TITLE:  Ersatz Promises (5/8)
AUTHORS:  Susanne Barringer and Suzanne Schramm
EMAIL:  sbarringer@usa.net; sister_suze@yahoo.com
Info and disclaimers in part 1.

Missing chapters available at 
http://www.geocities.com/s_barringer/ersatz.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~


CHAPTER 5


I struggle to come to consciousness as I hear the phone ringing.  
My sleep is deep, so deep even the fuzzy nausea and my pounding 
head don't keep me awake.  These days, I either can't sleep at 
all, or I can't wake up.

The trilling continues.  Thinking it's Mulder, whose voice I 
desperately want to hear, I grope for my cell phone in the gray 
dawn.

"Mulder?"  I immediately curl up into a ball to fight the 
churning nausea that rises from my abdomen.  My body feels heavy 
and immovable.  I need help.  I need Mulder.

There is a silence at the other end, then a quiet "Agent Scully?"

I don't recognize the voice, and the thick haze suddenly 
surrounding my head isn't helping.

"Yes?"

"This is Jacob Turner.  We talked yesterday?"  I fight through 
the dizziness that threatens to overwhelm me, finally getting my 
bearings and remembering I'm in Doylestown.  This is more than 
morning sickness.  This feels like death.

"Yes, Mr. Turner.  Is everything okay?"  I sit up and put my head 
between my knees to keep from passing out, my grip tight on the 
phone as if it's a lifeline.  I already know, whether 
instinctively or by the tone of his voice, what he's called to 
tell me.

"Rebecca, my daughter, died last night."  His voice is suddenly 
clear and strong, as if he's steeled himself.  The latest wave of 
nausea finally passes, and I am able to sit up.  I lean against 
the headboard for support.  This infant's death was expected.  I 
saw her chart yesterday - it was only a matter of time.  I had 
told him to call me when it happened, hoping maybe I could talk 
him into letting me perform an autopsy.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Turner."  I'm not sure what else to say.  The man 
has lost everything.

"Something's going on, Agent Scully."  He clears his throat 
loudly before continuing.  "I went to sign the forms to release 
her to the funeral home, but someone had forged my signature."

Suddenly, I understand.  "She's gone?"  My heart is racing, 
pushing away the last bit of fuzziness in my mind.  I should have 
stayed at the hospital.  I should have known they'd come for the 
evidence.

"Yes.  She was released to the Carter-McKnight Funeral Home in 
Philadelphia.  I don't understand how this could happen.  How 
could this happen?"  His voice is calm, despite the anguish he 
must be feeling.

How could any of it happen?  How could I be sitting here, 
carrying a child I don't know anything about, talking to a man 
who has had his child taken by people he has never even met.  
There is nothing explainable about this.

I tell Mr. Turner to call the police and that I will meet him at 
the hospital in an hour.

It takes less than ten minutes to confirm my suspicions.  The 
Carter-McKnight Funeral Home doesn't exist.  Not in Philadelphia.  
Not anywhere.


*****


Unable to sleep, I get an early start, arriving at HealthQuest's 
parking lot just before 6:00 a.m.  I'm still blowing on my coffee 
when Kevin Scanlon himself comes out of the building and gets 
into a car.  I sit up fast, scalding myself in the process.

He drives out of Columbia, heading into an expensive residential 
area.  I have to hang back further and further.  I nearly miss it 
when he makes a left turn.  I make the same turn in time to see a 
large iron gate closing.  I park the car, walking along an 
imposing brick wall, too high for me to see over and with no 
convenient footholds to pull myself up.  I peer through the gate, 
but the driveway disappears into some trees and I can't even tell 
what kind of house is inside.

I follow the wall until it joins up with the fence from another 
lot.  This one is a little lower, and I'm able to climb it to 
breach Scanlon's.  I land in a corner covered with creeping 
myrtle.  I creep with it, able now to see what kind of house 
destroying lives can buy you.  If Scanlon is living here alone, 
it's the worst kind of extravagance.

That thick wall around the outside must have him lulled into a 
false sense of security - the patio door is unlocked.  Inside, 
the house is surprisingly spare.  The walls are bare.  Only a 
couple of rooms are furnished, and even that is minimal, but 
expensive-looking.  Maybe he moves so often it isn't worth 
decorating.  There are a table and two chairs in the dining room.  
The floors are tile or wood, and I'm forced to walk slowly and 
lightly, not wanting to advertise my presence. 

"What are you doing here?"

I whirl around, startled that someone could come up behind me 
undetected.  It's Scanlon.  His face, which was angry, turns 
pale.  This man, whom I've never met, recognizes me.  He's right 
to be afraid.

I skip the formalities and pull my gun on him.  "Tell me what you 
did to her."

"Did to who?"  He looks behind me nervously, as if he expects I 
didn't come alone.  "Who are you?"

"Dana Katherine Scully.  You might know her better as 2317-616."

He shakes his head.  "I don't know what you're talking about.  If 
you're here for money, take anything you want.  You can have my 
watch, it's a Rolex.  Just please don't hurt me."

"I don't want your goddamned money.  I want answers.  I want to 
know why, you son of a bitch."

Scanlon raises his hands, still shaking his head.  "I don't know 
what you're talking about!"

"Bullshit!"  I come up close on him, shoving him backwards.  "You 
have about ten seconds to come clean with me."  I push the gun 
against the center of his chest and he stays pinned to the wall.

"Come clean about what?"  His gaze darts frantically around the 
room, and I wonder if there's someone else in the house.  "I 
don't know what you're talking about."

"Two," I count, raising the gun to point directly between his 
eyes.  "Three."  A bead of sweat starts at his hairline and he 
blinks.

"Four.  Five."

His eyes close and he takes a deep breath.

"Six.  Seven.  Eight."

I slide the safety off, the sound louder than normal here in 
early morning suburbia.

"Wait," he mutters.

"Nine."

"Agent Mulder.  Wait."  His eyes open.

"Funny, I don't remember telling you my name."

He shakes his head.  "That's who you are, aren't you?  I've heard 
about you."

"Then you know I'm not exactly stable."

Scanlon frowns.  Yeah, he's heard that, too.  "Take your gun off 
me."

"No deal."  I push him back when he tries to take a step away 
from the wall.  "First you tell me what I want to know."

He keeps his eyes down as if his explanations have dropped to 
floor.  "Your partner is part of a very small group of women.  
You know about the Allentown donors?"

"My partner is the only one from that small group still alive."  
I press the gun against his cheek and his skin turns even paler 
at the point of contact.

"Please, Agent Mulder, let me explain.  Please?"

"I'm listening."

"The women, the other donors, there were others besides the 
Allentown group.  We've been questioning, well, wondering, how 
they would react to a pregnancy."

"So this is her baby?"

"No."  Scanlon flinches; maybe he anticipates my urge to hit him.

"Then whose is it?"

"We," Scanlon hesitates.  "We've done this project in stages.  
The first phase involved cloning human subjects, using alien DNA 
and their own for hybridization."

My God.  Samantha.  Samantha and Kurt.  Phase one.

"Go on," I tell him, my heart squeezing tight in my chest.

"In phase two we began experimenting, using the DNA of the 
hybrids with that collected from women, such as your partner.  
Emily Sim was a result of those studies.  She, and all the other 
children created, failed to thrive."

Failed to thrive.  I can feel the tic in my jaw start.  Scully 
had asked "Who would create a life whose only hope is to die?"  
I'm looking at him now, Scully.

"So we began looking into ways to slow the growth of the hybrids 
created in the first phase.  They mature too rapidly, going from 
infant to adult in a matter of just a few years.  By grafting in 
some of the DNA from the donors, we believe we have corrected 
this problem.  But we needed test subjects.  Unlike the clones 
which are grown in tanks until they reach maturation, these 
children could be created in the lab but had to be gestated in 
the normal fashion.  We've been taking the eggs from women who 
come to our clinics for in-vitro fertilization and combining them 
with the hybrids, then implanting the fetus in the normal way."  
Scanlon pauses and licks his lips.

"Keep going."

"We ran into problems right away; in most cases the mother's body 
would reject the fetus.  This happens 75 percent of the time in a 
normal in-vitro procedure, but the curve was slightly higher with 
our project, close to a 90 percent rejection rate.  We 
experimented with many different 'fixes' before coming to realize 
that if the mother was given a dose of the serum in which we grow 
the hybrids the rate dropped to only 50 percent."

"Is Scully being given the serum?"

"No," Scanlon shakes his head.  "All the abductee subjects 
already carry the antibody contained in the serum, just in a 
dormant fashion.  It seemed more feasible to use them, rather 
than having a non-abductee mother come in every few weeks for 
'treatment.'  The first two test subjects were doing well at 
twenty weeks, so we continued with the others, including your 
partner."

"I'm sensing a 'but' here."

Scanlon sighs and tries to move away from the wall.  I push him 
back.  "But what?"

"Complications arose around twenty-four weeks.  As near as we can 
tell, there is some kind of chemical change that occurs in the 
both the fetus and the mother."

"And?"

"A baby, at its most basic, is a parasite in the mother's body.  
In the body of an abductee, the baby begins to lay siege to the 
mother's cardiovascular system, in essence grafting itself to 
her.  If her body has not rejected the baby by now, it will turn 
on her when her immune system is exhausted."

"She will die?"  I can't believe this.  How will I ever tell 
Scully?  "Why can't you give her the serum now, won't that 
reverse it?"

"No, we've already tried that.  The serum is meant to nourish the 
baby, not the mother.  In a mother so depleted the serum only 
accelerates the process."

"Son of a bitch!"  The rage I've kept in check during his 
explanation boils to the surface and I shove him to the wall 
again, this time holding him there by his throat.  I want to kill 
him, to make him feel one-tenth of the pain and anguish that 
Scully will.  "How could you do this to her?"

Scanlon gasps and wheezes, his hands pulling at mine.  His face 
starts to turn purple and I release him, pushing him to the side 
so that he stumbles and hits the floor.

"I saw her name on the list of donors."  Scanlon coughs, his 
shoulders shaking.  "I heard how attached she was to Emily, how 
much the child meant to her.  I was trying to make amends.  I was 
trying to give her back the chance to be a mother."

"So she's carrying a hybrid, a Kurt that's going to kill her if 
she carries the baby to term, assuming her body doesn't reject it 
before then?"  I pull him off of the floor and he weaves as he 
tries to stand in front of me.

"No.  She was so attached to Emily, I gave her a girl."  Scanlon 
rises unsteadily, bracing himself against the wall with one hand.

A girl.  Another Emily.  Even though I know Scully can't carry 
this baby to term, part of me wants to buy her something pink.

"Emily," I murmur.

"No."  Scanlon shakes his head sadly.  "A Samantha."


*****

End 5/8