You know you're right, as you do your darnedest, maintaining the hard line, holding the persuasive intruders, your oldest, most intimate friends, at bay.  Despite their combined efforts to override; prove you wrong with their myopic, specious reasoning.  The strongest of their arguments hinges on the fact that nobody's here to stop them; least of all you.  The air in this catacombal nook is rife with insurgence.  But you're determined to prevail against their hair-trigger snoopiness.

Langly's making like a dizzying merry-go-round in Mulder's abdicated chair, firing rubberbands up at the peppering of Eberhard Fabers stuck in the ceiling as though they're a soft-leaded Sword of Damocles poised over his bobbing and weaving blond noggin.  One minute, his rubber-soled clodhoppers are on the desk, like he owns the place -- like he owns the whole damn Bureau for that matter, and then in lightning speed time, they're planted back on the floor, twirling him, while you do a creeping burn.

He's pissing you off as never before, but you do your usual; you ignore his juvenile antics while keeping an eye on Frohike who is riffling through several data printouts which he says deal with some 'questionable' forensic data marked 'sensitive.'  And of course it has your name on it, Fro,' you think to yourself, casting chary eyes upon him, so that's why it's your sworn duty to pry to your nosy little heart's content.

With your attention divided, you think to when the 'appointment' arrives, arranged by Scully, you and your journeymen will be at liberty to speak freely, having swept this eminent domain thoroughly for whatever digital auditory or visual 'bugs' which may have been furtively disseminated beforehand.

You gawk at your shifty partners while they persist in showing how 'can't take them anywhere' they are sometimes.  They haggle on, spoiling for satisfac-tion of the paranormal kind.  As far as it depends upon you, you'll see to it they won't get any.

"What do you think you're doing?" you demand of Langly; this must make the fifth rubberband he's gotten off.  It lands on Frohike's head, but he's too engrossed in a notation Scully's made near a finding, to notice.  You actually expect an answer which you don't get.  True to exacerbating form, Langly's ignoring you the way he usually does unless, of course, he needs a favor.

Melvin's right in his case; he *is* a punk.  His ass ripe for a good kicking.  Not by you, naturally, but by someone tailor-made for the task of giving him a solid comeuppance, so long overdue.  You've known him for over ten years now, and with each one that has passed it's left him that much more truculent.  The knack he has for being such an ornery cuss is formidable.

Yesterday, Melvin came the closest to going 'thunderdome' on him that you've ever seen Frohike come because Ringo had tampered with several of his sacrosanct Gopher sites, driveling some well-fondled e-mails which Frohike had kept pocketed for ages.  'TD' never mushroomed though; Mel just walked away, judging it wasn't worth getting a coronary thrombosis over.  You'd lived the dream for a few fleeting moments anyhow.  Later, Mel said he'd fix Langly's little red wagon some other way.  A much better way, which when he told you what he had planned brought a substantial smile to your face.

It appears the printouts are boring the shorter of the would-be purveyors of fine mysteries.  He's just cast them aside, and is advancing towards your last stand; you're duty-bound to hold him off.  You're just as adamant about holding the line, staying the course as they are about crossing it.  Keeping any and all of the X-Files out of their grasping, expedient hands has converted into the mission you've chosen to accept.

"We have a right to our info," Frohike mutters.

You shake your head meaningfully at Melvin with your hands up, preparing for battle.  "It's not *our* information," you sternly object, but in your ears you don't hear yourself sounding firm enough.

"How many times have we saved Mulder's life?"  Frohike nitpicks.  You tick off mentally how many.

"How many times have we saved Scully's?" Langly double-teams.

Okay, so they have a point there on twin counts, we have, numerous times.  But saving their lives was its own reward.  Doing so hardly merits violating what you hold as a sacred trust.

This is hardly fair, you think ruefully to yourself, wishing Mulder were here to act as a resilient deterrent.  Why, if he were here, you wouldn't be having this ridiculous conversation with them; they wouldn't have the temerity to even broach the subject.

"And I'm telling you these files are theirs.  They're *private*," you reiterate, liking the way you stuck the word 'private' to them.  Who's wussy?  Not you, that's who.

Melvin sets his jaw; this isn't going to be easy, you bewail.  Why, for goodness' sake, are you even having this debate with these heretics?  "And I'm telling you Mulder wouldn't mind.  We practically solved half these cases for him."  My, how modest, Mel, you sardonically extrapolate.  He sounds as though he has clocked in the actual hours of gutsy field work with your beloved Agents.

Langly has stopped the carousel ride long enough to nod in one hundred percent agreement with him.  An absolute first.  "Yeah, Byers."  You cringe, hearing blond-boy's nasal quirk.  "Quit your whining," he says through his nose, and breaks the squeak barrier.  You assail him with a sharp look, and blink, making sure you're in the same time zone.  Who does he think he's talking to?  "Nobody likes a crybaby..."

What was that?  His lackluster attempt at irony?  You nearly fall down in the wake of his pucky eyeball rolls, and guff.  Inwardly, you repeat...'who the hell does the 'whinefester' think he's talking to?'

You sigh the sigh of the dogged, and clear your scratchy throat, to begin anew.  "Agent Scully asked us to give our assistance, not to go through her files."  You wonder what Doggett will be like as you close ranks.

"Like she's gonna care," Frohike prattles on, demonstrative about not camouflaging his derisive snort.

"Yeah, right," Langly chortles obnoxiously.  You're this close to smacking that jerky smirk clean off his simpering face; in a parallel universe that is.  You're about to say something pithy, but are startled by a very 'cop looking' man absorbing a first impression as you turn into the 'loomer' him-self.

By the look you're reading in his blunt face, ticking like a time bomb, you and your associates have made an extremely shoddy first one.  Guilty by unruly association you carp, lamenting.  Isn't it always the way?

"Can I help you gentlemen?"

Something barbed in his delivery makes you and yours sound anything but, hearing the 'who sent in the clowns?' dig in his voice.  It almost makes you want to exclaim, 'Can we get a do-over?'

Wait!  Maybe it's not too late to cut a clearer, more precise image of who you collectively are.  You've been known to rise to many an awkward occasion, and salvage group pride.

"You must be Agent Doggett."  You breathe a calming breath, and billow your chest; urbanity in action.  That's you.  "I'm John Byers..."  That certainly slid off your polished tongue, like melted butter, as though you were being presented to royalty.  "These are my associates.  Melvin Frohike and Richard Langly."

'Ringo.'  You almost hear it leak from his curving lips, but once he catches sight of how displeased you'll be if he corrects you, he mutes himself.  You're striving for legitimacy here; not a slap-stick routine.  They actually waved like little kids out the back window of a station wagon -- God help you.

"You're the guys Scully told me about; Mulder's
friends..."

He'd said 'friends,' right?  That wasn't fiends he'd slipped in, instead, was it?  You smile wide, looking staid and sure; forcedly animated with just the auspicious blending of joviality.  "Yes.  That's us," you say easygoingly; a ship captain's bearing.

Doggett is mulling you over 'en total;' the trio of you can tell.  He's literally a man thinking on his feet, as you'll come to learn how naturally he does it as these introductory, revelatory moments come and go.

Thinking what, though?  You're hesitant about wanting to speculate quite that deeply right now.  "You publish the 'Lone Gunmen' newspaper."  You grin inwardly; 'newspapah'...inflected like a true New Yorker would.

"Our reputation precedes us," Melvin congratulates, with a maturer-looking Langly straightening up his act; perhaps one day, you think, he'll wear a tie to go along with it.

--Nah.  That'll be the day when Scully swallows, hook, line and sinker, anything and everything Mulder spoon-feeds her.  Never happen.

"I read the files."

Frohike casts a doubtful look at him.  "Which is why you need our help," he asserts.

Langly's craving a piece of this pie too.  "No offense, man, but you're in over your head..."

Maybe, you reserve, unwilling to rush to judgment.  You cannot identify it yet, but there's a glimmer in this man which feels vaguely...

Familiar, archetypical to you.

Four smiles are brought to birth, as you perceive the ice has been broken, a river of interchange thaws, and a four-way brainstorming of minds must begin because it's time to get down to cases.

In particular...this esoteric one.  You sigh and reminisce a second.  Haven't they all been exactly like that?

You don't expect this conference to be a meeting of a Mulder mind, but you'll give this man a chance. The malleable one Mulder gave you so many years ago, and look where it's led.

You heard right; that was no fluke.  Unmistakable.  That was cooperative concurrence issuing from your serviceable cohorts once the G-man with a vengeance leaves, hot for the chase.

"Not bad for a beginner," Frohike rewards, a thing akin to admiration sparking in his eyes, crediting on the side of generous.

Langly and you nod, remarkably on the identical wavelength; amicable, hopeful.  For a 'rookie,' the man has definite possibilities.  You three experts will school him; finish his training, so to speak, as only the triad of you can.  Efficaciously, over the years, you and your fellow men of distinction, proficient in qualitative analyses of the techno-logical as well as the abstract, have reduced the mechanics of this job to its nuts and bolts.  Your track record is enviable, as the 'new guy' will come to appreciate.

Welcome, Agent Doggett...
 
 

End