The Lambs: Part 3 (10/11)     
by Lamia (AKA so kiss me goodbye) 
                                        
Rating: PG-13 (violence, strong language)
Category: S                             
Spoilers: Seasons 1-9, Fight the Future           
Keywords: William; Colonization              
Summary: Liam van de Kamp's life changes the day two 
FBI agents kidnap him and his parents.
 

Chapter 41 

December 22, 2012 
New Mexico 

For an alien making a great escape, Jeremiah sure was 
fussy. 

He plucked Liam up, chucked him over his shoulder, and 
took off at a hasty pace. 

"Hush," Liam heard, but it wasn't for him. Far behind 
them Sal fell quiet. Liam refused to consider what else 
Jeremiah might have done to her. Who knew the extent of 
his abilities? For the third time in a day, Liam found 
himself carried like a log. He was sick of it. 
Protesting was out of the question; he could breathe 
and that was about all. 

Moonlight fell on the gully, which twisted away from 
the crash site. Jeremiah carried Liam for at least five 
minutes until the gully petered out. A vehicle waited 
at the end. With a quick look behind them, Jeremiah 
loaded Liam into the front of the jeep, arranged him 
like a toy with bendy limbs, and clicked the seatbelt 
in place. Scully had once done the same thing. 

This made it - what? - three times kidnapped now. Or 
maybe four even. Gibson had implied as much. 

Gibson. An unexpected pain throbbed in Liam's forehead. 
He refused to cry ... and the pain burned more. 

*Think about something else.* 

The two-timing, shapeshifting alien put the car in 
motion - but left the headlights off. He wove in and 
out like he was a tentative tortoise. 

The light wasn't strong enough to be certain, but Liam 
thought Jeremiah was swerving to avoid boulders and 
bushes. 

*Why bother?* 

Sitting in a moving vehicle while paralyzed turned out 
to be uncomfortable. When they hit a rock, Liam was 
tossed sideways. He was stuck that way until the 
vehicle bounced him back. 

*What if I ...?* 

Putting himself in the void was becoming Liam's answer 
to everything. As he sank into concentration, he could 
almost see the invisible binds Jeremiah had wrapped him 
in. All he had to do was find a way to loosen them. 

*Then what? Open the door and roll out?* Actually, that 
might work. Jeremiah's getaway wasn't exactly high 
speed. But try as hard as he might, the binds wouldn't 
budge. 

Liam fought for a way to express his disapproval. With 
the little bit of movement he had, he glared at 
Jeremiah. 

It worked. Jeremiah glanced at him. 

Stiffness went out of Liam's cheeks and he gasped in a 
big mouthful of air. Then he ripped into his captor. 

"What did you do to Ellie, you dirty double crosser?" 

Jeremiah shrugged. "Her fate is a mystery to me. You 
thought you saw her. You did not." 

"I don't believe you." 

"As you wish." 

His response made Liam fume. "For such a dirty double 
crosser you're shit at making a swift exit." 

Jeremiah's craggy eyebrows, extra dark in the unlit 
cab, shot up. "Does your mother know you use that 
language?" 

"Are you going to tell her?" 

That shut Jeremiah up. His attention went back to his 
zig-zag escape route. 

"If you'd put the headlights on, you'd see better." 

"Headlights aren't necessary." 

Liam had to disagree. 

"Are all aliens shit drivers?" He didn't care that he 
was overdoing it - if ever a moment deserved some cuss 
words, this had to be it. Even his mother wouldn't 
argue. 

Jeremiah seemed offended. "What do you mean? I'm taking 
absolute care. Look about you -" "How? The lights 
aren't on." 

"Humans." Jeremiah made a disparaging noise. "Every 
square foot of this desert has life. You think just 
because you can't see something that gives you the 
right to go barrelling over it in a one tonne truck 
with no considerations to others?" 

"Oh, yeah? If you're so big on consideration, why 
kidnap me? Again!" 

The jeep came to a real dirt road, and they swung right 
onto it. Liam rolled with the motion, braced by his 
restraint. "Do you know how hard it is to sit like 
this?" 

"Sorry," Jeremiah muttered. 

Blood rushed into Liam's legs and arms. Not his hands 
or feet though. Crafty. 

"You'll come to understand," Jeremiah said. "This is 
the right thing to do." 

Liam squirmed in his seat, getting comfortable. 

"Is that what the Grays told you - each time you got 
sucked back onto a Gray ship?" 

Jeremiah looked thoughtful but didn't respond. 

"Where are you taking me?" 

"I have a feeling you know." 

Liam shook his head. "Nope. Not a clue." 

"You're angry." 

"Gee. What gave it away?" 

"You used to be such a pleasant little boy." 

"And now you're an alien creep. People change." 

Jeremiah had sped up when they got on the road. As far 
as Liam could tell, it was taking them back toward the 
compound. 

They wound around hills, working their way to the top. 
It was still too dark to make out details, but when 
they reached the ridge, Liam could recognise the 
bowl-shaped plateau nestled below them. 

The compound really had been in its own little world. 

At first Liam thought they were heading back to it. 
They even got as far as the first perimeter fence and 
the main gate. This must have been the road Mulder 
drove the RV on. But instead of going through it, 
Jeremiah turned off onto another rough track running 
parallel to the fence. 

As best he could tell, they were heading north. 

Without warning Jeremiah slammed his foot on the brake 
and cut the engine. 

"This is it?" Liam looked around. 

The sky above the hill they had just come over was 
starting to lighten. Dawn wouldn't be far off. They 
were in the middle of nowhere. 

Jeremiah came around to his door and collected Liam, 
setting him upright. 

"Walk," he said, and feeling returned to Liam's feet. 

Cold penetrated the bottom of his sneakers and his 
cheeks felt like pin cushions in the freezing air. He 
concentrated for a second and felt instant warmth that 
came when he refocused on the void. 

He tried to look innocent when Jeremiah gave him a 
speculative look. 

"Where am I walking to?" Liam asked. 

Jeremiah hoisted a handful of the wire mesh. There was 
enough space at the bottom to scramble through. 

"You're taking me back to the camp?" 

"Not quite." 

If he tried to run, he wouldn't get very far. Jeremiah 
would paralyze him again. Liam wiped away ice crystals 
and mud from his knees on the other side. "Are you 
going to tell me anything?" 

The poker face staring at him revealed nothing, but 
Liam got his answer. "I need you. Nothing else will 
work." 

Jeremiah set off into the base without looking to see 
if Liam was following. Liam glanced at the jeep - if he 
sprinted fast enough ... 

His legs started walking his body, which was 
disconcerting because they weren't receiving signals 
from his brain and therefore didn't compensate for a 
shallow ditch Jeremiah had them walk through. 

"Traitors," he told his legs when he stood up. To 
Jeremiah he yelled, "I'll walk by myself, thanks." 

When he was caught up with his captor, he asked, "What 
do you want me to do?" 

"You break bonds." 

"I do?" 

"You must have felt it." 

All those little minds, battering against the void, 
trying to get in. Yes, he'd felt it. They were the 
supersoldiers. They had been tied to him, whether he 
(or they) liked it or not. But not anymore. He had set 
them free. 

He could still sense them - buzzing beyond the space 
Liam had created for himself - but they couldn't get in 
even if they wanted to. 

"That was just the supersoldiers," he said. "You think 
I can set your brothers free?" 

"It's much more than that. The Little Gods use 
everything. They gave life to their ships; made the 
ships part of themselves. The ships give them power." 

Liam thought about his cool metal cell, about the 
Frankenstein patches in the lower corridors, about the 
strange black scales that peeled off the goo chamber 
wall. The goo chamber. 

"We had a plan," Jeremiah said. "It failed." 

A plan they had (presumably) been working on for 
months. A plan that had got Gibson killed. Why didn't 
he have something to say about *that*? Callous - that 
was what Jeremiah was. 

"That's not good enough," Liam said flatly. 

"What do you mean?" 

"Gibson's gone. Do you even care?" 

He grabbed a stick and swung it into a spindly cactus 
tree. It hit with a satisfying whack. "What's the point 
of any of this if no one cares?" 

Jeremiah removed the stick from Liam's hand and touched 
the bush. It healed before Liam's eyes. 

"Come." Jeremiah began moving again. 

"Wait a second." Liam examined the plant. All signs of 
his anger had vanished. "You said the plan didn't work. 
But the ship was destroyed, wasn't it?" 

"And with it, any chance of freeing the off-world 
fleet." 

"There's more?" 

"On earth there are six ships. All now infected one way 
or another with the supersoldier virus and human 
vaccine. There will be no new supersoldiers. Today was 
to be the day the clones came online. Humans were 
needed to seed the clones, but humans have memories. 
Memories make you dangerous." 

*Or they give you life.* 

"If the ships are all infected, why worry?" 

"Once they were free, the human supersoldiers knew they 
would be perceived as a threat. Your virus has given 
them the ability to remember themselves - while still 
being part of the hive. If their original thoughts were 
detected ... they had to destroy the clones and those 
ships or risk being destroyed themselves. 

"But supersoldiers are Earth's creation. The Little 
Gods have other ships. They have failed here, but 
unless they can be isolated from their ships, they will 
never stop." 

"And you expect me to do something about that?" 

"Only because Gibson's plan failed ..." 

"What exactly was Gibson's plan if it wasn't to blow up 
the ship?" 

"You know about the nanobots?" 

"Yes. They took the nanobots from Mr Skinner and 
reprogrammed them." 

"The nanobots were made out of metals which integrated 
with living cells. They themselves were not important - 
but they could carry signals." 

Liam made the connection. "That's how Esther comes into 
this. She lives in the internet." 

"Mulder and Scully once met a woman who wanted to 
upload her conscious mind to an electronic network. She 
succeeded. 

"She has been an invaluable ally. But she is limited to 
earthly networks. When the Grays began to suspect her 
existence, she too knew she was threatened." 

Jeremiah forged ahead through the scrub. "The ships are 
living. Cells integrated with metal. If she could get 
into the ship network ..." 

Liam nearly drew to a stop. "The ship was alive?" 

"In a way. The ships were as enslaved as my brothers 
and I. More so, as we at least could come and go." 

"There were lights." Liam recalled his experience on 
the ship. "They were guiding us. I thought they were 
leading us to safety." 

He almost had enough puzzle pieces to make sense of 
everything. He ran to keep up with Jeremiah. "Gibson 
had to use the nanobots to get Esther onto the ship, 
but the ship was destroyed - so whatever she was 
planning is gone." 

"Which means you are my last hope. My only hope." 

"I don't know what she was planning," Liam said in 
exasperation. "I tried to help the ship, but that 
didn't work." 

"Your help came too late." 

"Then what can I do?" 

"You were too late on earth. If we act quickly we will 
not be too late for the others." 

Liam didn't like the sound of that. "The others? No, 
wait ..." 

The other ships ... in space. 

"You want to take me to space?" he squeaked. 

"We all deserve freedom." 

Liam gulped. "Why didn't you just ask? Maybe -" 

"Because your parents will not say yes." 

"Maybe *I* would have?" 

*Would I*? Was it fair that humans now had freedom but 
the shapeshifters didn't? And if it was in their means, 
shouldn't the humans help the others? A vision of 
Jeremiah and him standing in the centre of a flying 
saucer filled his mind - the stars they raced towards 
spelling out adventure. 

"You're a good boy, Liam. You would not say yes." 

In the gray morning light, Liam started to recognise 
landmarks. His sense of curiosity perked up. "I know 
this place." 

"You found the foreigner here. You found something 
else." 

"The artifact?" Liam shook his head. "I didn't find 
it." 

"Not that." 

There was only one other thing ... 

"You were the one who covered up the hole!" 

Of course, it had to be Jeremiah who found the cave. No 
one else would have kept it secret. The grizzled old 
man caught his eye. "It's more than a hole." 

"Ellie and I looked. There were some ancient carvings 
but that's about all." 

"You didn't know what you were looking for." 

The dark outline of the shelter appeared, reminding 
Liam of the day they found Rudi and the time he and 
Ellie explored the cave. 

"Did you ever wonder why the foreigner was led here?" 
Jeremiah said. "To this exact place?" Liam scratched 
his head. "Rudi said the artifact led him here ..." 

"And you never asked yourself why?" Jeremiah quickened 
his pace. "We must hurry. We don't have much time." 

In fact, they had no time. 

Two gunshots cracked over their heads, and Jeremiah was 
pulling Liam down into a crouch before Liam could work 
out what direction their attackers were coming from. 

"Jeremiah, stop." 

A man stepped out from the hut. It was Mulder. He 
walked toward them with a decided limp. A dark shape 
darted around his legs. Sal was okay. 

Jeremiah stood and seized Liam by the arm. "I won't be 
stopped, Mulder. I need him more than you." 

"Stan?" Two more figures emerged from the shelter. Liam 
watched as his parents flanked Mulder. 

"Liam, are you okay?" Marie asked, concern writ large 
on her face as she took in his lack of a coat. 

Liam could only nod. Jeremiah had bound his legs again, 
but his arms were still free. Did Jeremiah mean to 
leave him half free? Was his concentration split 
between Liam and someone else? 

"You won't take a step further, Jeremiah," Mulder said. 
"Bullets won't stop you, but they will slow you down." 

"My blood -" 

"Won't hurt Liam." 

The gunshots had come from two different directions. If 
Jeremiah had to concentrate on holding Liam secure, 
perhaps he couldn't do anything about the shooters. 

Liam tested the strength of the bonds from the void. 
*There must be some way to fight this.* 

Harry regarded his old friend. "Why, Stan?" 

"You wouldn't understand." 

"Why wouldn't I understand?" 

"There's no other way - it has to be like this." 

"Does it?" Harry shook his head. 

"Liam was only ever yours temporarily. He can never 
change what he is. He will always be drawn back to his 
makers." 

It made Liam squirm to hear himself be talked about 
like he was just a thing. 

"Why don't we let him decide that - when he's finished 
growing?" 

"There are things that can't be left to the whim of a 
child." A catch in Jeremiah's voice made Liam look up. 
Was that a tear in his eye? 

"Things like what?" 

"All my brothers want is freedom. How can I live free 
knowing they are not?" Was Jeremiah pleading? "If we 
wait, the chance will be lost." 

"So, you're just going to take him? A child?" Marie 
said. "How is that any better than what the Grays did 
to you?" 

Jeremiah breathed in as though he was steeling himself. 
"A high price must be paid for true freedom." 

"Is this really what you want for your first act of 
freedom, Stan?" Her interrogation was as caring as it 
was calm. 

"I have no choice, Marie. I have the means to stop 
them. How can I not take it?" 

"How could you be so heartless? Do you really want 
freedom bought with misery?" 

Rifle in her hands, Dr Scully stepped into view. 
"Listen to her, Jeremiah. This is not the way. If you 
must take someone, let it be me." 

The expression Jeremiah gave her was kindly. "You know 
it is futile, Dana. Only Liam possesses the skill I 
need." 

A strongly accented voice spoke behind them. 

"I don't know what skill you think an eleven-year-old 
boy has. But he's *not* your only solution. Take me 
instead." 

Jeremiah's grip on Liam tightened as he twisted to 
study Rudi. "What good would that do? Don't think I 
don't understand - but none of you can help me." 

"The nanobots - I've got some of them." 

Marie gasped. "Rudi -" 

"It's alright." He gave her a smile before turning back 
to Jeremiah. "You know I was Gibson's lab rat for 
testing the extractor. I've still got some of the bots 
in me, programmed and ready to take control ... if they 
are given a chance to work." 

Mulder shook his head. "That was a big risk, Rudi - 
leaving them in." 

"True - but my oupa waited years to get his revenge, 
and all that time he planned and planned, and bided his 
time. And Gibson taught me the risk was worth it." 

Jeremiah's brows scrunched up. "Liam says Gibson tried 
the nanobots but did not survive." 

"But *I* did. When we blew up the ship, I survived. I 
can't explain it, but I have a part to play in this. 
And this will help me." Rudi pulled out the piece of 
artifact he had taken from the crash site. "I don't 
know why, but my family got chosen too. Maybe it was 
chance that I survived that first ship explosion, maybe 
I was just a handy vessel. But I think it's more than 
that. When I picked up that first artifact, it wasn't 
just telling me where it wanted to go - it was telling 
me I needed to follow it too. 

"They took everything from me. I want to give back." 

Marie took a step to Jeremiah. 

"Stan - Jeremiah - you want to free your brothers, just 
as you're now free. You're free to make choices good or 
bad. Don't treat my son the way you were treated. 
Please." 

As the desert waited Liam felt the first rays of 
sunshine warm his back and light the faces of his 
parents. All of them. 

*Hello, sunrise.* 

Liam continued to fight against the bands Jeremiah had 
wrapped him in. He could feel them loosening - just a 
few minutes more and he's have them. 

Suddenly they burst. Liam fell forward. He scrambled to 
his feet and ran into the arms of Marie and Dr Scully. 
Ever the optimist, Sal wagged her tail. 

Jeremiah stared at them as inscrutable as ever. 

"You only ever treated me with kindness." He bowed his 
head, then turned to Rudi. "You come willingly?" 

"Yes." 

"We have worked to do." 

He strode away and Rudi followed with a shrug. 

When he reached the hole, Jeremiah kicked the sand to 
unearth a rope tied to the iron cover. He threw it over 
his shoulder and heaved the cover aside. He threw the 
rope, which was anchored, down the hole. 

Harry whistled. "What the ..." 

"You guys didn't know about the hole?" Liam asked. 

His father fixed a look at him. "But you did?" 

"Some," Liam replied evasively. 

"Mulder," Jeremiah called. "Make sure they stay back. 
Well beyond the shelter." 

He said something to Rudi who waved at them, took the 
rope and shimmied into the hole. 

"What's down there?" Harry shouted as they backed away. 

"It's just a ca -" Liam stopped. 

The squiggly lines on the wall, the black drips which 
had pooled and vanished. The artifacts' powerful pull. 

Jeremiah's face was unreadable. "Another ship. Older. 
Smaller. It crashed thousands of years ago. I've been 
repairing it." 

Something clicked for Liam. "That's why you took the 
artifact." 

"Be well, Liam." With a final nod, Jeremiah jumped into 
the hole. 

They did not have to wait long for the earth around 
them to start rumbling. The vibrations came up through 
the ground and made Liam's teeth chatter. Sal started 
howling and she nipped at Marie's feet. 

"Quick! Back!" Harry yelled over the noise of groaning 
and heaving. 

The desert rippled and roared underfoot. 

This was it. 

Jeremiah was leaving - and with him perhaps one final 
piece of the puzzle. 

Too late - the story of his life - the connection 
dropped into place. Between the strange carvings in the 
cave and the dripping black oil which disappeared into 
cracks and the tiny black oil barbs which arose around 
him on the Grays' ship - and Ellie. 

Liam scrabbled about, trying to head to the hole, only 
to be tackled by Mulder. 

"Let me go!" 

"It's not safe -" 

"Ellie -" 

Mulder and Liam fell back against the rolling earth as 
the soil in front of them broke and a huge object 
pushed up from it, showering them with dirt and plants 
and rock. 

The eruption tore clay and rock from the ground. The 
shelter, on the very edge of it, was heaved up. It 
rained down in mangled bits. 

A dust cloud mushroomed and got in Liam's eyes. 

Coughing, Mulder dragged him beyond the haze and 
doubled over. When they straightened, the curtain of 
dust had begun its downward drift. 

Liam's parents and Dr Scully had fallen to their knees. 
None of them moved. 

A ship hung and hummed in the dawn light. 

Sal stood to attention, barking her head off until 
Marie put a hand against her and urged her to be still. 

A boyish grin of delight spread over Mulder's face. 
"What do you see, Scully?" 

She wiped a dirty track of tears across her cheek. It 
was impossible to say if she was crying or laughing. "I 
don't suppose it's just a weather balloon?" 

Green lights on the underside put on a twinkly show. If 
the other ship was a supertanker, this was a family 
cruiser. It zipped over them in a quick triangle. 

And then it shot up and vanished, leaving nothing but 
an endless empty blue bowl above them. 

The ship had long gone but Dr Scully, on the ground, 
was still staring. They all were. 

Her hand wrapped around the crucifix at her neck. "I 
guess we have a lot to talk about." 

Marie drew a weary hand across her forehead. "I guess 
we do."