
think that it would work."
Mulder looked puzzled. "What exactly did you do?" He asked.
Invictus smiled, then answered. "I stuck a push pin down in my shoe,
and when the time came, I stepped down on it. Really hard. Hurt like
hell, but it seemed to work."
"How the hell," Mulder began, but was interrupted by the slamming of the
front door.
Cass stood in the doorway, brushing some bits of hay off of her jeans.
"Hungry gentlemen?"
Neither man had to answer. "Starving" might as well have been written
across each of their foreheads.
XxXxXxXxXxX
They devoured their meals of meat, potatoes, and other vegetables
wrapped up in a crusty bread. Cass called them pasties.
"You gotta watch how you pronounce that," she said, smiling.
When the dishes had been done, and the scraps had been given to the
dogs, Cass grabbed a light jacket from the doorway closet and stood
by the door.
"Time to go, guys. We've got to meet the group. Boy are THEY going to
be surprised!"
Mulder reached to grab his backpack, but Cass stopped him.
"You can leave that here. Don't worry, we'll be back."
Mulder paused, but picked up the bag anyway.
"I think I'll just take it anyway."
They all exited the cabin into the fresh autumn air. The two men
followed Cass as she approached the stable. She reached the fence and
turned to them.
"English or Western?" she asked them.
"Gazuntight," Invictus said. They had no idea what she was talking about.
"Do you want to ride in an English saddle, or a Western one?" she said
slowly, treating them both as very dense.
"You mean we're riding *horses* to this meeting? Where the hell is
it?" Mulder interjected.
"Yes," she answered, with a hint of contempt in her voice. "The
meeting is downtown. How the hell else would we get there?"
"Um," Mulder said, "did they stop making *cars* while we were gone?"
"There aren't cars on this Island, Mulder," she said back. "There
never have been, and according to the law, there never will be.
They're outlawed here. The only way to get around is by horse, or
bike. You should see the space they save on parking lots at the Grand
Hotel."
Mulder turned to Invictus.
"She's kidding, right?"
"Apparently not," he answered. "I kind of forgot about that part."
He then turned back to Cass.
"Western. For both of us."
She threw them both a brush and headed into the barn.
"Mulder," she said as she was walking. "You get Chauncey. He's the
Bay on the end there. Mack, you take Brice, she's the Appaloosa."
The dogs appeared then, and sniffed around Mulder's ankles.
Mulder held the brush up to Invictus.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" he asked.
"Use it," Invictus answered dumbly, approaching his horse. "Haven't
you ever ridden a horse before, Mulder?"
"When I was a kid," he answered.
"Great. No, go with the hair. That's it." He corrected Mulder, then
continued, "it's like riding a bike."
"So it'll all come back to me?" Mulder asked.
"No," said Invictus with a grin. "But your ass'll hurt like hell when
you get off."
(
geocities.com/area51/crater/3303) (
geocities.com/area51/crater) (
geocities.com/area51)