Diametrically Opposed
by mountainphile

************
Chapter 12
************

Wilson Hall, Hocking, Ohio
March 15, 2001
5:00 PM 
 
In a frenzy of fear Mulder beat his way back toward 
consciousness.  

Juice from a giant fungus dripped down his face, green-gold 
and viscous as olive oil.  Reaching his throat, it morphed 
into rattlesnakes and he screamed at the bodies slithering 
over his skin, at the fangs sinking deep.  Pain seared his 
chest; he hacked out bugs that spiraled up into the light like 
curls of smoke.  Matreiya kicked his ass, the Living Dead 
ripped his arm, mad scientists drilled his skull, and still he 
yelled for a Scully who wasn't there, who never came.  Who'd 
thrown him over for a tattooed psycho, a doctor named 
Waterston, an a priori writer, and that rat-fuck Smoking Man 
son-of-a-bitch.

"Agent Mulder!  Agent Mulder?  Move over here, carefully..."

Strong hands at his armpits.  Dragging him, guiding him.  
Though his legs were jelly and he scrabbled like a deer on 
ice, he was aware of gaining the elevator.  His half-dreams 
changed course, veered off into fresh waves of panic.  Cancer 
stalked Scully and he hadn't the strength to fight it off or 
find the right vial.  Bleeding and flat on his back in the 
street he saw her whisked away by strangers.  She lay over his 
shoulder, hair in icy tendrils.  Crimson soaked her neck and 
white blouse on the floor of his living room.  

"Christ, what happened?"

"He was overcome.  Agent Mulder, can you stand if we both help 
you up?"  

... He sat brushing his goddamn teeth while she wrestled alone 
with Pfaster.  Slumped gut-shot in New York City when he'd 
failed to stop Ritter's bullet in time.  Was erased from 
existence by a stupid, unspecified second wish...

"I'm..." Head like a bobble toy, he gasped out the word again.  
"I'm okay.  I'll be... fine."

"We're taking you back to your room in Johnson Hall where you 
can rest."

He wanted to protest.  Stumbling, half carried down what felt 
like twenty flights of stairs with as many casefiles careening 
through his brain, he fell against the backseat cushions.  His 
head lolled and he saw Scully's closed eyes, her earth-caked 
hair and face.  Two more doors slammed up front and the car 
began moving.

With a reflexive jerk he flung out his arm to connect with his 
partner, his woman, desperate to grasp her hand in his.

************

The Knoll
Administrative offices
5:15 PM

The Big Man stood to the side of the window, watching.  He 
frowned at the very last of the cars trickling toward Downey 
Lane on their journeys home.   

Timing was essential with a mission pending, and dealing with 
the public was inconvenient.  Though he despised mundane 
handholding, he understood the need for presenting a routine 
show of normalcy where the university was concerned.  This 
operation, however, spun on too delicate an axis for comfort.  

A knock diverted his attention from the window and Anton Krieg 
appeared, locking the door behind him.  One look at the man's 
grim face told him that all was not well. 

"What is it?  Has surveillance caught anything unusual?"

Krieg approached the TV equipment against one wall, slid a 
disk into the player, and activated the screen to show a clip 
of the day's activity downstairs.  "The art exhibit," he 
prefaced.  Without warning, he froze the scene and zoomed in 
on a hooded patron who stood close to one of the stanchions.

To the inexperienced eye there wasn't much to see except a 
slight figure in dark jeans and denim coat.  A hood shielded 
her face from view, but not the curve of aquiline nose, the 
pouting of her lips, or the posture both men had viewed 
several years ago, when the same figure strode on video into 
the Bethesda Naval Hospital morgue beside her associate.

Pushing other buttons, he switched the screen to an outdoor 
clip.  In looking upward at the fence, the figure gave the 
camera a split-second flash of red hair and blue eyes from 
beneath her hood.

"I believe this woman is Special Agent Dana Scully of the 
FBI," Krieg said.  

"Yes.  Mulder's partner, the forensic scientist."

"Then we have a problem."

The Big Man took a step closer and studied the screen.  "My 
father told me of her; he talked to her at length once at the 
operation in West Virginia.  He'd felt it necessary to bring 
her inside one of the laboratory box cars there in order to 
defuse a situation."

Krieg's mouth twitched, his equivalent of a shrug.

"Your thoughts?"

"It was ineffective, sir," Krieg explained carefully, "and a 
weak solution based on reason.  A smokescreen that backfired.  
History proves it didn't have the lasting impact your father 
intended."

"My father, if you remember, sided with the majority after 
Dallas.  But he always felt, like the Englishman did, that 
full sanction was too hasty.  A foolish option."    

"So foolish that Mulder and Scully remain a threat to this 
day."  

"You think like Strughold did," said the Big Man with a grunt 
of derision.  "Like Spender did after his presence at the 
Hoover Building was jeopardized.  They had no qualms about 
crushing the two FBI agents like spiders.  No finesse."

"Finesse is an extravagance we can ill afford."

Hooded eyes tracked the screen, grew thoughtful.  "My father 
also taught me that timing and knowledge were valuable tools 
in this struggle for power.  What was once perceived as a 
threat might, in time, become an asset, a resource for the 
future."

"We've been monitoring Mulder's activity.  The woman's 
presence here was unexpected."

"That's unfortunate.  The new Dean made no mention of her?"

"I don't believe he knew when we spoke with him yesterday."

"You should have anticipated she'd join him at some point.  
This is a bad time for surprises, Mr. Krieg.  She's out there 
loose.  Find where she is and what her purpose is."  

The two men turned to gaze out the window toward the forest, 
the immediate focus of all their attention.  

"They appeared very early on the tenth," mused the Big Man.  
"Their way of giving notice it was time for another exchange.  
Then for days, nothing."

"Preparation time, so the operation coincides with the vernal 
equinox.  It's important we perpetuate the UFO and pantheistic 
charade, which has been our primary cover."

"Will the new subject be ready?"

"If not, there are others," said Krieg.

A sharp look.  "They want fresh meat."

"Either way, it'll be handled."

"For the sake of everything we've sacrificed and worked 
towards, I hope so.  Much depends on it."
     
"Then how far would you have me go to solve the Agent Scully 
problem?"

"I'm not advocating clemency, just wisdom."

Krieg said, "Loose spiders create paranoia, sir.  They make 
people nervous and careless."  He verbalized the unthinkable 
in a slow whisper.  "The events of Antarctica could very well 
happen again here."

Facing the window, the Big man continued his staring.  After a 
moment his chin lifted.  "Do as you think best then."     

************  

Johnson Hall, Hocking, Ohio
5:22 PM

Scully hadn't come to the rescue after all, Mulder deduced, 
opening his eyes.  Nor had she languished on an ambulance 
stretcher beside him, covered in dirt and fungal juice.

No, he was back in his room at good old Johnson Hall, strung 
out on the bed like a frat boy after an all-night kegger.  
Wiggling his toes and forcing a swallow, he realized his shoes 
were missing and his collar button undone.  His senses and 
awareness remained far from acute as he watched the ceiling's 
texture crawl and tremble.  

But at least the panicked visions had abated.  Now he 
concentrated on scraps of whispered conversation from across 
the room.

"I gotta go."  Hostetler sounded shaken.  "You think he'll be 
okay here by himself?"

"Of course.  I'll stay with him until I know everything's good 
again.  You needn't worry."

"What the hell happened up there anyway?"

Yeah, thought Mulder, closing his eyes.  Elaborate on that 
one.

Willow's voice was slow molasses, soothing the dean's 
uncertainty.  "He was overcome by a malevolent spirit, I 
believe.  Agent Mulder has psychic sensitivity to such 
phenomenon, but lacked the tools to defend himself from its 
attack.  We invaded the stronghold and it reacted.  That might 
be one reason he asked you to stay behind."

"Well, jeez...  Tell him I'll call in the morning, okay?"

"Yes, of course."

A door shut and Mulder detected rustling, muffled activity 
beside him.  His eyes flew open and he gasped at the clamp of 
a cold washcloth over his forehead.  Yanking it away, he tried 
to sit up against the headboard and focus on Willow's tall 
figure and billowing hair.  

"Were you just feeding Hostetler a big plate of bullshit?"

"Not at all, Agent Mulder.  Did what happened to you feel like 
bullshit?"

"To tell you the truth, I'm not sure what happened back 
there."

"Ponder it awhile."

"No, you tell me.  What's your--" 

He hesitated to verbalize an expression that had become 
cliched from overuse, threadbare from bouncing back and forth 
over the years between him and Scully. 

"My 'theory'?"  Willow smiled and sat on the edge of his bed.

"Your explanation.  What you sensed, but not about me.  Tell 
me what happened to Amanda Carmichael during the early morning 
hours of March tenth."

"By now I think you know."

Mulder's jaw squared; he lobbed the washcloth towards the 
bathroom where it landed with a wet smack.  "No riddles."

"Simply put, she was taken."

"Don't jerk me around, Willow; tell me something I don't 
already know."

"Like your sister was," Willow repeated, her voice rising with 
emphasis, "Amanda was taken in similar fashion to protect 
her."

"Is this an example of an accurate hit?"

"At least it's not a snide remark."

"So," he said, warming up, "I've got to explain to my partner 
that we can go on home because Amanda Carmichael was taken by 
walk-ins to protect her from an evil force that, for whatever 
reason, took up residence in the attic of her college 
dormitory in Ohio?  That it subsequently drove a student in 
1972 to suicide and attacked me today?  That Amanda's living 
somewhere, someplace in starlight for the rest of eternity, 
and her parents should accept the fact that their oldest 
daughter can be nothing more to them now than a spectral 
vision?"

"That sounds terribly cynical," said Willow softly, "coming 
from a man with so much experience investigating the 
paranormal."

Mulder rubbed a hand over his face.  "Maybe I have my limits 
after all."

"No, I don't think that's the case."

"For years I searched for my sister.  During the La Pierre 
investigation I began to realize I was looking for her in all 
the wrong places.  Or so I thought until I met Harold Piller."

"You mentioned that name before," Willow said.  "The psychic.  
Tell me about him."

A picture of the short, earnest man swam in Mulder's memory.  
Grief-stricken for his missing child, driven to action on 
Amber Lynn's behalf and then Samantha's, his doe-eyed 
intensity ran the gamut from comedy to pathos.

"He'd lost a son and concluded that the walk-ins had taken him 
too.  He said he began seeing other children in visions, who'd 
been protected in the same way.  But something bothered me."

"What?"

"For some reason he couldn't see his own son.  Why is that?"

"His gift may be selective."

"Scully thought he was a crack-pot."

"That doesn't surprise me."

Though irritated, he ignored the comment.  "After we found 
Samantha's diary I hypothesized that time is relative and 
nothing in the universe is truly ancient.  That, though souls 
like Samantha and the other children were dead here on earth, 
they're consigned to traveling through time, looking for 
homes.  Living in starlight..." 

Mulder regarded the woman's dreamy smile. 

"But I'm not so sure now," he said shortly.  "Maybe the 
visions of my sister last year resulted from some sort of 
walking sleep paralysis while in a hypnopompic state."

"Much too psychological."

"Or a confabulation, a fantasy that unconsciously replaces 
fact, as in the retrospective falsification that commonly 
results after regression hypnosis.  Maybe she appeared to me 
as an apophenic memory and I've taken the easy way out by 
discounting synchronicities that have been cropping up through 
the years."
  
"I don't think so."  Eyes brimming, Willow took his hand.  

"Bottom line?"  He gazed back at her, swallowed hard.  "I want 
to turn back the clock.  I want to believe my sister's still 
out there, waiting for me to find her."

************
    
Hocking, Ohio
A field near the Knoll complex
7:50 PM

Dusk arrived at a frosty crawl and fog blanketed the 
countryside, filling in slopes and weedy pockets with wads of 
insulation.  High above, stars began to glitter through scanty 
cloud cover.  

Scully pulled her hood off and shook out her hair, feeling the 
breeze comb her scalp with chill fingers.  Like the rest of 
the team she breathed out plumes, though hers were of carbon 
dioxide, not tobacco smoke.

She shifted her feet, huffing with impatience.

Still Tusk bided his time.  He crushed out a final cigarette 
with his boot and after a quick word to each member in his 
group, ambled with long legs through the rocks and weeds 
toward Scully.  

As the afternoon waned she'd had opportunity to observe his 
manner and methods.  Her father's daughter, she was forced to 
admit that as a team leader Tusk was impressive.  

Alpha, perceptive, detail-oriented, he seemed committed to 
encouraging his troops through communication and 
individualized attention.  Scully noticed how he played off 
their strengths and skills but knew where they might falter 
and protected them against those contingencies.  He radiated 
responsibility and self-belief, instilling the same in those 
around him.  Bound together by a common cause, his people felt 
his care, strength, and his confidence in them through his 
deep voice and frequent touching.  

She also knew Tusk was attracted to her and felt the heat.  
This free-sharing physical contact, Scully decided, had become 
blatant to the point of discomfort.    

A man of contradictions on a personal level, he could be 
tender and hostile, complimentary and then caustic.  He seemed 
always to stand with symbolic sword poised against hers, steel 
sliding back and forth in suggestive challenge.  It was a 
combination of qualities that through the years had sent mixed 
libidinous signals to a place lurking deep inside her.  

The risk.  The dare.  The seductive play toward consent and 
culmination...  She was loath to admit it, but the Smoking Man 
hovered close to the truth when he told her that she was drawn 
to dangerous and powerful men.

Watching Tusk's approach she was grateful for the benefit of 
experience.  She'd learned much from past mistakes.  And 
fortunately Mulder, a man who taunted the surreal and lived 
consistently on the edge, had filled that void within her to 
repletion in more ways than the psychological.

"Dana, you all set to go?"

"Of course."

"Remember the drill: we take the tunnel to the right fork at 
the edge of the field.  Then a quick jog until we're under 
cover.  Just like in 'The Great Escape'."

"Excuse me?"

"That old Steve McQueen war movie about a POW camp.  They dug 
an escape tunnel out beyond the barbed wire, thought it came 
up in the trees and out of sight -- except the tunnel ended up 
being fifty yards short and forced 'em to make their break in 
the open.  Just like we will."  

Looking up, she tried to read his face in the growing darkness 
and keep skepticism to low levels.  "Do you really expect an 
alien craft to appear tonight?"

"Not tonight, but it'll be back.  Always does, and I want to 
beat 'em to the punch.  At the very least we'll find 
disturbance at the bone orchard, so I need to check that out.  
Just in case..."

Sorrow edged his voice.  She felt a rush of compassion for 
this man, so committed to recovering a lost member of his 
family.  "I understand; in your shoes, I'd do the same."

Tusk scrutinized her for a moment.  Then he rubbed his hands 
together, gazing out toward the horizon where the dark 
silhouette of the Knoll loomed.
  
"I want us in and out of there like Flynn, clean, before they 
discover we're on to them."

"That might be easier said than done."  

"Tactical field maneuvers," he gave a small grim smile, "just 
like in the FBI.  Should make you feel right at home, Dana.  
Let's go."

His enthusiasm was catching, and Scully fell into step beside 
him as they marched toward the small, eager-eyed team that 
waited.  Tusk's pep talk drew his troops in, energized them, 
priming them for their mission.  

And out of the dusk, ensuring her inclusion in everything, 
strong fingers clasped the back of her neck and shoulder.  
They squeezed gently, instilling confidence.  

Tusk's hand slid away before Scully even thought to protest.

************

Miffed at being left behind over a simple injury, Footer sat 
instead with Needlenose to keep lookout near the cars and to 
man the walkie-talkie.  Mole went first when they unlocked and 
swung open the heavy grate.  Then Tusk, teamed with Scully, 
followed him into the tunnel with Cricket and Mason bringing 
up the rear.  

They crept underground, crossed Maglite beams dancing like 
mini-light sabers.  The air smelled heavy and organic, pungent 
from dampness and dirt.  Grateful for the occasional wooden 
supports, she followed Tusk's wide back into the darkness.

Fuzzy gray light signaled the tunnel's end.  They ignored a 
corridor that branched out toward the left and crept out on 
all fours into the weeds.  Before them lay the exposed stretch 
of ground Tusk had mentioned, with forest gloom beyond.

Spotlights flared and arced from the distant left, painting 
the far fringe of trees silvery with illumination.

"Security's awake," Tusk said, undaunted.  "Spread out a good 
ten yards apart.  Go in intervals, on your bellies.  From a 
distance it should look like nothing more than wind blowing 
the weeds around.  Then meet up in the woods."

Their destination occupied several acres of land within the 
forest.  Ringed by old growth trees and barbed wire fence, the 
graveyard hadn't been abandoned since the university's 
takeover.  Though no longer manicured for visiting family 
members or a viewing public, Scully noticed that much of the 
tall grass was newly shorn.  

Nightfall lay fully upon them when Mole clipped the lower 
strands of barbed wire and they scurried through the fence 
like rats.  By thin starlight she could see long rows dotted 
with depressions, visual perspective pulling them together 
toward one distant point.  The sight reminded her of Arlington 
and numerous other cemeteries, but with one glaring exception.

"Why are there no headstones?" she whispered to Tusk who 
crouched beside her.  His teeth and eyes, gleaming, caught the 
light.

"D'you think they'd bother for a bunch of loonies?  No names, 
either, just chiseled numbers.  Take a look at this."

He parted the grass before them and exposed a moss-covered 
stone lozenge.  Then another, a few feet away, until Scully 
realized these graves were merely forgotten blotches in the 
earth.  By design, each respective patient, an embarrassment 
to society while living, had been expunged from memory after 
death.

Even in the impersonal confines of an autopsy bay, a toe tag 
provided more than mere identification.  It gave the victim a 
shred of dignity and respect, of the right to enduring 
personhood. 

"They start over there," Tusk pointed, "to the left, closer to 
the main building.  Most of the books recording names-to-
numbers were destroyed in an office fire sometime in the 
forties."  

Rustling grass revealed Cricket, her lip ring aglow.  "We need 
to check that corner near the trees.  I'm serious.  
Something's weird over there.  I can smell it..."

Scully squinted, detected nothing.  "How do you know?"

"She knows," said Tusk.  "Remember I told you Cricket's a 
little bit psychic?  Plus, she's got eyes like a cat's.  Let's 
go, people."

Touching each member of his team, he jerked his head toward 
the spot the girl had indicated.  Guerrilla-style, they hugged 
the perimeter, flashlights off and cloaked in deep shadow for 
what seemed like hours.  

Mole, leading the way with Cricket, cursed aloud.

"Watch your knees," he hissed.  "Looks like we've had 
touchdown here."

Scully put out a hand and felt hard irregular lumps that lay 
fused to the ground, the result of intense heat and cooling.  
It felt similar to volcanic, pyroclastic residue, but not like 
anything that could have occurred mere days before.  

All around them the grass was scorched down to dirt.  Trees 
swayed overhead, most of their trunks blackened and split 
apart, survivors of a secret firestorm.

Scully nudged Tusk.  "Was there smoke on the tenth?  Did you 
see any indication of fire or sirens?"

"Nope, just the beam from their ship.  It varied in intensity 
and must've really cooked this spot good. No wonder this place 
is off-limits."

While Mole and Cricket melted into shadow, continuing their 
reconnaissance, the other members of the group brought up the 
rear.  Lights shone close to the ground, panning the area 
under the far trees.  Suddenly, one Maglite skittered and 
flung its concentrated beam into the night sky before hitting 
the ground.

"Fuck!"  Like a crazed bull, Tusk charged forward.  

Their position compromised, Scully's heart lurched as she 
joined the others and took in the scene before her.  Several 
of the graves appeared ravaged, dirt and stone tossed into 
piles.  His hand shaking, Mole's flashlight pulsed over the 
sprawling limbs of two corpses.

He breathed heavily to control his gorge.  "It ain't him," he 
said to Tusk, who hunched over the telltale beam in an effort 
to shield it.

"Where the fuck's Cricket?"

"Over there by that old shed, puking her guts out.  She 
crawled over one of their faces, that's how we found 'em."

Even under starlight Scully recognized the blistered skin and 
deep chancres to be radiation burns.  Piled together, the two 
bodies lay with their trunks agape from deep midline 
incisions, ribcages fallen inward.  Both were female of 
indefinite age.  She detected no smell of tissue necrosis or 
formaldehyde that would be indicative of exhumation.  The 
internal organs were mush and the abdominal fascia had the 
same edematous consistency she'd seen years ago on the victim 
taken from the Federal building in Dallas.

It was signature damage that pointed only toward the 
Syndicate.  Apparently the push for alien colonization 
continued unabated. 

What minions besides the Smoking Man had risen phoenix-like 
from El Rico's ashes to further this dark campaign?  How many 
innocents from around the world were still being salvaged for 
inhumane testing, taken and returned by alien craft in some 
sort of macabre lending-lab arrangement?

Agreement be damned, she had to communicate her discovery to 
Mulder as soon as possible.  

"Dana!"  Tusk, also perusing each body with a forensic 
detachment that surprised her, called her to his side in a 
whisper.  "Any of this familiar to you?"

"Too familiar, I hate to say."

"Could one of them be Amanda Carmichael?"

She scanned the bodies quickly for age-determining 
characteristics.  "No, neither.  Amanda's eighteen.  These 
women appear older by at least ten years or more."

"The escapees we hid had serious skin burns and body cutting, 
but none of the goop I'm seeing here.  Man, this is sick."

"No shit," said Mason, averting his face.

Scully glanced back over her shoulder.  "These two scenes are 
unrelated.  This dirt is freshly dug and the corpses 
relatively free of decay, whereas the ground over there was 
scorched much earlier.  These are new graves for new 
occupants."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying if the spacecraft came only once, days ago, then 
these women died somewhere closer to home -- not in outer 
space."

"Somebody do me a favor and check on Cricket.  We may have to 
bug outta here fast--"

They heard the hum of vehicles a split second before 
headlights pierced the forest gloom.  Scully knew that alone 
and physically incapacitated the girl's responses would not 
only put her in jeopardy, but might also endanger the entire 
group.

"I'll get her.  You lead the rest out," she panted, giving 
Tusk a shove.  He nodded, hesitated a fraction of a second, 
then melted into the darkness with Mason and Mole in tow. 

She moved like lightning, with instinct born from training and 
desperation.  Closing in on the broken-down shed, she saw 
Cricket struggling from knees to feet, unaware that the 
spotlights playing along the length of the old cemetery would 
strike her at any moment.

Ducking as she ran, Scully knocked the dazed girl onto her 
side and held her down.  The beam of light missed them by a 
scant few inches.  

"Into the shed," she ordered, pushing Cricket ahead of her.

"Tusk?"

"He's fine.  Move!"

Security jeeps had already swung around for a second pass.  
The door, Scully discovered, was either locked or jammed, but 
towards the back, the roofless, tumble-down structure had a 
low open window obscured by weeds.  At Scully's urging Cricket 
eased through the narrow opening, taking far too much time as 
headlights once again bore down on them. 

With only moments to spare, Scully lunged like a diver on 
adrenaline.  

She felt cold air bathe her lower back as she dove through the 
narrow space, followed by a hot stinging bite.  Landing on her 
elbows and stomach with a grunt, she shimmied close to the 
ground and pulled Cricket's body against hers.  Behind a heap 
of splintered wooden boxes they held their breaths in the 
darkness, hearts pounding.

Interminable minutes passed while security teams circled the 
cemetery.  They halted once near the scorched ground to 
confer, several men making another brief sweep on foot before 
returning to the bodies.  Sounds of digging seemed endless 
until the vehicles finally hummed back through the woods the 
way they came.   

"Thanks, but you can let go now," muttered Cricket.  "Sorry I 
fucked up back there."  She pulled away, sniffing.  "Hey... I 
think I smell blood."

Danger past, pain blossomed like a hot rose on the back of 
Scully's right hip.  The slight, clammy dampness she felt had 
become saturation.  Reaching back to grope with one hand, she 
tried to twist on her Maglite with the other.

"Here, gimme that." 

Cricket, frosty again, held the flashlight steady.  Using 
tentative touch, Scully found the long tear that went through 
both cloth and flesh.  She stifled a groan and held out her 
hand, fingers smeared shiny red in the slender beam of light.

"I think," she said dully, "it must be mine."

************
End of Chapter 12
Continued in Chapter 13