From: TSykes1327 
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 16:46:07 EST
Subject: NEW: Reluctant Ambition (0/2)
X-UIDL: 4b9b78db00510c70dd1516e767c77074


Disclaimer: The characters and recognised events referred to in this
story do not belong to me, but are the property of Chris Carter, 1013,
Fox and the Cancer Man. Do not hold me responsible when colonisation
is upon us as I intend no copyright infringement. If anyone asks, it
was my evil twin.

Classification: X

Keywords: Pre-XF, Marita, Conspiracy.

Rating: PG-13

No Mulder and Scully. Sorry.

Spoilers: Deep Throat, The Red And The Black, Patient X, Zero Sum.

You can archive this as long as you let me know beforehand.

Notes: OK, the first story I did like this (The Truth In The Past:
Vietnam) didn't turn out quite as I would have liked it. In fact, I
banished it to the recycle bin, and wish I could remove it from
Gossamer and start anew. But that isn't possible. :::cough:::
Anyway, this is my second attempt at a minor character story, and it
deals with the one you all hate - yes, Marita Covarrubias. Well, she's
most probably going to die at some point in season five, and hasn't
been given half the airtime of the other informants, so I thought it
only fair to give her a go. Maybe if she had more background, her
character wouldn't be so annoying? Well, maybe not. Anyway, for all 
the Marita fans out there (for we are few) read this, and see what
you think. (And she doesn't say "Bee Husbandry" once!)
And yes, I know that in Patient X Krycek didn't know Marita. I'm
saying that he lost his memory of those events during his oilien
posession, but that is another story.....
This story contains events which will be neccessary for future
fanfic stories, should I get around to writing them.

Feedback: TSykes1327@aol.com (http://members.aol.com/fleub/)

Thanks To: All the peeps on AOL who have looked through this for me.
You know who you are...Yes you do...Yes you do!!

Summary: Marita Covarrubias reflects on her life, and the path that
she should take now that X is dead.

Story starts in next mailing.



-------------------------------------
THE X-FILES Created by Chris Carter
"Reluctant Ambition" By Garry Sykes
-------------------------------------

Exact Location Unknown
1997
12:13pm

   A dark back alley, a site that was becoming increasingly familiar to
me, would in the end become the place where my reluctant fate would be 
decided. Many a time before had I stood in this place, waiting for Him
to arrive. Many a time had I been greeted by nothing more than a note
detailing his absence and task, inspiring a feeling of reject - a bad
date. Many a time had he took me, shown me things that weren't to be
seen by the mortal eye, and yet they were made clear to me. It was the
closest I have been to a relationship in years, yet I was driven from
him by Them.
   While I would often refuse to admit it, I had become what They called
a Player, probably for their own amusement as much as it was necessary.
It was my preference, however, to look upon myself as a lackey, a tool of 
the one they called the Cancer Man, and nothing more. It made it easier 
to beat myself up, and the suicide attempts all the more melodramatic.
   He would be here, soon. The one that aided me. I stood watching my 
breath escape me, and dreamed of how I myself would one day fly away from 
the nightmares I was now a party to. 
   Unfortunately, though, that would be too simple. Both a curse and
a benefit of being one of the Project's vast number of troops was that
it was very difficult to die, unless they so wished. They had ultimate
control over the actions of their 'employees' and were reluctant to
relinquish it. In the end, that was probably the reason I didn't kill
myself when I saw that man in the alley, heard his rhythmic footsteps
and read the look on his face.
   An unfamiliar man approached, stocky and muscular. This in itself
was not unusual: He often sent strangers to do his work when it became
apparent that He may be exposed. This man, was different: his face bore
a look of grim tiding and grave reluctance.
   It was by this that I knew He was dead.
   The immediate thought struck me with little impact while my unwilling
subconscious willed him to be alive, as if that alone would make it 
right. Pushing all conscious thought to the back of my mind, I gathered
my strength and prepared for the man's onslaught. What I knew was just
around the proverbial corner.
    "I trust you've heard." he said, a statement rather than a question.
Trust - a word overused down the years of my service to Them.
   Dark shadows hid his darker eyes, and blackness rippled over him in
waves as a car passed the alley. We both shifted uneasily.
    "Yes." I lied.
   He drew himself to his full height and he was surprisingly tall. He
grinned a sinister grin, revealing blackened teeth within, and with his
words, a tainted soul.
    "Then you realise that the baton has been passed to you, and that
you should expect a visit."
   I nodded and arced on my heel, gesturing the end of the brief meeting. 
He understood the unwritten language and heaved himself a few steps 
backwards.
    "You must complete the final lap alone. You know what to tell him" 
he said over his shoulder and paced back into the shadows from which he 
had emerged.
   I raised my chin in an uncomfortable forward nod to myself and turned 
my back on him as his heavy steps echoed across the alley. So, He was 
dead and it was up to me now, if the truth was ever to be known.
   When he was far enough away, I let emotion return from it's residence
somewhere inside me. While His death rained on my conscience, I felt
surprisingly little feeling for Him, perhaps confirmation of just how
cold I had become - I wasn't the same person that had skipped her
graduation speech for laughing too much, or cried for three weeks at
the death of Cleo, her first pet dog.
   Only one idea prevailed in my mind: That I was going to die, like
the two men before me. Ironic that I should follow, in the equal
opportunity world of the nineties. I realised something else that night.
   I was surprised - the idea scared me. That despite abundant attempts
on my own life, despite that I was gradually killing myself anyway with
the pills and drinking sprees. Despite all this, there was enough
humanity in me to fear the coming of death and the hollow promises that
it would fulfil. For the first time in almost a decade, since I had been
exposed to the dark secrets of the project, a shudder of discomfort ran
up my spine.
   My life now in jeopardy with every step, the net now removed, I dared
myself to leave the alley, and took up the challenge, almost certain
that someone, somewhere was watching me, and that it was only a matter of
time.
   No longer immortal, I saw black days ahead.
   
   Now I sit in the office, typing the notes that he gives me and eating
off the spoon that he feeds me with, and remembering how it began.

	*****

Chilmark, Massachusetts
4th November 1987
00:07am

   I was just twenty two when the last of my parents died of Altzheimers.
I sought some form of comfort in my eldest sister, who passed on herself
just three months later in a freak car accident.
   My career in the UN at that point seemed stationary. While I was nothing
more than I glorified secretary, I had received training in numerous areas 
of espionage, and even assassination, should the need arise. At times, I 
found this hard to live with, but consoled myself in the fact that they were 
wasted talents. Thus, I took time off from work without a second thought,  
claiming that it was to deal with the grief. They knew where I was, if they 
needed me.
   This point in my life bore me two revelations: Firstly, I discovered
that the deaths of my sister, and, to a lesser extent my mother, had
brought little or no emotion to the surface. 
   True that I pitied their loss - I would not have wished it on them,
but it didn't have the impact I would have expected, or, among all my
anguish, hoped for. They caused me to turn on myself more than focusing
on their deaths, and to punish myself accordingly. It was a feeling I
would revisit many times over the inevitably coming years.
   Fittingly, the second of my two revelations would affect my life
infinitely more than the death of my beloved mother.
   Reluctantly I had returned to the house I inherited from my sister,
on the most part because all the bars in the sleepy little town had
long since closed. I was disappointed that I would have to return to 
the real world, a thumping headache worse for wear. This fact made it 
seem all the more incredible to myself. Even at this point, I vowed that 
none would hear of it.
   It rose from the north, a triangle of fire and fury. Traced in it's
wake was an afterimage of the immense lights that spun around it in an
angular V shape. It shifted it's position with ease, skating on the ice
of the night sky. It slid to my left, a beam of light now projected
onto the ground just a few feet away as I stared at it in awe.
   The beam moved onto me, the thing seemingly unmoving. I felt it, 
pushing down on me relentlessly. As much as I failed to shade my eyes
from it's imposing light, I fell to the ground while the craft, as I
have come to know it, hovered above, silent. A feeling of peacefulness
surrounded it, while my mind insisted that it was a contraption of
evil.
   A sound that could only be described as a clank, and the light was
gone, the weight suddenly removed from my shoulders, unlike the dull 
thud that was fast growing in my temples and sinuses.
   Then it was gone, as quickly as it had appeared. The whole thing
was over in no more than five minutes, as the sky changed from white
to black and my consciousness failed me.

   As I returned to the waking world, I found myself with little
recollection of the previous night's events. As predicted, my head
was on fire from within, but even that didn't blind me to the fact
that something had happened that night, and a driving force within me
told me to investigate it further. My prevalent rational side, however,
contended that I could have seen the easter bunny, had I so wished, as 
such was the extent of my intoxication.
   In time - a few days - vague memories pierced this web of self 
deception. At first, only the shape returned to me. My dreams were
haunted with visions of screaming triangles, all with malicious intent.
   After this, my mind grasped at the straws of memory until I fully
recalled what I had done, and what I had seen. Back then, the extent
of my knowledge of UFOs came from daytime talk shows that I had fallen
into a habit of watching over the last few months. Through sheer
denial, I refused to believe what I knew was true and suppressed my 
encounter. I was not about to become some overweight woman, trashily
dressed, ranting about how aliens impregnated her daughter. Later, I
would find this surprisingly close to truth.
   And anyway, I knew it was no alien device. Even with it's menacing
appearance and seemingly limitless ability, it had a distinct human
feel about it to the point I tried to make it into a stealth plane in
my minds eye. No ordinary stealth plane. More likely a new experimental
one, and this was all dependant on whether or not I had even seen it,
if it had been all alcohol induced hallucination.
   Evidence to the contrary turned up, literally, on my doorstep, just
hours after I grappled with myself for explanation. A man of little 
feature, whose methods of covering his true appearance I would come to 
know and even mimic myself, although it was far harder for a woman to
do. 
   Without speaking, he gestured to the inside of my house - my sister's
house - and pushed past me, into the hall, then waited in silence.
    "Miss Covarrubias?" he said after five minutes of my staring in
bewilderment.
   There was something hard to refuse about this man. He was sinister
in appearance, yet benign in tone of voice. An air of mysticism 
surrounded him as he spoke, but the falters in his speech told me that
he had a lot on his conscience. I would eventually be part of his
atonement.
    "What...what do you want?" I asked. There was something alien 
about him, and I found myself unable to look directly at him. 
    "I have a proposition for you, something that would aid us both."
he croaked. His voice was sharpened with the burden of experience.
Again, I found myself unwilling to say no, although now my ever-present
sense of ambition was prevailing over my bafflement. I found it
unlikely that he was a salesman, but had he followed that career, he
would have been infallible.
   Finding from somewhere a burst of confidence, I stepped away from
him and pointed towards the living room. He accepted and sat himself
down wearily on my sisters couch. 
   I found myself strangely willing to talk with a man who, with no
consent from myself, had come into my home with an offer. A man whom,
to my knowledge, I had never seen before, but based my opinion of him
on my first impressions. A complete stranger, with emphasis on strange.
A religious person would have thought him a messenger from God.
    "I understand you saw something the other night. An object, in 
the sky." he stated.
   I nodded tentatively.
    "Then" he continued "I have the right person. Do you know how
many people believe themselves to have seen UFOs every year? And how
many of them are, in fact, mistaking the planet Venus for something
otherworldy?"
   The talk show woman sprung vividly back into my mind. She claimed
to have had a similar encounter, which made me question my sanity.
    "Do you think you could have done as such?" he asked pointedly.
   I looked away for a second.
    "Look." I began. "I don't know who you are, or why you are here,
but I don't see what relevance it has. What did you say, you were here
for a deal?" I shook my head lightly. "What kind of deal? Are you here
to sell me something?"
   As I spoke, dread swept over me, and I knew that he was much more
than a salesman. That the consequences of this first meeting would
reach far beyond the walls of this house of death. Even back then,
in my line of work, these things were obvious.
    "Ah...to the point." he replied admiredly "Surely you realise by
now that what you saw was no weather balloon, or a mistaken planet."
   An awkward pause.
    "Miss Covarrubias, we've been following your career. We know of
your capabilities, and feel that your talents are wasted where you
are" He spoke quickly now, as if he had given this speech many times.
"We would like you to join us."
   He gestured to his hip, where I had already guessed a gun resided.
Despite all of his efforts otherwise, he was clearly a government 
agent of some description. His paycheque was probably signed by the
same people as my own.
   I understood his message clearly.
    "You presently work for the UN, am I correct?"
   I nodded again, a sudden fear arising from my stomach.
    "On leave of absence due to the death of your sister?"
   His testimony was made all the more convincing by his knowledge of
me: my job, my relatives, my encounter that night, which I suspected
he had more than a little to do with. And his eyes, eyes that seemed
to be the only marks on his featureless face, told me that he knew
more.
    "You will report to work on Monday morning, saying you are now
over the tragedy. You will await my contact."
   The man stood, glaring at me, questioning me. Almost sobbing, I 
nodded grimly, and he walked out of the door, into the empty street
outside. I followed him through the window, but as his brisk pace
carried him out of the street and into anywhere, I felt a longing
for his presence once more. Despite the fear, despite the threats, 
the same feeling of destiny was inspired within me as the night that
I saw the object, and I knew that this was supposed to happen. I willed
my destiny on myself, and the man who would aid me in this would return.
Some would come to know him as Deep Throat. I knew him by another
name: Fate.

	*****

New York City
7th June 1991
12:42pm

   Fate had shown me little, although in relation to the rest of the
world it seemed a miracle. Through fleeting glances of something godly,
a picture had formed in my mind, although even after five years of
service I had been kept from catching a glimpse of the greater purpose.
I once again began to doubt my career and life, although the pills 
hadn't yet made an appearance - that would come later.
   My position in the UN had far escalated to the point where I was
an interview away from assisting the SRSG. The challenge, however, was
gone and my receiving the position was near guaranteed. Therein lay the
major fault of the game I had began to play: being allowed to win became
tedious in the extremes.
   In the end, this was probably the primary reason I strayed from the
path that Fate had laid for me. My ambition drove me along and away from
it, to a place far away from my original destination.
   At first, the room seemed strange. It radiated the same mystery as
the man I had been recruited by, and the men inside were just as, if not
more, powerful. The benignity was gone, though, replaced by a sinister
quality that put me on edge.
   They spoke almost like a collective of nations and languages. Thinking 
the same thoughts, finishing each others sentences. The Elders, they 
called themselves, but may as well have been the Elder. I was made to wait 
in the corner while they whispered to each other promises of nations.
    "...son..."
    "....Mulder.." I heard the accursed name for the first time.
    "...Project..." a name more vile than any.
    "..exposure.." said with fear.
   Several faces were introduced that day as I waited patiently - men who 
stood out among the rest, and with whom I would become overly familiar.
   The first man was dark. Darker than the rest, but I could read a 
sadness into his visage. His face was wrinkled beyond his years, perhaps
something to do with the cigarette that he perpetually held. At times
he appeared to be in charge, but at others, he was being interrogated as
he paced back and forth across the room.
   The second I already knew - Fate - the man who recruited me. He looked
like a father, telling his son that there was no Santa Claus. He was 
silent. I noticed that when the path of the cigarette smoking man crossed
his own, he gave a sharp glance of betrayal. It seemed probable that he
was being disciplined, for what I could only guess: me.
   The third was too obese to rule the world, as I suspected that was
what these men did (by now I was not unfamiliar with conspiracy lore. At
least, speculative conspiracy lore) and his teeth were stained black.
Aged around 50, he slouched in an armchair. An authoritative figure, the
others seemed to avoid him.
   The fourth man held an enigmatic air of thought. He was more gentlemanly
than the rest, and he was aged with experience rather than bad habit. His 
voice had the same calm quality as my overseer that I dubbed Fate. His 
hands were constantly held in his lap, his fingernails neatly trimmed. He, 
too, seemed in some form of control.
   It was he who called me over to the rest of the group.
   I felt naked standing before them. Every eye in the room was analysing
me, weighing me up against their preconceived notions of how one of their
workers should be. This was an interview that I could fail, and in some
ways that brought up my willingness to be chosen. In others, it made me
realise that my failing their tests would result in far more than the
loss of a high profile job.
   Another man (Boy would be a more fitting term) stood adjacent to me, 
his gaze seemingly fixed on something out of the window. My first indication
that I was in more danger than I had hoped.
   Finally, one of them spoke:
    "Miss Covarrubias." the fourth man. He nodded a belated greeting.
"Do you have any idea why you have been brought before us?"
   Yes, this is a souped up job interview, which if I fail, some cop will
end up pulling me out of the gutter, isn't that right?
    "No...well, I have some idea."
    "Well, let us enlighten you." said one of the group - a bald man.
    "Miss Covarrubias, we would have liked to avoid this situation as
much as you." the fat man.
   They were going to kill me, but not only that, they were going to play
with me before so. An unending game of torturous cat and mouse. If only I
had known.
   The man next to the window stared worryingly at me.
    "But it seems one of our associates." he continued, glancing at Fate
"Has acted of his own initiative, and made something of a mistake."
   The door opened and closed behind me. I didn't dare turn around, but
I felt a hulking presence to my back. Harsh breath on my neck. A small
sound - the unsheathing of a knife or gun. I braced myself for the 
unknown.
   The unknown welcomed me with open arms.
    "If you would care to turn around."
   I turned and jumped back a foot. The movement would have been almost
humorous, were it not for the complexities of the situation. A huge man 
was bearing down on me. His breath smelled vile and his subtle expression
was undignified. In his hand, a small cylinder protruding from which was a 
long, thin blade. I was going to die at the hands of this Frankenstein's 
monster. 
   Instead, it merely stood, like it was modelling the latest fashion, 
it's head held up, blank eyes straight forward. It's huge lower jaw opened
and closed inexorably, but it seemed incapable of speech. It was human, yet 
not so. A creation.
    "You're looking at the future." the cigarette man uttered.
   I saw fire rising in that man's eyes as he stubbed out the cigarette
and stood before me. I realised that I had been approved and accepted.
    "The date is set, and the clock is ticking."

	*****

New York City
14th August 1991
2:28pm

   Through channels unknown, I had been granted the post of assistant to
the SRSG without interview or review. My career wasn't the only thing
to benefit. My first paycheque came in at over ten thousand dollars,
and I relocated to New York for works' purposes. For both jobs.
   I hadn't met with the mysterious Elders since, but had been handed down
titbits of information from a man so nameless as to be called X. Over the
last two months, I had come to know him as a dangerous, often impulsive
man. On two occasions I had witnessed him removing the brains from a mans'
head via his gun, for the simple reason that they wouldn't obey him. Still, 
he was no fool, and took his actions - what he had become - with a heavy 
heart.
   He confided in me his method of redemption. Of how, via another, he 
would atone for his deeds. He spoke of an anti-Elder movement within
the group. Apparently, my recruiter was one of them, as were a few other
scattered congressman and conspirators. Should anything happen to 
Fate, the torch would be passed to X, then another down the line. It soon 
became apparent that he wished me to take the role of this other, and the
mistake that Fate had made became apparent - he had sought me out for
that purpose and had been discovered, along with myself, and now I was
caught in their web from which struggling would only entangle me further.
   After many nights of mental wrestling with myself (my life versus
what I would become as the years went on, in a grand showdown) I decided
to take his offer. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't picture myself 
as one of the Elders. Sitting in that room, a smug look on my face, as a
new recruit stepped through the door. Analysing as they had myself to
see if he would make the perfect killer.
   As lethargic as my conscience was at that point, and as much as part of
me craved the power, that was an image that what humanity was left in
me was repulsed by, and I wouldn't settle for that fate.
   Far better to die fighting these men, and what I had come to know of
their evils: the  project, and the death and torture that it entailed.
I had been tricked into thinking that I was a member of an exclusive
club, a club more powerful than the Freemasons or the Stars and Stripes.
My mistake was that I didn't stop to think what that power entailed, and 
when I was alerted to this by X, I wanted out, however impossible that was. 
It seemed that death was inevitable.
   That was still many years in the future - hopefully before the ending 
of the cigarette man's apocalyptic countdown, the meaning of which I have, 
to this day yet to comprehend. The anti-conspiracy movement was still 
searching for someone to represent them. A crusader to use as a puppet. 
Someone with whom they could fight their shadow war, because they were 
too cowardly to do it themselves, and I had become one of them. Part of 
me hated myself for that.
   I was driven back onto the pills by the monstrosities that were
revealed to me. Sometimes I would see the things, others I would just
hear, and my warped imagination was left to fill in the blanks. I was
losing my sanity, but handed a wad of money and told that it was all
part of the job, and made to accept it, as I duly did. The word suicide
once more began to cross my mind, but I was kept alive by the thoughts
of the day when I was crucify all of them. Correction, I was to persuade
someone to crucify them.
   The first of these things came in the form of a note. The man that I
had come to know as an ally had alerted me to the existence of what
claimed to be a leper colony, and on the surface, so it seemed. Upon
visiting with a forged pass, however, I witnessed deeds and counter-deeds
more cruel that anything enforced upon unsuspecting Jews.
   They buzzed around like flies, their heads hugely ballooned as to look
almost alien, but their suffering was very human. They bumped into each
other, blind to the world. Their mutated hands, fingers extended beyond
belief by an unimaginable means, banged on the sides of their cells as
they let out inhuman shrieks into the night. For these reasons, I was
convinced to help the mysterious X.
   On occasion, I thought of doing the dirty work myself, but I would
be easily discredited. They needed something more. When FBI Agent Fox
Mulder, a son of one of the Project members, appeared, it was a god
sent (By now, the men I once saw as gods were now lower than the rats
that plagued the street outside my apartment) and it seemed that he
would be the one we'd been waiting for.

	*****

En Route to Ellen's Air Base
17th October 1991
9:37pm

    "Miss Covarrubias, the time has arrived at which you have been
activated." he had said while we stood in that alley, locked away
from the everyday world and the small lives of the people within it.
   By then, reality had truly dawned on me, and I felt ultimately 
trapped by my situation. I set off for Ellens Airbase in a grim mood.
   On my way to my assignment, a fully fledged stooge of the project,
I was greeted by an unexpected site: the younger man I had seen with
the Elders.
   Standing next to the road, drenched by the rain that pattered on
the windshield of my car, he walked in front of me to the point at
which I thought I would hit him, had I not slammed on the breaks.
   He waved in my face, opening the door and leaning inside the car.
He dripped water onto the seat next to me as he spoke with a wry
smile:
    "Room for another?" he said casually, as if he were an old friend.
   I looked at him, bemused. He took this as an invitation and climbed
inside clumsily. He fell on my arm and soaked both it and the seat
that he fell into. I stared at him disgustedly, and he became suddenly
serious.
    "It's only water. It's not as if it'll kill you." and from him, the
last part of his sentence was all the more chilling.
    "Excuse me, but you are..." I asked.
    "Alex Krycek." he held out his dripping hand to shake mine. "And
it looks like you're stuck with me. I've been assigned to work with
you." He never asked me for my name.
   He spoke the last sentence with a knowing smile, and, much as I
distrusted him, I felt compelled to discuss the work with him as we
continued through the rain.

   Ellens airbase was a foreboding site, looming hangers everywhere. 
I parked the car and we exited, trudging through the mud that over-
spilled into my boots, and into the main hangar with us.
   I was on more familiar ground here - the planes that surrounded us,
while a grand sight, I had seen on many an occasion before that meeting
with the Elders, the difference being that before they were feats of the
human mind. Now they were craft from another galaxy.
   Their chromium black sparkled somehow in the first rays of sun through
the rain, as Fate approached us. 
    "I trust you've both been briefed?" he called.
   We nodded in unison, and I saw Alex's eyes waver to look at me.
    "Then you are free to proceed."
   Yes, I was familiar with the brief, but not the one he was talking
about. My impression was that we were to surveil a group of test
subjects, but as evil as this seemed to me, our true purpose was something 
far more insidious, as Alex already knew. I should of known by the way
he acted, what it was we were to carry out. He seemed far too relaxed to be
confronting the subjects. Killing was something he was much more
comfortable with.
   As direct as he was powerful, Fate turned back into the hangar,
adding something before he disappeared back into the crowds, without
a trace.
    "Not the last two." he said. "I will take care of them."
   Whatever his reason for saving Robert Budahas and Frank McLennon,
Alex (I'd called him on a first name basis since the first meeting)
seemed highly uncomfortable with it, and shifted, as if to question 
Fate's authority, before settling back down again.
   My best guess for why we shouldn't *interview* the last two was
that they were still within the vicinity of the airbase and Budahas
was soon to be granted an extended stay there. The rest had all moved 
to various regions of the country, and we had to track them down before 
we did our business with them. Knowledge of them, their lives, made
the following month all the more traumatic.

   Our murder holiday began with reluctance, and ended with my almost
enjoying the slaughter. Week after week, Alex and I followed the same
routine: track down the future victim, stake out their home, meet with
them and then ultimately kill them.
   To begin with, Alex spoke with the people - my mind would still not
bear the thought of talking to a future cadaver at my own hands. I took
my first tentative steps into sadism on the fourth or fifth victim, and
by the time we were on the eighth, I looked forward to it. There was no
remorse left in me.
   Such was it that we plotted, in our own minds realistically, to rule 
the world as the Elders now did. Alex's twisted philosophy, that seemed 
all the more credible in light of my recent actions, was that the Elders
were only as strong as their plausible deniability. If we took them to
a position that they would risk exposure, then they would relinquish
control to us, rather than die at the hands of a mass public lynch mob. 
He maintained that the entire project was an act of cowardice, a betrayal
of humankind, and at times, I believed him.
   For a moment, I even took in the notion that the cigarette man's 
all-knowing countdown was to the colonisation of aliens on the earth. 
While I never totally dismissed it, the thought seemed unlikely, even 
in light of recent events. It was straight out of a science fiction
novel.
   And I was living in a twisted Tom Clancy work.
   Genetic engineering, even alien technology seemed credible enough
to me, but not the aliens themselves, even though I had unknowingly
encountered one. Still, I had played along with his ideas and dreams of 
playing God. Afterall, he was just a boy, even though he could kill without
remorse. At this late stage, I should have known better than to stick to 
a belief system. 
   The weeks of merciless deaths continued, until it came to a breaking
point of loyalties between Alex and I - what had become an inseparable
partnership, as much as that of the FBI Agents that I now unwillingly
aid and deceive.
   While Fate, and, indeed fate had warned against the deaths of Budahas
and McLennon, Alex claimed to have it on a higher authority that they
should die. I suspected that the blood lust had gotten to him, as it had,
to some extent me. I would have liked them to die through me, but the
restraint of picturing my own death for incompetence held me back.
   Still, he insisted that we travel to Ellens Airbase and, if only out
of insecurity for myself, I obliged. It was a destination, however, that
we were never to reach.
   Once more, I was stopped in my tracks and forced to break at an
impossible speed, as a black car swung out infront of us. A grey-haired
man sat in the drivers seat, staring at us through deep eye sockets, 
while the cigarette smoking man opened the passenger door and stepped out
into the drizzle.
   He motioned for us to step out of our vehicle and we obeyed, both
relenting to his authority. The drizzle picked up speed, beating down
on all three of us while the other man sat in the car, staring and doing
nothing more. It served to put both of us further on edge. Alex bore the
expression of a child caught doing something he shouldn't have been.
   After ten minutes of eyeing us, wreathed in smoke, the man spoke.
    "You were en route to Ellens' air base? May I ask why?" the almost
cheery note in his voice made him more intimidating than any threat he
could give.
   Alex fielded the question.
    "We were under the impression that those were your wishes." he said
flatly.
    "You were under no such impression!" he barked, and the grey-haired
man almost stood. It was obvious that he had some purpose to fulfil,
other than staring.
   Alex looked at the floor. More childhood behaviour, but I was given the
impression that he was hiding something. Something that the cigarette man
didn't pick up on. Later, I would learn the extent of his betrayal, and
that he was no boy.
   I held my head high in the face of his accusation.
    "And you, Miss Covarrubias. You went along with this. Surely you had
orders from my associate to the contrary?"
   It was my turn to observe the damp tarmac on the road.
   Then, Alex did something that I had never seen him do since, but had
only heard of his escapades as such. He challenged the authority. He put
himself in a position higher than the Elders, and questioned their motives.
    "I was under the impression," he began, as the cigarette man stopped
in disbelief. "That should we not handle it, that Agent Mulder would be
brought into the equation. And we all know whose wishes that would go 
against, don't we."
   The cigarette man was taken aback, and was indeed a scolded child, but
refused to let it appear so. He only struggled to light his cigarette in the
rain.
    "Get back to D.C." he screamed. "Now!"
   He turned, his coat sprawling in his wake, back to the car. The grey-
haired man seemed disappointed that he hadn't fulfilled his intentions. 
    "As for you, Miss Covarrubias. You are to obey me from now on."
   Again, I found myself falling into the trap of obeying unquestioningly
whoever gave me the orders - whether it be Fate, Alex or this Cigarette
Man, I now had loyalties with them all, and I would find myself torn
between each one.

	*****

Offices of the SRSG, New York
12th March 1995
8:55am

   I was to encounter Alex Krycek a great many times over the following
two years. Sometimes to work with him, other times working covertly 
against him, through the instructions of Fate. Conspiracy and counter-
conspiracy ran through my mind, so complex that anyone attempting to
unravel them would be driven to madness. I encountered a great many
groups, who, like the Elders, believed themselves to be in charge, and I 
often questioned whether the Elders weren't themselves one of these 
groups. Assignment after belief-shattering assignment was proof to the 
contrary.
   Rather than guarantee my eventual death, Fate's execution opened the 
floodgates of my involvement, and X took his place. My becoming the
"source" as Mulder referred to us, drew nearer with every heartbeat.
   I learned of strands of the project that I had no idea would exist,
and I realised that Alex knew a great amount about their activities. A
lot of the theories he had put forth in the early days proved correct as
a basis, but the truth reached even further than even his wildest 
speculation.
   Thus my thoughts were dominated by visions of black demons, and fiery
death by beesting, until the day I was informed of X's death and my life 
was given new purpose. 
   Before then, one last revelation was to rock my world, and this too,
was brought by Alex Krycek.
   He had eloped from the claws of the cigarette man almost six months 
ago, and I had heard inklings of his activities in Russia. These leaks 
of information were about to become an ocean of wonder, as I sat, 
tediously retyping a congress agenda.
   To my dismay - in part because he was jeopardising his life, and in
part because I had developed a loyalty to the project I thought myself
incapable of - he had been selling secrets from the MJ-12 tape. 
   The tape was a fluke. No computer hacker, however elaborate, would 
ever have been able to access the files under normal circumstances, but 
as far as computer technology went, we were still grounded in the realms
of mortality.
   I was once more sent against this boy that had, in my vision, become
a man above all those that sat in that shady apartment, commanding the
days away. A man prepared to back up his beliefs with his own actions,
not instructing others to see them through.
   It was not him that interested me at this point, however. This would
be far too human, and I was in a period of little emotion even for me. 
It was what was living inside him.
   It was the first specimen of it's kind, far bigger than anything we
had encountered, which had mostly consisted of fragments from meteorites.
As the search for a cure to this black cancer proceeded in earnest, I
was told that this new form had been pulled from the bottom of the ocean.
Now I was not only up against a man that I had spent endless days with,
plotting the downfall of the world, but an enemy as mysterious as it could
be powerful. It had already killed at least a dozen men.
   Upon the authority of the cigarette man, from whom I then reluctantly
took orders, I followed Agent Mulder for the first time. He took me all
the way to Hong Kong and back, although future journeys with him, enchanted
by his visions as I had once been with Alex's', would take me far further
in my mind. While taking separate flights so not to arouse suspicion, the
notion that Alex was near and that we would be reunited bore me some
comfort. 
   Again, under the cigarette man's instruction, I travelled to Terma,
North Dakota, where I was to await Alex's arrival. What confronted me,
was not the man I used to know.
   His eyes as clouded with the stuff as the Elders were with their own
visions, he spoke in an alien voice. His expression blank and intoxicated,
his once youthful skin showing the first signs of age. He was a pathetic
site.
    "I am confused as to your purpose" he said robotically as I approached
him. No breath was highlighted in the cold.
   Still not deterred by his unworldly appearance, I walked up to him and
offered him my hand, old friends reunited. He looked baffled, but a glint
in his eye remaining of his humanity. I retracted the gesture.
    "I was sent here." I suggested, hoping he would realise how inevitable
my actions had become, as his once were.
    "Why? I was only to find my craft. Then I would be gone." his grasp
of English was minimal as he struggled with the words.
   Seeing no Alex Krycek before me, I allowed him to proceed, into the
depths of the hangar. I hid myself in a high location (a lofty position), 
as I watched the FBI agents arrive, enter the hangar, only to be fished 
out by the cigarette man and his henchmen. I observed a look of cruel 
enjoyment on his face while he talked to the agents, a facade covering 
what I knew as disappointment, for he too had suffered losses a long time 
ago.
   And as I looked down on Alex Krycek for what could be the last time,
I saw in his pain a self gratification for myself. That I had made it
while he, in his extreme power and ambition, had fallen by the roadside
and I had continued into the night.
   As the stuff flowed from his face and into the craft, I also knew that
it would be allowed to leave, if only because of the risk fighting such
a thing would entail. And then he lay, slumped on top, left for dead. His
energy was drained, and his sleep was somehow peaceful. I knew he wouldn't 
die: rats had a way of surviving against the odds, but still I felt as if
I were abandoning him, as I paced back down that corridor.
   Now I was truly one of them. I had forsaken all emotion and attachment
for the values of the project, and only one man could save my soul - Agent
Fox Mulder. Fate had been accurate in his judgements, and the Elders were 
once more stirring with news of a leak. My redemption day was drawing 
closer.
   
	*****

   So many agendas, so many possibilities.
   Now that he is positively dead, that the reality has washed over me in 
it's cleansing wave, I am reluctant to take up the flag and fly it. Still,
I know I must, or the game will go on until the date that they wish to
end the charade. 
   I now understand the cigarette man's mystical warning. The date was set.
The date when the counters will reach the last square and the endgame will
truly begin. I fear this time, yet suspect that I won't be alive to live 
it and this doesn't sadden me. All that hangs on my mind is the question of
which way to go.
   Now that I have reached this crossroads, what twisted route of pain to
follow?
   With Alex Krycek comes dreams of ruling the world, but dreams are all
they are. I hope I will still be living on the day of his death, then I will
have won this race of nations. Russia versus America. Both flags should  be
painted black for the things I have witnessed.
   With Fate and Fox Mulder comes salvation, but at what cost to my own 
wellbeing? That question strikes terror into me I didn't realise possible.
   And what of the cigarette man? I know by now that he has a way of his
own and must follow the path to finding her - the one that he and Mulder
have both lost forever - alone. No, his path would be an unwise one.
   The Elders, the ones that would have me believe ruled like kings over
the court of the world, are unviable. They are dangerous in their hypocrisy,
and at times I find myself wondering just whose puppet they are. Everyone
answers to someone.
   Agent Mulder had come to me that day. His ramblings and claims to
experience irritated me, but I told him what he needed to know. I performed
my act that I had performed since the day I had met the enigmatic Fate,
and gave him everything. Not everything dies, I had told him, and to some
extent this was true, but even by then it was too late for me. My fate 
had been sealed with an X.
   In the end, when the final stages of the project would be played out,
there was only one agenda that I could follow: my own. This is the only
option that could be considered vaguely human among the monstrosities.
   An under the murdering, and the covering up of torturous experiments
capable of ridding all but the most hardened of their sanity, a small
part of me is still human.

-------
THE END
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