Hole in the Black
by PD

ARCHIVAL:  Gossamer, no thanks. Stories will be housed at 
my site only. If you'd like to link, I'd love it, but 
please drop me note with a heads up.

DISCLAIMER:  Can I borrow the keys to the franchise, Chris? 
I won't go to any FBI balls, I promise to make a full stop 
at most clichés, and I will try not to dangle my 
participles at the nice couple in the unremarkable house.

CLASSIFICATION: SRA, MSR, IWTB, TMI, ASAP

RATING:  R

SPOILERS:  Through The X Files: I Want To Believe

SUMMARY:  "I wasn't in the group, Mr. Mulder. I was a 
tangential part of the project - in league with those few 
who were adamant on the subject of developing an antidote 
and a vaccine. He was our man on the inside, but we were 
not on the side of complicity with the colonists and that 
meant we were on the outside. Fringe element. We were not 
highly regarded. We weren't even invited to the group 
barbecues." He caught himself and smiled. "Ah. No pun 
intended."


~ Chapter 15 ~
 
Wednesday, April 16th
8:15 am
Mitchell Mesa Complex
Monument Valley, AZ

She dreamed about rock climbing. She scrambled like a 
monkey up the steep sides of the mesa to find William at 
the top, only he wasn't a young boy, he was a young man. 
William beckoned her to follow, and she could do nothing as 
he turned, ran and dove off the edge of the mesa. She 
screamed his name and ran to the edge, and she watched him 
soar - an eagle against the blue sky. She smiled and dove 
off the cliff after him. 

Her eyes peeled open and she found herself alone. She heard 
murmuring and sat up in bed and, yes, she definitely 
smelled bacon.

Scully padded out of their bedroom to find William and 
Mulder eating on the floor in front of the television. Some 
ancient Warner Bros. cartoon was playing with the sound 
off.

"Hi," William said. "Fox got bacon and eggs and some of 
that bread with honey."

Scully offered William an uncoordinated smile, and, bleary-
eyed, looked at Mulder, a question in her eyes.

"Coffee's in the kitchen," he said. 

She poured a cup of the dark brew and sat with them on the 
floor.

"I brought it back from the mess. I don't think we're 
comfortable enough to break bread with them yet."

"Not by a long shot," Scully finally muttered.

"Also," Mulder said, munching on a strip of bacon and 
gesturing to a pile just inside their door, "one of them 
went out to the Jeep and brought all the stuff that we 
left. The blankets and all our clothes." Mulder shrugged. 

Scully had helped herself to a small plate of eggs and a 
piece of fry bread. She dipped it in the honey and savored 
the sticky sweetness. "Unusual," she said.

"Call me crazy, Scully," and he thwarted her incoming 
rejoinder with a glance, "but I think they're genuine. I 
mean, I don't trust Roy, but I don't think he's not telling 
the truth at this point. I'm sure he's got an agenda."

"Of course, he's got an agenda, Mulder."

"I mean, beyond the obvious." He shook his head. "I don't 
know. I'm just -" he glanced at William, "I'm horrified 
that William was alone with him and essentially... You 
know."

"He didn't hurt me," William said softly. 

"And he won't, ever," Scully said. "Did you sleep all 
right?" 

"Uh huh." He smiled. "I have a TV and a Playstation in my 
room," he said, delighted.

Mulder turned to Scully, the corners of his mouth turned 
down. "I don't know why we didn't get a Playstation."

Scully shook her head and said, "Don't encourage him," as 
William giggled. She turned her attention back to her 
breakfast and shooed away the remnants of a dream - 
something about flying or falling or both.

~:~:~

Escorted once again by Pete, Mulder, Scully and William 
were on the last leg of their tour of the installation. 

Pete was unusually helpful and forthcoming - more than 
happy to answer every question they'd had. To her chagrin, 
Scully found this fact unsettling and cursed Mulder's 
paranoia for rubbing off on her so completely. 

What they learned from Pete was that "the rocks in this 
valley are laced with iron oxide minerals - ilmenite, 
hematite among them," he said. "And that this particular 
mesa has a massive store of magnetite, the most highly 
magnetic mineral on Earth." 

After the excavation of the mine, Pete had said, they'd 
discovered, among other things, the lodestone's means as a 
shield against colonist detection and years later, of 
course, it's toxicity to the supersoldiers.

Scully sighed in apparent annoyance at the mention of the 
new alien threat. "Can't we call them something else, while 
we're at it, Mulder?" They were peering through the acrylic 
shielding into a clean room with men and women in white 
hazmat suits. "It just sounds so..."

"Marvel Comic-y?"

"It kind of takes the sting out of their otherwise 
threatening nature, I suppose."

"Not enough," he said. "Hey, Pete. What are they doing in 
there?"

"Oh, this is the computer technology section. They're 
working with processors and memory chips and adding the 
magnetite component to replicate the same sensory systems 
that are in birds, bacteria..."

"Really?"

"Yeah, Mulder," Scully said, "navigation, homing senses - 
magnetoreception is present in many organisms. They've 
found microscopic crystals of Fe3O4 - what's known as 
single-domain magnetite - in the brains of bees, termites, 
of course birds - and humans. It's thought in some 
scientific circles that the magnetic field sensitivity in 
living organisms is based on the presence of these 
crystals."

"So, when you tell me I've got rocks in my head..." Mulder 
suggests.

"Not too far off," she said with a smile.

"Dana?" William had his hands on the thick acrylic 
separating them from the clean room. "It's in there." 
William looked up at Pete. "Isn't it? A new computer 
for my - for Dana."

Pete suddenly looked like a trapped animal, his eyes 
swinging from one person to the next.

"A chip?" Mulder asked. "Pete? What kind of chip?"

"Okay," Pete said on a sigh. "Uh, the only part of the 
original project that we incorporated into this 
installation is the production of a *variation,*" he said, 
emphasizing the word, "of the chip you have in your neck. 
Not for nefarious purposes, I swear. The technology is what 
we were interested in - hoping that it might help in the 
applications in the development of the vaccine. A chip or a 
hypo filled with biological material - if one would help 
the other..."

"What kind of variation?" Scully asked. 

"The one you have is based on memory replication. Storage. 
That's the bad part. For you, I mean. The plus side to your 
chip is its ability to direct and regulate the biological 
processes that prevent your - ," he glanced at William, 
"illness from recurring. What we have in there," he said, 
gesturing, "is the biological director only. It's like an 
extra synapse and neurotransmitter just for this purpose. 
Preventative health care," he said, smiling.

"Are they 100% efficient?" Mulder asked. 

"Yes."

"No bullshit."

"No, sir. No bullshit. Once we figured them out, they're 
really not all that mysterious."

Mulder turned to Scully who was lost in a cloud of 
overwhelming information. She shook her head. "I don't 
know."

Mulder leaned in, closing the distance between his mouth 
and her ears. "You were ready to cut it out a few years 
ago," he whispered. "After Ruskin Dam, the incinerations. 
Regardless of the consequences. This is an option, Scully." 
He paused to gauge her reaction. "We can always put the 
other one back in."

"I know!" She caught herself and put her hand on his chest 
in apology. "I know," she said again, softly. "Let me think 
about it."

Mulder nodded his head and gestured to Pete that they were 
ready to move on.

~:~:~

12:45 pm
Mess Hall
Mitchell Mesa Complex

Mulder, Scully and William ate and talked quietly at a 
comfortable table in the corner of the mess hall. As she 
dug into her delicious salad, Scully periodically glanced 
up to find people staring at her - at the three of them. 
When caught staring, though, they didn't attempt to cover 
and furtively look away. Instead they seemed to be 
industriously striving for eye contact. Scully glanced 
behind her as she sipped at a Diet Coke and found a wide-
eyed woman looking at her. The woman smiled, waved and 
finally went back to her lunch.

"Mulder, have you noticed anything - odd - about the way 
we're being treated here?" she whispered.

"Hm? Oh. What?"

"I feel like a fish."

William looked up from his spaghetti and giggled. Scully 
made a fish face back at him.

"What are you talking about?" Mulder asked.

She speared goat cheese and a pecan and swirled it in the 
balsamic dressing on her plate. "You're so self-absorbed."

Mulder frowned around a bite of his sandwich. "I am not," 
he said, mouth full. He looked out into the crowd in the 
mess hall, chewing and found several pairs of eyes on him. 
One woman tittered and looked quickly away.

Mulder pulled at the lettuce dangling from the corner of 
his mouth. He shrugged at Scully.

"It's a little disconcerting," she said. 

"What is?" Roy asked as he appeared behind them. Scully 
shook her head, dismissing the question. "So, Pete took you 
all around? You saw both labs?"

"Yes," Scully said. "Very enlightening."

"Mm hm. Mind if I sit down?" 

Scully gestured to the fourth chair at the table and Roy 
nodded in thanks. "Listen," he said after a moment of 
contemplation, "I know you feel deceived -"

"Only by you," Scully said.

Roy acknowledged that with a tilt of his head. "I hope you 
can eventually understand my reasons, but I don't want my 
apparently bad decision to jeopardize your involvement in 
this."

"Regardless of your methods in dealing with William and 
getting us here, the goal itself appears genuine and worth 
our *considered* involvement," she said. "We're willing to 
listen to what you have to say about what it is, exactly, 
that you need from us."

"Good. I'm glad. Just hear me and that's all I can ask."

Roy looked from Scully to Mulder and back again. Their 
features were painted with mild anticipation. "Oh," Roy 
said, catching on. "Now. Okay. Uh, it's very simple, 
really. We need blood - from each of you."

William looked surprised. "I thought it was just me."

"Well, you are the result of what this project is all 
about: natural and complete immunity to the alien virus." 
He looked at Mulder and Scully. "Both of you are examples 
of the first stage of this process. During your initial 
abduction Dr. Scully, and through both your exposures and 
subsequent cures of the virus, your DNA was fundamentally 
changed and the genetic mutation was passed on to William. 
The three of you are the beginning, the middle and the end 
of the story. With your blood, we will test and synthesize 
the genetic material. When that is successful, we'll 
establish a delivery system and that, as they say, is 
that."

They were quiet when he was through speaking, ruminating on 
the facts. 

"Well," Roy said, getting up, "I'll let you finish your 
lunch. Come on down to the bio-lab when you're through and 
I'll explain in more detail." Roy nodded his goodbyes and 
left them alone.

It all sounded genuine, even noble. Scully was loathe to 
treat William as a scientific boon, but in his own words, 
that's what he was there for - to save the world.