TITLE: A Star Like a White City - Part 5
AUTHOR: Innisfree
E-MAIL: katclar73@yahoo.com
CLASSIFICATION: SRA, MSR
SUMMARY: Mulder loses Scully. He's going to get her 
back no matter what the cost. Bad things happen along 
the way. Seriously, we're going to some deep, dark, 
cold places here. Be warned. 
RATING: NC-17 (language, sexual situations, generally 
upsetting things)
SPOILERS: Through The Truth
KEYWORDS: MSR, Post-Series, AU
ARCHIVE: Yes -- just e-mail me.
DISCLAIMERS: They're not mine, I'm not making any 
money, and there is no intent to infringe any lawful 
copyrights or trademarks.
_____________________________________________

July 7, 2007
Chicago
Corner of East Wacker Drive and North Wabash
11:35 p.m.

"Cooler by the lake, my ass," Mulder mumbled under his 
breath, shaking a few wisps of hair away from his 
forehead and sending several beads of perspiration 
careening off his brow in the process.

He had been sitting here in the stretched glow from a 
streetlight for twenty minutes, listening to the faint 
sounds of laughter that echoed up from restaurants 
situated on the banks of the Chicago River below him. 
Paranoid as ever, he couldn't help feeling that the 
laughter was directed at him. Or might as well be.

He nervously eyed another slow-moving passerby. 

Even several hours after sunset, the temperature was 
at least eighty-five degrees, and he felt every single 
one of those degrees in the sweat that had been 
sliding steadily down his spine. Back at the loft, 
he'd thought the bulge of the Sig tucked into the back 
of his jeans was a little too obvious when covered 
only by his t-shirt, so he'd opted for a light 
windbreaker to make the weapon less apparent. A light 
windbreaker which, as it turned out, didn't breathe 
any better than a corpse would.

Now he realized that wearing a windbreaker when it was 
only slightly cooler than hell would likely alert 
whomever he was meeting that he was trying to hide a 
gun. Not to mention that the gun wouldn't be much use 
if it were drenched in sweat and he couldn't get a 
grip on it. Not to mention that he obviously looked 
ridiculous to the twenty-something girls in miniscule 
tank tops who giggled as they walked past him on their 
way to the clubs in River North. 
 
"Fuck it." 

He ripped the jacket off and tossed it underneath the 
bench when he was certain no one was looking. He'd 
never cared for the thing anyway. Whenever he wore it, 
Scully would always quirk an eyebrow and ask if he had 
taken up yachting when she wasn't watching.

He thought he could actually hear her voice saying the 
words to him, and as the memory slipped through his 
mind, he felt the corners of his mouth pull out into 
the beginnings of a smile. But then, just like that - 
just as quickly as he could remember something that 
made him happy for a split second - he remembered 
where he was and that hint of a smile faded into the 
same blank expression that had been plastered on his 
face for weeks. 

Weeks and weeks of not hearing her voice. Weeks and 
weeks of doing nothing, finding nothing, and feeling 
nothing but a solid mass of anguish square in the 
center of his chest that sometimes made it hard for 
him to breathe.

Well, no more of that. No more doing nothing. 

He'd told Skinner to arrange a meeting with Kersh's 
contact, the one who'd assured Kersh that Scully was 
still alive. Skinner had flat-out refused him at 
first, and then argued with him just as he had on so 
many other pointless occasions, but he'd finally 
relented when Mulder made him see that all other 
avenues were closed. 

Mulder would propose a trade. If they let him take her 
place, Mulder would promise, he'd tell them how an 
unstoppable Super Soldier could be stopped. 
Permanently.
 
"And after that? What's the rest of your brilliant 
plan?" 

Mulder jerked his head up, momentarily startled. He 
could hear Scully asking him the question as clearly 
as if she'd been sitting there right beside him.

"You're going to give them information that could be 
the key to destroying all of them, and then you just 
wait for someone to break you out like you imagine 
I've been waiting for you? Or better yet, Mulder, you 
don't tell them anything after all and they beat you 
until you look like tenderized meat? Explain to me how 
the current situation is improved in any way by your 
taking my place."

<<I don't want them to hurt you,>> he thought. <<I've 
been beaten so many times I might not even feel it... 
that much. I survived Tunguska. I escaped. Maybe I can 
do it again.>>

"I see. I'm the damsel in distress and you're the big, 
strong, manly man. Better they torture you than me."

The sarcasm in her voice, constructed so easily in his 
mind from years of memory, still managed to cut him. 

"Yeah, if it had been me in Tunguska, I'd probably 
still be scratching notches in the wall to mark the 
days. I would never have found a way out on my own 
like you did. I can't take care of myself. If only I 
were... oh, I don't know... say, a trained federal 
agent."

<<I know you can take care of yourself,>> he rebuked 
her silently. <<But you've been there for so long now. 
Maybe soon it'll be too long. If I can take your 
place, just for a little while, then that's what I 
have to do. We'll find a way out of this.>> 

"Mulder..." she would have sighed. "This will never 
work. You know that. You know this won't work and they 
won't let me go because whatever it is they want from 
me, they're still going to want... no matter what else 
you might tell them. Maybe they'll let you think 
they've let me go and then bring me back again. Or 
maybe they won't let me go at all."

<<I don't know what else to do. I don't know what else 
to do. I don't know what else to do.>>

The phrase echoed miserably in his mind.

"And that's the problem," she would have told him, he 
knew, with notes of resignation and regret in her 
voice. "You always have to *do* something. Even when 
there's nothing to be done."

And she would have been right, he admitted to himself. 
But a bad plan was better than no plan at all, wasn't 
it? You never knew where a plan might take you. A body 
in motion stays in motion. But a body at rest...

"I hope you're not planning to toss me into the river, 
Mr. Mulder. Your choice of a meeting place made me 
wonder if I should wear my wetsuit."

The sudden introduction of a real voice into the daze 
of his imagined argument with Scully brought Mulder 
crashing back to reality. He stood quickly to find 
himself looking at a familiar face. The face of a man 
who had sat in judgment of him at the tribunal five 
years before. The face of a man who wasn't a man at 
all.

"You," he spit out with a measure of bitterness. "I 
don't know why I'm surprised."

"We meet again," the man announced with a smile, 
close-cropped gray hair framing the sides of his face 
before it gave way to a bald pate. "You must have 
imagined that our next meeting might be through a 
window. Me in the gallery, you strapped to a table and 
hooked up to a needle."

"Well, here's your chance," Mulder sneered. "If my 
date with death is overdue, I guess there's nothing to 
stop you from taking me to it now."

"Yes, well..." the gray-haired man mused. "Time 
marches on, Mr. Mulder. The trial served its purpose. 
Do you really think we would have allowed you to 
escape if we'd wanted you dead?"

Mulder coughed out a bitter laugh.

"Allowed me to escape? Is that what you call it when 
someone sneaks out of a medium-security military 
prison right under your nose? Less embarrassing if you 
pretend it was part of the plan all along, I guess."

"Oh, but it was. Very few things in this life occur 
outside of our plans. Very few." 

A human being might have gloated over the ability to 
offer such words as truth, but this man spoke with an 
air of authority that lacked any discernible emotion. 
It reminded Mulder of the voices that emanated from 
the weather alert machine in Quonochontaug when he was 
a child, announcing the approach of a hurricane or a 
Nor'easter as calmly as if they'd been recording the 
temperature and wind speed on a clear day. Voices that 
spoke too easily of terrible things.

"So... what?" Mulder pressed him. "The trial, the 
death sentence... what the hell was all that for 
then?"

In his first show of something resembling feeling, the 
man managed to look amused.

"Certainly not to kill you. We only wanted to 
neutralize you. Send you into hiding where you'd be 
primarily concerned with concealing yourself and less 
likely to keep springing up to interfere with our 
plans. And, to quote your president, mission 
accomplished."

Mulder shook his head slowly, suddenly overcome by the 
possibility that the past five years had been little 
more than a farce. He tried to remember a time when 
his life... Scully's life... their lives... had been 
their own. 

"So you've known where to find us all this time? We 
must be so amusing to you."

"Well, I'll admit that we might have lost track of you 
for the occasional weeks or months, but we always 
caught up to you again eventually. This world is 
really quite small, Mr. Mulder. Smaller than you can 
hope to understand."

"Yeah? Maybe it's too small for you then. Maybe you 
and your alien buddies should pack up and find a 
bigger planet to colonize."

The gray-haired man smiled mysteriously for a moment 
before walking with an easy stride toward the stone 
bench, taking his seat a few inches away from Mulder 
and throwing an arm over the back of the bench behind 
him with irritating nonchalance. 

"I should thank you for the invitation, Mr. Mulder. 
I'd never been to Chicago. An entire city built from 
the ashes of another. The idea resonates, doesn't it?"

Mulder looked away in disgust, deciding that he should 
just get to the point if he wanted this meeting to be 
as short as possible, which he did.

"Since you showed up, I assume you know what I'm 
proposing."

"Yes. Of course," the man said casually. "The 
proposal. You must be awfully worried about your... 
What shall we call her? Your... former partner... to 
sell secrets to the enemy."

As before, Mulder opted not to bite on the gray-haired 
man's transparent attempt to get under his skin. Just 
stick to business, he reminded himself. 

"What is it that you want from her?" he asked, 
concentrating on keeping his voice low and steady. 

The man shook his head, his chin moving back and forth 
in an eerily straight horizontal line.

"I'm afraid I can't share that with you right now. 
Information is a commodity and we trade 
conservatively."

"Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?"

The man looked at him blankly.

"Forget it," Mulder told him tiredly. "I'm sure you've 
been told I have information you might find useful. 
You have something I want. Let's make a deal." 

The gray-haired man seemed to study him as seconds 
ticked by in silence. 

"If it's true, Mr. Mulder, as Mr. Skinner has 
suggested, that you know how to kill us... why haven't 
you shouted it from the rooftops before this? Were you 
waiting for some moment in particular?"

"Let's just say that it's complicated."

"I have no doubt that it is. Presumably far more 
complicated than a stainless steel stiletto."

"Maybe not," Mulder told him with an air of taunting. 
"But if you want to know how complicated or not 
complicated it is, you'll take me to where Scully is. 
Let me see that she's unharmed and then let her go. 
Once I have independent confirmation that she's free 
and safe, I'll tell you what happened to Knowle 
Rohrer."

"You murdered him," the gray-haired man replied with a 
smile.

"You know goddamn well I didn't. But he *is* dead."

"Yes. The absence of any communication from him all 
these years was something of a red flag. We had hoped 
that perhaps he was simply trapped under something 
very heavy."

"Afraid not. Dust in the wind, you could say. Couldn't 
have happened to a nicer guy."

Mulder allowed himself an angry smirk, and at the 
sight of it, the gray-haired man's jaw set immediately 
and his hand closed around Mulder's wrist with a grip 
so strong that Mulder could almost feel the bones 
compressing.

"I think you're a foolish man, Mr. Mulder. A foolish 
man who likes to play dangerous games. I don't care 
for games. If it turns out that you're lying to me 
about this supposed information, I think you'll find 
the consequences to be unpleasant."

"Let go of my arm," Mulder gritted out as he felt the 
pain creeping up his shoulder and into his neck.  The 
gray-haired man relaxed his jaw and then released his 
hold, almost politely.

"I'm not lying to you," Mulder told the man, his voice 
made slightly ragged by lingering pain from the 
pressure applied to his radius. "And I'm not a fool."

"So you'd like to think," the gray-haired man muttered 
as he rose from the bench. "We'll accept your offer. 
I'll need to make a few arrangements. We'll send a car 
for you at your home, next Thursday evening."

"How civilized. I assume you don't need me to give you 
the address." Mulder's voice dripped with disdain.

"Your address is not the information that I need," the 
man mused cryptically as he turned toward the street 
and prepared to cross Wacker. "Good night, Mr. 
Mulder."

"Wait," Mulder yelled, putting aside his pride and his 
better judgment and walking quickly over to where the 
man stood. He had to ask. Had to know. It had been 
weighing on him for more than a week now.

"I have one question for you," he told the man 
carefully.

"A question? For me?" the gray-haired man inquired 
with feigned interest. 

"Skinner said you told Kersh you can't... you can't 
kill Scully. Even if you wanted to. That she's... 
necessary." Mulder faltered on the last word, knowing 
that the dread he felt whenever he considered the 
notion covered his face as he spoke. "Tell me why."

"Tell you why? No. You're in no position to demand 
answers from me, Mr. Mulder, or perhaps you hadn't 
noticed."

"Just tell me why. Please. Tell me how she's 
necessary." 

The plea that crept into his voice made it sound as if 
he were asking for comfort. Asking this thing that so 
perfectly resembled a person to vanquish the horrible 
visions Mulder had conjured of how Scully could be 
necessary to alien replicants planning humanity's 
extinction. And for one fleeting second, Mulder 
thought he saw something that looked like sympathy 
flash across the gray-haired man's eyes before the 
cold settled into them once again.

"What is a life, Mr. Mulder?" The man let the question 
hang in the air for several breaths while he appeared 
to consider Mulder's question.

"For your kind... existence is extinguished as easily 
as it is sparked. Most of you live and die, and in the 
end, it's as if you were never here at all. You see 
neither a plan nor a pattern."

He moved a few steps closer to Mulder, a strange look 
emerging on his face that actually made him appear 
excited... truly animated for the first time that 
evening. 

"But you - you, Mr. Mulder - you've seen things that 
make it impossible for you to deny the pattern and the 
plan. You must know that everything is connected, 
across time... across billions of forgettable and 
forgotten lives. And that plan is like your frail 
human body. There are certain things it requires in 
order to survive. You can lose a kidney, lose a part 
of your brain... eyes, tongue, limbs, any number of 
things that may be desirable and important but not 
*necessary* for life itself to continue. But there 
must be a heart, or at least something that performs 
its function. A liver is necessary. Some minimum 
volume of blood is necessary."

The gray-haired man paused, as if he were allowing his 
words to fill what little physical space remained 
between him and Mulder. 

"Ms. Scully is that necessary thing. A part of that 
plan's essential structure... As you are."

Mulder had felt the anger rising in him with every 
word the gray-haired man uttered, the rage hitting a 
fever pitch as he realized the man was only talking in 
riddles. Without any real thought for the possible 
consequences, he thrust his face directly toward the 
other man's until their noses were nearly touching.

"I don't care about kidneys, and hearts, and your 
fucking plan! Just fucking tell me what makes her 
necessary to you!" 
 
"I've already told you more than you need to know, Mr. 
Mulder," the man answered, any previous excitement 
supplanted by a tone that sounded almost weary. "No 
matter what truth you find, it's never enough. I could 
tell you all the secrets of the universe and you'd 
still find one more question. I won't waste time 
trying to satisfy what can't be satisfied."

Lightening fast, Mulder's left hand flew up and 
grabbed a fistful of the gray-haired man's summer-
weight cotton dress shirt, just as his right hand 
reached for the gun at his back and whipped it around 
until it was pressed against the other man's temple. 
He was too frustrated to find any more words and too 
upset to fight the tears beginning to pool in his own 
eyes, so he shook the other body until its head 
lurched back and then forward again, each time bumping 
against the cold metal of the gun. Back and then 
forward... the reaction to Mulder's action made him 
feel like he could control something again, if only 
for an instant.

The gray-haired man briefly allowed Mulder this empty 
defiance, willingly going along with a few more 
lurches before he easily pushed Mulder away. With no 
more effort than it would have taken a cat to swat a 
stunned mouse against a wall, he sent Mulder crashing 
down to the sidewalk with barely enough time to brace 
for the hard fall. The gun clanged against the 
concrete and skipped out of Mulder's hand. 

"I can't kill you, Mr. Mulder, and I'd prefer not to 
have to hurt you right now."

Mulder watched the man's hands as they smoothed across 
the front of his shirt where the fabric had bunched 
and wrinkled under Mulder's grasp. Watched him as he 
methodically re-centered the shirt's placket so that 
it aligned with the buckle of his belt. Watched him 
tug at his collar once so that it stood straight and 
even again. By the time he was finished, Mulder 
couldn't see any remaining evidence that he'd ever 
laid hands on the man. There was nothing left to mark 
the occasion other than his own defeat, sprawled 
pathetically on an empty sidewalk in the shadow of a 
figure who could kill him with one quick slice of his 
arm.

The man nodded down at him. "Next Thursday night. I 
suggest you refrain from making sudden moves toward 
the men who'll be meeting you. You'd find them to be 
less good-natured about it than I am." 

"Right," Mulder mumbled, staring at the man's fading 
figure as he walked away. "Next Thursday."

He picked himself up from the ground, brushing his 
hands against his jeans to clear away the small rocks 
and pieces of dirt that had attached themselves to his 
palms. Glancing first left and then right to make sure 
no one was coming, he leaned over to pick up the gun 
that lay useless near the curb and slid it underneath 
his shirt again, the handle hooking over his belt. As 
useless against his skin as it had been against the 
cement.

"Don't do this, Mulder."

Her voice again. He was beginning to worry that he 
might finally be losing his mind. Like he'd spent 
years travelling the winding road of sanity, seeing 
the signs that warned him to turn back... only to 
arrive at the very edge, at last. 

"I wouldn't want you to do this. You promised me that 
you'd let me go. Let me go so you could fight the 
fight. Remember?"

He ground his teeth together to stop the tears from 
coming again. To stifle the scream he felt gathering 
just behind his throat.

<<No. I promised I'd let you go if you...>>

An image of her lifeless body roared into his head, as 
tall and wide and vivid as something on an IMAX 
screen, and he shut his eyes tightly until the thought 
of it blinked away. 

<<But you're alive. And I promised I'd find you if 
they ever took you away. And that's what I'm doing.>>

"You can't trust them. And you can't tell them about 
the quarries. Not for me. I don't want that on my 
conscience, Mulder. I can't live with that."

He kicked an empty bottle of soda out of his path as 
he began walking west along the river in the direction 
of the El station at Clark and Lake.

<<Well, I'm sorry,>> he thought, suddenly and 
surprisingly resentful of her voice telling him what 
he knew but didn't want to hear. <<I can't live with 
knowing I might have saved you and didn't even try. 
I'm sorry I'm a selfish son of a bitch. I'm sorry I'd 
rather you be alive with a guilty conscience than dead 
with a clean one. I'm sorry if the world suffers so 
that you don't have to. You've suffered enough.>>

He listened for her answer as he trudged across 
another intersection where a bridge reached out from 
above the water next to him to connect with solid 
land. He listened for the words she would have said to 
convince him that he was wrong, and he was both 
saddened and alarmed that his mind could not conjure 
them. 

And then it hit him. She wouldn't have known what to 
say. Stunned. Discouraged. Her eyes would have closed 
for a moment in quiet frustration, and her face would 
have tightened the way it did when she was trying to 
keep her emotions under control, and then she would 
have walked away.

In this dead silence, his mind had conjured her most 
likely response after all. 

***

July 14, 2007
Location Unknown
Approximately 9:30 a.m.

Mulder had finally managed to get a couple hours of 
shut-eye, utterly exhausted from a long and restless 
night during which he alternated between the bed and 
the corner, trying to connect somehow with Scully's 
lingering scent and then losing it and struggling to 
reconnect once again. When he woke to the sound of the 
heavy metal door screeching open, he was sitting on 
the floor next to the bed with his head resting 
against the edge of the mattress. His neck felt as 
though it was now welded permanently in one position 
and would never again be capable of turning more than 
a few degrees to the left or the right.

"Breakfast." 

Mulder recognized the toneless, matter-of-fact voice 
he associated with Zeke from the night before. He 
rubbed his eyes and watched Zeke striding into the 
room and setting a large plastic tumbler on the hard 
floor a few feet away.

"Uhhhh... where's the rest of it?" Mulder asked, not 
certain yet whether the correct reaction was to be 
puzzled or annoyed.

"That's it. Enjoy."

Zeke began moving toward the door.

"There must be a mistake," Mulder remarked dryly. "I 
ordered the Denver omelet with a side of wheat toast."

When Zeke turned back to face him, Mulder was 
surprised to see what looked like the hint of a smile 
on his otherwise perfectly straight face.

"Protein shake. Everything you need's in there."

"What, you don't have a cooking staff? I have to tell 
you, this isn't shaping up to be anything like the 
brochure said it would be."

This time Mulder was certain that Zeke was smiling 
before he spun around to close the door, leaning 
casually against it as Mulder heard the click of the 
lock.

"Yeah, well we had a chef but he left to do that 
Hell's Kitchen show."

Mulder quirked his head to acknowledge the humor. This 
seemed like a good sign. He was making a connection 
with this guy, however minimal or tenuous it might be.

Zeke gestured toward the protein shake in the tumbler.

"I have to watch you drink it. They wanna make sure we 
don't have any secret hunger strikes."

"I bet." Mulder grimaced. "Why do I think there's more 
than protein in that shake?"

Zeke didn't react to the question. He didn't even 
blink. Just stared straight ahead at Mulder, all the 
smiles long gone.

"And if I refuse to drink it?" Mulder inquired.

"It would be better if you didn't do that."

"Because if I did, you'd have to force me, right?"

Zeke broke off the short staring match, looking up and 
away toward the narrow window at the top of the cell.

"Do me a favor and just drink the thing," Zeke told 
him quietly. "It's just supposed to relax you."

"But I'm already relaxed," Mulder parried.

"Just drink it," Zeke snapped. "If I have to hold you 
down and pour it down your throat, that's what I'm 
going to do. So why don't you make it easier on both 
of us."

Mulder took a few seconds to consider his limited 
options before finally lifting himself up from the 
floor, slightly embarrassed by the creaking sound his 
knees made as they resumed responsibility for bearing 
all of his weight. He shuffled over to the innocuous-
looking tumbler, picked it up and took a cautious sip.

"That's fucking awful," he choked out, coughing 
several times as the powdery, slightly bitter taste 
coated his tongue and slid down his throat.

"Best thing's to chug it," Zeke offered, apparently 
trying to be helpful.

"No kidding. And here I was planning to savor it like 
a really good single malt."

Mulder took a deep breath and gulped the rest of the 
drink down as quickly as he could, gagging only once 
about halfway through what might, for all that he 
knew, constitute his only meal for the day. The 
aftertaste was even worse than the taste of the thick 
mixture going down, and he coughed a few more times as 
he finished, wiping at his mouth as his face contorted 
with revulsion.

"Christ... can't you just mix whatever it is into a 
bowl of oatmeal or something?"

"I don't set the menu. I just serve."

Zeke reached a hand out and Mulder was more than happy 
to pass the tumbler to him. Running his tongue across 
his teeth to clear away some of the horrible flavor, 
Mulder made a beeline for the small sink, slurping in 
and then spitting out several handfuls of tepid water. 
He reached for the thin towel that hung next to the 
sink and wiped his face.

"So. When can I see her?" Mulder asked.

Once again, Zeke wouldn't meet his eyes. Not so good, 
Mulder thought.

"In about an hour," Zeke told him a little too 
quickly, his fingers reaching out for the handle on 
the door and yanking it open. "Be back for you then," 
he said as he slid through the door and pulled it shut 
behind him, gone before Mulder had a chance to press 
him any further.

In an hour, Mulder thought. In an hour, he'd see her 
again. It was what he'd wanted all this time, but the 
strange way that Zeke responded to his question gave 
him a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach. Or maybe 
that was the horrible protein drink sloshing around 
down there. Either way, Mulder barely made it to the 
stainless steel toilet in time to heave up most of 
that awful shake which, not surprisingly, tasted 
infinitely worse this time around.

Another trip to the sink, another few mouthfuls of 
water, and another embrace of the towel and he finally 
felt calm enough to take a seat on the bed. Gingerly, 
and not too obviously, he fingered the nearly 
invisible scar just beneath his armpit where Skinner 
had implanted a microscopic chip only a few days 
earlier. 

Muttering something about his limited experience with 
field dressings, Skinner had made the smallest of 
incisions and carefully slid the chip just underneath 
the skin using a small plastic tweezer. He'd then 
cauterized the tiny wound and checked to see if the 
device was transmitting properly.

"How do I know this thing won't give me cancer?" 
Mulder had asked.

"You don't," Skinner had replied honestly. "And I don't 
know how well it's going to work. The thing hasn't 
been tested extensively in the field, and we have to 
have some idea of where you are within a two hundred 
mile radius for it to find you."

"Great. What the hell does that mean?"

"It means we can't just push a button and track you. 
We have to sweep a specific area, one two hundred mile 
radius at a time. Each sweep can take as long as three 
hours."

"You mean you have to divide the world up into 
sections and search inside each one until you find a 
signal? Terrific. That could take months."

Skinner had sighed and nodded, acknowledging that this 
wasn't the ideal solution but was still likely better 
than nothing at all.

"I already told you what I think of this whole idea, 
Mulder," Skinner had reminded him. "Obviously, we'll 
focus on areas where we're aware of existing 
installations that make likely holding facilities. 
Meanwhile, my suggestion to you is that you buy as 
much time as you can and try not to piss everyone off 
any more quickly than you usually do."

"So our plan depends on me not pissing anyone off, you 
playing a successful game of where's Waldo with the 
chip, and the chip not malfunctioning."

Skinner had rolled his eyes and removed his glasses, 
polishing them against the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

"Yeah, that's about it."

"Business as usual for us then."

Skinner had laughed a harsh laugh, and Mulder had 
smiled wanly at the sound, and for just a moment, the 
two of them had believed that in the strange world 
they'd inhabited for so many years, there was a small 
chance that things would go their way. A small chance. 
But maybe a chance.

***

July 14, 2007
Location Unknown
Approximately 11:00 a.m.

Zeke and an unfamiliar second guard had snapped 
handcuffs around Mulder's wrists and escorted him into 
a dimly lit room with several chairs that appeared to 
be bolted into the floor.

"Where's Karl?" Mulder had inquired as they'd walked 
through one sterile corridor, leading to another 
sterile corridor, and another, and another.

"Not here," Zeke had answered, sounding bored.

"I see that. Should I be worried for him?"

"Day off." 

"Can I look forward to seeing him again tomorrow?"

"Don't think so."

"Next day?"

"Probably not."

"See, now I'm worried again."

Zeke had grunted.

"He shouldn't have kicked you."

"Wow... I had no idea that everyone cared so much 
about my well-being."

"Not about you," Zeke had remarked. "We follow orders 
and Karl wasn't following orders."

"Well, I hope he's been given a severe talking-to. I 
hope protein shakes were involved." 

"Oh, shut up already," the second guard had warned 
him, shoving him lightly between his shoulder blades.

Now, Zeke was removing the cuff from his left hand and 
reattaching it to a hole built into the side of the 
chair, which seemed - like everything else in this 
place - to be made of stainless steel. His right hand 
secured, Mulder felt the other guard pull his left 
hand to his side and restrain it with a second set of 
cuffs attached to a second hole in the chair. 

Comfy, he thought. Hope nothing itches.

He stared at the long whiteboard in front of him and 
had the perverse thought that his high school 
basketball coach should come stalking in to sketch out 
a game plan. 

Well, it would have been a chalkboard rather than a 
whiteboard back then. But still.

Zeke and the second guard began shuffling out of the 
room.

"Hey!" Mulder yelled after them. "What's going on? 
Where's Scully?"

The second guard was already out in the hallway and 
Zeke's back was to Mulder, but Zeke turned his head 
around like an owl without shifting the position of 
his body and muttered something about waiting. Then he 
was gone.

The door had barely closed when the lights above him 
dimmed even further until it was virtually pitch 
black. He heard something that sounded like a motor 
begin to whir and realized that the whiteboard 
directly before him was being raised, exposing some 
kind of light - some transparent surface - with every 
inch uncovered. It felt oddly like being at the 
movies. An incredibly creepy movie that Mulder had no 
interest whatsoever in seeing.

He squinted, trying to adjust to the near absence of 
light and focus on the revealed rectangle that was 
emitting a strange, soft glow. He realized that he 
was, in fact, looking at some sort of window. But he 
couldn't see anything besides the blurry lines of 
golden light that seemed to be seeping from its edges. 

"Hello?" he called out. "No picture! No sound!"

No answer. He cleared his throat, and, just for kicks, 
tested the strength of each of the handcuffs with a 
few experimental tugs. 

Yup. He was handcuffed alright. Next.

"Hello?!"

This time someone might have heard him because he 
heard what sounded like a huge circuit breaker being 
thrown in the distance at the same instant that an 
almost blinding set of lights came flooding through 
the window. It was so bright that he had to close his 
eyes and turn away.

"Christ... trying to blind me?" he muttered under his 
breath.

Once again he struggled to adjust his eyes to another 
new lighting condition, searching the glare to see if 
there was anything to be found behind the window. He 
wasn't at all prepared for what his eyes finally fixed 
upon.

Scully - a much thinner Scully than he had last seen 
more than eight weeks ago - was just on the other side 
of the window, her hands cuffed to a chair just as his 
were, her head lolling to the side against her 
shoulder. Her hair appeared to be even longer and it 
fell like a curtain over her face. She was either 
asleep or unconscious.

"Oh, Scully..." he whimpered quietly, his heart 
seeming to skip a few painful beats at the sight of 
her as his throat tightened around a lump. 

He had barely processed this particular visual 
portrait of her when she appeared to startle awake, 
her body literally jerking and her head snapping 
backward from its resting position. He heard her moan 
and became aware that he must have sound as well as 
picture, his earlier snide request fulfilled.

He tried to look more closely and realized that she 
was hooked up to some kind of small machine. He 
counted two barely visible electrodes attached to her 
left and right clavicle, thin lines running out of 
them and into the digital device. He assumed that 
these were the source of whatever impulse shocked her 
out of her previous state.

"SCULLY! Scully, can you hear me?!" He yelled at the 
top of his lungs but saw no visible reaction from her 
through the window. Precisely the opposite, in fact. 
Her head began to drift back toward her shoulder, and 
he watched her arms and legs relax as she slumped 
slightly in the chair.

"Listen to me! This isn't part of the deal!" he 
screamed into the darkness. "You told me you'd let her 
go! What the hell is going on?"

As if on cue, a man stepped directly in front of the 
window on the other side, his eyes seeming to bore 
directly into Mulder's. He was tall, with a close-
cropped black beard that looked to be peppered with 
dashes of gray, and he wore a well-tailored gray shirt 
with an even darker gray tie fixed in a full Windsor 
knot. His eyes were dark and difficult to see, but 
from what he could make out of his face, Mulder 
guessed that he was of Mediterranean or North African 
descent. 

Mulder couldn't help his mouth from gaping just a 
little at the unexpected appearance of this imposing 
figure.

The dark man on the other side of the window picked up 
a small stage microphone and brought it to his lips.

"Welcome, Mr. Mulder. My name is Aled. Shall we 
begin?"

END PART 5 - CONTINUED IN PART 6

Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who's been 
patiently waiting for this part, and my apologies for 
the long delay. I'll try to do better. As always, 
thank you for the encouraging comments and emails.

And yes, I think this is now AU since the novelization 
of IWTB tells us Mulder and Scully have been living in 
the unremarkable house for at least five years. I'm 
sure they were having better times there than they've 
had so far in my universe, so it's probably for the 
best. In my universe, however, their living spaces are 
much less messy and they have tasteful solid-color 
duvets.