| Disclaimers in Discoveries-Prologue...
Chapter 7 Gerritsen Beach Boat Basin They'd been blindfolded for the brief, brief, which was how it felt to Byers, journey to this location. Scully too. As though she would've been capable of gauging the direction, mileage and travel time in her tenacious state of insobriety. He wondered where she and Susanne were right now. Wondered with fierce agitation, and a bellyful of misgiving. Despite Timmy's word, his confidence in being kept alive, owing to Susanne's cooperation, was being sorely tried. Far off in the distance, a boat whistle ruffled the saltwater stillness. He took stock of the dank, windowless room; a storage of sorts for marine supplies. The place was saved from utter darkness thanks to a low watt bulb, hanging overhead, housed beneath a triangular shade. Picking himself up off the cold, gley-coated concrete, he touched a cinder-block comprising the nearest wall. Finding it to be as chilly and as moist as the floor wasn't a surprise. Byers shivered, doing so involuntarily. With the passage of several seconds, he heard muffled whimpering coming from somewhere not too distant. Whose? Susanne's or Scully's? He agonized over its being both. He rued his inability to thwart Timmy and his partners from imprisoning them. And, the crucial dilemma...how to stop him from realizing his ultimate goal; national conquest. Byers sniffed again. What in the name of all that is odorous was this oppressive smell? His nose wrinkled another time in disgust. No, not the smell of death, but close enough. The stench lingered in his sensitive nostrils since having been brought here. Impossible to ignore. He paced over to the plywood door of the makeshift cell to try it again. Still locked, but performing the action was assuage of a sort that he was doing something in a positive vein to meliorate the present situation. Do what? What could he possibly do alone and unarmed? Quite unexpectantly, heavy footfalls loomed, then stopped on the other side of the door. Halting his breathing, Byers took several steps back, waiting to hear whether or not whoever they were would move on. Coming in...he realized, as the lock was sprung, and the door creaked open to reveal unwelcome visitors. "Now it's your turn, Peter Cottontail," one of the hooded men rumbled at him. "Sheez, that redheaded piece of work's hoppin' mad," the other faceless male dangled, "some mouth on her. I liked her better dopey." "Yeah, well, lucky we got rolls of tape to keep hers buttoned, least for now...let's go pal." Byers backed up as far as the opposite wall permitted with stumbly shuffles, first tripping over a lanyard of thick rope. Once he'd been seized, he tried appealing to their sense of patriotic loyalty. "Is throwing in with Timmy worth treason, gentlemen?" "It's treason only if this government's still standin'. Which, I wouldn't make any bets in favor of," the man with the higher-pitched voice wagered with biting assertion, as they hustled their round-eyed captive from the room. <><><><><><><><><><> Timmy's gun hovered over Scully's head. All the while, her eyes were taking him apart, piece by piece; wrecking ball style. He relished the murderous look, drinking it in. With a flick of nonchalance, he held the pistol to her left temple. Cold, dead eyes calculating behind thin wire frames were Scully's mirror. "Dare me?" he instigated. "The world would be better off less another Fibbie." Her lethal, wall-eyed blues finished the implicit demolition job. "I apologize for our not getting to know one another better in Vegas. Might have been fun. But your walk-on with the flash of your badge, walk-off, was one blur after the mock shooting." He toyed with the idea of tearing the tape from her mouth. It might be a hoot hearing her cry out after his doing so. Susanne, clothed in a beyond-bleached white lab coat, set the twin beakers of clear solutions down on the amazingly sturdy folding table, part and parcel of the makeshift lab setup, and glared. "Timmy, what I made clear about Byers holds just as true for Scully. You harm either of them--it's no dice. I'm totally prepared to sacrifice whatever's necessary to ensure their safety. That includes mine." Timmy tossed her a glancing sneer. "Party poop. I'm merely relieving the boredom. Just having a little fun." The pistol stayed put as his sicky grin budded. "POP!" His fingers jumped, simultaneously with Scully's eyes banging shut, and his grin fully blossomed as the gun fell away. "Coward's Russian Roulette...you game, red?" Gamer than you can handle, loser, Scully meditated, upon opening her eyes to resume their assault. Susanne looked away from the bedevilment in disgust. Aside from being perverse, Timmy had the worst halitosis she'd ever had the displeasure of having gusted in her face. Double torture. Poor Scully. Having had his fill of Scully's evil look, clumsily, Timmy made his way around the gurney, and over to Susanne. She was about to combine the antidote she'd just given Scully with a neutralizing base. What she read in his whole flagrant manner ordered her to stay cool, calm and steely collected. But she swore, that if she got her chance, the latest batch of A-H would be free-flowing in his system, with the suggestion planted that he plug himself, quicker than he could wave that bullet-crammed tormentor at her. <><><><><><><><><><> Sheepshead Bay environs The Caravan slowed to a rambling stop at the intersection of Shore Parkway and Knapp Street for the red light. The Mobile gas station, across to the right and on the corner, was closed, with the vehicle running almost on empty. "If we don't fill up soon, guys, you're gonna have to get out and push," Langly verbalized his concern, for general consumption. "These go-carts are gas gobblers, non gratis." Mentally, he ticked off the minutes of the glaring signal's duration; a normal habit he'd fallen into doing, during college days. "And you say the recording started looping about ten minutes after they'd departed, Silvio?" Mulder checked his watch, then reassured that these vans' tanks were laid in for a gallon in reserve on empty. "Yes. When I came out of the restroom, I ducked back in, so they wouldn't see me. When they left the hallway, I trailed them as far as the parking lot to see them drive off." "You got a look at what they were driving?" "A good look, Mulder. A huge, black van. A Chevrolet, I think. Shiny chrome wheel hubs, with bubbled reflective windows, even on the rear doors. They were going really fast. I ran back to the classroom, not knowing what to do..." He lowered his eyes, unwilling to meet Mulder's stormy probers. "Again, I apologize for not trying to rescue them. I was not prepared. I was outnumbered; they, heavily armed. I feared I might get your friends killed if I drew the rebels' fire." Mulder nodded. "Hey,
you did the right thing, Silvio. Heroics mean nothing, if the payoff's bad. Always wiser to go with
better odds, 'stead of winding up riddled hamburger with nothing viable to show
for it. They'll be okay. Susanne's a sharp operator. We'll find 'em." He grunted Frohike voiced the thought currently making its rounds in his mind. "Wonder what Timmy meant when he said, 'Where you're going, refreshments won't make a whiff of difference. Clasp knives maybe. To slice up the crap spewed into the air with 'em?'" The light changed, with them off and rolling bumpily again, down the pothole marred utility road. Mulder reflected, "Not a ruby of a clue, granted, but have you gentlemen been breathing for the past few minutes?" "Yeah, it's like bein' trapped in a dead-ended break wind warp," Langly whined. "Waste water reformatory central of the Bay. We're grazin' in sewage treatment plant territory, guys. The methane escapin' keeps that flame burnin' bright atop that tank day an' night. I used to hang out a lot at Plumb Beach with the little mutt I gave a home to, Pepper. Barely smell the difference on a windy day. The beach's on the other side of the Belt." Mulder and Frohike exchanged sparkling eye gleams. "It's Ring-a-leavio time, boys," the Fed quipped. "Eyes peeled for that van." "Hey, Mulder," Frohike remarked in satisfaction, "we're really footing the F-B-I beat this time, huh? G-men City. Not that funky poaching doesn't have its own rewards, but this is different. We're walking the walk right along with ya. This time it's literal hands on, eh, Agent?" "Just about as real as it gets, Frohike. Watch yourselves. I mean, I know you are." He sighed deeply, looking haggard, thoughts about how Scully was faring flooded his mind. "You guys were amazing in the park, but, when we make contact, and the heavy stuff goes down, hang back. Way back. I mean it--no pulling anything foolhardy. It's my lead all the way." His tone had waxed bullish official. "You're in my domain now, buds. Field work isn't where hackers rule. What I say goes, if we hope to get them back safely, and lockout the terrorists, without losing each other. Everybody got that?" "Yeah, we're with ya, Mulder," Langly fielded nimbly, for once his tone lacking any trace of mockery. "We'll do whatever you say. If it weren't for us, pullin' what we did in the first place, Scully and Byers wouldn't be in the hell hole they're in now." A contrite Langly, wow, a first, Mulder mulled. He patted the blond driver's shoulder lightly. "No recrimination. Not the time." I'm a fine one to offer solace, he thought. "Besides, you guys really were onto something big. Aside from alien colonization, it doesn't get any bigger." The patting converted into a firm squeeze. "Once we've rooted these players out," Mulder spurred, "I'll contact the regional office for mop-up." "Ten-four," Frohike and Langly bolstered in conjunction, wearing geared-up smiles. Silvio did a thumbs-up. Mulder nestled back in his seat. He stared through the destroyed window they'd patched up best they could with clear masking tape. Brain racking anxiety, spilling over his makeshift barrier of suppression, getting the better of him. ...Where are you, partner? Bi-way telepathy; yeah, I know. You pretend to scoff whenever I hint that that's what we've got, but I sure wish I were tuned into your thoughts even as I think, and vice versa. I lose you now, Sculleee, I'm lost forever. ...Don't let me lose you...we haven't loved each other nearly enough...yet. <><><><><><><><><><><><> "I won't do it!" "You will--you'll do it, or I give lover boy and the Agent additional air holes instead of re-programming. There's been re-categorization for you three. You're recyclable. Surprised? You shouldn't be. All that was required from you, Susanne, were the precise formulas of your subjective creations, now snugly in my possession, and soon our bioscientists'. Therefore--inject him, then the Agent, and finally...yourself. I'm running out of patience. --Inject!" Byers writhed in the iron clamp armlocks of his muscle bound captors. His resolute eyes never straying from the countenance of the woman he'd never relinquish willingly. Susanne's pale hand, which matched the ghostly pallor in her face, shook. Still, she hesitated. Without a decent option, she stalled. The injector, which had eagerly been furnished by the self-willed mole, was loaded with a fresh payload of A-H. The delivery system gleamed in the dull glow of muted halogen illumination, waiting for employment. "Better re-programmed than dead. Wouldn't you agree? Within the workings of my new societal order, the three of you'll be kept ingeniously busy. Word of honor from your next head of state. Trust me." Timmy pushed into her, with the gun inches from her nose. "You and your friends'll be the first to have your autonomies severely compromised, but you'll by no means be the last. The option's yours. Choose wisely." Susanne's grip on the injector faltered so that it was about to fall from her hand. She blinked, and in the instant of its plummeting out of her grasp, Timmy prevented its descent. He staked his claim on the injector. Susanne staked hers on his pistol in one flash of lightening movement. Effectively vitiating the stunned nemesis. "My turn to use your head as target practice," she said, clipping her words. "Tell your men to release him--now!" "Or what," Timmy hounded, having recovered the power of speech, after a few seconds, "you'll shoot?" Badgering with a honed barb, "You're not gutsy enough." Byers grimaced, allowing a modicum of humor to tincture his consideration of the madman's misjudgment. Timmy would have amended his evaluation drastically if he had seen her rip out her own bugged molar as he and his cronies had witnessed, years ago. The strongmen tightened their grip on him, with the wrenching of both arms. Susanne's lips crooked into a derisive grin. "Wanna bet?" she baited. Employing the same deliberate speed she'd used when apprehending the firearm, the blonde dynamo, her aim with the gun never wavering, snatched the injector, and jabbed it into a dumbstruck Timmy's carotid. "You lose." A faraway look inhabited Timmy's glazing over eyes almost immediately. Susanne untensed, marveling at the dependable rapidity of her creation. She nipped in closer, seeing the would-be revolutionist was now rendered totally suggestible. Carefully, she whispered in his ear, while keeping a steady eye and aim on the enforcers, who'd decided it was to their viable advantage not to rush her. This woman was intent itself. "I want you to take this, now, and immunize those two." She handed him the injector. Indicating the men who'd just released Byers of their own accord, she waited for her command to be carried out. "Hold still," she snapped at them, the gun duly trained on their hoodless heads. "Proceed, Tim-Tim." The obedient, newly-transformed thrall complied with the greatest eagerness. While Timmy went about the mindless task which would result in his cohorts becoming just as mindless, Byers sped over to Scully to free her. "Thanks," she gratefully bestowed after gingerly removing the adhesive gag. "I feel as though I haven't seen you in ages." Byers nodded as he helped her off the gurney. "You were under the mind control drug's, or a variation thereof, influence a good, long while." Scully looked around feeling dwarfted and richly confused. His response wasn't an encyclopedia of information. "What's this place? How'd we get here?" She gave him a probing look. "Everything's a blank. Last thing I remember is my having breakfast, of a sort, with Langly. At your place." Byers was about to open his mouth by way of a fuller explanation, when the inner, unlocked deadbolt door burst open. Mulder charged in with automatic weapon tactically drawn. "Cutie?" Timmy and his fellow human cyborgs chimed together. Mulder gawked at them for a moment, then replied, "Nah. He's outside, staying put like I told him to." The Agent surveyed the contained situation with a desultory scan. "Is everybody okay? Scully?" "Mulder? What are you doing here?" She was in his face, on somewhat buckling legs, still a bit incredulous that he'd just tumbled into the room at full G-man tilt. "Is it really you in there, Scully, and not Langly's personal, 'I'll follow you to the ends of the earth, Cutie,' pinup?" "What ARE you talking about?" The frown she was hammering him with made no dent in his playfulness. A playfulness with relief its wellspring because she appeared unharmed and for all preliminary intent and purposes, her 'cut to the chase' self again. He wouldn't have her any other way. Winking, he assured, "I'll give you the whole run-down on the plane ride home. Only, let Langly down easy, though." Her frown deepened. Mulder's tone leveled off. "You, and whatever you were on, have done a number on his heart. He nearly got arrested scoring coke for you." The furrows in her forehead softened, although she wondered why in the world would he have bought the illegal drug for her. "Said he'd risk doin' it, or whatever, again 'cos, and I quote, 'It's Scully. Scully's da bomb.'" Mulder chuckled. "Guess Frohike isn't alone now, huh? Maybe he never was..." Impressed, but in a quandry nonetheless, Scully ventured, "Knowing him, 'da bomb's' gotta be a good thing. He said that?" "Yeah. He did." "But, coke? Why?" Mulder kept nodding and squeezed her oh so squeezable shoulders hard, noticing she wasn't minding. "To get you back..." Then, he brushed her hairline with his lips. "Welcome back, partner. Listen, we've got to come up with a password. That way, if you ever get a call, saying it's me, telling you to meet me somewhere, and you don't hear the magic word--you stay put. Check?" "It's worth deployment, Mulder," Scully agreed with a cohesive grin, "by the sound of your tone alone." Smiling archly, Susanne, with a contentedly sighing Byers, clung to each other as they monitored their new charges who awaited further behavior modification. He whispered into her ear, "Tell them from this day henceforth, they must not overthrow the government, be model citizens, and..." She nodded, and finished for him, "And divulge the identities of their slippery co-conspirators. Something Mulder and his brethren will want to hear in short order, I'm sure." Following a brisk kiss of his cheek, Susanne studied the look of contentment etched in his face. It was a facial freize of amatory requite, as though knowing such peace would be a permanant condition. <><><><><><><><> "How long has he been in there?" Irritably, Frohike fidgeted in his seat, as though he sat upon pins and needles. If Mulder wasn't out in the next minute, he didn't know about Langly and Silvio, *he* was going in. "About twelve minutes," Langly fed back crisply. Frohike flipped the door lock, making moves to leave. "And that's twelve minutes too long. I'm outta here, amigo. Mulder may need help." Langly jerked around in his seat. "A big fat negatory on that, 'Hike. You heard what he laid on us. Told us to stay put, and that's how I'm stayin'." Silvio nodded, adding, "Mulder sounded very hard-line about our keeping out of harm's way." Frohike
shrugged, slid the door open, quitting the van in fluid escape. Before he
could make his way around the revolutionists' van, which they'd parked beside, Langly bounded
past him, barring his advance. The shorter man tried to push past, but the cranky blond pushed "Outta my way, Langly!" "Tough." The pair, looking all set to square off, aborted the tousle when they heard what sounded like the heavy door of the dilapidated boat supply warehouse opening. Scuffling gave way to wary crouching and peeking around the black van. "Hey--check it out," Langly, who blocked Frohike's view, advised excitedly, but barely moved his lips with the telling, in his best imitation of Peter Fonda. "Scrunch down more so's I can, 'por favor,' you overgrown--" Langly dislodged Frohike off himself more roughly than he'd intended, sending him reeling backwards. The fuming would-be pugilist landed soundly on his backside with a thud. Langly made with a hasty, "Like, sorry, man. Look, you can rank me out all you want--LATER. Now--get in a serious vein and CHILL!" Frohike had never heard his friend, his ally, and, yes, they were brothers of a unique sort, browbeat the rankle right out of him that way before. He hadn't whined, or ragged for once. Langly was demanding with an authoritativeness that uploaded admirable respect. "Hey, okay. You got it. Just not so rough in future." Allowing a very sheepish expressioned Langly to pull him to his feet, a suddenly humbled Frohike could no sooner utter another word when the now paler than he normally was, younger man yanked on his arm harder, then exclaimed, "It's Scully--I see her!" "Where?" Frohike lobbed, matching Langly's heady cadence. "Mulder too..." His turning then to see their FBI friends, emerging from the warehouse, with a cowed Timmy and his men likewise, bringing up the rear with Susanne and Byers walking alongside them, answered his question. Wasting no time, Frohike scurried off to intercept. Langly beat him by two strides. "Princess, are you all right?" he puffed at her upon his arrival. Frohike commandeered her hand. Scully stared at them both perplexedly, and a sneaking suspicion washed over the squinting blond. "I, I'm fine, uh, Langly." She cocked her head. "Princess?" End of the feel good ride, dude, he saw. It was a real 'cute' trip while it'd lasted, which it couldn't have. "I meant, Scully." With a shrug, he tried to conceal his embarrassment. "Sorry. I, uh..." "I know what you meant, Langly," Scully cut in, in an aside. Stepping out of step with her partner, and getting Frohike to return her hand, she went on, "Han Solo couldn't have said it, or meant it any nicer. *Thanks* for looking out for me, and putting up with me." Langly looked down at his feet, smiling. "Mulder's somewhat explained. Somehow, I always figured you for a gentleman. From what he's told me so far, I didn't make it easy for you. Did I?" Lifting his head, "Oh...like, well. Er, uh...you were mega-spaced." He stumbled additionally in gait when she claimed his arm on the way to the vehicles, unable to control his deepening color. Scully's got my arm, she's grinning real large at me, and she isn't trippin anymore, man. Cool. Beyond way cool... "How'd you take 'em down?" Frohike clamored at Mulder's side. In the throes of contacting the regional office for a contingency, a light one, considering the underwhelming haul of three, the Fed motioned him into momentary silence. Frohike cooled his jets. "Turned tables," Susanne informed in auxillary, inches away from the vets back. "My zapping Timmy and company with a dose of my own medicine was a perk. I'm all for keeping them workably brainless this way, but most likely Uncle Sam's nephews in Domestic Terrorism will have other ideas." She tapped Mulder's back, as he'd finished with the cell, handed off Timmy's confiscated .45 and hefted the trusty injector in her left. "This time he'd better STAY incarcerated. No flim-flamming, and presto chango, he's sprung, eh, Mulder?" He nodded. "I've said it before, but what's the damage, saying it again?" Mulder checked the weapon's ammo, looked up to finish, "I can put in several good words for you at the Bureau, Susanne. Try the F-B-I on for size, why don't ya? I know people." Scully, overhearing the pitch, and still in full possession of Langly, grimaced, as he led her to the Caravan so she could collect her recovered wits about her. Yeah, but those very people you claim to know try living it down in the worst way, whenever they bump into you, Spooky...ahmen...*we* wouldn't have it any other way... A grin tempered by tenderness nudged the corners of her mouth to curve upwards as Langly opened the passenger door, assisting her into the van. With a didactic furl to her voice, Susanne ordered the trio to halt, and cease prattling off the Bill of Rights. Her pointed look was meant for Frohike. "Mata Hari didn't do too badly, did I?" As he watched Byers winsomely slip his arm around her misleadingly ample waist, the opinionated hard sell's approbative reply was a candid admission. "You're a gutsy lady, Miz H. One very gutsy lady..." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
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