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The Sentinel Project Part 10
by Lianne Burwell
March 2003
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Spender was quite pleased with the way the first outing of 
his personal force of Sentinels. The Canadian and his cop 
Guide had managed to set off silent alarms when they broke 
into the safe -- Spender hadn't included details about that 
part of the alarm system in the information he'd given them 
to see how they would handle unexpected problems -- and 
they'd passed that little test with flying colors. Perhaps 
he should have activated the Sentinel Project long ago.

He quickly dismissed that thought. Sentinels -- as the 
clever young Mr. Sandburg had noted in his unfinished 
dissertation -- were strong-willed, and drawn to roles that 
were protective. The group downstairs included a park 
ranger, two soldiers, two cops, one of whom was a former 
soldier, and a firefighter. Their partners seemed to be all 
drawn to teaching or psychiatry.

Not one of them would have willingly worked for the 
Consortium. Even now, he knew that only the current 
situation kept them compliant, and he wasn't foolish enough 
to think that they would stay that way once the current 
crisis was over. At that time, he would probably have to 
make the choice between letting them go or killing them, 
since they would be far too much trouble to try to keep 
locked up.

He hadn't decided which road to take yet, although he was 
considering letting them go. Doing so would let him keep an 
eye on any off-spring, as well as leaving open the 
possibility of taking them again. Perhaps even generate a 
little bit of goodwill. Dead, they would never be of use in 
the future.

Unfortunately, there was no chance of ... reeducating them 
into a more compliant mindset. Three Sentinels had fallen 
into the Consortium's hands in the past, and the only one 
to survive the psych team was Alex Barnes, and she'd ended 
up escaping. She'd also been very unstable by that point. 
The only good thing was that she had led them straight to 
Blair Sandburg and his research.

The two men had been returned to the storage level while 
Spender went through the file they'd stolen from the 
Department of Justice building. The job had been a test, 
but the file actually was needed. Johansson -- the man 
whose office they'd broken into -- was one of Jerome's top 
allies within the government, and he'd received word from 
one of the people in Michaels' camp who'd come to his 
senses that Johansson kept information in his safe that was 
of interest to Spender.

His informant had been quite right. The first half of the 
file were financial information, showing movement of funds 
into investigations that he doubted that the government had 
authorized. The rest of the file was in code, but it was 
one that he recognized easily. He pulled a pad of paper out 
of a desk drawer and picked up a pen.


And hour later, his good humor had evaporated. The file 
went into his very high-tech safe, and the entire pad of 
paper went into a mini incinerator disguised as a waste 
basket. He watched it flare up, then turn into ashes, 
imagining feeding Michaels into it, feet first, slowly. The 
man was not just a fool, he was also insane.

Spender gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to destroy 
something. Unfortunately, it was too late to stop the man's 
plans. Besides, it would show his hand sooner than he 
wanted.

There was nothing to do except wait.

>>>~~~<<<

It was almost dinner time on another dull day. Scully 
wasn't sure who did the cooking, just that it wasn't her. 
In fact, she didn't do much at all, which wasn't going over 
very well with her. She was in hiding, so she couldn't 
exactly go to the local library. Their... hosts had left a 
number of books in the various houses they'd stayed in, but 
she was getting tired of twenty-year old Harlequin 
romances.

Instead, she was spending a lot of time surfing the net on 
the laptop Mulder had given her, reading everything from 
the latest online editions of medical journals to current 
affairs to amateur fiction. She'd learned more useless 
facts about television shows she'd never watched than she 
cared to.

Scully was bored. Without a doubt, bored. And boredom left 
her with too much time for her to brood. Her current 
situation. The fate of friends and family that she didn't 
dare contact. Mulder and his ill-advised relationship.

Scully growled softly to herself and pushed her latest 
reading material away -- a mystery this time, and one so 
obvious that she'd known whodunit almost before the murder 
had been committed. She still couldn't believe that Mulder 
had finally fallen for Krycek's seduction techniques. She'd 
thought he'd been safe, after not even noticing Krycek's 
attempts for years. She'd certainly noticed, right from the 
start. Right from the day he'd shown up, pretending to be a 
naïve young agent, he'd been trying to get into Mulder's 
pants. But Mulder had been oblivious, just like he'd been 
oblivious to everyone else who'd tried to do the same.

But she'd been foolish enough to let them go off together, 
and now Mulder was acting like a love-sick teenager. 
Damnit, how could he be this stupid. And then he'd 
announced that he was heading off with Krycek to hunt down 
the rat-bastard's contacts. More underworld thugs, no 
doubt. They were probably more likely to turn the two men 
over to Spender. Or maybe just Mulder. Maybe this was all 
some convoluted plan to trap Mulder. She certainly wouldn't 
put it past him.

The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs next to the 
parlor told her that it was dinner time. She didn't bother 
marking her spot in the book. She had no interest in 
reading on to find out how many hoops the detective had to 
jump through before realizing that the son's girlfriend was 
the killer.

There was one change tonight, which caught her off-guard. 
Sitting on the table next to her plate was a pile of 
papers. She sat down and picked them up. Shuffling through 
them, she found that they were technical documents, 
detailing a project. "What are these?" she asked, holding 
them up. She wasn't the only with reading material to go 
with her dinner, she noted.

"I've finished going through the disks," Broots said, not 
quite meeting her eyes. There was something about the shy, 
nervous man that reminded her a little of Pendrell, the 
unfortunate lab tech who'd taken a bullet for her, even 
though she'd never paid much attention to him. One victim 
among many of Mulder's quest. "I found a variety of files 
that might be related to the place we're looking for. One 
projects that appear to be happening in New Mexico, and two 
in different locations in Mexico itself. The actual 
locations are encoded. So are the more technical details. 
But the top one sounds the most promising."

Scully nodded, not really listening as she flipped through 
the pages as she ate her dinner mechanically.

Project Tezcatlipoca was a genetic experiment, according 
the file. It was just a précis, the sort that would be 
handed to a bureaucrat who had no idea how to interpret 
scientific data. The basic description was that they were 
trying to blend human DNA with animal DNA, felines in 
particular. It sounded like science fiction, or it would 
have if Scully hadn't seen firsthand the results of similar 
experiment done by the consortium to create human-alien 
hybrids. This experiment seemed a logical, if you could 
call it that, extension of those experiments.

Broots continued on. "I did some looking at Aztec 
mythology. Tezcatlipoca was one of the gods who helped 
create the world. It took five tries to get it right. The 
first time, he was the one to create the world, and when 
his rival struck him down for it, he turned into a jaguar 
and destroyed the world in a fit of rage."

"This says they were crossing humans with cats?" Kincaid 
said, looking up from his own papers. Scully was a little 
surprised that the man was able to pull even that much out 
of the précis, although Broots' little folklore lesson 
probably helped. Kincaid struck her as barely more than a 
thug. Gun for hire turned biker. Besides, the man had slept 
with Alex Krycek, which showed bad judgment, and he'd done 
so even though he knew that Krycek was trying to get into 
Mulder's pants, and she had little respect for anyone who 
went for one-night stands.

"That's what it says," she said smoothly, carefully 
covering her reaction. As far as she was concerned, Kincaid 
was barely better than a Neanderthal, so the fact that he 
was understanding the information in the files was a little 
galling, but she wasn't foolish enough to show it. With 
Mulder gone, she felt very isolated. She was the only woman 
in the house, and the only government employee, and it was 
obvious that some of the bikers were suspicious of her as a 
result. "It doesn't say whether they had any success, 
though."

Kincaid seemed to hesitate for a moment. "I think they 
did," he finally said, speaking very slowly, almost 
reluctantly.

"And how do you know that?" Scully asked sharply, glaring 
at him.

"I think I've met a result of this project," he said.

Scully shook her head. "I have trouble believing that they 
could have produced a viable infant," she protested. "This 
project was started nearly forty years ago. Anything they 
produced would probably have been severely retarded."

Kincaid snorted. "You've never met Vincent."

"Who?"

The mercenary hesitated again, frustrating Scully. Finally, 
he put down the papers. "Your partner met him. He and his 
people were one of the most valuable resources we had when 
we were fighting the Morthren. In appearance, he is human-
shaped, but his face is feline. He has golden fur and what 
can only be called a mane. Basically, a human crossed with 
a lion." The he smiled. "And he loves poetry, studies 
philosophy, and is the kindest, most gentle man you have 
ever met. But threaten the people who depend on him, and he 
is the most ferocious fighter you have ever seen."

"Then how is he not still in this project?" Scully asked, 
since it was obvious to her that if he was in the hands of 
the Consortium, he wouldn't have been able to do what 
Kincaid claimed.

"No one knows. He was found as an infant abandoned outside 
of a hospital by a man that everyone called Father. And 
don't ask for more information than that, because I won't 
tell you." The stubborn way he said it told her not to 
bother trying.

But the whole idea -- if she could believe it -- was 
intriguing. "I'd like to meet this Vincent someday."

Kincaid shot a suspicious look her way. "I don't know about 
that. Vincent has nearly fallen into the hands of 
scientists more than once in the past. You'll understand 
that he prefers to avoid them."

That was irritating. "I'm not going to want to cut him 
open," she said.

"But you'd just love to run some tests, study him, right? 
Don't bother denying it."

Scully frowned, but didn't say anything. Kincaid had 
obviously made up his mind that she was some sort of mad 
scientist. Besides, she wasn't sure that she believed him. 
Still, the next time she talked to Mulder -- she'd received 
one email from him so far, informing her that they'd 
arrived in Chicago in one piece, and asking if they had any 
news -- she would have some questions for him.

"So, what makes you think that this is the so-called Mexico 
Project that we're supposed to looking for?" she asked 
Broots rather than dignifying Kincaid's accusations with an 
answer.

Broots looked like he wanted to be anywhere but in the 
kitchen right that moment, and her question caught him off-
guard. "Well... It's a scientific project, and it's named 
after an Aztec god, and the indicators say it's in Mexico, 
which makes it the most likely candidate of the files." He 
glanced at her nervously, as if he was expecting her to 
disagree. "I've got decryption software running on all 
three files, but it will go faster if it's only working on 
one file, 'cause they've all got different encoding 
systems. I think this one is the one to work on first, but 
I wanted..." He trailed off, and Scully frowned. How could 
someone be so insecure, she didn't know.

She flipped through the sketchy information on the other 
two projects. One sounded like a SETI project, pretty 
small, and the other was a warehouse system. There weren't 
enough details to tell what they were warehousing though.

"Go with this one," Kincaid said firmly, dropping the 
Tezcatlipoca Project papers on the table.

"Why? What possible reason would Spender have for sending 
Agent McCullough to a genetics facility?" Scully shot back.

"Instincts. I trust mine. And we won't know why until we 
find her, unless we can get Spender to tell us," he added 
sarcastically. "What do you think?" He asked, turning to 
Jarod -- a man who Scully still found an enigma.

"I agree," Jarod said. "We need to make a choice, and this 
one sounds like our best bet."

Scully sighed. It was beginning to sound like her opinions 
weren't going to matter much. It was like working with a 
house full of Mulders without even the pretense of respect. 
"I agree too," she said reluctantly, even though she really 
did agree. She turned back to the related pages and skim 
read them a second time. It really was a fascinating 
concept, obviously related to the human-alien hybrid 
program she and Mulder had run into in the past, and while 
she found it hard to believe that there'd been much 
success, since the précis made it obvious that there was 
far more non-human DNA being used in this project than in 
the others, it did pique her interest.

"Print out anything else in the files once they're 
decoded," she said, looking down to realize that she'd 
finished eating. Rather than wait around for the others to 
finish their own meals, she stood up and headed for the 
stairs. Time to fire up the laptop again and doing some 
web-surfing. She wanted to find out if there was anything 
in any of the online scientific journals to support the 
information she had so far.

>>>~~~<<<

Broots watched the tiny red-haired woman as she disappeared 
from sight, then breathed a sigh of relief. "Is it just me 
or does she remind you of Miss Parker?" he asked Jarod.

Kincaid looked puzzled for a moment, then went back to his 
dinner. Jarod looked thoughtful. "A little, perhaps. She 
certainly has the insecurities that Miss Parker had," he 
said.

"Not to mention the attitude."

"And the high heels," Jarod pointed out, then grinned.

Broots held it in for a moment, but the first giggle 
finally escaped. Once it did, there was nothing he could do 
to stop it. All he could do was hang onto his sides and 
trying to keep from making too much noise. Like Miss 
Parker, Agent Scully scared him, so he didn't want to do 
anything to piss her off.

He managed to get himself back under control quickly. "You 
really think this is the one?" Broots asked, turning to 
Kincaid. He knew *he* thought it was, but...

"Yep," Kincaid said, swallowing the mouthful he was chewing 
on. He scared Broots too, some of the time, with his 
leather and biker friends, but he had at least gone out of 
his way to be nice to Broots, which was more than he could 
say for Agent Scully. "Besides, if it isn't what we're 
looking for, maybe I can give Vincent some information on 
where he came from." His eyes went distant for a moment, as 
if he wasn't really there. "I owe him. Big time."

>>>~~~<<<

"So, what's our next step?" Mulder asked, flopping onto the 
bed. Alex had already checked the motel room to make sure 
that no one had broken in and bugged the place while they 
were out meeting with his contact. Well, Mulder hadn't 
actually *met* the man; just seen him from a distance.

He hadn't been crazy about the man, although he couldn't 
quite put his finger on why. Alex obviously trusted him, as 
much as he trusted anyone, that is. He hadn't told Mulder 
about much about the man, other than that he was an 
information broker, one of the best in the business, and 
someone he'd known since he was in his teens.

There was an interesting thought. Alex Krycek as a teen. 
Assuming that Krycek had even been his name. Suddenly 
Mulder was struck by just how little he really knew about 
his lover. Basically, nothing about his life before he'd 
been sent by the Consortium to tag Mulder.

Mulder pushed those thoughts, and the doubts that came with 
them, out of his mind, concentrating instead on the man, 
Marco. Maybe it was just that fact that he'd been obviously 
wealthy -- you had to be to eat at that restaurant -- 
handsome and well-dressed. He also hadn't missed the way 
the man had been looking at Alex. For a brief instant, 
right there in the restaurant, he'd wanted to get up and go 
over to tell the man to forget it, Alex was *his*.

Mulder snorted softly to himself. Imagine *him* being so 
damned possessive of Krycek. Only a couple of years ago he 
would have preferred killing the man to being around him. A 
couple of *months* ago he had barely tolerated him. Looking 
back, using his psychology training, he recognized the real 
reason for his strong feelings. Hurt. Betrayal. Desire.

Suddenly he realized that Alex was staring at him with an 
expression of exasperation. "Sorry," he said.

"I *said*," Alex said pointedly, "that we need to track 
down what Michaels is up to. That means finding one of his 
supporters in the Consortium, snatching him, and... 
convincing him to talk."

The wolfish grin told Mulder just what 'convincing' would 
entail, and for a moment he balked. Then he remembered just 
what was happening in his country, and what Marco had 
hinted at, and he lost his sympathy for the man. "How do we 
grab someone close enough to Michaels to know what he's up 
to?" he asked finally, and was rewarded by a smile.

"I have a few ideas," Alex said. "I know of two of his 
people that are deeply embedded in the underworld, too much 
so to sneak into the government, no matter how much 
covering up they do. That means Michaels can't protect 
them. One is in DC, the other is in Miami. Right now, 
getting too close to DC would be a bad idea."

Mulder nodded, then groaned. "Another week in the saddle? 
Just great." His ass ached just thinking of it.

Alex snickered.

TO BE CONTINUED