Chapter 3

"Darling, are you sure you're all right?"  He hesitated before going on, not wanting to give the impression that he was pressuring her.  She hadn't phoned him in the time she said she would.  To date, it had been a week and five days in which he'd thrashed about in his quagmire of emotional duress.

Naturally, in the state he'd thrown himself into, his mind had conjured up all manner of foul play she had to have met up with, since informing him of her being under mysterious contract ...again.  If only he had jumed into that cab, and ridden off with her into the Las Vegas scintillating night, as she'd wanted him to...  "You sound somewhat strange.  Where are you?  Please.  Where? I know I said I wouldn't, but please--where?"  He derided himself for the desperation which flooded into his voice.  "I must know."

"And you also know I can't tell you that, sweetheart.  I would if I could. How I wish I could.  I'm only thinking of your safety, in case this isn't a secure line, and they gain a bargaining chip in return for more cooperation.  I will never put you at risk.  I'm fine...believe me, I am.  It's better this way."  Better for whom?, he pondered.  "Hearing your voice makes me whole.  At peace," she assured, praying her inflection was convincing.

Her cathartic sigh was barely audible, but he heard it; heard it as clearly as if he were there with her, holding her close, promising to be with her always.  Giving his life for release, in exchange for her a priori captivity.

"Please, my dearest, give me your number, then.  At least that.  I swear I won't use it friviously.  In fact, I'll never use it, if that's your wish. Just having it in my possession will be solace enough.  Solace for knowing we'll never see each other again.  But a comfort all the same.  A compromise; my life line..."

The emotionally-spent woman sighed again, and considered.  Being separated from him was every bit as hard for her.  Harder, since she was under compulsion to cooperate with entities and souless creatures, who had somehow managed to overtake her again.  Sycophants, the love of her life was bent on exposing.  She as well, if, by some miracle, she could vanish from under their collective, clandestine noses for good.  Perhaps for that, and for so many other tenderer reasons, against her better judgment, she spoke the several digits involved in reaching her, and prayed no one was eavesdropping.  For his sake.  Only for his.

Immediately, the number was committed to indelible memory.

Off in the near distance, Byers could hear Frohike rummaging for something in the storage room, and cursing colorfully.  The dapper dresser of the Lone Gunmen onsortium whirled around, using his body as a cone of silence, to continue his very private conversation.

As he did so, he stole a look at the wedding band hugging the customary finger.  The symbol of their impossible love, which she'd bestowed with a fragile kiss.  The luster of the gold blazed in his pupils.  How he wished they had truly gone through with the ceremony in Vegas, to legalize their spiritual union.  Maybe, then, permitting himself to get into the cab, and driving off with her would not be the sickening internal issue it now had become, which he wrestled with daily.  What a fool, he condemned.

But, he'd been so torn, convincing himself that she'd be safer without him.  Yes, what a self-deluder, he maligned.  They'd be together now, out of harm's way, or, he conjectured on tenderhooks, smack dab in the middle of it.  She'd be a widow, or he a widower.  Or they'd both be dead.  But at least they'd have given expression to the glory of their love.

"Do you need anything?  Anything at all?  Whatever you--"

<You, my love, here with me--never separated>  "No.  Not a thing.  Only the sound of your voice."  There was a deafening pause, a rushed, "I've got to go.  Love you, John..."

At the sound of finality of her click, Byers squeezed his eyes shut, vowing he had to stop living like this; waiting for her calls, dying a little more inside when she had to go.  But he did have something more substantial now; a laudable consolation ...the number.  Bless her-- damnify them.  How he wished he knew the true identities, instead of the shadowy ones, of her base captors, who'd materialized out of the blue to re-stake their claim on her, and her genius.  Was it the Advanced Weapons Facility spectre which had loomed again?  Or, perhaps yet another newly-spawned branch of the ever-diverse shadow government?

He jabbed the End button, set the cordless on the work table counter top and stared at the single link--such a flimsy one--he had with the only woman he would ever love.  Love?  He pulled at his softly-bearded chin, catching his breath.  Not nearly strong enough a word.  Worship. Ah, yes, that was much better.

"Hey, Byers," Frohike bellowed to jar him out of his tenebrous introspection.  "Do you think you can tear yourself away from whatever you're not doing, and help me find the T-4s39?  If we're going to make heads or tails out of the data we collected, we're gunna need it."

"Didn't Langly have it last?" Byers answered absent-mindedly.

"Don't get me started on even thinking about him right now, buddie.  When that jerkoff shows, I'm gunna make him clean up this place, top to bottom. This lived-in look has gotten real old, real fast.  Late contemporary pigsty may be his idea of gracious living, but it's just so much filth to me!"  Frohike emerged from the storage room in high scowl mode.  "I gave our overgrown playmate his final warning when we left.  Check him out for not pullin' his weight when it's just light housekeeping."

"You're too hard on him sometimes, Frohike.  He's an adult; not our adopted son."

"Well, some of us have got to be the grown-ups.  He doesn't even have the presence of mind to be here with Silvio's info, that is if he was here to receive him in the first place.  Which I really doubt."  The perturbed elfin co-conspiracy theorist mugged his patented *Don't That Beat All* expression.  "The most important divulgence we've been waiting for since spring, and the towhead bombshell is no where to be found.  The message's still on the machine.  He knew we'd be getting back around this time.  Probably out all night partyin' with those hometown off-the-wallers he met at the convention, and is just wakin' up at wherever it is he crashed."

"Then how do you explain the McDonald's breakfast remains?"  Byers said, wondering how he'd appointed himself Langly's defender.

Frohike, ever the player of devil's advocate, eyeballed his friend a few moments.  Intrepid for making his point, to the last.  "Why do you assume it's today's leftovers?  They've most likely been here from four days ago. Yeah, sure.  Mister Fastfood said he was going there just before we cleared out."

"You promised you weren't going to pick on him in his absence--"

"Now when did I say something as ridiculous as that, man?  I'd never put the 'kybosh' on one of my favorite pastimes.  Raking Langly over-the coals.  This conspiracy theorist's gotta have some fun in this life, since it seems my social one is permanantly on hold."

Byers was in no mood for Frohike's repetitive griping.  "Come on then, I'll help you look for the T-4s39.  When we find it, that should make you happy."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Frohike baited.  "But that's only if we find it...and, Langly shows up with a billion bucks, and not his usual punk a--"

"Enough already!"

"Excuses."

The preoccupied associates prepared to fan out in their search, for the missing tactical analyzing device, when the stultifying banging on the office door made them both jump out of their skins.

"Who's that?" Frohike barked, before both pairs of eyes flew to the surveillance monitors; their ever-vigilent set of extra peepers.  He hustled to the door, unlocked, unbolted, unchained, and gawked at the tumultous foursome as the disjointed group spilled into the office.  Giving Langly an annoyed visage as he brushed past the gnome with a sniggering, all-fun-and-games looking Scully moving unsteadily against him, Frohike hurriedly welcomed, "Hello, Scully, what brings you here?..."

"Cu-Cutie.  M-More playtime with Cutie."  When she'd gotten a better look at whom had addressed her, she extended a shaky hand towards him with the intent of rubbing his bandana-swathed head.  "Hi-Hiya, 'Hik-'Hik-'Hike."  She sounded as though she were having a hiccup attack.  "What's ha-happenin', b-babe?"

"Babe?" Frohike echoed.  He turned to Mulder, his puzzled expression asked his question for him.

"She's on speed," he replied speciously, with a smart alecky waggle of his eyebrows and wry smile; patently Mulder.  Since departing from the hospital, he'd outwardly become more blase.  Quite philosophical in handling her sojourn, he reamed every vestige of hope regarding that notion, in zoned-out land.  The flippancy was a mask he'd donned to hide the nadir of his worry.

"For real?" Frohike eyed Scully in mezmerized incredulity.  When he wheeled around to perform a more thorough evaluation of his special Special Agent, he was treated to the confounding sight of her giving Langly another smooch on his ear, and then poking an exploratory finger into it.

"No," Mulder amended, "but her good judgment..." he targeted Langly with sharpshooter eyes, "has been severely compromised."

"She's got one whopper of a serious ear fixation," Langly audibly noted.  He chuckled, cocked his head to one side, delicately extracting Scully's finger from his ear and straightened up a bit more.  Starting off, he headed for his domain of computers, and assorted other treasured devices, with Scully blissfully glued to him.  He knew before he could start in earnest that he'd have to replace the current motherboard with one more compatible for the task which lie ahead.  Now, where had he stashed his customized ones last?  Maybe Frohike was right.  Maybe he should get more organized.  Wait, there they are.  Ah, now for product.

"Hey, what sickness is this?" Frohike groused.

"Silvio," Mulder cricked his thumb at the contact whose stint at being a fifth wheel still hadn't completed, "here made the mistake of bein' the noble gentleman, and got her a large coffee and outrageously over-buttered corn muffin when Langly and I asked him to watch her for a few minutes while we went over her blood work with one of her ER doctors."  He patted the bemused Brazilian on his back.  "Way to go, Sir Walter..."

"And I said I was sorry!  I didn't know it was not what I should have done.  How many times, and for how long, are you going to blame me?" Silvio shouted in self-defense of his innocently doing a striking lady a favor when she'd whimpered, and unfairly flashed her big baby blues to win him over to her way.

"What jibberish is this, man?  Would someone mind making with an explanatory moment before Byers and I die of neglect?  What the he--"

"'Hik-'Hike," Scully boomed in a highly querulous tone from Langly's corner of the office, as she wound several tendrils of his hair around her index finger.  Everyone, including the object of her infatution, pulsed in startled reflex.  "Pl-Please don't ye...yell!  'K-'Kay?  My sweet li'l cu-cutie's working o-over here!  We quiet--whe-when he fin...ishes, we're gon-na make-ou-out!"

"DANA!" Langly cried and promptly flushed a gorgeous, searing crimson. "I never..."  He tossed a defensive shrug at Mulder in wordless apologetic agony.  Determindly, he continued plink-tamping away on his keyboard, with the precision of a diamond cuttter, crunching, re-calibrating, then refiguring all manner of numbers and the configurations and postulates that went along with them, for all he was worth.  He did his best to ward off his avid admirer's affecting stroking. Dying of embarrassment in light of the curious looks his speculative buds were giving him, in the process.

"No jive, Mulder's gunna hang my booty out to dry after he gets through kickin' the livin' crap out of it," he said to himself drolly in susurration.

"Th-That's NOT wh-what you said i-in the car, and a-again just now!" Scully sulked, and wreathed his neck with her willing arms.  "I want you to do me big ti-time.  You sa-said ver-ver...ba...verbayhum...oh, whatever--'word hu-up' we-we’re ...gon-na get i-it on...or g-get down... or groooove me.  We're gon-gonna do IT!  You said!"  Her pout was the proof of veracity.  "S-Said soooo."

"I NEVER SAID THAT!  What I meant..."  A dry mouth swallow interposed. "Was, we're gunna rock, as in to get your brain unscrambled."  Langly's eyes pleaded with those of his male friends', which had popped, in abject exacerbation.  "I never told her any of that other stuff, guys. I swear!  Hey--it's me."

"Yeah," Frohike upbraided, "don't remind me."

Langly lowered his eyes momentarily, keenly cognizant of the fact that he was going to have to execute major lock down on his tongue from now on, until she was back to normal.  Which, he prayed, would be well before he succumbed to the totality of the perfection she was.  This was Scully, *in your dreams, man* Scully, in a ready and willing idyll. The babe bearing the red  ribboned has-it-all-package...the petite, mouth-watering femme fatale of the red-haired persuasion, which he'd forever longed to find in a woman who flat-out adored him.  If there were such a wonderous female who had the inclination to appreciate quirky him.  Fending Scully off was rapidily escalating into a herculean feat.  He was beginning to 'dig' all the lusty attention.  Lapping it up giant time.  Aw'right, so, yeah.  So, okay, he had whispered something soft and cozy in the neighborhood of, "check ya out later," in her ear.  In the inviting backseat of Mulder's car, on the spur of the arousing moment, if only to stave off her increasingly attractive, impelling blandishments of take me I'm yours.  He'd never follow through, though. True?

Come on, Man, TRUE??

<You know what you told her...>  He reflected then, that when she'd squeezed his upper inner thigh, as Mulder drove to the office instead of to her home, so he'd be able to punch up his brainstorming on his beloved, personal hardware, he'd yelped, almost losing it.

He'd forgotten what getting so turned on, of the calibre that rocked a body to its toes and soul, felt like.  It had been a good while since he'd been involved with anyone; seriously, or otherwise.  The very notion that perhaps she was merely acting upon some covert feelings she harbored for him, now allowed free reign in her dazed state, was a total eye opener.  Imagining Scully had a thing for him was one thing; a kind of nice thing to daydream about when he felt low.  Tipped off in a big way like this, no thanks to her present stupor, was quite another.  Overwhelming to acknowledge stone sober.  Perhaps after a few stiff belts at Ryan's, he'd gain a sharper perspective.

She sported spectacular silver strings.  And, although more than once since this whole freaky state of affairs had landed on his plate, he'd unwittingly found himself toying with the idea of untying one or two, he'd chastised himself for having some nerve.  Take Scully up on her wild offerings?  How, in the name of all decency and friendship, could he go there without hurting the few people on the planet he really cared about?

Far from it being Scully's friendship by its lonesome.  Mulder's figured vitally into the mix too.  He and the guys knew full well about the lame on-again-off again 'thing' they had for each other; a dynamic one, bordering on the 'paranormal.'  Double crossing a friend, in the realm of putting the moves on his chick was equally, "anathema, man."  And then, there were Frohike's lopsided feelings to be tallied for dubious measure, as well.

Nope, he wasn't as outspoken as Frohike, but, for honesty's sake, a considerable soft spot had blossomed within his heart for Dana also, over the years.  A well-kept secret soft spot, but a fact even his masking couldn't gainsay.  Her overtures weren't helping to keep it so secret right now.  Maybe he was under the influence too.  Not from vestiges of mind control or antidotal drugs, but rather from his own needs.  The need to listen to, and heed his feelings for a change; without fear.

<Oh, man, this is weighty...>

Deep within him, a war of wills raged full scale.

He squirmed on the stool he presently sat on, while she blew baby breath puffs of air into his ear, trying to wage an all out attack for emotional, physical and psychological control.

...Moon Base Echo Ten to Colonel Ringo Langly...Colonel, Sir, are you receiving a clear transmission?  Is anybody manning the ship?  Are you getting sufficient oxygen?  Or, are life support systems failing?  Do you copy?  Oh boy, Houston, we may have a big problem here; could have a marooner on our hands, men.  Update of status momentarily...

Langly shook his head in an effort to download his mind, and other relevant anatomical sites which had efficaciously engaged, owing to the tempting stimulus.  Prime time dilemna, he was forced to admit.  Not of his own making, but one to be reckoned with, nevertheless:  his own  waking, quaking feelings of desire for foxy Dana, and she being out of her ever-lovin' lovely right mind.  Paying him that special brand of female attention which, deep down he craved; his seeming indifference to the fairer sex, aside.  Uh, oh...the beauteous, freckled siren beckoned again.

"I believe you, Langly," Mulder assuaged, "just keep going an' don't stop till you've got some form of concrete why and--."

"What's wrong with Scully?" Byers asked apprehensively, never having heard her speak so explicitly before.

"Aside from the obvious?" Frohike butted in, riled.  "Behaving like a sex slave to the long in the tooth boy wonder over there in the umbrage.  What, for the love of sanity, gives?"

"Ya know," Mulder said unstintingly, as, from his current vantage point, he saw his partner seductively plant kisses along Langly's hairline for the umpteenth ad nauseam time.  He cracked up inwardly seeing the supertech gulp-gasping, and watching poor Frohike cuddle with the green-eyed monster.  "I think ol' Scarecrow's hormones are finally startin' ta kick in, fellas.  Look at his face, wouldya.  Seems like he's gettin' off on all the raw sexuality she's dishin'.  Lift off, or should I say uplift any second now."  Mulder was on a roll, with no signs of wanting to brake.  "I wouldn't be surprised if Scully takes her best shot, and Langly's on the receiving end of the sweetest taste he's ever--"

"Mulder!?" Frohike bludgeoned.

"Ssssssh!" Scully hissed.  "Cu-Cutie needs quiet--like I sa-said!  He's d-doin' his th-thing!"

"I heard that, Mulder," Langly spluttered in anger, glaring over malevolently, and primed for lambast.  "Watch your freakin' dirty mind, in league with your filthy mouth!  The trash talk you're layin' on us, man, sucks--this is Scully you're reddoggin'--not some tramp!  She can't help it if she's majestically crocked outta her gourd.  She doesn't know what she's doing.  Like I keep TELLING you.  Give her the respect you would if she wasn't."  There, that feels better.  In comfy re-possession of his clearer thinking faculties, he buckled down and whizzed on with his virtual permutations.  Sheepishly, his starting, in response to her sporadic caresses, became less frequent.

Lowering his voice, Frohike said again, "Mulder what goes down here?  Give us something we can understand.  Okay?"

"Flashback of Vegas, gentlemen, or so Mister touchy-feely thinks.  Susanne's handiwork or works gunking up Scully's ability to be the usual scientifically-inclined, buttoned down self we all know and love, instead of Langly's personal sex pistol.  I know, right.  Langly?  She's one sick puppy."  Mulder glanced over at them, and grinned, seeing the 'wunderkin' hadn't heard.  He went on with an edge to his voice.  "Anyway, Pointdexter's on the case, 'cause he thinks he has a workable framework as a handle.  We'll know in a couple of secs, I guess.  In case his Kung Fu flops, we'll need the real deal heavy artillery.  The fair and elusive 'Holly.'  Alias..."

"Susanne?" Byers said wistfully with just a saucon of trepidation.

"Mata Hari," Frohike quipped cryptically.  "I had a feeling..."

"You wouldn't happen to know where she is offhand, Byers, would ya?" Mulder rejoined, trying to sound as diplomatic as possible, mindful of his friend's feelings, but at the same time knowing that if he had to play hardball, he would.

"Why do you ask?" Byers retorted defensively, and unconsciously started backing away from the tight circle of men.

"Why d'ya think?" Mulder snapped back, but hedged.  "I'm not her true love.  You are.  You are, right?  Only makes sense she'd tell you her whereabouts."

"Yes, we love each other," Byers said with an addled sigh.  "I cannot deny that..."  He looked over at Scully and Langly. Tasting sourness at the back of his throat, he tried to clear it, but the faint aftertaste of The Snapple he'd had an hour ago persisted.  "I don't have any idea where she is, Mulder."

"Yeah, that's what Langly said, but I couldn't believe it."

"Byers," Frohike interposed, half-hating himself for the can of worms he was about to open.  "You've gotta call her back, and find out.  Scully needs her help."

"WHAT!!"

Within easy range of their ken, and earshot, they heard Scully effervesce, coupled with exuberant jabs of her index fingers on Langly's screen, which had taken on kaleidoscopic properties, "Is tha-that my br-brain, Sweetface?"

"Stop hitting the computer, Dana, it's a highly sensitive piece of equipment," he said somewhat sharply, and whined something unintelligible, or so he thought, under his breath.  His frenetic finger movements proceeded on, unalterably.

"Sor-Sorry, Cutie...I di-didn't...I didn'mean' to...to--"

"That's okay..."  His tone, lilting, had mellowed aburptly.

<Chill--why are you being such a pisser all of a sudden?  You know she can't help it.  Who are you really pissed with?  Her or yourself?>

"Don't b-be mad at m-me...I'll b-be goo--"  She buried her head in his shoulder, muffling her sniffles, which crescendoed into tremulous sobs.

"No chance I could be mad at you--hey--c'mon now, Punkin, we're cool.  Don't, Dana, please.  Oh, man!"  So this was what heartbreaking felt like. <You made the high priestess cry, jerk  Good goin'.  An' you wonder why you ain't got nobody>

"--Sorry I got so manic.  So cranky.  You know me.  I didn't mean to upset you.  Don't--I'm really sorry!  Won't happen again."  He leaned into her, and cooed into her ear, "Promise."  Goaded by impulse, he planted a tender kiss on its velvety crest, and got a heady wiff of her fragrant essence.  He smiled.  Even the hospital's lethal medicinal fumes were incapable of robbing her of that sweet, floral aroma.  His left hand flew off the keyboard and squeezed her waist.  "We'll always be cool.  You're the Princess, right?"

Her sobbing stopped instantly.  She turned her head slightly, peeking up at him, and nodded.  The poignant look in her eyes was daunting.  Langly felt his heart pound through a skipped beat.

"There's nothing not to like 'bout you..." he whispered, and Scully wiped her tear-stained cheeks off on his tee-shirt.

Mulder took careful note, seeing a version of Langly he never dreamed lurked beneath the scrubbiness.  Where had he kept this *human* side of himself hidden, under lock and key, all these years?  A faint taste of bile rose up in the agent's throat, causing him to gag a bit.  <Watch it, buster...just 'cos she's loony tuney, that doesn't give you the right to make so nicey-nicey>

Frohike flicked his finger at the cordless.  "I know you spoke to her a while ago."

"How?"  Byers accused, looking like a convicted felon.  He rolled his eyeballs in fluttery fashion, then cast his eyes to the floor.

"How do you think, man?"

"You're delusional, Melvin."

Frohike nodded.  "Yeah, tell me about it, John.  But, the broadscan recorder ain't.  You know.  The one that's always listening?"  He saw how the pall had quickly changed the complexion of his comrade's now ashen face.  In Byer's delight over having the tender conversation, he'd forgotten about every square inch of the office being bugged.  It had been his idea to take the measure.

"Sorry, buddy. I heard the playback as soon as she ended the conversation. We're gunna haveta use the number for Scully's sake."

"We cannot.  Cannot!"  Byers decried.  "Susanne's safety is the only thing I value!"

"Getting Scully back to normal is the chief concern, pal," Frohike vollyed, crowding in closer to him.  "Mata Hari be dam--"

"Hey, guys," Langly interjected, sounding heady, and unaware that his two best buds were about to square off.  "Get a gander at this..."

Once the men had gathered around, Scully, fully recovered from her crying jag, said, beaming, "Kewpie's a genius!"  She giggled as she ruffled Langly's hair.

"Uh huh, but don't tell him that," Mulder jibed.  He settled his hands on her writhing shoulders to keep her close to him.

"Y-Your voice sounds l-like I know it, m-man," Scully teased in a girlish voice.  She wriggled around to take him in, and scrutinized the handsome, yet still wholly unfamiliar face.

Langly snickered softly, to which Mulder fired a [what's so funny?] expression at him.  "Well, it's about time something about me's coming back to ya.  We're working on your remembering the rest, Pard."

On screen, the vivid 3-D analogous graphic of Scully's brain anatomy, cross-sectioned into tinctured latticed planes, revolved.  Langly hit Control-Alt-Escape to freeze the schematic.

"Nifty," Frohike awarded for the elegant computer model.  "Okay, so what's the verdict?"

Langly pursed his chapped lips, hit the shift key thrice, clicked the mouse twice, paused a second, and then clicked once, again, to up the magnification to three point five X.  "Frontal lobe, front and center," he clarified.  "Cognition and memory...the 'Gatekeeper.'  Judgment, inhibition.  Higher cognitive functions.  The whole ball of rational wax, or in Scully's case, irrational.  At the moment."

"Which lobe specifically are we looking at?" Mulder inquired.

"The anterior," Langly qualified, without hesitation.  "When trauma occurs in this region, there's mega impairment of recent memory, inattentiveness, inability to concentrate, behavioral disorders, lack of inhibition--you KNOW that's right--inappropriate social and, or, sexual behavior.  No argument there.  And, emotional lability; which all of you just witnessed when she got tearful."  His sympathetic looking eyes embraced Scully as she molded herself to him once more, and out from under Mulder's containment.  "Case closed.  Judgment for one messed-up honey."

"I'm not liking the sound of any of this," Frohike quantified.  He reached out to take Scully's hand, and she squeezed it hard with a melting grin.  "What if these symptoms are irreversible?"

Langly had no immediate answer for that.  He couldn't bring himself to consider that unacceptable possibility, regardless of all the sweet attention she was lathering him with.

"I like 'Hike!"

"What's caused this?" Mulder said in an apprehensive tone.  "With minimal guesswork."

"Now that's where it gets hairline tricky," Langly said with a deeply-furrowed brow.  "Minimal, huh?  No snap.  From what the hospital's blood work, and the analysis I just ran through the VirtuBio access remote on the sample of her blood you secured, show, there's an abnormally high concentration of what I'm reading as an alkaloidal recombinant in her bloodstream.  It's especially saturating the anterior frontal lobe, primarily, which, I believe it's fair to assume, accounts for her trauma."

"A recombinant?  Recombinant with what?" Byers pitched in, ignoring the grilling looks both Frohike and Mulder were giving him.  "That looks unknown."  Silvio stared disconnectedly at the screen and wondered for the countless number of times today if he would see his homeland any time soon.  He'd never seen four men so caught up, so engrossed in, granted an important matter, but one he felt himself to be on the outskirts of.

"With fatty acids.  Weird right?  Normally this would never occur with these garden variety glyceride esters.  Nothing sinister about them on their own.  But they're sorta quasi jelling, and behaving like crackpot radicals of the rabid liberated genre.  The bizarre combo could be the gunkup culprit, assuming new chemical properties and reactions.  Although, that's a titanic guess.  Heaven knows she's consumed enough caffeine from Coke and coffee to supply, not to mention a mother load of butter to account for the fatties."

"There's a connection between those substances?" Mulder asked, and stepped in closer to the monitor to get a better look at the analytical readouts bombarding the screen.

XxXx

"This freaky recomb-combo, in tandem with something, or things else, may be a triggerer...a catalyst for screwing with the A-F-L.  The temporal lobe also, to some degree, which accounts for her bouts of childish behavior.  But, maybe not.  I haven't been able to pinpoint anything clear-cut, despite all the reconfigs I've tried."  Langly sighed heavily, his eyelids feeling as though they weighed a ton each. He'd felt tired before, but this was different.  His mind reeled.  It wasn't often he came up with nothing, to his liking, to show for his normally *perfect tens* mental gymnastics.

"Beats me really.  Is it this zany alkapropionicoleic combo, acting alone, or has it somehow reactivated traces of the derivative of E-H gas, Susanne's Anoinic Histamine?  OR, has the A-P-O bonded with the antidote, amyldalapon?  Another of Susanne's derivatives, the latest brainchild on the long list of her unique creations, and the bonding with A-P-O has made it go stark ravin' wild.  She herself said that the antidotal derivative takes time for the body to rid itself of it.  Both drugs beat the crap outta Dopamin.  According to her, detox takes longer if too much caffeine or fats are ingested over, say roughly, a month's time...in certain individuals.  Scully's saturation brook point may have been reached long ago.  What we're witnessing could be max blitz, with no more spontaneous recovery.  Man--there's too much freakin' choice here..."

"How lucky for Scully.  Bein' the caffeine freak she is.  And we've all seen her inhale butter.  Who knows how much she's ingested of both comestibles, spanning the time we got back from Vegas.  This is like shootin' fish in a barrel in a pitch black room, wearin' a blindfold, man," Frohike croaked, sounding dismal and looking heartsick.  "Only Miz Drugs knows what we could be dealing with here."

"That's a truth," Langly concurred.

Mulder edged away from the monitor, feeling akin to them both.  Lining Langly up in the crosshairs of his hawklike eyes, he charged, sounding gravelly, "But in the hospital you said--"

"Like forget most of what I said back there when I was mem-loopin' out loud.  I had a hunch about the caffeine and fat, but I didn't have actual hard data, and IT suggests we're handicapped, as in way over a barrel, trying to solve this schizoid puzzle without all the pieces, and the esoteric lady who's put it together in the first place."  Langly contributed his look of [uh huh, bud, we's talkin' to you] to the Byers' fund.  Then, winking at Scully he declared, "Guess it's a safe bet that at least if she's kept away from caffeine and butterfat, she shouldn't get any worse, guys."  He smacked his lips before pressing them together.  "Least, I hope that's the indication."

He reversed the angle of the schematic and, with a good deal of bravado stated, "I'm not about to make like mad Doctor Transylvannia with Scully's health; mental or physical.  Frohike's got my vote.  Susanne hauls her butt to Scully, or Scully's gets hauled to her, a-s-a-p, before permanent repercussions present."

"You hear that, John?  Fun an' games are over.  I'm getting the number off the machine.  You make the call, or I will, if you won't," Frohike vowed, without a cast of mirth in his tone.  Like an undaunted dervish, he moved swiftly to a five-by-three inch rectangular shaped device, lodged inside a sleeved wall mount, behind a jammed packed rack off to the left.  What a tragic thing to have happened to Scully, all due to their penchant to play Dick Tracy one too many times.  Wishing there was a better light source, he mashed down on a button, and waited.

Byers was flummoxed.  He didn't know what he was going to do, as all the remaining sets of penetrating stares seemed to force him into pressurized submission.  Yet, someway, somehow, that call could never be placed.  He had no idea where he was going to get the gumption to stand up to his chums.  <Yes, it's happening again...I feel it...I always do, in these situations where I'm sorely outnumbered.  Forever the hapless, willing putty--but, No!  Not this time. This time I must be strong.  Sure, I want to help Scully; return her to herself every bit as much as they do, but there must be some way other than conceding the security of my precious love>  Beads of sweat materialized to assume their customary positions on his forehead.

And then, just when it felt as though he would crumble like the friable piece of stale sponge cake he so often judged himself to be, under the inescapeable burden of Mulder's, Langly's and even Silvio's, now, judgmentally-tinged countenances, the cordless sounded in high-pitched summon of, "Answer me!"

It was also at that precise moment that Frohike erupted with volcanic swearing.  "Stupid-stupid-stupid," he ranted.  "You're one sorry--"  He flung himself backwards into the rack.  More cursing of seismic proportions ensued.  Much of the technical bric-a-brac was noisily dislodged from the rack.  In his blind haste to retrieve the number, he'd hit 'Erase' by mistake.  "Son-of-a--"

"Hey, Frohike," Mulder called out, "what's with the tirade?  You're gunna blow a gasket.  Spare us the profanity.  What's the number?"

"Oh, shutup, Mulder," was Frohike's surly reply.

"Hello?" Byers answered in a quavering voice.

"Darling--oh thank God!  Please, please--you must help me!  I'm so frightened! I need you!"  In the momentary lull, the caller mined her mind for words which should have been spoken earlier.  Resignedly, the halting voice muttered, "Forgive me.  I'm so, so fool...i...sh...but, but I won't be able to live wi--"

"SUSANNE!" he shouted, in anguished disbelief.  Panic seized his thinking ability.  She sounded mortified, demoralized.  Painfully all alone; he not there to provide succor.  If it could have been humanly possible, he would have stuffed himself into the phone, then and there, in order to be with her that very moment.  Gasping, he continued huskily, "Oh, my God...Su--"

"You must see for yourself, John.  Before...before it's too late.  Too late for us all..."

It's going to be all right, my dearest.  Where are you, my love?  I'm, I'm--there!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
End

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