This is a crossover between The Lone Gunmen and the series
Millennium. The only thing that you have to know about
Millennium is that, during its second season, a hacker who
worked with Frank Black and the Millennium Group was
introduced, one Brian Roedecker - a know-it-all, a bit of slob,
a movie addict with more than a passing knowledge of porn stars
- in short, a bit of Frohike and Langly rolled up into one,
which makes sense since Morgan and Wong also created this
character. If it helps to put a familiar face on Roedecker, he
was portrayed by Allan Zinyk, Blaine `Roswell, Roswell'
Faulkner from the "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" episode.

There really is a game similar to the one mentioned in this
story. Its actual name is Majestic, which I did not use
because that name has different connotations in the XF
universe.

And the title is taken from "Shakedown", written by Harold
Faltermeyer, Keith Forsey, and Bob Seger, which was recorded by
Bob Seger for "Beverly Hills Cop II".

Muchas gracias to the LSP for their support.

--- The Shakedown ---

Lone Gunmen Headquarters
Sunday
8:21 am

"What the . . ."

The rapid staccato of the buzzer interrupted Langly's reading
of the Sunday comic section. Abandoning the paper and Byers'
treat of freshly squeezed orange juice, he made his way around
the work tables to the commotion at the front door. He paused
when he made eye contact with the monitor trained on the
visitor, thinking that it could not possibly be who it appeared
to be. The speaker was activated. "Roedecker?"

The dark-haired man on the other side of the door was visibly
agitated. "Hurry up, Langly, let me in."

Langly set about undoing the locks and opened the door.
"Jesus, Brian, when did you hit town?" The visitor did not
wait for an invitation to enter and was halfway through the
front office before Langly could get around to closing the
door. "Couldn't this wait until a more decent hour of the
morning?"

Brian noisily dropped his backpack to the floor, turning around
to survey the room. "No. They're after me."

"Who's after you?"

Brian jumped and let out a yelp at the sound of Byers calling
out from the other side of the office, then settled down when
he saw the familiar face. "People. Someone. I don't know
exactly who," he breathlessly spat out, "but this person is
after me, I tell you. He's going to kill me."

More stirring appeared behind Byers. "Great. Roedecker."
Frohike was still in his pajamas, yawning and scratching his
head. "I should have known."

"It's not those Millennium people again, is it?" Byers
gestured towards the couch, inviting Brian to sit down and to
get him as far away from their equipment as possible before he
started knocking things over in his nervousness. "I thought
you'd dealt with that problem?"

Brian picked up his backpack and followed him. "No, it's not
them."

"You can be certain of this?"

"Yeah. Because if it *was* the Millennium Group, I'd already
be dead." Brian settled in on the couch and adjusted his
glasses as the Gunmen gathered around him. "They'd have killed
me weeks ago in some spectacularly odd fashion. You know, burn
me alive, cut off my hand, seal me up in a tomb. Your basic
ritualistic stuff."

"Take it from the top, Brian." Langly took the position
directly in front of him with arms crossed. "When did you
first start to believe that someone was going to kill you?"

"You don't believe me, do you? You think I'm making all this
up."

Byers sat down beside him to reassure their visitor. "We won't
know what to believe until you tell us what is happening. Just
start from the beginning."

Brian took a deep breath and looked around at the three. "Ever
hear of a game concept known as Takedown?"

"Sort of a personal search-and-destroy type of game, right?"
Byers looked to his partners for confirmation.

Frohike shook his head. "Care to lay it out for us? I haven't
had my morning dose of caffeine yet."

"Takedown is comprised of two different sets of subscribers:
the prey and the hunters," Brian began. "Those who want to
become the prey give us just basic information; you know, name,
city, email addy. The hunters get the data and then proceed to
track them down, to get as much on them as possible. The prey
have to figure out who is stalking them and then confront them
with that information."

Frohike was incredulous. "You're telling us people *pay* to be
stalked?"

"In a lot of cases, it never gets anywhere near that. The game
attracts a lot of practical jokers on both sides. You know,
seeing if they can one-up the other like enrolling them in the
Underwear of the Month Club, pizza deliveries at 3 am, sending
strippers to the workplace. That sort of thing. Some people
really get into the undercover sleuthing bit and actually send
daily videos to the other person."

Langly spoke up. "Hey, I've read about that. Is this done by
on-line subscription?"

"Not to the general public, but we do have a number of test
groups on beta right now."

"We?" Byers asked. "What's your connection to this game?"

"I'm one of the moderators - one of the people who receives the
information from the new users and passes them on to the
hunters. The hunters in turn put the pursuit into motion. I
keep files on all the submitted updates from both sides and
when takedowns become final."

"So far, a typical job," quipped Langly.

"Until about the second week of the latest go-round. That's
when someone started pursuing *me*."

"Why? Did some file info get crossed?"

"No, it didn't." Brian's voice grew more hushed, as if he were
alone and giving himself a pep talk. "I checked all of the
activation and send messages. *No one* should have gotten my
demographics in place of someone else's."

The three Gunmen looked to each other and waited for a further
explanation. "So," Byers prompted, "what are they doing?
These people who are after you?"

"It started out with these hang-up phone calls." Brian slumped
further into the couch, embarrassed to be relating the story
but grateful to finally get it off his chest. "My caller-ID
program would tell me that they were coming from my friends and
other people that I work with, but when I called them back,
everyone said that they didn't call me. I even had calls
coming from my parents' phone, and I know damn well that they
would never call me in the middle of the night."

"It's just been these phone calls?"

"No, it's not *just* phone calls." Brian again grew nervous
and reached for his backpack, pulling out sheets of paper.
"It's faxes with a picture of me in a mock-up wanted poster.
It's emails threatening to do the most vile things to my
privates. I'm on sex offender neighborhood watch lists, and
I've never even been arrested for anything like that." He
noted Langly and Frohike exchanging knowing looks with the
other. "Hey, we might all get a big laugh if this was
happening to someone on a TV show, but believe me, it's no
laughing matter when it's happening to you."

Frohike was only partially successful at suppressing a grin.
"Have you ticked off anyone recently? Present company
excepted. I know it's a loaded question, but it has to be
asked."

"I thought about that, but the info that I've been able to
trace backwards doesn't make any sense. The majority of the
email and site addresses have been manufactured or are
redirects back to sites that thousands of users have access
to." Dejected, Brian again slumped back into the couch. "I've
already moved once. I had about two quiet days and then it all
started back up again. So I thought I'll just pack up and head
back East, but if I stay anywhere for more than forty-eight
hours, he finds me. The fucker somehow finds me and starts
this crap all over again."

"So that's why you came to us?" Frohike challenged. "Because
you want us to find out who this person is that's targeting
you?"

"I heard through the grapevine what you guys did with that
First Person Shooter game." Brian's voice was now a revenant
whisper. "I heard you slayed a ninja babe."

"Yeah, well, we had help. Like we're gonna need here."
Frohike turned and started walking out of the room.

Langly followed him part of the way. "Where are you going?"

"To call Jimmy. If what Roedecker says is true and someone's
been pegging him all along the way, then he's not staying here
and dragging us into this warped little game."

"Jimmy's not really going to be of much help with finding out
who's doing this, you know." Langly did not want to have to
point out the obvious but he was more concerned with Jimmy
hogging the Sunday comic section should he come over now.

"True, but he can sit tight on Roedecker and prevent anyone
from getting within ten feet of him while we look into it."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lone Gunmen Headquarters
1:12 pm

Langly reset the locks on the front door upon his return to the
warehouse after delivering their early morning guest to Jimmy's
apartment. "Have you guys been able to find out anything in
that pile of paperwork Brian left for us?"

"Not much, just yet." Byers was still on the couch, reading
through the various faxes and expense receipts that had been
given to them. "We know that he has access to Roedecker's
phoning habits and that he can fool his caller ID system."

Frohike had confiscated Roedecker's laptop and was reviewing
the threatening emails that had been received. "Ever think
that one of our phone numbers might be in that system?"

"I don't see how." Langly was now reading over Frohike's
shoulder. "I haven't heard from Brian in several years."

"These are his receipts for his hotel stays for the past month
when he started heading here." Byers had picked up a handful
of paper and joined the other two at a work table. "After his
first stop, he quit using his own VISA card. After the third
stop, he quit using *any* credit cards; he's been operating on
a cash basis since Salt Lake City."

"What about bank withdrawals? Wouldn't that give him away?"

"But how would this person know where he was staying or if he
was even still in the same town?"

"Something's not right here," Frohike remarked after reading
several more emails. "Roedecker insists that he hasn't done
anything, but it's my experience that you don't continually
pursue someone this way unless that person has done you some
serious wrong."

"Maybe he did do something but doesn't realize it." Langly's
attention was still focused on the laptop screen. "Or maybe
this other person is seriously disturbed and just *thinks* that
some harm was done to him."

Byers laid out the receipts on the table in date order. "He's
been able to track him in large cities and small towns. It's
as if he's right there on his tail, following him the entire
way."

"You don't think he's been bugged, do you?"

Frohike let Langly take over the work on the laptop and joined
Byers on the other side of the table. "I ran him by the
equipment before he left here. Both he and that backpack are
clean. If he had anything on him, he lost it before he came
through our door, thank god."

"Can't be his car," Langly added, providing information that he
and Roedecker had discussed on their way to Jimmy's. "He
ditched that in St. Louis and bought another, but he left that
one in Atlanta and came up here by Greyhound."

Frohike was picking up various hotel receipts, examining each
for the coding of the charges. "Which of these places did he
say that he didn't receive any threats?"

"That would be Dothan, Alabama." Byers pointed to the Shoney's
Inn receipt.

Langly was confused. "What's so special about Dothan,
Alabama?"

"Trust me," Frohike deadpanned, "*nothing's* special about
Dothan, Alabama."

"Then maybe he should go back there."

Byers shook his head and blinked hard. He had been staring at
the pieces of paper now for over an hour, trying to determine a
pattern. "What has he been doing in these places? He hasn't
been so careless as to log into any of his web accounts."

"Not directly, no." Langly brought up a second window on the
laptop to start another search. "I'll recheck the gateways he
uses, see where any may have been compromised. By the looks of
things, we even use some of the same ones."

Byers held out his hand to Frohike for the rest of the
paperwork. "I need to have some room to play with all of these
receipts, see if there is any kind of pattern."

"Why did he keep all those pieces of paper, anyway?" Frohike
asked. "What would be the point?"

"I don't know. Maybe he just didn't want to leave any trash
behind for this guy to use against him." Byers' explanation
was barely audible to the rest as he made his way among the
shelving maze to another area of the warehouse.

Langly was still playing with the gateway traffic. "You think
he's okay? Brian, I mean. Being with Jimmy?"

"I made it quite clear to Jimmy that neither of them were to
use the phone for any reason except to page us. And there are
plenty of take-out places right near there so they won't
starve. What kind of trouble could they get into at Jimmy's
small apartment?" Frohike stood at the table for a second
before turning around and meeting Langly's glare over the
laptop screen. "No, wait, don't answer that."

--- The Breakdown ---

Jimmy Bond's apartment
3:46pm

The voice of the late Madeline Kahn singing "Ah, Sweet Mystery
of Life" filled the apartment, followed by the lush
orchestration and the rolling of the credits from the film,
"Young Frankenstein". Brian was chuckling to himself, lying on
the futon spread out on the floor. He reached for the VCR
remote to rewind the tape and nearly ended up spilling one of
the bowls of buttered popcorn.

Beside him in the Barco-lounger, Jimmy was nodding and grinning
in his approval of the choice of video. "Damn, that was funny.
I get a kick out of those old musicals. What's next?"

Brian had begun to realize about halfway through the film that
Jimmy was not one of the brightest bulbs on the planet with
some of the questions that he had asked - not understanding the
joke about Igor's hump, wondering why the horses kept neighing
at the mention of Frau Blucher's name, and why the make-up
people messed up with the singing lady's hair towards the end
of the movie. This was apparently what Langly had been trying
to tell him when he said that Jimmy was more the jock-type than
a conversationalist. He just thought it meant that Jimmy
grunted and crushed beer cans with his forehead. "The next one
is `Monty Python's Life With Brian'."

"Cool. They made a movie about you. I can get into that."

Brian paused in his popcorn munching. `And he's supposed to
*protect* me?' he thought. Out loud, he played along and
responded, "No, it's about another Brian. You'll see." He got
up to switch tapes but nearly dropped the cassette when the
phone began ringing. He saw Jimmy make an attempt to get up
out of the recliner. "Don't answer that," Brian warned.

Jimmy just shrugged his shoulders. "It's just the guys
checking up on us. Don't worry." He walked over to the phone,
waited for the fourth ring, and picked it up. "Hello?"

Brian watched Jimmy's befuddled expression as he appeared to be
straining to hear the person on the other end. When no attempt
at a conversation was made, Brian bolted for the phone, taking
it out of Jimmy's hand, and listened intently. There was a
faint noise coming through the receiver. It was a song, a song
that Brian would later recognize as Rockwell's "Somebody's
Watching Me".

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lone Gunmen Headquarters
3:59 pm

The steel staircase shook and squeaked as Langly rapidly
descended from the overhead storage area. Grabbing his jacket
from the table where it had been discarded earlier, he yelled
across the room to the others. "Gotta run. Jimmy just paged
us. They're in trouble."

"Are you sure it's Jimmy?" Frohike called out.

"It's his code plus 911 added to the end. It better be him."

"Okay, wait up. I'm riding shotgun. I want to see if there's
anyone hanging around the place before we pick them up."
Frohike pulled the front door closed behind him. "I just hope
that Jimmy remembers the escape route."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lone Gunmen Headquarters
4:32pm

Byers peeked around the storage shelving upon hearing the front
door close and watched as his two partners made their way
through the maze to the main work tables. He noticed that no
one was following them. "Where's Jimmy and Brian?"

Frohike made a gesture to the other side of the building.
"They're taking the back way in."

Byers' eyes widen. "The fire escape?"

"Roedecker is not walking in through our front door again. If
he wants to come to us for protection, then he's going to work
for it and not make us the target."

"What happened at Jimmy's?" Byers beseeched Langly.

"Not sure." Langly shrugged his shoulders. "Brian was either
screaming or muttering to himself all the way back. He is
*seriously* spooked by this."

From the other side of the room and somewhere on the overhead
loft, a cascade of voices and heavy footsteps began to snowball
towards the Gunmen. Brian finally appeared, out of breath, and
stopped to grab the iron railing for support. "I can't believe
that you guys would do this to me," he called down to them,
nearly in tears. "I got people wanting to kill me, and I'm
having to go through Survivor challenges just to be able to
stay alive. What is *with* you guys? You're supposed to be my
friends."

"Well," Byers began apologizing, "I will admit that the fire
escape is not one of the most convenient ways to access the
warehouse . . ."

"Not the most convenient?" Brian had awkwardly descended to
the bottom of the staircase. "Try damn near impossible. I
nearly fell twice."

"Hey, I caught you that last time." Jimmy did not lose his
patience with people as a rule, but he did not understand
Brian's reluctance at a little workout.

Frohike dismissed their visitor's complaints. "If you're gonna
hang with the professionals, Roedecker, you better get in
shape."

"And I could have done without the deep chill treatment by my
bodyguard, Mr. Freeze," Brian spat out.

The Gunmen first looked at each other, then at Brian, before
focusing their attention on Jimmy, who shrugged his shoulders
in ignorance. "What did he do?" Langly asked of Brian.

"After we left the apartment and got around the corner to that
Chinese take-out place, he drags me back into the kitchen.
Then this hulk pushes me into the walk-in freezer. Won't let
me out. Says it's for my own good."

Byers was unsure as to who to believe. "Jimmy?"

Jimmy was quite animated in his explanation. "Well, I figured
that if someone was trying to kill him, I could, you know,
throw myself in front of any bullets, but then I saw that big
shiny silver room and thought, `I bet that thing could deflect
bullets'. So I pushed Brian in and guarded the door until you
guys showed up with the van." Jimmy was certain that he had
done the right thing - had done what he had been told to do -
and desperately wanted confirmation.

Frohike obliged and patted him on the back. "Nice going,
Jimmy."

"Yeah," Langly added, "good job, man."

"Now all we got to do is figure out how they found Brian at my
place." Jimmy, now feeling more a part of the action, wanted
to contribute more. "I swear, guys, we never used the phone.
We were too busy watching videos."

Something about that last statement clicked with Byers.
"Videos? Wait a minute. I knew that there was something I
wanted to ask." The pile of receipts, in date and vendor
order, were still before him. "Here they are. Brian, you
watched an awful lot of videos while you were making your way
back East."

"Not videos. DVDs." He was still pissed at the lot of them
but at least his voice was now registering at his usual octave.
"But you took my laptop and Jimmy doesn't have a player, so I
had to settle for videos when we got to V-Mart."

"You what? You went where?" Frohike was beginning to think
that he would have to take back what he just said about Jimmy
doing a good job. "Jimmy, is this true? Did you guys make a
run to V-Mart?"

"Well, yeah." Jimmy was hesitating, thinking that perhaps
mentioning the videos part was a bad idea. "Brian went in to
get some videos, and I went to the sub shop next door to pick
up lunch. Honest, guys, I don't think that we were followed."

"You wouldn't need to be followed," Frohike groaned in
frustration.

Byers, uncustomarily flustered, slapped his hand on the table.
"That's got to be it. Brian, V-Mart is a membership-only
rental place. They would have run your card through the system
prior to paying for the order."

"That can't be it," Brian stammered.

"You've been using that card across the country, renting DVDs
all along the way and it doesn't cross your mind that this just
might be how this guy is finding you?"

"I've got a dozen of those membership cards, all under
different names. I got into their system last year and cranked
out a bunch so I can rent . . ."

"Yeah, rent the triple X stuff without it tracing back to your
name," Frohike wisecracked.

"So? There's no harm in that. No one needs to know how many
times I rented `Biker Babes and the Detroit Midget Riders'."
Brian conceded to himself that he just had a too-much-
information moment but plowed ahead. "Besides, I've used
nearly all of them. I've been destroying them; I haven't used
the same one more than twice in a row since I left Seattle.
That can't be it. He can't know whose accounts I duplicated
months ago."

"There has to be some connection. You hit town and as soon as
you rent videos, you're tagged." Frohike got in his face.
"Are you watching the same ones over and over again? Are you
using any kind of credit card with the membership cards?"

"No, I'm getting them for free." Brian rummaged through his
backpack and pulled out a handful of plastic cards wrapped in
with a rubberband. "See. I got a bunch of prepaid rental
cards a while back - I won a trivia contest that V-Mart
sponsored when the Planet of the Apes series was re-released
and that was the prize. They've come in handy since most of my
cash has been going to moving from place to place."

Frohike took the cards out of Brian's hands and handed them off
to Byers, who began examining the cards. "These cards have a
upc code on the back. I'll bet even money that when Brian won
these prepaid cards, they were logged into V-Mart's system with
his name attached. All this person would need to know is that
he frequents that chain and monitor the card usage and wait for
Brian to show up."

"How does this explain how he finds him so quickly?" Frohike
picked up one of the cards, holding it up to the light. "They
couldn't have picked up the videos more than five hours ago."

"Oh, crap."

"What is it now, Roedecker?"

"I just remembered." Brian was looking down at the floor,
unable to meet their eyes. "If you use a membership card with
an out-of-town mailing address, you have to give a local phone
number as a contact."

The Gunmen stood stunned. "You didn't?" Frohike turned to
Jimmy and pleaded, "Tell me you didn't."

"No, he didn't." Brian came to Jimmy's defense. "But I said
that I was with Jimmy, and he's also got a membership account
there. The clerk said that he knew him and must have plugged
in his phone number as the contact."

"That does it - I'm never using V-Mart again. I don't care how
much of a variety they've got in their back room, it's not
worth it."

Byers began picking up the receipts that he had spent so much
of the day scrutinizing and moved over to his regular work
station. "And just so we explored all the bases, you didn't
rent any DVDs while you were in Alabama, right?" Upon Brian's
affirmative confirmation, he continued, "So we now have a
pretty good idea of *how* this guy finds you, we just have to
figure out now *who* this guy is."

Jimmy was again eager to make a contribution. "I say, we use
one of Brian's cards and then jump the guy when he shows up to
kill him."

"All in good time, Jimmy," Byers reassured him, motioning for
Frohike and Langly to join him at the computers. "First, we
need to do a little research on our V-Mart hacker."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lone Gunmen Headquarters
7:09pm

Langly gathered up the spare discs and finished labeling the
ones that now carried the downloaded information from the last
couple of hours' work. "You know, V-Mart was way too easy a
crack."

"I am definitely never renting stuff from those guys again."
Frohike had been somewhat mortified when Langly had pulled up
his rentals for the past six months. The others already knew
of his tendencies towards flics that had little need of costume
designers, but Langly was never going to let him live down the
periodic rentals of "Love Story".

"The thing is, now that we found out what we need to know, how
do we handle this guy?"

"You mean, what do we do with him?" Frohike pulled up the
individual's personnel file from his folder of saved
information. "I say we do nothing. Let Roedecker handle him."
He continued to scrutinize the data. "I don't get it. What
would this character want with Roedecker, anyway?"

"You know, this guy could be useful. We could get some
information from him if we squeezed him enough." Langly paused
behind Frohike to read more of the file. "I mean, he's been
using his work computers and equipment and stuff to go after
Brian. He's a civil servant - the feds kind of frown on that
sort of thing."

"With the exception of the IRS and the FBI and the CIA . . ."

Byers, who had been busy pulling up maps on his workstation,
joined in the conversation. "What would you guys say to a
little reverse game theory here?"

"What do you have in mind?" Langly asked.

"Pay him a visit. Surprise him. In exchange for us not
blowing the whistle on him to his superiors, we get him to give
us a tour with some `appropriate' souvenirs. It would make a
great story."

"And how are we going to surprise him? Walk through the main
gate and knock on his office door?" Frohike was shaking his
head at the absurdity of the notion. "Remember the last time
we were out there? We'll be arrested before we get within
three miles of the place, and no one is going to pay any
attention to what we have to say at that point."

"We have contacts we could try," Langly offered.

Byers quietly countered, "We know someone who has *better*
contacts."

Frohike skeptically looked at the other two. "Uh, uh. Yves
wouldn't go for it."

"I think that she will."

"On what planet?"

"For a chance to get inside Area 51, I think she'd do it."
Byers turned to leave and make a few phone calls.

Frohike continued to shake his head, contemplating the
foolishness that was about to befall the individual still
pictured on his screen. "Morris Fletcher, you sorry son of a
bitch. You have no idea what you are in for now."

--- The Takedown ---

Monday
3:20pm
Lone Gunmen Headquarters

He could hear a brief pause, that slight catch from the back of
her throat as if determining, once again, the Gunmen were
teasing her. "You must be joking."

"No, Yves, it's not a joke." Byers switched the receiver to
his other hand so that he could turn away from Langly, who was
making faces at him. It would not help their cause if Byers
were to start laughing during the phone conversation.

"You'll be arrested. You would simply disappear for quite some
time." Yves' crisp British tones echoed in his ear. "There is
no bail that I could pay this time for your little escapade."

"We don't have any intention of being caught."

"Area 51? Groom Lake? Seriously, you boys are so far out of
your league here . . ."

"Yves, listen; this is a courtesy call - nothing more." Byers
turned back towards Frohike for encouragement, who was giving
him the signal to hurry it up. "We're going out there, and
we're going to get inside and get our story. We may have found
something that they will want to negotiate for and we're basing
our plans on that. We'll be leaving in the morning. If you're
interested, let us know." He quickly hung up before she had
the time to respond.

"Think she'll take the bait?" Frohike called out.

"I hope so. Actually, I would count on it."

Frohike was beaming. "Nothing like showing her how
disinterested we are in her cooperation to make her come
running to participate."

"Yeah, if she doesn't totally emasculate us when she finds us
out." Langly, grateful that Yves had tagged along on some of
their adventures to bail them out, did not appear to be looking
forward to her vision of revenge if she caught on to their
plan.

Byers tapped the receiver a couple of times before rejoining
the others. "If we can convince her to help us out, it might
be worth it."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lone Gunmen Headquarters
8:02pm

The quick double-buzzer sound coming from the front door got
Frohike's attention, and a peek at the monitor confirmed his
suspicions. "Right on schedule."

Byers shot Frohike a stern look to settle him down as the locks
were undone. "Yves. Come on in."

"I just came by to see if you've come to your senses." Yves
walked through the open doorway, sidestepping several canvas
bags as she made her way to the central working area.
"Obviously, I'm mistaken. I was really hoping on a burst of
common sense on your part, Byers. Your trip will be total
folly."

Byers had followed her down the maze of shelving after securing
the door. "We believe otherwise."

"So, what is this bargaining chip you plan to use?" Yves
looked around at the Gunmen as the three looked to each other
to begin the routine.

"We'd rather not say just yet." Byers stuck to the scheme.
"Until we put the plan into action, the less people who know,
the better. You understand."

"I see." Yves crossed her arms and shifted her weight from one
foot to another. "You really must think the worst of me to
believe that I would steal that data readout for some secret
military aircraft that uses a questionable fuel source right
out from under your noses."

Frohike was incredulous. "Where did you come up with that
information?"

An eye roll accompanied a tapping of her foot. "Hmmmm."

"Damn it, Yves. I thought we had an understanding." Frohike
rounded the table to confront her. "You need to quit bugging
our offices."

"What I understand is that you think that just because I'm a
woman that this Fletcher character can somehow be led around by
his unzipped trousers." Yves stared down Frohike and
continued. "Though, with most men, that is hardly a
revelation. How do you know that a nicely pressed suit isn't
more to his tastes?"

Frohike was becoming uncomfortable with her staring and with
the way she was fiddling with the top button on his vest.
"He's a notorious skirt chaser. We've had him checked out."

"And so I'm to be the bait? What's my cut in all of this?"

"It always goes back to `what's in it for me', huh, Yves?"

Yves was tiring of toying with Frohike and turned to the other
two. "Why don't you just publish that information in your
newsletter? You already have a story to tell."

"An eyewitness account from Area 51 is an even bigger story,"
Byers offered. "How many people can honestly say that they've
been there?"

"And lived to tell the tale?" Yves' words hung in the air as
she eyed the three. "What I don't understand is this - why
have you not done anything with this information before?"

"We've never been able to confirm it," Byers began, "and quite
honestly, we're not certain how it got into our files in the
first place."

"Come again?"

Langly finally spoke up. "Almost two years ago, I stumbled
across some files I don't even remember downloading. Of
course, I recognized right away what it was, and the only place
that it could have come from was Area 51. We were hoping to
get some answers when we were at Def-Con shortly after that,
but we . . . kind of got sidetracked." Both he and Frohike
looked over at a blushing Byers. "And now we find out that the
guy who's been after this friend of mine works at the place so
we can go to the horse's mouth, so to speak."

"And you're quite certain that no one planted this information
in your files - for you to miraculously find at your leisure?"
It sounded to the others that Yves was becoming genuinely
concerned for their welfare. "You are certain that this friend
of yours - who has shown up unannounced after all this time -
is completely unaware that you have this information?"

"How would he know?"

"Have you considered asking him?"

Langly wanted to further argue the point with Yves, but Byers
stepped between the two. "How about helping us out, Yves? I
feel sure that a tour of that little military installation
should be worth something to you."

Yves gave them all a quick little smile, whispered a breathy,
"We'll see," before turning sharply on her heels to head back
out of the offices the way she came.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rachel, NV
Little A'Lee'Inn
Saturday
2:23pm

Yves was scowling at her reflection in the mirror, aware that
the five men in the room were closely scrutinizing her form as
well. She rolled up the sleeves of the shirt and decided to
tie the shirttails at her midriff. "I should like to register
my total disgust at having to debase myself this way."

"Now, now," Langly scolded, "you don't give yourself enough
credit. We all know that you've debased yourself before this
to get what you want and then laughed at us about it behind our
backs."

"Oh, come on, Yves." Frohike circled behind her, making sure
that there were no visible folds in the fabric of her jeans
that would act as a distraction - or at least, not *that* kind
of a distraction. "I've put out plenty of times to get intel
on a story. After a while, you begin to think of it as one of
the perks of the job."

She slapped at Frohike's hand as he reached to straighten out a
belt loop. "I have no intention of `putting out', as you call
it, or in letting Fletcher get close enough to make those kinds
of demands."

"Well, we need for you to let him get a bit close, but Jimmy
will be right there with you in case you need any help with
this guy."

Yves looked over at Jimmy, who was still practicing -
unsuccessfully - some of the rope knots that he had learned
when he was a Boy Scout. "That is not a comforting thought."

Frohike sympathized with that comment, having already escaped
from Jimmy's rehearsals earlier that day. "Just get Fletcher
back to the room, and we'll take it from there."

Langly, who had been keeping watch at the front window, gave
them a heads-up. "Okay, guys, five minutes to curtain. He
just pulled up."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Yves entered the bar, pausing just long enough at the open door
to make sure that every man would notice her entrance. In
those seconds, she scanned the area for the occupants to
determine if Jimmy had favorably positioned himself, and she
was pleased to see that he had taken Frohike's instruction to
heart. She slowly strolled across the room towards the bar,
looking into her purse, giving Jimmy just enough time to be the
first one to approach her.

"Hey," Jimmy greeted her with a slow Oklahoman drawl and
hoisted his Pabst Blue Ribbon longneck bottle to his lips for a
quick sip. "Can I buy you a drink?"

Yves paused before answering, caught off-guard by the
exaggerated accent and Jimmy's wink. "No, thank you. I'm
waiting for someone."

He was getting into a real feel for the character he was
playing. "Well, I can wait with you, little lady."

Yves wondered if he was perhaps pushing it just a bit too far
but stuck to the script. "No." She made little gestures with
her fingers to send him on his way. "Shoo, now. Go."

Jimmy looked so dejected when he returned to his barstool that
she almost felt sorry for the whispered comments about his
failed attempt that she was picking up from the vicinity of the
bar. He probably did not have much personal experience with
such rejections, she thought, but he was carrying the burden
beautifully for the spectators. Of course, a showy public
rejection would only feed the ego of their intended target, and
she could sense his approach in three, two, one . . .

"You're not from around here, are you?"

Yves settled into her barstool before turning to acknowledge
his presence. She reached up to flip her dangling curls over
her shoulder before replying. "That's hardly an astute
observation."

Morris Fletcher was not going to be that easily dissuaded.
"And you're not waiting for someone." He placed his beer
bottle on the bar and took the seat next to her.

"I'm not? Are you clairvoyant as well?" Honey replaced her
usual acerbic tone when dealing with men so full of themselves.
The trap was now baited.

"No. Only a dumb boy would fall for that line." Morris gave
her a long lingering look from top to bottom to top again
before continuing, "Because you, my dear, you should not have
to wait for anyone."

She smiled and graciously accepted the easy lob before sending
the ball back into his side of the court. "Well, then, I guess
that I'm no longer waiting."

The return volley went right by him, and he never even saw it
coming. Advantage Miss Harlow.

Yves ordered herself a Miller Lite, refusing the bartender's
offer of a glass and taking the cold bottle. Since the only
options in the establishment appeared to be beer or some dull
house wine, she chose what Morris was drinking. She deftly
steered the conversation with Morris away from her story of
traveling across the country to the Arizona Diamondbacks - St
Louis Cardinals baseball game that was on the wide-screen
television to help pass the time. The last-minute coaching by
Frohike on stats and the correct way to fill out a score card
were coming in handy. She asked a few nominal questions of her
new companion, knowing that he could not possibly give her a
straight answer about his work or his personal life, but she
knew that it would only feed his confidence level before she
could go for the kill.

Yves looked at her watch. "Damn," she whispered.

"What's wrong?" Morris asked.

"I was supposed to call my roommate over twenty minutes ago.
She's going to be worried if I don't let her know that I made
it here safely." She took a long last draw from the bottle
before gathering her purse.

"You're not leaving us already, are you?" Morris sounded
heartbroken. "The game's not even over."

"Sorry. I need to make a phone call."

"There's a pay phone near the ladies' room." Morris was trying
to be helpful.

"No, I really should go back to my room." She took the motel
key out of her purse, making sure that he saw it and knew that
she was staying nearby. "For the phone call. My roommate will
hear all of this noise and believe that I am up to no good."
She gave him her best I-really-hate-to-do-this look before
turning back to the bartender, ordering a six-pack to go. "Is
it possible to charge this to my room?" she innocently asked,
already knowing the answer, and made sure that Morris heard the
number before making her exit.

Morris Fletcher would be one of those men, she reasoned, who,
while he might not want to follow through on all the bravado
that he projects, would at least make such an attempt while the
eyes of the other men gathered in the bar were still upon him.
She was not disappointed when she noticed his reflection in the
sideview mirror of one of the cars as she made her way across
the parking lot to the motel. He quickly caught up to her and
made some small talk about making sure that she got back to her
room safely. He seemed genuinely surprised when she handed him
the key so that he could unlock her door.

Yves gazed back across the parking lot while inviting Morris
inside, wondering when Jimmy was going to leave the bar. She
quickly closed the door behind her while the others tackled
Morris. She had just enough time to place the six-pack out of
the way on the floor before the lot of them bounced off one
wall and crashed onto the bed. Morris ended up lying on his
stomach with Frohike sitting on his legs. Byers had already
situated a strip of duct tape across their target's mouth and
Langly was straddling Morris' back while trying to tie his
wrists together.

"Can't you do that any faster?" Frohike was having trouble
keeping his balance with Morris thrashing about. "I thought
that you grew up doing this."

"I told you guys a hundred times before. I used to *milk* the
cows, not *rope* them," Langly muttered.

"We shoulda brought the handcuffs. Where's Jimmy?"

As if on cue, Jimmy slipped into the motel room and joined the
group on the bed to help subdue Morris. After Langly had
securely tied the wrists, Jimmy got their prisoner back into an
upright position and prevented him from leaving the bed. The
rest scattered themselves around the room.

Yves was somewhat upset with Jimmy. "What took you so long?"

Jimmy looked up at her with confusion on his face. "McGwire
was up at bat."

"Who?"

"Mark McGwire. Gee, Yves, you sat through most of the game,
and you don't know who he is?"

"Thanks for remembering the beer, Yves." Frohike had picked up
the six-pack, withdrawing one bottle before placing the rest in
the room fridge.

"Okay, now we can do this the easy way," Yves sauntered across
the room, "or the hard way." She then showed Morris the roll
of duct tape and a tennis ball in one hand while she reached
with her other hand to slowly peel away the tape across his
mouth. "Which will it be?"

Morris licked his lips in an effort to return some moisture to
that area. For the moment, he had few choices. "The easy
way."

"Good boy." She turned on her heels and passed the baton to
the others. "Gentlemen, I give you Morris Fletcher. Go on,
ask him your questions."

The three Gunmen gathered near Morris, each looking to the
other as to where to begin.

When Morris looked at the three of them together, it slowly
dawned on him as to who they were. "Hey, you're The Lone
Gunmen. You publish that crap in that newsletter. I love you
guys. If you boys only knew how many of your stories I dreamed
up while sitting on the pot."

As the words spilled from Morris' mouth, the three men in front
of him appeared confused and looked to each other in
puzzlement.

Yves noted the exchange. "Frohike? Byers? What's wrong?"

Byers was the first to recover. "I'm not sure, but I have the
distinct impression that we've had this conversation before."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Morris struggled
against the ropes and against Jimmy, who still had a hold on
him. "Now, untie me before I start to get really mad."

"Come on, Brian," Langly coaxed. "Here's your chance. Ask
him."

"Ask me what?" Morris spit out.

Roedecker finally removed himself from the wall that he had
plastered himself against when the whole ruckus had started and
approached the bed. "Why have you been stalking me? You've
been calling me, threatening me. I had to move because of you.
Tell me how you got my information without even signing up for
the game."

A look of relief crossed Morris' face. "Is that what this is
all about? So you're Brian Roedecker?" He shrugged his
shoulders in resignation. "Okay, look, you got me. The
takedown is now complete. But I do have one question to ask:
You rented `Battlefield Earth' more than once - what *were* you
thinking?"

"Not good enough," Brian demanded. "Why did you do this? I
didn't agree to play this game."

Morris suddenly turned serious. "You did when you got on the
newsgroups and started talking about how you had access to
reports on readouts about techyon fluxes and experimental
aircrafts and left big hints as to how you could get your hands
on the real thing." He looked around the room at the reactions
of the other occupants. "I bet that he left that little detail
out of his sob story. I just wanted to see how much smoke he
was blowing up people's asses. These things don't exist. He
deserved to be hounded."

Frohike was getting pissed. "Are you telling me that this
whole thing between the two of you is some sort of bluff?"

"You mean you're not in any real danger?" Jimmy innocently
asked of Brian.

Morris could feel the sympathy waning away from his accuser.
"Where would you have gotten that kind of information? From
the back issues of that crummy newspaper? Ha!"

"So, techyon fluxes, gravitational displacement, these
experimental planes." Byers positioned himself directly in
front of Morris before continuing. "You're saying that they
don't *really* exist."

"I know a place in town where you guys can get great discounts
on aluminum foil caps. It would really cut down on these
delusions."

Byers was not easily deterred. "Is it possible, just possible,
that you haven't told the whole truth yet? That the reason you
went after Brian the way you did was because you thought that
he was telling the truth on those newsgroups. That he actually
had access to reports and data and just possibly the real
thing."

Morris challenged him. "What if I told you that I made the
whole thing up?"

"What if I told you that the headline in our next issue will be
about a government employee who lost an important piece of
hardware, oh, about two years ago that contained data on such
an experimental plane? And that that government employee was
attempting to shift the blame of that loss to someone else?"

Byers' stare left little doubt in Morris' mind that this was no
bluff. "And you would print the name of that government
employee?"

"Well, I think that our journalistic integrities would be
tarnished if we did not report the name, along with *how* we
found out who that employee was." Byers moved in for the kill.
"And we would of course have to publish the data that this
employee lost, just so our readers would not get the idea that
we were making all of this up, along with making certain that a
piece or two of the missing hardware somehow found its way
home."

Frohike turned to the bureau that displayed his photographic
equipment. "We would, of course, also include photos with that
article."

Morris leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and sighed
loudly. Chuckling to himself, knowing that he was beaten, he
sat straight up and proceeded to deal. "So tell me, what would
it take for that headline to never appear in your newspaper?"

Byers looked to Frohike. Frohike looked to Langly, and they
both nodded in agreement and gave Byers the go-ahead to seal
the bargain.

"Mr. Fletcher, I understand that you just love to give personal
tours of your place of employment."

end
originally posted April 2001