oyster two
Scully is angry, though but for the high flush of color in her cheeks no one would know it. A little extra brightness in her eyes, a tightening of her already tight-together lips. Nothing ostentatious or visible except to those well schooled in her body language. Mulder, however, knows, and tries to catch her eye several times, but she will not allow him to become a part of the problem as he so dearly loves to do; this is hers alone. A little thing, really; the autopsy she has just performed on Benita D'Orci has made her nauseated. She almost threw up during the standard process of disassembling a former human being, even with cotton balls laced with menthol stuffed up her nose to block the smell, and she is angry at herself for succumbing to such unprofessional feelings. Now her punishment is to not let herself run into the bathroom and relieve the queasiness. Four Hail Marys and swallow back the bile.
It’s not like she hasn't seen something like this before --and worse--on an X File, so there's no excuse for this reaction. The woman had been cleaning rooms in the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas on Friday, had spoken to her supervisor, had helped another maid change a bed in a room that wasn't hers. Then on Saturday morning she had been found in a janitor's closet, her body in such an advanced state of decay that she might have been dragged into a dumpster and left for the flies and the rats days ago. They'd had to tear out the carpet; the corpse had liquified into the fibers and the smell had permeated the walls of the rooms on either side of the closet. Scully still tastes it with every exhalation; she can breathe in through her mentholated nose, but each time she breathes out, there it is, a mouthful of foul gas.
How could such decomposition occur in less than twenty four hours? The heat? Some kind of rapid acting bacteria? Scully is at a loss, and frustrated because she could find no obvious cause of death, no broken bones, no fractured skull, no trace elements in the residue indicating toxicity. Nothing to suggest why a strong healthy female of fifty would drop down and rot away on the floor of a frequently used closet of one of the most well maintained and luxurious hotels in the world.
More suits than she'd ever seen even at an FBI convention had shown up, big Vegas muscle suits, like tuxedoed Rottweilers, and they had explained very carefully that this was not a matter for the CDC, should she entertain THAT thought in her pretty little head.
It hadn't been worth arguing over, though; she is fairly certain this is no necrotic bacteria. She didn't point out the obvious to them, but if it was a rapid necrotic meltdown, then why had decay stabilized when she was doing the autopsy? No, whatever happened to that woman happened in the past, and has stopped happening, or at least is progressing now at a normal rate of decomposition.
Most annoying of all, however, is the fact that however unrelated, however far out there this death was, Mulder will find a way to tie it to the case, and in some strange way he will end up being right. Unprovably, undeniably, inexplicably right.
Scully would love, too, to swim with dophins in the pink sea foam, to lie naked in the grass and count the stars. But when the world is a nervously bobbling balloon floating high and aimless overhead, someone must stand on the ground and hold the string. Someone who brushes her teeth every morning and wears pajamas every night and does her homework and knows which side the knife goes on when setting the table. Someone named Dana, who has never had a nickname, never skipped a period, someone who can be trusted to hold that string however hard it tugs and burns her fingers.
Sgt. Davila smiles at her. He is a thin, waxy skinned man with a big head that looks like it has expanded beyond his hair's ability to keep up with it, and even the comb-over has come up a bit short. He shakes Mulder's hand, and like most people, addresses Mulder in the assumption that he is the one in charge here. "So you weren't able to find anything in the autopsy?"
Mulder glances at Scully. She says, "The body was in a pretty advanced state of decomposition, sir. I've ordered further tests, but the tissue samples I examined showed no immediate evidence of contagious disease."
"I know this wasn't part of your investigation, but I really appreciate your having a look. I understand you've seen things like this before."
Mulder and Scully exchange a look. She says, "Not like this, no."
"Well, thanks for checking it out. I owe you one for that. So how's the case coming?"
"We're following some leads now," Mulder says. Scully looks at the wall, not wanting to participate in the lie. She knows it's coming and she steels herself for it, the windup, the pitch, the intake of breath: Mulder says, "I can't believe this was a random event. It has to have some connection to the disappearances we're investigating."
"That, or a hell of a coincidence," Davila says eagerly. "Hey, keep in touch, will you? I'll let you know if the lab guys come up with anything, and you let me know if you find out what happened to the gamblers."
"Deal," Mulder says,” and the men shake hands again.
Scully moves on, drifting towards the door as if carried by some invisible tide that swells and moves her on when no other power will do it. She ignores Mulder, though she feels the physical warmth of his proximity, senses him displacing air as he is dragged along in her wake by the same force.
Twice he stops at gaming tables and stares at the flashing dice as if pondering some dark Einsteinian secret there, his brooding face making the gamblers nervous.
Scully sighs. The string these days seems very taut, and the world pulls very hard.
Three