Fight the Future (10 page)

They headed toward the middle of the vast open space, stepping with care on the gray sur-face underfoot, until they reached a dividing line where the floor gave way to the dome's epicenter, a space the size of a sports arena.

Before them, laid out in a grid and low to the ground, was row after row of what looked like boxes, sides touching as though they were pieces in some mammoth puzzle or game board. Each was about three feet square, with a dim pewter sheen. Mulder stepped very carefully onto one. It felt reassuringly solid, and after a moment Scully followed him, walking across the grid.

"I think we're on top of something, a large structure," Scully said when they paused to look around.

She stared down, frowning. It was apparent now that the boxes had louvered tops, but these were all firmly shut, so that whatever was inside could not be seen. She tapped gently at the box with her foot. "I think these are some kind of venting—"

Mulder stooped, to rest his head against the top of one box, listening. "You hear that?"

"I hear a humming. Like electricity. High voltage, maybe." She gazed overhead, at the bizarre Crosshatch of cables and struts and gird-ers spanning the interior of the dome.

"Maybe," said Mulder. "Maybe not."

Scully pointed skyward. "What do you think
those
are for?"

Above them, at the very top of the dome, were two huge louver vents corresponding to the smaller ones underfoot.

"I don't know," said Mulder, scrambling back up again.

They stood side by side, gazing at the ceil-ing when, without warning, a hollow metallic
bang
echoed through the dome.

In the dome's ceiling one of the vents was opening. As though some great invisible hand was there, the great metal louvers were strain-ing from their flat, closed position; until they pointed straight up and down. Open, so that Scully and Mulder could see a black slab of night beyond, and feel the chill air edging through the gap in the dome. When the first louver was completely open, the second began the same ominous performance, sliding until another series of apertures gaped onto the night. Mulder stared at it, mind racing as he tried to come up with some explanation for what was above them.

Cooling vents? But the dome was already chilly, the temperature maintained by some unseen refrigeration system. Brow furrowed, he looked down and around, searching for some-thing that might provide a clue. His gaze stopped when it came to the mysterious boxes underfoot.

Something occurred to him then. Some-thing extremely unpleasant. Something fright-ening.

"Scully… ?"

His partner continued to stare upward. "Yeah…?"

He grabbed her hand. "
Run
."

He pulled her after him and she followed; not knowing why, heading for the door where they had entered, a good hundred yards away.

She hesitated and looked back at the gray ranks of louvered boxes on the floor, and saw what they were hiding.

One by one the vents on each box opened, domino-style, sliding back until their contents were exposed. And with a sound like a chain saw ripping through new wood, bees emerged: thousands upon thou-sands of them, pouring from the boxes and streaming toward the open ceiling. Scully drew her hands before her face and turned, staggering after Mulder. He pulled his jacket up around his head and she did the same, clumsily, stumbling as the insects streamed around her. She could see bees clinging to her jacket, her legs; bees swarming so thickly in the air before her that it was like looking through dark gauze.

"Keep going!" Mulder shouted, voice muf-fled by his sleeve. Scully lurched after him. The entrance was only a few yards away now, but she was falling behind, losing her bearings as the frantically humming swarm descended around her.

Mulder looked as though he were swim-ming through the cloud of insects, arms flail-ing, head down.

He was nearing the entryway when he turned to see Scully flagging behind him. Bees covered her like a softly rippling pelt. She moved as in slow motion, dazed and terrified.

"Scully!"

She couldn't even lift her head to acknowl-edge him. Mulder took a deep breath, then raced back to her side. His hand shot out and grabbed her coat, heedless of the bees crawling there. Then he dragged her after him to where the door fans blasted away the insects stub-bornly clinging to her body.

He kicked the door open and shoved her out ahead of him. As they went outside, he asked her if she got stung. "I don't think so."

The night came as a shock, after the false daylight of the dome. But before they could catch their breath something else came through the darkness. Not bees this time, but two blinding blades of light bearing down on them. The rushing whir of turbine engines filled the air as two unmarked helicopters came roaring from behind the other dome. They skimmed above the ground, searchlights blaz-ing, headed right for Scully and Mulder.

The agents fled. Bolting out of sight just as the helicopters blasted over the spot where they had stood seconds before. They headed for the cornfields, darting in between the towering rows and knocking away any stalks or leaves that blocked their way. Directly overhead the choppers swooped, searchlights cutting through the cornrows like twin lasers. Mulder and Scully ran in and out of the rows, barely managing to avoid the beams. The helicopters crisscrossed the air above them, like two great insects escaped from that other swarm, banking sharply as they searched the fields below. The wash from their propeller blades ripped through the cornstalks like a tornado, revealing anything that might be hidden within.

In the field Mulder gasped for breath as dust and pollen coated his mouth and nostrils. He staggered down another row, ducking as the searchlight beam swept just overhead but escaping detection—for the moment. He drew up beneath a broken cornstalk and coughed, covering his mouth, then looked around for Scully.

She was gone. Desperation edged out fear as he plunged back into the row, shielding his eyes as he peered between the endless lines of corn.

'Mulder!"

She was somewhere ahead of him. Mulder crashed through the field, gasping when he saw one of the choppers hovering into view. "Scully!" he yelled. "Scully!" He kept calling her name as he ran. The chopper hung in the air for a moment as though considering which way to go, then swung around and quickly, relentlessly, beared down upon him.

Before him the ranks of cornstalks thinned. A black ridge appeared, untouched by the heli-copter's beams: the edge of the field. His heart pounded as he made a final effort, racing toward open ground.

Behind him the chopper roared, cornstalks crashing in its wake. Mulder reached the end of the field and crashed out into the night.

He staggered to a halt, breathing in huge gulps of air. For a moment he could think of nothing else, but then another helicopter thundered up from behind him. He turned, and saw Scully a few feet away.

"Scully?"

"Mulder!" she said, sprinting toward him. "Let's go—"

They broke into a run, racing side by side toward the hillside that hid their car. When they reached the hill, they climbed, frantically, loose stones and dirt streaming down behind them. It was only when they reached the sum-mit that they slowed and looked at each other in the darkness.

Real darkness, starlit and ominously quiet. The helicopters had disappeared.

"Where'd they go?" Scully coughed, wiping her eyes.

"I don't know." Mulder stood for a moment, surveying the plateau below them: the weirdly glowing domes and acres of ravaged corn. Then he turned and continued running, back to the bluff where their car was parked. Scully followed.

The desert's uncanny silence hung over them as they finally reached the car. They rushed to it and jumped inside, Mulder twisting the ignition and pounding on the gas.

It didn't start.

"Shit," he groaned. He turned the key again—nothing. Waited and did the same— still nothing. Again and again he tried, franti-cally now, while Scully looked back through the rear window.

"Mulder!"

From behind the bluff rose one of the black helicopters. Suddenly the car's engine roared to life.

Mulder threw it into gear and spun out, tires screaming as he turned the car and sent it churning back down the hillside without turn-ing on the lights. Scully stared back breath-lessly, waiting for the helicopter to give chase.

It did not. It hovered for a few seconds, then, as silently as it had appeared, it banked and flew off into the night.

CHAPTER 10

FBI HEADQUARTERS

J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Assistant Director Jana Cassidy did
not
like to be kept waiting. For the tenth time she rifled through the papers on the table before her, glancing tight-lipped at the closed door to the hearing room. At the table alongside her the other panel members made a point of avoiding her eyes. Cassidy sighed impatiently and looked at her watch, then up again as the door swung open.

Assistant Director Walter Skinner stuck his head in. "She's coming in," he said wearily.

Skinner withdrew to let Scully pass. She had on the same clothes she'd been wearing for two days now, and she brushed surreptitiously at the stubborn bits of cornstalk and pollen that clung burrlike to her jacket. As she entered she dipped her head, smoothing out her hair as she approached the table; then looked up to give the hearing committee a chastened look as she took her seat. Skinner came in behind her and joined the others at the table.

"Special Agent Scully," Cassidy began, reshuffling her papers.

"I apologize for making you wait," Scully broke in. She shot Assistant Director Cassidy a polite look.

"But I've brought some new evi-dence with me—"

"Evidence of what?" Cassidy asked sharply.

Scully reached into the satchel at her feet and pulled out a vinyl evidence bag. She gazed at it reluctantly. When she finally spoke, her tone was anything but confident.

"These are fossilized bone fragments I've been able to study, gathered from the bomb site in Dallas…"

Cassidy scrutinized her coolly, but she didn't take note of the other thing Scully had brought back with her from Texas. Beneath the young agent's mass of auburn hair a bee crawled, as though stretching its legs from the long journey. It hovered momentarily against the navy fabric.

"You've been to Dallas?"

Scully met the other woman's challenging gaze. "Yes."

"Are you going to let us in on
what
, exactly, you're trying to prove?"

"That the bombing in Dallas may have been arranged to destroy the bodies of those firemen, so that their deaths and the reason for them wouldn't have to be explained—"

Unnoticed, the bee disappeared from sight again beneath the collar of Scully's suit jacket.

Cassidy's eyes narrowed. "Those are very serious allegations, Agent Scully."

Scully stared at her hands. "Yes, I know."

There was a hush of murmured responses to this, the panel members turning to confer with each other in low voices. In his chair, Assistant Director Skinner shifted uneasily, watching Scully and trying to figure out just what the hell she'd come up with this time.

Cassidy leaned back and regarded Scully. "And you have conclusive evidence of this? Something to tie this claim of yours to the crime?"

Scully met her gaze, then dropped her eyes, "Nothing completely conclusive," she admitted grudgingly. "But I hope to. We're working to develop this evidence—"

"Working with?"

Scully hesitated. "Agent Mulder."

At Jana Cassidy's knowing nod, the other panel members all shifted again in their chairs. The assistant director looked at Scully, then indicated the door.

"Will you wait outside for a moment, Agent Scully? We need to discuss this matter."

Very slowly Scully stood. She picked up her satchel and walked to the door, glancing back in time to see the look Skinner gave her, a look compounded equally of sympathy and disap-pointment.

• • •

CASEY'S BAR

SOUTHEAST WASHINGTON, D.C.

It was late afternoon when Fox Mulder pushed open the door to Casey's. Inside, it might have been the middle of the night. The same few, bleary-eyed regulars sat and talked. Mulder ignored them all, scanning the back of the room, where a Budweiser sign blinked fitfully above a lone figure slumped in a high-backed wooden booth. When Mulder sat down next to him the man jumped, then quickly leaned over to grab the agent's hand.

"You found something?" Kurtzweil wheezed.

"Yes. On the Texas border. Some kind of experiment. Something they excavated was brought there in tanker trucks."

"What?"

"I'm not sure. A virus—"

"You saw this experiment?" Kurtzweil broke in excitedly.

Mulder nodded. "Yes. But we were chased off."

"What did it look like?"

"There were bees. And corn crops." Kurtzweil stared at him, then laughed with ner-vous delight.

Mulder opened his hands in a helpless gesture. "What
are
they?"

The doctor slid from his seat. "What do you think?"

Mulder looked thoughtful. "A transporta-tion system," he said at last. "Transgenic crops. The pollen genetically altered to carry a virus."

"That would be my guess."

"Your
guess
!" Mulder exploded. "You mean you didn't
knowl"

Kurtzweil didn't reply. Without looking back he headed for the back of the bar. Mulder gaped, then hurried after him, as the few other patrons turned to see what the commotion was.

He caught up with Kurtzweil near the bath-rooms. "What do you mean, your
guessl"
he demanded.

Kurtzweil said nothing and continued to head for the back door. With a frustrated sound Mulder collared him, yanking the older man so that the two were inches apart.

"You told me
you had the answers
."

Kurtzweil shrugged. "Yeah, well, I don't have them all."