From: TSykes1327 Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 16:46:07 EST Subject: NEW: Reluctant Ambition (0/2) X-UIDL: 4b9b78db00510c70dd1516e767c77074 Disclaimer: The characters and recognised events referred to in this story do not belong to me, but are the property of Chris Carter, 1013, Fox and the Cancer Man. Do not hold me responsible when colonisation is upon us as I intend no copyright infringement. If anyone asks, it was my evil twin. Classification: X Keywords: Pre-XF, Marita, Conspiracy. Rating: PG-13 No Mulder and Scully. Sorry. Spoilers: Deep Throat, The Red And The Black, Patient X, Zero Sum. You can archive this as long as you let me know beforehand. Notes: OK, the first story I did like this (The Truth In The Past: Vietnam) didn't turn out quite as I would have liked it. In fact, I banished it to the recycle bin, and wish I could remove it from Gossamer and start anew. But that isn't possible. :::cough::: Anyway, this is my second attempt at a minor character story, and it deals with the one you all hate - yes, Marita Covarrubias. Well, she's most probably going to die at some point in season five, and hasn't been given half the airtime of the other informants, so I thought it only fair to give her a go. Maybe if she had more background, her character wouldn't be so annoying? Well, maybe not. Anyway, for all the Marita fans out there (for we are few) read this, and see what you think. (And she doesn't say "Bee Husbandry" once!) And yes, I know that in Patient X Krycek didn't know Marita. I'm saying that he lost his memory of those events during his oilien posession, but that is another story..... This story contains events which will be neccessary for future fanfic stories, should I get around to writing them. Feedback: TSykes1327@aol.com (http://members.aol.com/fleub/) Thanks To: All the peeps on AOL who have looked through this for me. You know who you are...Yes you do...Yes you do!! Summary: Marita Covarrubias reflects on her life, and the path that she should take now that X is dead. Story starts in next mailing. ------------------------------------- THE X-FILES Created by Chris Carter "Reluctant Ambition" By Garry Sykes ------------------------------------- Exact Location Unknown 1997 12:13pm A dark back alley, a site that was becoming increasingly familiar to me, would in the end become the place where my reluctant fate would be decided. Many a time before had I stood in this place, waiting for Him to arrive. Many a time had I been greeted by nothing more than a note detailing his absence and task, inspiring a feeling of reject - a bad date. Many a time had he took me, shown me things that weren't to be seen by the mortal eye, and yet they were made clear to me. It was the closest I have been to a relationship in years, yet I was driven from him by Them. While I would often refuse to admit it, I had become what They called a Player, probably for their own amusement as much as it was necessary. It was my preference, however, to look upon myself as a lackey, a tool of the one they called the Cancer Man, and nothing more. It made it easier to beat myself up, and the suicide attempts all the more melodramatic. He would be here, soon. The one that aided me. I stood watching my breath escape me, and dreamed of how I myself would one day fly away from the nightmares I was now a party to. Unfortunately, though, that would be too simple. Both a curse and a benefit of being one of the Project's vast number of troops was that it was very difficult to die, unless they so wished. They had ultimate control over the actions of their 'employees' and were reluctant to relinquish it. In the end, that was probably the reason I didn't kill myself when I saw that man in the alley, heard his rhythmic footsteps and read the look on his face. An unfamiliar man approached, stocky and muscular. This in itself was not unusual: He often sent strangers to do his work when it became apparent that He may be exposed. This man, was different: his face bore a look of grim tiding and grave reluctance. It was by this that I knew He was dead. The immediate thought struck me with little impact while my unwilling subconscious willed him to be alive, as if that alone would make it right. Pushing all conscious thought to the back of my mind, I gathered my strength and prepared for the man's onslaught. What I knew was just around the proverbial corner. "I trust you've heard." he said, a statement rather than a question. Trust - a word overused down the years of my service to Them. Dark shadows hid his darker eyes, and blackness rippled over him in waves as a car passed the alley. We both shifted uneasily. "Yes." I lied. He drew himself to his full height and he was surprisingly tall. He grinned a sinister grin, revealing blackened teeth within, and with his words, a tainted soul. "Then you realise that the baton has been passed to you, and that you should expect a visit." I nodded and arced on my heel, gesturing the end of the brief meeting. He understood the unwritten language and heaved himself a few steps backwards. "You must complete the final lap alone. You know what to tell him" he said over his shoulder and paced back into the shadows from which he had emerged. I raised my chin in an uncomfortable forward nod to myself and turned my back on him as his heavy steps echoed across the alley. So, He was dead and it was up to me now, if the truth was ever to be known. When he was far enough away, I let emotion return from it's residence somewhere inside me. While His death rained on my conscience, I felt surprisingly little feeling for Him, perhaps confirmation of just how cold I had become - I wasn't the same person that had skipped her graduation speech for laughing too much, or cried for three weeks at the death of Cleo, her first pet dog. Only one idea prevailed in my mind: That I was going to die, like the two men before me. Ironic that I should follow, in the equal opportunity world of the nineties. I realised something else that night. I was surprised - the idea scared me. That despite abundant attempts on my own life, despite that I was gradually killing myself anyway with the pills and drinking sprees. Despite all this, there was enough humanity in me to fear the coming of death and the hollow promises that it would fulfil. For the first time in almost a decade, since I had been exposed to the dark secrets of the project, a shudder of discomfort ran up my spine. My life now in jeopardy with every step, the net now removed, I dared myself to leave the alley, and took up the challenge, almost certain that someone, somewhere was watching me, and that it was only a matter of time. No longer immortal, I saw black days ahead. Now I sit in the office, typing the notes that he gives me and eating off the spoon that he feeds me with, and remembering how it began. ***** Chilmark, Massachusetts 4th November 1987 00:07am I was just twenty two when the last of my parents died of Altzheimers. I sought some form of comfort in my eldest sister, who passed on herself just three months later in a freak car accident. My career in the UN at that point seemed stationary. While I was nothing more than I glorified secretary, I had received training in numerous areas of espionage, and even assassination, should the need arise. At times, I found this hard to live with, but consoled myself in the fact that they were wasted talents. Thus, I took time off from work without a second thought, claiming that it was to deal with the grief. They knew where I was, if they needed me. This point in my life bore me two revelations: Firstly, I discovered that the deaths of my sister, and, to a lesser extent my mother, had brought little or no emotion to the surface. True that I pitied their loss - I would not have wished it on them, but it didn't have the impact I would have expected, or, among all my anguish, hoped for. They caused me to turn on myself more than focusing on their deaths, and to punish myself accordingly. It was a feeling I would revisit many times over the inevitably coming years. Fittingly, the second of my two revelations would affect my life infinitely more than the death of my beloved mother. Reluctantly I had returned to the house I inherited from my sister, on the most part because all the bars in the sleepy little town had long since closed. I was disappointed that I would have to return to the real world, a thumping headache worse for wear. This fact made it seem all the more incredible to myself. Even at this point, I vowed that none would hear of it. It rose from the north, a triangle of fire and fury. Traced in it's wake was an afterimage of the immense lights that spun around it in an angular V shape. It shifted it's position with ease, skating on the ice of the night sky. It slid to my left, a beam of light now projected onto the ground just a few feet away as I stared at it in awe. The beam moved onto me, the thing seemingly unmoving. I felt it, pushing down on me relentlessly. As much as I failed to shade my eyes from it's imposing light, I fell to the ground while the craft, as I have come to know it, hovered above, silent. A feeling of peacefulness surrounded it, while my mind insisted that it was a contraption of evil. A sound that could only be described as a clank, and the light was gone, the weight suddenly removed from my shoulders, unlike the dull thud that was fast growing in my temples and sinuses. Then it was gone, as quickly as it had appeared. The whole thing was over in no more than five minutes, as the sky changed from white to black and my consciousness failed me. As I returned to the waking world, I found myself with little recollection of the previous night's events. As predicted, my head was on fire from within, but even that didn't blind me to the fact that something had happened that night, and a driving force within me told me to investigate it further. My prevalent rational side, however, contended that I could have seen the easter bunny, had I so wished, as such was the extent of my intoxication. In time - a few days - vague memories pierced this web of self deception. At first, only the shape returned to me. My dreams were haunted with visions of screaming triangles, all with malicious intent. After this, my mind grasped at the straws of memory until I fully recalled what I had done, and what I had seen. Back then, the extent of my knowledge of UFOs came from daytime talk shows that I had fallen into a habit of watching over the last few months. Through sheer denial, I refused to believe what I knew was true and suppressed my encounter. I was not about to become some overweight woman, trashily dressed, ranting about how aliens impregnated her daughter. Later, I would find this surprisingly close to truth. And anyway, I knew it was no alien device. Even with it's menacing appearance and seemingly limitless ability, it had a distinct human feel about it to the point I tried to make it into a stealth plane in my minds eye. No ordinary stealth plane. More likely a new experimental one, and this was all dependant on whether or not I had even seen it, if it had been all alcohol induced hallucination. Evidence to the contrary turned up, literally, on my doorstep, just hours after I grappled with myself for explanation. A man of little feature, whose methods of covering his true appearance I would come to know and even mimic myself, although it was far harder for a woman to do. Without speaking, he gestured to the inside of my house - my sister's house - and pushed past me, into the hall, then waited in silence. "Miss Covarrubias?" he said after five minutes of my staring in bewilderment. There was something hard to refuse about this man. He was sinister in appearance, yet benign in tone of voice. An air of mysticism surrounded him as he spoke, but the falters in his speech told me that he had a lot on his conscience. I would eventually be part of his atonement. "What...what do you want?" I asked. There was something alien about him, and I found myself unable to look directly at him. "I have a proposition for you, something that would aid us both." he croaked. His voice was sharpened with the burden of experience. Again, I found myself unwilling to say no, although now my ever-present sense of ambition was prevailing over my bafflement. I found it unlikely that he was a salesman, but had he followed that career, he would have been infallible. Finding from somewhere a burst of confidence, I stepped away from him and pointed towards the living room. He accepted and sat himself down wearily on my sisters couch. I found myself strangely willing to talk with a man who, with no consent from myself, had come into my home with an offer. A man whom, to my knowledge, I had never seen before, but based my opinion of him on my first impressions. A complete stranger, with emphasis on strange. A religious person would have thought him a messenger from God. "I understand you saw something the other night. An object, in the sky." he stated. I nodded tentatively. "Then" he continued "I have the right person. Do you know how many people believe themselves to have seen UFOs every year? And how many of them are, in fact, mistaking the planet Venus for something otherworldy?" The talk show woman sprung vividly back into my mind. She claimed to have had a similar encounter, which made me question my sanity. "Do you think you could have done as such?" he asked pointedly. I looked away for a second. "Look." I began. "I don't know who you are, or why you are here, but I don't see what relevance it has. What did you say, you were here for a deal?" I shook my head lightly. "What kind of deal? Are you here to sell me something?" As I spoke, dread swept over me, and I knew that he was much more than a salesman. That the consequences of this first meeting would reach far beyond the walls of this house of death. Even back then, in my line of work, these things were obvious. "Ah...to the point." he replied admiredly "Surely you realise by now that what you saw was no weather balloon, or a mistaken planet." An awkward pause. "Miss Covarrubias, we've been following your career. We know of your capabilities, and feel that your talents are wasted where you are" He spoke quickly now, as if he had given this speech many times. "We would like you to join us." He gestured to his hip, where I had already guessed a gun resided. Despite all of his efforts otherwise, he was clearly a government agent of some description. His paycheque was probably signed by the same people as my own. I understood his message clearly. "You presently work for the UN, am I correct?" I nodded again, a sudden fear arising from my stomach. "On leave of absence due to the death of your sister?" His testimony was made all the more convincing by his knowledge of me: my job, my relatives, my encounter that night, which I suspected he had more than a little to do with. And his eyes, eyes that seemed to be the only marks on his featureless face, told me that he knew more. "You will report to work on Monday morning, saying you are now over the tragedy. You will await my contact." The man stood, glaring at me, questioning me. Almost sobbing, I nodded grimly, and he walked out of the door, into the empty street outside. I followed him through the window, but as his brisk pace carried him out of the street and into anywhere, I felt a longing for his presence once more. Despite the fear, despite the threats, the same feeling of destiny was inspired within me as the night that I saw the object, and I knew that this was supposed to happen. I willed my destiny on myself, and the man who would aid me in this would return. Some would come to know him as Deep Throat. I knew him by another name: Fate. ***** New York City 7th June 1991 12:42pm Fate had shown me little, although in relation to the rest of the world it seemed a miracle. Through fleeting glances of something godly, a picture had formed in my mind, although even after five years of service I had been kept from catching a glimpse of the greater purpose. I once again began to doubt my career and life, although the pills hadn't yet made an appearance - that would come later. My position in the UN had far escalated to the point where I was an interview away from assisting the SRSG. The challenge, however, was gone and my receiving the position was near guaranteed. Therein lay the major fault of the game I had began to play: being allowed to win became tedious in the extremes. In the end, this was probably the primary reason I strayed from the path that Fate had laid for me. My ambition drove me along and away from it, to a place far away from my original destination. At first, the room seemed strange. It radiated the same mystery as the man I had been recruited by, and the men inside were just as, if not more, powerful. The benignity was gone, though, replaced by a sinister quality that put me on edge. They spoke almost like a collective of nations and languages. Thinking the same thoughts, finishing each others sentences. The Elders, they called themselves, but may as well have been the Elder. I was made to wait in the corner while they whispered to each other promises of nations. "...son..." "....Mulder.." I heard the accursed name for the first time. "...Project..." a name more vile than any. "..exposure.." said with fear. Several faces were introduced that day as I waited patiently - men who stood out among the rest, and with whom I would become overly familiar. The first man was dark. Darker than the rest, but I could read a sadness into his visage. His face was wrinkled beyond his years, perhaps something to do with the cigarette that he perpetually held. At times he appeared to be in charge, but at others, he was being interrogated as he paced back and forth across the room. The second I already knew - Fate - the man who recruited me. He looked like a father, telling his son that there was no Santa Claus. He was silent. I noticed that when the path of the cigarette smoking man crossed his own, he gave a sharp glance of betrayal. It seemed probable that he was being disciplined, for what I could only guess: me. The third was too obese to rule the world, as I suspected that was what these men did (by now I was not unfamiliar with conspiracy lore. At least, speculative conspiracy lore) and his teeth were stained black. Aged around 50, he slouched in an armchair. An authoritative figure, the others seemed to avoid him. The fourth man held an enigmatic air of thought. He was more gentlemanly than the rest, and he was aged with experience rather than bad habit. His voice had the same calm quality as my overseer that I dubbed Fate. His hands were constantly held in his lap, his fingernails neatly trimmed. He, too, seemed in some form of control. It was he who called me over to the rest of the group. I felt naked standing before them. Every eye in the room was analysing me, weighing me up against their preconceived notions of how one of their workers should be. This was an interview that I could fail, and in some ways that brought up my willingness to be chosen. In others, it made me realise that my failing their tests would result in far more than the loss of a high profile job. Another man (Boy would be a more fitting term) stood adjacent to me, his gaze seemingly fixed on something out of the window. My first indication that I was in more danger than I had hoped. Finally, one of them spoke: "Miss Covarrubias." the fourth man. He nodded a belated greeting. "Do you have any idea why you have been brought before us?" Yes, this is a souped up job interview, which if I fail, some cop will end up pulling me out of the gutter, isn't that right? "No...well, I have some idea." "Well, let us enlighten you." said one of the group - a bald man. "Miss Covarrubias, we would have liked to avoid this situation as much as you." the fat man. They were going to kill me, but not only that, they were going to play with me before so. An unending game of torturous cat and mouse. If only I had known. The man next to the window stared worryingly at me. "But it seems one of our associates." he continued, glancing at Fate "Has acted of his own initiative, and made something of a mistake." The door opened and closed behind me. I didn't dare turn around, but I felt a hulking presence to my back. Harsh breath on my neck. A small sound - the unsheathing of a knife or gun. I braced myself for the unknown. The unknown welcomed me with open arms. "If you would care to turn around." I turned and jumped back a foot. The movement would have been almost humorous, were it not for the complexities of the situation. A huge man was bearing down on me. His breath smelled vile and his subtle expression was undignified. In his hand, a small cylinder protruding from which was a long, thin blade. I was going to die at the hands of this Frankenstein's monster. Instead, it merely stood, like it was modelling the latest fashion, it's head held up, blank eyes straight forward. It's huge lower jaw opened and closed inexorably, but it seemed incapable of speech. It was human, yet not so. A creation. "You're looking at the future." the cigarette man uttered. I saw fire rising in that man's eyes as he stubbed out the cigarette and stood before me. I realised that I had been approved and accepted. "The date is set, and the clock is ticking." ***** New York City 14th August 1991 2:28pm Through channels unknown, I had been granted the post of assistant to the SRSG without interview or review. My career wasn't the only thing to benefit. My first paycheque came in at over ten thousand dollars, and I relocated to New York for works' purposes. For both jobs. I hadn't met with the mysterious Elders since, but had been handed down titbits of information from a man so nameless as to be called X. Over the last two months, I had come to know him as a dangerous, often impulsive man. On two occasions I had witnessed him removing the brains from a mans' head via his gun, for the simple reason that they wouldn't obey him. Still, he was no fool, and took his actions - what he had become - with a heavy heart. He confided in me his method of redemption. Of how, via another, he would atone for his deeds. He spoke of an anti-Elder movement within the group. Apparently, my recruiter was one of them, as were a few other scattered congressman and conspirators. Should anything happen to Fate, the torch would be passed to X, then another down the line. It soon became apparent that he wished me to take the role of this other, and the mistake that Fate had made became apparent - he had sought me out for that purpose and had been discovered, along with myself, and now I was caught in their web from which struggling would only entangle me further. After many nights of mental wrestling with myself (my life versus what I would become as the years went on, in a grand showdown) I decided to take his offer. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't picture myself as one of the Elders. Sitting in that room, a smug look on my face, as a new recruit stepped through the door. Analysing as they had myself to see if he would make the perfect killer. As lethargic as my conscience was at that point, and as much as part of me craved the power, that was an image that what humanity was left in me was repulsed by, and I wouldn't settle for that fate. Far better to die fighting these men, and what I had come to know of their evils: the project, and the death and torture that it entailed. I had been tricked into thinking that I was a member of an exclusive club, a club more powerful than the Freemasons or the Stars and Stripes. My mistake was that I didn't stop to think what that power entailed, and when I was alerted to this by X, I wanted out, however impossible that was. It seemed that death was inevitable. That was still many years in the future - hopefully before the ending of the cigarette man's apocalyptic countdown, the meaning of which I have, to this day yet to comprehend. The anti-conspiracy movement was still searching for someone to represent them. A crusader to use as a puppet. Someone with whom they could fight their shadow war, because they were too cowardly to do it themselves, and I had become one of them. Part of me hated myself for that. I was driven back onto the pills by the monstrosities that were revealed to me. Sometimes I would see the things, others I would just hear, and my warped imagination was left to fill in the blanks. I was losing my sanity, but handed a wad of money and told that it was all part of the job, and made to accept it, as I duly did. The word suicide once more began to cross my mind, but I was kept alive by the thoughts of the day when I was crucify all of them. Correction, I was to persuade someone to crucify them. The first of these things came in the form of a note. The man that I had come to know as an ally had alerted me to the existence of what claimed to be a leper colony, and on the surface, so it seemed. Upon visiting with a forged pass, however, I witnessed deeds and counter-deeds more cruel that anything enforced upon unsuspecting Jews. They buzzed around like flies, their heads hugely ballooned as to look almost alien, but their suffering was very human. They bumped into each other, blind to the world. Their mutated hands, fingers extended beyond belief by an unimaginable means, banged on the sides of their cells as they let out inhuman shrieks into the night. For these reasons, I was convinced to help the mysterious X. On occasion, I thought of doing the dirty work myself, but I would be easily discredited. They needed something more. When FBI Agent Fox Mulder, a son of one of the Project members, appeared, it was a god sent (By now, the men I once saw as gods were now lower than the rats that plagued the street outside my apartment) and it seemed that he would be the one we'd been waiting for. ***** En Route to Ellen's Air Base 17th October 1991 9:37pm "Miss Covarrubias, the time has arrived at which you have been activated." he had said while we stood in that alley, locked away from the everyday world and the small lives of the people within it. By then, reality had truly dawned on me, and I felt ultimately trapped by my situation. I set off for Ellens Airbase in a grim mood. On my way to my assignment, a fully fledged stooge of the project, I was greeted by an unexpected site: the younger man I had seen with the Elders. Standing next to the road, drenched by the rain that pattered on the windshield of my car, he walked in front of me to the point at which I thought I would hit him, had I not slammed on the breaks. He waved in my face, opening the door and leaning inside the car. He dripped water onto the seat next to me as he spoke with a wry smile: "Room for another?" he said casually, as if he were an old friend. I looked at him, bemused. He took this as an invitation and climbed inside clumsily. He fell on my arm and soaked both it and the seat that he fell into. I stared at him disgustedly, and he became suddenly serious. "It's only water. It's not as if it'll kill you." and from him, the last part of his sentence was all the more chilling. "Excuse me, but you are..." I asked. "Alex Krycek." he held out his dripping hand to shake mine. "And it looks like you're stuck with me. I've been assigned to work with you." He never asked me for my name. He spoke the last sentence with a knowing smile, and, much as I distrusted him, I felt compelled to discuss the work with him as we continued through the rain. Ellens airbase was a foreboding site, looming hangers everywhere. I parked the car and we exited, trudging through the mud that over- spilled into my boots, and into the main hangar with us. I was on more familiar ground here - the planes that surrounded us, while a grand sight, I had seen on many an occasion before that meeting with the Elders, the difference being that before they were feats of the human mind. Now they were craft from another galaxy. Their chromium black sparkled somehow in the first rays of sun through the rain, as Fate approached us. "I trust you've both been briefed?" he called. We nodded in unison, and I saw Alex's eyes waver to look at me. "Then you are free to proceed." Yes, I was familiar with the brief, but not the one he was talking about. My impression was that we were to surveil a group of test subjects, but as evil as this seemed to me, our true purpose was something far more insidious, as Alex already knew. I should of known by the way he acted, what it was we were to carry out. He seemed far too relaxed to be confronting the subjects. Killing was something he was much more comfortable with. As direct as he was powerful, Fate turned back into the hangar, adding something before he disappeared back into the crowds, without a trace. "Not the last two." he said. "I will take care of them." Whatever his reason for saving Robert Budahas and Frank McLennon, Alex (I'd called him on a first name basis since the first meeting) seemed highly uncomfortable with it, and shifted, as if to question Fate's authority, before settling back down again. My best guess for why we shouldn't *interview* the last two was that they were still within the vicinity of the airbase and Budahas was soon to be granted an extended stay there. The rest had all moved to various regions of the country, and we had to track them down before we did our business with them. Knowledge of them, their lives, made the following month all the more traumatic. Our murder holiday began with reluctance, and ended with my almost enjoying the slaughter. Week after week, Alex and I followed the same routine: track down the future victim, stake out their home, meet with them and then ultimately kill them. To begin with, Alex spoke with the people - my mind would still not bear the thought of talking to a future cadaver at my own hands. I took my first tentative steps into sadism on the fourth or fifth victim, and by the time we were on the eighth, I looked forward to it. There was no remorse left in me. Such was it that we plotted, in our own minds realistically, to rule the world as the Elders now did. Alex's twisted philosophy, that seemed all the more credible in light of my recent actions, was that the Elders were only as strong as their plausible deniability. If we took them to a position that they would risk exposure, then they would relinquish control to us, rather than die at the hands of a mass public lynch mob. He maintained that the entire project was an act of cowardice, a betrayal of humankind, and at times, I believed him. For a moment, I even took in the notion that the cigarette man's all-knowing countdown was to the colonisation of aliens on the earth. While I never totally dismissed it, the thought seemed unlikely, even in light of recent events. It was straight out of a science fiction novel. And I was living in a twisted Tom Clancy work. Genetic engineering, even alien technology seemed credible enough to me, but not the aliens themselves, even though I had unknowingly encountered one. Still, I had played along with his ideas and dreams of playing God. Afterall, he was just a boy, even though he could kill without remorse. At this late stage, I should have known better than to stick to a belief system. The weeks of merciless deaths continued, until it came to a breaking point of loyalties between Alex and I - what had become an inseparable partnership, as much as that of the FBI Agents that I now unwillingly aid and deceive. While Fate, and, indeed fate had warned against the deaths of Budahas and McLennon, Alex claimed to have it on a higher authority that they should die. I suspected that the blood lust had gotten to him, as it had, to some extent me. I would have liked them to die through me, but the restraint of picturing my own death for incompetence held me back. Still, he insisted that we travel to Ellens Airbase and, if only out of insecurity for myself, I obliged. It was a destination, however, that we were never to reach. Once more, I was stopped in my tracks and forced to break at an impossible speed, as a black car swung out infront of us. A grey-haired man sat in the drivers seat, staring at us through deep eye sockets, while the cigarette smoking man opened the passenger door and stepped out into the drizzle. He motioned for us to step out of our vehicle and we obeyed, both relenting to his authority. The drizzle picked up speed, beating down on all three of us while the other man sat in the car, staring and doing nothing more. It served to put both of us further on edge. Alex bore the expression of a child caught doing something he shouldn't have been. After ten minutes of eyeing us, wreathed in smoke, the man spoke. "You were en route to Ellens' air base? May I ask why?" the almost cheery note in his voice made him more intimidating than any threat he could give. Alex fielded the question. "We were under the impression that those were your wishes." he said flatly. "You were under no such impression!" he barked, and the grey-haired man almost stood. It was obvious that he had some purpose to fulfil, other than staring. Alex looked at the floor. More childhood behaviour, but I was given the impression that he was hiding something. Something that the cigarette man didn't pick up on. Later, I would learn the extent of his betrayal, and that he was no boy. I held my head high in the face of his accusation. "And you, Miss Covarrubias. You went along with this. Surely you had orders from my associate to the contrary?" It was my turn to observe the damp tarmac on the road. Then, Alex did something that I had never seen him do since, but had only heard of his escapades as such. He challenged the authority. He put himself in a position higher than the Elders, and questioned their motives. "I was under the impression," he began, as the cigarette man stopped in disbelief. "That should we not handle it, that Agent Mulder would be brought into the equation. And we all know whose wishes that would go against, don't we." The cigarette man was taken aback, and was indeed a scolded child, but refused to let it appear so. He only struggled to light his cigarette in the rain. "Get back to D.C." he screamed. "Now!" He turned, his coat sprawling in his wake, back to the car. The grey- haired man seemed disappointed that he hadn't fulfilled his intentions. "As for you, Miss Covarrubias. You are to obey me from now on." Again, I found myself falling into the trap of obeying unquestioningly whoever gave me the orders - whether it be Fate, Alex or this Cigarette Man, I now had loyalties with them all, and I would find myself torn between each one. ***** Offices of the SRSG, New York 12th March 1995 8:55am I was to encounter Alex Krycek a great many times over the following two years. Sometimes to work with him, other times working covertly against him, through the instructions of Fate. Conspiracy and counter- conspiracy ran through my mind, so complex that anyone attempting to unravel them would be driven to madness. I encountered a great many groups, who, like the Elders, believed themselves to be in charge, and I often questioned whether the Elders weren't themselves one of these groups. Assignment after belief-shattering assignment was proof to the contrary. Rather than guarantee my eventual death, Fate's execution opened the floodgates of my involvement, and X took his place. My becoming the "source" as Mulder referred to us, drew nearer with every heartbeat. I learned of strands of the project that I had no idea would exist, and I realised that Alex knew a great amount about their activities. A lot of the theories he had put forth in the early days proved correct as a basis, but the truth reached even further than even his wildest speculation. Thus my thoughts were dominated by visions of black demons, and fiery death by beesting, until the day I was informed of X's death and my life was given new purpose. Before then, one last revelation was to rock my world, and this too, was brought by Alex Krycek. He had eloped from the claws of the cigarette man almost six months ago, and I had heard inklings of his activities in Russia. These leaks of information were about to become an ocean of wonder, as I sat, tediously retyping a congress agenda. To my dismay - in part because he was jeopardising his life, and in part because I had developed a loyalty to the project I thought myself incapable of - he had been selling secrets from the MJ-12 tape. The tape was a fluke. No computer hacker, however elaborate, would ever have been able to access the files under normal circumstances, but as far as computer technology went, we were still grounded in the realms of mortality. I was once more sent against this boy that had, in my vision, become a man above all those that sat in that shady apartment, commanding the days away. A man prepared to back up his beliefs with his own actions, not instructing others to see them through. It was not him that interested me at this point, however. This would be far too human, and I was in a period of little emotion even for me. It was what was living inside him. It was the first specimen of it's kind, far bigger than anything we had encountered, which had mostly consisted of fragments from meteorites. As the search for a cure to this black cancer proceeded in earnest, I was told that this new form had been pulled from the bottom of the ocean. Now I was not only up against a man that I had spent endless days with, plotting the downfall of the world, but an enemy as mysterious as it could be powerful. It had already killed at least a dozen men. Upon the authority of the cigarette man, from whom I then reluctantly took orders, I followed Agent Mulder for the first time. He took me all the way to Hong Kong and back, although future journeys with him, enchanted by his visions as I had once been with Alex's', would take me far further in my mind. While taking separate flights so not to arouse suspicion, the notion that Alex was near and that we would be reunited bore me some comfort. Again, under the cigarette man's instruction, I travelled to Terma, North Dakota, where I was to await Alex's arrival. What confronted me, was not the man I used to know. His eyes as clouded with the stuff as the Elders were with their own visions, he spoke in an alien voice. His expression blank and intoxicated, his once youthful skin showing the first signs of age. He was a pathetic site. "I am confused as to your purpose" he said robotically as I approached him. No breath was highlighted in the cold. Still not deterred by his unworldly appearance, I walked up to him and offered him my hand, old friends reunited. He looked baffled, but a glint in his eye remaining of his humanity. I retracted the gesture. "I was sent here." I suggested, hoping he would realise how inevitable my actions had become, as his once were. "Why? I was only to find my craft. Then I would be gone." his grasp of English was minimal as he struggled with the words. Seeing no Alex Krycek before me, I allowed him to proceed, into the depths of the hangar. I hid myself in a high location (a lofty position), as I watched the FBI agents arrive, enter the hangar, only to be fished out by the cigarette man and his henchmen. I observed a look of cruel enjoyment on his face while he talked to the agents, a facade covering what I knew as disappointment, for he too had suffered losses a long time ago. And as I looked down on Alex Krycek for what could be the last time, I saw in his pain a self gratification for myself. That I had made it while he, in his extreme power and ambition, had fallen by the roadside and I had continued into the night. As the stuff flowed from his face and into the craft, I also knew that it would be allowed to leave, if only because of the risk fighting such a thing would entail. And then he lay, slumped on top, left for dead. His energy was drained, and his sleep was somehow peaceful. I knew he wouldn't die: rats had a way of surviving against the odds, but still I felt as if I were abandoning him, as I paced back down that corridor. Now I was truly one of them. I had forsaken all emotion and attachment for the values of the project, and only one man could save my soul - Agent Fox Mulder. Fate had been accurate in his judgements, and the Elders were once more stirring with news of a leak. My redemption day was drawing closer. ***** So many agendas, so many possibilities. Now that he is positively dead, that the reality has washed over me in it's cleansing wave, I am reluctant to take up the flag and fly it. Still, I know I must, or the game will go on until the date that they wish to end the charade. I now understand the cigarette man's mystical warning. The date was set. The date when the counters will reach the last square and the endgame will truly begin. I fear this time, yet suspect that I won't be alive to live it and this doesn't sadden me. All that hangs on my mind is the question of which way to go. Now that I have reached this crossroads, what twisted route of pain to follow? With Alex Krycek comes dreams of ruling the world, but dreams are all they are. I hope I will still be living on the day of his death, then I will have won this race of nations. Russia versus America. Both flags should be painted black for the things I have witnessed. With Fate and Fox Mulder comes salvation, but at what cost to my own wellbeing? That question strikes terror into me I didn't realise possible. And what of the cigarette man? I know by now that he has a way of his own and must follow the path to finding her - the one that he and Mulder have both lost forever - alone. No, his path would be an unwise one. The Elders, the ones that would have me believe ruled like kings over the court of the world, are unviable. They are dangerous in their hypocrisy, and at times I find myself wondering just whose puppet they are. Everyone answers to someone. Agent Mulder had come to me that day. His ramblings and claims to experience irritated me, but I told him what he needed to know. I performed my act that I had performed since the day I had met the enigmatic Fate, and gave him everything. Not everything dies, I had told him, and to some extent this was true, but even by then it was too late for me. My fate had been sealed with an X. In the end, when the final stages of the project would be played out, there was only one agenda that I could follow: my own. This is the only option that could be considered vaguely human among the monstrosities. An under the murdering, and the covering up of torturous experiments capable of ridding all but the most hardened of their sanity, a small part of me is still human. ------- THE END ------- Comments / Feedback / Flames to: Tsykes1327@aol.com