From steiner@acadiacom.net Thu May 15 19:23:21 1997 Subject: Every Sparrow Falling (1/5) From: "Alloway" -------- Title: Every Sparrow Falling Author: Alloway - steiner@acadiacom.net. Comments welcome! Summary: Horror. Deadly birds, mysterious soldiers and abandoned carnivals lead Mulder and Scully to small-town America, where they discover that dwelling on the past can be a very dangerous thing. Class: X Rating: PG - profanity and some gratuitous gore. Disclaimers: The X-Files, all characters therein, etc. belong to Chris Carter, Fox network, and all that... Spoilers: Vague references to various seasons, including 4th. EVERY SPARROW FALLING (1/5) For James LeBlanc, it began as it always did: the tang of buttered-popcorn scent, the flashing lights of the carnival rides, the cool weight of the semiautomatic stashed in his duffel bag. This time was different only in that he was alone; there would be no airlift to carry him out afterwards and no dozers to raze the remains of the neighborhood. This time would be his last. He'd clear this site himself--unauthorized, unescorted--because he quite simply deserved to die. He should have just obeyed his captain, but he hadn't, and now his mistake had multiplied a hundredfold. All those little sparrows coming home to roost. James barely heard the signal above the crowd's ruckus, but his battle-trained nerves stood his hair on end and helped him listen. Peanuts, the Gathering-cry rang. Popcorn. Crackerjack. The festival obligingly plunged into darkness--apocalypse disguised as a power-out--and James took the moment to observe the stars. They were so beautifully visible, out here in the country. He'd marked Orion-the-Warrior and grinned at Betelgeuse when the painful wheeze of the zydeco music reminded him that the fair was coming back alive. Only everything was different now; every *one* was different. The night air filled with the low rumble of erupting mud interwoven with an inhuman shrieking. Because, of course, they really weren't human anymore; it had been folly to ever think otherwise. Stupid, James, stupid. Too stupid to live. "Site confirmed," he whispered, although there was no radio relay. "We have the event." No choppers. "Trailwoods *is* Gathered." No escape. He managed to get into a decent semblance of fighting stance and lay down a first spray of fire before they overwhelmed him. As they swarmed over him, eyes glittering and hands curled into claws, he reflected on the fact that they still looked so very human. It had been such an easy mistake for him to make. ************************** For Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, it began with a sparrow. More precisely, with a flock of sparrows. Or, as Agent Mulder had put it, a *fall* of sparrows. "Clever turns of phrase aside, I imagine this must have been quite painful," Scully murmured, hunkered down by the body. The dead man was sprawled out peacefully, save for the bloodied mats of hair and the bird feet dangling out of his skull. Scully surmised she'd find the rest of the bird buried within. "Looks like it fell beak first, but still...given the impact, the rate of speed had to have been tremendous." "Indicating a long fall from a high point of origin," Mulder agreed. "Consistent with the recent evidence of lights in the clouds, odd humming noises--" "Mulder--" she protested. "Come on, Scully, this isn't the first unexplainable 'deadly rain' recorded," he argued. "You've seen the reports. Hell, you've *written* the reports." She nodded. "Frogs, rocks, crickets, seas of blood, and the inexorable sacrifice of the first-born..." she trailed off. Mulder was first; Samantha had been second-child. "No, Mulder," she said. "This rain is man-made. Or at least sent by aliens with terrible penmanship." "What?" Latex-sheathed fingers plucked one of the birds from its chosen spot of ground. "It's been stuffed," she said. "Hardened with a shellac-like coating. And Mulder--the writing is a dead giveaway." She rotated the bird to face him. Ignoring the blind, dead eyes, he focused his attention on the scrap of fabric sewn to the sparrow's chest. "Wife beating," Mulder read. Scully could almost hear the gears grind as Mulder shifted from alien-chaser to manhunter. "Scully, pass the gloves." The other tiny bodies yielded similar results written in the same shaky hand. Gang murders. Gambling. Fairs. Stealing. "A roster of sins," Mulder observed. "Punishment? Penance? A cry for help?" "Why fairs?" Scully said. "You puke on a big pink stuffed elephant on the Tilt-A-Whirl after six or seven hot dogs, and I'll show you the true meaning of evil," he deadpanned. "Seriously, maybe they have have bingo or sell beer." He shrugged. "Check out the writing, Scully, what do you think? Child or invalid?" "Invalid. So you're telling me we have a religious invalid unleashing stuffed killer sparrows across the Midwest." "Looks like it," he said. For once, though, he was wrong; it was a child. ************************** The field behind Henry and Patricia McCormick's barn was cluttered with sparrows. They were formed from metal, plastic, and mylar; they flapped, flew and fluttered. In the shadow of a six-foot copper fledgling, Fox Mulder regarded a delicate wood carving that hovered in midair, seemingly of its own accord; only the metal disk underneath suggested some other force at work. "You said you've seen the...craft...he built," Mulder said. McCormick nodded. "Yeah. Saw it flying around, dropping his sparrows left, right, and center." The old man shrugged. "Didn't see any harm to it. I guess I didn't know he'd take it out so far. Or fly it so high." McCormick sighed, the lines etched in his face settling in even deeper. "I called as soon as we heard the news. D'ya think--they won't take the boy to jail now, will they?" Mulder shook his head. "Given what we've seen here, no, I don't think so." Privately he thought that the couple could have used the rest. Caring for a thirty-year-old, self-directed savant with a mechanical bent and an obsession for sparrows had to be taking its toll. The boy--Henry and his wife both called Steven a boy--had refused to speak to him, but had immediately latched onto Scully. Hopefully she was getting something coherent from him. Meanwhile Mulder was stuck playing tourist; McCormick had proven a worn but dedicated tour guide, painstakingly pointing out the strange creations his sister's son had wrought. "I have to ask," Mulder said. "What's with the birds?" "Thought you'd be wanting to know that," McCormick said. "Come on back to the house and I'll show you." ************************** The McCormicks had warned Scully that Stephen rarely talked. His mother had disappeared, abandoning him, long ago; Maria hadn't been right, they'd said, and after hearing a little more of the story Scully had had to agree with them. She had faced off against this wiry little blond man, seeing his home-brew haircut, the professor-style tweed jacket he wore despite the heat, and most of all the deep blue eyes. She had known it was an unfair fight; nothing she could do would possibly penetrate the world wrapped around this man. Yet the blue eyes had flickered across her, and Stephen had spoken calmly, almost casually. "Are not two little sparrows sold for a penny? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's leave and notice." It was a challenge she could match. "Matthew 10:29." "Then you too are a keeper of the sparrows," he had replied, and smiled. <>, Scully thought. <> Mulder had herded the rest of the crew out of the room--she was profoundly grateful for his ability to read her smallest 'get them out *now*' gesture--and she was left alone to hear the sad confession. It was, she was discovering, more an epic than an explanation. >From what she could gather, Stephen's mother had believed that the evils of the world were due to God's simply not noticing them. If He saw them, the reasoning went, He would fix them. And the Bible promised that God saw every sparrow falling. Those two theories had fused into a bizarre ritual; as a child, Stephen Nicholson would sneak out with his mother in the dark of night, carrying a blanket between them, and--here Scully's mind reeled--they would toss sparrows. Sparrows they carefully prepared and labeled, using the blanket as a makeshift trampoline to blast a message straight to God. But mixed up with the bird-flinging was a host of other, unrelated images: Ferris wheels, bugs in holes, army men, flying machines... There was a point to Stephen's story (or at least Stephen thought so), but his desperate attempts at communication only underscored the verbal short-circuit he'd wired himself with. The more he concentrated, the more obscure and fragmented his language became. Finally he was reduced to phrases. "You shall dance with the devil in the pale moonlight." That was from the first Batman movie, Scully knew. "The swarms know, and the tides know, but the people must forget." No clue. "Clovis Hill is Gathered." She was lost, and Stephen recognized it. "Clovis Hill," he repeated softly, resigned; then he grabbed her hand and pulled her down the hall to his room. ************************** Wading into a room piled high with circuit boards and scraps of metal, Scully was met by Mulder and McCormick. McCormick gestured to a giant mixed-media painting, professionally framed, that hung on one wall. "The mother," he explained. He had never referred to her as 'my sister', Scully noted. "Her...work...has become quite popular. The rest were sold, but Stephen hung on to this one. Nobody wanted to buy it anyway; didn't fit the theme." Scully had to wonder what the theme was. This painting was mostly deep blue sky. Night sky. Mother-and-child silhouettes leaned in to each other, hands stretching towards each other as if to dance. Hugged between them was a bit of fabric--she would bet anything it was from the original blanket--and the sky was filled with the feathers of falling sparrows. Without a word Stephen reached up to tear the fabric from the canvas, unfolding it where he could and tearing what he couldn't unfold. "Stephen!" McCormick cried. Stephen blinked regretfully at the ruined canvas before presenting the scrap of crumpled fabric to Scully. It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing. "Mulder," she said. "There's a drawing here...looks like it was made with a marks-a-lot. Pretty crude, but I think it's a map..." "Clovis Hill is Gathered," Stephen confirmed. "What's Clovis Hill?" Mulder asked. Stephen shook his head in frustration; he had the answer, but the words were too few and too small to jump the gap between them. McCormick answered for him. "Clovis Hill is where the evil people lived." From steiner@acadiacom.net Thu May 15 19:23:59 1997 Subject: Every Sparrow Falling (2/5) From: "Alloway" -------- Title: Every Sparrow Falling Author: Alloway - steiner@acadiacom.net Ratings & Disclaimers in part 1. EVERY SPARROW FALLING (2/5) There had been a point in her childhood when Dana Scully had finally been able to make up for her killing of the snake. She had been playing at the edge of the lawn where a birdfeeder was posted--a clear plastic box shaped like an old-fashioned streetlamp--when a tiny sparrow tumbled in through the top feedhole and was trapped inside. Dana had eased the pole down and removed the lamp from its post, studying the captive with solemn eyes; it was the first time she had ever seen a live bird so close. It had been a brown, small thing, but so full of life. Even now she could still picture it, beak gaped open and body heaving as it panted in air like a dog, trembling and still for a moment before launching itself frantically against the plastic walls that caged it. The young girl had allowed herself a minute to appreciate the discovery; there was power in saving, just as there was power in killing. As she had released the sparrow she had felt an irrational impulse to watch the bird for some type of reaction: anger at being caged, or happiness at being free. Instead the bird had just blinked its beady eyes and flown away. Scully saw the same calm acceptance in the stuffed sparrow that Stephen had insisted on giving her. Stitched on its chest was the message he had picked for her: 'Fear'. She kind of liked having it on the dashboard. Mulder hated it. Scully had to admit that it did seem to keep diving at him. As Mulder changed lanes to pass an RV, the sparrow landed in his lap for the third time; he juggled it while making 'Gaakh' noises before managing to toss it back on the dash. Scully's lips quirked. "You don't seem very comfortable with the weight of someone else's beliefs, Mulder," she observed. "Scully, we're not talking about beliefs here, we're talking about--" "Obsession?" she said innocently. "Then why don't you tell me why we're following a hidden map to 'the evil place'--which is conveniently located right off the interstate, by the way--instead of taking the next plane home." "The fact that Maria Nicholson was obsessed doesn't mean that there's nothing for us to investigate," Mulder replied. "Although it does sound like a crummy sequel to Waterworld, doesn't it?" The wry grin he flashed her confirmed her suspicion that he was hiding something, a suspicion that grew even stronger as he continued. "Me as Costner, you as the slave babe, following a cryptic map to a strange land...." "I see you more as Dennis Hopper, but that's beside the point." "So you're willing to go with the slave babe concept?" he leered. Scully blew out her breath in exasperation. "Mulder, this is the third time I have asked why we're doing this. The first time you gave me a lecture on rural spiritualism that seemed to consist of a convention you went to entitled 'Elvis is God'--" "Good seminar," he agreed. "--where the featured guest was a lesbian Elvis imitator band called 'Elvis Herselvis and the Straight White Males'--" "Great band." "--and the second time you subjected me to a detailed analysis of the outcome of the falling sparrow case. Which, if you haven't yet noticed, is *over*." "Have you got the report typed up yet?" "I will type up the report," she said, "when you tell me why you're stalling. Afraid that I'll pick your pet theory to pieces?" "No." "Then what are you afraid of?" Scully saw Mulder's jaw tighten and work for an instant; then the sign of distress was gone. "You ever wonder how a town dies?" ************************** Probably when its idiot citizens break their necks crashing through underbrush in the dark, Scully thought. Sixty-foot pine trees swayed in the breeze overhead and tangles of weeds and bushes dogged her every step. Hard to believe they were less than a mile from where they'd left their car, back at the old interstate exit. "Mulder," she shouted, shining her flashlight in what she hoped was his direction, "unless there's an EZ-Serve over the next hill, I seriously doubt that we're going to find *any* evidence of suburbia here, let alone the not-very-plausible town of Clovis Hill." A shadow loomed up from between the trees. Mulder shook his head in disappointment, bending back some of the branches to clear a path for her. "An interstate exit not marked on any maps, barricaded behind 'exit closed' signs and cement blockades, and you wonder if anything's here?" "A blocked-off exit just means that the road doesn't go anywhere anymore," she protested. "With all the driving we've done, we've passed hundreds of dead exits." "Scary, isn't it?" "But it doesn't mean that they lead to secret bases, weird science labs, or ominous 'evil beings'. We checked this already, Mulder. Maria and Stephen Nicholson lived in Jason Forks." "Scully, Maria Nicholson was terrified of Clovis Hill. The things that she said were happening there--the things that she said were happening to *her*--" "Are an outward representation of an inner conflict. Except in a symbolic sense, there *was* no Clovis Hill." "Maria left 300 paintings and 36 binders full of writings that say there was." "And there are volumes of records and towns full of people that say there wasn't--" She stopped, abruptly, as she stumbled over a piece of rock; she swung her flashlight beam at the offending material. At one time, it might have been a well-manicured subdivision sign surrounded by flowers and possibly a fountain. Now wildflowers surrounded the crumbling mortar and the welcome sign was barely there; if you knew what to look for, though, the words 'Clovis Hill' were all too readable. Mulder's voice were soft. "*Was.*" ************************** Scully had run out of protests. Around them lay the carcass of what appeared to have been a neighborhood-slash-small town, circa 1975. Most of the buildings had been torn down but a few broken walls and bricks jutted from the bushes; tilted street signs and rusted, half-buried car parts marked the passage of man from this ground. Mulder had even found the corner of a small store, complete with blacklight posters and 70's-rock tee shirts. "Disco inferno," he'd muttered. The further in they hiked the more evident the tear-down efforts became, until they found themselves walking on cleared soil. The bare ground continued for such a stretch that even Mulder was ready to turn around. Then Scully caught the glitter of a chain-link fence at the edge of a grassy field. She swung her flashlight in an arc, the beam revealing strange sights at every turn. Carnival booths. Lights strung on poles. Stuffed animals. In the distance large, vaguely defined objects loomed; Scully shivered, knowing that they'd have to investigate, but not liking the shadows she saw cast. "You were right, Mulder," she reluctantly admitted. "Something was here, and this looks like the center of it. It's the only thing left standing." Mulder fingered the chain-link fence, then narrowed his eyes and leaned his weight against it. The fence shifted and tilted before crashing to the ground. "This was torn down once too," he said. "Looks like someone's tried to put the fair back together--didn't do a very convincing job though." He focused his attention to the shadows beyond. "Those are different," he said. An understatement, Scully thought, but she took his side as he headed towards them. ************************** Neither agent noticed the eroded skeletons until later. Crumbled, covered by a viscous orange fluid and the remnants of clothing, they lay half-buried among the ruins. The people who had once worn those bones had made one desperate, demented attempt to resurrect the fair after its destruction; it had been their final act. Not their final act as humans, of course; that had come and gone long before the fair's demise, though life of a kind remained even now. That orange awareness, still harbored elsewhere in the ruins, dimly realized that people had returned to the fair. They rippled with excitement; their plan had finally worked. So very long ago, they had sent out some of their...their...what was the old word, from the human times? Bodies. They had sent some of their bodies lurching out into the night, mud and blood wiped from jeans, feathered hair carefully brushed forward to hide the bullet wounds inflicted by the soldiers. The bodies were to rebuild the festival, to bring more people to join in the Gathering. But the orange, already diminished and hungry, had been further weakened by the effort. Their bodies had crumbled and fallen. The rebuilt fair drew no more people; the plan had failed. To the orange, it was a sign that they were wounded mentally as well as physically. But now the lonely, damaged minds exulted. People had seen the fair, and returned! People loved a fair. The song said it all. We can meet at the fair, we can eat at the fair. The orange loved to meet people. They loved to eat people too. Now they had only to call, and the Gather would begin... ************************** Wandering among the outer rings of spires, Scully could almost convince herself that the twelve-foot smokestacks surrounding her were the work of ants, termites, or one of a handful of other mound-building creatures. There was ample evidence of insect habitation--husks and eggs from dozens of species--and insects had been known to do such things. Heading into the center of the rings shattered that illusion. Insects don't sculpt. This portion of the would-be fair housed works that would win any sandcastle contest, as long as the judges were liberal in terms of subject matter. The people depicted danced, coupled and tore at themselves and each other with eyes closed and mouths open in a sandy expression of agony, delight, or quite possibly both. At the very center of the rings, surrounded by a shallow, empty crater, stood a different sculpture; groupings of men in uniform faced off against the horde of man-beasts surrounding them. Some fired guns, some fell to the ground, some seemed to be wrestling the creatures. The expression on these faces was hostility, except for a small form that stood off to the side, hugging one of the mounds; his face showed only grief. What held the eye, as much as the size and odd nature of the sculptures, was the realism of the figures. The weapons, the clothing, even the spilled flesh of the fallen were all rendered in painstaking detail. Fortunately, Mulder's macabre suspicion that the real things might be buried inside had been disproven by a few careful probings with a sharp stick. "What happened here, Mulder?" Scully whispered. He shrugged. "It's right in front of you. U.S. Army versus the evil monsters." "Who won?" He gestured to the darkness surrounding them. "You see any evil monsters around? I'd say that clinches things for the U.S." He left unspoken the fact that the soldiers were wearing generic camouflage, not army uniforms, and that they almost certainly hadn't celebrated their victory by making oversized sculptures of themselves. Defeated or not, someone--something--had remained behind to leave this mark. Slapping an insect away, Scully was reminded of the old saying: male mosquitoes hum, but don't suck blood; females suck blood, but don't hum. When should you be afraid of mosquitoes? When you don't hear humming. Scully didn't hear humming. But Mulder did. A child's lazy tune drifted through his thoughts. "Peanuts... popcorn... crackerjack..." "Did you hear something?" Mulder asked. Scully cocked her head, then shook it: no. ************************** The orange rippled again, this time with disappointment. The soldiers had destroyed so much of them, so long ago; there was no strength left even for the Gather-call. It had been foolish to even try. They were not thinking clearly; it was finally time to admit that they was damaged beyond repair. The orange began to diminish themselves from the Spires, sending waxy molasses flows of awareness to the abandoned shallows that once had been their merging-pool. Rising from the center was the death totem they had built for themselves: sandy admission that here, at least, the Gathering had failed. They twined themselves along the soldier sculptures, remembering that wonderful day when the Gather had first been called, all their bodies celebrating, before the men had come with their guns. Their tail ends trailed away from the mounds and the other sculpture. The boy. Some final trace of emotion made them pause for a moment, and remember sorrow, before leaving the Spires entirely. As they began to thin themselves into oblivion, the orange caught a familiar scent on their surface as the horseflies and the mosquitoes deposited their final gifts of plasm. Here was a cousin, the worms whispered; here was one who knew the lure of dirt and blood. But the cousin, no matter how vulnerable, was still stubbornly human; still hard to talk to. The orange arranged themselves, trying to form the old familiar letters for the man to see. "Hungry," they wrote in waves. "Help help help." There was no answer; the cousin did not understand. They had failed again. The sluggish flow from the Spires puckered and trickled out. In a final gesture of kinship they caressed what they could reach of the man, and let themselves die. ************************** Mulder drew his foot back from the moat with a noise of disgust. The shimmering, changing surface of the rapidly-filling pool had drawn his attention, and despite himself he had poked a foot in; for a second he thought he actually saw the material *crawl up* to meet him. He was about to see if Scully had noticed when she countered with her own unhappy sounds. Mulder followed her gaze; Scully was examining the remains of the mounds. Or rather, the remains of what had been inside the mounds. The mounds themselves were just waist-high now, with sticky trails of oil leading into...the moat. <> The bodies revealed within were well-preserved men and women with big hair and polyester clothing; Mulder's instincts told him that the missing Maria Nicholson had finally been accounted for. "Looks like I had the right idea after all," he said. "We were just poking the wrong ones." ************************** Scully had to admit that the cliche was right; things really did look better in the daylight. Here they were in the middle of a nice-looking grassy field, with no mounds, no sculptures, and no seventies corpses to be found. "Don't know about you, Scully, but I am getting sick and tired of this hotel-torching, evidence-disappearing, site-cleaning..." Mulder's voice had that loud rasp he got when he was frustrated; some of the workers were pausing their futile earth-tilling to look at him. "Mulder," she warned him. "...Bullshit." he finished, in a lower tone of voice. "*This*," he said, kicking the nearest anthill with his foot, "is the worst." Last night's anonymous cleanup crew had left them a token of sorts--little anthills, ankle high, in almost the exact placement of last night's monoliths. It was a sign of great control and a bleak sense of humor. It was also, Scully thought, a sign of hope. Any apartment dweller knew that you couldn't stop bugs; you could spray them, flood them, or even stomp them, but they'd just pop up somewhere else a few hours later. Scully wondered how long it would take this particular species to come back. From steiner@acadiacom.net Thu May 15 19:24:17 1997 Subject: Every Sparrow Falling (3/5) From: "Alloway" -------- Title: Every Sparrow Falling Author: Alloway - steiner@acadiacom.net Ratings & Disclaimers in part 1. EVERY SPARROW FALLING (3/5) The exhibition series was called 'Outsider Art', a placard told Mulder; smaller lettering informed him that the term, a replacement for folk art, better communicated the alienation and struggle of the untrained rural artist. This showing was 'Outsider Art, Phase IV: Maria Nicholson,' which explained the working aspect of Mulder and Scully's working lunch. The series focused on the artist just as much as the art; in addition to Maria's work, her writing desk, K-Mart brushes and tattered diaries were all on display. Walking through the gallery, Mulder couldn't shake the feeling that he was moving through a less noble form of exhibition, a zoo whose patrons--'insiders' like herself, he supposed--were to be amused by the antics of the animals kept within. He half expected a hawker to stroll by with cotton candy. Or peanuts, and popcorn, and crackerjack... The sad little life catalogue before him did nothing to dispel that feeling. Maria Nicholson, born 1931, disappeared 1976. Secretary for the county's largest taxidermist; led a seemingly average life from 8-5, typing and filing, before shutting herself up at home to become something extraordinary. A woman who for decades carefully transcribed her madness into an army of notebooks and an acre of canvas. A passionate narrator of her town's transformation to a place gone wild and hungry. A human soul, reduced to a few paragraphs for art lovers on their lunch hour. Mulder left the biography to join Scully in her contemplation of the canvases. Maria had offered up hundreds of windows with which to gaze upon her landscapes; some of the views were disturbingly familiar. The mounds, for example. The fairs and carnivals. And of course the falling sparrows. All scrawled with slogans straight from Hell's advertising agency: "Clovis Hill is Gathering." "The early bird catches the wyrm." "To ancients we return." Other portraits were unfamiliar; where did the endless road lead? What did the fog cover? Who was the huge man squinting down at the viewer? "I never knew you could paint with so many shades of black," Mulder mused. "Or red," Scully added. It took a second to get the charcoal-and-crimson paint splashes into focus. Fragments of a boy's photo--Stephen's?--had been torn and scattered among the teeth of an oily dragon-worm creature; the edges of the photo limbs were daubed with more red. Absurdly oversized yarn tendons dangled from each wound. Mulder shook his head in amazement. "Where did this woman live, Scully?" "Someplace bad," Scully answered. He raised his eyebrows at her. "A probing psychological workup from Dr. Dana Scully?" "Go probing on your own time, Mulder." She ignored his further eyebrow-wiggling. "You don't need a degree to know that *that*"--she nodded at the painting--"is not a healthy expression of emotion." "A cry for help," Mulder agreed. <>, he thought. <>. Cries he'd passed over and never answered. He paused for a moment to mentally berate himself before continuing. "I got a letter a while ago. Actually *we* got a letter. Although I should say letters--turns out we've collected quite a few of them over the years. But they make more sense once you've seen...these.." he said, gesturing towards the paintings. "I wanted you to see them before we leave." Scully sighed, acknowledging the inevitable. "Leave for where? What kind of letters?" "Oh, the usual, you know. Army death squads, lost towns, omens and portents, that kind of thing." ************************** The letters, spanning decades, showcased varying degrees of literacy and sanity. The worst ones--that is to say, the majority--were indeed little more than 'omens and portents'. Photos of two-headed cows and defaced brochures for the 'New England Fall Festival' competed for folder space with a twelve-page longhand account of mysterious road crews camping aimlessly for weeks at a vacant stretch of road. Maria Nicholson had sent many such letters. But James LeBlanc had only sent one. It was laser-printed on a premium brand of bond paper, paper not quite thick enough to mask out the headline of the New Orleans Times-Picayune article underneath it. The letter offered evidence on 'strange things happening at fairs and festivals' in exchange for 'assistance in correcting a grave error.' It concluded with concise notes on how to reach LeBlanc for more information; if he was not available, his brother Harris was familiar with the situation and could also be contacted. The letter was polite, educated, and intelligent. Unfortunately the polite, educated, and intelligent James LeBlanc had committed suicide in the main pavilion of SwampFest '97 shortly after posting the letter. He was dead before the FBI's thank-you-for-writing form letter could even hit his mailbox. The medical reports and interviews supported the T-P's article; LeBlanc had been a respected 35-year-old freelance writer and history buff who neither smoked, drank, nor took drugs. He was a quiet individual whose dying words had been about monsters. Scully closed the folder as a soft chime, and an increasing pressure on her eardrums, announced the plane's final descent into New Orleans. Turning away from the glare of the clouds rushing past the window, Mulder unlatched his seat belt; as usual, he was ready to get moving before the plane even touched ground. "Time to go meet the monsters," he told her. It sounded like he was looking forward to it. ************************** The middle-aged man at the terminal wearing a business suit and holding a white card with 'Mulder' scrawled on it turned out to be Harris LeBlanc, James' older brother. He had been one of the only ones to show interest in Mulder's inquiries; experts both medical and legal had already declared the investigation dead. With little evidence to go on, and not even a body to examine--LeBlanc had been cremated--Mulder had decided to go low profile. "I'd like to hold on to the proof for a few hours more this time," he'd told Scully. As they walked through the terminal, Harris fleshed out what the agents already knew from the transcripts: the elder LeBlanc and the rest of the family had always been proud of, and a little bewildered by, their changeling dreamer of a relative. Harris admitted he hadn't been close to his brother, mainly because of the age difference; still, he said, they kept in touch. "James always made sure to send me any magazines he was in," LeBlanc said. "And we got together sometimes for a beer." No, he didn't know anything about the letter James had sent. Yes, he'd be happy to help with their investigation. "My brother deserved better than a little story on page 20 saying he shot himself." Monsters? "Shit if I can explain it. I think he got misquoted." Their progress came to a halt at the abandoned car rental counter. Seeing the agents' confusion, LeBlanc explained, "We lost a lot of cars from the flooding this summer. The rental agencies have been booked up for months--they're still trying to ship in cars from out-of-state. The good news is, I've got a brand-new car, but the bad news is you're going to need to borrow one of the company trucks. Don't worry, I'll have one available by the time we get across the bridge." "Why's that bad news?" Mulder asked. LeBlanc shrugged. "No offense, Agent Mulder, but wait'll you see the truck." He walked them across the street to the parking lot, stopping alongside a gleaming black Infiniti. "Here we are." An airplane streaked by overhead, and LeBlanc's next words were drowned out by a splattering noise. For what seemed like minutes, all Mulder could see was a flickering of light and shadow as something dark splashed to the ground all around them. "Ah, no," LeBlanc moaned as the rain finally ceased. "Goddamn jet engines." The cars and ground were coated with birds...bloody, torn pieces of birds. Soggy feathers and hunks of meat dripped down the car windows and slid onto the pavement. Mulder instinctively looked for Scully, amazed to find her relatively unstained. A pain in his arm told him that he'd been marked, however glancingly. LeBlanc, on the other hand, was positively coated with gore. "Welcome to the Moisant International Airport," he gasped, wiping his face. "We're planning on building covered parking any day now." "I'm fine," Mulder said, shaking off Scully's grasp as she reached for his arm. "Just a scrape." She nodded as he bent to the ground, delicately picking up the offending object. It had been a sparrow. The foreparts were still intact: beak gaping open, feet pulled up tight against the body and talons clenched. It was impossible to guess what the wings and tail had looked like, but even without those, it was obvious that this was one bird who had not gone gently. "Stephen's killer sparrows," Mulder said softly. Scully tried to make light of it. "Stephen would say that God is watching us." Mulder shook his head, rubbing the scratch along his arm. He was surprised at the anger in LeBlanc's voice as the other man spoke. "Tell God he *missed*." From steiner@acadiacom.net Thu May 15 19:24:33 1997 Subject: Every Sparrow Falling (4/5) From: "Alloway" -------- Title: Every Sparrow Falling Author: Alloway - steiner@acadiacom.net Ratings & Disclaimers in part 1. EVERY SPARROW FALLING (4/5) Mulder shifted impatiently, inching the seat back a little further for the fifth time in ten minutes. "Six o'clock traffic," LeBlanc grunted. "Everybody's getting the hell out of New Orleans. Don't worry, things'll be different once we hit the bridge." As the line slowly inched forward, Mulder could see the bridge itself: two long flat spans vanishing into the horizon. By the time they passed the toll booth, he had read the signs that proclaimed "World's Longest Bridge", "Check gas gauge--No fuel 24 miles," and "Causeway updates--1610 am". "Seems like we're heading off the face of the earth," he observed. "What's the attraction?" LeBlanc shrugged, flooring the accelerator. "Mandeville's really exploded in the past few years. According to my friend the real estate agent, people are looking to get back to, quote, a traditional, old-fashioned, country town atmosphere." "Do they find it?" "Well, if big houses, big lots, and big golf courses make an old-fashioned country atmosphere, then I guess they do," LeBlanc shot back. "As long as they don't have sparrows," Mulder murmured. "Other than the ones on my car?" LeBlanc grimaced, although the Infiniti was once again gleaming. "No sparrows. Too common. You'll be seeing gulls, pelicans, purple martins. They come from miles to nest under the bridge at night, the martins. Big tourist attraction; it's incredible, the sky just fills with birds. My brother--" LeBlanc stopped himself abruptly; when he spoke again, the bluff good humor had vanished. "James was the one to notice the martins. They used to have steel fencing on the southshore, so you couldn't really see the birds coming in; he climbed over the fence and got some good pictures and a story out of it. It's in all the guidebooks now." The voice was hesitant now, almost pleading. "James could always find things like that. Out-of-the-way things. Hidden things. Do you think--Agent Mulder, Agent Scully, do you think that's what happened? That he found out something bad, knew something he shouldn't have?" Mulder cut Scully off before she could begin her standard no-evidence-of-foul-play speech. "I think your brother knew a lot of things," he said evenly. "Tell me, Mr. LeBlanc, have you noticed anything unusual about the level of insect activity in this area?" If the other man was nonplussed at the apparent change of subject, he didn't show it. "Well, there's a lot of them, but that's normal for Lousiana. Let's see...one of my men mentioned something the other day." LeBlanc owned a pest control company called Ha-Bob's; Mulder had drawn Scully's attention to that fact earlier, but she'd just rolled her eyes at him. LeBlanc gestured to the bridge railings; spider webs shimmered between the gaps, their fragile threads outlined clearly against the setting sun. "Apparently they cover the whole bridge. I thought it was interesting. Other than that, though, you'd have to ask my people--you can do that when we pick up the truck." LeBlanc fell silent, and Mulder had no more questions; the car was quiet for the remainder of the 24-mile trip. The view was indeed breathtaking: the still water around them glowed with pinks and blues, courtesy of the sunset, and gulls glided alongside the rails. But it was the spider webs that surrounded them as they made their way to Mandeville. ************************** Tommy Boudreaux, the college student whose truck they were borrowing, was one of LeBlanc's employees: young, handsome, earnest, and dreadfully limited in conversational topics. After giving Scully his business analysis of Mandeville--"It's hot, it's damp, everything rots. Total job security."--he seemed bent on personally demonstrating it to her. "You've got heels?" he said, glancing down at her legs. "Wow, do you!" he said admiringly, squatting down to ground level. "Now, just lean back a little, enough to get your heels through the topsoil." He reached out one hand toward her ankle to hold her steady. "You know, I saw her eat a bug once," Mulder said conversationally, stepping up to them. "Plucked it out of a jar, crunched it around for a while, and swallowed it right down." Tommy looked up, confused, before being spared further conversation by a car pulling up to the driveway. "Looks like my girlfriend's here to pick me up," he told Mulder, looking relieved. "Y'all keep my truck in good shape now." Scully watched in amusement as Tommy bolted for the car. "You scared him, Mulder. He was only trying to show me some termites." He feigned surprise. "Holding on to your ankle produces termites?" "Look," she said. "Tommy was right." The pressure from her heel had formed a small hole in the mud; there was a squirming flurry of activity as the termites within scrambled away from the light. "I guess it really does help to have an entomologist hold on to your...ankle," she added, the pause between words almost casual. Mulder knew better. "Time to get moving," he informed her, and led her to the truck, where a huge rubber roach stared balefully at them from the top of the cab. "More old-time country stuff," LeBlanc had explained. "Increased my revenue 300 percent." <>, Mulder thought, but that was a good sign. Clovis Hill had had a lot of bugs too. ************************** "Chez Best Western," Mulder announced, hefting his luggage out of the truck. "There's the vending machines; want ice or anything?" Scully shook her head. "Those crawfish fajitas will hold me for a while. I think I'll call it a night." "All right. Good night." He paused. "Scully...didn't you think things were a little odd tonight?" "What, the 24-mile-long bridge, the truck with a rubber bug on it, or getting rained on by birds that had just collided with an airplane?" He rewarded her with one of his infrequent, genuine smiles. "The neighborhood where we picked up the truck. Did you notice that everybody was outside, spending half their time trying to ignore us and the other half trying to figure out who we were?" He'd nearly gotten soaked by one hose-wielding housewife who'd wandered a little too close while "watering her garden"; she'd stayed so long in one place, listening, that her seedlings had actually begun to float down the driveway. "Just plain nosiness won't do as an explanation?" He gave her a pained look: no. Scully cocked her head, considering alternatives: standing here talking with Mulder, or kicking off her hose and relaxing. "I'll have to get back to you," she concluded. Mulder nodded. "Sweet dreams, Scully." ************************** Scully dreamt. She was in an abandoned building; it was dark and smelled of rotted wood and pigeon droppings. Her flashlight was squarely aimed at a jagged, sticky hole in the wall. Tooms had oozed himself through it and Mulder had crawled in behind him; she was left to wait and watch. Suddenly, with the logic of dreams, a man dressed in camouflage stood beside her. "The early bird catches the worm," he said. "Are you in time, Agent Scully?" <> Scully thought, getting her answer as Mulder's waving legs appeared in the hole. Mulder was screaming for help; screaming her name. "Pull him out," the stranger prompted. "Pull him out, quickly. Else when he goes in, he *stays* in. And one day he never comes out at all." Scully grasped Mulder's struggling form and pulled with all her strength. Slowly his body slithered out from the hole, coated in Tooms' slime. She eased him to the ground; as she did so she saw that it wasn't just Tooms' slime, it was *Tooms*. He had melted himself around Mulder, a gooey, quivering muck that stared up at her with angry orange eyes. The stranger made a tsk'ing noise at her. "Now look at the mess you have to clean up." Mulder on the ground, writhing in agony. Foul-smelling secretions flying in all directions. Tooms stretching out one impossibly long hand to claw at her. "Why me?" "Because that's what Sparrows do." Where had she heard that before? It was important, she knew. It was important for Mulder. Tooms had her throat now, squeezing, squeezing... ************************** Mulder awoke sweating, sheets tangled around arms and legs. He picked up the ringing phone. "Scully?" he said, instantly alert. There was a click on the other end of the line, followed by an electronic buzz. A voice said, "Hello. If you are concerned, as I am, about preserving our heritage and returning to our traditional values..." Mulder glanced at the clock; what was a political hack doing calling at 3:30 a.m.? Then he heard the static behind the voice and realized he was listening to a pre-recorded hack. Somebody had done a rotten job of programming a timer, somewhere, and he was suffering for it. Mulder slammed down the phone. The phone rang again, and Mulder picked it up, annoyed. "Listen, you scumbag, take your phone and--" "Mulder?" A bewildered voice: Scully's. "I--never mind. What's up?" "They know the house has termites," she said. "What?" "The people that were staring at us. They know the house has termites. Tommy said they're a big problem here; some houses have to be covered and fumigated, and some even need to be torn down. If there were a bunch of official-looking people and a termite truck at my neighbor's, I'd be a little concerned myself." "You mean nosy," Mulder said. "Whatever. But it's not polite to stare, so they pretend to ignore it while they check everything out. Or maybe they really do ignore it and hope everything turns out okay." "Is that *really* the best thing you have to dream about, Scully?" A moment of silence. "Well, I tried for Jean-Claude Van Damme, but he was booked." Her voice was light but he could hear the strain in it. Nightmare, then; unusual for Scully. "Hey, I got some genuine Louisiana potato chips here," he said, pulling up the bag so she could hear the rustle. "Kettle-cooked 'Zapps Cajun-Dill Gator Tators.' There's enough spices on one chip to clog every artery you've got. We can have a few while we explore the theory you've just come up with regarding the nature of the conspiracy here. Unless of course you think we're just talking about *regular* termites..." "Mulder--" she began, but the phone was silent; he was already on his way, full of ideas to bounce off of her, buried plots he was determined to dig up. *People must forget* was what Stephen Nicholson had told Scully, but then he hadn't known Mulder; Mulder would never allow himself the luxury of forgetting. Not even to save his own life. From steiner@acadiacom.net Thu May 15 19:24:55 1997 Subject: Every Sparrow Falling (5/5) From: "Alloway" -------- Title: Every Sparrow Falling Author: Alloway - steiner@acadiacom.net Ratings & Disclaimers in part 1. EVERY SPARROW FALLING (5/5) "This wasn't mentioned in the reports," Agent Mulder observed, flipping clumsily through the stack of canvases propped against the wall. "Or this," he said. There was a crash as the discarded paintings scattered across the wood floor; Scully winced, thinking that Mulder resembled nothing so much as the world's angriest garage sale shopper. She craned her head sideways to look at the offending artwork: different style, but the same substance, as paintings they had both seen before. Charcoals and reds, dragons and dirt and Ferris wheels. "Oh, those," LeBlanc said. "James was dating an artist. He said he bought all those to get her to go out with him." At Mulder's inquiring glance, he elaborated. "She was young. Struggling, you know? She went around to all the fests, selling paintings, earrings, carvings..." "Outsider art," Mulder said flatly. "She lived at the same place that he died, and nobody thought to look into it or at least talk to her. Not even you." It wasn't a question; it was something he knew instinctively. "Who is she? Where is she?" LeBlanc answered the rapid-fire demands automatically. "Her name was Theadra. Where she is--this time of year, there's a fair every weekend. She'll probably be there." "Where?" "All the big fairs are at the same place," LeBlanc said bitterly. "Follow the road signs. I'm not going." Mulder nodded. "I understand." He looked up from the paintings, his steady gaze leveled straight at LeBlanc. "But there's one thing you need to know. We've seen cases like your brother's." That wasn't too much of a lie, and it definitely got the other man's attention. "In each case, people's memories of the event had been suppressed--changed around somehow. From what you've just told us, I believe the same thing has happened here. I don't think your brother found out anything, Mr. LeBlanc...I think he was remembering something. Something I think you can remember too." "I told you, Agent Mulder, I don't know anything. I wish I did." "Your brother said you did," Mulder responded. "Do you trust your brother?" There was an incredible flash of anger in LeBlanc's face, gone in a heartbeat. "I did. But I don't remember anything." Scully knew where this was going; knew, too, where she and LeBlanc were going. "If he puts on a stupid accent and claims to be your soulmate, Mulder, I swear I'll strangle him," she murmured. He either hadn't heard or chose not to hear. "I'll be at the fair. Call me when you have something," he said, and then he was gone. ************************** "Where are you?" the hypnotist asked again. "Can't say...I mustn't..." LeBlanc muttered, eyes flicking half-open and darting restlessly around the room. They settled on Scully, seeking something undefinable, and Harris smiled with relief as he found it. "Night," he sighed. "We're walking through the fair. James is ahead--he's doing something--something wrong. I'm the captain; I know I should report him, but he's my brother and I trust him. Over the radio we hear that the event is confirmed; we get into position and shoot everything that moves. When we finish I call the choppers to come take us out, and flatten the earth..." LeBlanc stopped, eyes opening, and Scully realized that she was looking at someone else entirely: the steady gaze, the carelessly upright posture, all the little things about him screamed soldier. "Hello again, Agent Scully," the soldier smiled. "Good to see another Sparrow here." ************************** The woman in a gypsy skirt and dangling earrings had looked him up and down scornfully before pronouncing, "You're looking for alligator skulls, right? Or those little varnished crawfish playing the banjo? Three stalls over, to the right." Ten minutes of conversation, and the purchase of a pair of earrings, had helped make Theadra Jones a bit more amiable. "James was a good man," she said. "You know, the first thing he ever said to me was that he wanted to write about my art. The second was that I had beautiful eyes." Theadra laughed, a soft throaty sound. "But his writing always came first. He'd look at my paintings, and then start scribbling like mad." "He kept notebooks?" Mulder asked. "Oh, sure. Little red notebooks, stuffed full of sticky notes and napkin notes and God knows what else. He said they helped him remember," Theadra paused. "I still have some in my car. Do you want to see them?" Something was wrong with her eyes, Mulder realized, her eyes were... Blue. Her eyes were blue. James had been right; they really were beautiful. ************************** "This is hard to admit to anyone," LeBlanc said. "I promised I'd keep it a secret, but I guess it doesn't matter anymore...and we're just both going to forget it in a few days anyway." He smiled, ruefully. "James was letting people go," he explained. "A lot of soldiers do that when they're new. It's hard to shoot something that looks like a little kid, at least until you see what it can do to a man. The captain is supposed to put a stop to all that, of course, and report it." "Report it?" Scully asked. "There's a number we can call. We're not to ask who it is. But they send trackers to hunt down the ones who escaped. They're not the same once they've been at a Gathering; at their best, they're...wounded. At their worst they're killers." <>, Scully thought. "But you didn't report your brother." "He told me that he could tell if the people were still people. I trusted him. But one night some of his 'people' took apart half my team--some of my best men, my best friends. Like I told you, James was always great at finding things that were hidden; that night we realized that what he was seeing...was the part of them that used to be human." "I couldn't call for the trackers," he continued. "I'd let it go on for too long, they would have punished me and James both. I grabbed him by the throat and told him that he had to track down every single one of his mistakes himself. I told him he couldn't forget, no matter what it took: tape recordings, computer files; hell, I told him I'd tattoo the whole story on his butt myself if that's what it took to keep him going. And I drove him into the ground, over and over, until one day he didn't come out," he finished wearily. "James wasn't dating Theadra," she said, understanding. "Part of him was," LeBlanc said. "Part of him was hunting her." "Mulder," Scully said, scrambling for the phone. "*Is* she one? One of them?" she demanded of LeBlanc. He shrugged. "He never told me. But considering what happened to him...I'd say yes. And one of the bad ones." ************************** Mulder heard a ringing noise but it was very far away. There were other things at the fair that were much more important. That little girl, what was she playing with? Something red, and long, and sticky... The little girl looked up at him and beamed, beckoning him close. He bent his long legs down, easing himself to her level and leaning toward her obligingly. "Peanuts," she whispered, dripping lips splattering something onto his face. "Popcorn. Crackerjack." Mulder's legs buckled; he fell to the ground, slowly, as a rush of murderous thoughts and feelings assaulted him. A dark hunger that could never be sated, a thrill of power and violence that would have overwhelmed him if he hadn't spent so many years studying it. If he didn't, on some basic level, understand it. The last thing he felt before he blacked out was an unbearably joyous message of welcome. ************************** "Call the number," Scully demanded. Her voice was drowned out by the crunch of gravel as the car tore along the dirt road. "Call it now," she yelled. LeBlanc shook his head. "You don't understand," he yelled back. "I call that number and they take out everything. You, me, everyone else in the vicinity." "Then call your men." "It's been years since we were active," LeBlanc protested. "They won't remember." Scully's voice was low but dangerous as she held the phone out. "You've been living in Mandeville too long, LeBlanc. *Make* them remember." ************************** The artist and the little girl dragged the agent's body to the ring of Spires some yards away; for a few moments they scooped and poured sand over the prone form until the man's ancient instincts took over, slowly at first, then with an increasing eagerness and facility. The two women looked on with pride as a swarm of insects descended onto the foaming mound of dirt, burrowing intricate access tunnels in obedient response to the summons issued from deep within. Slowly, a new flow began to feed into the merging-pool at the center of the Spires. The orange was pleased. Mulder swam up into a new kind of awareness. Dimly he could feel the mosquitoes injecting blood into his veins, worms massaging his skin, mites carting oxygen into his lungs. He was changing--he was Gathering--but it would take time, and this was the beginning. That vague sense of loss was the fluid that was leaking from him: eyes, ears, and anus, he was secreting orange. No invasion, this; it came from him. This was something the human body could do. Something it was designed for; something that it was meant to do. Apparently primal man had been one violent, mob-ruled, crazy orange son-of-a-bitch. {{{Agent Orange. Quite a visual pun, if you could see it, Agent Mulder.}}} Human words came to him, from...elsewhere. He went questing after it, reeling as he slammed against a thousand orange thoughts from Spires and Mobiles alike. Not thoughts, precisely--more like a slow network built of taste and current. Meaning conveyed by a scent released from army ants or a flutter from the wings of wasps. Here was a college-age murderer, bloodying his secret collection of knives; there, a serial killer, gluing photographs in a spiral pattern to match the one vaguely remembered in his dreams. {{{Theadra Jones was an artist who left her brushes and tubes at her parent's house after a few painting classes revealed that her talent was mediocre though her vision was true.}}} *There*--he reached for the voice--and abruptly he was in Disneyland. Under Disneyland, actually: he was one with the things hiding in the service tunnels. A wall of bees spent their lives desperately fanning, fanning, so the orange could grow strong in the cool damp air... {{{During the floods her parents lost everything: furniture, photos, carpet, all turned to mold and sewage. But her father brought her the tackle box she kept her gear in; he'd spent days cleaning the brushes, rubbing off the oil paints. Because he knew that she would want them someday; she was his baby, and he was proud of her.}}} Now he was in the Main Street Parade, rotting orange flesh covered by a Mickey Mouse costume. Inside the plush mouse fur, gears and wires and armies of mantises gave motion to something that had no right to be moving, something that loved to reach out and touch the children, so sweet and so wonderful to touch the children... {{{She tried art again, filled with guilt and fury and love of her father--and touched on something she had found so very long ago, and then forgotten.}}} All of them, together and safe, just like the old days... {{{And recently she met a man whom she had met before. A man who was a sometime soldier. He sort of fell in love with her, until one day he opened up her tackle-box. As to what he found there, well, she hadn't been painting with brushes and oils, not for a long time. He tried, stupidly, to atone for his mistakes...and so here we are.}}} The fairs would last forever, and the orange would be whole at last, with the Gathering and the sand and the sweet sweet blood... {{{WAKE UP CALL! What's the matter, all that mousse got to your brain? I thought you were looking for the truth here! Good God, for someone who came to fix this situation, you sure love to dwell on your own problems, don't you? Let's see if I can get your attention before you drown in orange...}}} Suddenly there was a flood of memories, agonizing in their intensity. Everything he had done, everything he had been, came flooding back at him. Samantha and Scully and everything in between... Mulder's first words in this new medium were impolite in the extreme. A long howl of rage, followed by a ###MINE!### so vehement that the ants relaying the message twitched and died on their own toxic secretions. {{{Much better, Agent Mulder. Although 'yours' and 'mine' are probably pointless in here. I'm James LeBlanc. There are things you need to know before your Dr. Scully comes to rescue you...}}} ************************** {{{You're a lucky man,}}} LeBlanc observed, a lifetime later. Mulder could feel the firefight outside as an itching on his skin, faint and oddly distant. Scully was wounded, but dragging her tiny form toward him with a determination to match even the orange's. And then there was a tugging, and pain as light began to strike his eyes again. Words from outside. "You can't do this, Agent Scully. He's one of them now." "No he's not. And don't try to stop me." Darkness. ************************** Insects rambled through the broken trails restlessly, unable to find the target of LeBlanc's last message. Finally, they spent it on the empty sand. {{{It was good to see you both again, old friends. And I am so sorry...}}} ************************** That evening, the unmarked brown helicopters descended on Mandeville and razed the Trailwoods subdivision. A statue crumbled; known in some circles as a death-totem, it had shown gun-toting old men in baggy shorts, and two others besides. Two younger figures caught in an odd form of dance: the woman reaching down, arms straining, linked hand in hand to a sprawling man who reached up to her. Whether she was pulling him up, or he dragging her down, was impossible to say. That evening, the two agents wrapped up a case that was slightly changed from what it once had been. And that night, for Mulder, the visions began.