Disclaimers in part 01
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"There are those who have discovered that fear is death in life, and have willingly risked physical death and loss of all that is considered valuable in order to live in freedom."
~~Virginia Burden Tower -- The Process of Intuition~~
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BYERS:
Jesus Christ. "Mel!" I can't help it. I just shout into the air. He could still be in there. "Where's Mel?"
"Oh, gods," Sari whispers.
She starts running toward the house. I follow her. There's no way I'm letting her go in there. God knows she would. We're stopped by an officer as we get closer.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asks.
"Mel!" Sari shouts, pointing to the house, struggling to run closer. We hold her back.
"I live here," I tell him, breathless. "One of my roommates was in there. Melvin Frohike. Have you seen him?" I gesture. "Short guy, middle aged, balding. He's got glasses."
The officer shakes his head. "No, haven't seen anyone answering that description, and the firemen didn't bring anyone out."
"Oh, no." I feel my knees wobble, but I won't fall down. I won't.
Sari's got me by the arm now, holding tight, tears streaming down her face. "No, Mel..."
"You got any idea what could have happened here?" the officer asks.
I do, but nothing I want to share with law enforcement right now. "No. I need to find out if Mel was in there."
"Had any wiring problems?"
"No. I need to find Frohike!"
"Got any enemies?"
Only enough to paper a wall. "My roommates and I... we're investigative journalists." I can barely think, I'm so worried. "Please, we need to talk to someone who's been in there. I need to know if Mel was in there. He might have been asleep."
He asks me a few more questions regarding my whereabouts during the previous hours before he directs me to the firemen's supervisor. I know this is the sort of thing Langly gets tetchy about, but I understand it as being part of his job. Furthermore, this is not the time to alienate the man. We need him on our side if we're ever to prove this was arson, which it is.
I can only imagine how Mulder and Scully felt when their office went up in flames. Everything you have, everything you work for, and in our case, our home. God, what if Mel was in there?
I need to stop watching, need to talk to the supervisor, and yet I can't. It's the same morbid fascination one feels watching a horrible accident. As the flames billow towards the sky, crusted by thick black smoke, my fear and anger burn in similar fashion.
"I should have just left the story alone," I shake my head at Sari.
She looks at me, questioning. "You think it's that?"
"I know it's that. Look at everything. Our home burnt down. Deborah shot. Mel... god, what if he's in there? What's next?" I almost blurt out, "you," but stop there. I don't think my mind should go there right now.
I'm momentarily distracted by a ruckus at the end of the block. The entrance to the street has been blocked off, and someone is arguing loudly with the officers stationed there. It's Frohike.
"Oh, thank god!" I run over to him, Sari right on my heels.
FROHIKE:
"Whaddya mean, I can't enter? I live here!" The officer is barricading the street because of a house fire. Sadly, it's our house.
"Your license says you live elsewhere."
"That's because I haven't had time to get to the DMV yet!" Well, okay. I haven't bothered to hack the DMV. You think I'd go stand in line with the great unwashed when I can do it from the comfort of my ergonomic chair?
In this case, putting off till tomorrow what I should've done a number of yesterdays ago isn't helping my cause.
"Frohike! Thank God you're all right!" Byers is there with Sari close behind him, and I'm not sure if I'm relieved or even more freaked out.
"Tell him to let me in, Byers."
He looks at the cop. "He lives here."
"Fine. But leave your car here."
I'm about to protest but think better of it.
Byers throws his arms around me, and he's shaking like a leaf. Sari looks just about as bad. "Frohike, you were right. I should have left it alone."
I back away from him. "Save it. We all decided to go in on it. So quit hogging all the guilt." Byers actually looks chastened for the moment, although I suspect this is unlikely to be a lasting situation.
We head back to the curb across the street from the charred, flaming monstrosity that was once our monstrosity.
The officer questions me as to my whereabouts. "I was enjoying a little retail therapy," I explain.
He has a confused expression. Clearly not the brightest bulb in the socket. "I went shopping, if you must know."
"Where were you shopping?"
"Electronics stores," I mumble. No need to explain that one of my stops involved heavily damaging my Visa account at Spies R Us. Retail therapy. It's not just for women. I was feeling pretty damned good till I turned the corner here. I'd love to say it's a new miserable experience, but alas, it seems to be the story of our lives.
Talulah, our neighbor, has been talking with the police. She comes over to us when they've apparently finished with her.
"Mr. Frohike, I coulda sworn there was a bomb going off," she shakes her head. "Real loud like, this boom, and then, whoosh! Place is burning up."
I shudder, not so much at her description but at the knowledge that in all likelihood, it was a bomb, but I don't say that to her. Talulah's lived on this street since she was a girl.
"'Hood's gone to hell," she mumbles. "First the dopers at the 7-11, then the gangs, now this. It ain't right. I been living here since I was this high, and used to be a place where you could raise a family. Now..." she sweeps her arm across the scenery, "my granddaddy would roll in his grave seeing what be happening."
"I'm sorry, Talulah," I apologize to her, and I mean it. She's in her 50s, takes care of her grandbabies and a bunch of other kids. She brings us sweet potato pies when she bakes. I feel guilty for adding to urban blight. She's always been suspicious of our occupation. She considers journalists slightly less acceptable than the crack dealers, but a notch above the gang shooters. On the other hand, all of us are above the police. I don't think she spoke with them voluntarily. Not only does this destroy our home, but it's a blight on a neighborhood that the locals are struggling vainly to hold on to vestiges of.
"Makes you wonder if it's worth it," she mutters crossly, echoing my thoughts exactly.
"We'd better notify Langly," Byers jolts me back to earth, and the destruction before us. Babylon being destroyed couldn't have felt worse than this.
I pick up my cell, reluctantly, and dial Deborah's house. The phone is answered by her sister.
"Hold on," she says politely. She returns a moment later. "Sir, he says he'll call you when Battlebots is over."
"Tell him to get his sorry ass on the line now!" I bellow, more harshly at her than intended. Bad move.
I wait until the surly voice pops on. "This better be fucking good!"
"You wish. Get your ass over here right now, Blondie."
"You interrupted Battlebots!"
"Yeah, well, right now that should be the least of your worries."
"Look, I'm so not in the mood for any interstellar warp drives or people with automatic weapons..."
"Langly, the house burned down!"
Silence. I always wanted to leave the kid speechless. Now I know why they say be careful what you wish for.
When he does recover composure, he's a lot more subdued. "On my way."
***
LANGLY:
Christ, can my life get any worse?
Bad enough that Deb took a bullet. And she took it for us, and that makes it even worse. Now somebody's brought the house down. Fuck.
I pull up and Byers is there. "I didn't think you'd updated your license yet," he tells me.
"Fuck that -- oh man!"
It's not just a fire. The place is totally torched. Majorly. My CD collection. My Ramones poster. My brand new computers. My Disney movies. Like, gone.
"Hey, I had nothing to do with this!" I hiss at Frohike, who should probably be making some snide comment about my wiring talents at this point. Except he looks too bummed. He just says, "Save it, Blondie," like he doesn't even really mean it.
"Guess they're not gonna be able to save anything." I don't believe this. We finally have a place that's decent enough to bring women to, and this is what happens.
"We should be able to get the safe, at some point," Byers says quietly, so that no one else can hear.
"What about the data?"
Frohike pats the pocket on his Godawful Hawaiian shirt. "Got it here."
"We should never have gotten involved in this," Byers is doing his lament. "I'm so sorry, guys."
Jesus, that pisses me off. "Byers, you asshole, quit acting like it's all on you! I mean, it's Deb that took the hit! You think I wasn't gonna follow it down?"
We stand there, not saying anything. This is just too weird.
"Don't suppose this is a good time to tell you, but I hacked Harlow," I tell them.
Frohike and Byers both stare at me, hard. They've got their eyes wide open.
"Well, hell, don't act so surprised or anything! You know my kung fu's best."
"What time did you hack her?"
"Few hours ago." Oh shit. She probably got my footprint -- no. No way. That was as clean as it gets. A virgin doesn't get cleaner than that. "You saying that was a bad idea?"
Frohike looks about a hundred years old. "Haven't heard any good ideas yet. Not in a while."
The cops want to talk to me. No, I'm not gonna say anything. I mean, they're cops. Like they'd get it or something. Even the cops we drink with at the Limerick, I wouldn't put this on 'em. They're cool dudes but they're still cops. They don't look real convinced when I tell 'em I guess what Byers and Frohike told 'em, yeah, we do investigative journalism, yeah, we've got enemies, no, nobody's threatened us. Yeah, right. Even me, a practiced liar, had trouble on that one.
"We've got to get the safe," Byers looks all, pardon the expression, way burnt out.
Frohike shakes his head. "We won't be able to touch it for days. Whole thing'll be hot for days, and we've gotta figure out how to get to it through all this rubble."
"So what will you do now?" Sari asks.
"Maybe a beer is in order," Byers says tentatively.
"First good idea I've heard in ages," Frohike agrees.
FROHIKE:
"Did you get hold of Mulder and Scully?" Byers asks me again. We're into our third beer, probably only among the first of many to come.
"Got their voice mails. Told them where we were." I think I've repeated this at least three times so far, one to match each beer.
Langly's been silent the entire time. "So what're we gonna do besides sit here and drown ourselves?"
"You got a better suggestion?" I don't.
"Well, for Chrissake, I thought you'd want me to get this hacker bitch Harlow," Langly grumbled.
"I'm sure we'll need to use her information. Just not right now." Byers winces and signals to Bernie to bring us another round. "I think the big question right now is, do we publish?"
"We've already published," I tell him. "It's just a matter of distribution."
"Yeah, well, O'Casey better keep his fucking yap shut till we figure this out," Langly snarls.
"Sari's talking to him. I suspect she can reason with him." He takes a long pull on his Sam's. "Well, I hope."
"Yeah, well, if she can't reason with him, she can probably make him an offer he can't refuse," Langly taunts Byers, who shoots him a withering stare. Please, not now.
We're so busy feeling sorry for ourselves that we don't even notice Skinner pulling up to our table. He grabs a chair and signals to Bernie to bring him the same and to put it on our tab. Which, I would like to point out, we can't afford to pay right now.
"When do you guys plan to stop screwing up my life? Between you idiots and Mulder, whatever I did in my youth, trust me, I've made up for it." He slaps his ample forehead against his hamlike hand.
Langly glares at him. "You didn't have the kind of day we did, so shut up."
"Langly, I have days like this more than you'd care to imagine. Now are you planning to share your ideas on why this happened or do I have to get Mulder over here to go on about the life, universe and everything?"
"Oh please. Anything but that," Byers moans.
"Fine. So since Dr. SaintJohn's unfortunate incident, I'm guessing that you turkeys wouldn't have done anything so sensible as leave well enough alone."
"Oh, like you'd just say, well, my girl got shot, but I'll let it slide!" Alcohol doesn't necessarily mellow Langly out until he's had significant quantities of it.
"Will you keep it down, Langly?" Byers hisses at him, before I can smack him across the mouth. If I had the energy.
"What the fuck for? We published it!"
"All we published were the scientific findings," Byers retorts.
"What scientific findings?" Skinner demands. "Would you care to fill me in? Either that, or I'm going to find a better table to drink at."
Christ, explaining this debacle. Where to start?
"Well," Byers draws out the word, indicating that he's rapidly becoming intoxicated, "Deborah was shot right after we, uh, stumbled on some data."
"What kind of data?" Skinner's beer is not making him mellow. I signal to Bernie to keep them coming.
Byers takes another long pull.
"Byers, that kind of heavy lifting takes practice, and you haven't had it. Slow down." I mean, we still need a designated driver.
He ignores me as he draws in a deep breath and begins, slightly slurred, "Data for an interstellar drive."
Skinner blinks, shakes his head. "You guys are too much. Next thing you'll tell me is that Jack Monroe is behind all this."
Byers looks at him. "Actually, we think he is."
He gulps down the rest of his beer and starts the second one. "And I thought Mulder told me unbelievable stuff."
"We have proof. We had the data analyzed," Byers continues.
"By whom? One of Langly's gaming buddies?"
"No. Our investigator was Sean O'Casey."
"The CERN wunderkind? How the hell... no, don't tell me, I don't want to know. And he was able to verify this?"
"He's just waiting for a call from Stockholm," I say. "If he doesn't get his ass shot off first."
No one speaks for a long, long time.
"So you're going to print," Skinner mutters.
"Already done it. At the printer's as we speak."
"The public has a right to know," Langly whines. "And I'm gonna get even with this bastard."
"Not on my watch, you're not."
"So what are we supposed to do? Just sit here and wait for Monroe to come for us again?" Langly is getting very agitated again.
"Don't you guys get it? Monroe is dangerous! We've had our best people on him for years, and we haven't been able to bring him down! What makes you think you're gonna do it?"
"Maybe we have a better shot at it than you do." Byers must really be drunk to make that sort of claim, right in front of the Big Guy.
"At what price? Don't you guys ever wonder if this is worth it?"
"Only all the time," I comment dryly. There are barely perceptible nods from my cohorts. Skinner would miss it, but I wouldn't.
"So you thought this was worth it."
"I made a mistake," Byers says, shamefacedly.
"Oh, stuff it, Byers. We're all in it. Remember? It's not all about you!" Langly seems insulted.
Byers seems both embarrassed and angry but doesn't shoot back at Langly. Maybe he's had enough alcohol to be numb by now. I'm trying to get there. I'm wondering how much we won't be able to afford by the time I've had enough.
Skinner stares at the longneck in front of him. For complaining that we're screwing up his life, he's certainly not drinking enough.
"Hey, don't tell me we're late for the party and you guys started without us." Oh Christ, I'd recognize that voice anywhere, the annoying cheerfulness Mulder only displays when everyone else is miserable.
"What's going on, guys? You said you might need our help," Scully, bless her, always manages to abate my irritation with her partner.
"They've had a little problem with overheating," Skinner remarks in a dry voice.
"Hey, not my fault!" Langly pipes up. He's a little defensive about his rep as a firestarter.
"What happened?" Scully asks, pulling up her own chair and giving Mulder a meaningful 'if you had any class at all you'd do this for me' look.
"Does this mean I'm not going to get the fit Oriental twins you promised me, Frohike?" Mulder winks. I'd like to smack him. Why do I put up with him, anyway?
Oh yeah. Occasionally he bails us out. And provides us with some of our more interesting headlines.
"Mulder, get a beer and shut up," I order him. With an emphasis on the shut up portion, I add silently.
We tell our sordid tale again, this time with a bit more detail, although not as much as we could have. Mulder, of course, grows animated as we discuss the interstellar drive, but his enthusiasm is tempered as we reveal that the house he helped us so lovingly to locate is no longer.
Scully has been extremely quiet, listening carefully as she sips her beer, but now turns to her errant partner.
"I don't know about you, Mulder, but I smell setup a mile away."
Mulder looks skeptical. "Why would you say that?"
"Think about it. They virtually led these guys to the files. It's almost as if they wanted them to discover them. That would give Monroe, if it is Monroe, an excuse to go after them."
I try to take in what the lady is saying. I'm intoxicated enough that I don't react immediately. It's almost too much to think about.
"Are you saying we've been had?" Langly's voice rises in an angry pitch.
"I'm saying someone wanted you badly enough to reel you in," she says steadily.
The three of us eyeball each other. Shit. What if we've been duped?
Not just damaged, but fooled. That's almost worse. Except that usually if you're fooled, you don't lose your house over the deal or have friends shot at.
"Someone really hates you guys. And if it's Monroe, and he's surfaced again, you have more problems than you know about." Skinner tosses two twenties on the table and gets up. "If you don't mind, I have work to do. Keep me advised." He vanishes out of the bar.
"So what're you guys going to do now?" Mulder asks.
"I'll call Sari. She said I could stay there with her and the Cardinal. And the lizards," Byers says, trying not to blush.
Moose and Squirrel exchange a private glance that Langly and I can translate, but fortunately, it's lost on him, or he'd probably start protesting out his ass.
I'm still trying to absorb what Scully has insinuated. Unfortunately, it makes a lot of sense.
"I'm gonna head for Deb's. I'll metro there."
"I'm going that way. I could drop you off," Scully offers.
"Nah. I need to think. Clear my head."
She nods.
Langly says goodnight, he'll call later. Byers is on the phone to Sari.
The agents offer to take me anywhere of my choosing, but I decline. I'm not sure where I'll go at this point. I think I'll just stay here awhile. Till last call, anyway.
"Call us when you've made a decision, or if you have any problems," Scully says gently, laying a hand on my shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Frohike."
"Yeah," Mulder echoes. "What're you going to do about publishing?"
"No decisions yet."
"Hard to make decisions when something like this happens," Scully sympathizes.
"Oh, I've made one decision," I announce.
"And that is?"
"Mulder, I am never letting you pick out real estate for us again!"
FINIS