TITLE: World Without End: Book II (1/?)
AUTHOR: Rachel Anton
E-Mail: RAnton1013@aol.com

xxxxxx

I have traveled far with my new master.  This is the 
farthest that I have ever been from the main house.  
These weeks of motion have been the strangest in my 
life.  At least as far as I can recall.

My old master was a friend of the one they call 
Jeffery.  The one who seemed to know me from the time 
before.  The one whose eyes looked so very familiar 
to me.

Many weeks ago, Jeffery came to the big house.  He 
talked with my master behind a closed door for many 
hours.  When they came out Jeffery told me that I was 
going to go on a trip.  That I would have a new 
master.

I did not understand the concept of "trip" but when I 
went to sleep that night I felt something stirring in 
me.  Something that I could not place but seemed very 
familiar.  I think the Chosen call it excitement.

The next day Jeffery brought me away from the big 
house.  He brought me into the city, to a very tall 
building.  That is where I met my new master.  The 
one they call Mulder.

The one I call Mulder.

I tried to call him Master but he told me not to do 
that.  I still have trouble remembering though.

Master Mulder brought me to his automobile and drove 
away from the city.  The men at the bridge stopped us 
and Master Mulder told them that he was taking me up 
north, to another colony.

Once we were over the bridge he turned to me and 
said, "That was a lie.  You're not going to another 
colony.  You're going to be free."

I asked him what free was.  He said it meant that I 
could do whatever I wanted to.  I asked him what I 
wanted to do but he didn't know the answer to that.

We drove together for many many days.  I lost track 
of how many days.  We passed several checkpoints and 
at each one my master gave the men a card and some 
papers and the men let us through.  We ate in 
different places every day.  I had never eaten 
anywhere but the kitchen of the big house before.  
Master Mulder had cards for us and when we showed 
them to the people in the restaurants in the colonies 
we passed through, they let us eat there.  They also 
let us put gasoline in our automobile.  These cards 
seemed like a very good thing but every time Master 
Mulder had to use them he looked around nervously and 
chewed on his mouth.

Master Mulder told me that he knew me in the time 
before.  I told him that I had no memory of that.  He 
didn't talk to me very much after that.  He doesn't 
seem to talk very much at all.

Our journey took us to an empty place where a 
building used to be.  Master Mulder walked around and 
looked for "clues" and I sat in the automobile.  He 
didn't find any clues and after many hours he decided 
that we would leave the place and walk through the 
woods.  We walked for a very long time.

A few hours ago Master Mulder told me that he thought 
we should probably turn around and go back to the 
automobile.  He kicked a rock and said a curse word.  
That was when the men came.

The men had guns.  They told us that we were on their 
property and that we should explain ourselves.  
Master Mulder asked the men who they were.  Then the 
men hit him.  They put a black hood over his head and 
some sort of weapon to his back.

They put a hood on my head also and then they led us 
through the woods.  We marched for many minutes.  
Then they took us indoors and brought us to a room.  
They sat us down and tied us to chairs.  I think we 
have been in here for more than an hour.

I can hear Master Mulder next to me.  He is breathing 
very heavily and every few minutes he shouts 
"Scully!".  He says that word a lot.  I think we are 
here to find a Scully.  The men keep telling him, 
"Shut up!"  but he doesn't.

I hear some movement.  I hear a door opening, a door 
closing, people moving around.  I hear voices.

"Where did you find them?"

"The south corner of the pine forest."

"What were they doing?"

"Just walking around."

Suddenly the blackness covering my eyes disappears.  
Someone has taken away my hood.  The light is so 
bright that I cannot see anything but white for a few 
seconds.

Slowly the room comes into focus.  The walls are 
white cement.  The floor is white tile with blue 
flecks.  There is an old-looking couch next to a 
large, strange looking box with a glass panel in the 
front.  I am sitting on a fold-out chair in front of 
a green table with white lines painted on to it.  I 
think people used to play something called pong on 
tables like this.  The men from the woods are here.  
They are standing in the corners of the room with 
their weapons.  And there are others.

A female.  The only female in the room except for me.  
She must be a slave.  There are only one or two women 
in each colony who are Mistresses.  The rest are 
slaves.  Surely we are not being permitted to meet 
the Mistress of this colony so soon.  But she stands 
in a strange way for a slave.  She stands very 
straight and tall.  Her clothing is worn out and 
shabby but it seems that everyone in this colony is 
dressed in this fashion.  They must be a sub-standard 
group.

There is also another man.  The man who questioned 
the men who found us.  He must be the High Master of 
this colony.

He is the one who removed my hood.  He stands in 
front of me and blinks.  Then he kneels down in front 
of me.  He looks at my face from very close.

"Marita?"

I have heard this word before.  It is the first word 
that Master Mulder said when I was given to him.  He 
said it in the same sort of way.

"What...what are you doing here?"

"I came here with my master.  Are you my new master 
now?"

The man stands back up and runs his hand over his 
hair.  Then he tosses my hood onto the pong table and 
makes a strange sound.

He looks at the woman and the woman looks at Master 
Mulder.

"Your master, huh?"  he says and turns to Master 
Mulder himself.

He reaches for Master Mulder's hood but then he 
stops.  He turns back to the woman again and but she 
does not see.  She is staring at Master Mulder still.  
He swallows and closes his eyes.  Then he pulls 
Master Mulder's hood off of his head.

The woman gasps very loudly and puts her hand over 
her mouth.  She starts walking backwards and ends up 
hitting the wall.  She is very interesting to watch.  
I have never seen a slave act in this way.

The man is just looking at Master Mulder.  He seems 
very angry.  Most of the Masters are angry most of 
the time.

"Scully!"  Master Mulder says again and this time he 
is looking directly at the slave woman.  Moisture 
forms in her eyes and she shakes her head.  He tries 
to stand up but he is tied down and doesn't get very 
far.  Then the other Master pushes him back down in 
his seat.

"Sit down," he says.  He must be a very high Master 
if he can tell Master Mulder what to do.  Master 
Mulder looks angry too, though.  He glares at the 
other Master and struggles to get out of his chair.

"Nice place you've got here, Krycek.  Love the goons.  
Very classy."

Nobody moves or says anything for a minute that 
seems, even to me, extremely long.  Then the other 
Master's face twitches and the woman says "Alex..."  
and then he hits Master Mulder across the face with 
his fist.

"No!"  the woman yells and then she runs closer.  
Blood pours out of Master Mulder's nose and turns the 
other Master's hand black.   The woman stops moving 
when she sees it and stares at Master Mulder.

"Scully," he says.

The other Master, I suppose he is Master Alex, looks 
at the blood too and then he shakes his hand like he 
is trying to get it off of his skin.

There is much more moisture coming from the woman's 
eyes now and her mouth opens but then closes again 
many times.  She makes a sound like she is in pain.  
Master Mulder says "Scully," yet again and it seems 
to add to her suffering.  I do not understand the 
source of her pain.  She is not being beaten and yet 
she acts as though she were.  She is the strangest 
slave I have ever seen.

"Get her out of here," Master Alex says to a very 
large man with blond hair.  The man takes the 
strange, red-haired woman by her arm and he walks her 
out of the room.  She shakes when she walks.

"Her too," Master Alex says to another man and points 
at me.  "Find her a room and...just...just find her a 
room."

The man unties me and tells me to follow him.  I do 
as asked as it seems to be the wish of both Masters 
Alex and Mulder.

We walk into a less brightly lit hallway and a few 
steps ahead I see the woman pacing back and forth 
with her arms crossed over her chest.  The large man 
is seated on a bench near her.  When she sees us she 
moves towards me.

"Who are you?"  she asks me.

"They call me three-oh-eight."

She looks towards the sky and then back at me.

"Look, I'm not buying this.  Any of it.  Who are you 
really?  And who is that....who is that?"

"I am three-oh-eight and the one I came with is 
called Master Mulder."

"Master..."  She shakes her head.  "Look, just stop 
it.  That's not...that's not him and...and this 
little slave act you're pulling isn't cutting it with 
me.  Who the hell are you two and what are you doing 
here?"

She is yelling now.  I have never been yelled at by 
another slave before.  I do not understand this one 
at all.

"I do not know why we are here.  I think we are 
looking for a Scully."

xxxxxx

God Scully.  I'm so sorry.  I didn't want you to find 
out this way.  I didn't want it to be like this.

"Who are you?"

I think he's asked me this a few times already.  I 
don't believe this.  Who the hell does he think he 
is?  Doesn't he understand what I've been through to 
get here?

"Dammit, Krycek."

I struggle against the wire holding my wrists and 
ankles in place but whoever tied these fuckers is one 
hell of a boy scout.

"Who are you?  What are you doing here?"

He notices what I'm trying to do and cocks the gun 
he's got pointed at me.

"What do you want?"

"I told you.  I just wanna see Scully.  That's all."

He shakes his head.

"No.  No way.  Not until I know who...what the fuck 
you are."

Goddammit.  I didn't want to have to explain myself 
to this bastard.  If I could only talk to Scully.  
She would know.  She would understand.

But for whatever reason, it seems that Krycek is the 
biggest obstacle between me and her right now and the 
only way to get through him and to Scully seems to be 
to tell him what he wants to know.

God, she looked so beautiful.  And so unhappy, so 
confused.  Because of me.  Because of what I am.

"I am Mulder, Krycek.  Whether you believe it or not.  
Frankly, I don't care if you do."

"That doesn't...it doesn't make any sense," he 
stammers.

"What do you know about the conversion process," I 
ask.  Krycek snorts.  Then he walks closer so that 
he's standing directly in front of me.

"No.  That's bullshit.  Mulder 
wouldn't....couldn't..."

He reaches towards my face and wipes some of the 
thick, oily blood from under my nose with his finger.

"Mulder would never choose this," he says, bringing 
the gunk up to my eye and then flinging it 
disgustedly onto the table.  "Besides, Mulder is 
dead.  She saw him die.  I saw the pictures, I read 
the reports.  He's dead.  You're not him.  You're not 
Mulder."

"What makes you think a person has a choice?"  

"Everyone has a choice.  Everyone has some kind of 
choice.  The Mulder I knew would have killed himself 
before turning into one of them."

The Mulder he knew?  He says this as if he knew me at 
all.  Still, the comment hits a little too close to 
home.  I might not have chosen to be turned into what 
I am but I did make certain choices.  Certain stupid 
choices.  Choices I will not be able to forgive 
myself for until I can talk to Scully and know that 
she's been all right.  That she forgives me.

"I didn't choose to be turned into this, Krycek.  Any 
more than a slave chooses to be turned into a slave.  
It happened to me.  That's what Scully saw.  That's 
what you saw in those pictures.  That thing, coming 
out of me...That was the conversion process.  Not 
death.  Rebirth.  Something was placed inside me and 
it lived there, gestating, until the time came for it 
to be born.  When it tore out of my stomach, that was 
a birthing process and after that it...it grew back 
into me.  The person you see now is Fox Mulder.  All 
the same feelings, experiences, memories.  Only 
difference is physiological."

He just stares at me for a minute in that Neanderthal 
way that he has and then sits down across from me.

"No, that's not how it happens.  You're lying."

"It's not how it happens for everyone.  Only the ones 
who don't choose.  The ones who are chosen.  Hence 
the name, The Chosen."

"Why haven't I ever heard about this?  Why haven't I 
seen it before?"

"I don't know.  Maybe you need to get out more."

"How long do we have?"

"Until what?"

"Until the rest of your alien goo friends come after 
you and find us?"

"They won't.  I don't want to be found.  I took 
precautions to make sure that won't happen.  Look, 
all I want is to see Scully.  That's the only reason 
I'm here.  If you just let me talk to her..."

He shakes his head again and then he laughs.  It's 
not a mirthful sound though.  It's a bitter laugh.  
An angry laugh.

"You wanna see Scully huh?  Well, maybe you should 
have thought about that five or six years ago."

"Look, you don't know....you don't understand.  I did 
what I had to do.  I need to tell her.  I need to 
explain..."

"Explain what?  That you're a traitor?  A mutant?  
That you sold her out so that you could get off 
easy?"

"Dammit, that's not the way it was!"

God, I didn't think I could hate this motherfucker 
any more than I did before this moment but he's 
surpassed my expectations.

"Do you have any idea what kind of hell she's been 
through the past six years?  Do you even care?"

"Of...of course I care, Krycek."

The question is, why the hell does he care so goddamn 
much?  Why is this any of his business at all?

"Listen, she seems healthy, she seems...well, I 
suppose it's a good thing that you found her.  She 
seems well taken care of and I'm grateful to you for 
that but...but she doesn't belong here, Krycek.  I 
mean, for her health if nothing else.  Without that 
chip she...she could relapse at any time.  She needs 
to be somewhere where they can heal her, where..."

"NO!  That's not the way it works," he shouts and 
he's up on his feet looking for all the world like 
he's about to hit me again.   "I'm not a fucking 
holding station here, Mulder.  You don't just drop 
her off for six years and then waltz back in like 
nothing's changed to pick her up and carry her off 
again!  You think that's how it is, Mulder?  Just 
cause you THINK you love her more than anyone could 
ever love anybody?"

He's got the barrel of his gun against my chest and 
he's yelling in my face now.  Something about this is 
just completely peculiar.  What the hell is his 
fucking problem?

"Look, Krycek, I know you guys have been through a 
lot..."

God knows, they look the worse for wear.  Healthy 
like I said but still, bedraggled.  

"You don't know shit about what we've been through.  
So don't even pretend to understand or to care," he 
whispers angrily.

"Look, if you'd just let me talk to her, I'm sure we 
can work all of this out."

He looks at me with more disgust and hatred than I've 
ever seen from him.  And that's saying a whole hell 
of a lot.  Then he spits in my face.

"Go to hell," he growls.  Then he leaves the room.  
He leaves me with his team of thugs.

As he's walking out the door, I call for Scully, 
hoping that she's still in hearing range of this 
room.  I call at the top of my lungs.

No one answers me.

xxxxxx

The first time I met Dana Scully I was twenty-five 
years old.  Bright eyed and full of crap, sure that I 
was on "the right side" before I realized that the 
only side that counts is your own side.  My 
assignment at first was only to spy on them, find out 
what subversive activities they were participating 
in.  I did my job and I did it well.  Too well.

I remember the way they were back then.  I remember 
the two of them talking in hushed tones, only to each 
other even though they weren't alone.  I remember 
being annoyed with her dismissive attitude towards 
me.  I remember feeling the connection between them.  
I remember feeling like I might as well have been on 
another planet as far as they were concerned.  I 
remember feeling as though I were watching something 
intimate, almost sexual when they spoke to each 
other.  I remember that I didn't really care very 
much.

When I pulled the hood off of that...thing in there, 
when they looked at each other, it was the same 
thing.  The same fucking thing all over again.  Only 
this time, I did care.  This time when that wall went 
up between the two of them and the rest of the world 
and I was on the side with everybody else, I cared.  
I cared so much that I hit him.  As if that would 
make it go away.

So now I guess the question it, if it walks like a 
Mulder, talks like a Mulder, acts like a fucking 
Mulder, does that mean it is a Mulder?

God knows that arrogant, obnoxious, sonofabitch 
affected me the same way a Mulder would.  Just being 
in his presence brought up so many conflicted and 
twisted feelings that I thought for sure I would 
vomit from it.  All the inadequacy, all the jealousy 
and the anger and the frustration flooded through my 
system like water through an old rusty pipe that 
someone turned on after years of being shut down.

That man turns me into someone I don't like very 
much.

But really, what kind of reception was he expecting?  
Red carpets and brass bands?  Jesus Christ.  How the 
hell am I supposed to react?  For all I know he's a 
fucking spy.

All I know is that I can't deal with him right now.  
I  just can't.

"Devotchka?"

The room is dark but light is starting to filter 
through the windows.  It's almost dawn.  I've spent 
almost the entire night wandering around campus, 
looking for Dana.

When I left that Mulder-like thing I found Bryan in 
the hall.  He said that she'd told him she was going 
home, that he'd walked her there himself.  But when I 
came back here the first time, the place was empty.

My state of panic escalated to a terrifying level and 
I ran out into the night to try and find her.  The 
longer I went without seeing her, the worse things 
got.  What if seeing Mulder again made her realize 
that she doesn't really want to be here?  What if it 
made her go insane?  What if she left?

I feel pretty close to a mental breakdown myself at 
the moment.  If she's still not home I don't know 
what I'll do.

I hear a small "I'm here," coming from the couch and 
I turn around.  Thank God.  Thank God.

She's curled up in the corner of the sofa, her arms 
wrapped around her knees, rocking slowly back and 
forth.  She looks so small and damaged.  She looks so 
much like the woman she was five years ago, when she 
first started believing that Mulder was dead, that it 
makes my stomach lurch sickeningly.

I sit down on the other side of the couch, wanting to 
touch her but, for the first time in a long time, not 
entirely sure how well the gesture would go over with 
her.

I clear my throat and try to decide what the fuck to 
say.

"Want me to brush your hair, devotchka?"  I end up 
asking.  I dunno.  Sometimes she finds it soothing.  
And it might help me a whole hell of a lot right now.  
It would be familiar.  Something to hold onto.

But she shakes her head no.

 "Maybe we oughtta try and get some sleep," I suggest 
and get another head shake in response.

"You go ahead.  I...I can't."

Like I could knowing that she's out here like...this.

"Dana..."

"Is it him, Alex?  Is it?"

I tell her the only thing that I can.

"I don't know, devotchka.  I don't know."

xxxxxx

End Chapter One, Book II