Disclaimers in part 01
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"When they think that they know the answers,
people are difficult to guide.
When they know that they don't know,
people can find their own way."
~~Tao Te Ching, verse 65 -- Lao Tzu translated by Stephen Mitchell ~~
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MONDAY, JUNE 26, 2000
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
DEBORAH'S ROOM
6:36 P.M.
FROHIKE:
The delectable Agent Scully has finally arrived, much to my relief. She called me back half an hour ago to find out what I had called her for this morning, and when I explained about Deborah being shot, she said she'd come.
"I got here as soon as I could, guys" she says, slightly out of breath. "I've been out on a case all day."
For what must be the first time in hours, Langly looks up from Deborah's face. "Hey, Scully." His voice is thin and tense.
"How is she?" Scully asks, then takes the chart from the foot of Deborah's bed.
"Still not talking much," Langly offers quietly.
Checking the chart and the monitors, Scully does her own assessment. "She won't for a while, but the chart notes indicate that she's progressing well under the circumstances." She puts the chart back on its hook and pats Langly on the shoulder.
Langly nods. "Mostly she's just asking for ice."
What he doesn't mention is how many times she's woken asking for him, telling him she loves him. He tried to hide his response from me and Byers, but I caught him with a shimmering edge of tears in his eyes more than once after she'd said it. He turns back to Deborah and starts talking to her under his breath again.
"That's certainly to be expected in the condition she's in. Don't worry, Langly. She'll be fine. I've talked to AD Skinner, and he's arranging for two agents to spend the night here with her." Scully looks pleased, and her breath has slowed to normal.
"Who did he have to threaten?" I ask, letting a little of my relief show. The redhead of my dreams looks at me and shakes her head. It doesn't seem to matter what she does; every move she makes is beautiful.
"Has this become a Bureau matter, then?" Byers asks. He's still got his brain in straight, even if Langly and I don't.
"No, but half the stuff you three get mixed up in turns into a Bureau matter. I have no idea why I don't run for the hills whenever you call me." She gives me a faint frown, lightened by a twinkle in her gloriously blue eyes. "Bomb squad duty would be safer."
"Because you love us?" I ask.
She laughs. "Frohike, you're never going to give up, are you?"
I'm about to reply when a large figure darkens the doorway.
"Am I at the right party?" Skinner asks. He moves forward to join us. Langly just keeps whispering into Deborah's ear as he holds her hand, not even looking up.
"Thank you for coming," Byers says, offering Skinner a hand. The two shake, and Skinner bends over Deborah for a closer look.
"How is she?" His face is solemn and humorless.
Scully replies, "Doing well, considering what she's been through. What time will Fuller and Chen be here?"
"About half an hour," Skinner answers her. He turns to me. "Mulder says he'll be by later, and Scully and I will stay until the others show up. She'll be safe." We both know that what this really means is merely 'as safe as we can keep her.' We nod at each other, knowing full well that the protection offered by the FBI often falls terribly short of what's needed. I do have some faith in him; Skinner works hard to live up to his promises. "Now I want you stooges out of here. Let us do our work."
Langly snaps alert. "No! I can't leave her!"
"You know you can't stay here the whole time," I snap at him. "It's not safe for all of us to be in one place."
Skinner glares at Langly. One useful thing about the man is his innate talent for intimidation. Even Langly's usual whiny stubbornness can't stand up for long against it. "You're leaving, Langly. Do you really expect my agents to put up with you all night?"
Langly's face grows red with anger, but it has no impact on Skinner.
"You need to get some sleep, Langly," Scully says to him, taking his hand gently.
"You look like shit," Skinner says, reinforcing Scully's statement. "Go home before you fall asleep and drool on the poor woman." He jerks his thumb at the door and, reluctantly, Langly rises to his feet. Ringo plants a kiss on Deborah's cheek -- about the only exposed part of her body without something taped to it -- and leaves in a huff. Byers and I follow, after thanking the Fibbies again for their help.
OFFICE OF THE LONE GUNMEN
8:02 P.M.
FROHIKE:
We made it back to the house without incident, thank God. Langly whined and snapped all the way back, the way a sleepy five year old does when he's exhausted and doesn't want to go to bed. I can't really blame him, but I do find it extremely annoying. If I were one of Skinner's agents, you couldn't pay me enough to sit in a room all night with blondie. I do it for free instead, stupid me. The things I do for my friends.
I made dinner for everyone, reheated potato leek soup from Sari's recipe. Langly wan't hungry, but Byers threatened to feed him, so Langly grabbed his bowl and sat down in the den to eat while he watched TV.
He's been there for almost twenty minutes now. At least he ate. Maybe the secret ingredient I put in his bowl will help him get some sleep tonight. I'm pretty sure his taste buds aren't working at the moment, so I doubt he noticed it much.
"Langly, it's about time you hauled your ass up to bed," I shout to him from the dining room.
"Fuck you, Doohickey," he spits, still perched on one of the big leather chairs in front of the TV.
"You have to pick up Deborah's parents tomorrow morning. Insomnia isn't going to make you any prettier or more charming."
"Yeah, like you're Miss America yourself."
"Look, you go to bed now, or I'm gonna kick your nads up those two flights of stairs and tuck you in myself."
"Oh God, anything but that." He groans and rises slowly to his feet. His movements betray his exhaustion and the slightly drugged state he's in. I may follow him up the stairs just to make sure he doesn't fall down on the way to his room.
"Do you need help with anything, Langly?" Byers asks. We both know Langly will refuse. He always does. Langly just shakes his head wordlessly as he stumbles by. Byers goes back to reading the files he's been perusing over his bowl.
After Langly disappears up the stairs, I turn to Byers. "We've still got a newspaper to turn out. What do you say we get to work?"
He looks up from the files and nods. "Yeah. I could use something to take my mind off the day's events." He waves the stack of paper at me. "This stuff I pulled down from Dreamland is amazing. I think we should go with this for next week's issue. I have about half of my stuff done for this week already."
I take a look at the proffered papers. "Hmmm. It does look interesting." That's is an understatement. He's got about two dozen printed files here from his hack last week, about various types of new stealth aircraft in development. Everything's here, from a radar-invisible coating to things that look like they could be modified alien tech. Mulder's really going to want to read the next issue if we can run this story.
"You sure we have enough info to back it up? You're usually the stickler for accuracy."
Byers nods. "Some of this mess is contradictory, to be sure, but if we leave out some of the more... unearthly details, it should be an excellent story. We still need to do more research to fill in the gaps, of course, but we've got a lot to work with here. And I definitely don't want to waste the effort that went into that hack. It was miserable to get into."
Well, that's true; it was a bitch. Last week, Byers spent six straight days working his way past the various layers of security at a site he'd found at Area 51 -- Dreamland. He pulled down more files than we had any hope of finding before they finally noticed him in the system. He'd gotten out ahead of their trace, but it was close... oh Christ.
I look up at him. "Byers, you think today's... incident has anything to do with these files?"
He turns chalky pale. "Oh my God."
"What if they knew it was us, and they're trying to keep us from going with this story?"
"I got out clean, Mel, I swear." Byers' voice is shaky, his normal confidence in his technical ability distinctly missing. "I'm sure they didn't get a trace on me." Doubt haunts his eyes now, and his voice is a whisper. "Oh God, what if this is my fault?"
Leave it to Byers to think the entire world is his personal fault. Unfortunately, in this case, it may very well have been his hack that called down this nasty attention on Deborah, and us. Both Sari and Mel wondered if it was possible that someone was genuinely just angry with Deborah, but I can feel it in my gut; this is something else. This is... retribution, I think. Whether it's for Byers hacking into Dreamland, or something else we've done to piss people off recently, I'm sure it's us they're really trying to get to.
We checked Deborah out, just like we checked out Sari -- and Mel. She's grated on a few people's nerves in the past couple of years, but we couldn't find anyone she could possibly have pissed off enough to do this to her. Nothing she's said in the last month or so would indicate that she's done anything more recently, either. The whole thing creeps me out.
"Whatever it is, Byers, we'll get through this. We always do." I put a hand on his shoulder, but he's really getting into the idea that he's personally called down the lightning.
"I never meant for anyone to get hurt, Mel!" He shakes his head and puts his face in his hands.
"Take it easy, Byers. We don't know it was this hack that did it. It could have been anything. For all we know, Monroe's decided to come out of hiding and try to nail us for screwing up his position."
"Oh, God. Not him again. It can't be Monroe. Nobody's seen a trace of him since we busted him a couple months ago." He looks up at me. "I don't even want to think about what he might do if he came up from underground." His eyes widen and he slips into his deer in the headlights look. "Have you talked to Mel? Is she okay?"
I nod. "Yeah, Byers, I talked to her this morning. She was fine. You talked to Sari on the phone an hour ago, and she was fine too. Right now, everybody's about as safe as they're going to be."
"Sari should be here. The security's better." His voice is shaky, and I know he's getting a little panicky. I also know Sari will tell him she's not about to run and hide every time something gets hinky around us -- she'd spend the rest of her life in hiding.
"Ease up, John. Sari's fine. We put in good security at her place. It stopped a burglar a couple of weeks ago, remember?"
His alarm increases. "How do we know that wasn't related to something we've done?" he asks, his breath quickening.
I shake my head. "No, this was the guy they arrested three days ago for a string of break-ins in her neighborhood. It had nothing to do with us, or with her. Now are you gonna take a deep breath and calm down, or do I have to get you a paper bag?"
That stops him cold. He takes a deep breath and releases a little of the tension he's holding, but doesn't say anything. I can see the little wheels in his head still whirling at light speed. I swear that boy's going to give himself a heart attack before he's 40.
"It's not always about us, you know."
"No," he agrees in a whisper. "I suppose it isn't. All the same, I'd feel better if I knew Mel and Sari were safe."
"They are. They're as safe as any of us." I don't mention that a horde of screaming death squad barbarians could come kicking the door in at any time and leave the three of us in bloody puddles on the floor. It doesn't matter how much security you have if your enemy is big enough.
"Come on, Byers," I say with a sigh, "let's get some work done on the paper. It's not going to write itself."
TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 2000
OFFICE OF THE LONE GUNMEN
7:14 A.M.
BYERS:
For possibly the first time in history, Langly is up before 8 a.m. of his own accord. I don't see him, but I can hear the shower. Frohike's sitting here next to me. We're having coffee and perusing the headlines on a stack of papers, as we do every morning when we have the time.
"At least he slept," Frohike growls. "More than I did. Should've kept some of those drugs for myself."
"No kidding." I finally gave up trying and got up and went back to work. I couldn't sleep at all, since my mind was full of terrible visions of Sari being shot, or Mel, or any of the three of us. I know that insomnia will hit me later, and I'm not going to get a nap. My gut says we won't have that kind of day. There are already signs that it's going to be miserable. It's not even 8 a.m., and the temperature is already threatening to hit triple digits.
"I hope he doesn't do anything stupid in front of Deborah's parents." Frohike shakes his head as he loosens his Hugh Hefner robe. He's not being insulting; it's how Frohike shows his concern.
"What, like tell them what we really do?" I ask, sipping my fourth cup of coffee. It's threatening to send my central nervous system into overdrive.
"No, even he's not that stupid. I just hope he can be... tactful."
I understand. Langly has the social grace of a five year old. He hasn't mastered the art of the social white lie. While I can do it myself when the occasion demands, I do wonder why we as a society consider it one of the hallmarks of maturity.
As I check obituaries, Langly stumbles into the work area, his glasses askew as he rubs his eyes. "Is there coffee?" he asks with a yawn. He still looks terrible, but it's an improvement over yesterday.
"When isn't there coffee?" Frohike snaps.
I study Ringo. His face looks more gaunt than usual, and the circles under his eyes are a deep purple, but what's really jarring is the shirt. It's the orange one. It's hideous, better for traffic control than impressing people.
"Uh, Langly? I don't think... you probably don't want to meet Deborah's parents wearing that," I suggest.
He jerks his head up. "What do you mean? It's got a collar, just like Sari said."
"Well, yes, it does, but... the color..." He could be seen a good five miles away on a hillside in that thing.
"What's wrong with red?"
"Langly, that shirt hasn't been red since Bush left office," Frohike growls. It's a horrible, eye-mauling shade. The cuffs are shredded along the edges, and you can see the interface poking through the collar.
"I only got three collar shirts. This one's the cleanest," he whines.
"It's not going to work, Ringo." I try to keep my tone matter of fact. I really want Deborah's parents to see him for the decent man he is, not the questionable fashion victim he looks like.
"Let him use one of yours," Frohike calls as he brings out the coffee pot, refilling us and handing Langly a fresh mug.
"He's bigger than I am," I answer. I made that mistake once. My shirt came home with the sleeves ripped and the buttons popped. The cuffs don't come anywhere close to his wrists. Langly's got big, Nordic bones. I'm a lot thinner, not to mention slightly shorter and smaller boned.
"The blue one's missing a bunch of buttons," Langly grumbles.
"Not that it should ever be viewed in public," I mutter. His blue shirt is Hawaiian, and tackier than usual. "What about the checkered one?" Granted, that one will never make anybody's Best Dressed List, but it's the least offensive of his three 'dress shirts.' He even has a tie that sort of matches. Sort of.
"Wore it three times already. Deb says it needs washing." Deborah's been raising his standards, I see. Maybe there is hope.
"Why don't I ask Sari to get one for you? She's done things like that before." There must be something that could salvage his first impression with Deborah's parents. Sari won't be thrilled with my presumption that she'll do it, but I think she'll at least be understanding.
"It's just a fucking shirt!" Langly explodes at me. "Jesus, can't you guys ever lay off me? I mean, if I wanted to keep being hassled, I'd have stayed on the farm already!"
Frohike and I pass a look to each other. Langly rarely, if ever, talks about his family. Growing up on a farm in Saltville, Nebraska in a Pentecostal family wasn't an ideal childhood for the intelligent, imaginative, freedom-loving type he must have been. He hasn't spoken to his parents in even longer than I haven't spoken to my father. That's an uncomfortable thought.
Frohike steps up and places a hand on his back, and Langly jerks away. "I hope *you're* not gonna try and give me fashion advice!" he snaps.
I almost burst out laughing; the idea of Frohike giving anyone fashion pointers sounds like a bad episode of the Twilight Zone.
"Look, dude," Frohike keeps his voice soft. "We just want the girl's parents to give you a chance before they find out what a jerk you really are."
Langly shoots us the Look of Death, grabs his backpack, and heads for the door. "Fuck you both." He slams the door behind him without another word.
I shake my head and sigh. "I don't care what he says. I'm calling Sari."
Frohike looks over at me. "No wonder he stayed a virgin 'til he was 32."
End chapter 4