SUMMARY: MSR/A/Gunmen Story.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Never were. Don't want the responsibility. Property of 1013 Productions and Fox. This publication is protected under the "Fair Use" statutes.
 

"You can buy God
It's Monday
you slither down
the greasy pipe
so far so good
no one saw you..."

"Joe the Lion" by David Bowie, copyright 1977/Bewlay/Fleur Music BMI
 

New York City
October 13, 1998

"She's the one we want."

"Why her?"

"She has the skills necessary and the proper psychological makeup for this."

"What if she won't accept the position?"

"She will."
 

Temple Ramat Zion, Reform Judaism
Mission Hills, CA
October 27, 1998

I didn't want to do this. I did not want to put on a Bat Mitzvah for my daughter that cost more than the national debt and took half a year off my life. I'm not a partygiver by nature. Dinner with close friends, sure. A bash for 150? Forget it.

I'm glad I ignored my instincts and went with this.

Miranda, my 13-year-old daughter, new Bat Mitzvah, swing dancer extraordinaire and all around great kid, was so deliriously happy over the whole event that all the misgivings I had had about sending my Visa card into meltdown and acquiring 17 new grey hairs-yes, I counted them-floated out the window when she went up and did the ceremony this morning. I was so terribly proud of her I could burst.

The weirdest part of the whole event was that I was-yes!--enjoying myself.  And Eric, my husband and her beamingly proud daddy, had thrown off his usual intense reserve and plunged into the festivities with a fervor I had not witnessed in the two decades we had been together. Some of his colleagues had come up to me and asked if Eric was all right. I assured them he was not, but whatever insanity had possessed him, I was not going to take issue with it. I was worried that I was going to have to do the entire hosting thing myself while he and his colleagues discussed some of the more arcane concepts of Java programming in a corner. This is not an aspect of his personality that pisses me off-he's a very private person and he tends to be shy-and I long ago decided that in the social arena I could pick up the slack. God knows my shortcomings are present in copious quantities, and he more than makes up for them.

There seems to be this concept floating about in pop psychology that the only way for a relationship to work is to have two "complete" humans enter into it totally of their own accord. Bullshit. There is no way I would be complete if I didn't have this wonderful person, and by extension, our much-loved daughter, gracing my life. I would be nothing without the people
in my life, Eric, Miranda, and our friends and families. We loved our work and we needed it. We were comfortably middle class-enough money to take the occasional vacation, own a modest home, and, if you stretched it a lot, enough to pay for this shindig that we were standing in the midst of. And the people around us made the expense and the headaches and the preparation more than worth it.

"Hey." Eric strolled up next to me, grin ridiculously wide, a beer bottle encased in one hand.

"Hey yourself. I'm beat."

"Me too, but in case you haven't noticed, it's almost over."

"What the hell time is it?"

"Let's see-10:53:31." (Software engineers always know the exact time. It's the watches).

"You're kidding. This thing's over in six and a half minutes." I did a quick visual of the room. Sure enough, plates, glasses, silverware, beer and wine bottles, soda cans were all vanishing into trash bags. We had already said goodbye to a fair number of guests, but time as a concept seemed to have eluded me today.

The DJ then announced that this would be the Last Dance.

"Want to?"

"Why not? We've already made fools of ourselves out there today, why not?"

"I just hope he's not going to be playing that Donna Summer disco crap song that they play at the end of every catered event on the planet."

The DJ piped in the opening lines of Donna Summer's "Last Dance."

"Oh, what the hell. We didn't do disco in its first incarnation. Why not live a little?"

We did.

"You know, Eric, we do a nice kid."

"Yeah, and we don't do a bad party, either."
 

Mission Hills, CA
October 28, 1998

We slept the sleep of the dead. Miranda and a few of her close friends decided at the end that a post party was in order, and Eric and I were not in the spirit to refuse her. While we were mostly looking forward to peace and quiet after a day of intense emotion, not to mention noise, we figured that while the stereo was kicked up to 38, we could take advantage of the
situation and not provide any additional entertainment for the kiddies and at the same time, have more fun than humans should probably be allowed.

Daylight was streaming in our room by the time I found it possible to even move my eyelids into a semi-open position. I blinked at the clock on my nightstand. My vision sucks, so I thought I'd better grab my glasses and make certain that what I thought it said was not really true.

11:21. Jesus. The last time I slept that late...forget it.

Coffee is always a necessity, never an option, so I padded out into the living room, making an effort not to trip over the half dozen sleeping beauties gracing my floor. There's no way to get from the hallway to the kitchen without going through the living room so I had to make an effort not to kill myself on the way. Plus I had promised the parents of these girls that I would return them in one piece, so falling on top of them and causing serious bodily harm was not an occurrence I cared to entertain.

Not that I would probably have damaged them much-I'm barely 5'1" and only slightly over a hundred pounds. Not exactly a giant among women. With the exception of my daughter and her one friend, these guys could take me in a dark alley with no apparent effort.

Upon seeing that I had finally risen from the dead, our six cats and the dog began to demand food service. I must really have been zonked if I hadn't heard them screaming for their breakfast. I'm up at 6 on weekdays and they feel that it is their God-given right to be fed as soon as my alarm clock shrieks.

"Hi, I'm Allison, I'll be your waitress this morning," I muttered as I filled bowls and dumped coffee into the filter basket. While showering seemed to require more effort than I had energy, I figured that with Eric-don't ask me what he does in the bathroom, but whatever it is, it takes him four times longer to get ready than I ever take, and that's on a bad hair day for me-and a half dozen 13-year-old girls in queue for the shower, I'd better take advantage of the situation.

 Later, sitting on the front porch, languishing in the sunlight of autumn, sipping my coffee and smoking a Marlboro light, I felt like I was the most blessed woman on the planet. No, in the universe.
 

Monday, October 29, 1998
Mission Hills, CA

Work time. I love my job. I may be the last person on the planet to say that without sarcasm. Besides, how was I ever going to pay for this past weekend if I didn't?

I was working as a realtime captioner/interpreter for deaf students at a major university. For those members of our audience not in the know, realtime captioning is taking down spoken material stenographically, sending it through a variety of translation routines in the stenowriter and a notebook computer, and having the English text appear on the screen of the notebook computer. This enabled the student to follow the lecture as it was happening, and provided them with a transcript for their review. I had stumbled upon this job four years ago, and it saved my life.

Prior to working in a university setting, I had been a court reporter in the juvenile courts. I heard cases in the dependency division, and I never stopped being amazed at the volume of work. It was a hideous job. For years I felt as if I could hopefully make a difference in the lives of children which hung in the balance of the courtroom judges I worked for, felt that maybe in a peripheral way, some kid had a chance. I was very successful at separating the professional from the personal, and I took pride in that.

I was successful for a time, anyway.   I was pushing my 10th anniversary on the job. I was not a happy camper in my work, but I figured it was just burnout-I mean, 10 years, anybody can get burned out on anything. However, Eric began to observe some behavior abnormalities on my part. If I had half an ounce of introspection-which I do not-I would have been alerted as well that something was circling the drain here.

I had always been a mediocre housekeeper (and believe me when I say I'm being generous here), but I began to obsess about housecleaning. Water glasses on the coffee table were grabbed up with no regard as to whether the owner had completed consumption. Laundry was not allowed to lay in the basket, waiting for a cat to mush it into a comfortable shape where it could enjoy a pleasant nap. Dishes left in the sink were enough to send me into a panic attack. It sounds amusing in retrospect, but at the time, it was anything but funny.

I also began to drink a lot more. I had always enjoyed having a margarita with friends here and there, or a beer at a picnic. At first it was having a couple drinks when I got home. Jose Cuervo was on my shopping list a lot more often than he used to be, but it wasn't like I was downing the entire fifth in a day.

Then I began to order drinks at lunch. Fortunately, I was never too out of it to work competently, but I should have been aware that having a daily margarita at noon was not the way I had always done things. Still, I wouldn't take my daughter in the car if I had been drinking, and by the time I was ready to head for home, I was sober again, and under normal circumstances, I didn't have to leave the house in the evening. Looking back, I was so damn lucky.

The incident that brought it all home was one morning when I thought Eric was asleep, forgetting that he had an early project meeting. I went to the liquor shelf in the pantry and poured myself a shot of tequila-by now I was drinking before breakfast, when all of a sudden Eric's voice pierced the quiet hum of the refrigerator and the sound of cats crunching Cat Chow.

"I think you're going to call in sick today," was all he said. My responses that I had a full caseload to write that day did not deter him.

"Actually, I think you'd better call in sick from now on. You're not going back to work."

I blinked at him unknowingly, too dazed to really register what he had just said. Eric was not in the habit of ordering me about-for one thing, it was generally ineffective and for another, ordering people around in the house was my job. I just started crying, and crying, and crying...

We sat for many hours. It slowly began to dawn on my very dense brain that maybe I had just seen too many burned, bruised, beaten and battered kids, too many fucked up adults, just too much of everything. Eric encouraged me to take a couple months off, figure out what I wanted to do next.

I knew I couldn't do that. I loved reporting and it was pretty much all I knew how to do at this point. And I knew that sitting at home would just make me feel even worse. I am a slave to routine and I always was, and work was a huge part of my life.
I started taking sign language classes at adult education, just for fun. I really learned to love ASL. I took some classes in Latin and Greek as well, thought about career possibilities in language...

I received my certification as an ASL interpreter and began to work in the community colleges freelance. My reputation was getting established and I began to get calls for work from people, which was flattering and financially satisfying. I had stopped drinking except for the occasional birthday party or picnic. Life was becoming good again. I had been out of work for nearly a year, and doing interpreting meant a cut in pay, but slowly, I was mending back together.

Then I got a call from Andrew Goldberg, Disabilities Director at a major university. And that's when life began to really come back together. Andrew had learned through the interpreter grapevine that I had done Latin and Greek-would I like to come to work for him? He was really doing a sell when I went to interview with him. I laughed and assured him that he had me as soon as he called, and the fact that there was a lot of good coffee available on campus only made the prospect more attractive. Not to mention having regular work and not having to worry about how many clients I had each semester.

One of the problems vexing Goldberg was that he had a student who was oral deaf, no sign language, and wanted to take a Latin class. He was a premedical student, very promising, but relying on notetakers was frustrating for him. Since I had court reporting skills, would I be willing to look into the possibility of doing some realtime captioning? He had found out about the technology at a conference he had attended and was willing to start a pilot program. I knew very little about realtime captioning, but I decided to go and check out software, go to some seminars.  Doing it on the university's dime made it all the more appealing, but I was so elated at the prospect of using my writing skills again I would have done it without any financial backing from them.

We launched the realtime captioning program in 1994, with very successful results. Soon we had five students utilizing the service and had hired two more court reporter types who had had it with the court system and doing insurance defense depositions. I also did ASL interpreting for students who had a preference for its use.

I loved being in academia. For one, I was in a largely peripheral position and I didn't have to be enmeshed in the university's politics. And I partook in a vast array of stimulating subject matter. The job was physically tiring but I loved it. And I actually had time for my daughter and husband. Life was good.

The students I worked with were terrific. In particular, there was my first student, Rick, and he and I became friends as well as participants in the educational process. When he was accepted into medical school, he requested that I work with him for the program. I was thrilled and flattered. Finally I could make a difference in someone's life. Which is what I have
  always wanted to do.
 

J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington, DC
October 29, 1998

AD Skinner smelled the acrid odor of cheap cigarettes as he entered his inner sanctum.

"I don't recall that you were invited."

"Ah, but I came to let you know, we have found our 'technical support.'

"And this 'technical support' reports when?"

"Soon, Mr. Skinner. Very soon."
 

Mission Hills, CA
October 29, 1998
7:45 p.m.

Mondays are long days for me. I had not made it home until 6:30. Miranda had copious quantities of homework-schools have long since forgotten that these are kids they are educating-so dinner was my gig. Chicken, salad, potatoes, the basics. The day's transcripts were not too ragged, so I didn't have a lot of proofing to do.

Eric called at 7:15 to inform me that enough was enough, he was leaving and would be home around 8. I timed the meal so that it would pop out around that time. And I could probably finish proofing before he came home.

Before he disconnected, he told me he loved me.

Once I start working, I tend to lose track of time. I looked at my watch-a Hanukkah gift from Eric two years ago-and noticed that it was already 8:20. Well, not time to panic yet. This is Southern California and traffic is, at the risk of making a gross understatement, unpredictable. I set the oven to 'warm' and finished my transcript.

8:40. No Eric. Now I was beginning to get mildly worried. I grabbed a cigarette and my lighter and headed for the porch. I had now finished proofing. Miranda was headed for the shower.

9:00. Now I was sweating. Eric is nothing if not dependable, and although he doesn't generally carry his cellphone, he would stop and call me if he was going to be seriously delayed. I lit another cigarette. And another. And another.

It doesn't matter what time LAPD pulled up and informed me that my husband had been pronounced DOA after a hit and run with a semi truck on the freeway. For me, time stopped in that moment and faded to black.
 

October 30, 1998
New York City

"We can now move forward on this?"

"Yes."
 

Northridge, CA
October 30, 1998

Jewish funerals are a bitch. They have to take place within 24 hours of death. Somewhere in the black haze of last night, I called my best friend Robyn and she gathered all my friends around, organizing them to call our families and coworkers and friends. Miranda's friends were there, too, but my recollection of it all is not clear. I know everyone was there. I don't know what I said and to whom. The only words I clearly remember were from my father-in-law:

"He was supposed to say Kaddish for me. Not the other way around."

Is there a prayer for souls that breathe but are dead?
 

Mission Hills, CA
November 4, 1998

My first Sunday as a widow. Miranda's first without her father. We decided to see a movie. I don't remember what we saw. We did go to Starbucks later, but when we sat down to talk, all we could do was cry. We got our drinks to go.

At home, we put on "The Simpsons" so that we wouldn't watch it, either. Miranda and I would try to talk, but we inevitably broke down and wept. I hadn't been able to put my contact lenses in for days.

Eric loved "The Simpsons."

I should be asking Miranda if she has homework. But right now I don't care if she does. We just want our husband and father back. We want our lives back. We want to be whole again.

"Mom, do you want to watch "The X-files"?"

Oh God. Another show Eric loved.

"Whatever." I was in no position to make decisions of any sort, even ones on that mundane a level. I couldn't think. I couldn't sleep. Basically I could drink coffee and smoke. I think the cats and the dog were still being fed.

I had not answered the phone since Saturday. Miranda, however, in spite of her anguish, was still 13, and the phone was her lifeline. When it rang around 9:00 that night, she picked up.

"Mom, it's for you."

"Please ask if I can call back."

"He says no. He has to talk to you now."

"Who is it?"

"He won't tell me."

My temper had grown as short as my fingernails and the cigarette I was holding. I grabbed the receiver and without waiting for the caller to identify, I launched into a full-frontal attack.

"Excuse me, but my daughter has answered the phone in the manner I have instructed her, and her age does not give you the excuse to be rude to her. If you can't respond to a reasonable request, then I don't care who you are. Good night!" I slammed down the talk button in a fashion not healthy for modern electronics.

God, it rang again. What the fuck?!

"Who is this?" I demanded.

The voice on the other end was measured, seemingly unfazed by my outburst of temper.

"My name is Walter Skinner, FBI."

"This is a joke, right? And it's a bad one. I'm not in the mood for this shit, so let's just say this call never happened and we'll both avoid a lot of trouble."

"I'll hang up. Dial *69. And here is my number in the event that doesn't work."

I hung up the phone, a little less harshly this time, thinking that I might have to hold on to that phone for a

"Changed your mind about caller ID yet, Mom?" It was Miranda, and for the first time in days, I saw a hint of the sense of humor she had inherited from her father. It was a lame joke, but we both started to laugh a bit.

"So anyway, who was that, Mom?"

"Can you believe, this joker said he was from the FBI?! I mean, stuff like this only happens on TV!"

By now we were laughing.

"And can you believe he actually left me a number to call him back? Like I'd be stupid enough to fall for this?"

"Oh, Mom, let me call him back, I love prank calls. Let me!"

"Be my guest. He deserves it." Anything for a laugh at this point, no matter how lame.

Miranda dialed *69, but her faintly amused expression changed abruptly.

"Mom, he wasn't kidding...and he wants to talk to you."
 

November 5, 1998
Southern California

I was freaked.

It had been a short phone call...a job offer. Mr. Skinner indicated that he found out about me through the university I worked for, and that through a friend, he knew Andrew Goldberg. This didn't shock me-technical support for the deaf community is a small one, and everybody tends to know everybody else.

I am not a suspicious person by nature. I tend to take people at their word.

And in the world of captioning and interpreting, job offers tend to come via word of mouth, through informal channels, and to get a call on a weekend night was, while a bit unusual, not unheard of. It was stated to me that the individual in need of service was a medical doctor who had recently become profoundly deaf. Her signing was still very rudimentary, and she would need both captioning and interpreting support. He also indicated that she had been presented with a number of possible candidates and felt that I would be best suited to her needs.

Like I said, I believe people.

The job sounded good. It was full-time, regular hours, and the money...this is where I should have been suspicious. I was already a state government employee. I knew what they paid. The Fibbies were basically offering to double my salary.

I was also in a terrible position to make a major life decision like that. I wasn't sure that I wanted to leave my friends and students. Miranda had a lot of friends, too, and she might not like the idea of such a major shift after such a horrible loss in our lives. I hadn't even thought about what I would do about my house. Eric had had some life insurance, enough that I could pay off the house, but I wasn't sure I wanted to stay in it over the long haul, or even if I could ultimately afford it. I wasn't thinking that far ahead. I had to return to work that morning and that was about as far as I could get at that point. I figured I was doing well if I could pull off a day of working without going to pieces.

Miranda and I would talk later.
 

November 9, 1998
Los Angeles, CA

Friday. Half day of work. As difficult as it was to do my job, performing it was a comfort.

It would have been considerably more of a comfort had I not had the possibility of a job change looming in front of me-one I was not certain I wanted, and not certain that I didn't. I was still lost in a thick, impermeable black haze. Rick, my student, was tremendously supportive and gentle. He contended that my mental state had not affected my ability to sign or caption, although I would definitely have disagreed.

Andrew Goldberg, my boss, had been at Eric's funeral, but I really had not spoken to him since then. I had sent him an e-mail stating that I would be returning to work ASAP-it would help me emotionally and besides, I needed the money; Eric's will had not gone through probate and our joint funds were all frozen at the moment. Andrew and I had always gotten on well; he left me alone to do my job and I didn't bug him unless it was really important. This was my concept of the ideal boss.

Five minutes before the end of the lab I was captioning, I got a page. Let me say that I totally hate pagers. I have always had the sensation of being on a leash, and I make a better cat than I do a dog. It was Andy's number, and there was a code "89" after it-meaning, see me ASAP. When the lab ended, I made plans with Rick and his fiancee Jennifer to get together with
Miranda and me for dinner Saturday night, broke down my equipment, and trucked on over to Andy's office on the other side of campus.

Captioning equipment is not light; the packed weight is in excess of 50 pounds. I was still feeling as if my limbs were made of lead. There was also the knot in the pit of my stomach, and it seemed as if I were dragging all twelve labors of Hercules behind me. The knot in my stomach was not due to any sense of foreboding; I simply felt like shit all the time now.

"I think I need to know what's going on," Andy greeted me, looking more puzzled than angry.

"Rick complaining? He hasn't said anything to me."

"No, Rick is not complaining. I just want to know, why didn't you tell me you were taking another job?"

"Andy, I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about."

"Ally, I got a call from an Assistant Director Walter Skinner at the FBI in Washington D.C. this morning, and he was inquiring as to when your final day of work at the University was going to be."

I swallowed.

"Okay, Andy, I did get a call from this guy who calls himself Skinner this weekend-Sunday night, to be exact. He offered me a job. That's the last I heard from him, and I haven't called him back since. I've made no decisions on my employment situation. I've made no decisions on ANYTHING, for that matter. Like I really need my life to get more screwed up at this point."

Andy frowned, then breathed out. He didn't say anything for a few minutes, and neither did I. I think the term "pregnant pause" was invented for moments like this.

"I know you love working with Rick, and you are immensely valuable to us here. But perhaps you should consider this opportunity."

"Yeah, but I hate cold weather." We both laughed.

"What do you know from cold, Ally? You're from Marin County!"

"That's how I know from cold, guy."

I slumped down in the "guest chair" in his office, and he walked toward the window and didn't look at me.

"Ally, look. Getting out of here might be really good for you and Miranda. Give you a chance to not have everything you see, hear, taste, smell, remind you of Eric. The East Coast is a whole different world. And they're probably paying you a lot more than I am."

"Andy, I've never lived away from the California coast. I love it here. This is home."

"You came here from up north."

"Yeah, but the Pacific is still on the west side. My mother is still in Sausalito. My brothers are still in-state. I don't see them all that often, but we do get together for holidays and for summer break."

"You have heard of airplanes, haven't you?"

"Andy-God, this is hard. I have to admit, it's been really tempting. Eric left me some, but I'm not going to be a wealthy widow. I still have to educate Miranda. I love my job here, you know that. Always have. And I love Rick."

"Have you talked to Miranda?"

"I did."

"What's her take on this?"

"Well, she doesn't want to leave her friends. But she thinks it might be cool to live someplace other than California." Unlike her mother, I added silently.

"Virginia is really nice. I think you'd like it."

"Does it snow?"

"Some."

Yecch. I hate precipitation in nearly any form.

"Ally. Take the job."

"Let me get this straight-you're booting me out the door. I lost my husband a week and a half ago, and now I'm being kicked out of my job?! You want the blood of my first born as well?"

"Ally. I am not firing you. Not at all. But go to D.C. You're the finest captioner/interpreter I know. Show 'em how good you are. We already know here."

I would not know the circumstances of this strange conversation for a long time to come.
 

November 10, 1998
Mission Hills, CA

"Skinner." Long distance sounds a lot closer than it used to.

"Hello, Mr. Skinner. This is Allison Gerstein."

"Yes, Ms. Gerstein."

"Mr. Skinner, your offer is very tempting, but I have some logistical problems here. First, my husband's will will not be probated for another 90 days. I'm low on cash here, and paying for a move is going to be a problem."

"No, it won't. That will be taken care of."

"I have animals."

"Why should that be a problem?"

"No, you don't get it. I have ANIMALS. Six cats, a large dog, a hamster, and a 100-gallon aquarium full of tropical fish. I'm not going anywhere without them."

"It will be taken care of."

"I don't have a place to live, and I don't know the area, and I don't even know where to begin to look."

"For the time being, there are townhouses nearby. A rental will be arranged for you. The neighborhood is fine, and the schools are good. Then you can decide where you would like to buy a home, and we have plenty of places that you can be referred to for financing."

"Assuming I like the job and I like the area."

"Oh, I think you will."

"One more thing, Mr. Skinner. Who the hell am I going to be working for?"

"You will report to me."

"No, I mean who am I working for? The person I will be with day in and day out?"
 
 

November 10, 1998
Mission Hills, CA

"Any mail, sweetie?"

"I'll check."

Miranda arrived back with two magazines-a computer journal and an astronomy magazine. I was going to have to remember to cancel his subscriptions. I just couldn't yet bring myself to do it.

"Good, no bills."

"Yeah, but you got this." Big fat manila envelope. No return address. Papers from the lawyer? No postage, though. Weird.

"Think it's a bomb?"

"'Randa, that's not funny. No, it just feels like a huge bundle of papers."

"So, you gonna open it or are you just gonna stare at it all day?"

"What the hell. Let's knock ourselves out."

I opened it carefully-I really don't worry about letter bombs, but if these were legal papers, I didn't want to rip them.

On the top was a "welcome" letter, the sort you get from a new employer, signed "Walter S. Skinner." Weird. I had only spoken to him four hours prior.

Underneath was what looked like a Dewar's profile. The photograph showed a pretty, redheaded woman with a full red mouth and blue eyes. She did not smile. She looked like she was wearing a severely cut navy jacket and a grey shell underneath.

"So here's my victim...Dr. Dana K. Scully. Let's learn a little about the mysterious Dr. Scully, shall we?"

Miranda grabbed the sheaf of papers out from under me-a habit she has not given up, despite the fact that her infancy is long past-and began to read.

"Let's see, Dr. Dana Katherine Scully, born February 23, 1964, BS in Physics from the University of Maryland, MD from Johns Hopkins-is that a typo, Mom?"

"'Fraid not. Obviously a brainy girl."

"You were a brainy girl, Mom."

"Not that brainy, kid."

"She looks like she's constipated."

"Sorta does, doesn't she?" We both enjoyed a laugh at our own sophomoric humor.

"And she needs to change her makeup. What she's doing now does nothing for her." Miranda, unlike myself, is very visual in her orientation to the world. Things like doing one's cosmetics in a becoming fashion is very important to her. "As you would say, Mom, great raw material, though."

"Okay, okay, gimme. I need to read. Go burn up a phone line somewhere."

I put on a pot of decaf, grabbed my cigarettes, and took the papers to my back patio. It was very warm for November-even SoCal gets cold in the winter-and it suddenly occurred to me that very soon, I would not be sitting on this patio anymore. I would not be in the house I had called home for over 10 years. I would have to carry with me in my head the memories of
Miranda scurrying about on her tricycle, romping in her doughboy pool with her friends, the barbecues we had had, the nights we sat outside and just watched whatever stars were visible through the L.A. smog...my eyes prickled with tears again. I had wept more in the last 12 days than in the previous 12 years of my life.

Focus, Allison, focus.

Dr. Scully was 8 1/2 years younger than me, which was somewhat encouraging; I tended to work well with younger individuals. She was the third of four kids. She'd been a compulsive overachiever all her life from what I could tell. She'd graduated summa cum laude from Umaryland, and was fourth in her class of 200 at Johns Hopkins. Instead of pursuing a career in medicine, however, she decided that she wanted to work in law enforcement. She went to work for the FBI and was on her way up the ladder there. That is, until 1992. At that time, she was partnered with an agent named Fox Mulder, head of the "X-files" division. Apparently he was something of a persona non grata at that point in time, and she had been sent to spy on him, to undermine his work into the paranormal and other things that defied normal explanations. It was felt that her scientific background would keep this individual in line and eventually run him out of the organization.

Only it didn't happen that way. From what I was reading, it appeared that she had become an ally with him, and she had given him credibility. They were apparently some sort of dynamic duo, and while her disagreements with him were frequent and myriad, anybody who dared to come between them found them to be joined like a pair of scissors-blades may be going out in
different directions, but get between them and you would be mortally punished.

Okay. Different, certainly, but where did I come in? I had to keep reading to find out-I think this package was my first exercise in dealing with what was to come.

A synopsis of their work together was written, Cliffs Notes version. But even in the abbreviated, rather sterile writing, I found myself catching my breath in my throat.

And I thought juvenile court had been horrible.

Where I figured in didn't become obvious until the summary of the last case they had worked together. Dr. Scully had been the victim of some obscure virus. She had also been cured of it by an injection of an equally obscure vaccine. Her recovery had been without incident until approximately six weeks later, at which time she had noticed an attack of tinnitus. When the
tinnitus did not abate, she consulted with an otorhinolaryngologist, who discovered that not only did she have tinnitus, but the hair cells in her cochleae were dying off rapidly. Another four weeks and the woman could not hear. She had become profoundly deaf in both ears. There had been some damage to the auditory nerve as well, meaning that hearing aids would be
useless. Cochlear implantation was a possibility, but implantation cannot restore normal hearing, especially speech discrimination.

Field agent. Well, past tense. Being deaf automatically threw her out of the field. Arrangements had been made for her to teach new recruits forensic pathology at the training facility at Quantico, pending suitable technical support. She was apparently taking some sign language classes, but she would also require captioning support, due to both the novelty of the language and the technical nature of the job. In addition to my duties as her "technical support," I was going to be responsible for instructing her in sign language, and for anyone she worked with who wished to learn.

Maybe this could be an awesome position. Or it could be a nightmare. Or both...

Modern Day Alcestis

"...the weather's grim
ice on the cages
me, I'm Robin Hood
 and I puff on my cigarette
panthers are steaming
stalking
screaming..."

"Blackout" by David Bowie, copyright 1977 Bewlay/Fleur Music BMI

November 24, 1998
Mission Hills, CA

It was brutal to leave.

I remember sitting with Robyn in my empty living room, the last of the boxes waiting to be loaded into the moving van. We were nursing a bottle of premixed Jose Cuervo margaritas, and after a lot of crying, laughing, crying again, and then crying and laughing simultaneously, we grew quiet. "Robyn, why do I get the feeling I'm being drafted?" I was kidding, but it was kidding on the square, and she knew it.

She didn't say anything for a while.

"Maybe you were."
 

November 26, 1998
Alexandria, VA

It was sleeting when Miranda and I arrived at National. I observed the scene with total panic-they expected people to drive in this shit? My Nissan Sentra was on the moving van, though, and I was to look for someone with a sign reading "Gerstein." I had this recurring nightmare of there being 50 signs and 50 different people with "Gerstein" written on each sign.

"At least our name isn't Smith," I joked to Miranda.

"Haven't met any Jews named Smith, Mom."

"I'm sure they're out there."

"See anybody bearing our name?"

"Not yet."

"Well, they're supposed to meet us at the gate, and as far as I know, this isn't a sterile concourse."

"I'm starved."

"Fine, Starbucks is across the way. Grab me a latte. Please." I handed her a ten.

I slumped down in one of the hard, miserable chairs that pass for airport seating. I was exhausted. I had slept very little in recent history, partly for emotional reasons, partly for practical ones. Throwing a move together, even with support, is tough. Throwing it together in two weeks is one step beyond impossible, at least if one is trying to keep a normal semblance of living. For the time being, I had abandoned normal life as a concept.

The gate area began to clear out. Signs for the next outbound flight replaced the announcement that ours had arrived. Where the hell was our escort? I really was not in the mood for this.

"Allison Gerstein?"

I had closed my eyes, and at the sound of my name, I snapped them open, as if I had been sleepwalking and suddenly realized that I wasn't in my bed.

"Yes?"

"You are Allison Gerstein, are you not?"

There were two individuals standing near me. The one who spoke was tall, thin, with a thick rush of dark hair. The voice was soft, but it was wary. He was dressed in Levis and a grey henley. Shit, that was what Eric was wearing the last time I saw him alive...At least this guy had a black leather jacket, where Eric would have carried a blue front zip sweatshirt...focus, Allison, focus.

The other person was the woman from the photograph-Dr. Scully. She looked younger and somewhat softer in person than in her photograph. Maybe it was the ponytailed hair, the black leggings and boots, and the long jade green sweater that did it.

"And you would be?"

The badges came out at that point. "Special Agent Fox Mulder, FBI. And this is Special Agent Dana Scully."

I signed my name, and indicated that I was happy to see them, if a bit surprised; I had not been told who was going to meet me at the airport, but I just assumed that some poor overworked and underpaid newbie would be there.

A look passed between them. It was as if they could communicate without a word, or a sign.

Dr. Scully spoke. "I am very sorry about your husband."

I blanched for a moment, then relaxed-of course they would know that. It wasn't exactly private domain.

"Thank you. Here comes my daughter now. Miranda, meet Mr. Mulder and Dr. Scully." I signed it as well as saying it in English.

"Hi Miranda." Mulder was giving her a lopsided grin and shook her hand.

Dr. Scully turned to him, arched an eyebrow, and gave just the ghost of a smile.

"I think she's too mature for you, Mulder." The speech was still quite clear, but she hadn't been deaf all that long; her consonants were still distinguishable.

"Here's your latte, Mom. Can we get out of here now?"

"I could seriously get behind that. Most of our stuff is on the moving van, but I have all my work equipment as carryon, so we need to ransom our baggage."

"You're assuming it wasn't rerouted to a third-world nation," Mulder kidded.

"Wouldn't matter. I've only got two packs of Marlboro Lights in there, and according to Miranda here, my wardrobe would disgrace the Goodwill."

I was really tired now. I just wanted to get the luggage out of hock, go to wherever it was we were supposed to be staying until our stuff came, and shower until my skin came off.

Then maybe I would sleep. Yeah, right.

Having a large guy around has its uses. Having a large guy around who is willing to schlepp your luggage is even better. We trudged out to the parking area-and it occurred to me that I had never been so fucking cold in my life. Oh God. I assumed they had heat in their car. It was a standard issue Taurus type beast-the sort of car that screams "generic fleet model."

"I'm sorry, I'm not feeling very talkative right now." They seemed to be nice enough, and since I had to work with Dr. Scully, I didn't want them to think I was being rude. Both of them just nodded, and we ventured out into the sleety mess that was
Washington DC.

The roads were extremely slippery and traffic was moving at a crawl. And this was Sunday night. I cringed at the concept of commuting in this crap. I'd been to Tahoe-once. That was the extent of my experience with snow.

I was intrigued by this pair.   They would occasionally use a few signs, but mostly, they just looked at one another, their eyes eloquent. They did not seem disturbed by the weather, but then, they were East Coast kids.

Finally Mulder spoke up. "We've got a place for you to stay until your stuff gets here. It's not exactly the Hilton, but it's got some of the best takeout in the city and the company is, well, you'll see."

"Sounds fine. Just so long as they've had their rabies shots."

Another look passed between them in the front seat. Then they burst into muffled laughter.

"So where is this place?"

"Southeast DC."
 

The Offices of the Lone Gunmen
November 26, 1998

Southeast DC, even in the dark, bore more than a faint resemblance to the Tenderloin or Watts, except that it never sleeted in San Francisco or Los Angeles. The architecture tended to range from Early 20th Century Bombed Out to PostModern Convenience Store with Bars on Windows. The few people roaming the streets did not look as if they were there voluntarily.

Stepping out of the car, I was assaulted by the aroma of cheese, grilled meat, and onions raised to the nth degree. My nose had not acknowledged edibles for weeks now. It occurred to me that I might be hungry.

"Hey, only the finest for the tourists," Mulder had spotted me in my reverie.

"I hope that place is as good as it smells. I'm famished."

He signed something to Dr. Scully I didn't recognize, but she obviously understood it.

"I'll take you upstairs. Mulder's getting us something to munch on." Still those clipped consonants. The effort involved in maintaining them was becoming obvious.

"Here, let me grab some cash-"I went for my purse. But he had already taken off.

The building was, to phrase it politely, rickety. There was some indoor-outdoor carpet in an orange shade that had been popular in the 70s. I was guessing at the original color; it appeared that carpet cleaning was not on the list of the landlord's priorities. The walls were painted with the government green color that had probably been purchased at surplus, and hadn't seen a paintbrush or a scrubbing brush, instead relying on grubby hands and accumulated time to age it to its present mucoid shade.

We knocked at an unmarked door. We then waited several moments while somebody either was having a lengthy debate about letting us in, or disabling the most elaborate security system known to God and man. We were greeted by a little gnome of a man whose taste in clothing went beyond the questionable straight into the abominable.

"Ah, the lovely Dr. Scully, and I presume these are our houseguests?"

This was our host?!

 "I'm Allison Gerstein, and this is my daughter Miranda."

"You do have some identification, don't you?"

"Say what?"

"I'm sorry, but one can't be too careful."

Some welcome.

Once again, I reached for my overlarge purse, starting to scramble through its contents, when Dr. Scully motioned for me to stop.

"Really, Frohike. They're who they say they are. And mind your manners." She shot him a look that would have frozen fire, and I saw the little man visibly wince. In an immediate shift of perspective, he gave a small bow and motioned us in, and towards the back of the room.

I had been married to a technical person. Our furniture looked like shit, but damned if we didn't have the best electronics we could afford.

The setup Eric and I had made us look like Luddites in the face of the junk that crammed this room. Eric, I thought, if you can see this now, you're having one hell of a software engineer's wet dream.

"Upstairs, please. This way," our host led us through two doorways and up a set of stairs that could not have complied with any building codes in any developed nation. Dr. Scully said to leave some of the luggage, that Mulder could bring it up when he got back. Frohike, as I had been informed his name was, was being quite solicitous in this manner, but he was a bit old
and small for the bellboy thing, and I hoped he was able to get up the steps without dropping anything. Particularly since among his parcels was my notebook computer, which only contained every bit of personal data I needed and my entire career.

"So Ms. Gerstein, did you meet Mulder, or did he ditch the lovely lady here again?"

"Mr. Mulder went next door to grab us some dinner. I'm sorry, but airline cuisine doesn't really do much for me, and I was starved."

"He'd better be buying for all of us," Frohike snorted. "And by the way, just call him Mulder. We all do. He prefers it that way. Even the lovely Dana Scully here calls him that-"

"Mr. Frohike, you don't mind if I let you in on a bit of deaf etiquette here, do you?" I said it gently, not wanting to offend my host, but more importantly, not wanting to alienate the person who would be my "boss".

"A deaf person is addressed in the first person, as if they were hearing. And when an interpreter like myself, voices for that person-some deaf people don't speak-I am that person, and I speak as if I was."

Frohike actually blushed and lowered his eyes. "I'm sorry, Ms. Gerstein-"

"It's Allison, please."

"Allison, my apologies, I just don't have a lot of experience in this area."

"I understand that, it's sort of a standard lecture for those of us who work with the deaf. So now I'll crawl down from my soapbox," I smiled to indicate that I did not bear any ill will.

We walked through what appeared to be office space converted into living areas, and even by my relaxed housekeeping standards, the place was a disaster. The kitchen was piled high with glasses, beer bottles, soda cans, pizza containers, wrappers from Burger King...I couldn't help but think that the state university I had worked for would have at least sprung for Motel 6.

The room we were shown to, however, was very clean and tidier than I'd ever left a room. It had a large screen TV set, a decent stereo, (JVC, I noted, the brand Eric always bought), a long sofa with two end tables, and a secretary-type desk with a small chair.

"We're putting you in Byers' room," Frohike indicated, and I must have looked puzzled. "There are three of us here. Byers is the one who cleans up."

"Cleans up what? Why didn't you say we had company?" A tall, very thin man with black plastic-rimmed glasses, very long platinum blonde hair, and a "Dead Kennedys" T-shirt that looked like it had seen better days strolled into the room. "Hiya Scully. These your friends?"

"I told you we would be putting up guests for a few days. Allison, Miranda, this is Langly. Langly, this is Dana's new interpreter, Allison Gerstein, and her daughter, Miranda."

"Hi. I sort of forgot, and anyway, we don't entertain much." He turned to Frohike. "Better looking than that picture you turned up." It took a moment to register that he was referring to a photograph of moi.

I turned to Dr. Scully, who had been silent for most of this exchange. I signed to her, "are we talking about a certain lack of social skills here?" She didn't understand some of the nuances of the sign, so I boiled it down into a simple statement. She leaned over and tried to whisper in my ear.

"You've seen the T-shirt, runs with scissors? I think he was the kid they designed it for."

"Langly, where's Byers?"

"He's in my room, we're trying to fix the piece of shit we got from the fair this morning."

"Well, tell him to come out and be friendly. Besides, Mulder is getting munchables and I'd best go down and listen for him."

"Is he buying?"

"He'd better be." Frohike had already started down the steps.

Langly was giving me the once over, and I doubt it had anything to do with my devastating good looks. I'm not a gargoyle, but I'm really short-less than 5'2"--, and my looks are undistinguished.

"Looks like the Bureau is getting a special on short redheads."

"Yeah, we're cheap but we're not easy." If he wanted to make comments, I could too.

My hair is somewhat red in color, but next to Dr. Scully, nothing doing. I would have suspected that hers came from better living through chemistry, but unless she had a really expert colorist, it was probably straight from Ma Nature. She had really clear cerulean blue eyes as well, and while it does say on my California driver's license that my eyes are blue, they're certainly not that wonderful Mediterranean shade. A girl could get a complex.

"You look a lot younger than 43, too." Okay, so he made a nice save there.

"Say things like that and I could be your best friend."

"Hey, I think my mom is really pretty." Miranda came to my defense.

"Didn't say she wasn't. Hey Byers!"

A good looking man of about my own age (I was guessing), dressed in a pair of navy dockers and a blue chambray Oxford shirt came into the room. Yeah, I could believe he was the only one in the bunch that cleaned.

"John Fitzgerald Byers. And you are?"

"Allison Gerstein, and my daughter Miranda."

He shook my hand politely. "I hope the room is adequate."

I was about to assure him that it was, when Miranda piped up, "You wouldn't happen to have cable, would you?" Eric and I had had little time for TV viewing and we had refused Miranda's continuous needling for cable. So whenever we went anywhere, her first question was always, "Do they have cable?"

Langly shook his head. "Sorry. No cable."

Byers smiled a bit. "We can do much better than cable. What did you want to watch?"

Miranda shrugged her shoulders. "MTV?"

"Okay, do you want the standard US broadcast, or do you want the archives, or would you like to see it in Japanese...you tell us." Langly didn't seem to think this was the least bit odd, but Miranda was in awe, and more than a bit suspicious.

"Uh...I think the US broadcast would be okay."

"You've got it." Byers went about tuning in for her.

"Got what?" Mulder and Frohike were coming in with piles of grease-soaked paper bags. Miranda was given a huge cheesesteak wrapped in white paper and an order of French fries that would feed an NFL team.

"Miranda, you are welcome to eat in here," Byers informed her, "but I think the rest of us are going to the kitchen, because Mulder always makes a mess." Mulder gave a glare, followed by a look reminiscent of my dog when she had misbehaved as a puppy.

"Don't you guys have any beer?" Mulder was scouring through the refrigerator.

"Hey, part of your end of this bargain was two cases of Corona. So where is it already?" Langly demanded.

"Hey, don't I always come through?"

"Don't make me answer that." Frohike gave a weary look. "Sorry, out of beer. But we have plenty of classic Coke, and for those of you who think you may need something more potent, there is J&B, of course."

"Frohike, how can you drink that shit?" Langly screwed up his face. "I thought our pal Jose Cuervo was here, besides."

"Jose Cuervo was here. Was being the operative word." Byers shot Langly and Mulder a withering look.

Dr. Scully tapped me on the sleeve. "What did Mulder do now?"

I signed to her that Byers accused Langly and Mulder of depleting the tequila stock on hand. She rolled her eyes, but she looked over at Mulder with the look that a mother gives a much-loved but slightly wayward child. I knew these two were partners, but they didn't act like partners, who would basically be business associates. They seemed to act like...lovers? Have to get more dirt on that. Maybe these guys knew.

Dinner conversation was pretty minimal; Dr. Scully and I agreed to meet on Tuesday morning and map out how we were going to work together. She and Mulder bailed as soon as they had accomplished consumption, citing tiredness.

"Yeah, right," Langly sneered as they left. "They probably haven't boffed each other for at least six hours."

Ah-ha. So they were partners in more than the professional sense. I'd have to get more details on this.

"Guys, your hospitality is deeply appreciated, but I have a lot to do tomorrow, and I think I'll head for our suite here."

"Now? We need a fourth for bridge." Frohike was nosing through a drawer as he spoke.

"Bridge? Are you serious? Now?"

"Well, you do know the game, don't you? You are, after all, Eleanor Rausch's daughter-"

"Whoa, Mr. Frohike, time out. How the hell do you know who my mother is?" This was making me very uneasy. My mother is not totally unknown, but her fame tends to be restricted to serious card playing circles.

"Well, Allison, forgive me for this, but Mulder asked us to check you out before you came. He was very concerned for Dana's safety, and-"

"Right, like I could harm anyone! Look at me! I'm barely over five feet tall and a hundred pounds! Do I look like a threat to anyone's life, limb or property? Jesus!" This whole situation was growing weirder by the moment, and I was beginning to really get upset.

Byers had come into the room while I was engaged in my small-scale tantrum. "Ms. Gerstein-"

"Allison, goddamit. I'm not formal."

"Allison, sit down with us and play cards. There is a lot to talk about, and a lot of it you're not going to believe."

"I'm a really crummy player. I didn't get my mother's card sense."

"Yes, but I'll bet you don't cheat like Mulder does."

END PART 1