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A New War #8: Hidden Spaces
by Lianne Burwell
February 1999
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Mulder rolled over and picked up his watch. Pressing the light button 
only confirmed what he'd already guessed. It was just before four am, and 
he'd only gotten three and a half hours of sleep.

And he was wide awake.

He was also exhausted, but knew better than to try to go back to sleep. 
Long experience had taught him that. Instead, he decided to retrace his 
steps back to Vincent's well-stocked library and see if he could find 
something to occupy his mind until everyone else woke up and they could 
get on with the important stuff.

Like saving the world.

Mulder snorted at the grandiose statement, one he would never consider 
uttering aloud. He pushed off the thick quilts and sat up, already 
reaching for his clothes.

The guest rooms had been something of a surprise. Even after the warmth 
and cheer of the library, he'd expected something cold and damp dungeon. 
The tunnel community was turning out to be anything but. Instead, the 
room had been warm and cozy, the bed comfortable and piled high with 
handmade quilts. He would have preferred a couch and a TV, but it wasn't 
bad.

Except for the silence. At home and at a hotel he would have the TV going 
for background noise. Here, he didn't have the option. The only noise was 
the muffled sounds of people moving, and the occasional rhythmic banging 
of pipes in a pattern too regular to be chance, like the pattern that 
Harrison had hammered out to bring Vincent when they had arrived at the 
parking garage.

There was only the occasional lamp in the hallway, but his eidetic memory 
brought him back to the library with ease. There, he was surprised to 
find Vincent sitting at a desk, carefully writing in a large leather-
bound volume. He was amazed at how delicately the large clawed hands held 
a pen.

Vincent looked up, and smiled gravely. "Mr. Mulder. I would have thought 
you'd still be asleep."

Mulder smiled. He couldn't help it. There was something about the deep 
voice and calm demeanor that inspired trust,disturbing to a man whose 
personal motto was "Trust no one".

"I never sleep much, even in the best of times," he replied. "I thought 
I'd find something to read, then go back to my room."

Vincent waved him to a chair. "Please, feel free to read here. You won't 
disturb me."

Mulder nodded, then started to peruse the shelves. The majority of the 
volumes were older, poetry and literature, but there was a shelf of 
modern paperbacks, with the standard Tom Clancy, John Grisham and 
Danielle Steele bestsellers. He glanced over at Vincent.

"The others find books and leave them here for others to read. Most of 
those are not exactly to my taste," the man explained. Mulder nodded in 
agreement.

"Me neither. Especially mysteries. I always figure them out too soon, and 
get frustrated when the characters insist on remaining clueless."

"While I find the obsession with death to be... distressing. I prefer 
words that celebrate life, not death."

Abandoning the bookshelves for the moment, Mulder took the seat nearest 
the large cat-man. "You said that you don't know where you came from," he 
said, letting his curiosity get the better of him. "Have you ever tried 
to find out?"

Vincent closed the book in front of him. "A few times. There was a man 
who claimed to have created me, but he lied. Another wanted to find out 
what I was. He took my wife while she was pregnant with our son. I was 
almost too late to save them. After that, I decided that it was not worth 
the risk."

"Tests..."

"Would require going to the sorts of scientists who would want to cage 
and study me. No. I am happy with my life. Where I come from is not 
important," he said firmly.

Mulder decided to drop that subject. "How did you meet Harrison? And 
Mana?"

Vincent leaned back in his over-sized chair, steepling his hands together 
as he spoke. "This community has been here for decades. We have watched 
the world above go by, staying separate as much as possible. Then, a 
little over eight years ago, it intruded. We'd seen a chaos building, but 
weren't sure of the cause. Then strangers reached down. The Mothren built 
a base beneath New York, although at the time that area was not connected 
to our tunnels. We watched them from a distance, worried that they would 
find and attack us. Harrison and his people also had a base under the 
city, at the end of a tunnel that did connect to us, but from a great 
distance. After watching them fight the Mothren for a while, we decided 
to approach them."

Vincent looked over at Mulder. "We are not fighters for the most part, 
Mr. Mulder, but we love our world. We supplied Harrison and his group 
with information and materials, and guided them through our tunnels. Some 
of our people even fought at their side, from time to time. We could do 
no less.

"And, eventually the Mothren were stopped. But they were not stopped by 
violence. They were stopped by showing them that their leader had lied to 
them, that he had brought them here to fight in a war for his own 
vengeance. They cast him out, and prepared to leave. Their own home world 
was uninhabitable by then, but they decided to find a different world. 
One with no bad memories associated with it. One were they might be 
welcomed.

"But a few, like Mana, decided to stay here and make a home. We offered 
to help them. We provided them with a place to stay, taught them the 
things about this world that they had ignored up until then. Most have 
left the tunnels, and lead ordinary lives outside. Mana is one of them, 
although she stayed in New York. She is a doctor at one of the free 
clinics in the poorer part of town."

"Why did you help them?" Mulder asked.

Vincent smiled. "We are all refugees, here. How could we not help them?"

Mulder nodded, thinking about it. The tunnel community was very tempting, 
almost like a Shangri-La. Quiet, peaceful, people helping people. He 
found it very attractive, but knew that he would never fit in. Not long-
term.

Probably not even short-term.

"Up already?"

Mulder looked at the doorway, and was surprised to see Harrison there. A 
glance at his watch showed that it was just after six. A thrill of 
anticipation ran through him.

"Yep. So when can we get moving?"

* * * * *

The Mothren base was everything Mulder had imagined. It was musty, full 
of damp and dust after being abandoned for nearly a decade, but it was 
undeniably *alien*.

Harrison and Mana were hovering over one control panel, working by the 
light of the battery-operated lanterns they'd brought with them, trying 
to get the machine started again, while Mulder wandered and gaped. 
Everything he saw seemed to be a combination of mechanical and organic 
parts, making him wonder just what sort of technology the Mothren had. 
He'd expected sleek and shiny metal, not lumps of green material.

A sudden noise made him spin. The lights came up gradually, stopping at a 
level that was still fairly dim to human eyes. The green lumps started to 
pulsate, almost like a heart beating or lungs expanding with air.

With more light, Mulder was able to take a better look around. The 
chamber they were in was large, circular room, filled equipment that he 
couldn't even guess the purpose of. There were three corridors leading 
from the chamber, equidistant around the perimeter. Harrison had already 
told him about the Mothren's original form, three-fingered and working in 
triads. The number three was important to them.

The screen, if you could call it that, on one of the devices lit up, and 
Mana's fingers flew across the controls. Mulder came up to stand next to 
Harrison, just behind her, and watched. Unfortunately, the characters 
scrolling across the screen were completely alien to him -- in more ways 
than one, he thought to himself.

Then the characters disappeared, and a map of the globe appeared on the 
screen.

"I've tapped into one of the Mothren satellites that was left behind," 
Mana said in her cool voice. "Most were taken when the others left, and 
of the rest, only three are still functioning. It will take a while for 
them to complete their scans. We'll leave the program running and come 
back tomorrow."

Mulder grimaced at the thought of waiting another day, but there was no 
point in protesting. If that was how long it would take, then that was 
how long it would take.

He just wished that it would be faster.

"What about the rest of this stuff?" he asked, waving a hand to indicate 
the rest of the equipment. "What does it do? Could it be useful?"

Mana looked around. "Not really. There is communication equipment and 
the cloning equipment in this room, but neither would be of use to you. 
The corridor over there leads to the secondary labs and the breeding 
chambers, as well as the sleep-chambers."

Mulder glanced over at Harrison when she mentioned cloning equipment, 
and the man's face had gone pale. Mulder looked away quickly, feeling 
guilty for intruding on the other man's obvious pain.

"What about the other corridor?" he asked, pointing to the last one, 
since the first was the one that they'd come in through.

Despite the lack of emotion of the woman's face, Mulder could see Mana 
freeze. "That goes to Malzor's lab."

"Malzor?"

"He was our leader." The one who'd manipulated them into a long and 
costly conflict, Mulder filled in.

"What's back there?"

"I don't know."

Mulder blinked in surprise at that. "Why not?"

"He didn't allow anyone else in his private lab."

"But he's gone," Mulder protested.

Mana closed her eyes.

"The last time I came into this chamber was when we confronted and 
rejected Malzor," she said, her voice gone quiet. "The day he killed my 
son. I left, and never returned. The memories are still... painful."

She looked up into Mulder's face, her eyes bright with what might have 
been tears. "If Harrison had not asked for my help, I would not have come 
here now, or in the future. So no, I do not know what is in that lab."

Mulder nodded, accepting her explanation. "But since we're here..." he 
said.

Mana looked at him for a long moment. Then her back straightened and her 
shoulders squared. "We are here," she agreed, "and the past should be 
confronted."

With that, she turned and headed for the corridor to Malzor's lab.

* * * * *

The Mothren leader's lab turned out to be basically more of the same, 
other than the thicker layers of dust that soon had them all coughing. 
More of the strange equipment, as well as an almost ordinary looking 
chemistry lab. Mana looked pale but determined as she checked out the 
room.

Dragged by his curiosity, Mulder moved around, trying to open anything 
that looked like a door or storage compartment. Like the previous room, 
there were three doorways. One led back the way they'd come. One led to a 
small room with a bed -- no doubt where Malzor slept.

And the third led to a room with only one object. A large, green, 
gelatinous mass. It looked like something out of 'Invasion of the Body-
Snatchers'.

"What's this?" he called out. Harrison and Mana left the lab to come see 
what he was talking about.

Mana walked around the object, a puzzled look on his face.

"It's a storage pod," she finally said. "Its kind was mostly used to 
store living beings, original or cloned, until they were needed."

"So, is there anything in it?" Mulder asked.

Mana moved to one end, and tapped a rhythm on the goo as though there 
were a control panel. Heck, Mulder thought to himself, maybe there was 
one and he just couldn't see it.

The green glow faded, and the pod's substance began to turn clear. All 
three of them clustered around it, equally curious.

As the glow faded, a form came into view. Human in shape. Male.

"Paul?"

Mulder turned, just in time to prop Harrison up as the man's knees did 
their best to buckle under him. But then, he would have been surprised if 
they hadn't.

Because, now that the pod was fully transparent, they could all recognize 
the naked form of Colonel Paul Ironhorse.

The only question was; was it another clone? Or was it the original?

* * * * *

By the time they hit New York, Alex was wired from all the coffee he'd 
been drinking to stay awake, and he'd bet that Kincaid was the same. The 
man had refused to stop along the way, and it had taken all of Alex's 
powers of persuasion to convince Kincaid to let him drive any of the 
distance. After all, Alex knew the roads just as well as Kincaid did.

Of course, Kincaid hadn't been shy about having Alex pay for most of the 
gas and food along the way. Alex had his suspicions that dumping him was 
a plan, but he'd managed to make sure that didn't happen. He would have 
cheerfully shot out the truck's tires if that was what it took to keep 
Kincaid from leaving one of those stops without him.

So here they were, in the old factory district, pulling up in front of a 
derelict building. Alex waited until Kincaid was out of the truck before 
following him. He still didn't trust the mercenary not to take off on him.

Kincaid headed for a door that was hanging off its hinges, then stopped 
and turned around.

"You've done your bit," he said with a sneer. "So why don't you just head 
off now."

Alex smiled coldly and reached for his gun. "Like hell. You're not 
getting rid of me."

"And why the hell would someone like you get involved?" Kincaid's tone 
dripped with sarcasm.

Alex smiled, and just turned the question back on him. "Why would you? 
After all, you already did your bit, nearly a decade ago. You're getting 
old, so why get involved in another fight. Leave it for younger men."

The age comment got a snarl, but Kincaid backed down before the tension 
erupted into violence. "Because I didn't fight off invaders once just so 
that I could sit back and watch another batch of aliens take their place."

There was something in the man's face that struck Alex as very familiar. 
Then he recognized it. It was an expression that he'd seen many times 
before. In the mirror.

"And Blackwood asked you to."

Shutters came down behind the man's eyes. "Fine. Yes, because he asked. 
And you?"

Alex shrugged, and gave the man the truth. "Because I have no intention 
of rolling over and letting outsiders take over. Because I have no 
intention of letting less capable people fight for me. And because Mulder 
is involved."

Alex waited. Kincaid's eyes narrowed as he considered the words. Then, 
suddenly, there was a softening in his stance.

"Does he know?"

"Does Blackwood?"

They both snickered.

"Two tough guys, and we're both chickenshit," Kincaid said, shaking his 
head. "Too scared to say a word, but not willing to give up."

Alex smirked. "So let's get going so that we can mope *and* watch out for 
them at the same time."

"Right."

Kincaid turned and headed for the doorway again, Alex right behind him.

* * * * *

It had been a while since he'd last been to New York, but Kincaid 
remembered the route well. During the fight with the Mothren, the tunnels 
beneath New York had been their main refuge, as well as the fastest way 
to get from one end of the city to the other.

The one-armed guy, Krycek, kept close behind him. He was still tempted to 
try ditching the kid, but he didn't think he'd succeed. Whatever else you 
said about the guy, he obviously knew his stuff.

Maybe he wouldn't be dead weight in a fight.

In the meantime, he wondered about Blackwood. He hadn't seen the older 
man in nearly four years. He'd tracked the man down, parked himself on 
Blackwood's doorstep, hoping that he could drag the man back into the 
world.

He hadn't succeeded. Blackwood had still been locked in his grief, still 
mourning Ironhorse.

Kincaid shook his head. He hadn't gotten along well with Ironhorse, even 
before the man booted him from his squad. But he still had a lot of 
respect for the Native American soldier, and when Ironhorse had asked him 
to look after the Project team, right before his death, he'd agreed.

What he hadn't expected, though, was to fall in love with the driven 
scientist. He'd never been much inclined towards his own gender -- he 
liked women. A lot. But Blackwood's loyalty and dedication and energy had 
been a powerful draw.

Until the war had ended. Then, in a matter of weeks, the once vital man 
had turned inward, drawing up walls between himself and the world. And 
everyone who cared about him found themselves on the outside.

But now Blackwood had left his cabin, rejoined the world to fight another 
alien invasion. And maybe, just maybe...

Kincaid moved from the side-tunnel into the main part of the community 
and was immediately hit by chaos. He and Krycek stood there for a moment, 
trying to get their bearings as people swept past. Kincaid caught a 
glimpse of something large and green as it rounded a corner, heading away 
from them.

At the end of the procession came Blackwood, half-supported by a tall, 
handsome man with dark hair and a nose that would be ugly on anyone else.

"Mulder?" Krycek said, stepping forward. "What the hell is going on?"

Blackwood looked over at them, an almost scarily blank look on his face.

"John?"

Kincaid stepped forward, wondering what the hell had happened. "Yeah?"

"We found Paul."

Kincaid looked over at the other man, Mulder. "What?"

The man grimaced. "We found an alien pod. Inside it is what *looks* like 
Colonel Paul Ironhorse."

Kincaid felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. "Clone?"

A shake of the head answered him. "We don't know.

"Yet."


TO BE CONTINUED