TITLE: Sufferance
AUTHOR: Vehemently (vehemently@yahoo.com)
SPOILERS: The Red and the Black.
RATING: R. For adult situations, scariness, violence implicit and
explicit, and bad language.
ARCHIVE: Gossamer, Spookys, The I in FBI. Otherwise please ask.
CATEGORY: X (X-File) and A (Angst).
KEYWORDS: Conspiracy. Krycek. Otherwise, read on.
DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations used herein belong to
1013 / Chris Carter and are used in loving violation of U.S. Title
17. Unless this can be construed as a fair use exception?
SUMMARY: In England in the 1970's, the police routinely used 
sleep-deprivation to cajole confessions out of political 
prisoners. Of course, torture being what it is, a lot of those 
confessions turned out to be entirely false.
Sequel to "Signals"; with "Scatter" the three stories together 
form what I'm calling the Sovereignty Trilogy.
NOTE: This story takes place in Fall 1998, some two months after 
the events in "Signals". Canon divergence was way back in Spring 
of that year, before "The End", before the movie. It's important.

* * * * * * *
Sufferance
by Vehemently
* * * * * * *

	Dana Scully had had occasion to sit in front of a committee 
of Congress before. She had found herself in stony silence then as 
well, though for a different reason. Today she sat in her wooden 
chair, staring down a Republican from a flat Midwestern state 
whose flat accent echoed in the closed chamber. He was obviously 
as unhappy as she to be there; but he thought she was crazy.

	"Do you mean to tell me," he drawled, leaning sideways in 
his chair, "that you've met fully-grown human clones? Clones which 
would have to have been engineered fully twenty years ago?"

	His contempt made her nostrils flare and she leaned forward. 
"Sir, I met two physically identical men on different occasions. 
Each claimed to have no siblings and each claimed never to have 
met me before. I could find no birth certificates for the name 
given, and no record under the fingerprints I took from one of 
them."

	The Representative shifted in his seat. "But they still 
could be twins, pulling a bait-and-switch," he said, his half-
glasses blurring the bags under his eyes. 

	"It would have to be an incredibly elaborate hoax; the 
second of these men led us to the facility I've mentioned, which 
was full of undocumented samples of human tissue. Those," she 
stopped, breathed, and started again, "tanks -- we found them 
empty, but from what we could discern, they were equipped to feed 
tissue samples, maintain a warm, liquid environment: all effects 
necessary to sustain living tissues for long periods of time."

	"But it could be a hoax," repeated the Representative.

	"Occam's Razor stands in my favor, sir," said Scully, a 
little more sharply than she had intended.

	"And these men, these Kurt Crawfords, can you produce them 
to testify?"

	"No I cannot," she said, steel in her voice. "They have both 
disappeared." 

	"I see. Ma'am," said the man, straightening his tie as if 
loath to offend her, "what exactly can you prove from this 
adventure of yours?"

	Scully knew this was the hard part, but she also knew that 
any further action would come from these words. "This adventure," 
full of disdain, "yielded a massive catalogue of human tissues. We 
contacted those people whose samples were attached to names, and 
performed genetic analysis which proves that the tissue in 
question comes from that person, but no person contacted could 
explain the sample. Nor had any of them given permission." 

	"And that's where," the Representative shuffled the papers 
his aide was handing him, "these, these implants you call them, 
figure in the story?"

	A long, cleansing breath, another. She didn't feel any 
cleaner. "James Vygotsky has already told you more than I could 
about those devices," said Scully, looking at the walnut table in 
front of her. "Every one of the contacted tissue donors had one, 
either in his or her possession or undetected in his or her 
flesh."

	"But Mr. Vygotsky's research is thus far inconclusive as to 
these things' purpose?"

	"He is still conducting his research," said Scully quietly. 
Then she added: "We have been able to find statistically 
significant correlations between a rare form of --"

	"That's not what I asked you, ma'am, is it?"

	Scully breathed again, afraid her rage would taint her 
testimony. 

	But the Representative spoke on, eyebrows burrowed. "Are 
these tissues the results of abortions?"

	"No sir," she said, and decided to say nothing about 
politics. "Female subjects seem to have been deprived of a number 
of viable ova -- tissues involved in pregnancy, yes, but not yet 
fertilized. But the point remains, sir, that the privacy rights of 
hundreds of citizens have been violated."

	"By whom, Miss Scully?"

	She had been so demeaned before, but this time the decision 
came over her in a flash. "Sir, I'm a medical doctor and a federal 
agent. Please address me as such." She felt her anger heating the 
skin of her neck and regretted her snappish tone. But the 
Representative took her correction without comment.

	"Well, Dr. Scully? Are you trying to avoid my question?"

	"No sir; I will say freely that I don't know who collected 
those tissues. But the building in which they were found was 
leased to an executive in the Nextech Company of Chicago. That man 
is still being sought for questioning, but handwriting analysis 
suggests he is not the man who signed the lease in his name. 
Nextech itself has denied any involvement in the . . . venture."

	"So it could be anyone," said the Representative.

	"Anyone with sufficient funds and the will to defy U.S. law. 
And the influence to obtain the samples we recovered," she added.

	Several of the men arrayed before her shifted and looked at 
each other. The Representative whose time it was considered, and 
asked, "Are you trying to suggest that it was an arm of the 
government itself?"

	"I have no evidence to suggest such a conclusion, sir, but I 
cannot rule it out." Now several faces looked at her in alarm.

	The Representative narrowed his eyes at her. "But your 
partner believes different parties are culpable." Scully decided 
it was not a question, and sat dreading the next sentence. "I hear 
he thinks it's space aliens come to take us away."

	The expected titters emerged from aides. In the closed 
conference room they echoed excessively. Scully took a breath, but 
the Representative continued before she had a chance to speak. 
"Don't you think that's a little odd, in a representative of the 
U.S. Government? Don't you think that taints these findings of 
yours? Don't --"

	"Sir," she interrupted, leaning forward. "Do you believe in 
God?"

	He looked at her over his half-glasses. "Ma'am, I believe in 
the Lord our God and His son Jesus Christ."

	She said, "So do I. Do you think believing in God makes me 
less of a scientist?"

	"No ma'am, I'd say it makes you a better one."

	"My partner believes in the immanent possibility of alien 
life, yes." She paused. "That belief does not hamper his 
investigatory method. He seeks evidence, as I do. The facts we 
gathered at the Chicago facility stand, and I stand by them."

	The Representative lowered his head to look at her again, 
pursed his lips, and sat back in his chair. Someone else on the 
other side of the room began in on the next set of questions. 
Scully closed her eyes to steel herself, and then turned her gaze 
on her next interrogator.

* * * * * * *

	I'm climbing the last set of stairs to my apartment in New 
York City. The building is old enough to fall under that old 
tenement rule: more than five stories gotta have an elevator. It's 
exactly five and I live on the top. Jesus, like I don't get enough 
exercise running Grand Master's errands.

	Mrs. Lewartow nods at me on her way down. She always does, 
even if it's been a year since I was there last. A nod, and then 
gone, muttering to herself. She thinks I'm Russian mafia and I 
haven't told her otherwise, though why a mafioso would live in an 
asbestos-ridden walkup on Avenue X I don't know. I'm told they 
don't give a shit about anonymity, and I do. 

	Which is why my ears are open for the heavy breathing in my 
hallway, full of shadows as the sun goes down. Not many people 
live up here, and none of them sound like that after climbing a 
flight of stairs, the ones who still can. I trudge down the hall, 
all oblivion on the outside, and realize I know that adenoidal 
sigh -- Stevie Floyd has bad sinuses. Stevie Floyd works for -- he 
used to work for Coffin Nail, since last year he's been stringing 
for the upstate offices.

	At five paces a stranger steps out of my doorway with a 
wicked grin -- the dope -- and shows me his big gun. It's a nice 
one, heavy, but he carries it at full throw. Before he can get his 
finger under the trigger guard I've broken his nose, just shoving 
that hunk of metal into his face. I knock him down and get in one 
kick before Stevie jumps on me.

	He gets me a good one, a glancing blow on my left that 
drives the rim of the fake arm into my shoulder and drags a cry 
out of me. While my whole left side tingles and wails I shove 
back, but Stevie is a big guy and I'm going to lose this fight. He 
gets a grip on my jacket and hurls me into the wall, cracking my 
head. When he tosses me to the floor I don't have enough steel in 
my knees to resist it.

	He stands back, hands on hips, wheezing hard. I look him up 
and down from my reduced position and he smiles, something 
friendly. Two years ago I would have been insulted they only 
intended to hurt me, but now it scares me. I've tried to keep to a 
minimum the number people who know how wildly valuable I am alive. 
"Hey, Alex, welcome back to the game," he says.

	"Whose paycheck this week?" I ask, even though I don't 
expect an answer. There's something in my peripheral vision, but I 
keep focussed on Stevie. Might as well see the beating I'm due 
coming head on.

	"I heard you were still tough." He smiles at me, his crooked 
teeth gleaming in the evening dimness, and crosses his arms. And 
at that very moment, a frying pan comes down on his head with a 
satisfying bong, one of those monster iron things ringing like a 
bell, and Stevie joins me on the floor.

	While he moans and tries to figure which way is up, I get a 
good look at what was in the corner of my eye: a blond kid, 
tallish, maybe nineteen, wrinkling his eyebrows at me with his 
kitchen weapon clutched in both hands. I know this kid. I struggle 
to my feet, and he backs away from me a little, full of apologetic 
smiles. "Hey kid," I tell him, and he glances behind him but 
doesn't run away. "Thanks."

	"Uh, sure thing," he answers, and now that I'm level with 
him I can tell he's grown since last time I was here, when he was 
a set of man's hands on a gawky boy's body. "My name's Devin," he 
says at last, offering his hand. I take it, remembering times when 
my offered hand has been refused. "Devin Markov."

	"5D, right?" I grin at him and his smile is tentative but 
strengthening. "Listen, I don't have to tell you this isn't gossip 
material . . ." He nods fervently, his eyes shining. He has put 
the frying pan behind his back but his head thrusts forward as if 
to catch my words early. I was never this young, was I? -- Of 
course I was.

	I prevail on him the way I was prevailed upon, years ago -- 
with a twenty and a brush with glamorous danger. His two hands tie 
up Stevie and Broken Nose with twine he fetches from his kitchen 
while I case my apartment for things I can't do without. I sling 
on my backpack just as Devin's finishing up, muttering about his 
deaf old grandmother and whether her TV is loud enough to cover 
the noise. Together we haul our two outraged captives down all 
five flights and toss them in the stinking dumpster out back.

	It makes Devin laugh to do that, a little triumph, and I 
can't stand his naivete. "Listen, kid," I say, and he grows solemn 
as he picks up my mood. "You helped me out today and I'm grateful. 
But these two guys, they're gonna be angry. And they might come 
back for you for helping me. Do you know how to use a gun?" He 
nods and opens his mouth, as if to volunteer experience I'm sure 
is no more than shooting BBs at cans in an empty lot, but then he 
shuts it and listens. I show him the gun Broken Nose dropped, have 
him hold it while I work the slide and pull out the clip. "You 
keep this, but only use it if you have to, OK?"

	The kid's eyes are big and bright in his pale face. He's a 
ghost in the growing dark, the sickly streetlights turning his 
enthusiasm to magic. I can't decide whether to recruit him or drag 
him over to the loony bin at Bellevue. "It's just a precaution," I 
tell him, forcing a half-smile. "You got a mom or a dad?"

	All the hauteur he can summon, as his fingers play over his 
new toy. "My mom's in jail upstate," he informs me, his chin high. 
"It's just me and my grandma. She's kinda crazy, you know, 
Alzheimer's or something."

	Yeah, Devin, I know. I know all about strange relatives and 
their foreign memories. "She chatter on in Russian?" I ask, and 
Devin gives me a little embarrassed smile. "Mine too. My dad. 
Listen to her sometime, you never know when a foreign language 
could be handy."

	"I guess," he says, doubtfully.

	"I'll check in on you when I can, all right?" He breaks my 
heart, standing there in the dark in dingy clothes that don't 
quite fit. "You just protect your grandma." The kid nods, 
thinking. I wonder if he's thinking what I used to think, the 
places I could go if I were only rid of responsibility. "Tell you 
what, here's the key to my place. Anything in there you want, it's 
yours. I can't stay there, so empty it out and then throw the key 
in the river. You can sell whatever you don't keep." He lights up 
then, pure gratefulness in his brown eyes, and I have to hide a 
chuckle as I give him my goodbyes and head down towards the 
subway. He could be useful, if things work out: greedy as I ever 
was, but more honest. I never rescued a neighbor from the beating 
he was due.

	My good mood doesn't last as I head in to Manhattan. I stand 
staring into nothing like a good little commuter on the subway, 
and the blandness the dark windows reflects back at me is almost 
enough to erase the doubting I'm doing. Stevie came after me, with 
a new partner I've never seen, and talked about me being back in 
the game as if I hadn't come back to this country almost a year 
ago.

	Stevie came after me, and said, "Hey, Alex, welcome back to 
the game." Rote, toneless, like a stock phrase. Stevie came after 
me with orders to intimidate but not to kill. I'm still chewing on 
it when the subway pukes me up onto Broadway and I don't even 
pretend to run my hand through my hair as I walk into the building 
on 46th. It's not like spit and fingers can make me pretty and the 
adrenaline waltz is making my steps go double-time.

	I still pass security OK despite my not looking much like an 
ad exec; I never could look comfortable in a suit anyway but they 
just nod at my ID and go back to reading the Daily News. Nobody 
gives me the long stare as I head down nice carpeted corporate 
halls; no doors close suddenly, and the secretaries aren't popping 
their heads out of their cubicles like Jack-in-the-Boxes. That was 
a sight, when I walked in here at Grand Master's heels last March. 
Today it's no excitement, no flurry of phone calls -- a glorious 
fucking day at the office. Well, it's late, people have gone home. 
Why would Stevie come after me with a new partner.

	It's just too damn bad for them they don't lock the backup 
rooms. By some instinct I wrestle on my glove before I touch the 
door handle and I settle at the worktable amidst the guts of a few 
computers. A twiddle of keys tapped, and I'm connected to the 
system as Miss Evelyn Kazansky, who's too pretty to work here 
anyway. I surf, really, not sure what I'm looking for, just that 
something's looking for me.

	The old files are really old around here -- these guys got 
started when computers were all glass inside and big as a house. 
But some of the file systems are linked up to the server, or parts 
of them, all in messy overlapping codewords. Jesus, you'd think an 
illegal company would be more efficient than the damn federal 
bureaucracy. I'm feeling antsy, and my back to the door besides, 
so I just start trying filenames -- something's got to work. 

	Some sarcastic part of me types in 'Mulder' and I get back a 
screen scrolling with references. Ten or twelve from the son's 
lunatic adventures, but most of these date to when I was a kid. 
The father's files. I guess they could be useful. Mulder will want 
them -- hell, I'll want them, to prove that I was right to get rid 
of him. Even if I did it on orders, it was a thing needed doing.

	I can only cram fifteen files onto my floppy disk before I 
run out of space, and that's the only disk I have. I'm trying to 
figure a way to send myself the rest without exposing myself when 
I see the last entry on the old man. It's not like I don't know 
what happened, but I go fetch it anyway.

	The file is in a different directory, full of names. It only 
takes a few moments of scrolling to realize that every name I 
recognize belongs to a dead person. These are assassination files. 
I am in here somewhere. I jettison something from 1952 to fit the 
old man's killing file on my floppy and sit back to satisfy my 
morbid curiosity.

	There's no file on the car bomb that gave me religion; maybe 
they only document successes. But further down the list is 
something interesting. A lone file identified only by a number. I 
crack into it with a password I don't officially know and I'm 
looking at the description of an eliminated agent they *were* 
successful with.

	My eyes itch from staring at the screen but I read along -- 
the guy was taken out in his hotel room, high-powered rifle. Very 
James Bond, all honor and that crap. Date of completion: 09/02/97, 
when I was still in Russia. No body found at scene.

	 Hold on a second. It's too damn close to the description 
Mulder gave me for old Coffin Nail's supposed death. Close, it's 
identical. Hell of a chance, for me to happen on his record. I 
read it to the end, just for laughs, but then I stop laughing. The 
last line in the file was added today. It just sits there, at the 
bottom of the screen.

	"Agent Reactivated November 12, 1998."

	I take my hand off the keyboard so I won't go hitting keys 
accidentally. After I watch the screen for a long time, and I 
decide that line's going to stay where it is, I shut down my 
connection and let myself out of the backup room. Nobody notices 
anyway, and that might have annoyed me any other day. Today my 
guts are noodles and I try not to trip as I head to the 
executives' suites. Surely the secretaries have heard something. 
Somebody's got to be able to confirm this before I can go flying 
off the handle.

	I'm stepping into the plush lobby when Grand Master heads 
into the conference room. He looks grave as only a high-toned 
aristocrat can above his silk tie. He gives me a look, and turns 
and shuts the door behind him. I think I've just had my 
confirmation. I pump the receptionist for details but I'm only 
half-listening to her chipper replies.

	Jesus, I'm tired. It's afternoon already and I'll need to 
get the word out. They deserve to know. By the time I get to DC it 
will be dark. Jesus I'm tired.

* * * * * * *

	"Agent Mulder, you're not in profiling any more, as you 
often point out to me. Why do you want this case?" asked an 
irritated voice, more potent because it was right in his ear.

	Always the harbinger of doom, Mulder thought sourly. "Sir, 
this is the Mr. Clean case, in New York State. There are elements 
reminiscent of alien abductions in his MO, and I'd just like to 
have a look." He shifted in the front seat of his car 
uncomfortably, sure that the manufacturers had never intended for 
a six foot tall man to actually try to read papers under the weak 
dome light.

	"The case is already assigned," replied Skinner. The hint of 
a sigh and Mulder could visualize his supervisor dragging off his 
glasses in exhaustion. "Agent O'Leary is working on the profile 
now. I don't see any reason to allow you to hijack his case."

	"Uh, no, sir, I don't want to take it over." Mulder paused, 
aware of his deficient diplomacy skills. "I've seen O'Leary's work 
and he's competent. I just think an extra agent or two in the 
field, agents with experience in abduction scenarios, would be 
invaluable."

	A frustrated chuckle in his ear. "I thought you didn't like 
being called in on routine monster checkups."

	Mulder stared gloomily out the front windshield, at the 
late-evening sky of mid-November. The Capitol building, looming 
over the trees like a punishing mother, glowed under its bright 
lights. "I was brought in on the Duane Barry matter. I could 
potentially offer similar expertise to the Mr. Clean case."
 
	"You've got an angle already." Skinner said it without the 
least uncertainty.
	
	"An unidentified substance found at the scene where the 
second body was dumped. I talked to a Detective Fraser, in 
Buffalo, who called it 'black stuff' and sent along a sample for 
testing, but nobody's been able to identify it." He was just 
warming to his idea, when the passenger door of his car startled 
Mulder with its opening. He was reaching for his weapon at his 
waist when Scully fell into the seat with a deadly expression. "I 
can write up my suspicions for an addendum to the file. I can have 
it ready for you in the morning."

	Skinner made one of his noncommittal noises and rang off. 
Mulder glanced at his partner as he started the car, but she said 
nothing. She glared out the windshield, her face a mask. Without 
taking her gaze from the domed building in front of her she placed 
her hand on his trousered knee and followed the pleat upwards. 
Manfully Mulder kept from stomping on the gas and hurling them 
through the Federal shrubbery.

     He expected, from his memories of his ex-wife, that their 
panic for one another would cool into routine, but after a year in 
bed she still affected him fiercely. He took comfort in the fact 
that she grasped him just as wildly; the quickly-dismissed idea 
that it was a marathon bout of frustration sex was not to be 
borne. He did not always understand her moods and she did not 
often articulate her opinion of their liaison. Late at night, 
however, while Mulder lay awake listening to her breathe, Scully 
would reach sleepily for him, and twine her body in his, and 
mutter semi-conscious words into his chest. If she could do 
nothing more he was willing to live with that.

	Mulder drove across town towards her apartment with her 
fingers warm on his thigh. She did not remove her hand, nor did 
she impede his driving; she kept it there, just so, a reminder and 
a promise and all the unsaid things. He followed her silently up 
the stairs to her apartment, and while she pulled out her keys he 
decided it was safe to kiss her.

	He was rediscovering his fascination with the arch of her 
neck, which she bared for him while she unlocked the door, when a 
ripple of muscular shock swam through her. Mulder had his hand to 
his gun before conscious thought entered his head; he squinted 
into her dark living room for something horrible.

	There was only one thing out of place, marring the stuffed 
chair by the TV, and because it was not moving Mulder hardly 
noticed it at first. Then it blinked, and the light from the 
hallway gleamed off its eyes, and Mulder really did pull his 
weapon. Scully, however, marched over to the wall and flipped the 
switch that flooded the room with lamplight. Mulder stood, gun in 
hand, and could not decide whether to keep on pointing it or not.

	Alex Krycek sat curled in the gray easy chair, booted feet 
stretched out on the floor. Breaths quick and tense, his 
bewildered blinking in the warm light suggested he had been 
startled awake. He took a long, wary look at Mulder's gun, then 
got to his feet. Mulder, as always, found himself at a 
disadvantage to the man's silent, efficient movements. He put his 
gun away.

	"What do you want?" Mulder asked, aware his tone betrayed 
all of his discomfort. Scully marched back to his side and put her 
hand too obviously on his arm. As she did so he realized that 
Krycek had seen them as the door swung open, had seen Mulder 
inspecting his partner's nape with more attention than was proper. 
He ran cold inside, wondering how Krycek could use such knowledge 
against him.

	But Krycek ran his hand through his too-short hair, his face 
red, his eyes on the floor. "Is that how it is," he said, his 
voice quiet. His glance strayed from Mulder to Scully and back 
again, approximating their positions but never approaching eye 
contact. Mulder struggled to comprehend Krycek's embarrassment. 
Abruptly the man straightened his leather jacket with a roll of 
his shoulders. "I guess you two know what you're doing."

	Mulder watched Krycek fidgeting, fiddling with his jacket. 
There were red lines on his neck and face, marks of having fallen 
asleep in an awkward position. Scully said, all cool control, "We 
haven't received any blackmail notices yet." Her eyes blazed and 
Mulder shut the door behind him, thinking better of broadcasting 
their interaction to the general public.

	He said it again, and this time he hoped it was not so 
harsh. "What do you want, Krycek?" When he heard his name Krycek 
jerked up, shaking his head. He stooped in front of Scully's 
stereo, and without a word turned it to a heavy metal radio 
station. Then he turned it up to painful proportions.

	Something by ZZ Top thundered from the speakers as Krycek 
turned to beckon at his audience. Mulder approached, a little 
mesmerized, but Scully did not. She stood back by the door, her 
hands in fists at her sides, and Mulder watched Krycek look at her 
for a long moment before he followed that green gaze to see his 
partner's trembling thighs and twitching mouth. They stared at 
each other, Scully and Krycek, he unreadable and she brittle. With 
a mixture of curiosity and humiliation, Mulder followed their 
gazes back and forth, Scully's chin in the air, the doubtful 
wrinkles emerging in Krycek's forehead.

	Abruptly Scully ended it, dropping her head and loosening 
the set of her shoulders. "What's the matter?" she asked in a low 
voice, turning away to sit on her couch. She did not see Krycek 
turn away as well, his features wilting into grief. The expression 
so startled Mulder that he reacted physically, jerking away from 
that troubling expression. It was a long, arresting moment, and 
then Krycek returned to normal and took a seat, indicating that 
Mulder should do the same. With an automatic compliance that 
bothered him, Mulder sat.

	The man across from them gathered his thoughts, opening his 
mouth once or twice before he said anything. When at last he did 
speak, his voice was low and hushed, almost solemn, and far too 
calm for his news: "Coffin Nail is alive." Mulder sat back, 
exhaling, while Scully leaned forward with a frown on her face. 
"The smoker guy," Krycek clarified. "Whatever you call him."

	"We called him Cancer Man," said Scully, in a surprisingly 
evenhanded tone. "But then when I was diagnosed it stopped being 
funny."

	"I found out this afternoon," continued Krycek, rattling 
along to the accompaniment of his fingers drumming nervously. "He 
was in hiding this whole time, somewhere in Canada, securing his 
support base. I think he's going to try a takeover of the Group. 
You needed to know," he finished, with a glance at Scully.

	She had her thinking face on and said nothing. Mulder looked 
over Krycek's jittering energy and said: "You're afraid of him." 
Surprise in that, and a little superiority.

     "Of course I'm afraid of him," retorted Krycek. "If you were 
smart you would be too. He lets you live as part of some crazy 
indulgence -- he enjoys watching you flounder." The vague gentle 
rue in the man's expression was bothersome. Then Krycek got back 
to business. "I had hoped we were rid of him and I could use 
blackmail and self-interest to turn people to my side. But him . . 
. he wants me dead, he doesn't care about money, and I don't know 
any of his secrets. I have no leverage on him."

	"Will this takeover be successful?" Scully asked.

	Krycek lowered his head, considered. "I don't know," he 
admitted. "If he gets majority, he'll set a contract on my head 
for sure. If he only partially succeeds, then he'll be looking for 
a reason. Association with you would do the trick -- he would have 
me followed, and your home and office bugged, if they aren't 
already." Everyone sat back, and the absurd strains of Lynyrd 
Skynyrd washed about the room.

	Mulder pondered and set aside for the moment the 
implications of contracts and wiretapping so casually explained. 
Then he made the connection that had been bothering him. "Did you 
say Coffin Nail came from Canada?"

	Krycek nodded, wrinkling his eyebrows. Mulder continued, 
"Was it Eastern Canada? Ontario or Quebec?" and Krycek nodded 
again, glancing at Scully as if she might have an idea what these 
questions meant. She shrugged back at him.

	"There's a case I was talking up to Skinner in upstate New 
York -- Buffalo -- a serial killer who might be reenacting alien 
abduction scenarios. Injections, restraints, imagery of cleaning 
or purification. Buffalo's just a boat ride away from the Canadian 
border."

	Krycek's face went closed. He just wiped his features clear 
of any reaction, sitting back in his chair even before Mulder 
finished his sentence. Scully leapt on the man's nonverbal signal: 
"So this killer does have something to do with their experiments? 
Could he have something to do with this man, this Coffin Nail?"

	"You can't investigate this," said Krycek, his eyes dull. 
"Listen to me. You can't go up there." He raised his hand against 
the objection on Mulder's lips. "I gave you a handle on the whole 
cloning thing. I was able to make it look like a coincidence, but 
I can't do that twice. This is my area of research, and people 
will start wondering if you keep showing up where I operate. You 
stick to the human tissues exploitation and leave that case 
alone."

	"If we know something's going on, we can't just let it go," 
argued Scully.

	"Yes, you can." Krycek was cold and terrible, glancing from 
one agent to the other. Mulder found himself offended at Krycek 
giving orders. "This is serious, no more truth and justice crap. 
Under no circumstances should you insinuate yourselves into this 
situation. You're endangering me, and all of my contacts. Let 
someone else handle this."

	Mulder wanted to argue, but he realized that he wanted to 
argue on principle and couldn't fault Krycek's logic. It made him 
angry and he inserted nastily, "You'll be covering your own ass."

	"Of course I will," replied Krycek, with an odd little 
laugh. "And that's useful to both me and you. I'm your only in 
right now, Mulder. Don't forget that."

	Krycek was staring at him with acute green eyes. The sharp 
planes of his face had arranged themselves into a challenge. 
Mulder discovered that this Krycek he could deal with. He realized 
his hands were curling into fists unconsciously. Krycek noticed, 
let his eyes play over the whitened knuckles, and watched Mulder 
with some kind of contemptuous knowledge.

	Scully cleared her throat and both of them looked at her. A 
little defiant and a little ashamed, Mulder caught her eye and 
received a raised eyebrow which signified her opinion of his 
violent reactions. He knew she was right and he hated that she was 
right.

* * * * * * *

	Mulder stood abruptly and said to Scully, "I'm thirsty. Are 
you thirsty? I'll go get some water." He rather pointedly did not 
look at Krycek, who was leaning back with a sullen expression on 
his face.

	As Mulder left the room, Scully saw Krycek's face change 
entirely, a shift of mental gears she had not witnessed even in 
her changeable partner. Krycek leaned forward, eyebrows brought 
down in a pained seriousness, and produced a disk from his jacket 
pocket. 

	"This is everything I could steal on Bill Mulder's 
experiments," he said in a rush. He did not note or did not 
comment on Scully's silent shock. Like a robot she accepted the 
proffered disk as it waved in front of her. "Look at it yourself. 
Tell him what you think he needs to know." Krycek didn't glance at 
the kitchen and neither did Scully; instead their eyes met across 
a span of about five feet. "He won't hear it, coming from me. He 
won't believe me." Krycek's voice vibrated with a firmly bottled 
resentment. His eyes lowered. "He'll believe you."

	"Why are you doing this?" she asked, her mind a curious 
blank.

	Krycek turned away, perplexity wrinkling his forehead. "He 
needs to get used to the idea," he said. "If he can't handle this, 
I need to know that now rather than later." He reached out and 
hesitated before touching her wrist with a fingertip. Scully saw 
him open his mouth, an entirely different pained expression on his 
face, and interrupted him.

	"Please don't apologize, Krycek. I'm not up to it tonight."

	Defeat spread across his features and Scully felt a little 
ashamed. "All right," he said, and stood. "I have contacts to 
make, before Coffin Nail gets to them. You have my beeper number. 
Use it if something comes down the FBI hierarchy." Krycek took a 
look at Mulder, who was emerging from the kitchen with two glasses 
in his hands. The man didn't say anything further, only rolled his 
shoulders and walked out the door.

	Scully was watching him go when Mulder handed her her glass. 
He did not say anything about the floppy disk in her other hand, 
only sat in the chair Krycek had left and frowned at his own 
beverage.

	"Listen, whatever he said --"

	"Don't, Mulder," she broke in. She took a long drink while 
she decided what to do. At last she said, "He gave me this disk. 
It's for you. Here take it."

	The disk quivered in the air between them and then he 
accepted it from her outstretched hand. It got a cool inspection 
before it disappeared into his coat pocket. "Well," he said.

	She said nothing and looked at nothing. His breathing was 
inordinately loud. After a while he spoke again. "Should I go?"

	"Stay, if you want to," she said in a careless tone, and 
went to put her glass back in the kitchen. When she returned to 
the living room he was making noises in the bathroom. Scully stood 
in front of her couch and looked around at the room and then went 
to the stereo and turned off the blaring music.

	Even knowing she didn't want to do it, her body turned a 
slow pivot, taking in the details of the room. It was a different 
size and shape; it sported no front windows and no fireplace; 
outside were only more brick buildings and no shadowy backyards in 
which to hide. The rug had been irretrievably stained and she had 
thrown it out. There was no reason for Scully to feel this 
overwhelming death-sense which put the fine hairs on her forearms 
on end.

	Down the hall, Mulder turned on the light in the bedroom. If 
she waited long enough he would be asleep when she came to bed. 
She stood still in the brightly lit room, trying to make herself 
smirk at the fact that Mulder slept so well in her bed. The 
refrigerator kicked out and the cars outside fell silent and the 
only sound was the air reverberating in the empty room.

	It seemed as if an hour had passed and she shook herself, 
feeling foolish. With an absent flick of the wrist, she turned off 
the light, then stopped, and frowned to herself, and checked the 
front door. Krycek had locked it on his way out.

	In her bedroom Mulder was still awake, sitting in bed, 
glancing over the top edge of his folders. His eyes were on her 
but she said nothing, only put on her pajamas and curled up in her 
side of the bed. As his eyes burned her back he put away the files 
and turned off the light. He was merciful and only ran a hand down 
her spine before settling on his side of the bed.

	Scully lay a long time, emptying her mind in some awful 
parody of meditation. She lay still till she heard Mulder's even, 
shallow breathing and the smacking of his lips. She rolled to 
stare at the ceiling, but it was the same color as always.

	He was in my apartment, she thought. The words were so 
clearly enunciated in her internal voice that she expected them to 
be printed in her own scrawl of handwriting on the blank ceiling 
before her. She could not think past that basic statement for a 
long while.

	He was in my apartment, she thought. He remembered the 
connection to Melissa and he begged me with his eyes . . . her 
mind wouldn't embrace the concept. Just because he was sorry 
didn't mean the crime was erased. Scully felt a pricking in her 
eyelids, and hated her own weakness. She conjured and catalogued 
all of the times she had envied her sister, and competed with her, 
and refused help offered in good faith. She remembered Mulder's 
halting confession of the time when she herself had been dying and 
the clear crystal that had sparkled over her supine body. She saw 
again her sister wearing her bloodstone necklace around that 
Audrey Hepburn throat, each bead like a frightened eye, and 
succumbed to a welter of tears and confusion. I hate him, I will 
never forgive him, she thought, I owe it to Melissa to hate him.

	In his sleep, as if he knew of her distress, Mulder shifted 
and rolled till he had buried his face in her hair. His arm came 
across her belly and his thumb massaged that pale flesh in a soft, 
rhythmic motion for a few moments. She touched his hand to make 
him stop, curling his fingers in her own to calm him. She could 
comfort other people. She could not be comforted.

* * * * * * *

	Down to DC and back up to New York City within twelve hours. 
Damn I wish I could just take a fucking commuter flight, but Delta 
Security is liable to take notice of a guy with a plastic arm. 
Grand Master's voice, reedy and thin over cellular channels, with 
a place to meet. When I finally double park on the street, in one 
of the parts of Hell's Kitchen that isn't being gentrified, I'm so 
tired I have to pinch myself on the cheeks to clear the sleep from 
my eyes.

	He is waiting for me inside, and though I want to laugh at 
seeing him in disguise, he frankly isn't as sore a thumb as I'd 
expected. Hunched over the last in a succession of beers, in 
shabby clothes only a little too studiously dirtied, he looks so 
strangely normal. Just a tired old gaffer drowning himself a 
little before going home to . . . to a hostile takeover, actually.

	"So, old man," I say loud enough for the bartender to hear, 
"she throw you out again?" I can pass off a city accent when I 
have to. We remove to a table in back with our beers in hand, an 
aging henpecked husband and his amusedly solicitous grandson. He 
offers a weak smile, something benign, but the moment we sit it 
disappears into that cool business demeanor.

	"Alex. You are aware we have a problem." That glint in his 
eye. He was surely an operative once, before he got some power. I 
think he likes being in the field again.

	"I've been in DC, securing the loyalties of contacts and . . 
. friends. None of them reports having been approached yet, so I 
gave them the party line to recite about the chain of command. 
This isn't something small, is it." He drops his head, all the 
confirmation I need. If he's scared, it's definitely bad.

	"Our smoking associate crossed the border from Canada this 
morning, very early. I know for certain he has had contact with at 
least three of the inner council, perhaps more." He fingers his 
bottle pensively. "Nothing has been said yet, only that he has 
returned to active duty and will be sent to Washington."

	"But you're the one who ordered him taken out --"

	"Yes." A cool smile. "I see you have been researching events 
from the year of your absence." The smile fades. "If he is moving 
now, then he is confident in his position amongst my colleagues." 

	I interrupt. "You knew they would be disturbed at how far 
the FBI has come on the human tissues research. It served its 
purpose, obscuring our other work, but it would naturally get them 
worrying. He knows how to take advantage of desperation."

	Grand Master eyes me slyly, as if I've admitted to 
something. "He will have been eliminating the most outspoken 
opponents of his viewpoint in these past hours." He keeps watching 
me, a cat waiting to pounce at the first rustle of grasses.

	I allow a little grimace. "Some muscle assigned to the 
offices upstate came for me at one of my hole-ups. They were 
pretty clear on only wanting to hurt me."

	He considers, swilling his half-forgotten beer. "He expends 
men to intimidate you, but fails to have you killed. He has more 
than a grudge against you," Grand Master tells me, realizing it at 
last. If I didn't know better I'd think he was losing his skill. 
"I shall have to ponder the significance of his using the upstate 
crews. If he does knows about your extracurricular work --"

	"Sir, you are just as likely to be his target as me."

	"My dear boy, if he is audacious enough to maneuver a coup 
d'etat, then I and all my allies are in danger." His back so 
straight he can look down his nose at me, as if I knew nothing of 
politics.

	"I know it." You know it too. You should have known he'd 
come gunning for me first. It's what I would do, if I had that 
kind of power. Unbalance the wild cards, see which way they fly.

	He just waves at me irritatedly. "You will be my bodyguard 
for now. We cannot leave this to chance."

	"I can't," I stammer, stunned Grand Master could play so 
naive at a time like this. If you're under fire you don't go 
hiding behind the primary target. I'm the only working field 
operative he's got completely in his pocket, and he wants to 
cripple me. "I've got commitments I can't just drop. I've -- our 
mutual friends."

	"Ah yes, them," he replies archly. "Well, they can live a 
week without you."

	"You have no guarantee it's only a week. I'm of more use to 
you and myself if I'm free to play the field."

	"Alex --"

	"And besides," I rattle on, "if you show up in the boardroom 
tomorrow with a bodyguard, he'll know you're afraid. And if you 
show up with me, he'll know you're terrified."

	I have said more than is wise, but I smoothe my features 
into the same polite emptiness Grand Master is showing me. He must 
know I'm right. I shrivel up under his keen gaze until finally he 
says, "And what would you suggest?"

	In other bosses this would be the kiss-off, giving me the 
rope to hang myself with. I'm not so sure with him, so I tell him 
honestly what I think. "I agree you need a bodyguard." He raises 
his eyebrows as if I've finally seen the light. "But someone who 
isn't part of the standard structure. Bring in an outsider, call 
him your advisor or your accountant, anything -- but make sure 
nobody else knows him. They'll spend all their time sizing up your 
man, and you might be able to pull one over on them."

	"That is clever," he replies drily, eyeing the empty bar as 
if choosing his man. "But few professionals in this city are not 
known to our organization."

	"Hire an amateur," I argue. "At this point, it's more 
important to unbalance your opposition than to defend against 
physical threat." Suddenly the idea comes to me, and it will be 
useful both to him and to me. It's so perfect it's funny. "I know 
somebody we can hire, somebody clean."

	His glance is withering, but my armor's getting pretty good. 
"And who is this associate of yours? Are you suggesting I buy 
loyalty?" Another dinosaur of the age of honor, offended at the 
market economics that rule this brave new world.

	"He's loyal to me," I say brightly, aware of my own slightly 
demented grin. "He's new to the game, but he'll do for the most 
obvious of threats." I crack my knuckles, already racing in my 
head through the details I have to cover, while Grand Master 
watches me with suspicion in his bland British features.

	With a promise to report back within 24 hours, I head out of 
the bar and back to my car. I leave him the bill. I know he can 
afford it. I need my money for the tolls to Brooklyn, and the cost 
of finding a nursing home that'll take someone on no notice. A 
hundred tiny things to cover. It's two in the morning. I'll never 
get any sleep.

* * * * * * *

	Mulder played with the floppy disk while he cradled his 
phone under his chin. He put his feet up on his desk as he 
received O'Leary's polite disdain. "Yes, Fred," he interjected 
idly, "I know, say 'alien' and I go to point like a hound. I just 
thought it was kind of odd, didn't you?"

	"Listen, it was a dump where they found her, that 'black 
stuff' could be tar or dogshit or tobacco spit, now can you please 
butt out of my case?" Fred O'Leary was young and ambitious and 
pleasantly obtuse and Mulder tried to keep from his voice his 
dislike of the driven, status-seeking hotshot he had once been.
 
	"All right," Mulder forced a chuckle. It still stung, 
obeying Krycek's order not to get involved. "Just -- you know. 
Offering myself as a resource."

	A rustling of papers on O'Leary's end of the phone. "Oh 
Hell," the man muttered. "Look, Spooky, I got another kidnapping 
as of this morning. I'll send you up photos of the victims, OK? 
You can check if any of 'em have gone to the mothership before." 
Mulder agreed absently and dropped the phone into its cradle, 
chewing on his lips. He stared resentfully at the disk in his 
hands. He hadn't tried to use it, but he couldn't throw it away 
either. It sat in his palm, matte black, and refused to explain 
why Krycek had given it to Scully instead of him. In frustration 
he balanced it on its corners and spun it, flicking it with his 
fingers.

	When Scully interrupted his new sport by walking into their 
office she eyed the disk but said nothing. She missed eye contact 
with him as she said, "I'm meeting a friend for lunch, and then I 
have to drive down to Quantico to consult about our tissue 
samples. I won't be back till evening."

	"This wouldn't be a friend who works in Langley?" he asked, 
careful to add suspicion to his voice.

	The Scully equivalent of sticking out her tongue was an 
imperiously arched eyebrow. "None of your business, Mulder," she 
said and turned her back to him.

	Mulder watched her fetch her coat, and recited the scripted 
retort to her shoulder blades: "I know she's your friend, but are 
you sure it's safe to go talking to someone from the CIA?" Scully 
turned around and gave him her canny, predatory look, something no 
surveillance camera would ever do justice.

	"Unlike you, I can separate the personal from the 
professional," she replied, deadpan. It was she who had devised 
the hide-in-plain-sight strategy, more audacity than he would have 
given her credit for. She adjusted her collar and stepped into the 
doorway. "Where shall I meet you?"

	"Your place," he said, glad indeed that she didn't always 
separate the personal from the professional, and she smiled her 
assent. Mulder watched her go, aware he had a goofy smile on his 
face and willing, for now at least, to leave it there.

	Slowly Scully's presence leached from the room, as her 
perfume was dispersed through the air circulation system. Mulder 
sat at his desk, woolgathering, free-associating his various 
impressions of upstate New York and Alex Krycek. At last he jerked 
and looked around him, and realized he still held the disk between 
his fingers.

	Playing with it would never make it give up its secrets. 
Banishing his apprehension, Mulder shoved the disk into its port 
on his computer, and took a deep breath before looking at its 
contents. A list of several files displayed itself to him, and he 
sat back, chilled. Every single file had his name in it.

	There was a point at which he had demanded proof of Krycek's 
outlandish allegations, some kind of corroboration for the tale 
Krycek had told which just happened to explain Mulder's own 
childhood ailments. Today Mulder realized he really didn't want 
that proof, or any proof at all; he discovered to his dismay that 
suspecting terrible things was far more comfortable a position to 
be in than actually knowing about them. Ironically, Krycek was 
right: he didn't have the stomach for it.

	He quashed his sudden dyspepsia, and moused over one of the 
files to open it. Before he could do so, a knock came at his door 
and he jumped. Stupid, he thought. Stupid, to look at this at 
work. They could so easily recover any files he looked at. Hastily 
he ejected the disk and hid it in his pocket as he called out 
"It's open."

	A young intern in a badly-tied necktie poked his head past 
the door, a trepidatious look on his face. The absurdity of 
fearing this boy almost made Mulder laugh, but he swallowed it and 
gestured for whatever business the intern had brought. "A fax from 
Quantico, sir, for you. It's from Special Agent O'Leary." The 
young man swallowed, which did amusing things to the knot of his 
tie. As he accepted the papers, Mulder realized he was the closest 
the FBI came to a scary bedtime story. He was glad he no longer 
cared what others thought about him.

	"Thanks," he muttered absently at the intern's retreating 
back, and began flipping through the papers O'Leary had sent. True 
to his literally-minded word, O'Leary had faxed photographs and 
short identifications of all the known victims of one Mr. Clean, 
both living photos and grainy images of the end results, bodies in 
horrific friezes abandoned to the elements. Mulder compared the 
awkward-looking brunette, in her glasses and teased-up hair, to 
her mirror photo of a naked corpse, mottled with bruises at the 
ankles and wrists, her face without its glasses seeming younger 
and brown eyes staring into empty space.

	His mind began to perk, as he had known it would, on the 
details of the bodies, how their exposure suggested abandonment, 
the age of the bruises providing proof that they were held captive 
for several days before death. Mulder moved on to the second 
juxtaposition of living and dead, and then the third -- three 
bodies in eight days. The local police had been quick to call in 
the FBI; a serial killer in a big city is an excuse for hysteria. 
He turned the page for the newest potential victim.

	And was looking directly into Alex Krycek's picture. No; 
when Mulder calmed his racing heart he became conscious of the 
differences. The man in the photograph was heavier and about a 
decade older, smiling in front of a barbecue, his cheeks tending 
towards jowl and his neck heavily wrinkled. The eyes seemed to be 
darker, though with a black-and-white image he couldn't say for 
sure. But the resemblance was shocking, absolute: the same shape 
of eye socket, the same nose, the same placement of small, 
slightly pointed ears. Elements of a face that were hard to 
manipulate, elements of a face that signified family resemblance.

	Numbly Mulder read the description which accompanied the 
photo: Elijah Charles Winston, an attorney with a big firm in 
Buffalo, age 45, thrice-divorced but still driving a Lexus. His 
secretary, also his mistress, had been waiting at his house for 
him and he never came home yesterday night. Car, backended, found 
by the side of the road 3am today. No prints, only a trace of 
bleach on the car seat to connect this man with Mr. Clean.

	Coincidences like this just don't happen. Mulder reached for 
the phone, dialing automatically, and realized his fingers were 
trembling when he hit the wrong key twice.

* * * * * * *

	"Mm, those ones are nice," commented Lottie MacIlvain, 
looking through the window at a pair of brown alligator pumps. 
Scully stood by her, still several inches shorter in spite of 
three-inch heels, and chuckled a little. Together they headed into 
the store for a closer look. "It's a good thing," said Lottie in 
her sly voice, "that women have such frivolous tastes."

	Scully couldn't fault Lottie's logic, as they left the busy 
16th Street sidewalk for the haughty interior of the store. The 
vicious parking situation and the hustle of pedestrians outside 
just about negated any chance of roving audio surveillance. 
Relaxing under the blowing heat of the shoe store, she said, "So 
have you seen Harkness?"

	Unvoiced regret bloomed on Lottie's face. "Three times, the 
past few weeks. He didn't know me, of course, but he's not like 
the classic Alzheimer's patient, learning and then forgetting 
again. He just thinks it's 1968 is all, and I'm the Ursula Andress 
character in his own James Bond movie." A little private smile. 
"He asked me to sneak him in some Scotch."

	After a short perusal of the shoe displays, the two women 
left the store and continued down 16th Street. They strolled, 
comfortable in their light coats, and at last Scully approached 
the reason they were together at all. "You've been patient with 
us. I know you want to know what's really going on."

	"It might be nice," and Lottie held her chin high, as if in 
disdain of her own irony, "to know where you came up with that 
facility, and what the hell that equipment really was, and what 
all this has to do with Walker's chip research." Scully stole a 
look at her, but Lottie's face was impassive, a patented urban 
disinterest that only made her seem more glamorously untouchable.

	"Vygotsky and I are still puzzling out Harkness's notes." 
Scully felt a bit ill as she willfully misdirected the 
conversation. "He doesn't know about -- all this -- but his men 
were killed in the kidnapping. He has made some discoveries about 
piggyback radio signals. We're very close to a breakthrough."

	"You tell Vygotsky hardly anything. How much will you tell 
me?" Lottie's mild voice belied her words.

	"I wish I could tell you everything, but I can't," answered 
Scully, reluctantly. "We're only a few steps ahead of where you 
were in September. There are clues and patterns, but no definitive 
proof of the ultimate goal of all of this . . . research."

	They strolled a few minutes in silence, and then Lottie said 
quietly, "Corwith -- Krycek -- knows more and isn't telling you."

	Lowering her head, Scully realized she was preparing herself 
to defend Krycek. Pushing away her emotions, she replied, "He has 
discovered that what he tells us must eventually show up in a 
federal report. For his own safety, and for further inroads into 
this conspiracy, he keeps certain things from us."

	Lottie came to a full stop and turned to look Scully in the 
eye. "You are letting him manipulate you. Dana, tell me you don't 
trust him."

	Suddenly Scully found her tears from last night close at 
hand. She stood, looking at the gray pavement, for a long time 
before she could say, "He needs us as much as we need him."

	After a moment Lottie seemed to accept that and began 
walking again. Scully walked by her side, in a haze of conflicted 
memories. Without comment Lottie reached out and took Scully's arm 
and they crossed the street together. Scully looked up at this 
woman, taller and older and possessed of far more authority, and 
liked her immensely.

	"The list Walt gave you, I've done some research but I 
haven't actually contacted anyone yet," said Lottie presently. "I 
can think of a few to add as well, loyal people who'll think 
before they try the regular channels. Good God, hemlines are 
coming back up."

	They paused together in front of the store window. Scully 
said, "Short skirts make me look dumpy. A priority is to make 
contacts in the French government. Krycek made and broke deals 
with them two years ago, but if we keep his name out of it they 
may be valuable."

	Lottie and Scully stared into each other's eyes via their 
reflections in the picture window. "This really is global." 

	"Yes." Scully lowered her eyes.

	"I'll do what I can. I have a friend at the State Department 
whose daughter I got out of trouble in Turkey last year." Lottie 
made an ironic sound as they turned away and began walking again. 
"Best to coordinate everyone through him. You know, don't you, 
that the only people lower than CIA in the eyes of the community 
at large is the FBI?" They traded smiles. "That's how they'll know 
I'm sincere -- it's too absurd to be a setup."

	Scully was laughing, a real, open laugh, when she heard her 
cellular phone ringing inside her coat.

* * * * * * *

	The conference room doors open and Grand Master strides out 
rather too quickly, Devin Markov following with wary eyes in a 
poker face. He hangs back a step from his boss, surprisingly good 
at this bodyguard/intern business. The old men grumble and gossip, 
the handful around Grand Master too small by half. We are losing 
this fight, I think.

	I stand to the side, allowing Grand Master to get his fill 
of sycophancy, and watch my young protege size up the other 
subordinates, some of whom may also be working double duty. Devin 
holds his elbows awkwardly, still a little uncomfortable with the 
shoulder holster, but it's an improvement on yesterday. The suit I 
helped him pick out this morning emphasizes his bulk; the new 
haircut makes him look just enough older to be professional, but 
still young enough to be psychotic.  Welcome to the world, Devin. 
A hasty entrance, but a more organized one than my own.

	It's surprising to find a small kernel of guilt, just 
stomping in and recruiting him the way I did. Opportunity came 
knocking at six in the morning, with orderlies to move his 
grandmother, and I didn't give him the breathing room to say no. 
My opportunity came with an out, a back door through the kitchen I 
could have taken when I realized they were talking about cocaine. 
I at least had a choice. But then Devin sees me watching him and 
his eyes go warm even as he struggles to hide a smile. He would 
not have said no.

	Finally the old men disperse, each to his own suite to 
sweat, and Grand Master puts his hand on my fake arm as he heads 
me to his office. I hate him doing that, and he knows it; it means 
he either has bad news or he wants to unsettle me.

	"I'm afraid, Alex," he mutters, "that your precious vaccine 
has become embroiled in this coup d'etat." He extends his jaw and 
raises his eyebrows as if a longer face would give him more 
authority.

	It's even more unsettling than the contact, the way he 
blurts it out, his goateed toady and Devin just standing there. 
It's fine for him to fuck around with his own safety, but mine is 
another story. I give Devin a last look and escort Grand Master 
into his office; the toady comes right up to the door with us so I 
have to give him my fatal grin as I'm closing the door. I see my 
reflection in his glassy eyes.

	"Will you please get a handle on yourself?" I burst out, 
leaning against the door. "There's a grand total of three people 
who know about that, and I'd like that number to stay low. What 
the hell happened that has you so rattled?"

	As he stiffens his back I realize I have never spoken aloud 
to him quite like that. But then I realize it has had one positive 
effect -- being offended makes him sly and I need sly right now. 
Twice now, it has been effective: I should have talked back to him 
a long time ago. The old man just stands by his desk, his posture 
curiously reminiscent of a fencer awaiting the buzzer to fight.

	"I expected him to take over the Batavia facility," I tell 
him, and if he answers me civilly then I really have come up in 
the world. "He's always had strong support out there."

	A long icy look, and then he blinks and says, "He has 
indeed. His people have not yet discovered the operation in 
Syracuse, but it cannot be kept from them forever."

	"They're looking for a reason," I agree. "But only Dr. 
Backes himself knows about me, and he won't talk except under 
torture." I didn't approve when it was decided to take the 
doctor's four-year-old hostage; it makes him desperate instead of 
efficient. Some day someone will get the loony idea to kidnap the 
old man's grandchildren, and then all hell will break loose. 
"There's something else you should know about. Murders, around the 
Buffalo area. Facility people."

	"Yes," he mutters. "It's hit the tabloids as of this 
morning. I appreciate your concern, Alex. I'm sending you out to 
survey the situation in person." He sits heavily in his leather 
chair, rearranges papers on his desk. I stand still, and at last 
he turns to regard me.

	His cool eyes boring into me. "This murder situation may be 
a simple cover for loyalty testing, or interrogations about our 
secrets. We need to shut Batavia down entirely. I want you to 
sabotage the operation, ruin all available samples so as to impede 
comparison with the Syracuse samples." I don't move, just looking 
at him. He is a sinister coil, sitting as if innocent at his desk 
like any executive. 

	"For the record," I ask carefully, "you want me to eliminate 
the test subject from the Batavia program?"

	Grand Master gives me that hard smile. He says nothing.

	There is a strange tight twisting inside my ribcage when I 
shrug and nod. I should be eager to do it; I want to be eager to 
do it. I keep the expression off my face, I think, but my throat 
is full of bile.

	I know he knows. His expression does not change, but I know 
he knows. "I'm sure you'll be creative," he tells me keenly.

	I won't let him provoke me. I show him my teeth and say, 
"I'll send you a few fingers, registered mail." I show him the 
whites of my eyes and spin on one heel to leave. I stride out of 
that office as if I had any confidence left in him, and Devin 
looks up from his post at the vestibule door. He looks morose, but 
lights up when he sees me. I take one last glance back at Grand 
Master and start thinking I need to give him a new nickname.

	"You have no manners, Alex," the old man says to my back as 
I am leaving.

	I mutter to myself, but loud enough so Devin will hear me. 
"But don't I get things done."

* * * * * * *

	He officially only had access to the victims' photos -- none 
of whom, it turned out, had ever been affiliated with alien 
abduction groups -- but Mulder had cajoled a secretary he had 
known in Violent Crimes several years ago to fax him more of the 
forensic evidence. He didn't have the patience to deal with 
O'Leary's ego and he didn't have an explanation for his new 
obsession with the case. Scully came in and dumped another stack 
of pages onto his desk, startling him from his eyeball-to-eyeball 
examination of the Winston photo.

	"This secretary was a very good friend of yours," said 
Scully mildly, collating crime scene reports in piles on her desk. 
She tapped the piles into order again, biting her lip as she 
considered what neither of them was talking about. Mulder took a 
long look at her, then bent his head again to the grainy 
photograph. He thought, for sure this time, that Winston must have 
brown eyes.

	His perusal was interrupted again very quickly, only this 
time it was by a sharp rapping on the door. He and Scully glanced 
at each other -- her wariness mirrored what he was feeling -- and 
she crossed the room to open the door. When she stepped back to 
greet their supervisor, Mulder got a strange chill down his spine.

	Skinner shifted his weight from foot to foot, his usually 
unflappable demeanor in serious distress. It seemed to Mulder that 
he had not had his boss in his office since Scully had 
disappeared, four years ago. And that had been to argue Mulder out 
of resigning.

	"Look," said Skinner, without preamble, "there's been some 
kind of shakeup behind the scenes at Justice. Loyalties are on the 
move." He lowered his head and examined the file he held in his 
hands while Mulder and Scully stared at each other in silence all 
too knowing. Skinner muttered, "You'll never guess who's turned up 
alive."

	"Jimmy Hoffa?" asked Mulder. He got a cool stare from Scully 
for it, and a keener one from Skinner, who narrowed one eye and 
put down the folder atop the file cabinet. He glanced from one 
agent to the other, and Mulder worked hard to meet his boss's 
eyes.

	Finally Mulder blinked and said, "I had a feeling." He 
raised his head and looked directly at Scully as he added, "There 
was a certain stink in the elevator today." She weighed him with 
her eyes and nodded a little, then realized Skinner had seen their 
exchange and colored.

	"Does this put you in a pickle, sir?" she asked, to cover 
her startlement. Skinner just waved one hand dismissively, sucking 
on his teeth. He was regarding both his agents with that 
thoughtful look he got when he was about to ask whether they were 
prepared to corroborate each other.

	After some silence, he spoke, and in the rapid blinking of 
his eyes Mulder saw something akin to worry: "Are you going to 
tell me what's going on?" His voice rang in his usual strident 
tone, but slowly enough to betray his own hesitation.

	It was Scully who answered him. "No sir, we're not." She 
crossed her arms, leaning against her desk, and gave him back as 
good a stare as she got.

	"You'll thank us for it," said Mulder, and Skinner rounded 
on him in surprise. He stood with his mouth open and his forehead 
a map of wrinkles, but after a long moment the wrinkles smoothed 
away and his face became impassive.

	"Well, then." The man looked at the floor as he backed his 
way to the door. "As you were." Skinner let himself out and pulled 
the door mostly to. "Watch yourselves," he said quietly, and the 
door clicked closed behind him.

	Scully remained still for a few moments, a thoughtful look 
on her face, but she said nothing. Mulder, watching her, nervously 
ran his fingers around the edges of the faxed photograph which had 
been causing their interrupted furor. Elijah Charles Winston 
continued to grin in front of his barbecue, oblivious.

	She snapped out of her funk suddenly, shaking her body like 
someone irritated at forgetting an appointment. Without looking at 
him, she fetched her coat and said, "I'll have to call Vygotsky 
and reschedule, since I didn't get to Quantico for the samples 
today." She turned and looked at him, a brightness in her blue 
eyes that was captivating and a little scary. "And I'll make that 
other call."

	Mulder watched as she lowered her eyes and tamped her lips 
together. She closed the door behind her and Mulder was left alone 
with the smiling photograph of a missing New York lawyer. He 
couldn't stand to look at that satisfied face any longer. Mulder 
stood up, stretching, and fingered the piles of profile work on 
Scully's desk. It was a job he was glad to have left behind, but 
the old habits sometimes reasserted themselves. His mind sifted 
the mundane details of four -- three and a half, let's say -- 
victims, seeking correlations. In frustration he turned away.

	Pacing the cluttered office, his mind an irritating blank, 
Mulder speculated internally about the logical connections between 
the cases and situations he was trying to handle. Everything came 
down on Buffalo, New York, a place he could not go. He fiddled 
with the pushpins on his bulletin board, and sharpened another 
pencil, and flipped through the interoffice mail while he sulked 
over Krycek's interference.

	On top of the file cabinet lay a folder -- Skinner had 
forgotten it in his distress. Mulder looked for a long time at the 
case number on the front. The number did not begin with an X. As 
he flipped it open, Mulder realized immediately that he had 
already seen the details of this case, indeed, that they were 
spread out in bad facsimile on the surfaces of the office. On the 
first page was clipped a note in Skinner's handwriting:

	Don't step on O'Leary's toes. Assistance to the 
	investigators only. Keep your eyes open.

Skinner had signed it with only his first name. Mulder found 
himself chuckling, and turned it into a frown.

* * * * * * *

	When I come back to myself, I am wedged between the toilet 
and the sink in my underwear. I don't remember where I am, except 
of course a motel room in whatever town I stopped in. My chest is 
still sore, hitching now and then in little aftershocks. I have 
been here a long time, if the porcelain has warmed up to my body 
temperature. I try to rewind the past few hours, to figure out 
just how I got here, but the knowledge interferes with everything 
I try to do: they've taken Eli.

	Slowly, unkinking my muscles, I crawl out from my hiding 
spot and stand up. I sway drunkenly, but I know I've had nothing 
to drink. I wipe at my face, first with my forearm and then with a 
threadbare towel, before I look into the mirror. Some lunatic 
scarecrow stares back at me, his hair a whirlwind, his eyes bagged 
and red-lined. I watch his chest heave in a hard breath, and 
remember it's my throat that keeps closing up.

	I turn away from the mirror, and look at my surroundings. No 
clothes in the bathroom, so I open the bathroom door and realize 
it was locked from the inside. In the beige room beyond all my 
clothes lie on the floor as if I had stepped out of them 
unthinking. Well, apparently that's what I did. They've taken Eli. 
I stumble over to the bed and sit on its edge so I won't fall. How 
could this have happened.

	My head is heavy, stuffed up with cotton, so I lean on my 
hand. In waves, as I sit there, the words come back as they were 
whispered to me, tinny through a telephone. Kidnappings and 
Buffalo, two words in the same sentence. Scully's voice, clear and 
apprehensive. She says the name, says it out whole like an 
incantation, Elijah Charles Winston, and I don't deny it. I didn't 
deny it at all, did I. She knows now, or can find out. Doesn't 
matter.

	All of the possibilities spin in my head, crashing into each 
other and refusing my orders to fall into line. Eli, in Buffalo. 
The facilities, one near there and one in Syracuse. Lurid tabloid 
headlines about the killer, they're calling him Mr. Clean. 
Interrogations. My orders. Three people who know my secret. And in 
the center, squinting at me through smoke of his own making, 
Coffin Nail's wrinkled face. I don't know what to do. I don't know 
what to do.

	It's hard to remember, ten years ago, when I was recruited 
for this outfit. Ten years I've been Alex Krycek -- longer than 
I've stuck with any other name. I was still a crazy young thing, 
crazy enough to be intrigued when total strangers approached me, 
already knowing my name. It wasn't till they -- he -- sat me down 
in a windowless room and asked me with those dead eyes if I had 
any family that I knew I was caught. He gave a little smile at my 
denials. He has held them as unspoken threats over my head for 
years. Just little things, making me stand before his desk as he 
sits and toys with photographs, just enough to make me wonder what 
he would really do.

	I've always said to myself it didn't matter. I was good at 
what I did, and willing, and if not for the Mulder assignment I 
might have gone far. I could spend days, weeks, never thinking 
about the brothers I left behind. It just never occurred to me I'd 
end up in a fight for the whole world's safety.  

	Cold, cold all up and down my body. Eli, on the one hand, 
the guy who taught me how to ride a bike. On the other, murky 
alliances, guessing games, men on fire. It's a terrible thing to 
realize. I have always known he had this power over me, and there 
is only one way to defuse it: to step away, to let it happen and 
do nothing. I will not be manipulated. I will not be provoked.

	I scrub my face with my hand, I clutch my body together. If 
I weren't there already I'd think I was going into shock. Sitting 
in my underwear on a thin brown coverlet. I don't know if I can do 
this. I used to be so tough. I'm not tough any more. 

	Curled up like a baby on the bed. I jump up, trying to drain 
the tension from my muscles, pacing my room. Standard drab motel 
decor, particle board furniture, dust on the drapes. The key on 
the beside table: I am in Buffalo, then. That's right; Scully 
beeped me on my way back from picking up the files, which are now 
splayed across the table. Work to do, work to do. Enough work to 
get my mind off this, off Eli. I will not be provoked.

* * * * * * *

	The drive up to Buffalo was long and boring and tense, 
Scully staring out the window more often than she read the case 
file. Mulder glanced over at her with increasing regularity, 
waiting for her to tell him to mind his own business, or to rail 
at him for finding a way to disobey Krycek's orders, or give her 
opinion about the fact that the Bills never win the Superbowl. But 
she just stared out the window, the Mr. Clean casefile open in her 
lap. It wasn't even open to the photo of this Elijah Winston 
character; it was a random forensics page.

	They had crossed the northern Pennsylvania border and it was 
looking increasingly like snow when finally she spoke, in a 
careful, speculative tone: "He keeps them alive for at least two 
days, maybe more. And after that, injects them."

	Mulder let a mile marker pass in silence before he asked, 
"What are you thinking?" She just stared out the windshield, her 
eyes far away. The sky was gray, and the road grayer, already 
edged with salty sand. There was nothing for her to look at.

	"Krycek is already here." She gave him an uneasy glance. 
"When I . . . gave him the news, he let slip that he was in 
Buffalo."

	Allowing the median strip to mesmerize him as it flashed by, 
Mulder started to pull together loose threads into a whole 
garment. "You think this isn't a serial killer," he said slowly. 
"You think this has something to do with the smoking man."

	She nodded her head. "Two days, and then bleach, or Pine 
Sol, or whatever household cocktail he has at hand. If you were 
administering drugs to people, trying to find out what they know, 
it's a reasonable way to obscure toxicology reports. That's our 
exit."

	"There's gotta be a less showy way to do it," replied 
Mulder. He chewed on his lips as they came off the highway. 
"Although . . ." Scully wasn't looking at him, but nodding all the 
same. "If you wanted to draw somebody here, like a challenge --"

	Neither of them said anything while he negotiated the 
potholed roads to the police station. Mulder's thoughts danced 
around Krycek's likely personal involvement in this mess. It was 
easier to think in corporate terms.

	"The only question left then," he said as he pulled into the 
parking lot, "is what the dead people knew that was so valuable." 
Scully did not reply, only furrowed her brows as she climbed out 
of the car. They walked into the police station side by side, 
saying nothing.

	Detective Fraser greeted them warmly and put them 
immediately to work: even without flashy serial murders the 
Buffalo police were perpetually short of warm bodies. Mulder found 
himself tracking the legal behavior of Mr. Elijah Charles Winston, 
while Scully scanned credit reports of all the victims in search 
of commonalities. Mulder watched his partner, muttering the names 
of supermarkets and boutiques under her breath, and realized again 
that she even looked good under fluorescents. Then his terminal 
beeped and he got back to work.

	The nice thing about tracking lawyers is that any gross 
violations are liable to make them ex-lawyers. Winston had a few 
parking tickets locally, a fender-bender from October in 
Rochester, and nothing else for many years back. Certified to 
practice law in New York state and originally in Ohio: Winston was 
a tax lawyer, helping corporations dodge Uncle Sam. There was no 
reason for him to be targeted -- no reason on his legal record, at 
least.

	Mulder found himself unaccountably curious about this 
missing man, chronicling him backwards through three marriages, 
back to law school. Each divorce had been amicable; each 
settlement had been quite large. Tax law paid well. But then 
Mulder came across an Ohio state complaint, back during Winston's 
law school years. He wasn't listed as a suspect, no -- he reported 
it. The printout bore a code number next to the date, and some 
helpful soul had pencilled in its meaning: missing persons.

	As he shuffled through the papers on Fraser's desk, Mulder 
was aware of Scully eyeing him. He didn't have a good reason to be 
obsessed with this, so he pretended she was not watching him. At 
last he found the report he was looking for, near the bottom of 
the stack, and everything on top sprawled across the desk as he 
yanked out the pages he wanted. A missing persons report, grainy 
in facsimile, originally written up on a typewriter with a chipped 
capital G. On the second page there was a photograph, and it just 
about unmanned him to look at it.

	Scully was guiding him to a chair to sit in, frowning at 
him. Weakly, he handed her the report and waited for her to get to 
the second page. She turned white when she saw it, and stared back 
at him as stunned as he surely looked. Missing minor child: 
Gabriel John "Gary" Winston, age 15. A slim, dark-haired boy, not 
looking at the camera, with as sullen an expression as he had ever 
held in real life.

	It was Alex Krycek, of course. The detectives in Ohio had 
been unable to conclude anything, but the older brothers who 
reported it had insisted the boy had been abducted.

* * * * * * *

	It was mostly dark when Scully left her hotel. Mulder hadn't 
said anything when she picked up the car keys, but he knew where 
she was going. The motel she pulled into was more plain than her 
own lodgings, doors opening onto the parking lot rather than a 
corridor. She knocked carefully on number 17, her eyes too uneasy 
to rest anywhere. It wasn't the precautions against being followed 
that made her back taut; she startled again when Krycek pulled the 
door open suddenly. He didn't say anything or make eye contact. He 
just stood aside, scanning the parking lot, while Scully came in.

	They stood at angles to each other for a long moment, saying 
nothing, before he cleared his throat and gestured for her to sit 
at the table. Scully sat gingerly, noting the pile of closed 
folders Krycek had left out. They were marked with the kind of 
colored letter codes doctor's offices often apply to paper 
records. She could not justify leafing through them. She arranged 
herself, tucking back her hair, picking imaginary lint off her 
jacket. "So," she said.

	"So," he agreed, his voice a little rough. Another silence 
stretched between them, but he did not let it last. "You were sent 
up here officially."

	"Yes." She was relieved to avoid the main reason for her 
visit a little longer. "Skinner got wind of . . . that man coming 
back, and sent us here. We couldn't say no without getting 
attention. We're here to assist in investigation of the Mr. Clean 
case, officially."

	They didn't talk about the unofficially. Scully found 
herself reflecting on Skinner's strange backhanded approval of 
their extracurricular investigations. Krycek said, in a fatigued 
tone, "As long as you stay out of my way, I don't guess there's 
much I can do about it."

	She glared at him, but he wasn't looking at her. "We can't 
promise to do that, if we don't even know why you're here." He 
only shrugged, and Scully massaged her forehead in her 
frustration. 

	With an unsettling suddenness, Krycek was standing beside 
her; she had not heard him move. She was still jerking away from 
his abrupt presence when she heard his voice above her, brazen and 
hard. "Pleased to meet you," he said, and she looked up at him to 
see his steely face, his hand stiffly extended. Numb, she took the 
offered hand. It was covered with calluses, with stubbed short 
chewed-on nails. "Agent Scully, I'd like you to meet Gary 
Winston."

	Her eyes wanted to search the room for this person Krycek 
was introducing, even though Scully knew nobody else was there. So 
she looked at the table as she reclaimed her hand and said, "He is 
your brother."

	"Yes." That hard voice, still. This was the Krycek Scully 
could imagine, knocking Mulder to the floor of his own living room 
with a monologue of disaster. And then, more quietly, "He is."

	"I understand you'll want to be apprised of every step of 
the investigation. We're doing everything we can to make sure --" 
He banged the table with his open hand and she stopped speaking. 
She stared up at him, standing over her dangerously, and she 
watched the hardness bleed out of him.

	He let out a long breath and his shoulder slumped down. 
"I'll be thirty-five in April." He turned, and walked to the 
windows, staring out through the heavy drapes. She did not mention 
the conflicting birth dates he had claimed in the past. There was 
no point to it. "I haven't seen any of my brothers in nineteen 
years. I don't even remember what they look like."

	I've got pictures, thought Scully. It was too cruel for her 
to say out loud. So instead, she said something that hurt her very 
much to think about: "Did something happen?" Krycek's eyes pierced 
her through and her question felt like a confession, her cheeks 
hot and her heart cold. "Was it the Culmination Group? Were you . 
. . taken?" But he was already shaking his head, turning away.

	"No." His face went sullen and empty, head hunched down 
between his shoulders. She wanted to go stand by him, to catch his 
eye and see him light up with that peculiar expression he had. She 
wanted to slap him, hard, and force him into flippancy. She did 
nothing and presently he looked back at her with a fey grin. "I 
used to steal change off my father's dresser when I was a little 
kid. I graduated to comic books from the corner store, and then 
anything I wanted I didn't feel like paying for." He stopped, and 
looked off into the middle distance, and said in a strange voice, 
"When I turned fifteen, Gloria Gaynor was at number 1. Man, that 
was a year. Three Mile Island was that spring. I was gone before 
school started in the fall."

	She looked at him, carefully neutral, till he turned to look 
at her. His face was as blunt as his voice when he said, "I ran 
away that July."

	Scully wanted to disappear, to withdraw and contemplate the 
man in front of her under safer circumstances. "You've had no 
contact with your family since then?"

	"No," he said. "None." He rolled his shoulders, cracking 
something in his neck. Scully realized just how terrible he 
looked, unshaven, hollow-eyed. She didn't know what she could say, 
looking at his squared shoulders, vague under his sweatshirt, so 
she said nothing. After a few moments he turned to look at her, 
something hard in his demeanor. He said: "I was a bad kid, Agent 
Scully. I haven't improved with age."

	Scully studied his face for the few moments that he allowed 
it. Then he turned away again, pacing the little room. "I've done 
a lot of terrible things. I killed Mulder's dad," Krycek ranted. 
"I tried to kill you. Eli got caught up in all of this just 
because he's related to me."

	His voice was solid, cataloging his own crimes in increasing 
volume and pitch, but he wiped away a pair of angry tears with the 
edge of his one long thumb. He said, facing away from her, "His 
death will be a terrible thing. I won't prevent it." The words 
fell leaden into the room, thudding down on Scully's head. If she 
had been standing she knew she would have had to sit down. But 
Krycek went on, relentless: "It's an effective tool, using a man's 
family against him. I've done it before. But I can't let myself 
get turned aside just because --" He stopped. She closed her eyes 
painfully and listened to him work his mouth, mute. A million 
platitudes flew through her head. She rejected them all.

	In the necessary crush of intellectualizing the problem, she 
came upon one of his unspoken assumptions she could question 
safely. It was a surprise, and yet not so, a calmer touchstone for 
them both: "You really believe in the alien conspiracy."

	"I do," he answered. He turned to her, and light had 
returned to his eyes. "I know it for truth, whatever you believe. 
And I'm damned if I'll lie down and let this world be given away."

	In a terrible, funny flash, Scully thought to herself that 
Mulder should be here, to listen to his grave enemy agree with 
him. Krycek wasn't laughing. Feeling a little unsteady still, she 
stood, and leaned her palms flat on the table.

	Without looking up, she asked, "What secrets have you been 
keeping about this city?" She heard his exhalation, but no answer. 
He did not say anything till she raised her head.

	"I can't tell you." It was a simple statement, Krycek's face 
frustratingly opaque. Scully sighed, and gathered herself up to 
leave. There would be no point in keeping Krycek updated about the 
investigation; it would be actively cruel to do so. She had no 
other reason to contact him. At the door, she looked back, and 
found him staring at her with a curious intensity. His forehead 
wrinkled as he said, "Not yet. Soon."

* * * * * * *

	I drive late into the night to the safe house outside 
Syracuse. I know the kid is already asleep but I do it now because 
there's no other time and I can't justify putting it off. I've 
never been here, but the guards know me. They are loyal soldiers, 
loyal to the old man. I don't want to have to kill them. 

	But they let me in, and don't question me when I go into the 
kid's room. The woman they hired to watch her wakes up, sitting in 
the rocking chair, and lets out this little scream, like I'm the 
devil come to take souls. Maybe I really do look that bad. I tell 
her to shut up and crouch by the kid's bedside, to see if the 
noise woke her up.

	She's on the edges of drowse, which means she's not awake 
enough to be afraid and she's very suggestible. Perfect. "Hey 
sweetheart," I croon to her, and I would feel like a dunce making 
noises like that except it's effective. "You want to see your 
daddy?"

	"Daddy?" she asks vaguely, blinking at me. She's like a huge 
doll, all blond curls and fat cheeks. Slowly she sits up and asks 
again, "Where?"

	I touch her cheek and she doesn't recoil. "I'm taking you to 
see your daddy. You want to see him, right?" I can hear the woman 
across the room hyperventilating. A family man I am not, but she's 
being crazy. I give her a glare as I cast around the room for 
blankets to wrap the kid up in. She's hot, a little sweaty, and 
she smells sweet as I balance her on my false arm. I call her 
Little Wonton and she's come awake enough to giggle.

	There's no point in trying to explain things to the guards. 
They'll call up the old man, now or in the morning, or else 
they'll obey the chain of command and let me wreak my havoc. I 
just give them a cool nod on my way out the door, as if I walked 
in and out with four-year-olds under my arm every day.

	The Little Wonton's asleep again by the time I get to the 
facility. I give her a shake so I can climb out of the car without 
dropping her, and she grabs my neck for balance. We two, damaged 
soldiers, stagger up the stairs to her father's office. It's three 
in the morning. Of course he's still here. I know he has nothing 
to keep him at home.

	Backes looks up at me with terrible eyes when I open his 
door. And then his face crumbles, even as the Wonton shouts out 
for him joyously. I watch him sit as his desk, crying, for almost 
a minute before he approaches me. He's tall, and like a skeleton, 
and it seems like he'd never be able to lift the kid. He clutches 
her to his chest and turns away from me, so I only see his 
shoulders shaking and her face as she pats her father on the 
cheek. 

	It's a long while before Backes can compose himself again. 
Finally he's sitting at his desk, twiddling his fingers in the 
kid's hair while she drowsily plays with his pencils. I sit across 
from him and say, "This doesn't change our arrangement."

	Color drains out of his face. Jesus, he looks even more like 
a skeleton. His hands fall on the kid's shoulders, and he opens 
his mouth. I stop him with my hand, and go on. "This is between 
you and me. The job still needs doing, and you're the only one 
cleared for it."

	"Why are you doing this?" he asks.

	"Persuasion, bribery, I don't know." I put my hand to my 
forehead as if I could manually wipe away the expressions that 
could betray me. So I avoid it all and get back to business. "You 
keep the kid, you work on the serum. We need all the progress we 
can get."

	He nods, and surveys his messy desk. The pencils have gone 
still: the Wonton is asleep again. It's been a trying night for 
her; he gets up and wraps her in his coat before cradling her in 
his chair. "We made a new batch of the synthetic," says Backes, as 
he covers up the child. "It's closer, this time. We're very 
close." He turns towards me in his intensity.

	"Good." I can feel my pulse in my temple. He will want 
another sample.

	"If only we could make it reproduce on its own! No, don't 
worry," he says to me, with what might be a smirk, "I won't try to 
harvest any of your bone marrow. Not without asking anyway."

If he thinks he's being funny then he's sorely misinformed. 
Been there, Doctor, had that foot-long needle in my thigh. He 
opens his desk drawer without another word to me and pulls out the 
equipment. The little needle makes me shiver a little, but 
anything for forward motion on this project, anything to keep the 
little autonomy I have. His hands are not gentle, searching for a 
vein -- he is out of practice -- but I can't have gossiping nurses 
watch this. 

I watch the red flow into the vial: somehow, in a glass jar, 
it looks so much less ugly than when it's pouring down your skin. 
I talk to distract myself from that vague horror and say, "I've 
got another doctor who may want to consult with you." Jesus God, 
what am I thinking? It has escaped my mouth before I can censor 
it. But Backes's eyes are bright, curious, eager for a partner. He 
trusts me, I think. The vial is full; he tucks away his little 
instruments and sets the blood on the desk between us. I can't 
help thinking of the vial I stole once, yellow instead of red.

	I stand, and look back at him from the doorway. "I'll bring 
her by as soon as I can. Maybe next week." He is fussing at the 
chair, tucking his coat more carefully around the kid's shoulders. 
He is crying again. He looks at me, and as I'm out the door I 
think I hear him thank me. I don't want to hear it so I tumble 
down the stairs more loudly than is necessary.
 
* * * * * * *

	Mulder waltzed uncomfortably around Scully's stoic silence 
all day. The bare facts of Krycek's disappearance were all she had 
volunteered, and he had allowed himself to be sidetracked into 
describing his own morning interview, and the teary unhelpfulness 
of Winston's mistress-cum-secretary. Scully had nodded and said 
nothing, her eyes darting as she worked out some conclusion that 
she did not share. Now she bent over inventories of recent mail, 
home furnishings and telephone calls, in dogged hope of finding a 
correlation between the victims.

Mulder was profiling. Despite his promises to O'Leary in 
Quantico and Skinner in Washington, he found himself staring at 
the crime scene photos, fishing for a theme. The killer had gotten 
his press-assigned name from the household products found in the 
victims' bloodstreams: bleach, pine cleaner, Drano. He tried to 
imagine what it might feel like, to have such a thing racing 
towards his heart, but he didn't know enough chemistry to say how 
badly it might hurt. He would have asked Scully on any other day. 
He could only guess: all of the victims had ligature marks, which 
meant all of them had struggled against ropes.

	A fourth victim lay waiting somewhere. According to form, 
Eli Winston was still alive, and would be at least until sometime 
tonight. After that, the hours ticking away, nobody could say. All 
three bodies so far had been found quickly, but not quickly enough 
for detailed guesses about their last hours.

	Scully interrupted his train of thought by thumping down a 
reverse directory on her worktable. With her lips moving in silent 
recitation of street names, she mapped phone calls to a city grid 
map. Not surprisingly, a few clusters emerged in the business 
district of Buffalo. Mulder was watching her make dots with 
different colored magic markers when a throat cleared itself 
behind him. He startled, turning, and found the detective, Fraser, 
standing behind him.

	He was a great blocky man, was Fraser, blond and freckled 
and wearing a blazer with leather patches at the elbows. He was 
chewing his mustache. "Agent Mulder," he said, and again, more 
quietly, "Agent Mulder."

	Mulder looked up at him, but said nothing. After a little 
while, Fraser crossed and uncrossed his arms, frowning. "Winston's 
brother called me up this morning." In his peripheral vision, 
Mulder could see how Scully's fingers had tightened around the 
book in her hands. He hissed a breath through his tight chest, as 
Fraser said, "He wanted to drive out here from Cleveland. I told 
him not to, didn't want him underfoot." Breathing more easily, 
Mulder gauged whether Fraser had noticed that tense moment, but 
the detective had his mustache between his teeth and his eyes on 
the floor. Of course, Mulder thought, feeling stupid. Krycek had 
more than one brother.

	The square man in front of him said nothing else, but 
neither did he go back to his desk. Mulder had always known he was 
bad at bullpen bonhomie, but he gave it a try. He leaned against 
his borrowed desk and gestured limply at the photos that littered 
its surface. "What do you think of all this?"

	With an abortive chew on his mustache and a cracking of his 
knuckles, Fraser settled in to his element. "I talked to O'Leary 
just now. That black stuff at the Einhorn scene you were 
interested in, by the way? Turned out to be nothing but synthetic 
motor oil. O'Leary wanted to tell you himself. He doesn't like 
you." Mulder didn't think he could manufacture a conciliatory 
smile, so he just shrugged. Fraser continued, "He's pretty sure of 
how it all works out. But . . . you know, each one of the victims 
was taken with no sign of struggle. Laurie Aswego," he gestured 
limply at the death photos on the desk, "she knew aikido, taught 
it part-time. But no struggle at her apartment -- if that's where 
she was really taken from."

	It occurred to Mulder that doubt was an unavoidable symptom 
of working in law-enforcement. "Our guy had a plan?" he asked.

	"The first three, he gets away no trouble, you know? We had 
to guess about the where and when of each abduction. Miss Aswego 
there was found before anybody knew to report her missing. That's 
some especial planning."

	"So you think he knew all of the victims." Mulder didn't 
trust himself to say more, wary of Scully half-listening to the 
conversation.

	"Yeah, pretty well." Fraser hunched his big shoulders, 
looked like the sly linebacker he had undoubtedly been a decade 
ago. "That make sense to you?"

	Mulder shrugged. "I'm not the profiler. Did you tell O'Leary 
what you thought?"

	A light came into Fraser's eyes. "That's what he told me. 
That's why Agent Scully's been hitting the commonalities yesterday 
and today." At his gesture, Scully looked up and transmitted to 
Mulder just how much she loved needle-in-a-haystack work. "But -- 
and I ran this by O'Leary, and he didn't buy it -- the last guy, 
this Winston, he doesn't stack up."

	Mulder caught his hands in his lap before they had a chance 
to fly up in wild gestures. "How so?" he asked.

	"Well, his neighbors say he comes home late a lot, so it 
makes sense he'd be on Route 5 that hour." Mulder nodded as Fraser 
worked himself up to presenting his theory. "Forensics says his 
car was going about 15 when he got backended, right? 15, early 
morning, deserted road. You ever come to a red light in the middle 
of the night? Do you wait for it to go green?"

	It was a prickling feeling of pleasure and dread that 
blanketed Mulder's shoulders. "No," he said slowly.

	"Right," answered Fraser, enthusiastically. "And he's a 
lawyer, and he drives a Lexus, and it's found with its brights on. 
It seems to me he'd be going way faster than 15, if he thought he 
could get away with it."

	"What are you implying?" Mulder asked, and glanced at 
Scully. She was furrowing her brows and did not look up.

	"It was the bleach we found on the driver's seat made me 
start wondering. Every other abduction got off clean, no evidence. 
No way to be sure it was related to this guy until we found the 
body. And here, we got the car, empty beside the road, and we got 
bleach in the front seat. It doesn't fit the others."

	Mulder held his breath, fearing and knowing that Fraser 
would take the next step.

	"I think," said Fraser, and he said it frowning to himself, 
"I think it feels like a setup." He stopped talking and for a 
minute the only sound was the click-click of a computer keyboard 
in the next room. Fraser, looking hastily at Mulder, began to 
backpedal: "But, you know, it could be --"

	"Do you think the killer is showing us something, or do you 
think this was set up so it would look like the killer?" As he 
said it Mulder realized it sounded like a demand.

	Fraser didn't answer, only crossed his arms and uncrossed 
them. He was opening his mouth to speak when Scully made an 
inarticulate noise. Both men turned to look at her as she jumped 
to her feet, her fingers drawing a triangle on her city map.

	"The VA Hospital in Batavia," she declared, her voice 
ringing. She kept her fingers over the spot as Fraser leaned over 
her small frame. "They've all been there regularly within the past 
year, all four victims." Bright blue eyes on Mulder's face, 
implying all the significance in hospitals. "Laurie Aswego was 
getting psychotherapy there, one was an on-call nurse, and the 
other made a series of calls to a patient there. And Eli Winston's 
firm was contracted to advise the administration on a legal matter 
last year," she finished.

	"Tell me the other three were all in the same program," 
pleaded Fraser, his hands forward, ready to catch whatever Scully 
lobbed at him.

	Scully shook her head. "I can't tell with Einhorn; we'll 
have to look at her employment records to be sure. It looks like 
Shaw was visiting an old friend regularly." She sighed. "It isn't 
much of a connection, or else we're looking for someone who gets 
all over the hospital and was working there as early as last 
July." She said her words with her head down, as if they all must 
consult the map to find these correlations. Mulder knew she was 
keeping her real conclusions to herself and that she hated to lie 
to Fraser.

	The blocky detective nodded and turned away, his eyes 
flipping through some internal rolodex as he picked up the 
telephone in one meaty hand. Scully snatched Mulder's forearm and 
muttered into his ear: "Whatever this hospital may be doing, it's 
possible Winston discovered it." She glanced at Fraser's tweedy 
back, and went to tiptoes to whisper: "Krycek as much as admitted 
we're on to something big, but he won't tell me what. I'll arrange 
for us to talk to him tonight."

	She was already slipping on her coat when Fraser hung up, 
and she led the way grimly towards the door. Mulder followed 
slowly. An afternoon of polite frost from hospital officials 
Mulder could handle; it was the evening he preferred to avoid.

* * * * * * *

	So far this job has been criminally easy. But I have been 
putting this part of it off, I don't know why. I keep reminding 
myself this is the right thing -- the smart thing, the just thing 
-- to do. I keep visualizing the summary in her file explaining 
why nobody will attend her funeral and no upstart relatives will 
challenge the coroner's ruling.

	I wander down the halls in my white coat -- it's amazing how 
far costume alone will get you. I do have the ID card the old 
man's people set up for me, but when you're working out of a 
legitimate hospital, you can't exactly post armed guards at every 
exit. So I just stroll, nodding to orderlies as I go by, and if on 
the top floor they all hide needle-weapons under their scrubs I 
certainly can't tell. I have to sign in to get to my target's wing 
-- she actually lives at the hospital -- but with the fake hand in 
a pocket and a funny pair of glasses on my face, I'm as disguised 
as I need to be.

	Vaguely I am aware that this is a psychiatric wing. They 
have locked her up . . . either they realized she was a traitor, 
or she really has gone crazy. Somehow the former is a more 
appealing likelihood than the latter. Her room is like all the 
others on this floor, the door closed but not locked, the walls 
decorated with children's construction paper artistry. She is 
sitting, reading a book in bed, when I walk in. She looks up, and 
I stop in my tracks.

	She is beautiful, somehow, in her distress. Thinner, a more 
angular shape to her jaw and collarbones, more pale if that is 
possible. There were so many ways I wanted to revenge myself on 
her. I could never manhandle her now, like this. The sturdiness is 
gone from her frame. Her translucent skin, drawn tight, seems like 
spun sugar. She sticks a finger in her mouth as she looks at me; I 
can tell she bites her nails till they bleed and I can tell she 
does not recognize me.

	"Good afternoon," I tell her. I am trying to sound pleasant 
but she draws her shoulders together. "How are you feeling?" I 
take a few steps toward her, and she turns her head to watch me 
out of the corners of her eyes. It does not make her look sly.

	I rest my hand on the end of the bed, just drinking in the 
looks of her. Somehow I have violated an unwritten rule in doing 
so; she claps the book on her lap closed and looks at me head on. 
"And what do you want?" she asks, with a fire like her old self. 
But in this new body, with its thin lips and sharp cheekbones, her 
fierceness seems unstable, manic. I can't stand to play with her.

	"Marita, do you remember my name?" I ask, slowly taking off 
the glasses and tucking them into a pocket. Her eyes wander my 
features without recognition. But in the end, it's only a little 
gesture that reminds her: I raise up the plastic hand that fills 
out my left sleeve and rest it on the bed with my real right hand. 
Her hands fly to her mouth, as if to stuff fingers down her throat 
in avoidance of a screaming fit. Her shoulders shake and shake and 
I am suddenly overwhelmed. I look at the book in her lap to avoid 
her face and see it's Dostoevsky's "The Idiot". I don't know if 
it's irony or fate.

	"Alex," she breathes. I only nod, trying to think how to 
approach this. There is no good way.

	My curiosity gets the better of me. "What happened to you?" 
It's stupid to ask; I can guess, mostly, and every extra minute 
puts me in more danger.

	But she pushes her white-blonde hair out of her mournful 
eyes and tells me the story of what I have wrought. "The boy 
infected me, just as you'd planned." I lower my head against the 
accusation in her voice. "I woke up in a hospital. Since then it's 
been nothing but hospitals. Five of them. This one for three 
months. They won't let me go outside, Alex. It's just drawing 
blood and questions, and bad hospital food, and sometimes 
injections that burn in my body. It's so boring," she ends 
peevishly.

	I keep my head down until I can control myself, until the 
resonances in her diatribe have rolled through me and diminished. 
I may be one of the only people in the world who can parse all of 
the unsaid terrors in her speech. "They injected you with the 
cure," I tell her. "The real deal, I mean. They're still trying to 
figure out how it works." A sarcastic laugh cuts through the room. 

	"Typical." Her captivity has given her a wellspring of 
cynicism. But she only sits, her hands listless in her lap. She 
doesn't ask how I am going to bust her out, or how we'll get 
revenge, or what I'm going to do to her. So I bring it up.

	I come closer to her, take up her hand in my own. Her skin 
is clammy. "Would you like to be free of this place?" I ask her. I 
try to keep my voice neutral; I know I will be unable to lie to 
her. She catches on immediately, looking at me sharply. I hold 
that gaze, determined not to be the one who flinches. 

	All of a sudden she tosses her head and laughs. "Why not," 
she says airily. And then, with that devastating half-smile, she 
nods her head. She reaches out her free hand and touches my face. 
"Better the devil you know than the one you don't."

	The devil you know. She keeps her hand on my cheek, even as 
I untangle her other hand from mine. Her eyes are clear gray, to 
their depths, I'd never noticed it before. I pull out the syringe 
and rest it in her lap.

	When I leave her room a few minutes later, the syringe is 
safely in my pocket. The feel of her hair, against my throat as I 
held her, remains on my skin. Her body was so small and frail, it 
hardly -- I am mooning around when I need to be thinking fast. No 
more test subject, no more samples, no clear connection from here 
to the Syracuse research. Just a few strategic fires and nobody 
will ever know what was going on at this hospital.

* * * * * * *

	"They're testing something at the VA Hospital in Batavia," 
Scully said without introduction, as Krycek slid into the booth 
opposite them. As he turned to face her, his mouth an O, she 
demanded, "Tell me what it is."

	It was a strange heady thing, being able to demand of him 
and expect to get something besides impudent silence. It made her 
feel a little sick at herself, presuming on his good will, or his 
guilt, or whatever it was that drove him into this alliance. 
Mulder was keeping his own counsel, watching her, but she felt her 
cool control of the situation, running under her squeamishness. 
Krycek sat at the formica table and ignored his drab surroundings, 
his eyes focussed inward.

	She said nothing while she waited for an answer, and Mulder 
seemed content to do the same, as content as he could be in the 
same room with Krycek. His eyes flicked to the dingy curtains, the 
peeling gray paint on the walls, the sullen waitress who was 
ringing up someone else. Scully toyed with her flat soft drink and 
discovered a certain lunatic irony in seeking out the grimiest, 
most depressed section of Buffalo for a place to badger a spy. 
Krycek was still saying nothing.

	"We're trying to keep out of your business," she said more 
gently, "but our investigation -- we need to know in order to make 
the next step." She couldn't tell whether Krycek had noticed her 
hesitation, but Mulder sucked on his teeth and eyed her sidelong. 
She knew he had been waiting all day for her to speak 
forthrightly, and she knew she was being weak in her avoidance. 
Scully suspected he had also noticed her failure to call Krycek by 
name, but she just didn't have it in her to call the man 'Gary'.

	Whatever his name, he sat not looking at anything, picking 
at the hem of his jacket. He is deciding whether or not to trust 
us, Scully thought. She realized it with a cool, precise shock, 
the way a mathematical proof suddenly snaps to a grid of logic. 
Then she wondered when the reverse had happened, when they had 
decided to trust Krycek. Glancing at Mulder, she revised that 
thought -- her partner sat, his arms now crossed, not one whit of 
trust in his body. As for herself, she poked that wound once or 
twice, and found it not worth examining.

	After a longish silence, in which the only interjection was 
the night traffic a few streets over, Krycek jerked his head up. 
His eyes burned as he stared, first at Mulder, who flinched 
visibly, and then at Scully. "I'll take you there," he said.

	"But we spent the afternoon there," protested Mulder. "We 
went blind looking at the employee records with the head of 
personnel wringing her hands, and the court order for patient 
records doesn't come through till morning." Scully heard the 
petulance in Mulder's voice, and gritted her teeth against his 
stubbornness.

	Krycek flashed a delirious grin as he stood and headed for 
the door. "All you need is a special ID and a flashlight. Come 
on." Scully looked at her partner, who didn't return eye contact, 
and followed Krycek from their squalid meeting place. He went on 
ahead, eyeing the sidewalk back and forth as he stood on the balls 
of his feet. She cursed under her breath and walked out the door, 
its cheery bell giving an ironic jingle.

	The darkness of the cloudy night was impenetrable. The wind 
seemed to moan down the street, the only sound as she and Mulder 
retraced their steps to their car. The voice startled her: "You're 
sure you weren't followed?" It emerged from an apparently empty 
alley, low and precise, and then Krycek was beside them at the 
car.

	"We're sure," said Mulder. He climbed into the driver's seat 
and stared straight ahead. Scully felt constrained, next to him, 
to be silent as well. They navigated the cold night streets, 
Krycek's quiet directions coming from the back seat in a plume of 
visible breath.
 
	They took Route 5, the same road Eli Winston had been 
traveling when he disappeared. In the prevailing dark Scully 
couldn't recognize the look of the street, even though she knew 
she had traveled it only that afternoon. She felt the tension 
tightening in her shoulders like a spring being turned wrongwise, 
and opened her mouth several times, but she could not think of 
what to say. Somehow their destination this night had become a 
taboo subject.

	At last it was Mulder who broke the silence. "Ironic, isn't 
it?" He did not relieve tension in doing so, his voice tickling 
the edge of insolence. Scully listened carefully, but Krycek gave 
no sign of what he was thinking. "A treacherous spy named 
Gabriel," Mulder clarified languidly.

	"I always hated my name," replied Krycek as if he had not 
heard Mulder's implicit challenge. Scully sat still and only 
listened. "My father couldn't say it right, he turned the B into a 
V. I made him call me by a nickname."

     With a prickling in her scalp, Scully turned to look at 
Krycek in the back seat. She couldn't see his face clearly, only 
the shine off his eyes. Her lips formed the name as he said it: 
"Ganya." His teeth shined a smile before she could turn away.

     Mulder drove silently for a moment, then interjected, as if 
idly, "Your parents were Cold War immigrants?"

     "My mother was from Cleveland," drawled Krycek, and Scully 
saw Mulder clench his jaw. "But my father came over on a boat from 
Europe in 1946. He changed his name when he came here, and he 
never said the name he had had before. I made up Krycek in some 
crazy wish to reconnect to that erased past. He would never speak 
of it." Krycek's voice had gone dreamy, submerged in memory. He 
spoke to the back of her head and it seemed as if both of them 
needed it to be that way. "He never spoke Russian, except when he 
was drinking. He never drank until after my mother died. My 
brothers were grown by then, so I was the only one who ever 
learned enough to understand what he said. He used to call me by 
my Russian name, and cry into his rotgut, and curse Stalin and 
winter."

     "He defected?" asked Mulder. Scully closed her eyes and 
willed him not to turn this into another verbal duel.
 
     "I don't know how he got to France, after the war. He might 
have been a deserter or something -"

     "He might," said Mulder sardonically, "have been a Holocaust 
survivor."

     Silence from the back seat. She could feel Krycek radiating 
dismay. Then he moved, and said in a negligent tone, "He never 
said anything about the war. He made up his new American name like 
you or I might pick lottery numbers. I'm reasonably sure he got 
Winston from the cigarettes the soldiers were smoking on the boat 
that brought him here."

	She didn't know what to say to that. Mulder filled the 
uncomfortable silence by announcing their arrival at the hospital 
with an unhappily sarcastic flourish.

* * * * * * *

	They parked far enough away from the building that the low 
clouds had the chance to sprinkle, drizzle, and finally settle 
into a sullen, icy rain that chilled Mulder to the bone as he 
walked. He was hating this night, and hating its circumstances, 
and ruthlessly muting that hatred to follow Scully's lead. She 
remained silent even after Krycek flashed an unrecognizable ID and 
signed the three of them in at the security station. Mulder caught 
himself before saying anything: of course Krycek hadn't used their 
real names at security. He was one of the few on earth who was 
dependably more paranoid than Mulder himself. The security 
cameras, their staring eyes hanging over him, were all shut off.

	Finally, as they waited for an elevator, Scully said 
something. "Krycek, what is going on here?" Mulder gratefully 
heard the impatience in her voice. But Krycek only gestured them 
into the elevator, and pressed the button for the top floor. They 
rode the elevator like mannequins, all staring at their distorted 
reflections in the glossy metal doors. 

	As he said it Krycek somehow maintained a tone of 
exaggerated indifference: "Black vermiform organisms, which 
migrate to the pineal gland and attach themselves there. You 
remember what I'm talking about," he added, turning to face his 
audience. Mulder, who in remembering was reliving his profound 
terror at confinement, felt his skin go cold. Scully inhaled a 
long breath, and then let it go. Her short stature allowed her to 
avoid eye contact with anyone, and he wished he knew what she was 
thinking.

	They stood, each in his own private thoughts, until the 
elevator lurched and opened its doors. Krycek strode out quickly, 
but stopped when neither Mulder nor Scully followed him. He turned 
back, pivoted on his toes, and lowered his head in a strangely 
formal gesture. "Look," he said. "I'm bringing you in to see the 
evidence, and then I'm destroying it. That's the way it's got to 
be," he added, under Scully's accusatory gaze.

	"Why?" she asked. But Krycek didn't answer, only raised his 
false arm to keep the elevator door open. Scully stepped out, and 
then Mulder, shifting uncomfortably in such close quarters.

	"So this is how you've been using our unholy alliance?" 
Mulder had meant to fashion a verbal needle and he winced at his 
own awkward retort. Scully shot him a quelling look, but Krycek 
maintained the facade he had kept since entering the hospital -- 
his territory -- and guided the three of them down the hall.

	"Yes," was Krycek's reply, his mild tone clear but his 
speech hampered by his pulling on a leather glove with his teeth. 
Mulder seethed as he followed Krycek's clomping boots in the 
echoing pristine hallway. They had only ever known violence 
between them. Mulder supposed that there had been a time, when 
they had been partners, that they had done the things partners do, 
slapped each other on the back, a hand on the shoulder. But in his 
memory was only the back-breaking sprawl along a bank of 
telephones, and a cool right cross for asking the wrong question, 
and being tumbled in his own apartment by a hand that fumbled for 
the gun at his belt. Intellectually, there was some guilt at his 
unprofessional temper, his ready ire, his wildly illegal battery 
of an unarmed prisoner. But under intellect lay the fierce 
pleasure of brass tacks, of wielding power unhampered by law or 
conscience or shadowy politics.

     Krycek's recent refusal to play at this game made Mulder both 
irritable and ashamed -- it was not a game one could play alone.

	He stopped them at an office door and with a fumbling of 
keys had them inside. They crossed the anteroom to the inside 
door, which was a further office. It wasn't anything 
extraordinary, just a doctor's office like any other: desk, vanity 
wall, couch -- and file cabinets, five stacks tall, along the 
back. File cabinets. Scully's hands made a squeal as she forced on 
latex gloves.

	"What are we looking for?" asked Mulder, as he pulled on 
gloves of his own. Krycek tossed him a key ring with small tin 
keys, and Mulder began trying them in the locks.

	"I don't know for sure," muttered Krycek. "Any records on 
progress towards a cure. I was just planning to torch the whole 
lot of it."

	Scully commandeered one newly-opened cabinet, her fingers 
skimming expertly through the file tabs. "This disease," she asked 
as she knelt before the files. "You said the Russians had a cure. 
What kind of disease is it?" She did not look up, but from where 
Mulder stood he could see her fingers still, her eyes staring at 
nothing as she waited for a frightening answer.

	Krycek opened a drawer before he answered. "It's not 
properly a disease. More like a bunch of parasites, I guess. It 
invades the body and interferes with motor function --"

	"In the form of 50-weight diesel oil?" Mulder could feel the 
excitement coursing through his veins. All crimes were suspended, 
in that gelid tension. But Krycek glanced his way with only 
confusion in his features.

	"Diesel oil? I don't know what you're talking about. The 
scientists said it needed carbon, but I don't know anything about 
diesel."

	For the moment, Mulder gave up all pretense of searching for 
files. He leaned his arm on the top of the cabinet and asked, "You 
don't remember it, do you?" 

	Krycek paused for a long time, not looking at anything. Then 
he closed his eyes and admitted, "Not very much." Mulder watched 
him with a sick fascination, only half-noticing Scully as she 
kneeled with a stack of files, pretending to be invisible.

	"I caught you in Hong Kong, you remember that?" Mulder 
watched for the defenses coming down, a return to the familiar 
impudence, but it didn't come. Krycek's face remained empty.

	"Yes. You smacked me around. You wanted the tape." 

	Mulder shifted a little, decided not to comment on that. 
"And?"

	"And what? Nothing else. I woke up in the dark." Krycek had 
set his jaw obstinately, but he continued to look at his hand on 
the file drawer in front of him.

	"You obeyed my every order on the flight back to Dulles." It 
was a strange memory he recited, made stranger by his failure to 
recognize its strangeness at the time. "You were silent, serene, 
you answered all my questions without revealing anything." 

Krycek started to shake. The tremor began in his fingers, 
and traveled up his arm to rattle his whole frame. A short series 
of shudders, and shallow gasps for breath. Mulder couldn't look 
away. "A couple of agents ran us off the road -- they wanted you. 
But you got away, there was a flash of light. I didn't see you 
again." Mulder watched the man struggle for control, grasping the 
drawer tightly, and as if by force of will the shakes subsided and 
disappeared. 

	Krycek turned to look Mulder full in the eyes. "Lottie said 
you came looking for me in North Dakota," he said.

	"Yes," said Scully, returning them both to their present 
situation. "We were arrested before we found you."

	"I don't remember it. Just dark, and my fingers against the 
concrete, and --" Krycek had raised his hand before him, held it 
palm outward as if reenacting. Then he blinked, and shook his 
head, turning the upraised hand into a gesture. "-- Not much else. 
The Russians who rescued me said I spent a couple of days in 
there."

	Silence, and the sound of paper rustling. They all turned 
back to their tasks, sorting through file tabs and pulling the 
occasional folder. For twenty minutes they worked this way, until 
Scully let out a gasp from her position on the floor. 

	"I have an unnamed female subject, early thirties, exposed 
to Agent TG-16 last March," she read, flipping through the inch-
thick file. She swung her hair out of her eyes in a frustrated 
gesture. "No indication of the nature of the agent, but the 
symptoms seem right. Paralysis, lowered heart rate and 
respiration, black film across --"

	"She was the test subject," said Krycek. That was all he 
said, turning away from Scully's interrogating eyes. She scanned 
the pages before her, pushing her hair away from her face.

	"These are original clinical trials -- Krycek, you have to 
let me keep these. If we're going to fight this parasite, then I 
need data on what it does, how it infects." But Krycek stepped up 
close to her and snatched that file from her hands.

	"No," he said. Then, breathing out, "You do need that data. 
But I can't let you keep these pages. If anybody ever saw them, 
everything would be over."

	Mulder stood, watching silently, his own set of files open 
in his hand. Scully's face was turning red as she tucked her head 
down and set her jaw. "I thought we could depend on you," she said 
in a low voice.

	The file rested in Scully's hands as Krycek loosened his 
grip. "If you want to use me as a resource, you'll let me burn 
these papers." He was practically whispering, his breath moving 
Scully's hair. "I won't gamble with my life --"

	"What have you got to do with all of this?" Scully burst 
out, indignance sharpening the color of her eyes. 

	"Where the hell do you think the cure came from?" shouted 
Krycek. Then he drew up his shoulders around his ears, and Mulder 
watched him put his hand to his head as if it pained him. Scully 
said nothing, just looked up at the man in front of her as if 
waiting for him to pull a weapon. The only sound was the freezing 
rain soughing against the office windows.

* * * * * * *

	I can't believe this. What have I done. She is kneeling on 
the floor in front of me, her head inclined like she's praying to 
a statue. But it's me she's looking at. She is waiting for me to 
explain and I just stare down at her. My spine is like a plucked 
string, and Mulder behind me, and I have to say something. What 
can I say.

	Before I know I am going to, I unlock my knees and let 
myself slither to the floor. I sit and bang my head against the 
file cabinets once or twice for good measure, and then I discover 
I want to tell them, I need to tell somebody, that sharing a 
secret is like breathing after a near-drowning, like ducking when 
you hear gunfire, like a biological imperative. It's the stupidest 
thing I have ever done, in a lifetime of stupid choices, and I do 
it anyway.

	"You want to know about the cure?" I ask, on the off chance 
she'll know what's good for me and say no. She nods, her eyes 
huge, her hands clutching that damned file folder to her breasts. 
"I am the cure. I'm one of three or four people in the world who 
have been exposed to the black oil's full effects, and I survived 
it, and the antibodies I produce are the closest thing to a cure 
that anyone's been able to find in fifty years."

	Scully is looking at me with sympathy in her eyes. I turn 
away from her, and Mulder looks a little green. So I tell the 
wall: "Gauthier and his wife had it too -- the Russians had them 
killed to preserve their monopoly. They figured it out by 
accident, couldn't believe their good luck. I spent six months in 
a hospital room, poked and prodded like you wouldn't believe. It 
was so boring," I say, and I struggle to get ahold of myself. 

	I can hear them both breathing, and nothing else. I cover my 
eyes with my hand to fend off their disgust. Mulder's voice, quiet 
beside me: "At Tunguska, they exposed me --" He doesn't finish. He 
is sitting on the floor now too, and Scully must be staring at us 
both.

	"You had a lesser exposure," I tell him, and if I could 
muster the anger I'd wallop him for his sigh of relief. "And you 
were injected with the antibodies they extracted from me. You're 
immune, but you can't pass that immunity on. You haven't got the 
magic bugs I've got."

	Scully leans towards me, a hard-edged interrogator. "What do 
you mean, he can't? If he's immune, surely he's producing his own 
--"

	"He's not," I interrupt. "They don't know why. Secondary 
survivors alter something in the cells' DNA. Their antibodies are 
ineffective in tertiary test subjects. I'm the only primary, the 
only reliable source." She exhales and I feel her warm breath 
against my cheek. Slowly she lays the file at my side. I have no 
idea what she's thinking.

	"They would have never let you out of the hospital," mutters 
Mulder wonderingly.

	I bust out laughing, I can't stand it, maybe it's hysteria. 
When I can finally get control I wipe my eyes and ask, "Do you 
know what they made me at Tunguska? Chief of security. If I let 
the rock -- or any word of the cure -- out of there, I'd have 
organizations competing to bury me in their deepest research 
facilities. Absolute containment gave me a reasonable degree of 
freedom." I give him a smile, and he doesn't smile back. "You're 
my only real failure, you know."

	But he doesn't see or doesn't like the irony. Actually he 
looks like he's bitten into something nasty, and is trying to spit 
it out without offending his host. Scully says, over my shoulder, 
"You told me you didn't know what it was, once. That you didn't 
know how to make more."

	She's careful with her tone, but I know an accusation when I 
hear one. "I don't," I tell her, in a haze of stupidity. "Not 
without bleeding myself dry. And that wouldn't exactly make enough 
to go around." She lowers her head, nods as she examines the 
floor. She is beginning to get an inkling of what it's like.

	So I go ahead and tell her all of it. "I thought I could 
sell it. I stole a vial of the cure and was going to broker it to 
Culmination. I was going to make enough money to disappear, and it 
would all be somebody else's problem." I close my eyes against 
opportunities lost. "But it is my problem. And this facility -- 
what it holds -- could expose my value to the Group at large. I 
won't be turned into a pawn."

She looks at Mulder, and he looks at her, and they're 
staring right past me at each other. I hate when they do that. I 
get to my feet, and after a few minutes they get up too. Scully 
leaves the files on the floor. We stand around for a while before 
I ask them, "Are we done yet?"

	They've forgotten already what I told them. Mulder looks at 
me blankly, then shrugs. Scully nods a few times, but then as 
she's surveying the floor she makes the connection. I can see her 
draw herself up to her full height as she realizes it. I catch her 
eye, and she looks away quickly. "Yes," she says. And then, "We 
need that data."

	"It's documentation of a failure," I tell her as I usher her 
out the door. I won't detonate the charges till we're in the 
parking lot. "I was never involved in the projects here; they only 
had a secondary to work with. They just discovered what you 
*can't* do with the antibodies." She follows me down the hall.

	The elevator ride is silent, as before. We stare each at our 
own reflection. Mine seems hollower than he was an hour ago. We 
hit the first floor before Scully says quietly, "I understand."

	She doesn't, of course, or only the half of it. But I nod, 
looking away. In the parking lot, the rain has turned to snow. I 
love the sound of falling snow, that subtle tickle of weightless 
flake on flake. I used to wonder if that sound was what being deaf 
was like. Mulder and Scully climb into their car, while I clutch 
the detonator in my jacket pocket.

	Mulder looks up at me from the driver's seat, a narrow, 
evaluative look. I don't know what he concludes. He looks like 
he's going to say something, but he doesn't. Somebody's got to say 
something.

	"Nobody has ever guessed it, the connection between Piper 
Maru and the cure research." I pull my hand out of my pocket and 
count on my fingers. I can do it on just the one hand. "Including 
me and you two, there are five people on this continent who know 
it. I'm working hard to make sure Coffin Nail isn't the sixth."

	Mulder takes the turn out of the parking lot at twice the 
safe speed. I give them ten minutes before I turn the switch. The 
bloom of fire is so bright I don't have to turn around to see it; 
I cast a shadow onto the dirty snow in its orange radiance. 

* * * * * * *

	Scully's cell phone rang as they were circling back to see 
the sudden fire at the VA hospital. Mulder came to a halt on a 
side street as she answered it, her hands moving mechanically as 
her eyes stuck to the leaping flames.

	"Detective Fraser," she said in a flat tone. "We're in 
Batavia. The VA Hospital is on fire."

	Even Mulder could hear Fraser's whoop of surprise, and a 
string of curses. Then he went quiet again, and Scully listened. 
"All right," she said at last, and hung up.

	She dialed 911 while he watched her, the burning building in 
front of them illuminating the night enough to see clearly. Mulder 
watched the people streaming out of the exits, the panicky 
movements of personnel, and reasoned to himself that the fire 
likely wouldn't consume the lower floors, or even spread far 
beyond the three windows it currently engulfed. But apparently 
Krycek didn't care about killing at least a few innocent patients. 
Or maybe everyone in the hospital was involved in the experiments.

	Mulder repressed his revulsion at the thought, and began 
unbuckling his seatbelt to help in the rescue of patients. But 
Scully tugged at his arm, her face a study of seriousness, and 
shook her head. "Fraser needs us back in Buffalo," she said. Then 
she bit her lip and added, "The authorities are on their way, and 
we have reason not to want to be recognized. Come on."

	It was startling, to see her like that. That she was so 
clearly unsettled by her own attitude was what convinced him to 
obey; he knew how dearly it cost her to ignore both her doctor's 
oath and her impulse to help. With an internal damnation to Krycek 
for corrupting them both, Mulder drove them away from the scene of 
the fire.

	As they pulled into the police station parking lot, Fraser 
stepped out of the doorway waving his arms. He had a bulletproof 
vest halfway strapped across his wide chest, his tie still hanging 
out and flapping in the cold wind. He hustled them inside and into 
a briefing in the bullpen, a state police SWAT commander jabbing 
his fingers at a taped-up layout drawing. Detectives in blazers 
and a uniformed official stood in rows, nodding.

	"Head of personnel caved when I interviewed her at home," 
muttered Fraser into Mulder's ear. That was all he said, and 
Mulder was soon immersed in a flurry of preparation. They were to 
raid an apartment building on the southern outskirts of the city, 
but Mulder had missed the who and why. He elbowed Fraser and 
raised his eyebrows in search of answers, but the man didn't 
understand Mulder's nonverbal request. Scully, inclining her head 
to listen to a woman with a clipboard, threw him a glance and 
turned away.

	When the motley group of police dispersed in the parking lot 
for their transportation, she hopped into the ambulance without a 
word to Mulder. Fraser caught his elbow and directed him into an 
unmarked car. Mulder found himself in the passenger seat as Fraser 
drove, weaving in and out of the informal cavalcade of law 
enforcement vehicles on the highway. At last, after about ten 
minutes of silence, Fraser cleared his throat and said, "The 
personnel woman, Gruber, she said somebody from a local 
pharmaceutical company came through and audited the drug trials a 
few weeks ago, just two days before the first body was found."

	"And?" Mulder asked, irritated at being so out of the loop.

	"We already knew about a second auditor who came through 
three days ago, from the same company. I talked to him on the 
phone yesterday, and he said he was the first audit of the 
trials." With a suddenness that exacerbated his instinct to laugh, 
Mulder realized the second auditor was probably Krycek. Fraser 
went on: "A car registered to the first guy was ticketed downtown 
yesterday in front of an apartment building. The landlady 
recognized the photo we showed her, gave us an apartment number. 
It was rented month-to-month, she said."

	Mulder didn't answer, only mulled the likelihood that it 
would all be so aboveboard, that a Culmination Group henchman 
should have a legitimate car registration. It was seeming more and 
more implausible to him when Fraser broke the little silence with 
a quiet query: "You were sent here to expose something bigger than 
a lone fruitcake, weren't you?"

	A startled glance revealed a rueful expression on Fraser's 
face, and Mulder realized his own reaction had given him away. "I 
figured as much," Fraser said, nodding to himself. "That Gruber 
woman was awful shy about the companies her hospital was working 
with. And the arson guys are sniffing all over that fire. Sounds 
like someone was destroying records."

	Mulder didn't confirm or deny Fraser's assessment. Instead 
he thought ahead to the apartment around which some thirty law-
enforcement people were converging. It was all so much, so fast, 
and he wanted a few hours to puzzle out how best to take advantage 
of what appeared to be a power struggle amongst his enemies. Then 
he remembered the reason for the SWAT team, the lawyer who might 
already be dead, and who, if Scully's theory was right, had been 
steadily tortured for information. 
	
	And so, when SWAT bashed down the door as their own charming 
little way of serving a warrant, Mulder was in the hallway, 
gripping his gun and fearfully hoping that Eli Winston was still 
alive.

	When he tried to remember it, after, it came out in his mind 
all herky-jerky, like a film pasted together out of defective 
takes. The abrading itch of the kevlar vest under his arms; a drop 
of sweat that wandered down his face in those long seconds of 
silence when everyone was ready and nobody had yet said go. He 
recalled the apartment doorway looming, its tin numbers hanging 
askew from the lintel. A cheap lamp, the only light source in the 
main room other than flashlights, trembling as insect-like 
policemen thundered past. In the kitchen, Mulder heard repeated 
shots of "Down on the floor!" and "Now!" while others fanned out 
into every room, searching, searching. He thought he saw Scully, 
going low over a threshold into the bedroom. 

	Mulder eyed a tall blonde woman, her dark armor robbing her 
of feminine shape, and together they burst through a door and into 
a bathroom.

	Absurd toothpaste like rabid foam dribbled from the man's 
mouth. He was standing facing his little assault team of two in an 
egregious Hawaiian shirt and with a toothbrush in one upraised 
hand. Mulder startled at that face, at the shape of the brow, the 
clear resemblance. Unable to look away from a pair of horrified 
brown eyes, Mulder lowered his weapon. "Eli Winston," he said.

* * * * * * *

	Mulder led Eli Winston out of the bathroom while the suspect 
was still being read his rights. Fraser looked up from his Miranda 
card and nodded as Scully excused herself from the details of it.

	"Mr. Winston? I’m a doctor, I'd like to examine you." She 
said it from the bedroom doorway, watching as Mulder settled the 
man on the thin bedspread, strangely loath to interrupt. Scully 
surveyed this man, from his unkempt graying-brown hair to his bare 
feet, noting the paleness of his skin and the heavy wrinkling 
across his face and neck. She caught herself wondering what Krycek 
would look like in another ten years, and bit the insides of her 
cheeks. "Have you been injured in any way?"

	As Scully stepped forward to her patient, Mulder backed 
away, so that by the time she had assumed Mulder's kneel in front 
of Winston, he was leaning, arms crossed, in the doorway she had 
vacated. She put her hand on Winston's knee, felt energy trembling 
through that joint. "Are you in any pain?" He stared at her with 
uncomprehending dilated pupils, frowning. 

	The man covered his face with his big hands and sat shaking 
on the bed. Winston's distress gave Scully unhappy associations, 
and she looked away from him, to Mulder, who was cocking his head 
as some incredible leap of logic was surely occurring to him. 
Scully wasn't up to incredible logic. She got to her feet.

	In the living room Fraser and the other cops were firing 
questions at the apartment's cuffed owner faster than he could 
possibly have answered them. But the nondescript man, whom Fraser 
had literally collared as he tried to climb out the window, sat 
stonily and said nothing. Scully reminded herself to ask for him 
to be put on suicide watch. She beckoned the emergency medical 
technician into the bedroom and glanced at Mulder. He moved to 
allow the EMT past, then stood eyeing the suspect with a feverish 
fascination Scully had seen before.

	She interrupted his reverie with a tap on the forearm. 
"We've got to get Winston to a hospital for a full evaluation," 
she whispered to him. "If we wait too long any chemicals in his 
bloodstream will break down." Mulder nodded, and shook himself 
before turning to the middle-aged man, who was eyeing the EMT with 
grave distrust and trying to fend off her diagnosing hands.

	"The police will want to interview you later, Mr. Winston," 
said Mulder in his best solicitous-cop voice. Scully watched him 
cajole Winston to his feet, smiling with his teeth but not his 
eyes, and Mulder and the EMT assisted their patient toward the 
stairs. As they crossed the living room the detectives did not 
cease their barrage of questions, but the suspect's silent 
watchfulness bothered Scully.

	Mulder rode up front in the ambulance, but the whole way 
there he was twisted around so that he could see as Scully 
examined an increasingly coherent and irascible Eli Winston. He 
objected to being strapped into the gurney, and refused to breathe 
the bottled oxygen the EMT offered, and eyed Scully sharply when 
she took his forearm to begin a saline drip. His skin was smooth 
and unbroken save for freckles.

	The hospital wasn't far, and they decamped into an emergency 
room in reasonable order. Mulder stood outside the trauma room, 
his back to the windowed doors, but Scully could see the tension 
in his shoulders as he guarded their witness. 

	"I'm fine, I just want to go home," interjected Winston 
peevishly, speaking to the ceiling as the technicians circled over 
him. Scully ignored his inconvenience and immersed herself in 
examining Winston head to toe. The moment would come soon when the 
nurses in the room would make the association between their 
patient and the tabloids.

	No wonder, Scully realized, that Mulder was standing guard. 
Anyone with a police scanner likely knew about the raid and its 
results. Eli Winston was going to be a famous man. She snatched 
his hand away as he tugged at the heart monitor leads, feeling her 
reassuring smile come out like a grimace. The smile faltered as 
she wondered when and how Krycek would see that his brother was 
alive, and she firmly crushed the wave of melancholy that came 
over her.

	Blood analysis would take some time, and except for his 
fear, Winston seemed to be all right. Scully systematically 
observed the color, muscle tone and sensitivity of the man's 
extremities, looking for telltale bruises. A knock on the door 
startled her out of her thoughts, and Mulder's panic face 
confronted her through the glass.

	Scully stripped off her latex as she excused herself from 
the room and put her head together with Mulder's. But he didn't 
say anything, only pushed her shoulders till she was oriented 
looking down the hall. And there, striding towards her with eyes 
like flint, was Alex Krycek. The evening bustle of the corridor 
seemed somehow to swirl around him, not touching him, as if he 
were an apparition for her eyes only.

	It absolutely would not do to have a wanted federal suspect 
walk into a busy trauma room. Scully suppressed an absurd mawkish 
impulse to engineer a reunion between brothers and skittered down 
the hall to intercept Krycek's determined steps.

	He focussed on her as she approached, and his face was 
terrible. Mulder, clucking behind her, gave her something else to 
look at as he inclined his head towards a separate room. Setting 
aside her trepidation, Scully snatched Krycek's arm -- his real 
one, she realized, as she felt the muscles jump under her fingers 
-- and pulled him into the little break room Mulder had found.
	
	They bunched, just inside the doorway, and Scully felt two 
different breaths stirring her hair and heating her neck. "He's 
all right," she said breathlessly.

	The garbled cursing on her right indicated Mulder was at her 
left, and she had no compunction about nudging him till he found 
the light switch. With buzzing fluorescent lights came a little 
breathing space, and Scully had the opportunity to back up and 
look at Krycek, really look at him. But he had already controlled 
his reactions, and looked back at her blankly.

	"You caught the killer," he said. He said it without 
emotional investment, businesslike. Only his spasmodically 
clenching fingers gave him away.

	Mulder said, "Maybe," and at hearing his doubt Scully 
winced. Then she noticed her lack of shock. Krycek narrowed his 
eyes at her partner. Mulder sucked on the insides of his cheeks 
for a few moments, as if he were only just cobbling together his 
theory. Then again, he probably was.

	"Maybe," repeated Mulder, "but maybe not. I think the whole 
kidnapping was a setup to draw you out."

	"I expected so," replied Krycek, not looking at Scully. His 
body was a steel spring, and no closer to unwinding than before. 
"Coffin Nail has done that sort of thing before."

	Mulder considered, staring into space. "But I think," he 
said slowly, "that Winston was in on it." Before Mulder had even 
finished his sentence, Krycek lunged forward with his fist.

	His movements were so perfect, so exact, that the completion 
of the punch gained a certain breathtaking symmetrical 
inevitability. To cry out to him, to try to intervene, would 
certainly be useless, and Scully's unvoiced protest against it 
seemed suddenly like begrudging the rain its right to fall. The 
fist connected and Mulder tumbled against the wall.

	Scully stood stock still as Krycek cracked his knuckles one-
handed, looking down at Mulder on the floor. "Fuck you, too," he 
growled.

	Blood spattered between Mulder's lips as he spoke. "Ask 
Scully. I found him in a goddamned bathroom; he wasn't tied up. 
The crime scene was staged, the local detective can tell you 
that." Mulder covered his mouth with his hand, turning his 
beseeching eyes to Scully.

	Suspicions are one thing and accusations entirely another. 
Scully pictured in her mind the smooth, unpunctured skin of 
Winston's forearm, and closed her eyes against the knowledge and 
the deadened look on Krycek's face. "He was disoriented," she 
said, and had to clear her throat. "But he has no bruises. He 
isn't dehydrated. We have to consider the possibility Mulder's 
right."

	Krycek made a noise of disgust deep in his throat. "Jesus 
Christ. I knew you despised me, but this is ridiculous." He was 
standing too close, looming over her, and Scully was afraid for 
the first time, staring at the collar of his leather jacket, that 
he might strike her too.

	He didn't. He jerked the door open and stalked away without 
another word or a glance in her direction. Scully breathed out 
with a sort of terrified relief, and then hurried to the door to 
catch him. But he was gone, disappeared into the maze of patients 
and personnel in the hallway. Scully leaned her head against the 
door and closed her eyes. Behind her, she heard Mulder stand up. 
Across the hall, Eli Winston still lay in the trauma room, and 
somebody had to depose him.
 
* * * * * * *

	Orange neon. Long loops that spell 'Jo' in the low night 
sky. Darkness closes in around the glow like heavy curtains, 
embracing, absorbing, so a block away there's nothing but a vague 
haze. It's less like being blind than like having my head in a 
humid velvet bag. I walk forward through the fog. It all seems so 
unreal.

I step into the office behind Jo's Diner feeling a little 
giddy, and some of that must seep into the professional demeanor 
I'm trying to put on. Willig is sitting there at his tin desk, a 
girlie calendar -- still on July -- pinned to the wall, looking 
too calm. So either I've scared him into next week or else he 
anticipated my coming and he's got a .45 under the desk.

	I take the chance. A nod, and he nods back, and then I sling 
myself into his creaky chair. "Nice place," I tell him. I don't 
identify myself, but then, the fact that he hasn't asked says that 
he remembers me. "How's Jo?"

	He shoots me a sarcastic look that doesn't feel fraternal. 
"The Group's records all stink like hash browns, and her ass just 
gets bigger every day. What do you want?"

	"I'm sure there are better offices you could use," I say, 
and shrug. "It's your own damn fault, Willig. You showed up at the 
wedding."

	He leans forward at me over scarred desk set. "What do you 
want, Krycek?" His eyes shift, he's hunching his shoulders -- I 
have guessed well. He does know something.
 
	I sit back and examine my nails. It makes him shrivel up, 
waiting, and soon he's back on his own side of the desk. Finally, 
I tell him, "Your man's been taken."

	"Shit," is his first reaction, and then, with more caution, 
"How do you know?"

	"Everybody with a scanner knew two hours ago. It's on the 
late news, by now." I flex my fingers inside my glove, working 
hard not to smirk at his distress. If this is going to work, I 
can't lord it over him. "We've got the opportunity to sanitize, 
before they figure out where he's been holed up. Who's covering 
that?"

	Willig stands up slowly, scrubbing his hands through his 
thin hair till it stands up. Then he goes to his filing cabinet 
and pulls out a folder. "Hell," he mutters, flipping through 
pages. It's a thin file; somebody new, then. A specialist. "He 
doesn't have one. The best in the business, he said, didn't need 
one. I told that old chimney --"

	He swallows his lips and glances at me -- he wasn't supposed 
to mention that part. I don't smile at him; I don't tense up. I 
just nod, like a commiserating manager, and ask him, "Is there 
anyone you can assign?"

	He blows out his cheeks. "Stevie Floyd's been up the city 
for a few days now, and he's got his new partner with him. 
Giancale threw his back out last week, and Oviedo's in California 
doing some damn thing." He puts the file on his desk and turns to 
reach for his coat. "I'll do it myself."

	"No," I tell him gently. "I'll do it." Before he can turn 
back to object I've got the file open on his desk. Even if he 
takes it from me now I've got the address. Willig is looking down 
at the open folder, and then up at me, there and back. I meet his 
eyes and try to stay cool.

	"If he's the best, then I'd hate to see the worst. They 
found Winston alive." I get the sensation I'm speaking through 
gravel. But Willig blinks, jumping forward as if goosed, to snatch 
up the file. 

	"Well why didn't you tell me?" he barks and retreats to his 
file cabinets. "I thought you meant the real operation." He is not 
looking at me while he replaces the folder so he can't see me 
sweat. "Your smoking friend can play all the games he wants to 
with his pet lawyer, I'm not a part of that. If his man gets 
arrested, that's not my problem to clean up."

	It isn't a thunderclap in my ears. It's not pins and 
needles, or a stabbing pain in my chest. "My mistake," I say.

	He gives me a sly look, standing under the bare light bulb. 
"Your mistake," he says. The shadows under his eyes look familiar.

	There is no way he will willingly give me the file I want. I 
stand up, and I can see he knows what comes next. He glances once 
too often at the desk's top drawer, so I pull that drawer open and 
make a show of examining the gun I find. It's a Dirty Harry 
weapon, a .44. He trembles a little, gives me a weak smile. "Let's 
have Winston's file," I tell him. He doesn't disobey me.

	The snow has started up again by the time I am outside. I 
can tell I've got snow down my collar, but I don't feel the cold. 
I act in a haze, and the dim night might swallow all my actions 
without repercussion. I duck into a phone booth and call up Devin 
Markov.

* * * * * * *

	Scully awoke to a ringing phone at six in the morning. It 
was Fraser, disgustingly sharp considering the hour, with 
interesting news: the death of a young man in the suburbs west of 
the city. It would have been unremarkable but for the methodology; 
the young man was found bound, with needle marks in his neck and 
bleach burns on his genitals. "Not likely they were self-
inflicted," groaned Mulder when she told him about it.

	"I suppose this means we didn't catch Mr. Clean last night 
after all," she replied, and left him with that thought while she 
returned to her own room to get dressed.

The medical examiner's office was gracious and allowed her 
to participate in this new young man's autopsy. Usually, as she 
made the first cut, she tried to return the dead some dignity, but 
this morning she could not. She could only think of Eli Winston, 
who still lay in a hospital bed in the city. She hadn't told 
Fraser of their suspicions. She didn't know whom they could tell.

	She immersed herself in the findings of this young man, who 
in life was physically quite unremarkable -- average height, 
weight, nondescript Anglo coloring, no tattoos or scars -- and 
whose death was so spectacularly painful. It was under a 
magnifying glass that she found the traces of surgery -- several 
moles from his face and neck had been removed. 

	Maybe he was vain. Maybe he was afraid of melanoma. Maybe he 
had systematically removed identifying marks from his skin. Scully 
speculated internally even as she mourned her sense of suspicion.

	It was nearly noon before she had finished and found Mulder 
pacing the halls. He practically leapt to her side, a troubled 
look on his face. "Have we identified our John Doe yet?" she 
asked. "Because the more I look at him the more I think he's 
hinky."

	"No," said Mulder. He took a long breath then, and steered 
her down the hall. Scully controlled her rising alarm and waited 
for him to speak. "They found Eli Winston two hours ago," he said. 

	Scully realized bitterly that there was a way people spoke 
that immediately transmitted finality. She was suddenly sick of 
death. "How?"

	He didn't reply, only pulled a handful of Polaroids from his 
suitcoat. She could feel his eyes like expectant morning crows 
waiting for her to react. She hated him in that moment, hated his 
assumption that sympathy made her weak. Scully took a breath and 
the feeling passed. She looked at the photos.

	There are painful ways to go -- like her John Doe -- and 
there are ways that are more cruel to those left behind. On Eli 
Winston's pillow there lay most of a skull, much of its contents 
splattered against the wall behind him. The eyes were closed, the 
lips pursed as if the gun were still in his mouth. Scully lapsed 
gratefully into the clinical, guessing out loud that his murderer 
had used a handgun, large caliber.

	Mulder said, "The nurse on duty heard the shot." He 
hesitated, then plunged in: "It was a .44, and we found it in his 
right hand."

	"Where the hell did he get a handgun in a hospital?" Scully 
heard her own angry tone and stopped herself. She put a hand to 
the wall and closed her eyes. "What does Fraser think?"

	"Winston was in the hospital all night. Anybody on staff 
could have slipped it to him. I don't know why he waited till ten 
in the morning." Mulder gave a great sigh, and put his hands on 
her shoulders. Scully felt his thumbs on her trapezoids, and then 
he began to wander. His broad palm on her cheek. She allowed him 
to turn her around.

	She was opening her mouth when Mulder said, "Winston's 
brother called this morning. He left Cleveland for here about 
8:30. I'll talk to him when he gets here." 

	"No," said Scully. In the mess the investigation had become, 
she grasped on this. "I'll talk to him." She nodded to herself, 
repeating it, and ignored Mulder's mournful looks. It was a doctor 
who had informed her of her sister's death, who had left her alone 
to mourn in front of a stripped hospital bed. All her uncertainty 
focussed on this: all of her anger at Krycek, her fear of him, and 
for him. She needed to do this thing.

	And so, twenty minutes and a hasty cup of coffee later, 
Scully found herself in the hospital lobby, greeting a very tall, 
graying man whose face was full of worry instead of grief. "Mike," 
he said. "Please call me Mike."

She shook his capable hand and asked him if he'd like to 
walk with her. Her clinical milieu was no place to deliver 
terrible news. He agreed, and they walked side by side into the 
crisp air; he towered over her like a benevolent giant. He kept 
his head lowered as they walked, angled towards her. She could 
tell he was beginning to wonder.

Scully led Mike Winston down the hospital lawn and sat with 
him on a bench by a flower garden. It was pleasant, in a late-
fall, orange sort of way, but too full of the reminders of death. 
The snow had taken its toll among the dianthus, but the yellow 
mums persevered under the noonday sun.

"Mike," she said, and turned to face him. The least she 
could do was tell him looking him in the eye. She couldn't help 
noticing his advanced crow's feet. "I have bad news."

	"On the phone," he said, and his voice went rough, "they 
said he wasn't hurt too badly. They wouldn't let me talk to him 
though."

	"He spent the night in the hospital," said Scully. Mike's 
eyes were that familiar changeable hazel-green. She could see tiny 
Scullies reflected back at her, pinched sad little creatures. 
"This morning, around ten, the nurses found him."

Mike breathed out as if giving up the ghost, stirring her 
hair around her face. "He's dead." A confirmation, rather than a 
question.

	She nodded. He turned away, eyes wandering over the 
landscape. They failed to settle on anything. Scully found that 
she could speak as she watched the park with him, contemplated the 
varying shades of brown in the grass. "He was healthy and alert 
last night when I saw him. Indications are that he died of a gun 
shot wound."

Mike wiped his cheeks with a long thumb - the same way 
Krycek had done, the only time she had ever seen him cry - and 
lowered his head so that they spoke in each other's general 
direction but did not require eye contact. "He was murdered?" he 
asked softly.

	The religious and cultural taboo of suicide stood like a 
brick wall in front of her speaking. "We're still puzzling that 
out," was all she could say. Mike looked at her sharply for a 
long, long moment, then examined his hands.

	He didn't say what they both meant by that silence. Together 
they gazed impassively at the shuddering trees. Krycek was out in 
the world somewhere, in this wind, and she didn't know where. The 
knowledge of him tightened her sinuses and constricted her throat. 
She didn't say anything to Mike. After a few minutes, Mike wiped 
his eyes again and said, "Do you want me to identify the body?"

	"No," answered Scully, startled. "That's not necessary."

	Mike nodded and absently tapped his wedding ring with his 
right hand. With his shoulders he shrugged his baseball jacket 
closer around his neck. The logo on the jacket was from a high 
school team. She wanted to ask him a million questions; instead 
she bit her lips and rubbed her fingers for sensation. It was 
pleasant to sit next to him, even in the stiffening breeze, but of 
course he didn't want to grieve in front of a police officer. 

	"I have to call Nick. My other brother. He's in California. 
He needs to know." She watched him stand in a swift, oddly 
graceful motion for someone so broad. He just stood, for a moment, 
looking at his feet, before he began the walk back to the 
hospital. After a few moments Scully followed him, crunching 
through the dead leaves.

* * * * * * *

	It only took the rest of the day for the data to come 
through: a man named Melvin Willig had been so kind as to register 
his .44 before it ended up in Eli Winston's mouth. Mulder bullied 
the diner's employees to cook him an evening breakfast while 
Willig and his wife Jo rode down to the station. Mulder was 
incredulously reading names to Scully off of file folders when the 
call came.

	And then he found himself on a last-minute flight back to 
Washington, squeezing the armrests of his seat as if he could cart 
the plane along behind him all the way to National Airport. The 
miasma of confusion and possibility that grew over Buffalo all 
fell away in the face of this new development.

	Skinner met him at the gate, frowning. Mulder's first words 
to him were: "Are you sure it's him this time?" But his boss was 
turning away already, snatching up Mulder's carry-on and striding 
up the concourse. It wasn't till they emerged into the dim cloudy 
night that Skinner answered.

	"I'm taking you straight to the morgue. A contact of mine 
called me: we'll both get a look before they start the autopsy." 
Skinner raised his arm and snapped in the air, an absurd cross 
between John Wayne and Shirley Temple. The FBI driver, apparently 
reacting to the former and not the latter, jumped up and took the 
luggage while the two men climbed into the car. Skinner shifted in 
his seat and added, "The fingerprints rang the cherries."

	Neither of them said anything till they were across the 
bridge and in DC proper. Then Mulder asked quietly "Where?"

	"Upper Northwest, just off Wisconsin Avenue," came the 
reply. A nondescript address. Something forgettable. Of course. 

	That was enough to tide Mulder over till they reached the 
medical examiner's office. He sped down the fluorescent-lit 
hallway with Skinner at his heels, choking on his own morbid 
eagerness. He weaved his way past shrouded trays in the hallway, 
half-remembering the scandal from two years ago about unclaimed 
bodies stacked like cordwood in the freezers. Skinner did the 
talking, flashing his badge and getting them into the autopsy bay 
to their quarry.

	It was really him, and he was really dead. Cancer Man, 
Coffin Nail, the Smoking Gun himself, lying on a wheeled metal 
table without any clothes. Someone had closed his eyes but he 
didn't look peaceful. Mulder looked around for a place to sit, and 
leaned against the wall when he couldn't find a chair.

	"Do you have a guess on cause of death?" asked Skinner, in 
his bland businesslike manner. He didn't say anything about how 
Mulder was reacting; he didn't have to.

	The M.E. flipped back more of the papery thin covering and 
it became clearer. Round burns dotted the graying flesh, livid 
against dark bruises, in loose rows along the lower ribs. Skinner 
didn't say anything, and neither did Mulder. Now that the body was 
fully revealed, Mulder marveled at its bony arms, the flab around 
its middle, the sunken chicken neck. It seemed so harmless, now.

	"Six broken fingers, too," added the doctor, who was 
beginning to eye his audience warily. "I won't know till I get him 
open which of his injuries did it. Whether they meant to kill him 
or not I can't say. I thought they only did that kind of thing in 
South American dictatorships."

	"I see," said Skinner, and "thank you very much." His hands 
physically guided Mulder out of the room. They both stood in the 
hallway breathing, with their hands on their hips like competing 
soccer coaches. Mulder's thoughts raced too fast for him to keep 
up with them. It kept coming back to him, in increasingly 
delirious tones: so much for the hostile takeover. If he burst out 
laughing then Skinner really would have him examined.

His boss was watching Mulder, sucking on his teeth. He said 
quietly, "Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?"

	"Going on, sir?" asked Mulder, and knew Skinner could see 
right through the innocent act. His supervisor's unblinking stare 
was like a skewer puncturing Mulder's intensity. Mulder looked 
away first, as he had known he would.

	Skinner's voice was almost gentle. "They found him on a bus 
stop bench, in a suit. He'd only been dead an hour. The only lead 
we have so far is a possible witness to the drop, a blond kid who 
ran when the neighbors saw him."

"I can't tell you. It's too dangerous for you to know 
about." Mulder turned his reluctance into forward motion, and 
began them walking away from the dead bodies.

	"If it involves me," suggested Skinner, looking back and 
forth down the empty hallway. He shoved his hands into his pockets 
but he kept apace with his agent.

	"It doesn't, not directly." Mulder bit his tongue, forced 
himself to keep silent.

	But his boss was having none of it. The man beside him put 
out a hand to stop him, then backed away a little and took off his 
glasses. Skinner's unshrouded brown eyes made him look naked. 
"Buffalo notified me about that lawyer," he said slowly. "Does 
this have something to do with your contact . . .?"

	Mulder was nodding before it occurred to him to lie. Then he 
felt a little ashamed for thinking of it at all. He watched 
Skinner take out a handkerchief and wipe the lenses of his glasses 
with elaborate care while both of them said nothing.

	"You've kept me well out of scrutiny in this matter, Agent 
Mulder," Skinner said finally, his voice a low rumble in his 
chest. "But I think you're going to have to let me in on this 
one." Skinner replaced his glasses on his face and Mulder couldn't 
look away from those features. He had agreed with Scully to keep 
their boss out of it and yet that resolution floated away in a 
moment.

	"You won't like it," he warned. Skinner just shook his head, 
laughed a little ironic laugh. Mulder said, "I'll have to ask . . 
. the person first."

	Skinner's bald pate gleamed as he turned away, a trick of 
the overhead lights keeping his eyes in shadow. "You go ask him, 
Mulder," he said. Then he turned back, and opened his mouth again. 
After a pause, Skinner just shook his head and walked on down the 
hall, with his hands in his pockets.

	That night Mulder reviewed the encounter in his mind and 
wondered at it, sitting alone in his bachelor apartment. It seemed 
forever since he had slept here, with distant investigations or 
Scully's cleanly fragrant apartment pulling him away. She didn't 
sleep at his place, often. But now she was in Buffalo, still 
puzzling over the dark side of Eli Winston, and he was back to his 
solitary rootlessness. The TV was on and muted, the late late show 
giving way to infomercials.

	It was, he supposed, entirely possible that Skinner had 
known all along that Krycek was their contact. He was close with 
Lottie MacIlvain; she could have tipped him off. But somehow 
Mulder knew that Skinner had been guessing, and that he knew he 
had guessed right. Now if only Krycek hadn't gone missing in a 
rage more than a day ago. Damn that man for disappearing just when 
he would be useful.

     Damn that man just on principle. It had sung along the veins 
in his forearms, sharp notes and diminished chords, an awkward 
screeching whine in his inner ear like the high-pitched cycling of 
the television's cathode ray tube. Sometimes it had pulsated at 
his temples, in his thumbs, in the thicket of arteries in his 
neck; sometimes it had drained all warmth and blood from his 
extremities till they were pale and stiff. It had been a constant 
thing, in its many guises; he had gone to bed with it and awoken 
in the morning with its oddly comforting intensity. He hated Alex 
Krycek. It had been a basic fact, one of his few touchstones in 
this shifting, hazy underworld he charted. The partnership, the 
Judas moment, his horror at his own awful stupidity had 
crystallized into a clear lens of enmity. For years now he had 
hated Alex Krycek, angrily, idly, sometimes even with affection, 
and the guttural burn of it lay under each of his major 
discoveries, steadfast.

     If he abandoned his own true north, Mulder thought, he would 
lose everything else as well. It was too much, he couldn't do it. 
His hands played on a plastic shape that had lain in his overcoat 
pocket for days. He spun it between his fingers once more, and its 
metallic parts shone in the TV's hortatory glow.
 
	As in a dream, Mulder stood up, the disk in his hand. He 
closed his eyes, and screwed up his face, and then relaxed again. 
He stabbed the power key on his computer and waited impatiently 
for the screen to warm up.

* * * * * * *

	"You're sure?" she asked. Scully couldn't help herself. 

	Mulder said, "The smoking man is dead. I saw the body 
myself." There was a gravity to his voice, a powerful certainty, 
that forbid doubts on that account. One shadowy player, nailed 
down permanently. Of the other, no word.

	But she didn't say anything about Krycek; she couldn't, over 
an unsecure line. "The search on John Doe's house turned up bloody 
rope. We'll DNA test to be sure, but I'd say we found our Mr. 
Clean." She sighed. "We still don't know who killed him, or 
exactly how it's connected to Willig's capture, or if either of 
them is connected to your corpse. If he was interrogating his 
victims, he didn't leave any notes behind."

	"The timing's wrong," he replied, his voice strained in that 
half-distant tone of speculation. If he had been standing in front 
of her she would have been able to waggle her fingers in front of 
his face without him noticing. "Coffin Nail was tortured, over 
several hours, they think. So whoever it was captured him even 
before Winston committed suicide."

	She massaged her temples as she spoke, trying to balance 
horror and victory. "How long does it take to get from Buffalo to 
Washington?" Mulder's only reply was an ironic snort. Not having 
anything to say, Scully rang off and sat at her commandeered desk, 
staring through bleary eyes at the high stack of files. 

	"God, I love law-abiding criminals," interjected Fraser, 
sinking down into a chair next to her. He placed another folder on 
the very tall pile, swilling his morning coffee in his cup. "That 
was him?"

	Scully nodded, and pushed her hair out of her face. "Is the 
analysis back yet?"

	A mountain of sportcoat, Fraser hunched forward towards her. 
"Yes. No prints on the gun but Willig's and Winston's own." He 
tapped the papers he had put down, frowning. "Something else."

	He didn't continue. Scully looked up at him as he chewed on 
his mustache. "Yes?" she said at last.

	"We're almost done fingerprinting Willig's files. I was 
checking them off from the master inventory. That folder on top 
there wasn't on the list." With a broad finger he pushed it 
towards her. Scully took it up, feeling the grit of powder on the 
manila paper. 

	Fraser didn't say anything until she had read the label, to 
herself, and then out loud, her voice shaky: "Winston, Elijah 
Charles, 1974." She propped the folder open on the desk and began 
flipping through it with nervous fingers.

	"Willig's prints are on it," said Fraser slowly. "No other 
clear prints. Paper doesn't take so well. There are some smudges 
here and there, maybe from someone in gloves. Hard to say."

	Flipping from one page to the next, Scully asked absently, 
"Why didn't your people let me know about this at the scene?" She 
was pulling out a blue page from amidst the white when she 
realized Fraser hadn't answered.

	The swilling of his coffee cup slowed to a stop. "We didn't 
find it on scene," he answered. Whatever he saw in his mug, he 
didn't like the look of it. "Between then and now it appeared in 
the stack. Somebody put it there. Somebody in the PD, it has to 
be."

	It was a terrible thing, to find corruption in one's midst. 
Scully didn't say anything and presently he stood up. Fraser 
furrowed his brows, reading her lack of surprise. With a sharp 
breath he turned away and walked back to the stacks of paper on 
his own desk.

	Her eyes turned back to the papers in her hands. Most of 
them seemed to be financial reports of companies. Most of them had 
local addresses; some were Canadian, some from New York City. 
Scully remembered: Winston had been a corporate tax lawyer. She 
felt the weight of the papers in her arms -- practically nothing -
- and was staggered at its potential value.

	Lottie MacIlvain could be trusted to ferret out the 
connections, Scully was thinking, when she noticed the blue paper 
she had pulled out before. It looked very different from the 
reports that dominated Winston's documentation. She rubbed her 
tired eyes and leaned forward to read it.

	At first only phrases jumped out at her. "He would be an 
excellent addition to your foreign corps. He is talented with 
languages and has proved himself able at operations for other 
clients." She could tell it was a memorandum, addressed 
unhelpfully to a long serial number. The date was September 16, 
1988. "I understand there can be no contact between us," read the 
text. "I hope you will find my brother as useful as you have found 
me." 

	Only then did Scully register the subject of the memo, even 
though it sat at the top in clean, typewritten letters. 
'Recruitment,' they said, and then 'Krycek, Alexis Allan.' She 
read them again, and then a third time, to make sure she wasn't 
rearranging them in her head into a familiar pattern. 

	There wasn't any help to it; the letters stayed as she had 
read them. And then, sitting with prickling hackles in a brightly-
lit police bullpen, Scully knew with devastating certainty who had 
inserted the folder into the police inventory. She read again the 
proud words Eli Winston had used to describe his brother. It was 
an unavoidable conclusion, the degree to which Krycek had been 
coopted.

	Last night's late raid, and her recent meeting with Mike 
Winston, and the screeching tension she had worked hard to ignore 
all came to over her like a highwayman's ambush. She lowered her 
head to the desk, clutching her skull in her hands for a moment. 
Then she sat up straight, and picked up the phone again to call 
Mulder back.

* * * * * * *

     Mulder entered his apartment and knew right away that 
something was wrong. Not out in the world, where Scully was 
driving the long boring miles back from Buffalo alone, but here, 
immediately, in his apartment. The late afternoon sun filled his 
flat with warm light, cut by the half-drawn blinds. Dark stripes 
crossed the plastic arm which lay on the floor in front of him, 
palm upward, its hard fingers extended like a supplication. He 
approached it with dread, fearing absurdly that it would jump out 
and grab his ankle, but it lay still, trailing nylon and fabric 
like entrails across the floor where it had been thrown. Some of 
that fabric was torn loose from its stitches, sagging white loops 
showing places of wear and unwashed grime.

     He looked up and knew to expect that Krycek would be in his 
apartment. He did not anticipate him to be standing, shirtless, 
looking out the living room windows at the street below. Red lines 
of irritation crisscrossed his back and the white scars seemed to 
glow on the remnant of his arm. The man kept his back turned and 
his hand closed, in no way signaling that he had heard anyone 
enter.

     Mulder feared he would have a fight on his hands and for once 
he was not in a fighting mood. He cleared his throat and started 
shuffling around, as if he had just come home after a long normal 
day. He got down to his shirtsleeves and still Krycek gave him his 
back, a twitch in the muscle near his shoulder blade the only sign 
that he was not made of stone. Mulder felt like an intruder in his 
own home. He sat on his couch, cleared his throat again and said, 
"Look -"

     Krycek turned around abruptly, and dropped pieces of crushed 
plastic and wiring onto the coffee table. "I found four," he said, 
without expression. "They aren't likely to have used more than 
that." Mulder just looked at the debris on his table for a long 
moment. Krycek didn't seem to require a reply, only stood there, 
the muscles across his chest playing with tension.

	Four listening devices, and Krycek had not only found them, 
but found them without making the customary mess Mulder always 
managed to make when sweeping for bugs. He looked up at the man, 
whose pupils were dilated in the semi-dark. 

	"Scully will be here in a little while," was all he could 
think to say. 

	Krycek stood, blinking, staring at nothing. "So Eli is 
dead." 

	"Yes. He did it about ten in the morning." Mulder lowered 
his head, feeling somehow ashamed. Krycek fell into the desk chair 
but he didn't seem surprised. Mulder's curiosity ticked along, 
adding that datum to its calculations. The conclusion it offered 
was appropriately monstrous. 

	"He tried, in the end, to argue me over to his side." Krycek 
spoke with a distressing lack of affect. "If I gave you two up, he 
was going to see that they forgave me everything. I didn't think I 
had convinced him otherwise."

The hairs on Mulder's forearms danced out a nervous jig as 
he caught Krycek's eye. The shadowed green revealed the next step 
in the chain of events. "You're the one who killed Coffin Nail." 
He could tell he had failed to keep the incredulity out of his 
voice.

"I'm to replace him in the hierarchy," said Krycek, curling 
his face to his left shoulder and reaching up to massage the 
stump. "I run Washington, now." His eyebrows and his mouth made 
downward arches together, like birds in flight all turning at 
once.

Mulder steepled his hands in front of him. "What does that 
mean for our . . . alliance?" He felt a strange reluctance in 
himself to deal with this new wrinkle. He wanted to be alone, to 
think out the possibilities instead of jumping to a conclusion the 
way he too often did. But Krycek was watching him with a stubborn 
hopelessness.

	"Without him, the opposition is collapsing," said Krycek. 
"The old man picked me because he knows I'm loyal. He thinks I can 
run things." Then he stood suddenly, his knees jerking tension, 
and began to pace the small living room from end to end. "He 
doesn't have any idea."

Mulder felt himself mentally pinwheeling, as if teetering on 
some sort of edge, unable to say whether he feared to fall or to 
find a solid foothold. "You're in a position of great opportunity. 
You've got influence now. You can recruit people, we'll --" He 
stopped, because he did not know whether he was saying it for 
Krycek's good or for his own. 

Krycek stopped pacing and looked at him morosely, his hand 
in his jeans pocket pushing up his right shoulder and throwing his 
entire profile into a starkly uneven relief. "I'm a proven 
traitor; nobody will follow me. My bodyguard is sitting in a car 
outside. He's nineteen years old. He's the only lieutenant I have. 
And I think he's crazy," he added, as an afterthought.

	The sun was completely gone from the windows. Mulder sat in 
his living room, on his squelching leather sofa, in the dark. 
Nobody said anything. After a while, when he could no longer see 
Krycek, he reached out and turned on a light. The man was still 
standing there, still with his hand in his pocket, still half-
naked though it was November and the heat wasn't working properly. 
Mulder said, "I'm sorry about your brother."

Under the warm light, he watched Krycek's face collapsing 
slowly into that mask men put on when they don't want to cry. 
Wrinkles circled the eye sockets and outlined his puckered frown 
and he seemed so very old, so unlike the fresh-faced mole he had 
been when they first met. Mulder felt an unfathomable hollowness 
in his chest, a deep, ponderous silence. He jumped up to fill it.

	"I'm starving. Are you hungry?" He said it in a rush, 
tearing through the papers on his desk and snatching up a Chinese 
food menu. He handed it to Krycek, who took it with a guarded 
expression. "Scully likes garlic shrimp. What should I order for 
you?" 

	Krycek's wide green eyes bored into Mulder's own. It seemed 
possible, in that moment, that enmity could be sworn again and 
this frightening new intimacy banished. Then, with a hitching 
breath, Krycek sat and pulled open the menu on his lap. "Kung Pao 
Chicken," he said.

* * * * * * *

	I'm buttoning the shirt Mulder offered me when she lets 
herself in. Mulder puts down his Chinese food carton but I just 
sit there, my fingers on a button. Scully stares and stares at me 
and I don't know what to do.

	"Krycek," she breathes, standing on the doorway. "Where have 
you been." Her voice is soft and kind and a little frightened, and 
I might confess to her everything I've done since she saw me last. 
Mulder's eyes flicker to mine, then away. We won't tell her what 
kind of monster I am.

	But she's not stupid. She doesn't say anything at first, but 
if Mulder guessed it she will have as well. Her heels clack across 
the wood floor and past the plastic detritus I have left there. I 
think I broke it; or maybe it just doesn't look like an arm when 
it's not attached to me. She's still not saying anything. I don't 
think I can stand it.
 
	I look at the floor. Scully feet place themselves in my line 
of vision, right in front of my chair. I have opened my mouth to 
say -- I don't know what would come out first -- when I hear her 
mutter, maybe just to herself: "I was worried."

	She sounds as surprised as me at having said it, or at 
having thought it. I don't look up, and before long she moves 
away. Mulder's voice, conciliatory: "We ordered your shrimp for 
you." The only noise in the room is her settling on the couch, and 
my labored breathing.

	"We'll be wanted back in Buffalo again soon," she says, 
accepting her carton of food and a pair of chopsticks. "Fraser is 
solid, but the field office can't necessarily be trusted to handle 
the data we got from Willig's office." She looks at me. It's not 
an accusation, I think, just a look, just her round features 
pointed at me with bright blue eyes.

	I crumble under her gaze. I just crumble. I put my hand over 
my face so I can't see her seeing me. I stand up, I turn away, and 
walk towards the door. "I should go," I mutter, by way of 
explanation, but Mulder's voice interrupts me.

	"Where will you go?" I turn on him to punish his sarcasm, 
but his face is smooth and open, the way it once was when we were 
partners, when he offered me his accurate, outlandish theories. He 
is just sitting there, forearms on his knees, guilelessly 
watching. I don't know what to think about him anymore. I don't 
know anything.

	While I have been scrutinizing her partner Scully has stood 
and crossed the room. She stops right in front of me, staring up, 
her hair a halo around her face. I can't help it; I shy away, 
physically startling at her closeness.

	My heart, careening around the inside of my ribcage like a 
cat in a box. Scully stands very still in front of me, making no 
threatening gesture. She only comes up to my shoulder, and her 
chin points up so she can face me. I can't stand it, I have to 
look away, at the wall, at anything but her gaze. She doesn't say 
anything. Her hand reaches out, tentative. I feel her fingertip on 
the inside of my wrist, a ticklish soft touch. Bolder, then, both 
her hands on mine.

	I look at those hands; they calm me immensely. Her skin is 
paler than mine and it takes her double span of fingers to 
encompass my one palm. Words slip out of my mouth without 
consulting my higher faculties. "I don't know what to do." 

	Mulder is staring at us, I can feel it. Doesn't matter. 
Scully leads me back into the living room, back to the chair. She 
pushes on my shoulder and I sit down. I am looking up at her now, 
and she seems incredibly tall.

	She lets out a breath and the moment passes. Over on the far 
side of the room, next to Mulder, she is normal sized again. She 
picks up her Chinese food, and after a moment of watching me, 
gestures with her chopsticks that I should do the same. I obey her 
and we three sit around the coffee table, eating in silence. Time 
enough to plan after supper.
 
* * * * * * * 

END (11/28/99)

NOTES: Apologies to natives of upstate New York. I worked with 
maps, I did some research, and then I made stuff up. There is a VA 
hospital in Batavia, but I'm sure it's not really a haven for 
illegal research.
	Thanks are long overdue to Dahlak, who was frank in her 
comments and as hard on me as I should have been on myself. It is 
thanks to her that this story makes any sense. Rachel Howard has 
been my cheerful stalker and many others have offered me their 
thoughts, encouragement, and in one case, even a dream, towards 
the completion of this great, hairy monster. And finally it's 
done.

    Source: geocities.com/veehome