Disclaimers in part 1
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"Dense with portents,
It is a labyrinth
Of furtive curves
And endless branching"

~~Heather Allen -- The Gift of Tongues~~
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SUNDAY, APRIL 4, 2000
LONE GUNMEN HQ
LATE NIGHT/EARLY MORNING

FROHIKE:

"I'm going to walk Sari down to her car," Byers announces to me.

"Make sure you put a jacket on, it's cold out there," I remind him.

I hear Sari say to him when they think I'm not paying attention, "Is he always this bad?"

Byers chuckles and says, "No, he's usually much worse." Well, somebody has to keep these guys in line, and it seems the task has fallen to me. So what if Langly makes clucking noises at me when I remind him to dress warmly, or watch the stairs, or ask if someone needs to use the facilities before we leave. If I didn't do it, nobody would.

My present Herculean labor is to get Blondie's sorry ass awake. If he thinks I'm going to take pity on him just because his chickadee's asleep in the next room, he's got another thing coming. Well okay, I will take pity on him. Later. Right now, we've got a situation on our hands, and he's supposed to be monitoring. I make up a full four-cup pot of espresso, God's gift to the night owls of the world. For Langly, I add a dollop of caramel and streak it with some steamed milk.

"Dude, wake up." I shake his shoulder.

"G'way," he mumbles, not bothering to open an eye.

"I've got a caramel macchiato for you," I trill at him, trying to tempt him.

"No." He swats at me like I'm a fly, or a particularly annoying mosquito. "G'way."

Okay, time for some hardball. "Langly, you can drink it, or I'll pour it over your nads. Your choice."

Highly unkind, but I get the desired result. He begins to stir, pushing strands of hair from his face. "You know, you're a real asshole, Frohike."

"Thank you." I take it as a compliment. He sits up, adjusts his glasses, and takes the steaming mug of macchiato from me. "Byers back yet?"

"Nope. Probably still with his chickadee." The front door closes.

"She is *not* my 'chickadee!'" Byers snaps at us. Both Langly and I are completely punchy, and burst out laughing. He can deny it all he wants, but his face turns bright red when we tease him. That's the fun thing about hassling Byers -- getting a rise out of him.

"Oh, relax, Byers. Don't get your shorts in a bunch." He should know we're just jerking his chain. It's how we show him we care about him.

"If you must know, we were just talking," he asserts grumpily. I'm sure they were. Right. After they've been snuggled up on the sofa for how many hours now? He glares at Langly. "Not all of us are completely hormone-driven." Yeah, Byers. Then how do you account for your obsession with Susanne?

Langly's sipping his macchiato, still half-asleep. "Huh? Did I do something here?"

The phone rings again. "It's gotta be Mulder. Or some telemarketer who really wants to hit a new low in obnoxiousness." I grab it. "Lone Gunmen, we deliver."

"Good, because I'm at the County Extension Office. You guys ready to pull out your magic bag of tricks?" It's Mulder. He sounds fine. "Scully found Jackson, did she call you?"

"She did. Langly, ready for some action?"

"Uh, yeah, sure." He's still not completely conscious, but he was the one that insisted he could pull this job off in his sleep. Now let's see if he can put his money where his mouth is.

"Once you're inside, turn off your cell phone," I warn Mulder. "Don't want anyone tracking you from the radio waves."

"It's not cellular, it's PCS." He's obviously watched way too many Sprint commercials. There was this guy who did one a while back that sounded a lot like him. Then again, I'd had quite a few beers when I heard it, so it could have been my imagination.

"Like that makes a difference. Leave it off unless you actually want your ass nailed. Langly?"

He holds up two fingers. "Two minutes."

"You weren't followed, were you?" I ask Mulder.

"Don't think so. I kept checking. Fortunately, the weather's bad enough that anyone with anything resembling sanity stayed in tonight."

"Which is why you're out in it."

"Frohike, you're a cruel man."

"Just stating the obvious, dude."

"One minute," Langly calls out. Byers is standing behind him, watching me.

"Okay, get ready to go in."

"Thirty seconds."

"That's it. Call us when you're out." I hang up without waiting for another Mulderism or complaint, which means I move fast. And he'd better, too. We drink more espresso and wait. The phone rings about ten minutes later, but it's not Mulder, it's Sari, letting us know that she's arrived home safely and that the Cardinal is protesting her late arrival -- loudly. I can hear my kitty-boo screeching over the phone. I'm glad she called; she didn't look good to drive, and we don't need any more people in danger than we've got already.

"Byers, go to bed," I order him. It's late, and he needs to rest. He's got another appointment Monday. If he's a good boy, he might be released to watch TV and read large type, and part of being a good boy is getting enough rest; something he's not been doing recently. His doctor's been saying he isn't recovering quite as fast as he should.

"I'm not really tired," he states as he sips his latte. I can smell the nutmeg from here.

"Man, you should take him up on it," Langly yawns. "I would."

"You've still got work to do, boy," I remind him.

"So like if I get my eye all banged up, does that get me out of it?" he asks, teasing.

"Maybe." The phone rings. It's got to be Mulder. I let Byers take the call. He puts the speakerphone on so that we can all hear, and I watch as his face turns pale. The call is brief, but the message is clear: Mulder's got the data from the County Extension Office. He's obviously had no time to examine the specifics of the documents, but he says it's ugly, even uglier than we thought.

Andover Community Medical Center is about a forty-minute drive from the Extension Office, so once again, we wait. Byers lies down on the red couch, but doesn't look like he's planning to sleep. Langly puts his head down again; espresso just isn't working its magic for him. "I just wanna go to bed," he groans.

"I don't think your chickadee's going to provide much action right now," I comment.

"Who said anything about action? I need *sleep.*" Byers and I both flash each other a look and grin.

"Boy, one shot and she wore you out," I can't resist teasing Blondie. I can't really resist teasing either of them, but Byers took such offense at my last potshot that I'm laying off him for a while. This has nothing to do with charity, and everything to do with not wanting to deal with one of his rare but intense temper tantrums.

"Go fuck yourself Frohike; you're the only one that will," Ringo mutters back, eyes closing, head on his arms on the desktop.

We're going to have some dead time here. I owe Ms. Scarlett an email. I'm still debating as to what to say to her. "Dear Mel, just a normal day at the office: a few government conspiracies, a pharmaceutical company cover-up, someone in mortal danger, a little running and hiding." Hmm, I wonder how that would go over.

Deborah seemed rather ill at ease once she saw what really happens here. I hope she's not going to be so upset that she decides that Langly isn't worth the trouble. The truth is, I haven't seen him this happy in all the time I've known him. Hell, I wouldn't mind finding some happiness of my own. The problem is that in our universe, happiness is rather more problematic than usual, and much more elusive. Still, it'll kill a half an hour at least, just trying to think of what to say. Langly conks out, and my intentions of writing Ms. Scarlett are tossed by the wayside when I discover that Byers is suddenly in a loquacious mood.

"I'm really worried about this," he says softly. "I hope Nicole and Scully get here safely."

"Scully knows what she's doing," and she does, but I share his concern. "We just have to wait for Mulder to get in at Andover, and get out, preferably in one piece and with all the documentation."

"From what Sleeping Beauty described, Andover's going to be a little trickier than the Extension Office." He points at Langly, now conked out and breathing the slow, even breaths of one who's truly exhausted.

"I've looked it over as well, and yeah, it's a bit more involved than the Extension, but nothing we can't handle. The only real problem will be if the labs are guarded by live bodies. From what we could gather, though, there's only one security guard at the information desk and one in the emergency department. They're mighty trusting in the Midwest."

"Which is probably why Pinck decided to set down roots there. If they were in New Jersey, for example, they would be subject to greater scrutiny."

"True." New Jersey is the pharmaceutical company capitol of North America, which accounts for all the uniquely colored rivers and lakes there. Regulation's lax, and tax breaks abundant, but they do monitor one another; not in the name of public safety, but in the interest of finding out each other's corporate secrets. "Wichita isn't exactly where you think of when you think high tech and biotech research. It's got a fairly limited economic base, so it's no wonder Pinck was welcomed with open arms by the city fathers. Good jobs, better tax base, it must have seemed like a win all the way around."

"Once again proving that things are not what they seem." A shadow passes over Byers' face. "Which brings up Black Widow." We haven't been following Black Widow tonight. We've got other, more pressing concerns at hand. We'll catch him. I just hope it's in my lifetime, and that finding him doesn't end anyone's. "Everything seems to point to him being in Arizona, but we're obviously missing something."

"We don't have any more information to go on at this point."

"Perhaps there'll be something in what Mulder and Scully have found that will lead us to him."

"Don't hold your breath."

"I'm not, but..." the phone jars us again. I take it this time, instructing Byers to do the impossible and raise Langly from the dead. "What's up?"

"Let's go, guys. I don't have much time."

"You got guards around there?"

"Only one in the lobby, but they've got two outside the lab, and that's weird, because for the most part, this place is easier to get into than a 7-11."

"Hang on. We might be able to locate a ventilation duct." Mulder's going to need an alternate route. "Blondie, get with the program. How can Mulder get in the lab?"

"Tell him to use the fucking door," Langly groans. "Piece of cake to disable."

"Little harder to disable the two linebackers standing outside it."

"Fuck." Langly gets the architectural plans of the building, which we pulled up earlier this evening. We locate an air conditioning shaft that he might fit through, assuming he didn't overindulge in airline food. Mulder's the only person I know who doesn't mind airline food. Then again, he liked cafeteria mystery meat when he was growing up. It really does make me wonder if he's actually of this world. Langly talks Mulder through to the entrance of the shaft, and Byers and I are sweating right there with him. I hope he went in the right one. The agreement is that once he's inside the shaft, we'll break contact again, resuming it when he emerges... he's inside. "Can I go to bed now?" Langly whines.

He really does look tired, and he's done enough heavy lifting for tonight. "Go on, curl up with your chickadee," I admonish him, and he stumbles off, still semi-comatose.

"You going to let him sleep in tomorrow?" Byers asks me when he's disappeared into his room and into the arms of his beloved.

"Yeah, I'm gonna let him sleep. I just hope she doesn't leave him before he gets up. Deborah seemed pretty tetchy about everything by the end of the night."

"It's scary," Byers nods. Now if that's not the understatement of the millennium. "I worry about having brought Sari into all this too, all the time."

"She's a really together lady." Which she is. "I think she understands the implications of what we do. That's where I'm concerned about Deborah, though. I don't think it's clear to her yet." And oh Christ, I hope she doesn't have to learn the hard way. That might be too much for her, and if she left, it would mangle Blonde Boy about like Byers was after Mata Hari jumped ship.

"I know, and she says she's used to danger. But I don't think her friend Nicole is." He tenses up whenever Nicole's name is mentioned.

The buzzer rings. It must be Scully and Ms. Jackson. Now I'm nervous. It's oh-dark-thirty in the morning, and I look like shit. Then again, Scully's seen me at this hour, utterly inebriated and an emotional wreck, so perhaps a little stubble won't offend her.

"Scully, are you all right? You must be Nicole Jackson. I'm Melvin Frohike. You can just call me Frohike," I say to the tall, well-endowed woman standing to her right.

"I'll be fine, as soon as I use the facilities." Scully makes a mad dash toward the bathroom, and Byers comes over, offering to take Ms. Jackson's coat. She declines.

"I'm freezing," she says, now shaking violently. Poor kid. It must have been one hell of a night for her. I suspect she's about to snap.

"Could we get you something? A cup of tea, maybe? It would help warm you up." Byers offers solicitously.

"No... I just... need a moment to... pull myself together." Ms. Jackson's voice is barely a squeak, in sharp contrast to her earthy, voluptuous appearance. She's really tasty.

"I'm sure it's been a very difficult night," I say to her gently.

"Um... not to speak badly of my rescuer, but... um...  have you ever driven with her?" She shudders, drawing her coat more tightly around her. Byers and I chuckle.

"We've had the privilege, if not necessarily the pleasure," I inform her. She seems to relax a little.

"Frohike? I need to talk to you." Agent Scully, slightly disheveled and totally exhausted, but looking as tasty as ever, motions me towards her. I leave Byers to comfort and entertain our guest.

"Sari insisted I call her when you arrived," Byers says. "She's anxious to talk to you." I can see Nicole's shoulders loosen and relax at this news. "I know she's been very worried about you." He pulls up a desk chair for her, and she sits down.

"I don't think she's quite used to your Mario Andretti style of driving," I say softly to Scully as we head into the TV room.

"Believe me, I wouldn't have pulled that out of the bag unless I had to. We were followed." She looks very grave. I can feel my blood pressure elevate. This is not good news. "I lost them before we got within five miles of here." That still doesn't reassure me.

"What'd you do?"

"About 110 in a cloverleaf. They'll be stuck there for hours." A small, malicious grin slips over her lips, but it's gone in a hurry. "Has Mulder checked in?"

"He should be calling in from Andover soon. Already been to County Extension, went off like silk." Her expression is one of relief, but shifts rapidly back to concern. "Andover was a little trickier."

"Frohike, I don't like it when you things like say that."

"None of us do. The problem was that there were guards at the lab in what's otherwise a very open facility. We had to get him down an air conditioning shaft."

The idea amuses her a bit, but once again, it doesn't last. She pulls up her briefcase and opens it. I was expecting the manila envelope, but the small stuffed dog is a bit of a surprise. I almost say 'Scully, you shouldn't have,' but then I notice the little dog has a ribbon on its neck reading 'Topeka State Fair.'

"That's how we found her," Scully explains. "She was going to take it with her to her safe house, but dropped it, which was actually quite fortuitous. She says there's something inside."

"Well, you're the doctor."

She winces. "There's a reason I cut up dead people, not live ones. I was thinking of letting Langly's girlfriend do it. If she's won a surgical fellowship, chances are she can cut it up and put it back together without turning into something from a science fiction B movie."

I can't help but smile. "She's asleep right now."

"Which, if you don't mind, I plan to do as well. I can't think of anywhere safer to keep Ms. Jackson; would you mind terribly if she stays here?"

"Not at all." We were expecting to put her up, actually, at least for the moment. We'll have to find a better solution for the long term, but for now, she's welcome to camp out here.

Scully stands up, preparing to depart. "I'll be back later this morning. Oh, and Frohike? Don't worry; I didn't tell her about your fling with Esther Nairn." She winks at me. "You and Byers try to get some rest, okay."

"Once we know Mulder's okay, we will. Thank you, Agent Scully."

"Don't mention it, Frohike. Good night." She rests a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. Oh yeah.

End part 15