TITLE: Shards AUTHOR: stormlantern1013@yahoo.com KEYWORDS: MSR FEEDBACK: Absolutely! SPOILERS: "Existence", "Nothing Important Happened Today" RATING: PG ARCHIVE: Yes, just let me know where so I can visit SUMMARY: What Mulder's been up to DEDICATION: To my high-flying beta reader, Char Chaffin, her intrepid co-pilot Tess, the fabulous Fadboo, and to Amy, the doughty dungeon-master of the best XF site on the web, "The Haven For The FBI's Most Unwanted". ***************************************************** Mockingbird Cafe/Campground Newburgh, Indiana 4:35 P.M. The trap had been sprung, the prey caught. And the victor stood contemplating his victim. One moment Fox Mulder had been talking to a genial farmer concerned about the deep circles and errant patterns appearing in his soybean fields overnight. The next, the farmer's shape had blurred, shifted and resolved itself into a form and face that had haunted Mulder's nightmares since his return from the dead. The Alien Bounty Hunter stood before him. It was late afternoon, and they stood at the perimeter of a tiny rural village, in a clearing edged by small woods. Anyone who watched the tableau would have noted, perhaps with a pang, that despite his height and breadth of shoulder, Mulder looked all too slight and a bit forlorn as he stood before the bulk of the Hunter. He flinched only once as he stared at his nemesis. His hands, held carefully at his sides, clenched into fists. Otherwise he made no further move, lest he provoke his adversary into action. Death would come soon enough. "I have caught you. Don't bother running," said the Hunter. "You are mine." "Yours?" said Mulder. "So it's personal now? What did I ever do to you?" He spoke bitterly, but without plea or remonstrance. He sounded as if he genuinely wanted to know. This seemed to nonplus the Hunter, who answered him straight. "If there ever has been a noble quarry, Mulder, you are it," he replied. "One I actually took some pleasure in hunting. You gave your life over to a quest, however futile, instead of focusing on narrow, selfish interests. Thus, your pursuit ennobled mine, and for that I thank you." Mulder's eyes narrowed. "You pursued me. I pursued those who tried to conceal the truth with lies and bloodshed. Who hunted whom, then?" "What matters at the end, my friend, is who is now cornered, and who will strike the final blow." The Hunter moved slowly toward Mulder, stalking him, and felt for the knife strapped to his hip. "And who will collect a trophy afterward." "Trophy?" Mulder watched him come. "You know," he went on conversationally, as he backed away, "that explains a few things about the cattle mutilations ascribed to aliens that my partner and I used to investigate. The genitalia were always taken." The implied insult was not lost on the Hunter. "You are all cattle to us," he snarled. "You will hold still. It would be such a waste to cut you to ribbons, which any struggle on your part would most certainly guarantee, and I have plans for that skin of yours." Mulder stood, tense but unmoving, as the Hunter reached out and gripped his shoulder. With his other hand the Hunter raised the knife. Light flashed from the naked blade, and Mulder fixed his eyes upon it. "Did it ever occur to you people simply to ask for help?" he muttered. "Instead of murdering and abducting?" The Hunter paused. "Help? From whom?" "From us. We have scientists, you know." The Hunter actually chuckled. "And how successful would they be in helping us?" "At least as successful as you've been with your murdering and abducting." The Hunter shook his head. "It's a failed experiment, isn't it?" Mulder challenged. "You're a barren race who've developed an alternate way to reproduce by implanting humans with a sentient virus laden with your DNA. After infection, it grows inside and eats its way out. But the resultant creature is primitive and violent. It doesn't survive long outside its host. Plus some humans are immune to the virus. Me. My son. And if enough humans like us are born, your invasion can go no further." The Hunter fingered the hilt of his blade thoughtfully. "You've made some good guesses," he said finally. "And some, not so good." "Care to enlighten me?" The Hunter laughed. "You think I will tell you?" he exclaimed. "Tell you all my story?" Mulder gazed at the Hunter's mirth in silence. "If not... " he said softly, "can I ask a favor?" The Hunter laughed again. "You amuse me, Mulder," he said. "What favor?" "Leave some remains?" Mulder asked. "A skull, some bones?" The Hunter smirked. "A gruesome request," he said indulgently. "So my... partner will know I'm dead," said Mulder. "So she won't go looking for me, thinking I might be saved. There's nothing worse... than not knowing." The Hunter gazed at the human and felt, for the second time since knowing the man's name, a touch of compassion. Such a reaction was weak, unprofessional, and he felt a flicker of anger in response. But as in an earlier confrontation, when Mulder had met his brutality with a plea for information about his missing sister, the Hunter felt challenged by the courage of his prey; and so he hesitated, and stayed his hand. For the moment. The Hunter glanced to the side. Across the little clearing lay the village, and on the village's edge squatted a tiny bar and grill. The Hunter turned back to Mulder. "You humans have a tradition, I believe, in the event of victory," he said. "And you intrigue me as much as you amuse me. A drink before you die. But if you try any tricks, I will kill - " he smiled slightly à "murder, everyone in that building." The Mockingbird Grill, interior 5:00 P.M. "So again I must ask you, Mulder... was it worth it?" Mulder fingered the icy glass of his beer mug. "I learned some truths," he said quietly. "Saved some lives." "Except your own." The Hunter took a pull from his mug. "At the end." Mulder shrugged. "All lives end." "So cavalier about being separated forever from your mate and offspring? You can be a puzzle, Mulder." The Hunter signaled for another brew. "But then you've left them before, of your own volition - " "Not of my own volition." The mildness was gone from Mulder's eyes, and his voice was hard and flat. "Never of my own volition." The Hunter eyed him thoughtfully as he sipped his fresh drink. "I admit we found your seeming desertion startling. It seemed rather out of character. After your departure some of my colleagues wanted to strike at once and snatch your mate and offspring, but others felt that the situation could be a trap. So we waited, to see what you were up to. Some kept your mate under constant surveillance. Others tracked you." His mouth quirked. "Is that how you hoped to protect your family, Mulder? By dividing our attention?" Mulder wrapped his hands around the heavy glass mug carefully, as if it were fragile, and said nothing. The bar, nearly empty when the two men had entered it, was now slowly filling up. The Hunter leaned forward and lowered his voice. "We know you traveled many places and spoke to many people. I'm guessing you sought help and found none." He tapped the rim of his mug idly. "You always did have too much faith in your fellow creatures, Mulder. You really believed that if you revealed the truth about alien abductions, others of your kind would rally to your side. Instead, few have believed you, and none are here now in your hour of need. Not even your mate. Have you hidden her, Mulder?" The Hunter snorted. "We'll find her, you know." Mulder remained silent. The Hunter gestured at his captive's still-full mug. "You do not drink," he said. "I advise you to do so, for when will you drink again?" Mulder lifted the mug and looked at it, then placed it back on the table. The Hunter shook his head. "Yet another missed opportunity. How many have you had, Mulder? How many mistakes have you made?" "You've made mistakes, too," Mulder said softly. "You and your masters." The Hunter raised his eyebrows. "The chief one being," Mulder elaborated in a steady tone, "returning to your home planet, to attempt to enslave beings with latent psychic abilities similar to your own." The Hunter snorted. "No mistake. We returned to make use of prolific beings whose physiology is readily adaptable to experimentation. As for those 'latent psychic abilities', your race is far too primitive to make effective use of them. You might as well try to make use of what remains of your tails." "But we humans have never been limited by our natural abilities," said Mulder. "We have no wings, yet we fly. We have no gills, yet we explore the ocean floor. One thing made those feats possible: a device. With us humans, find the device and we obtain the ability." "And what," asked the Hunter lazily, "has that to do with latent psychic abilities?" "I've found the device for that." "What device?" Mulder unbuttoned his collar, reached into his shirt and pulled out the thin chain of a necklace. A pendant dangled from the end of it. *This.* The Hunter's eyes widened as Mulder's voice reverberated, not in his ears, but within his mind. "Where did you get that?" he growled. *It's a shard from a fragment of one of your downed spacecraft.* Mulder toyed with the pendant. It was gray, and glittered, and had been carved into the shape of a fox head. *My partner found it in Africa. When I first encountered it, its radiation activated my... latent psychic abilities... overwhelmed them, in fact. I nearly went mad. But a tiny shard like this I can handle. As you may have noticed, it projects my thoughts wherever I direct them. Moreover, my son, young as he is, can levitate this metal. I take it that's how you fly your spacecraft? Psychically?* The Hunter stared at the pendant a moment longer. Then he shrugged and took another pull from his mug. "Well," he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "You've learned a clever trick. Shall I pat you on the head and call you a good little human?" Mulder took a pull from his own mug, his eyes glittering like his pendant. *You know, this is like that old ventriloquist's trick, where the ventriloquist drinks a glass of water while simultaneously putting words in the mouth of his dummy.* "You are fortunate that I am not easily provoked, Agent Mulder." The Hunter took a last sip from his mug and set it on the table. "Still, it grows late." He gave the pendant another penetrating look. "If I leave any remains, I will not be leaving that." He reached into a pocket, threw some bills onto the table, and stood up. Then he reached over and tapped a thick gold band around Mulder's finger. "Perhaps," he said, "I shall leave that." He looked sternly at Mulder. "Come." The two men exited the bar and made their way across the clearing towards the small wood. When they reached the trees, the Hunter ordered Mulder to halt. He did so, and turned to face his enemy. Once again the Hunter drew his weapon. Mulder tensed and shifted his weight. The Hunter sighed. "Mulder, I admit that I am sorry that this hunt has come to an end. But I shall be sorrier still if you struggle. I prefer my kills swift and clean." Mulder gazed at him and did not reply. Then the Hunter heard movement behind him. Quickly he grabbed Mulder by the shoulders and turned, using his prey as a shield between himself and - The bar, which had filled up while they were within it, was slowly emptying. A small group had formed at the clearing's edge, a group made up of male and female, young and old, and of several colors of skin. They glared at the Hunter with hate and loathing, a little fear. He recognized most of them. Still locked in the Hunter's grip, Mulder turned his head and glanced back at the bristling crowd. Then his gaze returned to the Hunter. "Some of the folks I met on my travels," he remarked, and added, almost gently, "I never said I had just ONE shard." Then the Hunter saw them - more shards, twinkling from necks, wrists and fingers; shards, glittering like bitter stars in a vengeful sky. As he realized what was about to happen, before he could react, their thoughts hit him like knives. Images of abduction, torture - bursts of incredible pain, rage, the agony of helplessness, roiling waves of crippling fear - exploded within the Hunter's brain. His thoughts were shattered by fragments of nightmare, cutting vital connections, crushing cognizance, crippling any ability to even comprehend what was happening to him. Hundreds of screams, hundreds of wounds - At the first strike, the Hunter's hands loosened their grip on Mulder's shoulders and fell away. Then a second psychic avalanche of anguish and hatred crushed the remainder of his mind and sent him to his knees. As he slowly crumbled from within, his vision darkened and his hearing faded. But just enough of each sense remained for him to see Mulder kneel beside him and pull a weapon from his own pocket, a weapon with a thin, bright, cylindrical blade, and to hear him say: "I'm sorry too." ******************************************************* There was, of course, nothing left to autopsy. Dana Scully tore her gaze away from the tableau outside the bar's window and carefully replaced her gun into her duffel bag. She removed the black wig from her head and shook loose her own russet tresses. Then, leaving the wig on the table, she rose from her seat, took up the duffel bag and exited the bar to tend to the wounded. Mulder had collected quite a circle of friends during his forced separation from his partner and child a year before - and that circle was now suffering from their first real confrontation with the enemy. Several were doubled over from migraine; some were vomiting; one was on the ground - Scully, digging in her bag for her medical kit, headed for her first. It was Charlene, nicknamed Char, the young aviatrix who, like the rest of the group, was a fellow abductee. She had been snatched out of the sky one night while testing the wings of her new Piper Cub. Seven weeks later she had awakened in a field minus her Cub and wracked with flashbacks of torture and pain. Her friends and relatives had, of course, not believed her story of aliens and cruel probings by twisted metal instruments. Worse than the disbelief, however, had been the loss of her love of flying, a love destroyed by fear. She had managed to hold her sanity together, but was slowly sinking beneath a crushing load of depression and despair. All was lost, all seemed hopeless. Until Mulder. "He was the only one who believed me," Char had told Scully upon their meeting. "The only one, that is, who wasn't a nutjob. I mean, here was this FBI guy showing me pictures and evidence of other people who'd been through what I'd been through. And then he gave me the shard and taught me how to use it. He not only believed me, he believed IN me. After he left, I went out and put a down payment on a new Cub, and I've been flying ever since." Brave, thought Scully now as she tended to the young woman, who turned out to be suffering from nothing worse than a fainting spell. After her patient regained her feet and assured her that she was all right, Scully moved on to another needing her aid - a lady named Amy, being supported by her husband as she retched into the bushes. Amy's abduction had been so traumatic that afterward she had sought out the ultimate hiding place, and found it - a haven in the form of an abandoned underground missile silo far beneath the surface of the Nevada desert. At considerable expense, she had outfitted its concrete walls and floors with wood paneling and tile, carpet and porcelain, glass and marble. It was a comfortable living space, well-ventilated and softened with tubs of flowers, vegetables, and even trees, all nourished with sunlamps. Amy and her devoted husband had lived quietly in their deep-set domain, perhaps not happy, but certainly secure, until one night Mulder sought them out and asked for sanctuary - and Amy's story. When he departed a week later, he left behind a shard - and a renewed desire to fight. "We have our dignity back," Amy had told Scully. "We are no longer victims. We are soldiers, defenders of this planet, and you and Mulder are our generals." And medics, Scully thought now as she dispersed motion-sickness capsules to the former hermits and then worked her way through the rest of the "soldiers". The burly biker, the artist, the retired pastor, the animal trainer from the Ringling Brothers/Barnum and Bailey circus, and more - all abductees, all recruited by Mulder, all entrusted with shards. "We can't run anymore, Scully," he'd told her the day of his departure. "And we can't go on fighting this alone." A final kiss for her and baby William, and he was gone - with a list of possible recruits, maps, cash, and a pouch full of shards carved into the shapes of stars, birds, arrowheads and animals by the artisans of the Navajo tribe once ruled by their late friend Albert Hosteen. Many of the tribe also owned shards. The shards worked on everyone differently, bringing out different levels of psychic ability. Some who wore them could broadcast better than others, some could receive thoughts more clearly, while still others could attempt a limited form of psychikenesis. John Doggett, of all people, had developed a kind of foresight: he had told Mulder of dreams involving the Alien Bounty Hunter and described a scenario very like the one played out this night - of a lure meant for Mulder, crop circles, and Mulder's death at the hands of the Hunter. When a case had subsequently been submitted to the office of the X-Files concerning crop circles in Indiana, and when the client had asked specifically for the services of former agent Fox Mulder, the coincidence had set off warning bells and Mulder had rallied his "troops" and set up a counteroffensive for what certainly appeared to be, if one believed in Doggett's premonition, a trap. Scully continued to tend to the wounded, deeply grateful that she had believed. She could see Doggett now as he stood beside Mulder, looking down at what was left of the Hunter and shaking his head. His partner, Monica Reyes, was not on the scene - her reaction to even the smallest of the shards had been so violent and devastating that she couldn't come near them at all, and was presently with the Lone Gunmen helping to guard William. Thinking of Monica prompted Scully to reach for her cell phone and punch a button. "Byers, it's me." "Scully? Everything okay?" "More than okay. The Hunter is dead." A chorus of cheers rattled through the phone's receiver. Scully smiled and spoke through the racket. "How's William?" "He's fine, just fine." "Good." Scully hesitated, then spoke carefully. "I hope he's... cleaner... than he was the last time we left him with you." Frohike broke in. "Don't worry, Scully, I took personal care of things." Then he spoke to someone else. "Got that, Langly? When a baby poops in his diaper, you have to change him IMMEDIATELY." "This from a guy who never flushes the toilet," came the reply. "Listen, asshole - " "Frohike," Scully broke in, "put Byers back on." Byers hastened to reassure her. "Everything's under control, Scully. You have my word." Scully smiled again. "Thanks, Byers. We'll see you soon." She punched in Monica's number. "Monica, it's Scully. How you holding up?" "Fine. Boring doing surveillance, though. Wish I could be part of the action." Scully smiled sympathetically at Monica's disgruntlement. "You are, Monica. There's no way I'd leave Will there without you to help guard." "So... I take it the operation was successful?" "Yes. The Hunter's finished. I think he fought back, but the casualties are light, and morale seems good. I'll be in touch soon." "Dana? Be happy. You won." "Yes," Scully said softly. "We won." She slipped the cell phone into her pocket, then crossed the clearing to speak to her fellow "general". Doggett had wandered away, and Mulder stood alone, staring down at the man-shaped smear on the grass. Scully walked up to him, folded her arms across her chest, and glared. "That was terrible, Mulder," she said flatly. "Much, much worse than Modell." He smiled softly at her and said nothing. After a moment, she sighed, then stepped closer and wrapped her arms around him, running her hands up and down his back and sides, giving herself over fully to her need for the feel of him. Mulder, for his part, stood quietly under her ministrations; not surprisingly for so tactile a man, he loved being stroked. Scully glanced down at the grass. "What do you think brought him down?" she asked. Mulder sighed. "When the fragment made me ill," he said in a low voice, "it was bad enough... all those thoughts from others, flooding my mind. But if they'd been aimed at me, filled with rage and hate... " His voice shuddered away. Scully gripped him tighter, and his arms slipped around her in response. Later he would strip and stroke her, and she would make a nest of his body, their skins wrapping around each other in a twist of ivory and gold. But first, she needed to get to the bottom of something. "And now, Mulder?" He stirred uneasily beneath her touch. "What are you planning?" Her voice sharpened. He looked at her directly, a plea in his hazel eyes. But he was hers, and he knew it, and she used it. "What are you planning?" "There have to be more, Scully," he said immediately. "The spaceships are surprisingly fragile. Once the hull is breached, they're done for. They have to be landed so they can rebuild themselves. If they're too far gone, they're abandoned. You found one in Africa. There has to be others. Our atmosphere has harshened of late and more ships have gone down." "I take it this isn't mere speculation?" Scully asked quietly. "You... heard this when - during your abduction? You heard - them - say this?" "Yes. I remember. It worried them. So there has to be more ships, and I mean to find them. To get more shards. To arm more people. This is what I'm focusing on. This is my new quest." Scully pondered this. Mulder waited, hardly daring to breathe. "I see," she said at last. "I'm coming with you." Mulder exhaled. "Yes," he agreed. "And William can come with us. We can protect him now. And we're no longer fighting alone." "Just the same," she warned, piercing him with her azure gaze, "you're not to take unnecessary risks." "Risks?" he said weakly. "Must I remind you?" she asked him with a chilly smile. But his smile was considerably warmer, and she knew he understood her tone. "You're a husband and father," she said. "And the best alien bait since Reese's Pieces," he said. She laughed softly, and lowered her head to his chest. He took advantage and nuzzled her hair. A raucous mix of hoots and whistles drifted through the dusky air from the crowd beyond them. Scully snorted into Mulder's chest, and felt his body, clasped in her arms, shake with silent laughter. She stepped back and looked up at him. "They want to celebrate," she said. "Maybe you don't feel like it?" He regarded her thoughtfully. "Maybe," he said at last. She nodded and squeezed his forearm. "Don't be long." She turned away and trudged toward the troops. She pulled her jacket around her as she walked. Sunset had begun in earnest, and the air had turned chill. She looked back once to see Mulder, hands in his pockets, staring down morosely at the usual lack of evidence. She sighed. The trap had been sprung, the prey caught. And the victor stood contemplating his victim. ~finis~