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"Scully, save me."
Three words that form a desperate plea and yet are oddly comedic
due to their rarity when it comes to passing his lips whine down
the phone line and make her already-heavy eyelids slip shut.
Two-thirty in the morning was really not the time for this!
"Scully?"
Her head shakes and free hand rises to wipe over her face, but
despite the sudden concern he's injected into his tone she
doesn't reply until another minute of silence has passed.
Technically, they're no longer partners so his desperation to
fill her in on everything - especially at this time in the
morning - is a complete mystery ...Then again, *technically* the
X-Files were shut down, but she'd always known that that would
never stop him, and when he'd told her yesterday about his newest
unofficial 'mutant hunt' she'd been a long way from either
surprised or prepared to try stop him.
"*Scully*? You there?"
"Yes, I'm here, Mulder - *wide* awake at half-two in the
morning!" She'd meant to make a joke of it, but it had come
out as an aggressive bark and she could almost see him in his car
at the other end of the line wincing. "As for saving you,
I'm sorry but you put yourself there and it's no longer my job to
watch your back."
Mulder shifted uncomfortably in his car seat. She was right, of
course, but in the year and a half they'd been partners he'd felt
a closeness beyond explanation grow between them - a trust and
friendship he'd never imagined possible, especially with somebody
that had been sent to spy on him - and he didn't want to lose
that just because of the FBI's plan to break him. He'd only
mentioned the lead he'd gotten on a report of Spontaneous Human
Combustion because of the hope she'd come with him to check it
out...Do a stake-out just like on their second encounter with
Eugene Tooms.
He'd only phoned her now, despite knowing she'd be asleep, to
hear her voice and relieve his loneliness.
...And, God, that sounded really pathetic!
"I'm sorry I woke you," he apologized sincerely - only
briefly turning his glance away from the house he'd been watching
for the past three hours to comb a hand through his thick, dark
hair. "I just--" 'Just' what? "Actually, don't
worry about it...Go back to sleep, Scully. I'll see you in the
offi--...I mean..." Oh, crap. She probably really did think
he was a jackass now! A crazy, selfish jackass. "I'm really
sorry. I'll catch you later."
His thumb was just reaching to disconnect the call, when she
suddenly started, "How's the stake-out?" Sleepy and
clearly still a little frustrated, but at the same time, God
bless her, she actually, genuinely sounded interested!
"Cold, wet, uneventful and I could really do with a root
beer."
Shifting to sit up against the headboard, Dana smiled and brushed
several errant strands of hair away from her face. Their
unauthorized session of surveillance was still fairly fresh in
her memory, so the root beer joke was well understood, welcomed
and appreciated. "Sorry, but I can't jump on the next plane
to Georgia - some of us have work we *are* supposed to be doing
in a few hours - so the root beer will have to wait," she
chuckled. "Seriously, though, Mulder, what are you hoping to
achieve by doing this?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know they won't re-open the X-Files even if you solve
this. A.D Skinner made no mention of the possibility after you
solved the Flukeman case, th--"
"*We* solved it."
"Whatever. The fact is, if they didn't open them then
they're certainly not going to when they find out you've left
your current assignment in favor of a more personally enriching
mutant hunt!"
Mulder nodded his head in acknowledgement to himself that what
she'd said was true. Then again, if he were honest, he'd known
that all along, as well as the fact that there was likely nothing
about the fires and their victims construable as paranormal.
But that was far from being the point.
Whether the suspect was nothing more than a lowly pyromaniac
successfully leaving behind no trace evidence of his guilt or
not, Mulder knew he had a higher chance of wrapping up the case
local law enforcement had failed to all while breaking protocol
and literally demonstrating to the Powers That Be where to stick
their stupid phone-tap detail.
"You really don't know?" he eventually asked with a
slight chuckle. "Scully, you should know by now that I'm
never gonna be ready to roll over and do what they tell me to.
I'm never gonna fit in with what they expect me to be, and
anything they send my way to reel me back in is only ever gonna
make me rebel against it twice as much...or embrace it and use it
to my advantage..." He was keeping fingers crossed that she
didn't misinterpret that addendum and think he was only using her
as an ally to spite their superiors. "I can't just sit back
listening to wire taps all day - it'll drive me crazy, and that
won't get the X-Files back either."
"I know." As her shoulders slumped in unavoidable
defeat, Dana shook her head and quietly repeated "I
know" almost to herself. "But you couldn't have dug up
a more convincing X-File? Besides your fear of fire, we dealt
with an arsonist before and it turned out to be far from relating
to spontaneous combustion...You couldn't have found something a
little more 'out there' or--"
"Spooky?"
Scully nodded, momentarily forgetting that he wasn't there to see
the gesture, and quickly replied, "Something like that,
yeah."
"Wow: I've turned Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully to the
dark side!"
"Mul-der."
The cautionary tone already so indelibly etched in his brain made
any further quips quickly die in his throat. "It was the
only thing I could find to follow," he finally conceded.
"All the mutants must have gone on vacation. Anyway, who
said anything about spontaneous human combustion?"
"Uh, that would have been you, Mulder."
"Me? Oh, okay...Well, I may have been a bit off the mark on
that theory, but I'm not prepared to rule out all possibilities
of supernatural activity."
"Meaning?"
It was almost 2:45 in the morning, and he knew she had to be at
Quantico earlier than normal to run over some notes, so maybe it
was time to let her be - waking her up for a quick chat just to
hear her voice was one thing, but to make her too tired to work
at full strength was quite another. "You know what, how
about I give you a rundown another time? I really shouldn't have
called you at this time as it is - get some sleep."
She was actually considering insisting that he stay on the line
and go over the casefile more in-depth than his brief summary had
been yesterday, but a large yawn was her undoing and reminded her
practical side why she'd been annoyed at him to begin with.
"I-- Oh...I guess that's my cue," she light-heartedly
sighed - eyes closing as sleep wrapped its enticing arms around
her.
"Yeah." He would have said more, but the sound of deep,
even breaths filled Mulder's ear and he couldn't help but smile.
"Scully...are you asleep?"
Silence, but then, "...Mm..."
"I'll talk to you later, then."
"......Mm..."
"Sweet dreams."
"...Be...careful..."
Her end of the line went dead, but for several long moments after
he sat staring at the cellphone in his hand, drawing comfort,
protection and company from it as if she were there with him
instead.
Maybe it wasn't going to be as long a night as he'd set out
believing after all.
* * *
3010
GENIALS WAY
RADCLIFFE, GEORGIA
2:48 AM
He'd never considered his life easy: from the day he could walk
the...problem, if you could call it that, had hindered everything
Aaron Goffin had ever done, but in the last couple of weeks it
had become a lot more unpredictable, uncontrollable and
dangerous. Two of his friends and a stranger he'd bumped into on
the subway had died because of it, and it was only a matter of
time before either the cops took him in and it killed them, or it
finally consumed him.
At the moment, the latter option didn't sound too far from
appealing.
His problem? Test after test had given it no medical or
scientific name, but that didn't stop it from being very real:
without warning, parts of his body would spontaneously combust
for minutes at a time, leaving him with only very minor burns and
anybody in physical contact reduced to ashes. His parents had
always told him that he wasn't a freak or abomination ('There are
people all over the world that have special abilities, and you're
one of them') even after he'd accidentally incinerated his pet
rabbit, but he'd been forced to forego school and at-home
tuition, and keeping a job had proven too dangerous to be
possible. When the local SeaWorld attraction had taken him on for
employment and things had run fairly smoothly for the next month,
Aaron'd dared to believe his luck was changing.
Then Ursula Balovski - his team buddy at the park, and nearest
thing he'd probably ever gotten or ever would get to a girlfriend
- had touched his hand in a friendly gesture, and quickly become
his 'ability's' first human victim. In a state of panic, he'd
fled and left town - heading for a friend of the family's home
here in Radcliffe.
A picture of Ursula decimated to nothing more than a pile of ash
and two shoed, intact feet (the only things used to identify who
the victim was) appeared in the following morning's edition of
the Courant. There had also been an article citing him as a
suspect along with it, but he hadn't been able to read that.
The only passenger in his car on the night train from Alpharetta
had just gotten too close whilst walking by.
Maybe he should have just bought a gun and shot himself then - it
certainly would have spared the life of the last person he'd had
left to turn to - but, regrettably, he hadn't and now he was lost
with nowhere to go and somebody he didn't know sitting in a car
outside his friend's house.
"Stay calm," Goffin sighed, desperately trying to even
out his breathing as he let go of the net curtain and walked away
from the window. A hand raised to irritably comb through his
unkempt ginger hair, but he could feel a familiar tingling
sensation building within his body. It was a sensation that had
become rare in the past fortnight - making way for the sudden
blaze that gave him no chance to move away from others - but when
he did feel it it gave him chance to try calm his senses a
little. "There's no one here to hurt. It'll pass. I
just...have...to stay...relaxed."
The warmth spread down his leg and rapidly increased when it
reached his foot, forcing him to sit back on the bed.
"Breathe, A. Stay as cool as--"
And then the fire erupted, illuminating the small room.
* * *
Despite his insomniac tendencies, Mulder couldn't help but feel
tired as he settled back in the car seat and folded both arms
across his chest. Admittedly their life threatening trip to the
woods, the death of Deep Throat, the shutting down of the X-Files
and resulting separation of he and Scully, and the encounter at
Arecibo had all helped to deprive him of even the minimum number
of hours' sleep his body required to function. However, he'd
always been able to depend upon his ability to stay alert when it
was imperative - no matter how little sleep he'd had - and if he
couldn't rely on that now to complete this stake-out, he was in
trouble.
As a car taking advantage of the dead hour sped past, causing a
cloud of fallen leaves and dirt to pelt against the side of
Mulder's rental, he reached to turn up the radio with one hand
and pick up the case notes from the passenger seat with his
other.
"It's too disorganized," he grumbled, focusing on a
crime scene photograph from the subway train car. "Or maybe
it's the fact that it's not disorganized...If the fire had been
set by a pyromaniac, why isn't any other part of the carriage
burnt? The seating...even the walls..." Realizing he was
talking out loud, Mulder paused and looked up to check nobody was
watching. It was amazing - especially to him - to think how so
accustomed he'd become to having somebody by his side to bounce
his wild theories off of, and how much this silence that had
always been his closest friend was now actually impeding his
ability to solve the case! "No obvious source of
ignition..." Another pause, this time as he shuffled through
the pages to look at another photo. As he did so, though, a small
square of paper slipped out and onto the floor under Mulder's
feet. He #frowned, awkwardly reached down for it, and then turned
it over in his hands to see the neatly scrawled message.
'Not everybody kills with purpose, Mr. Mulder, but there'll always be others to take advantage of that power.'
The fact that the language and handwriting was definitely not
Scully's was the only thing Mulder was able to determine as he
puzzled over the note. It must be another line from the new shady
source he was yet to meet, but the meaning...?
"'No obvious source of ignition...'" Another brief
glance at the first picture, and then the theory struck like
lightning. He'd flown to Georgia on nothing more than the premise
that two bodies had been discovered burnt to the same condition
as purported victims of SHC - the wide-eyed, out-there part of
him wanting that to be the case, but the rational part Scully had
given birth to in him questioning the idea enough to consider
more mundane scenarios. A few questions here, several name drops
there, and he'd successfully tracked down the only place where
the PD's suspect had to go, but he'd still been far from coming
up with a motive, let alone theory. Was it really possible-- Was
this note implying that Goffin was somehow not burning people by
intention? That, maybe, he had a lethal power that gave him the
ability against his will?
Mulling it over, Mulder looked up again at the house, just in
time to see one of the previously-unlit bedroom windows now
illuminated by a flickering glare that could only be caused by
fire.
* * *
With both feet still raised away from the floor and edge of the
bed he sat on, Aaron slumped against the wall as the fire died.
Thankfully, it had only been a brief burst, but with the remains
of his friend downstairs still cooling, something inside told him
it wouldn't be long before the next one.
"I'm gonna become the Human Fireball at this rate," he
sadly joked, struggling to muster a chuckle. ""A freak,
as always." No matter what his parents believed - how
perfect, lovely and special a person they insisted he was - there
would never be any changing what others saw him as or what he,
himself, had regarded himself as for his twenty-five years long
life. If his uncertain future held whole body infernos or
sparking off every few seconds in store, how could he truly be
expected to regard himself as 'perfect' and carry on? He couldn't
do this anymore...It had to stop before another person died...
"FBI!"
The bedroom door sharply swung open and Aaron glanced up to see
the silhouette of a man standing in the entranceway. Seconds
later, the wall switch was flipped and the room filled with light
to show that the visitor had a gun, and it was aimed at him.
Mulder glanced around the room and then focused on Goffin. He'd
found the proprietor's ashes and feet in the hallway downstairs
when he'd kicked down the front door, but he'd expected to find
yet another victim up here. Fortunately, he was wrong.
"Aaron Goffin?" he asked, flexing his fingers to better
grip the gun.
"D-don't come near me...please...I don't--..." The
younger man paused and shook his head - finally, but tentatively,
lowering his feet onto the floor. "I don't wanna hurt anyone
else."
With a nod and comforting quirk of the lips, Mulder re-holstered
his weapon. "It's okay, I'm here to help."
"You can't help - nobody can," Goffin lamented.
"You don't even understand what it's like for me! To be too
scared to sleep in case the bed catches light? To...to have no
control over when a part of your body'll suddenly go up in
flames? No friends, a family that tries to act as if everything's
normal, dead bodies in your wake! You saw Gerry, right?"
"Yeah."
"He was the last person I could turn to, aside from my
parents, and I *killed* him! My only education may have come from
watching the TV and looking at pi'tures in books, sir, but I know
right from wrong, and I definitely know when I'm up Fudge
Creek!"
Despite the warning given, Mulder took several steps forward
toward where Goffin sat. "I'm not going to pretend I
understand what you're going through - in fact, you know, I
haven't a clue about anything to do with you right now - but what
I will tell you is that I'm usually pretty good with first
impressions of people, and I don't think you're a bad person. In
my job, I've met a lot of people with oddities and...and
'powers', say, but most of the time they wanna use that power for
bad things - to cause havoc and pain. Trust me, if you're telling
the truth about none of this being your fault, you should be
proud that you've managed to be strong and stay on the right
path."
Another step forward, and his shins bumped up against the edge of
the sprung mattress.
Goffin's mouth opened to reject the statement, but he faltered
momentarily and a doubtful frown creased his features.
"Fr-freaks m-m-more dangerous t-than me?" came the
cautious tone desperately seeking a glimmer of hope, finally.
"Bad freaks?"
"Whoever said you were a freak?" Mulder snorted, daring
to complete his trip across the room by sitting down next to the
younger man. Whether Aaron hadn't noticed or not, the agent was
unsure, but he didn't object and so Mulder didn't question.
"How can I not be!? Parts of my body catch fire! What's
'normal' about that?"
"You're not a freak, but you are a suspect for two
homicides...You know the police have been looking for you since
the death of Miss Balovski, don't you?"
Aaron simply gave a simple nod of his head. He could almost still
sense the smell of her burning flesh clinging to the hairs in his
nose.
"If you explained your situation to them - what happened -
maybe they can get some help for you." Goffin looked
petrified by the idea, so Mulder reached to place a comforting
hand on his right arm.
Except, that was the instant it set alight.
Mulder shot up off of the bed, flailing his own arm that was now
ablaze left and right. Aaron was keening some desperate plea over
and over again, but as his flesh begun to cook, the federal
agent's last concern was the guilty party's cries. It seemed
pointless, but he stripped off his jacket - desperately using it
to swat at the bright, scorching flames as they defiantly licked
at the air and scalded his skin. When that did nothing more than
send blackened remains of his shirt sleeve floating to the floor,
and rapidly encourage the fire up toward his shoulders - embers
dropping to also ignite the leg of his pants - Mulder knew he
only had one option left and he'd have to move fast.
"I told you to stay away - I *begged* you!" Goffin
wept, cowering in the corner of the room and glancing down at his
arm as the inferno died out as quickly as it had come. "And
now I've done it again!"
Blinding pain made way for writhing agony. Reddened tissue
darkened in hue to purple and then an almost charred-black. His
only hope was the bathroom sink downstairs, but as he painfully
but instinctively ran as fast as possible for the staircase,
Mulder wondered if he'd passed the point of no return.
*...Sculleee!...*
The glare from the bright flames along with the sweat pouring
down his face made keeping his eyes open impossible, so he headed
aimlessly forward, but as the agent reached the top of the stairs
the overwhelming pain made his brain shut down, and his burning
legs gave way.
And like a rag doll, he tumbled to the bottom.
* * *
"Sculleeeee!"
Eyes flung open and Scully sharply sat up in her bed as she
struggled for breath. Rationally she knew it had been a
nightmare, but it had seemed so real, and the all-consuming
heat--
Suddenly the phone on her bedside cabinet trilled to life. Still
shaken by the dream, she answered on the fifth ring.
"Scully."
"Agent Scully, this is Assistant Director Skinner."
That couldn't be good. He must have somehow found out about
Mulder's little trip...
"Can you explain to me why Agent Mulder abandoned his
current assignment and took an unauthorized flight to
Georgia?" boomed their boss's furious but clearly sleepy
voice down the line.
Bingo.
She hesitated before answering, "I...uh...I wouldn't know,
sir - I haven't--...I haven't spoken to Mulder for a couple of
weeks."
"Phone records show quite the opposite, Agent!"
"I..." Dana fidgeted as she struggled to think of an
answer to that. She couldn't lie, but then she also couldn't sell
her ex-partner out and tell Skinner what he was doing...could
she? "I really don't know what to say, sir. Mulder mentioned
being fed up with the wire taps, but he never said anything about
going anywhere. Do you know what he was doing in Georgia?"
At his end, Skinner frowned. Despite their separation, he knew
the two kept in contact and kept each other updated of things
that were happening - be that with their private lives or days at
work. But as many times as Mulder'd been known to unexpectedly
ditch his partner, Skinner found himself wondering if Scully was
really clueless, as she was making out.
Not that it was easy to consider such things this early in the
morning!
"I have no idea, and that's why I expect you to find out all
the answers." he finally huffed. "You'd better hurry,
too: Mulder's been air-lifted to the burns unit at Grady Memorial
in critical condition."
Scully's eyes quickly grew to the size of saucers - the nightmare
now much more real than she'd initially imagined. A lump of fear
blocked her throat, but by the time it shifted a fraction and she
was able to croak out, "Sir?" the caller had already
hung up.
^ ^ ^
BURNS
WARD
GRADY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
ATLANTA, GA
EIGHT DAYS LATER
Of course, Skinner had demanded updates on his agent's condition,
but thankfully not made the trip to the hospital. Scully had
worked to stay professional and keep him well appraised, but the
sight of Mulder's unconscious, intubated, bandaged body in the
hospital bed - tubes left, right and center necessary to fill him
with intravenous fluids if there was to be any hope of keeping
him alive - made it difficult to function at all.
The past week had rolled along painfully slow, but she'd refused
to leave his bedside. Tests, skin grafts and antibiotics had
become the mundane routine for each day, and yet still his eyes
had not opened - no sign at all, save for the steady beeping from
the ECG monitor - that he was even really still in there.
Having just finished informing their boss of today's run of
check-ups, Dana pocketed her cellphone, quietly made her way into
Mulder's room and then sat down in the chair at his bedside. No
words passed her lips, but she grasped his unharmed right hand in
her own and stared at his face - praying for his recovery and
willing him to wake up.
Nothing happened, and eventually she fell asleep with tears in
her eyes.
* * *
11:22 PM
It was a struggle, but eventually he was able to fight off the
darkness that had claimed and kept him captive for the last eight
days. As awareness returned, however, so did the stinging,
burning sensation spreading down the whole left side of his body.
He tried to let out a painful groan, but it became muffled around
something that had been placed in his airway.
"Mulder? Mulder, are you awake?"
That voice! That feel of her hand cradling his! Could it be...?
Unable to verbally respond, Mulder let out another groan and then
attempted to open his eyes. It took several moments, but
eventually they opened, and after yet another minute of trying to
focus he was able to see the frame of red hair and her
exhausted-yet-beautiful face.
"It's going to be okay - don't try to talk," she
assured with a smile, resting her other hand against his
forehead. "I'm going to call the doctor, okay?"
With more effort than he'd been willing to exert, Mulder managed
to nod and watched as she left the room - leaving him to think
about what had happened at that house.
Ten minutes later Scully returned with a white-coated woman
actually shorter than herself that claimed to be his doctor. He
shot a questioning frown at his partner, but she simply shrugged
and asked doctor about the possibility of removing his
intubation.
Another examination, another shot of pain meds, and he was freed
from the breathing aid. Exhausted, though, he quickly fell asleep
again.
* * *
1:14 AM
"Scully?...Are you awake?"
He doubted he'd get a reply from her - she looked worse than he
felt, and he found it difficult to believe that she would have
flown all this way to stay posted at his bedside - but she
surprised him when her head slowly lifted and she sleepily
mustered,
"Are you okay, Mulder?"
"Couldn't stay asleep," he weakly croaked.
"Hurts."
"Do you want me to call the nurse?"
"No, s'okay for now... Been wondering - need to know what
happened...How I'm not a pile of ash like the others."
Dana gave an uncertain shake of her head. No matter how relieved
she was, the fact that Mulder had actually placed a call to the
police department asking for backup *before* entering the house
he'd been surveilling just had to have been the most unbelievable
thing she'd ever heard.
The news she'd been informed of the following day had to come
close second.
"You were very lucky is why," she smiled, squeezing his
hand. "Very lucky, and very clever for once. The police and
fire departments arrived just as you hit the bottom of the
stairs. Another--...Another ten seconds later and we wouldn't
have been able to have this conversation." Her voice trailed
off, and for the briefest instant he was able to take a peek
through a crack in the wall around her heart before it repaired
itself. Those moments when he was reminded that she wasn't the
'Ice Queen' everybody referred to her as seemed only reserved for
him and it made him feel even more special in her eyes. "As
it is you have fifteen percent partial thickness and five percent
full thickness burns across your left arm, legs and chest - it's
going to take a long time for you to heal, and even then there
will still be some scarring."
Mulder closed his eyes and kept them tightly shut as the full
weight of Scully's words pressed down on him. "What about
Goffin?" he asked, still refusing to open his eyes again.
"Was he arrested?"
There was no reply, and that was when his eyelids lifted so that
he could incredulously stare at her.
"Scully?"
The hold on his hand suddenly disappeared. "Skinner's
furious at you - you may have completely destroyed any hope you
had of getting the X-Files back," she replied, avoiding his
question and turning to pace the room.
"That doesn't--...I don't care about that right now. I wanna
know what happened to Goffin. He did the murders, but it wasn't
intentional - I need to explain that to the police chief,
an--"
"Mulder, Aaron Goffin is currently missing."
"Wha--?"
"He was arrested at Gerry Stanz's home when you were
rescued, and he was locked up for the rest of the night, but in
the morning...His cell door was discovered open and he was
nowhere to be found."
Despite his injuries, Mulder suddenly pulled the bed covers back
and shakily shifted to hang his legs over the edge. Scully
sharply turned on her heel and rushed to stop him.
"Mulder, what are you doing?"
"We have to find him! They...They have him!"
"Who has him? Mulder, lay back down and tell me what you're
talking about." Worried for the sake of his health, she
gently placed a palm against his right shoulder and pressed until
he finally lay down. "You're not going to help anyone by
trying to kill yourself again."
"They have him," he repeated, more weakly, as she
carefully lifted his bandaged legs back up onto the mattress.
"...Them..."
"You're making no sense - who are 'they'?"
"Th-Those working against u-us...We have to find him and
help him."
It took her a moment to think the options over, but then she
shook her head and sighed, "No, we have to make you better
and then fly back to D.C. It's over, Mulder. It shouldn't even
have started in the first place."
"He can spontaneously combust without warning..."
"It doesn't matter anymore, and I'm too tired to care. If
you really must, you can argue it out with Skinner when we get
back to Washington - even OPC when they meet with you - but I
don't want to argue with you about it. Okay?"
He had already fallen asleep again.
* * *
UNKNOWN
LOCATION
TWO WEEKS LATER
2:47 PM
The tall figure of a man shrouded in shadows moved swiftly down
the long corridor and stopped when he reached the door to his
destination. He knocked with his free hand, and was admitted
entrance almost immediately.
"The fire consumed him twenty minutes ago, sir. His remains
have been taken to the lab for further analysis," he
started, sliding the clipboard that had been stowed under his arm
onto his boss's desk.
The seated figure turned in the chair to look out through the
large window at the end of his office. "Did you get all the
necessary tests done? Do we know how his body was able to
tolerate such heat? How he contained the infernos?"
"No, sir, but we still have a lot of tests to be run on the
blood and tissue samples."
There was a pause as the dark man considered this before he
finally ordered, "Tell me the results as soon as we have
them. If we can recreate or even improve on Mister Goffin, it
will be a major step forward."
"Yes, sir." The soldier saluted and then exited the
room - the door closing behind him making the pages on the
clipboard he'd left lift up on the ripple of air, and the
photograph of a sad Aaron Goffin float to the floor before it
mysteriously disappeared in a ball of flame.
XXXXXXXXXX
THE END
'A flow of
words is no proof of wisdom'
.........................................................~English proverb
DISCLAIMER:
The X-Files and all characters associated with it remain property
of Chris Carter, Fox, 1013 etc. ...In my dreams they're all mine,
mine, mine though - Bwahahahah!!!!!!!!! :)
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