"Cruel" by Tori Amos, from From the Choirgirl Hotel

Jason Hart's heavy-lidded eyes close as if of their own volition. It has been a bad night, one of the many he spent lately, with Marita's thin body trembling in his hands. The fever always subsides by morning, and she can finally rest. He has no such luxury.

A sound slap sends him back to the dizzying reality, and he reaches out a hand to steady himself. He'd never fallen asleep during an interrogation before, but such business no longer has the flavor of terror.

Wordlessly, his colleague hits the other cheek of the man tied to a heavy chair.

"I..." the man shakes his head, futilely. "I haven't..."

"You haven't betrayed us, Roy, after we took you in - in good faith?"

A punch to the stomach doubles Roy over, and his strained shoulders quiver in agony. "I'm not a traitor," he begs once he recovers his breath. "You must - you must believe me."

Roy is still young enough to assume that his words will somehow make the smallest bit of difference, and his plea for unconditional trust makes Jason smile. The only one he trusts these days is Marita - the captive is as inconsequential as a stepping stone. "Perhaps you were spying on us from the beginning," he speaks to Roy for the first time. "You worked for them for three years, after all."

"I didn't give them any information." Roy pulls on the bonds fruitlessly. "I couldn't."

"The only reason why you're still alive is that they believe you're dead. No," the interrogator leans closer to the battered face. "Not 'them,' Roy. The FBI. The ones who dutifully guard the returning abductees day and night. The ones who were directed to do so by the woman you watched for several days."

The bound man quivers, finally understanding. "I never talked to her, I swear," he speaks in a rush. "I followed her, you gave me this assignment, it's not my fault that she figured it out, why won't you believe me!"

Calmly, the interrogator opens the first few buttons on Roy's shirt and uses the revealed chest as an ashtray. Hart is deaf to the screams that follow, but the smell of cooked flesh that fills the room is inescapable, an insignificant suffering added to the memories of El Rico disaster, a small flame in the firestorm. He recalls the devastation brought on by the faceless soldiers, the fire that consumed the men who betrayed him. The women and children who hadn't been spared the same fate.

The interrogator's voice doesn't alter when he poses the question again. "How much have you told Agent Scully? What does she know?"

Jason's heart constricts painfully in his chest, shooting streaks of agony down his left arm. Has it come to this, then? Have they become as desensitized to suffering as the aliens, the very force that they're seeking to defeat? When have they started to treat the human flesh with as little emotion as the cooks who flay the meat of the animals do?

The interrogator lights another cigarette, and Roy's eyes glaze over in fear. He is devoid of words or of tears - the only one crying is Jason Hart, but both the victim and the executioner are too involved in their tasks to notice him. He crosses the room and slices the bonds that hold Roy in place. "It doesn't matter," he says to both of them. "We won't kill the returned ones."

"It's the only way," his colleague hisses unkindly. "And Agent Scully had been a problem from the start. Why is she still alive?"

"She could have led us to Samantha Mulder," Hart explains. "Besides, sometimes, violence is not the immediate answer."

"You've grown soft, Hart. Too much female influence, perhaps? Does Marita need to be put down like a rabid dog as well?"

The gunfire that erupts is as much a surprise to the man with the bullet in his head as to Hart, whose hand pulled the trigger. Hart's illusions shatter just as quickly as the interrogator's face: he is the one who has become the executioner - the butcher.

"Get out," he tells Roy tiredly.

"I haven't," the young man repeats stubbornly. "I told her nothing, I swear."

"I believe you, but you will never serve us well after what transpired here," Hart responds. "If I see you again, I will not spare you."

He waits until the door closes to reach into his pocket for the medicine. The drug kicks in slowly, and he knows that the dosage will have to be increased, and soon. They have so little time.

Agent Scully hasn't been useful to them alive. After he corrects this one mistake that already cost them days, they can deal with the problem of abductees. Slowly, he shuffles to the window and slides it wide open.

But even then, the smell of cooked meat refuses to depart.

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