Текст книги "X Files: Fight the Future"
Автор книги: Chris Carter
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CHAPTER 7
FORENSICS LABORATORY FBI FIELD OFFICE DALLAS, TEXAS
tftf't/ou're looking for what amounts to a I needle in a haystack." The field agent waved his hand to indicate the room around them, an open space the size of a basketball court. "I'm afraid the explosion was so devas-tating there hasn't been whole lot we've been able to put together just yet."
Mulder had to agree. There were stacks of debris, twisted girders, roped-off areas where forensics experts sat and painstakingly tried to piece together what had been an office, or a kitchen, or a doorway.
It looked like the most tedious job in the world. Mulder stopped and stared at a table covered with what resembled a thousand scattered silvery blobs of solder. He raised an eyebrow, then turned back to the field agent.
"I'm looking for anything out of the ordi-nary. Maybe something from the FEMA offices where the bodies were found."
The field agent nodded, passing Mulder and pointing to another table. "We weren't expecting to find those remains, of course. They went right off to Washington."
Mulder looked away, hoping his frustration and disappointment wouldn't show. "Was there anything in those offices that didn't go to D.C.?"
The field agent gestured at the table. The jumbled contents looked as if they'd been there for months.
There were dusty glass bottles filled with what looked like metal screws and nails. Strewn across the table were a number of brushes of varying shapes and sizes, as well as tweezers, microscopes, and a very large magnifying glass.
"Some bone fragments came up in the sift this morning." The field agent picked up one of the bottles and gazed at its contents. "We thought there'd been another fatality, but then we found out that FEMA had recovered them from an archaeological site out of town."
"Have you examined them?"
"No." The field agent shrugged and replaced the bottle. "Just fossils, as far as we know."
Mulder nodded, when a figure standing in the doorway caught his eye. He lifted his chin very slightly and said, "I'd like this person to take a look, if you don't mind."
At the entrance to the workroom, Scully stood with arms crossed and stared at Mulder. Before he could call out to her, she walked across the room to join them. The field agent acknowledged her with a nod of greeting.
"Let me just see if I can lay my hands on what you're looking for," he said, and headed off into the maze of detritus behind them.
Mulder leaned against the table and gave Scully the once-over, twice. "You said you weren't coming."
"I wasn't planning on it," she said coolly. "Particularly after spending a half hour in cold storage this morning. But I got a better look at the blood and tissue samples I took from the fireman."
Mulder straightened. "What did you find?"
Scully lowered her voice. "Something I couldn't show to anyone else. Not without more information.
And not without causing the kind of attention I'd just as soon avoid right now."
She took a deep breath, and said, "The virus those men were infected with contains a protein code I've never seen before. What it did to them, it did extremely fast. And unlike the AIDS virus or any other aggressive strain, it survives very nicely outside the body."
Mulder's voice was a near whisper. "How was it contracted?"
"That I don't know. But if it's through sim-ple contact or blood to blood, and if it doesn't respond to conventional treatments, it could be a serious health threat."
Mulder started to reply excitedly, but at that moment the field agent reappeared. In his hands he carried a wooden tray holding several cork-topped glass vials. "Like I said, these are fossils," he announced, setting the tray down. "And they weren't near the blast center, so they aren't going to help you much."
"May If Scully waited for the field agent's nod, then picked up the tray. One by one she held the vials up to the light. They held bone frag-ments, the shattered remains of tibia and jaws and teeth. She selected one vial and stepped over to the chair beside a microscope, sat, and very care-fully tapped out a tiny fragment onto the viewing bed. She leaned forward, adjusting the focus until the fossilized sliver came into view.
Almost immediately she looked back up at Mulder. He took in her expression and quickly turned to the field agent. "You said you knew the location of the archaeological site where these were found?"
The agent nodded agreeably. "Show you right on a map," he drawled. "C'mon."
BLACKWOOD, TEXAS
The midday sun beat down upon raw red earth and dead grass, the domed white tents rising like huge, dust-stained eggs amid the unmanned trucks surrounding them. Several large generators gave forth a muted hum, but otherwise the scene was unutterably desolate. And strange.
Within the central tent, things were busier but no less strange. At the edge of an earthen hole, a small bulldozer wrestled with a large Lucite container set into its shovel, maneuver-ing it until it was a few yards from the opening. Monitors and gauges covered every inch of the container's surface, along with oxygen tanks and something resembling a circulating refrig-eration unit. It looked more like the sort of thing you'd find on a lunar landing module than in the Texas flatlands, and that's exactly what it was: a self-contained life-support sys-tem, its interior glazed with a thin, sugary layer of frost.
The bulldozer's engine cut off. Several technicians appeared. They lined up alongside the machine's shovel and lifted off the con-tainer, carrying it gingerly toward the hole. As they did so, a flap at the end of the room opened and Dr. Bronschweig appeared, clad in his Haz-Mat suit, hood unzipped so that it hung across his shoulders. He waved curtly at the technicians and started down the ladder leading into the hole. ,
"I need to have those settings checked and reset," he called, pointing at the gauge-ridden container. "1
need a steady minus two Celsius though the transfer of the body, after I adminis-ter the vaccine. Got that? Minus two."
The technicians nodded. They set the con-tainer down and began checking gauges. Bronschweig pulled his hood on and disap-peared down the hole, bumping against the clear hatch as he went.
Below, in the ice cave, it was dark save for the arctic blue glow coming from the plastic-draped area at one end of the chamber. Refrigeration vents continued to pump freezing air into the dim space. Dr.
Bronschweig moved stiffly across the cave, halting at the entrance to the eerily glowing alcove. With one gloved hand he moved aside the plastic drapery and entered.
Behind him plastic crinkled as the sheeting fell back into place. He stepped over to the gur-ney beneath its rack of monitors. A clear plas-tic bubble covered it, encasing the body of the fireman. Dr.
Bronschweig fished in his pocket and withdrew a syringe and ampule. He reached for a work light, moving it until its steady bright beam fell on the litter, and leaned closer to open the plastic casing. What he saw there made him gasp.
The body looked as though it had exploded. Where the inner organs had been, there was only an empty cavity, as though whatever had been inside had devoured them. The gurney's plastic casing was smeared with crimson and the remains of gnawed bone and tissue.
Sheer panic got him to the base of the lad-der mere seconds later. "It's gone!" he shouted, his voice muffled by his hood. Frantically he worked at the snaps and zippers, and yanked it off. " It's gone!"
"It's whatl"
Overhead, the face of one of the techni-cians appeared, framed by the life-support can-nister behind him.
"It's left the body," Dr. Bronschweig cried breathlessly. Other technicians crowded around the first, as Bronschweig began climbing up the ladder. "I think it's gestated."
He froze, squinting into the darkness below him. "Wait," he said in a hoarse whisper. "I see it—"
In the shadows, something moved. Brons-chweig held his breath, waiting. A moment later it appeared. Limned in blue light from the cor-ner, the plastic rustling as it parted and the crea-ture came through. It moved tentatively, almost timidly, like something newly born.
"Jesus Lord," whispered Bronschweig. His eyes widened in nervous wonder as he stared. Then, after a minute had passed, he took a gen-tle step back down to the ground. "So much for little green men…"
"You see it?" a technician called anxiously.
"Yeah. It's… amazing." He looked up at the faces ringed around the entrance to the cavern. "You want to get down here–"
Shakily he began working at the ampule, trying to fit it onto the syringe and the plunger in place. He glanced back at the shadows where the creature was, and–
It was gone. With deathly slowness Bronschweig turned, fearfully scanning the cavern for where it might have fled. There was nothing.
His hand tightened on the syringe as though it were a pistol, and then he saw it in the shadows across the cave. He stared at it for a split second, paralyzed, as its hands lifted and long pointed claws extended.
With inhuman ferocity it lunged at him.
Screaming, he stabbed out with the syringe, managing to inject some of the pre-cious fluid before the thing threw him across the length of the cave. Terrified, Bronschweig staggered to his feet and made his way to the foot of the ladder. Blood trickled from a wound at his neck, but most of the damage seemed to have come to his suit, which flapped around him like a tattered sail.
"Hey," he cried brokenly, staring up the ladder into the technicians' stunned faces. "I need help…"
He glanced behind him, searching warily for signs of the creature, then back up the lad-der.
"HEY—What are you doing?"
They were closing the hatch. Shoving it down as fast as they could and frantically screwing the locks into place, even as Bronschweig watched in disbelief. He flung himself up the ladder, heedless of pain or the blood blossoming across his white suit. He screamed, but his screams went unheard. Above him there was a dull roar, and a dark blur floated across the transparent hatch. The bull-dozer's shovel rose and fell like a striking hand, and with each blow dumped another load of earth onto the hatch. They were burying him alive.
In stunned silence he stood there, unmov-ing, unable to think, when from behind him there came a muffled sound. And it was on him, pulling him down, pulling him off the lad-der, and down into the darkness of the cave.
CHAPTER 8
SOMERSET, ENGLAND
A man stood at the conservatory window of a mansion, looking down as his grandchil-dren romped and raced, laughing breathlessly, across an impeccably manicured lawn. This was one of the few things that gave him anything like peace: sunset, and the sound of grand-children laughing.
"Sir?"
Behind him came the voice of his valet. The Well-Manicured Man continued to stare out the window, smiling.
"Sir, you have a call."
He turned to see his valet holding open the conservatory door. For a moment the Well-Manicured Man remained, gazing wistfully at the idyllic vista below. Finally he headed toward his study.
The twilight seemed deeper here, laven-der shadows darkening to violet where book-cases mounted from floor to ceiling and all the trappings of wealth lay accumulated and forgotten in the corners and on the walls. The Well-Manicured Man ignored all of these, striding to a desk by the window where a telephone blinked insistently. He picked it up, positioning himself so that he could con-tinue to look down upon his grandchildren playing tag.
"Yes," he said.
From the other end of the line came a familiar voice, smoke-strained, laconic. "We have a situation.
The members are assem-bling."
The Well-Manicured Man winced; he did not like surprises. "Is it an emergency?"
"Yes. A meeting is set, tonight in London. We must determine a course."
The Well-Manicured Man's face tightened. "Who called this meeting?"
"Strughold." At the sound of this name, the Well-Manicured Man nodded grimly. There could be no further questions. The voice on the phone continued. "He's just gotten on a plane in Tunis."
Without replying, the Well-Manicured Man dropped the phone back into its cradle. A child was screaming. He rushed to the window.
On the lawn beneath him, the lovely tableau had been shattered. From the house people were running—his valet, the housekeeper, the gar-dening staff—to where the children had gath-ered. A boy, his youngest grandchild. He lay on his side, his face contorted and white as paper. One leg was awkwardly crumpled under him. The valet reached him first and knelt beside him, gently stroking the boy's forehead and call-ing out orders to the watching staff. As the valet tenderly lifted the child into his arms, the Well-Manicured Man raced from the study, all thoughts of Strughold momentarily banished.
• • •
He did not arrive in Kensington until shortly after eight that night. The chauffeured town car slipped silently into the circular drive and stopped before the front door of a large but unpretentious red-brick building, its front door bearing neither name nor number.
"Has Strughold arrived?" the Well-Manicured Man asked the valet who had met his car.
The other man indicated a long, dimly lit hallway. "They're waiting in the library, sir."
He led the Well-Manicured Man down the hall. The faintest susurrus of voices rose as they approached the library, where the valet inclined his head and left him. Inside, walnut paneling and discreet touches of brass and sil-ver ornamented a large room where a group of men stood, staring at the steely blue eye of a TV monitor. A poor quality black-and-white video was playing, dark forms moving jerkily across a darker background dotted with electri-cal snow. As he entered, the men turned expectantly.
The Well-Manicured Man surveyed the group before joining them. A dozen men of his own age and rank, though none possessed his effortless hauteur. Faces no one would recog-nize, though a word from one of them might bring a government crashing to its knees. Men who remained in the shadows.
In the center of the group stood a small, lean man with close-cropped hair, at once ele-gant and imposing. His gaze met the new-comer's, holding it for a moment too long, and the Well-Manicured Man felt the slightest fris' son of unease.
"We began to worry," Strughold said in the deceptively gentle tone one might use to scold a beloved child. "Some of us have traveled so far, and you are the last to arrive."
"I'm sorry." The Well-Manicured Man tilted his head in deference to Strughold. "My grandson fell and broke his leg." It was all the apology he would offer, even to Strughold.
The other man seemed not to have heard him at all. Instead he went on smoothly, "While we've been made to wait, we've watched surveillance tapes which have raised more concerns."
"More concerns than what?" he asked, frowning.
"We've been forced to reassess our role in Colonization." Strughold's tone was even; he might have been discussing a minor unpleasantness on the trading floor. "Some new facts of biology have presented them-selves."
"The virus has mutated," another voice broke in, more urgently.
The Well-Manicured Man looked taken aback. "On its own?"
"We don't know." The Cigarette-Smoking Man withdrew his lighter. "So far, there's only the isolated case in Dallas."
"Its effect on the host has changed," said Strughold. "The virus no longer just invades the brain as a controlling organism. It's devel-oped a way to modify the host body."
The Well-Manicured Man's mouth grew taut. "Into what?"
"A new extraterrestrial biological entity."
A moment while the men took this in. The Well-Manicured Man stared at Strughold in disbelief. "My god…"
Strughold nodded. "The geometry of mass infection presents certain conceptual reevalua-tions for us.
About our place in their Colonization…"
"This isn't about Colonization!" the Well-
Manicured Man exploded. "It's spontaneous repopulation! All our work…"
His voice trailed off, and he turned to gaze at the men around him. "If it's true, then they've been using us all along. We've been laboring under a lie!"
"It could be an isolated case," one of the others offered.
"How can we knowV
Strughold's voice rang out calmly as others joined in. "We're going to tell them what we've found.
What we've learned. By turning over a body infected with the gestating organism."
"In hope of what' ! Learning that it's true?" The Well-Manicured Man stared furiously at Strughold.
"That we are nothing more than digestives for the creation of a new race of alien life forms!"
"Let me remind you who is the new race. And who is the old," Strughold responded coolly. "What would be gained by withholding anything from them? By pretending ignorance? If this signals that Colonization has already begun, then our knowledge may forestall it."
"And if it doesn't?" retorted the Well-Manicured Man. "By cooperating now we're but beggars to our own demise! Our ignorance lay in cooperating with the Colonists at all."
Strughold shrugged. "Cooperation is our only chance of saving ourselves."
Beside him the Cigarette-Smoking Man nodded. "They still need us to carry out their preparations."
"We'll continue to use them as they do us," said Strughold. "If only to play for more time. To continue work on our vaccine."
"Our vaccine may have no effect!" cried the Well-Manicured Man.
"Well, without a cure for the virus, we're nothing more than digestives anyway."
All eyes turned to see how the Well-Manicured Man would react to this. He was well respected by the members of the Syndicate. If his was now the lone voice crying in the wilderness, they would still hear him out.
"My lateness might as well have been absence," he said in barely restrained fury. "A course has already been taken."
Strughold gestured at the TV and the Cigarette-Smoking Man pointed a remote at the monitor. The tape froze. The Well-Manicured
Man glanced at the screen to see a hospital cor-ridor, where Mulder and Scully were talking with a young naval guard. "There are complica' tions."
"Do they know?"
"Mulder was in Dallas when we were trying to destroy the evidence," said the Cigarette-Smoking Man. "He's gone back again now. Someone has tipped him off."
"Who?"
"Kurtzweil, we think."
"We've allowed this man his freedoms," interrupted Strughold. "His books have actu-ally helped us to facilitate plausible denial. Has he outlived his usefulness to us?"
"No one believes Kurtzweil or his books," said the Well-Manicured Man impatiently. "He's toiler. A crank."
"Mulder believes him," someone else said.
"Then Kurtzweil must be removed," said the Cigarette-Smoking Man.
"As must Mulder," pronounced Strughold.
The Well-Manicured Man shook his head angrily. "Kill Mulder and we risk turning one man's quest into a crusade."
Strughold turned on him with a look of icy malevolence. "We've discredited Agent Mulder. Taken away his reputation. Who mourns the death of a broken man?"
The Well-Manicured Man met his gaze with one of challenging disdain. "Mulder is far from broken."
"Then you must taken away what he holds most valuable," said Strughold. He turned to stare at the monitor, where a woman's face now took up most of the screen. "The one thing in the world that he can't live without."
CHAPTER 9
BLACKWOOD, TEXAS
(t T don't know, Mulder…" Scully shook J. her head, squinting into the glaring sunlight. In front of her a children's playground rose from the otherwise barren earth, cheerful counterpoint to the surrounding Texas desola-tion. "He didn't mention a park."
Mulder paced from the swings to the jungle gym to the slide. Everything brand-spanking new, plastic and painted metal in bright pri-mary colors: blue, red, purple, yellow. The grass underfoot seemed newly minted as well, thick green grass that breathed a sweet cool scent wherever he stepped.
"This is where he marked on the geological survey map, Scully." He jabbed at the folded paper in his hand. "Where he said those fossils were unearthed."
Scully made a helpless gesture. "I don't see any evidence of an archaeological dig, or any other kind of site. Not even a sewer or a storm drain."
Mulder scanned the area, confounded. In the distance the Dallas skyline shimmered in the heat, and children rode bikes in front of a modest housing development. He went back over to Scully, and together they walked around the edges of the playground.
"You're sure the fossils you looked at showed the same signs of deterioration you saw in the fireman's body in the morgue?"
Scully nodded. "The bone was porous, as if the virus or the causative microbe were decom-posing it."
"And you've never seen anything like that?"
"No." Now it was her turn to look con-founded. "It didn't show up on any of the immunohistochemical tests—"
Mulder listened, staring down at his feet. Suddenly he stooped and ran his hand lightly over the tips of bright green there.
"This look like new grass to you?" he asked.
Scully tipped her head. "It looks pretty green for this climate."
Mulder knelt and dug his fingers into the thick carpet of turf. After a minute, he lifted up a corner of a new square of grass, revealing white root mass with chocolate-brown earth clinging to it. Under this the hard-baked sur-face of Texas dirt could be seen, brick-red and tough as sandstone.
"Ground's dry about an inch down," Mulder announced. "Somebody just laid this down. Very recently, I'd say."
Scully turned in a slow circle, looking at the brightly painted swings and seesaws. "All the equipment is brand new."
"But there's no irrigation system. Some-body's covering their tracks."
From behind them came a sound well-known from childhood, the whizzing of bikes on blacktop.
Scully and Mulder turned, gazing back at the cul-de-sac where their rental car was parked near the development. Four boys were riding there. When Mulder whistled loudly at them, they stopped, puzzled, and stared blankly at him across the distance.
"Hey," called Mulder. They said nothing, only stared and shielded their eyes from the sun as the two grown-ups approached.
"Do you live around here?" asked Scully.
The boys exchanged looks. Finally one of them shrugged and said, "Yeah."
Mulder stopped and regarded them. Pretty standard-issue middle America boys in buzzcuts and T-shirts. Two of them straddled brand-new BMX bikes. "You see anybody digging around here?"
The boys remained silent, until one of them replied sullenly, "Not supposed to talk about it."
"You're not supposed to talk about it?" Scully prodded him gently. "Who told you that?"
The third boy piped up. "Nobody."
"Nobody, huh? The same Nobody who put this park in? All that nice new equipment…"
Mulder gestured at the swing sets, then looked sternly down into the boys' guilty faces. "They buy you those bikes, too?"
The boys shifted uncomfortably. "I think you better tell us," said Scully.
"We don't even know you," the first boy sniffed.
"Well, we're FBI agents."
The boy looked at Scully disdainfully. "You're not FBI agents."
Mulder suppressed a smile. "How do you know?"
"You look like door-to-door salesmen."
Mulder and Scully pulled out their badges. The boys' mouths dropped.
"They all left twenty minutes ago," one of the boys said quickly. "Going that way—"
They all pointed in the same direction.
"Thanks, guys," Mulder called. He pulled Scully after him and hurried toward the car.
The boys stood, silent, and watched as their rental car spun out onto the highway, red dust billowing behind it like smoke.
• • •
Mulder hunched at the wheel, foot to the floor. The car raced on, passing few other vehicles. Beside him Scully pored over the map, now and then looking out the window in concern.
"Unmarked tanker trucks…" Mulder said as to himself. "What are archaeologists hauling out in tanker trucks?"
"I don't know, Mulder."
"And where are they going with it?"
"That's the first question to answer, if we're going to find them."
They drove on, the sun moving slowly across the endless sky until it hung, a crimson disc, just above the horizon before them. It had been an hour since they'd seen another car. Mulder eased his foot from the accelerator, and let the car roll to stop. In front of them was an intersection. Each road seemed to go absolutely nowhere: Nowhere North or Nowhere South.
For several minutes the car sat idling. Finally Mulder spoke, rubbing his eyes.
"What are my choices?"
Scully blinked in the westerly light, then grimaced. "About a hundred miles of nothing in each direction."
"Where would they be going?"
Scully looked out her window, to where the asphalt road angled off and disappeared into the twilight.
"We've got two choices. One of them wrong."
Mulder stared out his window. "You think they went left?"
Scully shook her head, her gaze unmoving. "1 don't know why—I think they went right."
A few more minutes of silence passed. Then Mulder pounded his foot on the gas. The car arrowed straight ahead, onto the unpaved dirt road. They bumped over rocks and gullies, dust flaring up all around them as Mulder drove, his expression unrelentingly deter-mined. Scully stared at him, waiting for an explanation, but he refused to meet her gaze.
Ahead of them the sun disappeared. Red and black clouds streaked the darkening sky, and a few stars pricked into view. Scully rolled down her window and breathed in the night: mesquite, sage, dust.
Twenty minutes had passed, when Mulder turned to her and finally spoke.
"Five years together," he said in a tone that brooked no arguing. "How many times have I been wrong?"
A few quiet seconds pass. "At least not about driving."
Scully stared out at the night, and said nothing.
Hours went by. Mulder drove quickly, the silence unbroken save by the occasional wail of a dog or coyote, the shrieking of an owl. Outside the night sky glittered, nothing but stars as far as you could see, nothing at all. When the car began to slow Scully felt as though she were being awakened from a dream, and turned reluctantly from her window to gaze at what was before them.
Clouds of dust rose and settled in the vel' vety darkness. A few feet in front of the car, a line of fence posts stretched endlessly to the left and right, looped together by heavy strands of rusted barbed wire.
Wild white roses choked the fence with briars, and prickly pear cacti were clumped everywhere. There was no gate, and as far as Scully could see, no break in the fence.
She opened the door and got out. After the car's air-conditioning, the hot Texas wind was like standing in front of a wood stove. In the distance a dog barked. Scully walked to where the headlights washed over the fence, and stared at a sign nailed to a post. Behind her, Mulder's door opened, and he stepped out to join her.
"Hey, I was right about the bomb, wasn't I?" he asked plaintively.
"This is great," said Scully. "This is fitting."
She cocked her thumb at the sign.
SOME HAVE TRIED, SOME HAVE DIED. TURN BACK—NO TRESPASSING
"What?" demanded Mulder.
"I've got to be in Washington, D.C. in eleven hours for a hearing—the outcome of which might possibly affect one of the biggest decisions of my life. And here I am standing out in the middle of Nowhere, Texas, chasing phantom tanker trudis."
"We're not chasing trucks," Mulder said hotly, "we're chasing evidence."
" Of what, exactly?"
"That bomb in Dallas was allowed to go off, to hide bodies infected with a virus. A virus you detected yourself, Scully."
"They haul gas in tanker trucks, they haul oil in tanker trucks—they don't haul viruses in tanker trucks."
Mulder stared obstinately into the dark-ness. "Yeah, well, they may in this one."
"What do you mean by that?" For the first time Scully stared directly at him, her face clouded with anger and a growing suspicion. "What are you not telling me here?"
"This virus-" He turned away from her, afraid to go on.
" Mulder—"
"It may be extraterrestrial."
A moment while Scully gazed at him in disbelief. Then, "I don't believe this!" she exploded. "You know, I've been here—I've been here one too many times with you, Mulder."
He kicked at a stone and looked at her, all innocence. "Been where?"
"Pounding down some dirt road in the mid-dle of the night! Chasing some elusive truth on a dim hope, only to find myself right where I am right now, at another dead end—"
Her voice was abruptly cut off by the clang-ing of a bell. Blinding light strobed across their faces.
Stunned, they whirled to stare at the barbed-wire fence.
In the sudden burst of light, a railroad crossing sign appeared to hang in the empty air. No swinging metal arms or gate, just that sign, an eerie warning in the wilderness. Mulder and Scully stared at it open-mouthed, then turned to gaze at a light burgeoning upon the horizon. As they watched, it grew larger and larger, until it resolved into the headlamp of a train speed-ing toward them.
Wordlessly they backed to their car, but stopped as the train rushed past. And saw then what they had been chasing through the waste-land: two unmarked white tanker trucks, loaded piggyback on the flatbed cars. In seconds it was gone, swallowed by the night. The railroad crossing sign faded into the darkness, and silence once again overtook the prairie.
As one, Mulder and Scully dashed madly back into their car. Headlights sliced through the darkness as Mulder swung the car into a hard turn, and the engine roared as they took off after the train.
They followed it for a long time, the rails glowing faintly in the headlights as they arrowed straight into the night. Around them the countryside began to change, prairie gradu-ally giving way to higher ground, stone-covered hillocks and shallow canyons covered with dense underbrush. In the distance mountains loomed dead-black against a sky starting to fade to dawn. Foothills rose around them, choked with low-growing juniper and devil's-head cactus; except for the twin lines of the rails, there was no sign that any human had ever set foot here.
Then, very slowly, the tracks began to fol-low a long sloping upward grade. The belly of the rental car scraped against rocks, the wheels jounced in and out of foot-high ruts; and still they drove on, chugging uphill. Until, at last, they could go no farther; the railroad tracks dis-appeared into the mountain, with not the slightest hint of what might lie on the other side of the tunnel. The car swung across the rails, tires spinning on the gravel bed, and came to a stop at the edge of a gorge. Scully and Mulder clambered out, pulling on their jackets against the chill bite of desert air. In the near distance, beyond the gorge on the other side of the mountain, a strange opalescent glow stained the air.
