Title: Tellus Mater (05/07)
(Sequel to Pater Familias)

Author: OneMillionAndNine

Feedback: kokotheuberchimp@hotmail.com

http://www.geocities.com/onemillionandnine/

See 01/07 for detailed headers. 


*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

One morning, Gregor Samsa awoke to discover that, instead 
of a dung beetle, he had been transformed into Ringo 
Langly's father-in-law.

No, wait, that was Fox Mulder, right?  Or was it Marty?

Good old Marty Levine. Life as a dung beetle would have 
been easier to get my head around. I had a son-in-law. And 
that son-in-law was Richard "UberGeek " Langly.  So far, he 
and I had spent a lot of time with our hands in our 
pockets, just staring at each other.

It would have been whiny on my part to complain; it really 
would have been. I had spent more than a week at a time at 
the Gunmen's in my time,  for no better reason than I was 
bored and miserable and I had no one to go home to. The 
guys nurse-maided me through my divorce. They were closer 
to me than anyone but Scully in my old life. I had imposed 
on them far more frequently and with far less than reason 
than Langly was doing now. He was entitled. Thea was 
entitled. I was an asshole.

I saw how Scully loved her. Thea should have been ours from 
the beginning. She should have been able to carry her in 
her body, braid her hair, teach her to chew with her mouth 
closed. She should have been my little girl, like Sylvie. I 
should have been there to kick Langly's ass the first time 
he looked at her sideways.

It was a personal failing that I wanted to sleep in my own 
bed, I guess. According to my wife, making a pregnant woman 
sleep on the fold-out in the office was a violation of 
human rights that would land us on a Amnesty International 
hit list somewhere. If I was a better person, I wouldn't 
mind waiting in line for the bathroom, or sitting on wire 
cutters repeatedly, or coming home to find extra locks on 
the door, or that Langly had eaten up all the cereal. It 
was hard, too, with six people in a three bedroom house. I 
was constantly trying not to accidentally bump into Thea.

I couldn't get over being afraid it would be like Betty 
Roguebull all over again, afraid I would brush against Thea 
and lose every damned thing I had. So many people could 
really get hurt. The very idea was a very special fucking 
family nightmare. 

No two ways around it - they had to get out of the house. 
The sooner, the better. But how the fuck to say it?

Then it happened. 

Langly was coming out of the shower. I was trying to answer 
the phone and Thea was in the way. Our arms brushed. Skin 
to skin contact.

Inside her head was like nothing I ever imagined. The way 
she thought was utterly alien. I never imagined, for 
example, a thought-process centered around printed word 
rather than speech . It was fascinating - printed words 
flew everywhere, floated through a way of thinking that was 
both verbal and visual.

And what was she thinking about?

Langly, of course. 

A picture of him burned itself behind my eyes, milk pale 
skin on dark purple sheets.  Skin that, unlike Scully's, 
had no discernable pink to it. His colorless hair ran in a 
braid down his back. Thea reached her hands out and undid 
the single plait, sifting it through her fingers. His lips 
were moving as she brushed her cheek against his jaw. She 
loved his beard stubble, the way the texture contrasted 
with his soft face. Her hands slipped to his shoulders, her 
face to his chest. She loved his smooth, smooth skin. pink 
nipples, white eye lashes, the eyes I'd always thought were 
light blue, but which I now saw were a dark slate grey.

She had a shocking urge that passed quickly. He took her 
head in his hands and pulled her face to his. Instead of 
kissing, he. . .it was strange, he nuzzled her, I guess 
you'd call it. He rubbed her nose with his. Their faces 
glided over each other again and again, cheekbone over 
cheekbone, brow against brow. It was surprising to feel 
comfort like that without any hurt to go with it, and not 
nearly as bland as I would have imagined.   

Then things started to get surreal. She reached over to the 
milk crates stacked beside bed -  that had to be Langly's 
old room at Gunmen HQ - and grabbed a permanent marker. It 
was shining wet black and he started to giggle without 
sound as she wrote on his body. Ordinary words became 
erotic on his skin, the dark edges crisp and meaningful on 
their papery background. Linger. Found. Surprise. Shining. 
Drink. Pour. Spark. Warm. Burn. Glow. Breathe. Lift. Glide. 
Fall. Catch. The words ran around his legs and torso like 
streamers, until she took his left hand in hers, pressing 
her lips to his wrist to feel the rabbity rhythm of his 
pulse, and carefully wrote two words along the inside of 
his arm.      

El Brujo.     

I don't speak Spanish but I wouldn't be Fox Mulder if I 
didn't know what those words meant.

The Sorcerer.

I felt the blood rush to my groin as Thea pulled away.

It had taken a second, probably less than that, really.  It 
was the most tawdry feeling I'd had in my life, and not in 
a good way. I had gotten an erection for another man, for 
Langly, for fuck's sake. A Ringo Langly I'd never seen 
before who bore only a passing resemblance to the one I'd 
known for years.

He might have looked the same but he wasn't the same at 
all. He was sexy.

I'd have given anything to take that moment back and tuck 
in my elbow.

It took a few weird moments on the phone to shake the 
resonating desire. The day I had the urge to kiss Langly 
would live forever in ignominy. If I explained it to Laura, 
maybe she'd do me a favor and shoot me in the head. It 
wasn't just lust I felt; that was the problem. There were a 
few minutes of solid adoration in there. 

My god - he was beautiful to her.

Thea looked at me disdainfully, as though I had done it 
intentionally.  

"Why did you do that?" she signed. 

"Purely accidental," I gestured back at her. "And trust me, 
I could have lived the rest of my life in utter contentment 
without seeing that."

"Please!" She rolled her eyes. "That was gross. You are 
disgusting. A disgusting dirty old man!" Then she squinted 
at me, Scully-like. If she had spoken, she'd have said  
"Eeeeewwwwwww!"

"I hope someday your children talk like this to you," was 
the best curse I could give her.

At least I knew, once and for all, she didn't have a hidden 
agenda.


*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


He meant well, but "Man I'm sorry" wasn't going to cut it.

"Dammit Langly, you think she's just some girl? Some kid 
Scully and I had and never knew about. Think! Why would 
they design her?" I hadn't intended to, but somehow I had 
backed him up against the wall.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You really don't know? What do you think they were making 
in those labs at Zeus Genetics? Girl Scout Cookies?"

He froze. "Uhhh, well, she's really smart. They made her 
smart."

"Yes, she's smart. Hell, we're all smart. Even you are 
smart." I didn't mean to make it insulting, but it sounded 
that way. 

Disgusted, I fell back and took a seat on the edge of the 
coffee table. "But they didn't make her smart; they made 
her, period. Langly, from what we've been told, been able 
to figure out, they made me. They made Scully. I know you 
don't hear this very often, but you're the most normal 
person in this house."

Langly swallowed hard, but said nothing. 

"That's why we had to go, why we had to get out of the 
whole mess. It was the only way I could think of  to, I 
don't know what I was trying to do, exactly. Be free, 
maybe." I ran my hands over my head and Langly stepped up 
close.

"Frohike knows, doesn't he?"

"He knows everything I do," I sighed. "But most of what I 
know is conjecture and second hand."

"Tell me." Coming from him, it was almost pleading.

"Thea probably could tell you more." I rubbed my hands 
together nervously.

He looked down at his feet. "She wouldn't tell me anything 
that would upset me." 

"Oh." I nodded. Made sense, really.  She was protective; 
she was born to be protective. "Okay. Okay, yeah. Want a 
beer?"

Four beers later,  neither of us had said a word. We'd both 
peeled all the paper off our empty bottles, though. I had 
to tell him what she was. What I was. What he'd gotten 
caught up with on a cellular level, as it were. 

It took another two beers apiece to be able to even 
consider saying any of it. 

"I'm afraid, the longer you're here, the more likely it is 
that, um, that I'll want to um, sleep with her."

Langly clenched his jaw and held his bottle close his 
chest.

"That's - that's why I don't touch her," I blurted. "The 
Praetorians - that's what they call us, me and Thea, the 
others like us, - we're designed that way.  Designed to 
want to breed."

He squinted at me. "What?" 

"It happened before. One time. In Oklahoma. I asked you 
guys to run some DNA on a woman, Betty Roguebull. I touched 
her and, um, and I wanted her.  I mean, we almost, we 
damned near, the two of us, me and Betty, we - we nearly 
raped Scully."  I drew my knees up to my chest. 

"Holy shit," Langly breathed.  

"Yeah, um, skin to skin contact is the trigger."

He blinked at me.  I could see the gears turning behind the 
thick lenses. "It's a tool to accelerate the evolution of 
the product line, isn't it?" 

"That's my best guess." 

"Pretty smart if you got the stomach for incest." He slid 
lower on the couch. "But I guess, considering that we've 
discovered so many of the Project guys were old Nazi 
doctors, I suppose there's not a lot they didn't have the 
stomach for." 

I nodded. Our feet were lined up side by side on the coffee 
table. I looked at his beat-up tennis shoes.

He looked up at me again. "Jesus. All that time, 'you' were 
the proof you were looking for."

"Yup." I rolled the bottle in my hands. "But who would I 
show me to? The world has seen me, Langly, and it was not 
impressed."

He was quiet a moment. "What else is there? I mean, what 
modifications?" 

"All the systems are kicked-up -- immune, reproductive, 
adrenal. Brain, too. They did a lot to the brain, actually 
- eidetic memory, increased synaptic connection. And 
emotionally, too, we're, um. . ." I  trailed off. I 
wondered if he could even hear it.

"What do you mean?"

"We were made. . .we were designed to protect the 
consortium's genetic stock."

"Some kind of SuperCop?" He sounded impressed.

That was so funny, I had to laugh. "More like some kind of 
SuperSheepDog. You know, there are some sheep farmers that 
take a large breed puppy before it's eyes are open and they 
feed it sheep's milk and they keep it with the sheep so it 
bonds. Then they have a dog that will fight to the death to 
protect the flock. We were made to bond with the flock. Or 
at least, one particular member of the flock." I looked at 
him for a comment and got none.

"You ever wonder-" I had to clear my throat before 
continuing. "I mean, did it ever seem strange that I looked 
for my sister for so long? Other boys loose their sisters 
and they don't spend the rest of their lives beating their 
chests about it."

"I guess I just figured you were close." He sounded 
tentative.

"We were, but other boys go on with their lives. They grow 
up, get married. I tried, but I couldn't do it. When they 
assigned Scully to be my partner, she took Sam's place. Not 
as a sister," I couldn't stop the sad grin that crossed my 
face for a moment, "but there was a bond, from the very 
beginning, with Scully that was completely different from 
anything else in my life. The evidence suggests They 
intended it to happen that way."

He nodded. "So, Thea and Gibson?" he asked

". . .were not just Hansel and Gretel holding hands in the 
Consortium forest. She was assigned to keep him alive, and 
I'm still not sure how or why, but she failed. It's her 
basic programming - mine too, for that matter -  to protect 
the flock, even if it is a flock of one.  Honestly, Langly, 
if he hadn't told her, you know, 'ordered' her, to go find 
you guys, she probably would have ...well, she wouldn't 
have lasted too long. We're like that." I chuckled. 
"Without a greater purpose, we tend to become even more 
endearingly reckless."

"So you're saying what? That you think I'm her 'purpose'?" 
His voice was flat and quiet.

I nodded. That was about the size of it. Huge as it was.

He sniffed. "So, she doesn't love me? I just flipped the 
right switches, triggered the right circuits? Figures."  
I'd had this same conversation, or a variation that was 
more of an argument, with Scully about a million times. 
We'd debated it to death. The answer I came up with always 
the same. 

"I love Scully. She and I, we were made for each other."

"Really, truly made for each other." He sneered. 

I tried not to take the sneer personally, but I was getting 
frustrated, probably because I couldn't help imagining 
Langly heading right out the door and not coming back. Not, 
come to think of it, unlike I had pictured Scully doing 
over and over.

Luckily, the cavalry came charging to the rescue drying her 
hands on a dish towel. "Do you love Thea, Langly?"

He nodded, frowning. "I didn't chase her across the country 
to get my jacket back," he answered, and sniffed again. I 
couldn't tell if he was holding off tears or a sneezing 
fit.

"Did you decide to feel that way?" 

Langly sniffed. "Well, I-" 

"No," Scully answered for him, "you saw that she was an 
available female in her breeding years, with bright eyes, 
clear skin, thick hair, and a number of other indicators of 
good health. Her personal loyalty to you indicated to the 
primitive part of your brain that she'd be an attentive 
mother. I'm willing to guess she made some sort of initial 
advance, and it all fell into place." 

"But I-" 

Scully plowed on. "Mammals evolved the nurturing instinct 
to improve the survival rate of increasingly helpless 
young. All the evidence suggests that humans evolved the 
pair bond for the same reason. Love isn't fire from the 
gods; it's simple biochemistry and evolution in action." 
She turned her focus on me. "For all of us. For everyone."

I couldn't help giving my usual response to her usual 
lecture. "Tish! I love it when you speak gobbledegook!"

She glared at me like she wanted to mount my head on a 
pole. Then she swooped down and kissed me, like maybe she 
had other plans for me.  

When I looked up, Langly had gone to bed.


*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


I pushed my way through the bedroom door to find Thea 
looking really, really hot, all of the sudden.

I tried to shake the buzz in my ears. I was a lot more 
wasted than I meant to get, I guess, because I couldn't 
remember what I wanted to say to Thea.

For the first time since I 'd found Thea again, I looked at 
her pregnant body and I wasn't uncomfortable. I was turned 
on. I did that, I thought to myself. Me. Not some jerk in a 
lab.

Wasn't there something I wanted to ask her?

The cotton panties I bought her somewhere in Colorado must 
have shrunk or something because that night, they were so 
tight that they made a perfect white triangle on her ass. 
The MDC shirt I wore the entire time I was hitchhiking 
didn't even cover a third of her stomach. Her belly button 
was wrong side out. I turned my head to look at it.

She was staring at me.

Oh, I remembered the question.

"Do you love me?" I asked, trying not to weave.

She looked concerned, but Mulder 'let me get you a pillow' 
concerned, not Scully 'order a spinal tap' concerned. 
"Langly, you're drunk," she signed at last.

"Don't call me that The." I accidentally left off her 'a' 
as I signed. "I don't wanna be like them." I pointed over 
my shoulder at the living room. "Call me Ritchie."

"Fine. I love you, Ritchie," she signed my name with 
exaggeration. "Now come to bed."

"Do you? Or am I just a substitute? Second best?" The 
buzzing in my ears was getting really loud.

"For who?  For G?" That was the closest she ever came to 
spelling out his name.

I nodded, but it wasn't a good move. 

Her eyes narrowed. "This jealous thing doesn't look good on 
you, R.I.T.C.H.I.E."

"Do you - did you ever think about him when you were with 
me?" 

She blinked at me. "Did I ever wish I sucked him off like I 
do you? Like I 'did' you I mean, because you won't let me 
anymore? Is that what you want to know?" 

Man, I felt dizzy. "Yeah. Did you? Do you?" 

"He was a sick boy with no one else in the world but me," 
she signed as if that settled it.

I shrugged and spread out my arms. "Small world. But I 
think you need to answer the question."

She pulled herself until she was sitting up in Mulder and 
Scully's bed. I had clearly pissed her off.

"I loved him, but it was different than this. I never 
thought about," she shook her head "even kissing him. I 
never wanted him this way." She rubbed her stomach. "I 
think he saw so much of it in people's heads all the time 
it disgusted him. When he got older, and he didn't feel too 
bad, I think, I think he hated those feelings when he had 
them." Her fingers stumbled.

"If you could trade me for him, would ya?"

"No!" she signed. "No." She seemed guilty. 

"So, you love me?"

"Yes," she signed. "I love you and your skinny white ass, 
too, and your green nylon wallet and your ugly glasses. I 
especially love your green nylon wallet. Now, get in bed."

I forgot to worry about love for a minute. "You think my 
glasses are ugly? You know, I'm not pathetic. I mean, I 
don't look like Mulder but I'm...I'm...My kung fu is the 
best."

"You're a genius, Ringo," she signed seriously.

"Yeah. Yeah, I am. So don't feel sorry for me." I warned 
her.

But she grabbed me by the collar and started kissing me. It 
started kind of rough, the way she could be sometimes, but 
it turned into one of those long, slow her-tongue-in-my-
mouth-then-up-the-side-of-my-jaw kind of things. By the 
time her lips were on my ear, I was putty in her hands. 

Well, maybe not putty. Putty was definitely the wrong 
analogy.

I had joined the ranks of the pussy-whipped. 

It probably happened the first time I went to bed with her. 
But that night, that was the first time I noticed. And it 
wasn't so bad. I was starting to think the only guys who 
said that were guys who weren't getting any.

Then I fell off the edge of the bed. Of course, her 
sympathy was truly touching. She laughed at me.

From where I was sitting, even her hand and the top of her 
head looked pretty. It was lighter than I was used to her 
being. After I climbed back onto the other side of the bed, 
I wanted to touch it.

Her hair was like Scully said. There was a ton of it, but 
thin and shiny, as soft as, as, I dunno, feathers. It 
seemed like there was so much about her I had never 
noticed. She needed studying. 

I inhaled. Okay, I knew her smell. I kind of knew it at 
first from sitting next to her when I was trying to teach 
her stuff. Then the first time she jumped me and started 
tickling. I didn't even realize I remembered it. She 
smelled like a rabbit.

I kissed the little soft place behind her ear. On second 
thought, it was rabbit and something else. I could suck 
down that smell all day. My fingers ran over her thigh but 
stopped on the edge of her panties.

The inside of my head sounded like a blender. She wobbled 
and took her panties mostly off. They were still on one 
knee. Hint, hint. Real subtle. 

I tried to concentrate on the skin on the inside of her 
thigh, but I wanted to screw her before she even took her 
panties off.

No way. No way. I couldn't fuck her this big. I shouldn't 
have even been doing this much. And god, in Mulder's house. 
In his bed. It was wrong wrong wrong but I was drunk drunk 
drunk.

I brushed four finger tips in between her lips. It didn't 
count if there was no penetration, right?

I tried to crawl in between her legs but I hit my nose on 
her stomach.

It hit back.

That was really funny for a minute.

I hadn't done this too much. I pressed my face into her 
thigh. I held my hands over my head and signed. "Oh Hell. 
I'm lame in bed. I'm sorry."

She sat up and rubbed my head. I couldn't look at her. She 
took my hand and started spelling into my palm with her 
finger.

I LIKE WHAT YOU DO.

I spelled back with my free hand without looking up  WHAT 
DO YOU KNOW? YOU'RE A VIRGIN.  WERE, I MEAN. YOU DON'T HAVE 
A LOT TO COMPARE ME TO.

Instead of arguing, she took my hand and put it right on 
her clit. 

It was a really simple premise. I ground down. She 
shuddered. I sighed and did it again. One, two, three, four 
times. She lifted her hips and I pushed harder with the 
heel of my hand. The smell was floating up from her, like 
hot baked goods. My whole head was filled with the smell of 
rabbits. 

She signed at me but all groggy. "Glasses - hand them 
over."

"I'm drunk," I answered. "I need to see what I'm doing." I 
ducked my head and kissed her clit. I knew it was probably 
wrong, but it was what I wanted to do. I was bad in bed. 
I'd show her just how bad I was. I'd do what seemed right 
and she'd see.

I swallowed my fear and started to suck. I sucked on her 
clit. I tasted it and felt the shape of it in my mouth. 
Between my sweat and the fog on the inside and her, uumm, 
whatever on the outside, I couldn't see a thing out of my 
glasses except smear and a couple of pubic hairs, but I 
didn't stop. She pushed up against me, shaking, and I kept 
going. In a minute, she did it again. 

Maybe it wasn't wrong, after all. It looked like I made her 
come twice. Cool. Maybe if I didn't stop I could do it 
again. I paid close attention to the pressure of my tongue 
as she shook some more. My face was all wet. I slipped two 
fingers up inside her and licked with big broad strokes, 
like a dog. I licked her like a dog. She seemed to like it. 
She kept coming, anyway. Five times altogether, I think, 
before she kicked me off her.

Okay, maybe she didn't exactly kick me off of her. More 
like she was trying to wiggle away and accidentally kneed 
me in the chest. 

"Owwwwwww!" I yelled before I signed, in shock, "That 
hurt!"

She moved over to me faster than I thought she could, 
stripped my shirt off, and started checking me for broken 
ribs. "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry," she signed.

"Ow. You're hurting me. Take it easy."

"You're okay?" She squinted at me.

"Yeah."

"You swear?"

"On the grave of Joey Ramone. Now lay down and let me hold 
you." I signed and put my useless glasses on the night 
stand.

She was huge. If she went all the way to nine months, we 
were gonna have to use a winch to get her off the couch. 
She'd have to give birth in the house because we weren't 
going to be able to get her through the door. And she was 
giving me serious wood.

I couldn't just hope she wouldn't notice; it was like 
hoping Frohike wouldn't steal one of your fries.

Her hand went straight to my hard-on.

"Let me," she signed.

"I'm drunk and I need to sleep."

"I could sit on the floor, you could sit on the bed," she 
signed, and licked her top lip. "I'll show you what a deaf 
girl can do with her mouth."

"I know what you can do with your mouth. I just want to 
hold you like this tonight, okay?"

Thea frowned and closed her eyes. I put my arm around her 
and waited for the hard-on to die down. I wanted to go to 
sleep, too, so I could wake up and feel awful and get the 
whole thing over with.

But she was staring at me. Her breath smelled like milk. 
Her eyes were a bright, strange green, like leaves. 
Underneath the brown, her cheeks were flushed pink.

She had legs. I mean, I knew she had legs. But they were 
chick legs - long, muscular chick legs. I looked at her 
face. If she wore make-up, she might not look creepy. She 
might just look like a regular girl. Her little tits were 
changing, too, were bigger, heavier. It occurred to me I 
had married a chick and didn't even notice.

That didn't sound right. 

My dick was so hard it hurt. It was not going away. 

Screw it. I'd go jerk off in the bathroom. 

I threw back the blanket and got out of the bed.

"What are you doing?" Thea stared at me. 

I was pissed off, suddenly, but I wasn't sure why. "Going 
to the bathroom." 

"To?" she signed, then shrugged and pumped her fist up and 
down.

I nodded. "I thought if I waited it would go away, but you 
keep making it worse."

She reached up and stroked my stomach, then slipped half 
her hand down into the front of my jeans. "Can I help?"

"Uhm, no thanks. Just let me go take care of..."

"Can I watch?" I think she was leering. 

I felt less drunk, but incredibly tired. "I really want to 
get it over with, okay?"

I went in the master bath and closed the door. At least, I 
mostly closed the door. I didn't slam it because I didn't 
want her to think I was mad or anything. 

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror. Washed my glasses 
and dried them on a towel so they were all linty. The ache 
had traveled from my balls up to the pit of my stomach. I 
felt nauseous. I turned my back on the mirror and unzipped 
my jeans.

Ten minutes later, I hadn't gotten very far. I was still 
hard and in pain. One thing had changed, though; I was 
feeling desperate. I couldn't figure out what to picture. I 
mean, it would have been disloyal to jerk off to some Laura 
Croft fantasy with Thea in the other room, right? And I'd 
never been turned on a by a pregnant chick in my life, so 
thinking about Thea was weird, too, even though I couldn't 
stop myself. 

I shut my eyes and tried to picture her looking, um, 
normal. I tried to think about the time she convinced me to 
do it in alley behind the headquarters. Up against the wall 
in the surveillance camera's blind spot. It was stupid and 
scary and really, really hot. I had thought my heart was 
going to explode the whole rest of the day. 

But I kept getting flashes of her on the bed - with a black 
t-shirt not covering her belly. When I tried to picture her 
the way she really was, I was kind of distracted by the 
fact that she was about ten feet away.

I tried to open the door, but she was standing on the other 
side. Who'd have thought a deaf girl the size of a 
Winnebago could sneak like that?

Man, how could I have been mad at her? None of this was her 
fault.

"Lord Manhammer retired to his chamber, only to be greeted 
by the lusty sorceress, Ygrain," she signed and waggled her 
eye brows. 

It made me smile. The couple of times we'd played this way 
it had been fun. "Hey, babe, wanna polish my sword?" I 
signed and she made a little laugh snort.

Before she could answer me, I grabbed her hands and wrapped 
them around my dick. That must have been just what I needed 
all along, because I came pretty fast.


*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

There were some things I knew were true.

I knew my mother was a liar. I knew my mother wasn't my 
mother at all. I didn't think my father was really my 
father, either, but I wasn't one hundred percent on that 
one. I did have eyes, though. There was no way the two of 
them could have made me together. My father had brown hair, 
green eyes, and peach-colored skin. My mother was white. 
White skin, white hair - her only color was some pale blue 
in the center of her eyes.

I have black hair. Curls. My skin is light brown. My eyes 
change color.

Even if I never talked about it, I remembered. I remembered 
a time when she wasn't my mother. I remembered sleeping in 
a bed between a woman with long black hair and dark skin, 
and a man with curly blonde hair. I remembered that man 
flying me like an airplane, like you saw dads do sometimes. 
I remembered playing with a badge and that there was a gun 
in the house. Maybe my dad before was a cop. The woman had 
a messy office with a chalk board. She looked Mexican or 
Hawaiian, I think.  

Sometimes, if I tried hard, I remembered a funeral. And 
another man, a bald man, with the dark haired woman. 

But I might have been making that up. Maybe I saw it on TV. 
I'm not sure.

There were some things I knew were lies. My mother said the 
dead body with only one arm dumped in the front yard wasn't 
Dad. She also said it wasn't full of worms and it didn't 
smell that bad.

She said I was becoming a man, but as near as I could 
guess, I was twelve. That didn't sound much like a man to 
me. I didn't know why she said it. I thought it meant she 
wanted me to drive or something.

I didn't think my name was really Alex Krycek Jr. either. 
The one I remembered from before sounded like GHEE. But 
maybe I was making that up, too. 

She seemed crazy right then. Or maybe she was crazy when 
she was at home yelling at Mrs. Gresham about some thing 
wasn't dusted right, or because the windows were streaky, 
and she was really only normal at times like this, 
surrounded by guns and medical equipment.  

It was scary though, her being so quiet and watching, paying 
close attention to everything. Paying attention to me. Like 
she was looking at me and seeing him. Even if she was not my 
mom, she shouldn't have stared like that.

Then one day in the car She called me Alex. She said this was 
going to be a fun trip. 

Even then I knew some things were lies. I wished I was 
home. I wondered, if I made a run for it at the next gas 
station, could I make it back home to Martha's Vineyard?

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The two months that followed HairBoy's departure were 
strange. Byers and I, we tried not to think about it too 
much, but if you live with a guy for over a decade, it's 
hard not to have a little twinge when he up and takes off. 
It's human nature.

Then, one day we were sitting there, not talking about 
Langly, not looking at his empty chair, when who should 
arrive at our front door but the artist sometimes known as 
Yves Adele Harlow. She looked up and into the surveillance 
camera. "Frohike, let me in."

I flipped the switch and gave her her answer. "Not by the 
hair of my chinny-chin-chin."

She tapped her foot, looking very bored. "If you're trying 
to get me to threaten to blow your house down, give it up 
now."
 
"Can't fault a guy for trying, beautiful. Come on in," and 
I went to unlock the locks.

About half way through the opening procedure, she yelled 
through the door, "It's the human mushroom I really need to 
talk to." 

I couldn't help but look at Byers behind me.

As the door swung wide, she pushed her way through and 
started turning on her heel. "Where is he? Don't tell me 
he's finally left the house? Is he still in bed?" 

"He's gone," Byers spoke up.

"Where? The arcade? Some Dungeons and Dragons game? The 
allergist?" She was antsy. "Optometrist?"

"What do you want with him?" I asked the obvious first.

"I need to ask him a very important question." She crossed 
her arms. "When will he be back?"

I shook my head. "Sister, you just asked the sixty-four 
thousand dollar question." 

She looked down her nose at me. "What are you babbling 
about, Frohike?" She turned her gaze to Byers. "What is he 
babbling about?" 

"He's gone," Byers answered quietly, rubbing his hands 
together. "It's been more than a month. He got a letter 
from Thea and he just left."

"Do you know what the letter said?" she asked me.

Byers beat me to the punch. "I think it's time for you to 
answer some questions, Miss Harlow."

"Such as?" She wrinkled her nose 

"What do you want to ask Langly?"

"Why do you want to know it so bad?" I chimed in.

"And does it have anything to do with Thea Fidelis?" he 
came right after.

"There are some dangerous people looking for Miss Fidelis 
right now. One dangerous person in particular, and I can 
only think of one reason this person would want to get her 
hands on Miss Fidelis. If anyone could confirm my 
suspicions, it's Langly"

"Why not ask us?"

"What do you know about Thea Fidelis, about what she is?"

"She's a praetorian, just like you," I told her.

"No, Frohike, not just like me. Betty Roguebull and I, as 
well as the rest of our particular production line, were 
legitimate, above-board stock designed to be utilized to by 
the entire Consortium. Thea Fidelis was part of a side 
project most of the conspirators considered so dangerous 
that they destroyed the lab where the work was being 
performed. Only two of the experimental models survived."

"What were they afraid of?"

"That Spender would succeed."

"Succeed how?" Byers asked. 

"His aim was to build a praetorian that could produce 
SuperSoldiers outside the lab."

"Produce SuperSoldiers? How?"

She smirked. "The old-fashioned way."

"What's this got to do with Langly?" I asked. 

"What do you think the chance is Thea could be pregnant?" 

Byers stepped backwards. I let out a long whistle without 
meaning to.

"Well?"

"Anything's possible," I answered, trying to think on my 
feet. Of course. That could have been it; that could have 
been why Langly cut out of here so fast. It could also have 
explained why she left in the first place, aside from the 
obvious threat of Byers' Maiden Aunt. 

It didn't seem right, though. Sure, Blondie could be a 
lame-brain from time to time, but not even he would get 
nookie without taking some precautions, right? 

Right? 

Jeez, didn't his old man ever have that talk with him? Of 
all the bonehead bullshit the guy had ever done... I wanted 
to... I didn't know what I wanted to do to him but whatever 
it was it was painful.

"Exactly what can you tell me about their relationship?" 
She pursed her lips. She could make faces all day and it 
wasn't going to change how much Byers and I knew, or didn't 
know. 

"Nothing."  I shrugged. "I mean, we know they were doing 
it. We're pretty sure it was a regular thing. From what we 
saw and pieced together, it was a regular thing."
 
"Marvelous." She leaned backwards against the wall with a 
sigh. "The world may very well have to brace itself for 
some splendidly geeky SuperSoldiers."

I was flustered. Okay, more than flustered. I was spinning 
my wheels, thought-wise. "What?" 

"You think she knew?" Byers sounded as rattled as I felt. 

"Unlikely," was Yves's only reply.

"Would it even work?" I finally managed. "If you're right 
about Thea being one of Cancerman's side projects-" 

"Oh, let me assure you that I am right about that," she 
replied. 

"-even if," I continued, "It's just Langly. The guy's not 
exactly what comes to mind when you think 'prime genetic 
material.'"

"Regardless," she answered, pulling herself to her full 
height, which wasn't much at all, but seemed like more. 
"Someone wants to know, and wants to know very badly." 

Byers looked at her steadily. "Who is it?" 

"Yeah," I added, "and why the hell do you care?" 

She turned her gaze on Byers. "Marita Covarrubias." Then 
she turned to me. "And call it sisterly concern."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

End 05/07