"Duplicity"
Author: Chris Adams
E-mail: chris_adams031@yahoo.com
Feedback: Will be printed, enlarged and framed, and treasured
forever.
Archive: Yes!!
Rating: PG
Category: X
Keywords: Conspiracy, Black oil, Character dies (part3)
Spoilers: Small mentions of various past plots
Summary: When Mulder & Scully are handed the truth, it seems they'll
have all the answers they ever wanted. But then the unexpected
happens, and it seems that the end has finally arrived for Mulder
and Scully...
1.
Mulder sat in his office, nervously waiting for the boy's return.
Don't leave the office, he had said.
Scully sat at the other side of the desk. Waiting too.
For the truth? she wondered. For the truth they had been seeking for
seven years? The answers to the questions that were supposed to lead
to the truth that is out there, but now might have to be left as an
unresolved mystery, never to be solved? To see if, in fact, Mulder
HAD been right all those times she had doubted him.
Now, sitting in the office in worried silence, she almost believed
it. Almost wished she had from the start. Maybe then, this would
never have happened.
He had PROMISED, thought Mulder. He couldn't let them down now. Not
now. If he did, Mulder silently thought to himself, they had lost.
They needed to validate their work, and they needed to do it now.
Not for themselves, he reminded himself. Not any more.
There was a sharp set of knocks on the door. Mulder leapt from his
seat, Scully's heart missed a beat.
Here goes, she thought. Here goes nothing...
The boy entered. Not a boy, she corrected herself, a young adult. 16
or 17 maybe, brown hair, windswept. He breathed heavily.
An FBI visitor pass, arranged somehow by one of Mulder's contacts,
was attached to his red shirt. Red shirt. A thought flashed through
Scully's mind. She must be mistaken. She dismissed the thought. He
looked as if he had probably ran all the way back here. He probably
had.
In his hand! Yes! Is this it, then? The climax? Finally...
"Sorry I took so long." he panted. "I got 'em."
Mulder grinned at Scully. Here goes, he thought. Is this it, then?
The climax? At last!
"All the cases, all the reports, by you and by them. All the
pictures, investigations, tapes. Everything. Like I promised."
Mulder nodded, eagerly. Anticipating.
"And the one thing you never had. The answers. Full explanations by
the men who knew."
"So you're saying..."
"Every case you investigated. Complete, unabridged explanations.
Full disclosure. The truth."
The discs shone as he waved them in his hand and slapped them down
on the table. Labels, hurriedly hand-written, numbered the CD's 1 to
6.
Mulder cautiously took Disc 1. His heart beating fast, but still
keeping one eye on the boy - trust no-one, after all - he opened the
disc drive of his computer and inserted the CD.
The computer whirred.
A black screen with yellow text declared "Project X" with the
smaller subtitle "Purity Control Level 1".
"What's Project X?" Mulder asked.
"It was their codename for your investigations, the monitoring of
them, anyhow."
The screen changed, a red box in the centre of the screen.
A box asking for a password. Scully moved behind Mulder, peering
over Mulder's shoulder. The boy sat on the edge of the desks behind
them.
This is it... Mulder thought.
"What's the password?" he asked, both agents staring at the screen,
Mulder's fingertips poised over the keyboard.
No answer.
"What's the password?"
Scully swivelled her head to face the boy.
She withdrew a breath.
"No.." she muttered. Mulder turned. His mouth, open slightly in
shock.
They didn't realise it was happening, not until it was in them. The
boy, staring at them, slowly vanishing from their vision as they
collapsed helplessly on to the floor.
The last of the black oil left the boy's eyes. Moving, slowly down
his face and - Scully felt it, icy cold beneath her skin, like pins
and needles. But worse. Like knives, slashing at her flesh, but she
couldn't scream.
Her eyes stung, the organism taking control of her system. Mulder
felt the cold too.
The last thing he saw before his vision completely blacked out, and
he lost consciousness, was the photograph of Samantha on his desk.
The boy picked up the discs from the table, removed the listening
device from beneath it and left the room, taking one last glance at
the FBI agents, crumpled side by side on the floor.
Purity swam across their eyes, glistening.
2.
The boy ran down the corridor, FBI pass twisted on the front of his
green sweater, his brown hair windswept from the journey.
Dammit! He thought. What could he tell them? That he couldn't get
the discs? But he had PROMISED!
They would dismiss him as a joke, he realised.
The woman had already doubted his story, about the things they had
done to him. The thing in his neck.
But she had cringed at that, he remembered, when he waved the
implant in front of her face and told her about the cancer.
The door of the basement office was slightly ajar. He pushed it
slightly.
"Agent Mulder? Scully?"
Slowly he crept into the office. He saw the agents, like puppets who
had had their strings cut, lying on the floor.
No! he thought, this couldn't happen! Oh God, no! What the hell
could he do now? They better not be dead...
The boy kneeled down by Mulder's side, and looked into his eyes.
No...
The oil covered the surface of Mulder's eyes. It didn't move,
leaping out at the new host.
It was clever, he realised, it can think. It knows it can't take me.
The door slammed.
The boy turned to face himself.
Like looking in a mirror, the two boys stared at each other.
The green shirted boy reached down into his pockets for the device.
He had half expected this.
The red shirt boy flung him roughly by the neck against the nearby
wall, his head making a loud CRACK noise as it hit.
"Arrh.." he began. He flicked the switch and the blade extended with
a short, swift hiss.
"Don't think about it."
"What the hell did you do to them?"
"The same thing I planned for you, until I found you were
vaccinated."
"Who are you? Which one?"
"Nineteen."
"How many of there are you?"
"About thirty. And you."
"No. Not me."
The boy reached forward, aiming to swing his arm round 19's neck and
stabbing the blade into the base of his skull.
19 punched him hard, with inhuman strength, in the stomach, sending
him flying on to the floor next to Scully. Blood dribbled down his
arm as he cut it on the edge of the table, forming a crimson stain
on the carpet.
He coughed. "You've got to... help them..."
"No. I have to go." 19 turned to the door.
The boy took the chance, leaping forward and plunging the blade into
19's neck.
He fell to the floor, taking the computer keyboard with him, the
weapon still protruding from his neck and green bubbles starting to
dribble down his skin.
The boy ran to Mulder. He knew what he had to do. He took Mulder's
gun from it's holster, just in case.
He ran down the corridor and leapt into the elevator.
As it bleeped and the doors opened, he found himself on a busy
corridor. FBI agents glanced at him as they passed, eyeing him
suspiciously.
He grabbed one woman by the arm roughly.
"Ow.. what.."
"Where is Skinner's office?"
"What, get off me!"
"Assistant Director Skinner."
She pulled away from his grip.
"Fourth floor." she walked away angrily.
Mulder lay, paralysed on the floor. As if frozen, he couldn't move
his body, although his mind seemed to be in overdrive.
He knew Scully was to his right, but he was slumped in a way that he
couldn't see her.
Even if he had been facing her, the blackness blocked his vision.
Thoughts flashed through his mind. From before The X Files, and
during his investigations. For no particular reasons, moments from
certain cases flew through his mind. ..."looking forward to working
with you"..."will kill again"..."wouldn't change a thing"..."your
sister"...
Scully remembered her childhood mainly, while she was out of
control. She remembered playing in the woods with Bill and Charles.
Playing hopscotch with her friends. When she had not known about the
future, what was to come.
Suddenly, different thoughts came into her kind, thoughts of fear.
She saw faces, piercing eyes, strange creatures, dead bodies on
morgue tables.
The pain continued to slash at her body. Soon, she thought, she
might be one of those people.
"Get out!" shouted the boy as the elevator doors swung open to
reveal a group of FBI agents with briefcases.
They stared back. He pulled the gun from his pocket and waved it as
if to confirm that he meant business.
The agents hurriedly left, gasping, mumbling about security. One
removed a cell phone as the doors closed.
He hit the Fourth floor button.
The elevator ‘pinged' and he ran out on to the landing.
He ran down the corridor and into the door marked "A.D. Walter
Skinner".
Skinner's secretary sat typing at her desk.
"Can I help? Um, are you part of a tour or something? If you are.."
"I need to see Skinner."
"He's talking to someone right now."
"Good. Excuse me."
"Wait! You can't just..."
The boy pushed open the door to Skinner's office. Skinner stood at
the back of the room. The two others stood in front, a few metres
apart from each other. The three adults formed a triangle.
"Sir, I tried to stop him but..."
The second man in Skinner's office turned.
"Let him come in. Close the door please."
The secretary glanced at Skinner, who nodded to confirm the man's
request.
The man, slowly removing a cigarette from his mouth, spoke first.
"What do you want?"
"The vaccine. I know you have it."
The smoking man glanced to his left at the woman, who stood staring
at the boy. She tucked her long, brown hair behind her ear.
"Do you have a number?" she asked.
"No. I don't have a number."
She glanced at the smoking man.
As if to prove it, the boy lifted his arm to reveal the cut, red
blood dried along his elbow.
"Red. Happy?"
"What the hell is this all about?" Skinner asked.
"What do you want the vaccine for? I don't see why..." the smoking
man began.
"It's not negotiable. Just give me it."
The man took a long draw from his cigarette.
He turned to the woman, nodding, and she took out a gun from her
pocket.
The boy stared in disbelief. He hadn't expected this. But he was
prepared.
"How can you do this? Kill with intent to save your own sorry
lives?"
The woman didn't react, pointing the gun steadily in the boy's
direction.
The boy retaliated by taking out Mulder's gun.
He pointed it first at the woman, then at the smoking man.
"Agent Fowley, can you please..." Skinner argued.
"Give me the vaccine. NOW! Or I'll kill you. I mean it."
The smoking man, ignored him again.
"Give me it or I WILL kill you!"
Fowley released the safety catch of her gun.
"Scully and Mulder's lives depend on it! PLEASE!"
He swung his arm back and forth to the smoking man and Fowley.
Skinner watched from the back of the office.
"NOW!! I know you have it! In that case!" he indicated a briefcase
on a desk. "I won't hesitate to kill you if you don't."
"Are you sure you know how to use that?" the smoking man asked
mockingly. "Surely you're not old enough to kill a man."
"YOU DID THIS TO ME and I won't hesitate to kill you! Or her! Your
experiments and cover-ups! taking innocent people for your own
selfish needs. I was a normal person! I had a life! I could turn
round without seeing hundreds of carbon copies of myself!"
"You wouldn't kill her. Or me."
"Wanna bet on that old man? Now give me the vaccine!"
There was a silence as the smoking man took another puff of his
cigarette. He dropped the remains, took out a fresh one, and lit it.
"Scully and Mulder are lying, half-dead on their office floor,
infected by one of the clones you created. A clone of me."
Skinner, still not quite taking it in, looked slightly alarmed at
this.
The boy released the safety catch of his gun, pointing it now
steadfastly at the smoking man, ignoring Fowley.
"I'm gonna count to five. Give me a sufficient amount of the vaccine
or I will kill you. Right here, right now. I'm not afraid. One."
There was a silence.
"Two."
Fowley's finger lowered on the trigger of her gun.
"Three."
The smoking man stared into the barrel of the boy's gun. He had
never faltered in situations like this, but as the boy lowered his
finger on the gun's trigger, he twitched slightly.
"Four..." the boy's voice was high and anxious but deadly serious.
The gap between four and five was longest of all, each member of the
deadly triangle waiting for an outcome.
Outside, Skinner's secretary stopped typing and stood up, alarmed,
when she heard the gunshot.
3.
She opened the door and gasped at the scene inside. She ran back
outside, hitting buttons on her phone.
The boy stood, mouth slightly open. He slowly lowered his arm
downwards. He swallowed.
The smoking man, his head lowered, dropped the stub of his cigarette
and stamped it out with his foot.
He didn't feel he should light another one.
Both looked to the side. Fowley, face down, lay on the floor of
Skinner's office. Blood poured from the centre of her back.
Skinner, at the back of the room, lowered his gun towards the floor.
He looked at Fowley sprawled on the floor. Then up, at the smoking
man, and the boy. He coughed a little.
When he had shot her from behind, she hadn't made any noise at all,
simply collapsing on the floor, her gun making a metallic 'clanking'
noise as it fell from her hand.
"Give him the vaccine."
The smoking man, hesitating, finally took out another cigarette. He
didn't move.
"Do it."
Smoking man moved slowly to the briefcase, spinning the combination
lock.
Once opened, he removed a small plastic test-tube rack with three
small metal vials containing a yellowy-orange liquid. Two had
syringe attachments by them.
"Three doses of a weak but sufficient vaccine," he said as he handed
the rack to the boy.
The boy swallowed again.
"I only need two."
"Take the third. You'll need it. Trust me."
The words rang out in his ears as the boy told himself mentally to
focus.
He nodded slowly to the smoking man.
He ran as fast as he could through the secretary's office and into
the corridor, passing two men who looked like paramedics running
towards Skinner's office.
He ran into the nearest elevator, which contained two male agents
who looked suspiciously at him as he pressed the 'zero' button on
the panel several times.
"C'mon..c'mon..." the doors slid shut. Both agents left at the first
floor and the elevator continued downwards to the basement. As the
doors opened he leapt out, running in the direction of Mulder's
office.
He barged through the door. All that remained of clone 19 was a thin
layer of solidified green slime, a red shirt and jeans and the metal
blade weapon. The computer keyboard was upturned nearby.
Mulder and Scully lay in the same positions as he had left them. The
boy noticed that Mulder's hands were becoming slightly red and
translucent, the black oil still ran over his eyes. Controlling him.
Becoming him.
...Mulder's life seemed to pass through his mind. He saw himself as
a boy, playing baseball with his dad, then suddenly he saw himself
again, walking through a field, discussing a case with Scully...
...Scully heard herself scream, a light blinding her.
Then suddenly, a knife pressed against her throat, then she felt
herself with Mulder, her arms around him as she lay in a hospital
bed. He was crying...
The boy plunged the syringe into Mulder's arm.
Mulder coughed. His head spasmed back and forth a few times as the
black oil seemed to dribbled from his eyes and nose.
He groaned.
The boy ran to Scully, repeating the harsh medical procedure.
She spluttered lightly, her eyes wide open. The oil departed her
body too, running onto the smooth floor.
The oil from both Mulder and Scully's bodies pooled together, moving
across the black surface.
A life force in it's own right. With one aim.
To find a host.
It moved steadily towards the boy. He realised what it was doing,
realised he couldn't get away. He glanced hurriedly round the room,
realising quickly that there was no weapon with which to kill a
liquid alien being.
4.
His eyes met the plastic rack in which the vaccine had been carried.
One vial remained, slightly different to the first too. He reached
for it, removing the red plastic cap. He squeezed it, a jet of the
vaccine fluid hitting the oil.
The pool of glistening black oil separated into small drops quickly,
as if suddenly it couldn't stand being as one any longer.
It turned a dirty yellow colour and ceased moving.
The boy breathed heavily, shaking slightly. That was a little too
close. He sat down in a chair.
Mulder and Scully, still coughing, sat back to back on the floor.
He turned his head towards a door, to a noise in the corridor. A
large group of men in black protective suits, clear visors over
their faces, and carrying large machine guns, entered the office.
It was time.
----
Scully walked down the corridor, the noise from her shows echoing
right down to the office. She strolled along, Mulder by her side -
carrying a large coke from McDonald's.
She couldn't remember much about the incident, really. Mulder seemed
to remember up to the point where the boy had handed them the
computer discs, but she could only just remember the boy entering
their office, breathing loudly, his hair swept back from running.
They had been checked over, several times, in fact, by various
medical workers, none of which had found anything wrong with either
of them. So they say, Mulder had added, paranoid as always.
She supposed that it was just another X-File. Once more, they had
been promised the truth only to be messed around, to be lied to, to
be double-crossed. She had a feeling that whatever had happened
during those two hours or so hadn't been... right, - there was
something that she just couldn't place. Something at the back of her
mind, niggling away.
She sat down at her desk, Mulder by the computer to check his
e-mail. The very desk they had sat at a few days ago, her last
thoughts. She shuddered as she looked once more at the small scar on
her arm, obviously from a needle or syringe. She had no idea exactly
what had been injected. Did she want to know?
Mulder offered Scully the coke. She declined. Mulder shrugged,
turning to his computer as it whirred to life.
He hit the button that opened the CD drive.
A gold CD glistened back from the disc drive, the hand-written label
clearly seen.
"Project X - Disc 1", it said.
The End
