TITLE: Fearsome Engine (1/?) AUTHOR: Elanor G EMAIL: ElanorG@yahoo.com URL: http://www.yahoo.com/ElanorG RATING: R for violence, gore, language, and maybe a dab of sex CATEGORY/SPOILERS: Case file. Mytharc. Set seventh season, after X-Cops. DISCLAIMER: The X-Files belongs to Chris Carter and Fox. The title is "inspired" by the title of a novel by Iain Banks. Think of it as an homage. SUMMARY: "...He won't deal. Not without one condition." "Which would be?" asked Mulder, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. "He wants to talk to *you*, Agent Mulder. I believe his exact words were, 'I want to talk to the FBI guy on Cops who chases monsters with the redhead.'" XxXxXXxXxXXxXxX Prologue The screaming started at midnight. In the surveillance van, Fernandez frowned. He pressed the earphone closer to his ear but he still couldn't make out any words - there was too much interference, too much other noise. Jesus, it sounded like someone was throwing furniture around. What the hell was going on? Until now, the evening had passed quietly. As usual the Izquierdo brothers had spent the night watching movies on their home theater setup. Fernandez and O'Brien had been keeping the brothers under surveillance for months, and the nights had been uniformly uneventful. Until now. One minute the brothers were watching Pacino's "Scarface" for the sixtieth time. The next, they were both screaming in incoherent terror. Fernandez looked over at his partner. "What the fuck is this?" he asked. Then the sharp sound of gunfire cut through the din. The screaming stopped abruptly. Silence, except for faint noise from the TV. At this O'Brien pulled off his own headset, took out his gun, and opened the back of the van. "I ain't waiting to find out." "I'm calling for backup." They crept up the sidewalk toward the shabby little house, guns drawn, taking refuge in the overgrown bushes. All of the blinds were drawn. "We should wait 'til backup gets here," whispered Fernandez. "If we wait they get away. We're goin' in." As always Fernandez deferred to his older partner, but he felt a knot of dread forming in his gut. Stupid, he thought. He had been in far worse situations in his short career. Why was this different? With weapons drawn they flanked the front door. Carefully O'Brien tested the door. It swung open. O'Brien went in, Fernandez on his heels. They were greeted by chaos. The living room had been destroyed. The shabby couch was flipped over, its cushions shredded and scattered. The massive TV lay on its side. Most of the pricey electronics lay in a smoking pile of ruins, but remarkably the movie was still playing on the cracked screen. Al Pacino's appalling Cuban accent filled the room. Bloody handprints stained the walls and the door. Streaks of blood led from the living room down the hall. Like something was dragged, thought Fernandez. A rustle came from down the hall, nearly drowned out by the TV. "Follow me," O'Brien mouthed. They followed the trail of blood to a bedroom at the end of the hall. The sound came from there. Gingerly O'Brien pushed the door open. The light was on. A body lay face-down on the floor - or he would have been face-down, if his head wasn't turned at such a hideous angle. Blood pooled beneath him. A gun lay on the floor near his hand. Nearly tore his fucking head off, Fernandez thought in wonder and horror. His heart was really pounding now. There was that noise again, and Fernandez jumped. Both men turned - it was coming from the closet. They opened the closet door to find a young man curled in a fetal position. A bloody gash covered one cheek. He rocked and whimpered and his eyes were round and glassy. "Dios mio," he whispered over and over again. "Dios mio, Dios mio." My God, my God. XxXxXXxXxXXxXxX Three Days Later "Agents, welcome to Miami," said Skinner crisply. "Take a seat." Mulder surveyed the room. Several men sat around the table, eying Mulder and Scully with varying amounts of curiosity and skepticism. Skinner made introductions around the table. "Jorge Almeda, Miami PD. Ephraim Fernandez and Randall O'Brien, Hialeah PD. And this is John Voorhees, chief of the DEA field office here," Skinner said, gesturing at a thin, horse-faced man at the other end of the table. "So this is the famous Monster Boy," Voorhees said, eying Mulder. "Nice to see my reputation precedes me," Mulder replied with a bland smile. Skinner gave him a sharp look but said nothing. "We understand from AD Skinner that we're here at your request," Scully said. From the corner of his eye, Mulder could see her face, and he could feel her slow burn. But her voice betrayed no emotion. In answer Voorhees tossed a thick file across the table. Scully opened it and Mulder read over her shoulder. Roberto and Rafael Izquierdo. Their photos showed two young men determined to show the world they were bad-asses: self-consciously sullen expressions, hard eyes, all the right tattoos. Illegal possession of firearms, assault, possession of narcotics with intent to distribute. "Charming," Mulder said. "Strictly small-time punks. Little fish in a big damn pond," Voorhees said. "We were using them as bait for the big fish. They have ties to one of the largest heroin distribution networks in south Florida, and some of the major Columbian players. We had them under tight surveillance with the help of Miami and Hialeah PD. Until three days ago, when it all turned to shit." He glared in the direction of the two Hialeah cops. The younger one, Fernandez, cleared his throat. His black eyes were earnest and nervous in his lean face. "O'Brien and I had the brothers under routine surveillance." His thin fingers tapped restlessly on the table. "Monday, midnight, everything was normal. The Izquierdo brothers don't - didn't - go out at night very much. Just watch a lot of movies and true crime shit on TV. Monday they were watching Scarface." "For the sixty-second time," put in O'Brien, a beefy blond man with thick sunburned arms. "Assholes couldn't get enough of it." "The Pacino version, or the original?" asked Mulder seriously. This drew another look from Skinner. "Oh, Pacino," O'Brien said, as if this was self-evident truth. "Hey, feel free to come to the point any goddamn time now," Voorhees said. Fernandez tapped his fingers even faster. "Monday, 12:03 AM, we hear this." He pressed the play button on a tape recorder. The sterile conference room was filled with shrill screams. Mulder felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, and it wasn't the air conditioning. Scully looked up at him with wide eyes. They weren't hearing anger or pain or ordinary fear - this was terror, pure and primal. And they weren't the only ones feeling it. Skinner frowned and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Others around the table flinched and gave each other uneasy looks. "I thought it was the TV at first," Fernandez said. The sharp pop of gunfire came from the tape. "Then we heard that and we decided to go on in. The front door wasn't locked." "Looked like there was a hell of a fight. Place was upside-down," said O'Brien. "We followed blood to a bedroom. Roberto Izquierdo was dead. Real dead. Someone slashed his throat so deep his head was just barely hanging on. Rafael Izquierdo was hiding in the closet, crying and mumbling. Real mess." "You're holding Rafael for his brother's murder?" asked Scully. Fernandez shrugged. "I don't know what else to think. All the doors and windows were locked from the inside." "Except the front door," said Mulder. "Best we can figure there was a struggle, and Roberto tried to unlock the front door to escape," O'Brien said. "We found his bloody prints on the locks. But no one came in or out that door until me and Fernandez went in. I can tell you that for damn sure." Mulder shook his head. "*Both* of the brothers were screaming on that tape. Where's the murder weapon? And what was Roberto shooting at? It doesn't look like you found any bullets at the scene," he said, still reading over Scully's shoulder. "Has a tox screening been performed on the victim? I'd like to take a look at the results," said Scully. "Hey, Agents, I hate to interrupt here," said Voorhees. "But I have news for you. This isn't one of your X-Files. That's not why you're here." "Then please enlighten us," Mulder said, really trying not to bristle. He glanced at Skinner but the AD's face was unreadable. "Why are we here?" Voorhees pursed his lips. "Rafael has barely said a single word since we brought him in. Not to us, not to his lawyers, not even to the shrink. He refused bail. He actually *wants* to stay in jail. Trouble is, we want him to talk and talk now. We need him to give up his associates. But he won't deal. Not without one condition." "Which would be?" asked Mulder, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. "He wants to talk to *you*, Agent Mulder. I believe his exact words were, 'I want to talk to the FBI guy on Cops who chases monsters with the redhead.'" Voorhees smiled unpleasantly. "If the glove fits..." XxXxXXxXxXXxXxX Goddamn Cops, thought Scully as she walked down the hall. We never should have done that. Skinner should have pulled the plug. Here we go again. Goddamn Cops. "The price of fame, Scully," said Mulder. Goddamn Cops. "I wonder sometimes," Scully answered tersely. She was walking so quickly that Mulder actually had to jog to catch up with her. She pushed open the door to the parking lot and they stepped into a world of wet heat. Mulder squeezed her arm. "Scully, wait. Just...stop." She obliged, turning to face him, her arms tightly folded. "We never, never should have agreed to be on that idiot TV show, Mulder," Scully said in response to the question in his eyes. "We didn't have a lot of choice, as I recall." "Oh, we had a choice. We just made the wrong one." She sighed. "I didn't like it then and I like it even less now." "I know that." "Do you?" Mulder's face went blank. "I remember that you didn't want me to embarrass myself on national television. Very considerate of you." His voice was soft. "But I wonder if you were more worried about me embarrassing *you.*" "Oh Mulder, that's not it." Scully sighed again, looking up at the hard blue Florida sky before looking back down at her partner. Well, hell. Trust Mulder to drag the rough truth out of her. "Well, okay, yes. That's part of it. I'm tired of the kind of attention we get. The World Weekly Informer. Jose Chung's book. The talk shows." "The alien autopsy video," Mulder reminded her. "That damn alien autopsy video. And now this Cops debacle." She shook her head. "It's a freak show and we're just another one of the attractions." Mulder came up close to her, his voice falling low. "Don't tell me you really think that, Scully." She looked up at him. In the heat, fine beads of sweat were starting to form on his forehead, but his face was closed off to her. "Of course I don't," she said. "You know I don't. That's what upsets me. The work we do is important. I can't think of anything *more* important. And yet it's trivialized." A pair of uniformed cops went by, giving them a curious look, and Scully waited until they passed to continue. "We've put so much into it. We've lost so much because of it. I just...it rankles. That's all. I thought I was used to it after all this time but I guess I'm not." Mulder nodded. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the Harvard Medical Review, would it?" "No." Dammit. "Well, yes." Her formal rejection letter had come in the mail just before they left for Miami. Why was she still even bothered by it? She should be used to this by now. After all, she didn't even have a body to show them. Just add this one next to the others: her paper on Eugene Eddie Van Blundht's anomalous musculature, her study on the black oil... "An invisible corpse. I should have known it was too good to last. I should have gone straight to the World Weekly Informer. At least they would have published." "I can see the headline now," said Mulder. "'FBI Beauty in Love Triangle with Invisible Man.'" "That's not funny, Mulder. I don't see what's wrong with getting a little respect or recognition from a publication that doesn't regularly feature Elvis sightings." "Or a TV show that doesn't regularly disguise the faces of its participants," agreed Mulder. He looked around, then put his hands on Scully's shoulders. "Believe it or not, I feel the same way. Don't you think I get frustrated too? Maybe sometimes I'm so happy to get any attention from anyone at all that I get carried away." "Except for Jose Chung." "Except for Jose Chung." Mulder rolled his eyes. "It's the nature of our work, Scully. Cold comfort, I know. But we're making a difference. We're doing something important. I'm sorry if it can be...embarrassing." Scully allowed herself a faint smile. She could feel the pinched, angry feeling in her chest loosen and relax. "Don't be sorry, Mulder. Never be sorry. There isn't anything else I'd rather do." And it was true. Hadn't she recently seen the options of her life pass in front of her, and hadn't she seen them fall away to reveal the path she had already chosen? "Really?" His expression was serious but his eyes lit up. "Really. But if people with cameras start following us around again, can we go hide in the motel until they go away?" "Absolutely. You have my solemn promise on that." Mulder wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. "Now. You wanna go chase some monsters?" Scully smiled more widely. "Yeah. Let's go chase monsters." XxXxXXxXxXXxXxX NOTE: I haven't tried this crazy WIP thing before. Please let me know what you think!