Washington D.C.
December 5, 1953
1:13 am

The litany repeated in Dales' head, a counterpoint as he pounded down the
stairs.

How could you get her involved in this?
How could you?
How--

In his haste he slipped off a stair, his foot hitting the next step with a
jarring thud that reverberated up his spine. A brief pause to right himself
and then finally he reached the bottom stair. He pushed through the lobby's
two glass doors and turned right, hustling toward the intersection as fast as
his knee would let him, his arms tucked close to his body to reduce the stress
on his ribs. He still had no damn clue what he would do if she weren't
standing there, waiting for a cab. They wouldn't snatch her off the sidewalk,
would they? He refused to believe it. Cabs were common along the main drag and
she'd be home by now. How pathetic would she think him if he showed up at her
door, when she'd been safe and sound all along? He'd thought he'd felt
vulnerable before, when they'd driven the lesson home with fists and boots,
but he'd been wrong, so unbelievably wrong....

As he turned the corner, he searched for the Pontiac, but it was long gone.
There was a cab, however, idling outside the diner, its 'Hired' sign lit, its
driver settled low in his seat, smoking. Dales crossed the street and rapped
on his window.

"I'm hired, buddy," the driver said as he rolled down his window. He was older
than Dales expected, thin in the way old men get, scrawny except for a hard,
round belly that jutted straight out from his body. With an impatient swipe of
his hand, the driver moved his cap back on his head to get a better look at
Dales.

"FBI. Arthur Dales." Dales shoved his badge through the window.

"Yeah, you sound like a cop." The driver peered suspiciously at Dales,
assessing the damage to his face, the absence of a uniform, coat or tie. "But
you sure as hell don't look like one."

"How long have you been here?" asked Dales.

"Not long. Five minutes, maybe. A woman flagged me down, but then she went
inside to make a phone call." He shrugged. "It's her nickel," he said, waving
at the ticking meter on his dashboard.

Before the driver had finished his sentence, Dales patted the window to
indicate his thanks and moved away to get a better view through the diner's
window, looking for a gray raincoat and a pale blue scarf over red hair. All
he saw was a tired waitress wiping the counter and a large man in a heavy
brown overcoat hunched over a cup of coffee. Dales looked back at the driver
watching him in his rearview mirror. Their eyes met and the driver glanced
away. Dales craned his head to look in the diner again and saw her emerge from
the phone booth at the back of the eatery. Relief swept through his body so
fiercely he almost swooned and he had to shut his eyes. He could feel his
pulse in his eardrums, hear it pounding in his head.

Never again.
Never again.
Never again.

He heard the bell clank against the glass door at the same time he heard her
voice.

"Arthur!"

He opened his eyes to stare at her. Opened his mouth and couldn't think of a
thing to say.

"Arthur?" She moved in and rested a hand on his arm, looking up at him with
concern in her wide eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"Dorothy," he started and then coughed. He tried again. "Why are you still
here?"

"What?"

He'd meant why did she want anything to do with him and his files but that
wasn't the point now, not really, and so he waved his hand at the street, at
the cab driver who had unabashedly turned in his seat to watch the two of
them. "Why are you still here? Who were you calling?"

"Who was I calling?" she repeated, affronted. "Arthur, what is wrong with
you?"

As quickly as relief had whooshed through him, anger swept in to take its
place, making it possible to ignore the devastating fear that underlay it all.

"Dorothy, get in the cab," he ordered. "I'm taking you home."

"I'm not going home."

"Dorothy--"

"Arthur, I saw the car you described."

He wanted to howl.  He closed his eyes instead.  At the touch of her hand on
his elbow, he opened his eyes and looked at her. And sighed. "Let's go inside
and talk."

He paid the cab driver, who drove off muttering something about women who
should know better.

Dales shook his head at the retreating cab, thinking, buddy, you have no idea.

He held the door open for Dorothy as they walked back into the diner, his hand
resting on her back to guide her way to the red vinyl booths along one side.
He helped her off with her coat, hung it on a hook beside a booth, and slid
into the seat across from her. The waitress took their order for coffee,
returning with two mugs before either of them relented and broke the tense
silence.  Dales watched the waitress saunter back to her post by the cash
register and pick up her dime-store pulp detective novel, its cover garish
under the over-bright diner lights.

He turned to Dorothy, who from the look on her face was reaching the end of
her patience. "Tell me what happened after you left," he said.

"When I reached the sidewalk, I saw the car you described parked at the end of
the block. It was just like you said, a tan and white car with whitewall
tires. I thought I saw two men sitting inside but it was so dark, I couldn't
tell."

"Were they there when you came to my house?"

"I don’t know, I wasn't looking. I didn't know about them then."

He rubbed his face, forgetting about the bruises until it was too late. His
hands dropped to the table, which he studied through his fingers, staring at
the blue and sliver specks sprinkled through the white formica, wondering
where to start his story. His thumbs stroked the grooved stainless steel band
covering the edge of the table. "Okay, so they saw you leave. Then what? Did
they follow you?"

"No, but by the time I got to the corner, I was jumping out of my skin. I
flagged down a cab to get out of there quickly but then I had an idea. That's
when I went inside to call my aunt. You know the rest from there. Now what
happened? Why did you come after me?"

His fingers were death-white where they gripped the table. "You called your
aunt?"

She sat up proudly. "Yes. Well, at first I panicked. But then I thought if I
left, I could lead them away from you, that they might follow me and leave you
alone. I called her to see if it was okay if I showed up in the middle of the
night. I didn't think it would be a good idea if I went home to an empty
apartment."

"Dorothy, are you insane?" Her shocked look was gratifying, although he could
hardly savor it through the alarm clanging through his body. "What were you
thinking?"

"Under the circumstances, I think I did the smart thing," she said stiffly.
"What if they had gone upstairs after you?"

"What if they had gone after you and your aunt? It's bad enough they might
know who you are. How could you drag this trouble to your family's doorstep?"

She clamped a hand over her mouth and her eyes filled with tears.  He searched
for a way to tamp down his panic-fueled anger and explain this rationally,
without yelling, and without provoking tears, God forbid.  Women's tears
always left him feeling like the world's biggest jerk, and this woman in
particular...  He had a sudden flash of sympathy for his father, who'd bawled
him out but good when he'd done something stupid. All he'd heard then was the
anger, not the fierce love underneath.

"Dorothy," he said quietly, trying to slow his heart, "you were very brave and
I can't tell you how much your thinking of me means to me. But these men....
Being brave isn't enough. You have to be smart."  At her furious glare, he
rushed to make himself clear.  "No, not smart like that.  You're the smartest
person I know, believe me. But I don’t mean smart like that, I mean
street-smart. You don’t know how to protect yourself, and I'm not sure I can
do it either now."

"I don’t need you to protect me."

"You do and the fact that you don’t see that scares me more than anything." He
let his head fall back against the booth and regarded her. They stared at each
other in silence until the waitress ambled over to see if they needed a
refill.  Dorothy waved her off.

"Arthur, what aren't you telling me?"

His head shot up in shock. "Haven't you been listening--"

Her raised hand cut him off. "Quit stalling. You said you can’t protect me
*now*. What did you mean?"

She was good, he had to give her that. He thought about it. All this time,
he'd been trying to protect her from the knowledge of what Cohn and those men
were up to. Maybe that was a mistake. She had no idea of the kind of danger
she was in. "I got a call after you left."

He told her about Kurtzweil's call, about the various experiments designed to
make a more powerful, more efficient soldier, about what really happened to
Skur, about the conspiracy that seemed to reach into the very halls of the
justice system.

Dorothy sat quietly, ever more pale as his story continued, but the tears that
threatened earlier seemed long gone. The only sign of her agitation was the
napkin she was slowly shredding in her lap. "The war's over," she said. "Why
keep going with the experiments?"

He didn't know what he'd been expecting her to say, but it wasn't that. "I
don’t know," he admitted.

She tossed the mutilated napkin onto the table and rested her forehead in one
hand while the other stirred the dregs of her coffee. "Why did he tell you all
this? Who is he?"

"He claims to be one of many scientists who worked on various secret
experiments after the war.  A biologist, I think he said."

"Who does he work for now?"

"I don’t know," said Dales, dropping his gaze from her to the table, watching
his finger push a fork in a circle.  "I didn't get chance to ask him."

"Can you trust him?"

"Maybe. Yes.  No.  I don’t know."  He steeled himself to meet her eyes but she
was still studying her coffee.  He hated the defeated arch of her neck.  He
had a horrible feeling that maybe he'd pushed her too hard, or worse, that she
would never forgive him for keeping secrets.  "Dorothy, my instincts tell me
he was trying to help.  What could he possibly gain by warning me away from
the warehouse after the fact?"

"I don’t know."  She sighed and looked over at the waitress, who was now
chatting with the man in the overcoat.  "Do you know how to find him again so
we could get more information?"

He studied the curve of her ear, willing her to look at him, to acknowledge
him.  "Didn't get his number. I hung up on him after I saw the car out the
window."

She nodded slowly and turned to look at Dales. Finally.  The dull glaze of her
eyes scared him, though.  "Have you considered that maybe they didn’t know who
I was? Maybe they got spooked that you saw them. Maybe this is all a
coincidence."

"Dorothy." He wanted to reach over and touch her but he didn't dare.

Her attention shifted back to her coffee. "I know. Just give me a minute to
think. You've had months to process all this and I've only had 15 minutes."

He winced at the accusation in her voice.  His automatic apology hadn't even
left his mouth before she cut him off.

"Enough. I've heard enough for one night, Arthur. You can tell me the rest
later."  The glaze was gone, replaced by anger.

"Dorothy--"

"Later. I want to go home." Her iron tone indicated this conversation was
over. In a way, he was relieved, because he wasn't sure how to broach the
subject of her leaving the X-files behind.

"You shouldn't be alone."

"I'll go to my aunt's house, then. Those men are long gone; they won’t follow
me now."

He nodded, and reached into his pocket for his wallet, dropping a few coins on
the table before helping her on with her coat. He was careful not to touch
her. Not now.

They hailed a cab and rode in silence to her aunt's house, where he stood on
the sidewalk and watched as her aunt opened the door and Dorothy stepped in
without a glance back.

* * *

Northbound Golden State Freeway
February 28, 1999
3:43 pm

"I think we made a clean getaway, Scully." Mulder glanced over at his partner,
who was staring down at the large, glossy photograph in her hands. It was a
colorful abstraction to Mulder, a combination of purple blobs and acid pink
streaks, a mapmaker's nightmare. But apparently for Scully, it was the path to
wisdom. For him it had as much meaning as the tangle of graffiti that covered
the overpass they were racing under. "Um, Scully?" he ventured, as she
continued to pore over the photograph. "Can you tell me what's going on?"

"I have to get to a library, Mulder. Or at the very least to a computer with
an internet connection."

"We could go back to the medical campus--"

"No. No, what you told me about the Sew-Quick owners possibly having a
connection with someone at the coroner's is worrisome. I'm not sure I'd trust
anyone there now."

She was gazing thoughtfully out the windshield, and Mulder doubted she was
trying to decipher the graffiti. He made a fast decision and started scanning
the green signs announcing intersecting freeways and exits. To his amusement,
the denizens of L.A. always referred to what lay at the end of these off ramps
as "surface streets," as if the city was relegated to a subterranean
underworld of grimy avenues and crowded boulevards, while the endless freeways
carved paths through more rarified air overhead.

"Besides, this is so wild..." Scully's voice trailed off. She had put the
photograph on her lap, laying her hands over it as if to shield it from view.
"I couldn't have discussed it with Kumar or even Browning, even if we weren't
suspicious of them. I'm not ready to share this idea with anyone. Anyone but
you."

Mulder almost missed his exit. After a startled moment of replaying her
statement in his head, he swung the Mustang across two lanes at the last
minute, wincing at the foghorn-deep protest from the trailer truck that had
been lumbering along beside them.

The motion startled Scully into focusing on their route. "I thought we were
going back to the hotel."

"You want a library and a computer, right? We're going to Cal Tech. I saw the
signs on my way to Mrs. Bahnsen's yesterday. It's in Pasadena."

With a quick nod, Scully reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a
map. She studied it briefly, then announced, "East Glenarm Street exit."

"Okay." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, then tapped his
fingers impatiently on the wheel. Through sheer force of will he refrained
from badgering her. Even if she was hesitant to present her theory, they were
still communicating better than the last time they'd sat together in this car.
He didn't want to screw that up.

Scully put away the map, then picked up the photo again. She'd sunk back into
a meditative trance and it was only the crack from one of his sunflower seeds
that seemed to startle her out of it. "Mulder, what are we going to do about
Krycek?"

It wasn't the topic Mulder had been hoping to discuss when he'd started in on
the seeds. In fact, he'd been trying to occupy his hands in an attempt to keep
from shaking the theory out of her. He glanced over at her while considering
and discarding one answer to her question: 'If we see him, kill him.' Scully
didn't seem to share his murderous feelings toward the opportunist turncoat.
Not that she was fond of Krycek, but she'd probably get even more annoyed with
Mulder if he indulged himself in vengeance. She was a bit of a stickler about
those things.

"I'm not sure there's anything we can do about him, unless he scuttles out of
the shadows long enough for us to catch him. I should go back and try to
question Park and Tarasov about him, though. On the tape they seemed ready to
turn on whoever is pulling the strings here. But you know, if we solve this
burn case, Scully, we could just get lucky enough to shake out Krycek in the
process." Mulder steered the Mustang up the short East Glenarm off ramp and
stopped at the light. He looked over at her. She was now frowning down at the
photograph and worrying one corner, folding it up and down. "Scully, are you
keeping me in suspense on purpose?"

She didn't pretend to misunderstand him, but straightened in her seat and
looked over at him. "I may have to change my mind about sharing this idea,
Mulder. I'm just not sure I'm ready to make this much of a leap. What the
evidence here points to is so bizarre..."

He followed the train of cars before them onto Glenarm as the light turned
green. "But I like bizarre."

"That's the best reason not to get into this with you, Mulder. You'll latch
onto this preliminary theory when there may be a much more... sensible
explanation. And I'll never be able to talk you out of it."

"I think you'd be surprised at what you could talk me out of, Scully. Or into,
for that matter. Go on," he said, allowing himself to tease a bit, trying
carefully to recover the ground they'd lost. "I dare you."

He said a silent thank you to whoever might be listening when she took the
challenge. "Okay, fine, Mulder. Here it is. Browning told me yesterday that
the PCRs for the victim identity testing were screwed up. I didn't want to say
anything while we were at the coroner's because he wasn't supposed to tell me,
and I didn't want to get him into trouble with Kumar."

"What does that have to do with the pictures?"

She picked up the photograph. "I see some very strange structures in this
tissue, Mulder. Like Dr. Browning, I thought maybe the microscope lens might
have been dirty, but the pattern doesn't have the right refractory
characteristics for dust or even ice crystals. There are... spots concentrated
within the cytoplasm of the cells. It's almost impossible to see subcellular
structure without an electron microscope, but these pictures were pretty good
to begin with, and then they used an imaging program to blow them up and print
them without losing too much resolution."

"And the spots?"

"At first I thought they were bacteria. They're the right size and there are
clusters of them that make them look like colonies, like one bacterium had
invaded each cell and then begun dividing. But I've never heard of a species
of bacteria that can invade so many different types of tissue. This was in
every cell type I looked at. And there were so many of them..."

"Could that have caused the tissue to explode? A bacterial infection?"

"No. Not like we saw it happen today, or in the sweatshop. Not from any
organism we know about, anyway."

They turned to look at each other as Mulder pulled up to the kiosk that
guarded the entrance to the Cal Tech parking structure. "We've run across some
pretty strange organisms in our time, Scully."

"I know, but together with the PCR data--" She stopped while Mulder paid for
parking and eased the Mustang into a visitor's space near the stairs. "Mulder,
the genes that the crime lab saw as being highly amplified in the identity
PCRs code for mitochondrial enzymes."

He switched off the car and turned to face her. The light was dim, and he
could just make out the glimmer of her eyes and a faint red glint off her
hair. "I know I said I like bizarre, Scully, but that doesn't mean I always
understand it when I get it."

"Mitochondria are subcellular structures. They're about the same size as
bacteria, because they probably were bacteria billions of years ago. But now
they've adapted to live within the cells of almost all living organisms.
They're the... the furnace, if you will, for each cell. They manufacture
energy from oxygen."

"I thought PCR had something to do with DNA."

"It does. Mitochondria have their own small, unique genome, and their DNA is
different from the DNA in the nucleus of the cells. And they're only inherited
from the mother. So all the mitochondria in your body come exclusively from
your mother, and if we wanted to test someone for a relationship with you,
like--" She stopped short.

"Like if we found someone claiming to be Samantha," he replied steadily.

"Yes, like that," she continued softly. "We'd test their mitochondrial coding
sequences by PCR, looking for a match. It's the same way I determined that
Emily was... was my daughter."

He closed his eyes briefly. "And the tests on the women from the sweatshop?
What were they for?"

"To show us who they were related to, if someone had come forward to claim the
remains. But these test results showed something else, that the number of
copies of mitochondrial enzymes in the tissue was tremendously elevated.
Meaning the number of mitochondria present was way above normal. The large
number of structures I'm seeing in these tissue samples, these may actually be
those mitochondria. They're present in huge numbers, and not just in the
muscle tissue, where you'd expect to see quite a few, but even in the skin and
connective tissue." She waved the photograph at him. "And because of how
mitochondria function--"

"Like a furnace," he repeated her words thoughtfully. "You think these women
had so many mitochondria in their tissues, all working to produce energy, and
for some reason, something went wrong and they just..." He put the pieces
together, then stared at her.

"Mark this day down, Mulder," she said with a grimace. "It's my theory that
with an overload of energy from an overpopulation of mitochondria, these women
may have..." She lifted her chin and the light from the stairwell exit sign
caught her face. She was daring him now, he could tell, daring him to take her
seriously. "These women may actually have died due to spontaneous human
combustion."

He stared back at her.

She had turned to open the car door, but apparently, at his continued
non-response, she felt the need to snap him out of it. She twisted back toward
him. "Let's go, Mulder. I need to look up some references and determine if
this is even close to being in the realm of possibility."

"Scully," he said, "You did just theorize a scientific basis for spontaneous
human combustion, didn't you?"

"Yes," she replied impatiently. "But we still have to prove it."

"Oh good," he said. "For a minute there, I thought this was all a dream and if
I asked you to pinch me I was going to wake up in Kersh's office getting
chewed out for not filing expense reports on time. This is much better."

He followed her example as she gave the car door an exasperated push and
stepped out into the parking garage. As they made their way to the stairwell,
he tried to gauge her mood. She seemed thoughtful, determined, and for reasons
he didn't want to question, not nearly as angry with him as she might have
been, considering what they had gone through earlier that day. "Hey, Scully?"

"Yes, Mulder."

"You want to pinch me anyway?"

* * *

California Institute of Technology
1200 E. California Blvd.
Pasadena
5:07 pm

"Eighty thousand citations?"

"Yes, Mulder, stretching back to 1975. That's not counting the journals in the
stacks that haven't been put on-line yet. I can't believe out of all that
information it turns out that one of the leading experts on mitochondrial
metabolism is working right here at Cal Tech. And I can't believe you're
dragging me to see her."

"Scully, this is a golden opportunity. You can present your findings--"

"Oh, God," she muttered under her breath.

"And discuss them with Professor Hiyama," Mulder continued, hustling Scully
across the quiet campus. "Not only that, here's your chance to double the
number of citations on spontaneous human combustion in the peer-reviewed
literature. From one citation to two." To his disgust, Mulder's literature
search hadn't required nearly as much time as Scully's. One lousy citation in
the Annals of Emergency Medicine on spontaneous human combustion. He gave a
brief look backward at the impressive library towering behind them. Such a
large building, he thought, for such narrow minds.

Before Scully had started sorting through the mountain of information on
mitochondria, they had bought coffee and shared a square of pumpkin bread from
the nearby dining hall. After Mulder had finished his abbreviated research, he
had spent the remainder of their time at the Millikan Library placing a
conference call to Danielle and Frohike. The two of them had taken all the
information he'd gathered on Sew-Quick, its putative owners, and their
lawyers, and promised to try to trace the ownership of the building and the
business. He'd also tried to contact Mrs. Bahnsen concerning their dinner
invitation, but there had been no answer at the number she had given him. He
had left a message on the answering machine to let her know that he and Scully
might be late.

Moving at a brisk pace, the agents made their way across the quiet campus. The
darkening sky was clear and the temperature was dropping quickly. In the cold
air, the echoes of their footsteps bounced off the surrounding buildings and
mixed with the sound of a siren in the distance. Mulder stopped at a large,
mushroom-shaped concrete structure and studied the map engraved on the top. He
could feel Scully's reluctance to pursue this lead as she dragged up to the
free-standing map and stood five feet away from him, hands thrust into her
coat pockets and back hunched against a sudden, sharp gust of wind. In the
rapidly failing light, Mulder could just make out their destination. "That
way." He pointed to one of the sidewalks stretching away from them. "Alles
Laboratory. That's where Professor Hiyama's office is located. Let's go."

"Mulder, wait. I've changed my mind," Scully called to him, even as she
hustled to move along behind him. More because he was useful as a shield
against the wind in her face than anything else, he suspected. "I am not going
to present a world-class biochemist with a lot of insane speculation and no
data. I don't have the PCR films, and I only have one photograph, with spots
on it, for God's sake. I need to go back to Dr. Browning and get copies of the
PCR data and ask them to do electron microscopy on the tissue. That's the only
way we can conclusively show--"

As they turned a corner her protesting voice, the loudest sound in the
surrounding area, was drowned out by the sudden, sharp blast of another siren,
and a cacophony of panicked shouting. As they picked up their pace, Mulder
realized the building that was their destination was also the source of the
noise. The brisk twilight air seemed to vibrate with the cries of fear and
confusion from the students and faculty scattering from the buildings, some in
lab coats, some carrying lap-top computers, some wheeling out on bicycles. All
were making their way past firemen who were streaming in the other direction
carrying axes and trailing hoses. Mulder couldn't see the fire trucks from
where he and Scully stood gaping at the confused melee, but the flashing red
strobe lights bounced off the surrounding buildings and added a surreal
stop-motion feel to the scene. Black smoke poured from one side window and the
front door of the building released a dramatic cloud each time another escapee
shot through.

A tall man hustled past them, his long curly hair flying in every direction.
"Wait, wait," said Mulder, grabbing at the man's elbow.

"Can't stop, man. I've gotta get another couple of carts. We've got a ton of
data in there, and we're going to need major wheels to get it out before the
whole building goes up. The Chem synth lab is right next door. Bad place for a
fire, if you know what I mean."

"What happened?" Scully asked.

"I don't know. Smoke just started pouring out of Dr. Hiyama's office, and
someone was yelling 'Fire.' I mean, we're pretty used to this stuff -- you
know, someone pours a little ether down the sink, shit happens in a lab. But
this was weird 'cause it was in an office, and the smoke was intense. Look,
man, I gotta go." He twisted out of Mulder's grasp and sprinted toward the
adjacent building.

Mulder looked down and met Scully's horrified gaze. "Scully, are you
thinking--"

"Obaa-san!"

Mulder's head whipped up at the wounded wail coming from the man who was being
hauled through the front door of the burning building by two burly firemen.

"You don't understand, I have to go back for her. Obaa-san!" The man twisted
in the firemen's grasp, to no avail.

"This is the last one. Building clear!" one of the fireman yelled to a group
of others running by. As the struggling trio made their way down the sidewalk,
Mulder got a better look at the screaming man's face. With a jolt of
recognition, he said, "Takashi?"

"Mulder, do you know him?" Scully looked up at him with curiosity.

"He works for Mrs. Bahnsen. She introduced us. Christ, Scully, she told me his
grandmother was a professor at Cal Tech. Takashi!"

The firemen had halted at the sound of Mulder's voice. "This man a friend of
yours, sir?" asked one of them, taking a firm grip on the young man as the
other fireman raced back to block the entrance of the building.

"I know him, yeah," Mulder replied. "Takashi? Is it your grandmother? Is your
grandmother Professor Hiyama?" Mulder tried to take hold of the younger man's
arm, then took a step back as he was met with an expression of intense
loathing.

"She knows," Takashi spat at Mulder. "She knows. And if you are a friend of
hers, you must know too. You are all evil and corrupt. You killed my
grandmother!" He wrenched away from the fireman and took a wild swing at
Mulder, who stepped back just in time. "I'll get you," he yelled as he turned
and began to run down the sidewalk. "I'll make you pay! My family will not be
the ones who pay for this. Not anymore!"

Mulder stared after Takashi, then looked down as Scully murmured, "Mulder?"

"No idea," Mulder said. "No idea what he was talking about. Hey," he called as
the fireman turned to leave. "What happened here?" he gestured at the
building.

"Not as bad as it looks," said the fireman, pointing back at the building
where an anemic trickle of white smoke had replaced the earlier black cloud.
At the sound of screeching wheels, the three of them turned and watched in
bemusement as the tall, curly haired man barreled down the sidewalk pushing
one cart and pulling another. "Hey, bud," the fireman called. "You're not
going to need those. The fire's already contained."

The man ignored them and kept heading toward the entrance of the building
where he began a loud argument with the fireman guarding the door. The fireman
Mulder had addressed turned back to him. "Even though there was a lot of
smoke, it seemed to have burned itself out by the time we got here. There was
just one office involved, and it looks like we've got a single victim. We
still have to secure the building though, before that guy can go in. Or anyone
else, for that matter."

With a feeling of foreboding, Mulder asked, "Any I.D. on the victim?"

The fireman squinted at him. "And you are?"

Mulder looked down at Scully, then slowly reached into his coat pocket to pull
out his badge.

"Dr. Dana Scully," Scully said, stepping in front of Mulder. "I'm a
pathologist from Washington, D.C. I'm here to consult with a Professor Hiyama
on a case. She works in that building."

"Uh... Not any more, ma'am-- um, Doctor," The fireman said looking down at
her. "We're pretty sure from a few preliminary witness statements that
Professor Hiyama was the victim here. I'm sorry." The fireman glanced from
Scully to Mulder, then over at the building where the argument was getting
louder. "Gotta go," he muttered, and jogged off to reinforce his colleague.

Scully turned slowly to face Mulder. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Yeah," he said. "That someone is taking the spontaneous out of spontaneous
human combustion."

She glanced over at the building. "I'm going to go see if they'll let me take
a look at the body. See if it matches the victims from the warehouse."

"Okay. I'm going to call Mrs. Bahnsen." He pulled out his cell phone and the
card Dorothy had given him the day before. "This all seems to be converging on
her in some way. I want to make sure she's alright."

He watched Scully approach the firemen at the entrance of the building and
begin to make her case. He dialed the number on the card, then waited in
frustration as ring after ring echoed in his ear. Scully was coming back
toward him, shaking her head, when the ringing cut off and a gruff voice said,
"Hello?"

"Uh, hello?" Mulder sent Scully a puzzled look. "Is Mrs. Bahnsen there?"

"Who is this?" the voice on the other end demanded.

"Fox Mulder. I'm a friend of Mrs. Bahnsen's," Mulder replied. "Who is this?"

"Detective Lloyd Culp. Pasadena City Police. Mr. Mulder, is it? Sir, if you're
a friend of Mrs. Bahnsen's, you might want to get over here."

* * *
End Chapter 11
* * *

To Chapter 12