Part 18

The first Day's Night had come--
And, grateful that a thing
So terrible had been endured,
I told my Soul to sing.

She said her strings were snapt,
Her bow to atoms blown;
And so, to mend her, gave me work
Until another morn.

And then a Day as huge
As Yesterday in pairs
Unrolled its horror in my face--
Until it blocked my eyes.
     ~ Emily Dickinson
 

Gary rolled onto his side and pulled a pillow over his head, trying to forestall the inevitable.  No, not the cat and the paper, but the thought loop that was there, lurking, waiting for his mind to pull out of sleep and remember...something.   What was it?

No, sleep some more, come on...

Bizarre coincidences.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

Accident-prone FBI agents.

Tried to remember the dreams he'd had the night before.  There must have been some good ones.

"You hear voices of your own, don't you?"

Yeah, well, Marley had pretty much ensured that Gary would be hearing one particular voice in his head for a long time to come, a voice that said things like--

"Good morning, Chicago!  It's going to be a great day, sunny with highs in the upper thirties..."

Shocked fully awake, he bolted upright and slammed a pillow at the alarm clock.

Meow.

Thump.

"Aw, man."  He rubbed his face with both hands, trying to get a grip on his racing thoughts.  After Mulder and Scully had gone back to their hotel, he'd spent a few minutes with his friends telling them what had happened on his end and listening to them--Marissa, mostly--assure him that, if indeed he had been right about having unfinished business with the FBI agents, it had now been completed.

Chuck had made noises about the suspicions that had been directed at Gary, but in the end Gary didn't blame Mulder and Scully for wondering why their paths had been crossing so much.  Marissa was right--they were just covering their bases.  Agents Mulder and Scully were not Marley.  He couldn't live his life mired in paranoia.  There wasn't time to worry about things over which he had no control.

Trying to hold those positive thoughts in his mind, he squared his shoulders and opened the door.  "Okay, let's see, buddy," he greeted the cat, shoving it off the Sun Times.  "What do you have for me today?"  Maybe it would be something easy--a lost pet or a dumpster fire.  Certainly after the past couple of days he deserved a break.

Page one:  Bond issues, El expansions, upcoming elections.  No problem--not his, anyway.

Back page:  Sports.  Speculation.  Would Jordan retire after this season?  Nothing definite.  Gary chuckled as he tried to imagine himself convincing the deity of Chicago basketball to change his mind.  Would this be the year the Cubs finally won the Series?  Yeah, right.

Well, he figured, hope springs eternal.  If there was anything he could do to break the Curse of the Cubs, though, the paper didn't give him a clue as to what it would be.

He strolled over to the sofa and flopped down, propping his feet on the coffee table and opening up the paper for a quick perusal.  Instead of heading for the kitchen and its water and food, Snow's cat followed Gary and pounced on his chest, front paws on his neck, glittering green eyes peering into his own with fierce intensity.

"What?"

Meow...

The cat's tail brushed the pages of the open newspaper.

"Hey, c'mon, what is it?"

The tabby made no sound, no move except for its tail.  It was at times like this that Gary wished he knew what to call the damned thing.  If he had to sit alone in a hotel room and talk to an animal, he thought, it would at least make sense to use a name.

He finally broke eye contact, his stomach and spirits sinking by the second.  The cat only acted like this when something was wrong--more wrong than usual.

This time was no exception, Gary realized as he raised the paper over the cat's view-blocking form.  He sat up straighter as he read the story marked by its tail, his eyes widening, his stomach tightening.  The cat, on the other hand, curled onto Gary's lap, satisfied that it had done its job.  Gary stared at the story, then at the cat, then back at the story.  His mouth had gone dry.  He tried closing his eyes, but vertigo overtook him.

Something was wrong, or, rather, it would be soon.

Something would be very, very wrong indeed.

* * * * *

The diner on Michigan Avenue was one of the trio's favorite haunts, especially in the morning.  It didn't have the atmosphere of McGinty's, but the food was cheap and the windows afforded a decent view of activity out on the street.  It was also in close proximity to the Blackstone and to Strauss & Associates.

Outside, the morning was bright and cheery; the sun was shining and the wind had died down.  In the park across the street, early morning joggers were taking advantage of the mild weather.

Inside, however, the mood was considerably darker.  Gary, Chuck, and Marissa were huddled in a booth, trying, and often failing, to keep their voices low.

"I've been telling you for months now, that thing is out to get you," Chuck hissed through clenched teeth.  "This proves it."

"Oh, please, Chuck, that's not it at all," Marissa chided, her voice just as tense.  "This is a warning.  Without it, this...thing...it--"  She swallowed.  "It would have happened anyway."

"That's where you're wrong, sister," Chuck retorted.  "Without the paper, he never would have run into Scarecrow and Mrs. King in the first place."  He waved his hand toward the window, as if to encompass anywhere in Chicago that Agents Mulder and Scully might be at the moment.  "And this has something to do with them, I just know it."

Just then, the waitress came with coffee, chomping firmly on her gum as she took their orders.  Gary listened to the everyday sounds of the diner--clattering dishes, the hum of conversation, the occasional whir of traffic outside--and thought he'd never noticed before just how jarring it all could be.  He scanned the other diners, all normal-looking people as far as he could tell, and wondered if any of them were capable of--

"C'mon, I don't have all day."  The waitress was looking at him, as were his friends.  He hadn't even heard their orders.

"Oh, uh, eggs.  Toast.  Eggs and toast," he mumbled, not even sure he'd be able to eat them.

"Okaaaay..." she drawled sarcastically.  "Eggs, toast, eggs and toast.  Two of each then, right?"

"Whatever," he told her, not in the mood to spar.  She shrugged as she left.

"Not much of a last meal--OW!"  Wincing, Chuck bent down to rub his shin and cast a malevolent glare at Marissa.

"Enough, guys, okay?"  Gary's hands were clenched into fists on the table.  He glanced around the diner one more time, trying to see if anyone was listening to them.  "This is serious.  I know the paper wants me to do something, but I don't know what.  If I make the wrong choice--"

"Read it again," Marissa suggested.  "Maybe there's a clue in the story somewhere."

Gary let out a long breath, picked up the paper from its place in front of him, stared at the story again, then tossed it back down on the table.  "I can't.  Maybe I should be used to seeing my own name in the paper once in a while, but this--"  He shook his head and shoved the paper at Chuck.  "You read it."

Shooting a wary look in his friend's direction before he focused on the article, Chuck took the newspaper between thumbs and forefingers, gingerly, and began to read.

"Late last night, police found--"  He bit his lip.  "I can't do this, Gar."

"Please, Chuck," Marissa insisted softly.

He stared at her for a moment, then nodded.  In a deliberate, flat tone, he read, "Late last night, police found the body of Chicago resident Gary Hobson in a dumpster on the south side of the city, near Comiskey Park.  A single gunshot wound to the head was listed as the cause of death."  Chuck cleared his throat.  "At this time police have no leads in the murder investigation."

Gary realized that he'd been sitting with his eyes closed only when he felt Marissa's hand cover one of his fists and opened them to see her turned toward him.  Eyes that couldn't take anything in somehow sent out assurance, empathy, and--that better not be pity, he thought.  Anything but that.

"Hobson, a resident of the Blackstone Hotel and former employee of Strauss & Associates Brokerage, appears to have lived an unremarkable life," Chuck continued, shaking his head at that.  "Friends of the victim say he had no known enemies."

In the midst of the ominous silence that followed, the waitress brought their breakfasts.  Gary couldn't look at the eggs, they made him queasy.  Queasier.  He couldn't look at his friends either.  The concern on their faces wasn't doing anything to calm the sense of trapped panic that had dogged him for the last hour.  He heard, very clearly, the tinkling of glasses in the kitchen, bacon sizzling on the grill, the 'ching' of the cash register--all distinct, separate sounds--as he tried to get his mind on track.

Finally, Marissa asked, not unkindly, "So, what are you going to do about it, Gary?"

"He's going to get the hell out of Dodge, is what he's gonna do," Chuck declared vehemently.  He turned to Gary.  "It'll be okay, Gar, we'll run up to Milwaukee, tour a few breweries or something."

Gary considered it for a minute.  Running away from the problems in the paper didn't work; at least, it hadn't so far.  On the other hand, this was the second direct threat to his safety in less than a month.  It was certainly possible that the article was the paper's way of warning him to get out of town for a while.

"You can't be serious.  Avoiding problems never solves them," Marissa said, more to Gary than to Chuck.

"I don't want to run away, Marissa, but what am I supposed to do?"

"You must be joking."  Chuck was incredulous.  "Stay here?  Not run away?  What the hell is that about?  Real brave buddy, real courageous.  Real dead."  He threw the paper back at Gary, who caught it just in time to keep it out of the eggs.

"Oh, good, Chuck, that's very helpful," Marissa said sarcastically.  "You don't need to scare him to death, he's--"  One hand flew up to cover her mouth for a moment.  "Oh, Gary, I didn't mean--"

"It's okay--"

"Well, I'm scared, too, okay?"  Chuck's retort cut Gary off before he could finish.

"It's still his decision, Chuck, and he can't make it if you're clouding the situation with emotion."

"Me?  Who's the one--"

Gary was momentarily distracted from the loop of dark images playing through his mind by wonderment at his friends' tendency to talk about him as if he wasn't there.  He needed them both on his side, and not at each other's throats.

"Marissa," he broke into Chuck's rant, "what do you think I should do?"

She bit her lip and hesitated, as if not sure of the reception she'd get for what she was about to say.  "I think," she began hesitantly, "that you need help on this one."

Gary barely had time to nod before Chuck said, "Now, that's the first decent suggestion you've made all morning.  Help is definitely what we need here.  This is bigger than all of us."

"Bigger than your ego?  That doesn't seem possible," Marissa deadpanned.

Chuck sneered, but before he could voice a comeback, Gary spread his hands wide and demanded, "Who am I supposed to go to for help?  How can anyone help?  I don't know where or when or why this is going to happen.  What am I supposed to say?"

"Go to Crumb," Chuck suggested.  "He believes you--most of the time."

"I don't know."  Gary picked up his napkin and started ripping it into tiny squares.  What if this wasn't one of those times?  It wasn't a bad idea, except that Crumb already thought he was a nutcase.  He'd probably chalk it up to post-traumatic stress or delusions of grandeur after what had happened a couple of weeks ago with Marley, anyway.

"What about those FBI agents?" asked Marissa.

Gary hesitated. It wasn't as if the thought hadn't crossed his mind.  Running a hand through his hair, he stalled by gulping down coffee, while Chuck went off on another tirade.  "Are you NUTS?  Have you totally lost your mind?"  Marissa jumped when he slammed a palm down on the table.  "They're probably involved .  The farther he stays away from them, the safer he's gonna be.  Look at last night, the way that guy treated him like a fool--and he doesn't even know about the paper."

"Yeah, well, Chuck, maybe last night wouldn't have happened at all if the two of you hadn't been so nosy yesterday!" Gary pointed out.

"Do you want some more--"  The waitress paused in mid-question, coffee pot suspended in the air as she took in the tense faces and tight voices.  "I'll...just come back later," she said as she slowly backed away, eyebrows raised.

Gary took a deep breath.  "Look, maybe Marissa's right.  Maybe I should go talk to them.  It could be that that's why the paper kept bringing us together.  It's possible," he reiterated as Chuck slowly, dubiously shook his head.

"Just what are you planning on saying to them, Big Guy?  What are you going to tell them, to stake out all the dumpsters around Comiskey?  That'd go over real well, wouldn't it?"

Gary ignored his tone and focused on what he was saying.  "No, that won't work.  It could happen anywhere, that's what's making me nuts about this.  We don't know when or how this is supposed to happen, or who's doing it, or why anyone would want to--I mean, I’m not..."  He had to calm down.  He had to focus.  "All we know is that whoever does this is gonna dump my--my--" he couldn't get the words out.  "--me there."

"No, they're not," Marissa stated firmly.  There was a fierceness in the set of her chin that allowed no room for defeatism.  "We aren't going to let that happen.  You aren't going to let that happen."  When Gary didn't respond, she asked,  "Have you checked the rest of the paper?  Maybe if we can figure out what it is you're supposed to be doing today, we can trace your route, find other clues.  Maybe it's a save gone bad."

Gary blinked hard.  "I hadn't even thought of that.  I, I saw that first article and that's when I called you guys.  Pretty selfish."

Chuck choked on his coffee.  "Selfish?  Gar, somebody out there wants you dead.  That’s gonna be a little bit distracting.  There's a difference between self-preservation and selfish."

Already scanning the headlines, Gary didn't respond.  Pages two and three were clear, except for the story about--about him.  Page four was all big national stories, page six...hmmm...

"What is it?"

"There's a woman who's going to commit suicide early this afternoon, over in the Gold Coast," he summarized quietly.  "She's gonna take a bunch of sleeping pills and just...never wake up."

"So you'll go and you'll stop her."

"No, he won't," Chuck said firmly.  "Okay, a phone call, maybe," he corrected  when he saw the shocked looks on Gary's and Marissa's faces.  "But Gar, you don't have time for anything else.  You need to focus on saving your own butt."

"Maybe the two are connected, like Marissa said," Gary mused.

"Even more reason to stay away," Chuck countered.

Gary continued to search the paper.  "I don't see anything else," he said finally, putting it down, open to the suicide story.  "If that's the only thing I was going to do today, then it must have something to do with it.  Look," he continued, glancing at his watch, "I don't know what else to do.  Why don't I go talk to this woman, see what's going on.  I need something to do, anyway.  Just sitting here isn't going to make anything change."

"I dunno, Gar..." Chuck began.

"It's after eight.  You guys have to get to work; we can meet again at lunch and--what?" he asked.  Marissa was shaking her head, braids swinging, and Chuck was gaping at him as if he'd grown an extra nose.

"Do you honestly think we're about to just leave?  What kind of friends do you think we are?"  Marissa sounded offended.

"No way are you going off on your own today," Chuck added.

"But you guys...you have to...I mean, you aren't..."  Gary didn't quite know how to handle this protectiveness.  On one hand, it was nice to know they cared.  On the other, he wasn't sure that they could help with the situation all that much, and there was always the possibility that if they were around when whoever it was that was going to kill him showed up, they'd--he swallowed hard--they'd end up in the dumpster with him.  He wasn't about to let that happen.

Chuck was staring at him, eyes narrowed, as if he could guess what his friend was thinking.  "No, Gar.  Uh-uh.  No.  Do you have any idea what it was like--"  He stopped himself.  "If you need help, we'll be right there to go get it."

Gary thought Chuck was overestimating his ability; but then, wasn't that what he himself was doing?  Silent for a moment, he glanced around the crowded diner.  It was strange and awful to think that any of those people could be the one; that anyone he looked at could be walking around just waiting for the right moment to do him in.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have Chuck and Marissa around, at least for a while.  He could always lose them later in the day, provided, of course, that there would be a 'later' for him.

When he glanced at the eggs on his plate, his stomach did another flip-flop.  They were probably cold, anyway.  The toast was equally unappealing.

"All right," he finally said.  "For now."

"Oh, thank you so much," Chuck sneered.

"What, like I have a choice?"

"No, not really," Marissa told him sternly, but there was a small smile in her voice.

"So," Chuck asked as they paid the tab and left the restaurant, "who's the wacko?"

"Chuck," Marissa said with exasperation, "just because someone is in the midst of depression or despair, it doesn't make her 'wacko'.  Try to have a little empathy, will you?"

He rolled his eyes, but didn't respond.

"Gary?"

Gary flagged down a taxi, then looked back at the article.

"This says her name's Elizabeth Barnett."

* * * * * * * * * *

Part 19

How I got this job I'll never know
But when it calls you can't refuse to go
So most of us just do the best we can
And in this stumbling world just try to stand.
      ~ Carrie Newcomer, "Close Your Eyes"
 

The pounding on her door woke Scully.  Again.

"Mulder."  He didn't appear to have slept much.  There were dark circles under his eyes, but he was still in full exuberant mode.  Apparently he'd found something.  Waving what looked like an email printout in her face, he pushed past her into the room.

"Hey, Scully, you'll never guess what the guys dug up on--"

"Before we deal with the latest missive from the paranoid androids, tell me something, will you?"  She plopped back down on the bed, bouncing a little on its hard springs, while Mulder lowered himself into the chair.  He was careful not to move his right foot more than necessary; clearly he hadn't taken care of his ankle, again.

"What?"

"Well, you went to Oxford, right?  Do you remember, 'Oh sleep!  It is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole?'  What's that from?  Coleridge?"

"Yes, it's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', why?"  Mulder looked genuinely confused.

Scully sighed, realizing that she wasn't going to be able to make her point without a sledgehammer when he was in this kind of  mood.  "Oh, nothing.  It just popped into my head when I was chasing you down last night, and again just now...anyway, what do you have?"  She sat cross-legged on the bed, hugging a pillow and trying to get her eyes to open fully.  Why couldn't he at least have brought coffee?

"Last night, before you showed up, I overheard Hobson's friends talking about someone named J. T. Marley who had apparently been in Chicago recently.  They called him a 'fed' and said that he'd nearly killed Hobson a couple of weeks ago.  Remember how he said he'd been lied to by someone in the federal government?"

Nodding, Scully wondered where all this was leading and what it could possibly have to do with their case.

"I did some checking last night.  There was a J. T. Marley who worked for the Secret Service, but he died over thirty years ago, in January, 1964.  Ring any bells?"

She shook her head.  He would tell her, anyway.

"Marley was assigned to the presidential detail two months before that."

Scully blinked.  She was still not quite awake, but she wasn't that groggy.  "That would have been November, 1963...Oh, please, Mulder, no...whatever you and your alternative Warren Commission have cooked up as the conspiracy du jour, you still haven't--"  Detective Crumb's cryptic comments the day before crept into Scully's sleep-befuddled brain and she sat up straighter.  "Wait a minute.  You said a couple of weeks ago?"

"Yes, now get this:  Marley supposedly died in a plane crash in Peru."  Mulder was reading from the email now.  "They identified his remains, just bones and teeth.  But there was another agent, Dobbs, who was there in Dallas too.  He claimed for years afterward that Marley wasn't really dead; spent the rest of his life following slim leads and dried-up clues trying to find this Marley guy.  He claimed Marley had a hand in the Kennedy assassination, and proving it became his own personal quest."

"Imagine that," Scully muttered dryly.

"Here's where it gets really strange, though," Mulder continued, leaning forward, forearms draped over his knees.  "Dobbs died last month.  Here in Chicago.  There's no record of how, or what really happened, but it coincided with the president's visit here and the only notation is that he died of 'natural causes'.  Meantime, the editor of the Chicago Sun Times, Harry Hawks, was murdered, shot execution style, right in his office, shortly after Gary Hobson saved Hawks from a letter bomb while Dobbs was visiting the newspaper's office.  For a while Hobson was the number one suspect in the murder.  He was never charged with anything, but still--pretty fascinating coincidences, wouldn't you say?"  Mulder's smile was positively feral.

"That would explain the 'Crime of the Century'," Scully mused, almost to herself.  At Mulder's questioning look, she relayed Detective Crumb's hints and sketchy outline of the big mystery.  "Do you think he's talking about the same thing?"

"Has to be.  That would mean Hobson was involved in an attempted presidential assassination, Scully."

She frowned.  "Or in preventing it.  Crumb actually said that if it wasn't for Gary Hobson, we'd all be out investigating 'the Crime of the Century'."  Try as she might, Scully couldn't picture Hobson as an assassin.  The guy probably braked for squirrels.

"Either way, that's pretty intense stuff for an unemployed stockbroker."  Mulder tapped the printout he still held.  "The guys want to talk to him, anyway."

"Mulder, he doesn't trust us any more than we trust him.  He made that perfectly clear last night.  Why would he agree to that?"

"I don't know.  But it would be interesting--"

"Interesting, yes, but it isn't our first priority.  Elizabeth Barnett is, right?"  He nodded his assent as she unfolded her legs and stretched.  "Let me get dressed and then we'll have breakfast and plan out the day.  Did you manage to get us another rental car?"

"Yes, I did."  He wouldn't meet her eyes as he stood.

"Mulder?"

He sidled toward the door.  "The lady at the agency was very nice.  They're even bringing it over to the hotel for us."

"And?"  When her partner didn't reply, Scully prodded, "Mulder, what are you not telling me?  Where did you get this car?"

"It'll be very nondescript, Scully, we'll blend right in."

"Mulder--"

"It was the only place in the city that would even take my call."

"Mulder, where--"

"I'd been at it for an hour, they were the last ones on my list--"

She stood before him, hands on hips.  "Mulder.  Just tell me."

Biting his lip for a moment, Mulder finally admitted, "Rent-A-Wreck."  Scully closed her eyes and sighed.  "It's an '87 Cavalier.  Hey, at least no one will peg us as the feds, right?"

"Just tell me it isn't orange."

"Nope, even better."  He grinned as he stepped out into the hallway.  "Chartreuse."

Scully's aim was dead-on, but Mulder managed to pull the door shut before the pillow could hit him.

* * * * *

The brownstone on Burton Street had to be Elizabeth Barnett's home.  There were four Elizabeth Barnetts in the city directory, and two E. Barnetts, but this was the only Gold Coast address.  It wasn't far from Chuck's apartment, actually, on a side street a few blocks from the lake shore.   Gary, Chuck, and Marissa stood on a nearby corner, surveying the neighborhood.

"Well, what do you think?" Marissa asked, after Gary finished describing the house to her.

He shrugged.  "Looks okay; I mean, it's not anything out of the ordinary.  Got lace curtains and potted plants in the window."

Marissa rolled her eyes.  "I meant, what do you think we should do?"

Gary glanced at Chuck, who shrugged.  He'd been wary of the whole thing from the beginning, and he wasn't helping much now.  "Maybe I should go talk to her alone," Gary finally said.  "I mean, if she's, you know, upset, or something, it probably won't help if she feels we're ganging up on her."

"What are you gonna say?" Chuck asked.

"Well, I'll just kinda...you know...see what's going on, make sure she's okay, tell her I know life is hard but if she needs someone to talk to I could listen."  With so much to worry about this morning, Gary hadn't had time to plan.

"Uh-huh," Chuck answered dubiously.  "And she's going to trust you?  I mean, granted, you have a face that women talk to, Gar, but why would she tell all her troubles to a total stranger?"

"Maybe that's all she needs: an objective listener," Marissa suggested.  "Sometimes it's easier to talk to a stranger, because there aren't any personal barriers and perceptions to overcome."

Wagging his head back and forth, Chuck adopted a singsong tone.  "Thank you, Dr. Joyce Brothers."   He pointed toward the house.  "And when she pulls the gun she's going to use to shoot herself with and aims it at Gar, here, what do you suggest he say then?"

"She's not going to shoot herself, she's going to take sleeping pills," Gary corrected him.  He took a deep breath and decided he'd stalled long enough.  "I'm going over there."

Chuck and Marissa waited while Gary crossed the street and climbed the stone steps, knocked on the door and waited for an answer.  He didn't look back, hoping that if someone was watching or taking notes, they might not notice his friends.  Stepping back to peer in the front window, he noticed a decal.  "MUFON," he read quietly.  "Great.  Just great."  His stomach did its hundredth flip-flop of the day.  Maybe Chuck was right.  Maybe all the events of the past couple of days were connected.

While he was worrying this over, the door opened, but only part way.  Large green eyes stared out at Gary over the door chain.

"Are you Elizabeth Barnett?" he asked.

The eyes narrowed, looking him up and down.  "Who are you?"

Gary paused.  Considering the other story in the Sun-Times this morning, he wasn't sure that he should go with his standard practice of giving out his name.  "Well, ma'am, I'm a friend, and I--I'm here because I heard you might be having a bit of trouble and I just wanted--well, I wanted to see if I can help."

She frowned; he could see the wrinkles in her forehead through the slit.  "And just who was it that told you that?  Are you here from the clinic?"

"Clinic--no, I uh--" Gary stammered, wondering what kind of clinic she was talking about.  Maybe she wasn't just depressed; perhaps she was mentally disturbed.  What was he supposed to do in that case, he wondered.  "No, I just want to help, and--"

"So you said."  She certainly didn't sound as if she believed him.

"And I, well, I know what you're planning on doing today."  Sometimes if he startled people they forgot to question him and started listening.  Her reaction, however, was not quite what he had expected.

"Look, buster, I don't know who sent you, but this is none of your business.  I can talk to whoever I want to."  Her voice rose in both pitch and volume.  "You're involved with those horrible men who are working with the aliens, and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit here and let it happen to me or to anyone else again!  I'm tired of being afraid and I'm tired of being used and I'm tired of knowing that it's happening all around me, and if you don't think I don't have a gun on the other side of this door pointed right at you, you've got another think coming!  So get the hell out of here before I call the cops, because I've got my cell phone here too and my finger's on the 911 speed dial."

Through her rant, Gary had been backing slowly away from the door.  This woman was Elizabeth Barnett--what he could see of her face matched the photo in the paper--and she was angry, but she wasn't suicidal, at least not as he understood the word.  Could the paper be wrong?

Holding up his hands to show he wasn't a threat, Gary stammered, "I'm sorry ma'am, I just...I must have..."

"Who the hell do you work for, anyway?"

"I'm not--I don't work for anyone.  I was just trying to help you."  He could hear himself responding to her indignation with a bit of ire of his own.  Gulping, he tried to quell it; as far as he could tell, she wasn't responsible for his future.  "Look, I'm sorry, I think this was a mistake."

"A big mistake," Elizabeth Barnett agreed, and slammed the door.

Gary hurried down the stairs and over to his friends, who had crossed the street and stood waiting under a tree two houses down.  "C'mon," he said briefly, taking Marissa's arm and propelling her forward, trusting Chuck to follow in their wake.

Taking two strides to his one, Marissa demanded, "Gary, what happened?"

"I don't know," Gary muttered, "but that woman is NOT about to take her own life.  She was afraid of me, but she was tough, too, like she thought I was going to hurt her or something."

"You?" Marissa asked incredulously.  "What did you say to her?  Slow down," she added breathlessly.

Realizing that he'd been half-dragging her, Gary eased his pace.  "Nothing, she didn't give me a chance to say much of anything.  The point is, she was acting like she had a gun, like she was gonna call the police--I don't think she was bluffing about the police part.  She was afraid for her life, not of it.  Someone who's planning to kill herself wouldn't be so worried about me hurting her, would she?"

"Maybe, maybe not," said Chuck.  "I mean, you are a marked man."

Gary stopped in his tracks for a second to give Chuck a brief, withering look, then continued on toward the beach.  "I gotta think.  I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do."

"Canada, that's my vote," Chuck offered darkly.

Gary released Marissa's arm as they came to a bench, and started pacing back and forth.  Running a hand through his hair, he tried to get a handle on the facts as he knew them.

"Tell us exactly what happened," prompted Marissa.

He sighed and stopped.  "Okay.  Okay.  I go up there, and first of all, there's a MUFON sticker on her window.  You know, like--"

"Alien abductions?" Chuck finished.  "The paranormal?  X-Files stuff?"

Gary stared at him for a moment, then resumed pacing.  "Yeah, maybe.  Anyway, she opens the door, she wouldn't even unchain it, and when I tell her who I am and that I know what she's going to do today, she got the totally wrong idea.  It was like I had threatened her or something.  And she said something like, she could talk to whoever she wanted to, and she did mention something about alien abductions..."  He let out a breath and came to a halt, staring out over the lake and the blue-grey, choppy waves that lapped the sand in front of them.

"Do you think the paper was wrong?" Marissa asked.

"No, I don't think so.  Why would it be wrong?  Why would it lead me on a wild goose chase when I'm trying to figure out who's gonna kill me?  I can't even figure out why anyone would want to."

"Well, personally, I could come up with a few reasons..." Chuck tried to tease, but he stopped when he saw the look on Gary's face.  "I'm kidding, Gar.  Okay, look, have you considered the possibility that the paper is trying to get rid of you?"

"What?" Gary and Marissa asked in unison.

"Maybe it doesn't like the way you're doing stuff.  Maybe it wants to hire someone else.  Maybe this is some kind of a...a cosmic pink slip."

"Chuck, that's crazy," Marissa told him.  "If the paper didn't want Gary to do what he does, it would just stop coming.  And besides, why would it warn him if 'getting rid of him' is what it wants?  And why am I talking about it as if it's a conscious entity--I'm getting just as bad as you!"

Unfazed, Chuck continued.  "Well, then tell me this--what about the MUFON connection thing?  That stands for--what is it--Mutual UFO Nutcases, or something, doesn't it?"

"Network."  Marissa's correction was firm, but it was Gary she was turned toward, not Chuck.

"Same difference."  Chuck positioned himself directly in front of his best friend.  "Now do you believe me, that it has something to do with those FBI agents?  Gary?"

Gary didn't answer.  He had pulled the paper out of his jacket to check the story about Elizabeth Barnett one more time, but the front page had changed and he was staring at it in shock.  He slowly sank to the cold iron bench as Marissa said, "But Chuck, that could just be a coincidence.  It doesn't mean--" she broke off in mid-sentence.  "Gary?  What is it?"

He looked up at her, then back at the paper, then at Chuck.  He shook his head and stared at the story that had just materialized.  "Chuck's right, Marissa," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.  "I don't know why or how, but he's right."

Even Chuck was stilled by the shaky tone of Gary's voice.  "What is it?" he asked quietly.

"The story's changed.  My--uh--my murder," he could barely choke it out, "is on the front page now."

"Well, at least you're getting the respect you deserve," Chuck joked weakly.

"It's not me.  It's--it's who's going to kill me."

"Well, Gary, if we know, we can stop it.  This is good, isn't it?  Finally, a clue."  Marissa was trying valiantly to be matter-of-fact and optimistic, but the tension around her eyes betrayed her.

"I don't think so."

"Who is it, Gar?" Chuck demanded.

Gary bit his lip, then turned the paper so Chuck could see the headline.  He read it out loud for Marissa.

"Federal Agents Charged In Murder of Chicago Citizen."

For once, Chuck had the grace not to say, "I told you so."

* * * * * * * * * *
Part 20

When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
     ~ Shakespeare, Macbeth , Act I, scene 1
 

The chartreuse Cavalier looked as out of place in the quiet, upscale Gold Coast neighborhood as a duck in the desert.  Scully glanced back at it, an outcast amidst the BMWs and Jeep Cherokees parked along the street, and sighed as she followed Mulder up the steps to Elizabeth Barnett's front porch.  As they waited, she peered down toward the beach, where joggers, dog walkers, and casual loiterers were only shadowed forms against the golden sand and the darker line of the water.  She was about to tell Mulder how she had walked the family dog, Moby, down here when she was a kid, when their knock was answered.

Elizabeth Barnett didn't welcome them with open arms by any means.  She cracked open the door and nervously eyed her visitors.  "Is anyone else out there?"

Strange greeting, Scully thought, but she assured her they were alone while Mulder scanned the street just to be sure.  The woman opened the door just far enough to let them in, then immediately locked it behind them.

"You sure no one else is out there?"  Her gaze darting from one agent to the other, Ms. Barnett ran her hand through her short curly bangs.

"Of course--has something happened since we spoke yesterday?" Mulder asked.  He was at his most gracious when interviewing witnesses like this.  Lowering himself into a wingback chair near the bay window that faced the street, he winced, and Scully wondered if he'd bothered to wrap his ankle with an Ace bandage as she'd instructed.  Perching at one end of the chintz sofa, she pulled a small notebook out of her coat pocket while Elizabeth Barnett checked out the window one more time.

"It was so strange--a man came to my door this morning and said he knew what I was going to be doing today."  Letting the curtain fall back into place, she faced the agents.  "I thought you said you weren't going to involve anyone else from the government or MUFON," she said, directing the accusatory comment at Mulder.  "He said he wanted to 'help' me, and he went away when I threatened to call the police, but after what you said yesterday, I don't trust anyone.  Look, you really are FBI, aren't you?  I mean, I want to be sure."

Scully quelled a wry smile as she let the woman examine her badge again.  Mistrust must be contagious.  Elizabeth turned to check Mulder's and then, apparently satisfied, she sat on a wooden rocker with flowered cushions.

"Ms. Barnett--Elizabeth--we didn't send anyone here.  You were right to send him away.  What did this man look like?" Mulder asked, re-pocketing his ID.

She tilted her head, considering.  "He was tall, like you," she began, nodding at Mulder.  "He had dark hair, not long, but not a buzz cut or anything.  His eyes were almost brown, but with green in them, like yours.  But he had kind of a baby face, you know?"  Crossing her ankles, she set her chair rocking just slightly.  "Leather coat, jeans--he, he had a newspaper in his hand the whole time.  That spooked me; I mean, it could have been hiding a gun or a laser or some kind of--of weapon, couldn't it?"

Scully knew what Mulder was thinking, she knew it.  She was thinking it, too.  A look between them confirmed their mutual conclusion, but that was about all it confirmed.

Certainly, assuming it was Hobson, this leant support to Mulder's earlier suspicion that the man was somehow working for the conspirators who were responsible for all of this.  On the other hand, there was nothing else to tie him to any foul deeds, aside from hearsay about a tenuous connection to the Kennedy assassination.  So here they were, back at square one on that particular line of investigation, with the pieces of the puzzle she'd started to line up so neatly scattered again.

"Coincidence?" Mulder asked his partner quietly.

Scully shrugged, but she didn't answer.  Whatever Hobson was up to, she had a hard time believing that he would be a threat to their witness.  Turning back to the woman who was still rocking back and forth to a carefully controlled rhythm, she said, "I don't think you need to worry about that.  If that man had some weapon, and wanted to hurt you, you probably wouldn't be sitting here talking to us right now.  We're here to make sure nothing happens to you, that the men who are behind your--experiences--are brought to justice.  It would be a great help to us if you could tell us about those experiences, and about your illness."

Elizabeth looked from one agent to the other, shaking her head.  "You're not going to believe me," she began quietly.  "Nobody else does, except for the others in MUFON, and even then it's only a few of the women."  She stared vacantly down at her hands, clenched together in her lap.  "Even myself--I thought about what you said last night, about humans being involved in all this?"  She looked up at Mulder, and when he nodded she went on.  "I'm not sure what I believe any more."

"Just tell us what you can remember," Mulder advised gently.  "It won't be the first time we've heard it.  I promise, we'll do the best we can to get to the truth."

Taking a deep breath, Elizabeth unfolded her hands and lifted her gaze to the two agents.  "It started a little over a year ago..."

* * * * *

Shifting on the cold bench, Gary tried to quash the feeling that, once again, the bottom was dropping out of his world while he was a helpless pawn in somebody--or something--else's game.  He knew that Chuck, who was pacing in front of him, and Marissa, who stood next to the bench biting her lip, were waiting for him to make a decision, to do something.  He would have liked nothing better, but at the moment he hadn't a clue what that something should be.

Go to Crumb?  Gary still wasn't sure whether the detective trusted him, and he doubted Crumb would buy this kind of story a second time, especially since Mulder and Scully appeared to be on the level.

That was just the thing...Gary didn't believe what the paper was implying, either.  He didn't know if it was playing some kind of game, but there was a lot about the past few days that didn't add up.  Aside from the bizarre string of coincidences that had led him to this point, there was the fact that the stories in his paper about the two FBI agents never had all the facts, and the facts he did know didn't make any sense.

A death due to exposure that really wasn't.

A car accident that wasn't an accident.

Maybe a suicide that wasn't a suicide and a murder that wasn't a murder?

"It's not them," he said finally, flopping one hand, palm up, on the paper that lay in his lap.

"Are you completely insane?"  Chuck stopped pacing and, for once, towered over Gary, arms akimbo as he frowned down at his friend.  "It's right there in the paper!  Let me use simple words so that you will understand.  They.  Are.  Going.  To.  KILL.  You.  Black and white, buddy, right here."  He pulled the newspaper out of Gary's lap and read, "'Initial reports indicate that Special Agent Fox Mulder's gun matches the type of weapon used to commit the murder.'  Get it?  His gun is going to make a bullet hole in that thick skull of yours.  What part of this do you NOT understand?"  Chuck drew a deep breath while Gary wondered if his friend really had absorbed just what it was he was saying.

Gary certainly had.  The pictures in his head were not pretty ones.

The problem was, the whole scenario still didn't mesh with what he knew and believed about the agents.

"It doesn't fit," he said out loud.  "What possible reason could they have for wanting me dead?  And if it's an accident--"

"Oh, yeah, an accidental bullet to the forehead!"  Chuck tossed the paper back on the bench, threw up his arms and resumed his pacing.  An elderly woman walking by turned to stare before yanking her fluffy little white dog past the trio as fast as her legs would carry her.

"But if it is--will be--an accident, why would they hide the--the--my body?"

"That has to be the stupidest question you have ever asked."

"No, Chuck, it's not," Marissa broke in, tugging Spike's harness and coming to sit beside Gary, who snatched the paper out from under her just in time.  "Gary's right; they wouldn't do this."

"Oh yeah?  And what makes you so sure, Dr. Laura?"

Letting Spike's harness drop for the moment, Marissa folded her hands in her lap.  "They aren't the type.  Well, at least Agent Scully isn't.  I don't know about Agent Mulder," she added with a thoughtful frown, "but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't work with someone who was capable of murdering an innocent person."

Chuck would not be deterred.  "Marissa, you are basing this on the sum total of, what--thirty minutes?  An hour at the most?--of contact with these people."

"Sometimes that's enough, Chuck."

"And for all we know they don't think he's all that innocent--"

While his friends went round in circles, Gary opened the paper to page six again.  The Barnett suicide story was still there.  "Somehow it's all connected," he muttered.  "And I haven't changed anything for her yet."  He stood.  "I have to go back there.  I have to try again.  Maybe if I help her, I can change my story, too."

Chuck shook his head in disgust.  "And what if you can't, Big Guy?  What then? "

Gary knew Chuck was genuinely worried, and that the edginess in his voice was directed at circumstance, not him; nonetheless, it was getting on his nerves.  "Look, there's a coffee shop a couple of blocks over that way," he told them, pointing up the street.  "Why don't you wait for me there?  It has to be warmer than sitting out here."

Chuck's eyes narrowed suspiciously.  "Are you trying to ditch us?"

"No, I swear, it's just--well, she nearly took my head off the first time.  If we all show up, I know she's gonna go ballistic."

"No pun intended?" Chuck asked sarcastically.  Gary didn't answer as he rolled the paper and shoved it into the inner pocket of his bomber jacket.  "What if she does anyway?"

"Well, we--we know she's not the one who's gonna...who's got it in for me now, don't we?"

Chuck shook his head again, out of arguments but not at all placated.

"Gary, I don't like the thought of you being alone right now," Marissa interjected as she reached for Spike's harness and stood.

"I'll be fine.  Look, if I don't come back in a while, let's say...an hour?"  Gary glanced at his watch.

"Fifteen minutes," Marissa countered.

"Thirty?  Okay?  If I'm not there in half an hour, you can--well, then you can start to worry."

"That's the problem, isn't it, Gar?" Chuck asked.  "By that time you might be--"

"No.  No, I won't."  He didn't want to hear it again.  "Look, Chuck, you have your cell phone, right?  If I'm going to be any longer than that, I'll call you.  Otherwise, you guys can...well, call Crumb or something.  I don't know if he'll believe you.  If he doesn't, try to get hold of--of them."

"The fibbies?  You have lost it Gar, you know that?"

"Maybe," he acknowledged.

"No, Gary's right," said Marissa.  "If we're able to reach them,  we'll know they aren't the killers, and they'll be able to help us."

Rubbing his hands together, Gary nodded.  "Okay.  All right.  It's a plan."

"Not much of one."  Chuck grumbled.

"It's what we have for right now, and it's what we're going to do," Gary said as firmly as he could.  "I'll catch up with you guys as soon as I can."

It wasn't lost on Gary that Chuck punched his shoulder, nor that Marissa squeezed his arm, nor that, most amazingly of all, they went off toward the coffee shop together without bickering.  They really were worried.

Well, so was he, but he couldn't solve anything standing around here.  He headed for Elizabeth Barnett's house again, hoping, praying to whatever or whoever might be listening, that this time he would find the right words.

* * * * *

Finding the right words, however, turned out to be the least of Gary's problems.

He approached the brownstone cautiously, knowing his reception would be cool and hoping that she at least wouldn't be waiting for him at the window with a shotgun.  From across the street, he could see a seated form silhouetted in the lace curtains that shrouded the bay window--a decidedly masculine figure.  The article had said that Elizabeth Barnett was single.  What had she told him--"I'll talk to whoever I want to talk to"?  Something like that, anyway.

Crossing the street at an angle, Gary strolled by the house as quickly as he could without actually running.  The male figure turned in profile and he thought he recognized--of course.  Why not?

He passed the house, checked to make sure no one else was on the street, then surreptitiously turned around and headed back toward it, this time straying off the sidewalk and onto the front lawn of the house next door, slowing his pace as he neared the property line.

There was a side window that would look into the same room.  Gary didn't like the thought of being a Peeping Tom--for real, this time--but he had to be sure.

A weathered wooden lattice leaned against the house next to the window, and Gary flattened himself against it.  He peered between the mullions of the side window, which was also decked out in lace, but this time the curtains were parted in the middle.  Gary swallowed hard as he was able to make out both agents, wondering what they wanted with Elizabeth Barnett, wondering--

--wondering, when he was pushed from behind into the lattice and felt the barrel of a gun jabbed in the back of his neck, if he hadn't just made the biggest mistake of his life.

* * * * *

Scully remained silent through most of Elizabeth Barnett's story, including the display of the small glass vial that held an implant that had been removed from her neck.  With the exception of the fact that she had experienced multiple abductions, the woman's story was eerily similar to her own.  Mulder asked most of the questions in that calm, reassuring voice of his, the one that always reminded her that, despite his dogged pursuit of his sister and his truths, he was almost always on the victim's side, too.

"They...I don't remember exactly what they looked like...there was a table, and bright lights, but with dark spots, some kind of pattern, and a noise, a noise like a drill."  Elizabeth stopped and gulped tea from a delicate china cup, painted with flowers that matched those on the rocker cushions.  Her hands were shaking.

"Were there any other people there?  Any other humans?" Mulder pressed.

"I don't--the first times I don't remember much of anything.  But the last couple of times, yes, I think there were other people there.  Other women.  They did things to us, and then they did things to us so we wouldn't remember the first things, but the more they do it the more the bits and pieces stick in my mind.  They've started to form a pattern.  I think--the tests, they did these tests and I think they took my--They..." she looked out the side window, pulling in a long breath, then turned to Scully to deliver the rest.  "I can't have children, the doctor said, even before I had the cancer they told me I'd never have children.  And I think it's because of my abductions."

"What is it you think they've taken?" Scully asked, wondering if this woman had any kind of a medical background, knowing all too well, from the tests her own doctors had run, what the answer would probably be.

"My...my eggs, my ova, I think they took all the...all of them."

"That's not possible," Scully began.

"Super radiation," Mulder contributed quietly.  "There might be a way to do that through intense, specific radiation."

Scully regarded him narrowly, her mouth slightly open.  He avoided her stare.  Elizabeth raised her eyebrows.

"I read an article in Scientific American," he offered casually.

Scully didn't buy it, not for a minute, and Mulder had known she wouldn't.  This was his way of telling her...what, exactly?

Elizabeth, however, seemed willing to believe.  "Do you think that's why I have this cancer?" she asked breathlessly.  "Could that have caused it?"

"It's just a theory,"  Scully told her as she tried to read Mulder's expression, but he wouldn't look her in the eye.  "There's no evidence that it's possible, and as far as I know, it's never been attempted.  Can you tell us more about the tumor, when you discovered it, and the treatment you're undergoing?"

The medical history that Elizabeth relayed was, like her abduction story, similar to Scully's; it began with a series of nose bleeds and headaches; then the diagnosis of the nasal pharyngeal mass, unresponsive to conventional treatment; a weight of hopelessness until miraculously, just weeks ago, a doctor who called himself Keith Nelson had come forward, introduced by Elizabeth's oncologist as a colleague of a friend.  This doctor had assured her that his methods had the best chance of success with her disease, and had given her hope but also reminded her that they might have begun treatment too late.  Even so, he promised to bring the newest, most effective treatments to bear on her disease.

"And that was the man in the picture I showed you last night, correct?"  Mulder reached into his pocket for the Xerox, but there was no need.  Elizabeth nodded, twisting and untwisting her fingers around the handle of her teacup.

"He's--he's the best hope I've had so far.  Everything else that I thought was true...it's all gone.  My family thinks I'm insane, my husband left me even before the cancer was discovered, but Dr. Nelson, he--he believed me.  He was...he's going to help me..."  She trailed off, suddenly still as she stared at Scully, a plea for a stay of execution in her eyes.

So, here we are again, Scully thought as she took a deep breath.  The truth was, there was no clemency anywhere, for either of them, but the fact that it was the truth didn't make it any less painful.  "Elizabeth," she began gently.  "It's important that you do not begin any treatments with this man.  He has been linked to the deaths of a number of women in Pennsylvania, women like you, with the same history of abduction and cancer.  I'm sorry, but the treatments you were going to undergo would have killed you sooner than the cancer."

"No."  Elizabeth set the chair rocking again, so suddenly that some of her tea sloshed out of her cup.  "No, I--I don't believe that."  Setting the cup on the nearest end table, she looked from one agent to the other for any sign of hope.  "Who are you to tell me this, anyway?  He said he had the answers, he said--"  Tears sprang into her eyes as her world crumbled around her.  "But that would mean there's no other way--no way at all--that I can--that I'll ever--"  She choked back a rising sob, one hand to her mouth.  "Why should I believe you?"

"Because," said Scully, moving to kneel before the distraught woman, "I was--am--in exactly the same position.  Something happened to me, I had an implant, too, and now I have the same disease.  This man tried to do to me what he will do to you, if you give him the chance."

"Why would he do that?  Why would any doctor want to hurt his patients?"

Quick anger flashed through Scully at the innocent question, one for which she herself had no decent answer.

"Because he wants to hide the truth about what happened to you," Mulder told her.  He stood, and Scully could hear him closing in behind her.  "Because he isn't working for a hospital, or for you, or for the good of medical science.  He probably isn't even working for himself.  We think he's connected to the abductions, that somehow these are not, solely, the work of extraterrestrials--"

"Mulder--" Scully cautioned, noticing something new.  She stood carefully, her ears attuned to the world outside this claustrophobic room.

"She has a right to know the truth, Scully."

"Yes, but Mulder listen--"

"How can you deny it Scully, you of all people?"

"Mulder, listen!"  He finally stopped in his headlong charge to reveal the truth and caught what she actually meant, saw her head cocked toward the side window, where she'd heard scuffling sounds and voices, then a creak and, finally, a crash.  Mulder's eyes widened, and they drew their guns at the same moment.

"Stay here, stay down," Scully commanded Elizabeth, who obligingly threw herself behind the rocker.  In an instant Mulder was at the front door and Scully was through the doorway to the kitchen, where the back entrance was located.

She stepped off the patio, scanning the backyard but seeing nothing out of the ordinary.  Pressing herself against the back of the house, she followed the barrel of her gun around the corner as slowly as she dared and as quietly as she could.  At the same moment, Mulder rounded the front corner, making do as best he could on his ankle, and they were graced with the same sight:  a man trying frantically to disentangle himself from a broken wisteria lattice.

"Freeze!  FBI!" Mulder shouted, but Scully was lowering her gun already.  The man was turned slightly toward her, and she recognized him.

"Mr. Hobson."  She shook her head slowly.  It didn't even surprise her anymore.

He finally managed to get his arm out of the hole in the lattice, shaking it disgustedly as he stood.  "Yeah, it's me."

"What the hell are you doing here?"  Mulder still hadn't lowered his gun.

"Me?  What about him?" Hobson asked, pointing across the adjacent yard.  The agents both looked in the direction he indicated, but there was no one in sight.  He followed their glances, then said, a little sheepishly, "Well, he was.  The guy had a gun and he nearly killed me.  Good thing I pulled this down on his head," he added, kicking the ruined lattice.

Mulder continued to keep a guard up while Scully scanned the ground.  "There could be two sets of footprints here.  It's hard to tell."

At that moment Elizabeth opened the window.  "That's him!" she cried, an accusing finger jabbing at the screen.  "That's the man who was here earlier!"

"That true?" Mulder asked Hobson, who seemed to be having a hard time looking away from Mulder's gun.

"Well, yeah, I was.  I was trying to help."

"Help how?"

"He threatened me!"

"No, I didn't," Hobson countered indignantly.

"Then why were you here?" Scully wanted to know.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

A wry, humorless smile played at the corners of Mulder's mouth.  "Try us.  In fact, why don't you just come with us back to the office?"

"Mulder..." Scully began.

"No, Scully, I mean it.  This time he's interfering with an investigation.  I want to know exactly what is going on."

"Wait a minute!"  Hobson stepped back when Mulder moved to take his arm and escort him to the car.  "What about her?"  He pointed at the window.  "She's in trouble, I tell you, we can't just leave."

There was that 'we' thing again, Scully thought, but if there was anything to Hobson's story they certainly couldn't leave Elizabeth alone.  "Why does he think I'm in trouble?" she was asking.  "Agent Scully, what's going on?"

Scully holstered her gun and turned to her partner.  "Take him to the car, and call for someone to guard the house," she told Mulder.  "I'll wait here until they show up."

"Let's go," he told Hobson, nodding in the direction of the car.  Hobson shot Scully a look of pure desperation as Mulder escorted him toward the sidewalk.

And, as appallingly chartreuse as the rental might be, Scully was sure there was more to Hobson's all-too apparent fear than mere good taste.

* * * * * * * * * *

Part 21

It's too late for turning back
I pray for the heart and the nerve
     ~ Mary Chapin Carpenter, "The Moon and St. Christopher"
 

"Time."

Chuck rolled his eyes.  "I thought you had a Braille watch."

"I do, but I forgot to wear it today," Marissa told him.  "Time."

"Time he should have been here already," Chuck snapped.  They were standing a block down from Elizabeth Barnett's house.  "Something funny's going on up there.  There's a guy in a car parked outside the house, but nobody's going in or out.  He's just watching."

"Should we go and ask if he's seen Gary?"  They'd already agreed not to go to the house itself.  Either Gary was in there, doing what he could to help the woman, or she'd thrown him out and he was somewhere else.

It was where that somewhere else could be that had Chuck worried.  They should never have let Gary go off on his own.  "I don't think that would be a good idea, do you?  What if he's--you know?"

"Yeah."  Marissa sighed, tapping her foot impatiently and dancing her fingers over the handle of her cane.  Spike whined, looking from his agitated mistress to Chuck, who shrugged his shoulders.  He didn't know what to do, either.

After checking up and down the street one last time, he pulled the cell phone out of his pocket, considered it a moment, and then passed it over to Marissa.  "Here. You call Crumb."

"Me?"

"You," Chuck confirmed with an emphatic nod.  "He'll believe you.  He can't even remember my name."

Marissa smiled for the first time in hours.  "Fishburn, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, and besides that, he's had me in for questioning almost as many times as Gary.  You're the one who always manages to keep your nose clean, you talk to him."

Chuck had jotted the number down on a napkin at the coffee house; he read it to her, thinking he ought to just put the damn thing on his speed dial.  "What are you going to say?" he asked while she waited to be put through.  "Hey, I know!  How about, 'Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope?'"

She didn't even bother with the last comment.  "I guess I'll tell him the truth, or as much of it as I--Hello, Detective Crumb?  My name is Marissa Clark, and I'm calling about Gary Hobson."  Pulling the phone away from her ear, she widened her eyes, and even Chuck could hear Crumb's colorful exclamation and evaluation of Gary's sanity.

"I know, I know you think he's trouble," Marissa soothed as she returned to the phone, "but he needs your help....Yes, again....Please, Detective Crumb, I know this sounds crazy, but you know how Gary always seems to know when things are going to happen?"  Wincing, she waited, probably while Crumb made some comment about that aspect of Gary's character, then continued.  "Well, what he knows right now is that someone's going to--to kill him."  Chuck watched the fear rise in her eyes when she said that, but she blinked once and it was gone.  Her voice was strong again when she said, "We think it has something to do with the FBI--I believe you spoke with Agent Scully yesterday?"

She paused, nodding and "Mm-hmm"ing, while Chuck waited impatiently, moving around a little to keep warm.  Finally he couldn't stand it anymore.  "What?" he whispered in her other ear, but she waved him away.

"But--" Marissa said at last.  "Well, yes, but....No, we don't know where he is, but the last place we saw him was over here in the Gold Coast and....No, I know it's not your jurisdiction, but still, Gary needs your help and....No, I don't understand, not after all he's done to....But--hello?"  Removing the cell phone from her ear, Marissa bit her lip.

"Oh, great," Chuck muttered.

"He just wouldn't listen," she said, deflated.  All her righteous indignation had been spent on Crumb; her shoulders sagged and her voice had gone quiet.  "I should have--I don't know--"

"Nah," Chuck assured her with a pat on the shoulder as he took the cell phone back, "you did better than I would have.  Crumb's just a dead end, I guess."

"That better not have been a pun."

"Believe me, I'm not in the mood.  So now what?"

"Plan B, I guess," Marissa sighed.  "Though I don't know how much that'll help."

"Right," said Chuck.  "This time I'll make the call."

* * * * *

After Scully and Mulder checked in with the local SAC, they headed upstairs to a small conference room where Hobson had been asked to wait.

"He didn't say a word in the car," Scully commented.  Mulder nodded as he held the stairway door open for her.

"The guy could hardly sit still.  Think he had somewhere else to be?"  They threaded their way through the noisy bullpen, nodding thanks to Agent Donner, who'd been keeping an eye on their witness.

"It's more than that," Scully murmured, pausing outside the door to the conference room which Donner had indicated.  "Did you get a good look at his face?  He was terrified.  It wasn't the look of someone being caught in the act of something they weren't supposed to do.  He was afraid of--"

"--Of us," Mulder finished.  "Yeah, I caught that, too."

"He never was before.  Something's changed."

Mulder opened the door and waved her in.  "There's only one way we're going to find out."

Hobson sat hunched over, his folded hands on the table, but when Mulder and Scully entered he sat up straight.  His worried gaze scanned the room, the door, the window that provided a view of the bullpen, their faces--perhaps looking for a way out, though logically he had to know there was none.

The first question wasn't theirs; it was his.  "What are you gonna do to me?"

Scully exchanged a glance with her partner, one eyebrow raised.  "We just want to ask you a few questions, and for once we'd like some straight answers.  We need to know, specifically, what your involvement is in this case and with Ms. Barnett."

"She claims she's never seen you before today," Mulder added, approaching the table, "yet you know her name.  You know where she lives.  You came to her house asked about what she was going to do today.  Pretty suspicious, wouldn't you say?"

Hobson looked down at his hands and didn't respond.

Hands flat on the table, Mulder leaned forward.  "What were you doing there?"

"I--I was trying to help."  There was a note of defiance in Hobson's voice that Scully remembered from before, but the thinly-veiled panic remained in his hazel eyes.  "She was going to hurt herself, and now--"  He looked over at her, and his voice took on a new conviction.  "Now someone else is.  You people are wasting your time with me.  She needs help."

At this, Scully pulled back and frowned.  "Elizabeth Barnett?  What do you mean ‘hurt herself'?"

"She's gonna--she was gonna take a bunch of sleeping pills.  That's why I went over there in the first place."  He looked at his watch.  "But now somebody's going to come and take her away.  Soon.  You'd better get back there and help her, if you won't let me."

"You saw the agent who came to stay with her yourself," Scully pointed out.  "Elizabeth Barnett is well-protected."

"No, she's not," Hobson insisted.  "And that agent you sent, he's gonna be shot in the process of trying to protect her.  We have to go back there."  Long fingers tapping rapidly on the tabletop, he could barely sit still.

"How do you know this, and why should we believe you?"  Scully asked.  She cast a sidelong glance at Mulder, wondering if he was still operating under the theory that Hobson was some kind of psychic.

"I've been right all the other times, haven't I?"

"Coincidence?"  Holding out one hand, palm up, Scully raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Coincidence or not, you've gotta trust me and do something about this."  Hobson's hand clenched into a fist and he bounced it on the table.  "I'm telling you the truth!"

"Because you're part of the scheme, right?"  Mulder folded his arms across his chest and used his height advantage to pin Hobson with a withering stare.

"No, because I--I just know."

"I might have bought it once or twice, Hobson, but not this time.  Not when you could not have possibly known where we were going to be unless you--"

"I told you, I didn't know you were going to be there!"

Scully shook her head.  "You just happened to get, what, a feeling about a woman, one woman in a city of millions, who just happens to be a witness in a federal investigation--our investigation?"  She was still trying to line up the pieces on this guy--newspaper, friends, cat, Kennedy, timing, motive--she couldn't get them to fit together neatly.

Hobson flopped back in his chair, frustrated.  "Look, why are you giving me a hard time when there's an agent out there who's going to get shot?  Don't you at least want to warn him?"

They all were startled when Donner knocked, then opened the door.  "Sorry to interrupt.  There's some guy on line four who called here looking for you two.  He says it's an emergency."  Out of the corner of her eye, Scully saw Hobson wince as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

She was closest to the phone, and she answered it with a snap of impatience in her voice.  "Scully."

"Agent Scully, this is Chuck Fishman, remember?  I'm looking for my friend, Gary Hobson.  Have you seen him?"  There was an accusatory edge to his voice.

"What makes you think I would have?" she asked coolly.

"Look, it's just a wild guess, okay?  I want to know if he's all right, and since you two were there every time he turned around the past couple of days, I thought you might know where he was."

Mulder was watching her, and Scully realized her eyebrow was ascending again.  If Hobson hadn't expected to see them, as he'd claimed, then why would his friend call for him here?

"Hold on a minute," she said, then pushed the speaker button on the phone and returned the headset to its cradle.  "It's for you," she told Hobson, who didn't look as surprised as she might have expected.

* * * * *

"Gary?  Is that you?"  Chuck's voice sounded tinny through the speaker.

"Uh, yeah Chuck."  Gary had no idea what to tell him, and wondered if Chuck realized that the agents could hear him.

Anger and relief were mingled in his friend's strident voice.  "Where the hell are you?"

"Well, you're the one who called, Chuck, where the hell do you think I am?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah.  I'm here with Agents Mulder and Scully."  Get a clue, Chuck, he pleaded silently.

No such luck.  "This is obviously some new definition of ‘okay' of which I'm not aware."

Gary closed his eyes and swallowed hard, not wanting to know how the agents would react to that comment.

"Gary?  Do you want us to--"

His eyes popped open.  "No."  Whatever Chuck was about to suggest, Gary didn't want the two agents to know.  Swallowing hard when a new thought--that if Chuck was calling here, they'd probably had no luck getting Crumb's help--Gary almost missed what his friend said next.

"But Gar, nothing's changed, has it?  You're still gonna--have you looked at the paper lately?"

While Gary's stomach was busy tying itself in knots, Mulder and Scully exchanged another one of those glances that made him feel as if he'd somehow missed an entire conversation.  Uh-oh.

"Chuck--"

"You need to keep track of this Gary, you never know when something might change."

No kidding.  "Chuck--"

"I mean, there might be a clue in there, or something, and if that story keeps changing you're gonna need to know--"

"Chuck!"  Half-standing now, Gary reached for the button to disconnect the call, but Mulder grabbed his arm.  Scully's steady gaze never left Gary's face as she absorbed the stream of clues Chuck was spitting out.  He wondered what, exactly, she would think those clues meant.

No way would either one of them guess the truth.  How could they?

"Gary, what is going on?" Chuck finally demanded.

"I'm just here talking with these FBI agents, okay?  Nothing's going on.  Everything's fine.  I'm fine."

Releasing Gary's arm, Mulder blanched and looked as if he was about to choke, but a glare from Scully turned his face back to impassive stone.

"How long are you going to stay that way?  Gar, don't you think we should--"

"No, Chuck, just--look, it's okay.  I'll let you know if I need you for anything."

"How do you plan to do that?"

"Well, it's not like I've been charged with anything--"  Gary shot a questioning glance at Scully, who shrugged.

"Yet," he heard Mulder whisper.

"So I oughta be able to make a phone call if I want to."

"Gary--"

"Good-bye, Chuck."

Chuck sighed.  "Yeah, okay.  Take care."

Gary didn't respond and the call disconnected.  He sank back in the chair slowly, heavily, and waited for the sky to fall.  Mulder's next question was the last one he expected.

"Why is he so worried about you?"

"Huh?"  Gary looked up in surprise.

"Since when have FBI agents been a threat to anyone's health--at least, to the health of any innocent person, which is what you claim to be?"

"I am."

"So why would your friend get so bent out of shape to find you here, with us?" Scully continued.  Gary wondered if they shared a brain.

He looked from one agent to the other, gauging, assessing, thinking back to what he had learned of them in the past couple of days.  They were the good guys.  He was as sure of that as he was of anything.  If they really were out to get him, their patience would have snapped long ago.  They were no more following him than he was following them.  They had some experience with strange and unusual phenomenon, right?  Maybe they knew something that would help him to understand his...situation.

All of that aside, the decision he made next boiled down to one fact: he was simply sick and tired of playing games.

He took a deep breath before saying, low and quiet, looking from one agent to the other, "Because you're supposed to kill me."

Well.  Mulder blinked.  That was something.  Probably counted as an actual reaction.  Both of Scully's eyebrows went up this time, nearly to her hairline.  Neither one of them laughed at him, though.  He didn't know if that was a good thing or not.  Frankly, he was beyond judging good and bad at this point.  There was no taking it back now.

Reaching to the interior pocket of his bomber jacket for the paper, Gary held up the other hand when he saw the agents reach for their guns.  "It's just a newspaper," he said.  There was almost no trace of irony in his voice.

Almost.

He unfolded it.  The front page article was still there.  One more glance from Scully to Mulder and back, and then, silently, he turned it to face them and pushed it across the table.  Heads and hands nearly touching, though not quite, they read in silence.

Gary didn't know what to do with his hands, which he rested on the edge of the table--at least they weren't shaking.

"Where did you get this?" Scully finally asked, looking up and pinning him with the most intense gaze he'd ever seen.  "Is this some kind of joke, Hobson?  Because it isn't April Fools yet and this--"  She poked the headline with one rigid finger.  "This is not funny."

"Believe me, Agent Scully, I don't think it's funny either," Gary told her solemnly, wearily.  "After all, I'm the one..."  He gestured at the paper but didn't finish the sentence.

"You think this is a...what, a prediction?" Mulder asked.  "Is this where you've been getting your information?"  Shifting his gaze between Gary and the newsprint, he opened the paper and began paging through it.

Gary reached across the table and flipped the Sun-Times closed, pointing to the banner.  "Check out the date."

"That's tomorrow," Scully murmured.  "Is this a misprint?"

"No.  No, it's...well, maybe it's a cosmic misprint or something.  But it comes every morning--not this exact paper, I mean, but the next day's.  Every day.  I know what's going to happen before it happens.  I read about it in the paper, and I do what I can to change the things that go wrong."

Mulder and Scully looked at each other, then back at him.  Neither said a word.

"I know it sounds nuts," Gary acquiesced.  "I don't even know why I'm telling you, except I don't know what else to do about--about this."  He jabbed a finger at the article.

"Mulder," Scully said, turning to stare lethally at her partner, "If this is some stunt you cooked up with the Lone Gunmen..."  He shook his head while Gary wondered uneasily just which gunman she was referring to.

"I don't know anything about this, Scully."  Mulder assessed Gary with a look that made him feel like a lightning bug in a jar.  "Have you always had this little mix up?  Maybe you should talk to your paper boy."

"No, just for the past six months or so, and it's a cat."

"What?"

Gary winced; he hated this part.  "The one who brings the newspaper--it's not a kid, it's a cat."

Scully's jaw dropped open, but she snapped it shut immediately.  "So, for the past six months, the next day's paper has been showing up at your doorstep, brought by a cat, and you've been acting on the information inside it?"  Arms crossed, she stood exactly the way his third grade teacher used to when he was trying to explain why he hadn't finished his math homework.

"Yes--well, sort of, I mean, I don't know if the cat actually brings the paper, but they always show up at the same time."  He knew how stupid it sounded, and he didn't blame them for being dubious.

"So you're really not a psychic after all?" Mulder asked.  Gary shook his head.  "Does anyone at the Sun-Times know about your little problem?"

He thought of Harry Hawks, and shook his head again, more vehemently this time.  That last meeting with the editor had been replaying in Gary's nightmares for weeks now, and he wasn't about to drag Morris into all this.

"And this is how you knew that we would be at Elizabeth Barnett's house today?"  Indicating the paper with one long finger, Mulder sounded more curious now than accusatory.

"Well, no, not exactly."  Gary shifted uncomfortably.  The next part wasn't going to be any easier.

"Then what, exactly?" demanded Scully.

"Look at page six," Gary said, gesturing at the paper but not touching it himself.

Mulder turned and found the article.  "So that's why you were there?" he asked after skimming it.  Scully was taking her time, reading more carefully.  Gary knew what they were seeing; he didn't even need to try to read it upside down.

"Local Woman Abducted from Gold Coast Home"

He'd read it all while he waited for them: the critically wounded FBI agent, the missing woman, and the history of claims of alien abductions.  Elizabeth Barnett was more closely tied to this than he'd realized, and now he was in completely over his head.

"Well, not exactly."

Scully shot him a look of pure exasperation.  "Exactly what, then?"

"When I first saw the article, it said she was going to commit suicide.  I went there earlier this morning to try to stop that, but she threatened to call the police.  I went back because the article wouldn't go away, but after you two tossed me in your car and brought me back here, it changed to this."

"So, you're saying that you believe this is going to happen, but you have no part in causing it?"  Scully uncrossed her arms and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Yeah, I--look, I had no idea who she was, or that you knew her.  Heck, I still don't know why you were there, or why you were at any of the other places I went to yesterday."

Mulder flicked a glance at his partner, but kept his focus on Gary.  "What about the day before?  The corn field?"

"That was different.  You were--you were in the paper," he told Mulder, then frowned.  "Except it was strange, it just said you were going to die of exposure.  Then the two of you were supposed to die in a car crash that night, that's why we were out there.  Except that was strange, too, because it wasn't the car crash that would have killed you, it was those thugs, the ones with the guns."

"They all have guns," Mulder informed him.  "And they have ways of manipulating the media in order to hide the truth.  I'm not surprised you didn't get the whole story."

That took Gary a minute to digest.  What the heck did he mean by that?  Did this mean that Mulder actually believed him?

"Mulder."  Agent Scully stared at her partner as though he'd sprouted a parrot on his shoulder.

"What?"

She looked at the paper, then at Gary, then at her partner, as if trying to sum something up for him without using any words.  Mulder's face was blank, but Gary had a feeling it was an act.

"Look," he said, directing his plea to the more skeptical of the agents, "there's no reason on earth that I would make up a story like this, and that ought to be enough for you to take me seriously.  I mean, who in their right mind would expect you to believe this, if they weren't telling you the truth?"

"In their right mind?" Scully retorted icily.  "No one."  She stared down at Gary, while Mulder re-read the front page article.

"You know, Scully, this would explain--"

"Let's talk," she said, cutting him off as she gestured to the hallway with a tilt of her head.  Gary had the distinct impression that it was his mental health she wanted to discuss.  She picked up the paper, and he started to get off his chair, instinctively grabbing for it.  "Evidence," she snapped.  He sank back down.

"Yeah, well, I'll just amuse myself here, you two do your thing," he muttered.  "But look at that article; you don't have much time.  Elizabeth Barnett doesn't have much time," he pointed out in a louder voice as they walked through the door.

He sighed and flopped back in the chair.  If he missed this opportunity to help because of his own big mouth, he thought, he probably deserved what was coming to him.

* * * * *

"All right, Mulder, are you telling me you're buying this story?" Scully asked when the door shut behind them.  They stepped to the nearest desk, the one she'd been working at yesterday, their hushed voices the only privacy to be found in the busy central office.  "This thing could easily be a fake."

"Look at it Scully," Mulder said, pointing to the blurbs above the headlines.  "If it's a fake, it's a damn good one.  That's today's weather in the box that says 'Yesterday's Weather Summary'.  How could someone who's creating a hoax know that?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe he read the forecast?" Scully snapped, albeit in low tones.  "Watched the Weather Channel, perhaps?"

"The guy's had a paper with him almost every time I've seen him," her partner countered.  "You have to admit that it's at least a possibility."

Scully paused for a moment, mouth half-open.  "A very extreme possibility.  The real question is, what does he want with us?"

"Maybe nothing," Mulder said with an elegant lift of his shoulders.  "He certainly doesn't seem to want to be here now."

She had to admit that Mulder was right about that.  Hobson was clearly even more uncomfortable around them now than he had been before.  If what he was saying was true, the story on the front page of the paper she held would explain a great deal about his behavior...but if what he was saying was true, there was a lot more that would need explaining.  How, why, and where, for starters.

"Mulder, you wouldn't--I mean, I wouldn't, neither of us would--would we?"  Another agent came over to retrieve files from a nearby cabinet, and the debate paused by unspoken mutual consent.  She used the opportunity to skim the article again.  If this little charade was Hobson's doing, he must have had help.

"C'mon, Scully," Mulder drawled when the coast was clear once more.  "We might shoot a suspect, but not execution-style.  And we wouldn't hide the body like that," he added, pointing to the photograph of the trash dumpster next to Hobson's front-page photo.  "If what he's saying is true, if this really is going to happen, the murder will be a frame-up."

"It's not true!" Scully exclaimed, then glanced around to make sure no one had heard her.  "What are you saying, Mulder, that the future's written in stone?"

"No, and I think that's what Hobson means, that's the point of this thing.  That one way to change the future is if you know what it's going to be--what it's supposed to be, unless you do something about it."

"There has to be a better explanation."

"What's yours?"

"Touché," Scully acquiesced after a moment of furious thought.  She paused, considering the paper she held in her hands.  "I suppose we could try to confirm his story."

"Now you're talking."  Mulder took the paper from Scully and started paging through it.  "Okay, here," he said.  He separated one page from the rest and handed it to her.  "Go call Roger Ebert and ask him what movie he's reviewing for tomorrow's paper.  If it's 'The Beautician and the Beast' then we'll be getting somewhere.  Ask him what his lead is going to be, too."

Scully stared at him, incredulous.  "Just...call Roger Ebert?"

"Why not?  And I'll check out...okay, look...I can call ESPN check out some of these sports scores, those that have come in since Hobson's been with us."

"And this will convince you?"

"Will it convince you?"

"I don't know."

"If we find out some of this stuff is true, then we may have to operate under the assumption that all of it is true.  It might mean that Elizabeth Barnett is in real danger.  Look, Scully, you know and I know that she isn't about to go willingly with anyone who wants to abduct her.  Let's test this thing ."

"How very scientific of you," she cracked.

"I'm not always going off half-cocked," he said defensively.  "Just take a few minutes, make the call, we'll see what happens, okay?"

She shrugged, took the page, and, after checking to make sure the door to the conference room was locked from the outside, she went to find a phone book.  It would be an interesting mental exercise to come up with a reason why the FBI needed to know the lead for Roger Ebert's latest review.

* * * * * * * * * *
Continued in Installment 5 

Don't forget to feed the author!   peregrin_anna@hotmail.com

Return to GTA's EE Crossover Index