TITLE: World Without End (11/?) AUTHOR: Rachel Anton E-MAIL: RAnton1013@aol.com xxxxxx I miss my ceiling. I know, it's an odd thing to miss and in fact, it's not even on my top ten list of things I miss most. How could it be when Scully's not here? When I can't get Chinese take out anymore because all of my food comes from a computer? I remember watching Star Trek. I was always jealous of Picard and his replicator. Earl Grey tea whenever he wanted it and all he had to do was say the words. Who knew it would taste like ass? Anyhow, when a person is bereft of his one true love as well as any kind of decent nourishment, how could a ceiling make it into the top ten? It couldn't. But right now it's entering the top one hundred. The ceiling in my old office was made of some amalgamation of cardboard, asbestos and cork. It was the perfect texture for pencil throwing. They always stuck if I managed to chuck them up there properly. The ceiling in my new office is a shiny, metal, reflective slab and I'm pretty sure if I threw something up there it would come careening back at me with double force, probably taking my eye out in the process. And it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye. So I don't throw pencils. I lean back in my chair and stare at myself. For hours on end. I wonder if there's a place in hell for people who waste time. It seems like such a sin. I wonder how many hours, days I've wasted, twiddling my thumbs and looking at my foot while the world falls apart. I wonder if maybe this is hell itself. Trapped in a high tech, concrete jungle with Jeffrey Spender, my so-called partner, for all eternity. It could well be hell. Sometimes I try to talk to Scully. Sometimes I think that wherever she is, she has to still feel me somewhere, be able to hear me when I call to her to tell her I'm coming for her soon. Even if she doesn't remember consciously, there has to be some fragment of my memory inside of her and I try to reach that fragment when I sit here. It's not completely unselfish. I want her to talk back. She never does though. I never know if my messages are reaching her. She never did believe in things like psychic messages and I guess if you don't believe it doesn't work. Besides, I'm not a psychic. Just a bored, desperate, lonely man. So far my search has turned up absolutely nothing. I just don't have access to the kind of information I need. I managed to talk Spender into sniffing around a little bit for me but so far he's been unsucessful as well. I've tried to sneak into a few places, maximum security zones and the like, where I thought I might be able to find something but on the rare occasions when I've actually gotten in, I haven't been able to find anything useful. I don't really think I've ever felt so powerless. Even when I was looking for Sam, it never seemed this daunting, I never felt so imprisoned. I was also never quite this desperate to find Sam. It's an unpleasant combination. Add that to the mind-numbing monotony of my daily life and it's unbearable. The only thing that keeps me going is the thought of seeing her again. I've created quite a collection of fantasy scenarios in my head, what with all the free time I've got on my hands. All of them involve me sweeping into some castle or palace where Scully is being held prisoner, taking her into my arms and carrying her off to some remote, uninhabited island and making love to her until we both drop dead from exhaustion. It's not like we've got anything else to do. I wonder what she'd think of all this. Our life's work has amounted to a pile of dung rotting on the sidewalk. In the end, we couldn't have done a damn thing to stop this. We wasted so much time, lost so much. For absolutely nothing. We should have taken every precious moment and spent it loving each other instead of trying to right the world's wrongs. Still, I can't bring myself to regret a bit of it. I just wonder what she'd say...She'd have to admit that I was right all along. Sometimes I fantasize about hearing her say that. I just laugh and kiss her. It doesn't matter anymore. I close my eyes and try like hell to focus on that image to the exclusion of all else. I've almost got it. It's the Scully from before with her short hair and the life in her eyes and it's the me from way before, twenty pounds lighter and a hell of a lot more idealistic. Totally inaccurate but it's a keeper anyway. Just as I'm starting to really disappear into la la land the door slams shut startling me into consciousness. I open one eye and catch sight of Spender, scurrying around like a weasel, locking the doors and closing the windows, sweeping for surveillance devices, looking like a paranoid freak, looking the way I used to look. "Are we alone?" he asks me in a hurried whisper. "Are we ever?" "I mean it! Is there any chance we're being watched? Listened to? Are you wired?" "Wired?" "Look this is very important. If anyone finds out I have this...I don't even wanna think about what could happen to me." He pulls a video tape out of his jacket pocket and puts it on top of my desk. "If anyone asks, I didn't give this to you." "You finally found those movies I've been looking for?" "Goddammit Mulder! This is not a joke!" Well that's good cause it would make a really bad joke. No punch line, bad set up, and Spender's overly dramatic hushed tones are more pathetic than funny. "You wanted this, well here it is. I suggest you watch it and then destroy it as soon as possible." "This cloak and dagger bit is kind of unnecessary don't you think? What the hell is on this tape anyway? And why are we whispering?" "Do you remember about a year ago, there was some kind of attack on a newly established colony up north?" he whispers. "No but I'll take your word for it," I whisper back. Probably another raid and pillage by the "resistance".Every time I hear about one of those things I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Do they really think they're doing anyone any good at all? They're no better than the faceless men, the resistance from the sky. Killing people like me, prisoners, slaves, I don't see how this is supposed to help. No one chose this life. No one. "Well, there was an attack, by a resistance group here on Earth. They destroyed the place, killed everyone. They blew up the main building but there was a surveillance room in the basement that was relatively undamaged. There wasn't much left but I guess our people made a sweep and found a few pieces of evidence. I found...I found this tape in my father's apartment, Mulder." I still have no idea what this tape could possibly have to do with me but I take it and stick it in the VCR anyway. When I reach to turn it on Spender grabs my hand. "You could be killed just for watching this," he tells me urgently. Whatever. The picture that fills my screen is almost as boring as what's right in front of my face. It's two men sitting at two desks, rifling through two piles of paper and not talking to each other. The office is a little less cluttered but other than that this could be me and Spender on any given day during the past five years. This gripping drama continues for about ten minutes until Spender finally shrugs sheepishly and hits the fast forward button. "It goes on like this for awhile but...wait, here it is." He rewinds and we watch a couple seconds more of the terrific twosome and then suddenly something breaks the monotony. And the window. A man, dressed all in black, crashes through the glass with a submachine gun. It's been awhile. A long while. But it only takes a second or two for me to identify the man. "He's alive?" It's interesting, it's unexpected, and it's still a mystery why in the world I should care. The two men scramble around and one of them goes down almost instantly. Black blood pours from his chest and the fucker is actually smiling. This really isn't that surprising at all now that I think about it. Hell, the cockroaches are still here, why shouldn't Krycek be around too, killing whoever he deems deserving to service his own ends? Some things will never ever change. The other man starts running towards the door but when he opens it another shot goes off, from outside, and he goes down too. More blood. Krycek's got a friend. I guess he's got a bunch if he was involved in the destruction of an entire colony. A whole little group of cockroaches. And then...and then...and then it all makes sense. And it makes no sense at all. The second assassin walks through the door. Her hair is longer, tied back in a French braid and she's dressed in a matching black jeans, leather jacket ensemble but there's no mistaking the woman's identity. No mistaking. "Oh..." I think I was going to say something like "Oh my God" but my throat has closed in on itself. On the screen Krycek is digging through the first dead man's desk and she...Scully, my Scully, is closing and locking the door. This can't be what it looks like. God, I don't even know what it looks like. It's the strangest thing I've ever seen. She walks over to the second dead guy's desk and starts rummaging through the drawers. Her face has blood and dirt on it. Her clothes are torn. She's panting and...she looks...I can't even describe how she looks. I've never seen her like this. "Hey, check it out. Somebody's got a secret," Krycek says, holding up a pair of frilly pink panties that he apparently found in one of the drawers. "I don't think they're your size," Scully comments dryly as she starts dumping a pile of disks into a bag. "They might be yours," he replies oh so wittily and tosses them over to her. She picks them up, eyes them, shrugs and sticks them in the bag. "How much time?" he asks. She looks at her watch and gasps. "Two and a half minutes. We've gotta get out of here." She slings her bag over her shoulder and runs over to him. He's still frantically digging. She touches his arm. She touches his arm. She touches his fucking arm. "We need to go, Alex." Alex...Alex...ALEX? "I'm not finished. I think..." "Alex! Stop it. We need to go." He looks up at her and they seem to have some kind of silent, eye conversation and he finally nods. The two of them climb out the window he broke in through and Spender hits the off button. "That's about it. The rest of this is just the office blowing up." I can't talk. I can't even think. I have to get her out of there. I have to get her away from him. I need to talk to her. I need to know what she's doing with that...that son of a bitch! God, how could this have happened? "Mulder..." "He knew about this," I choke out. "Your...your fucking father. He knew...the deal....there was no deal. It's all been a bunch of BULLSHIT this entire time!" "Mulder, keep your voice down." "Keep my voice down?! FUCK YOU, keep my voice down. I can't...I can't even believe this. Where...where was this? Where are they?" "I don't...I'm not entirely sure..." "Well you better find the fuck out you little prick! I swear to God..." "Mulder, get your hands off me." My hands? God, I didn't even realize I was shaking him. I didn't realize I was shaking. "This...this can't happen. She's in danger. I need to find her. I need to talk to her!" "Danger? She looked pretty...I mean, I think she's the danger Mulder. Her and Krycek, playing Bonnie and Clyde or something..." "She's not playing anything with that bastard! This isn't her choice. It can't be." "Mulder, I don't..." "I HAVE TO SEE HER! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?" "Look, I can't help you any more than I have..." "No, you have to help me. You don't have a choice. You find out where she is and then you help me get to her and if you don't, I swear to God Spender, I'll tell them about this. I'll tell them that you showed me this tape. And there won't be a force in the universe that will be able to save you." He sits down at his desk and sighs heavily. He looks defeated. Thank God. "All right, look, I can tell you the exact location of this colony that was attacked. From there it should be relatively easy for you to find them." "If it's so damn easy to find them then why hasn't somebody done it already?" "I don't know. That's one of the things I don't understand about any of this. They're being allowed to survive. Somebody is keeping them safe. Maybe my father..." God, I can't even begin to imagine the reasoning behind what that bastard has done. Just thinking about it, about how I've been playing into his head game all this time, is enough to make me want to vomit. "Anyway, you're gonna need some kind of car to get there. It's a long way. And you're going to need a reason, Mulder. You can't just drive on out of here like it's a freaking vacation you know." "I know that." "The only thing I can think of is if we arranged for you to transport a slave, that might get you through the initial check points and then from there...from there you're on your own, Mulder." "Fine. Let's do it." xxxxxx End Chapter Eleven Continued in Chapter Twelve