Текст книги "X Files: Fight the Future"
Автор книги: Chris Carter
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It was as though he were inside some hellish abattoir. Throughout the entire length of the corridor, a metal rack was suspended from the ceiling. Hanging from the rack were the pods-the objects he had seen on the upper level. But here it was warm enough that they were not completely frozen. He walked along slowly, his flashlight tracing the outlines of what each cryopod held: a human body, barely visible behind a very thin sheath of green ice.
But the faces that stared out from these pods were not the crude, proto-human visages of the thing he had seen above. These were men and women like himself. Each had a dis-turbingly organic-looking tube protruding from his or her mouth. Their eyes were wide, gazing out with blind, confused horror, as though they still looked upon whatever dreadful apparatus had frozen them alive.
Rapt with dread, Mulder walked alongside this malign carousel, staring at first one face, then another.
Trying not to admit to himself, even now, what he was looking for—who he was looking for—until he saw her.
"Oh, Christ," he whispered.
He drew up short in front of a wall of green ice. There, within one of the frozen cysts, her features unmistakable, was Scully. Her russet hair rimmed with snow, her eyes turned heav-enward. A tube protruded from her mouth, and she had a look of horror on her face.
Fighting his own horror, Mulder struck the cryopod with his flashlight, smashing it against the icy covering again and again: nothing. Remembering the cryolitter in the distance he ran to it, grabbed one of the oxygen tanks from its lid, and raced back to Scully. Grunting with effort, he raised the tank and drove it repeat-edly against the cryopod.
With a muffled crack the pod shattered. Ice and slush pooled onto the ground, and for the first time he saw Scully clearly, her body shrouded with frost. With shaking fingers he unzipped his jacket and felt for the envelope in the inner pocket. He pulled out the syringe and ampoule, wrestling with the rubber cap and squinting to see the needle in the darkness.
Then he jabbed it into her shoulder.
Almost instantly, viscous amber fluid oozed from the tube in her mouth, thick as melted tar. Then the tube began to shrivel, the desic-cation moving from where it entered her mouth all the way to the cryopod that had enclosed her. At the same moment the tunnel shuddered. Mulder lurched and nearly crashed into the wall. He steadied himself, then yanked the tube from Scully's mouth.
Her eyes blinked, her lips moved as she tried to suck in air. Rapture gave way to fear as her eyes rolled, trying to focus, and still the air would not reach her lungs.
"Breathe!" Mulder cried. "Can you breathe?"
Before him she strained, her expression desperate, like a swimmer struggling to come up for air. Then amber liquid suddenly poured from her mouth. She began to cough and gag, taking huge gulps of air as her eyes finally focused on Mulder, as though he were a phan-tom—or a miracle. Her mouth worked as she tried to speak, whispered words that Mulder couldn't discern.
"What?" He leaned into her tenderly, putting his ear against her cold mouth. The softest sound imaginable came out.
"Cold—"
"Hang on," said Mulder grimly. "I'm going to get you out of here."
Gently he pulled her from the cryopod and laid her on the floor, then began peeling away the outer layers of his own clothing—his socks, his hooded parka, his protective outer pants– and put them onto her.
Inside the ice station the room began to shake. The Cigarette-Smoking Man hurried past row upon row of computers where men sat, their eyes fixed on the blinking screens. In front of one monitor, a man looked up worriedly as the Cigarette-Smoking Man hastened to his side.
The man pointed at the screen, where a complex system of graphs had suddenly changed, numbers and levels skyrocketing. "We've got a contaminant in the system," he said.
The Cigarette-Smoking Man stared expres-sionlessly at the screen. "It's Mulder. He's got the vaccine."
Without another word he turned and hurried for the door. Around him men were running as they began evacuating the ice sta-tion. The Cigarette-Smoking Man ignored them and headed for his tractor.
There he was met by a gaunt man whose close-cropped hair was almost hidden beneath his parka hood: the man who had shot Mulder. He flung open the door of the tractor and clam-bered inside.
"What's happened?" he yelled.
The Cigarette-Smoking Man swung into the cab alongside him. "It's all going to hell."
The snow tractor began to pull away. Behind them steam vents erupted on the sur-face. Beneath the ice station, hot air blasting from the ducts was causing the ice shelf to melt and collapse.
"What about Mulder?" the other man shouted.
The Cigarette-Smoking Man glanced behind them and shook his head. "He'll never make it."
The tractor began to pull away. Behind them, mist rose like smoke from the domed structures.
• • e
Hundreds of feet below, the narrow passages of the buried spaceship filled with foggy conden-sation.
Mulder swung his flashlight before him, trying vainly to pierce the mist with its feeble beam. In his arms was Scully, her limp body poised awkwardly in a fireman's carry. She wore Mulder's snow parka and nylon outer pants, and her face grazed his shoulder as she tried to lift her head to speak.
"We've got to keep moving," Mulder said hoarsely. He was laboring to get her up the interior of the steep, curving spoke that tra-versed the dome's center. All around them rivulets of water streamed from the hanging cryopods, pouring down to form pools and rushing brooklets on the circular central floor.
The entire structure vibrated as Mulder strug-gled on, fighting his own flagging energy as he half-carried, half-pulled Scully as quickly as he could down the fog-shrouded corridor.
Approaching the place where Mulder first slipped down into the passage, the walls were now slick with running water. When they reached the end of the passage, they found the base of a tube and began to climb. At the top, they found themselves in the upper corridor where Mulder had first seen the prehistoric man.
Its body was no longer encased in solid ice. Through the layers of ice and translucent skin the embryonic creature inside could be glimpsed, turning very slightly as though coming awake. Mulder gazed at it transfixed, then quickly turned and stared up at the ceil-ing.
"Scully, reach up and grab that vent."
She did not respond. He looked downward and saw that she had lost consciousness. With gentle urgency he laid her on the floor. "Scully, come on, Scully—"
He hastened to unzip her jacket, his fingers moving across her neck as he sought a pulse. "Scully—"
She strained harder to breathe as he thrust his fingers into her mouth, clearing her pas-sageway.
"Breathe, Scully." He straddled her, palms flat against her chest as he pumped hard, forcing air into her.
One. Two. Three.
He leaned down and put his mouth against hers, feeling how cold her lips were, and her cheeks. He breathed into her, turning his head away and listening for the telltale gurgle of air in her lungs.
Nothing.
He pumped her chest again, his move-ments growing more and more frantic as her eyes bulged and her face darkened from scarlet to nearly purple.
One. Two. Three.
His mouth against hers, breathing; his ear against her chest.
Still nothing.
Behind him, unseen, the embryonic crea-tures thrashed within their hosts, as the ice around them began to fall in chunks to the floor. At the sound, Mulder turned and saw them striving to escape, and realized their urgency was even greater. With new haste Mulder continued CPR, oblivious to anything but Scully. Abruptly he drew back from her.
Then beneath him she suddenly moved. A shudder as she sucked in air, and then began to cough. The awful bruised color drained from her face, as did that dreadful panic. She gazed at Mulder, eyes focusing on his, and her lips parted.
"Mulder—" she said in a pained whisper. He lowered his face until it brushed hers, lis-tening raptly.
"Mulder—
"Had you big time."
The faintest grin flitted across his face. Before he could reply, a loud chunk echoed from behind him.
Mulder whipped his head around.
"Holy shit—"
Through the haze of fog he could just barely make out dark forms moving in the cor-ridor. Spindly arms and legs thrust from the cryopods, as their three-fingered hands beat and shattered the crumbling ice.
The creatures were beginning to hatch.
Mulder whirled to look the other way. The same scene greeted him: slush pouring from the pods as the creatures' powerful feet kicked holes in their icy tombs. He turned back to his partner.
"Scully! Reach up and grab that vent—"
Her mouth moved but no words came out. With all his remaining strength Mulder stooped and lifted her, turning to where the vent opened in the wall above them. He propped her against his shoulder and pushed her toward the vent. She grabbed it and pulled herself up, and then disap-peared through the opening. Behind her Mulder jumped and found a handhold, propelling himself by kicking at what was below. With a hoarse cry a creature burst free from its cryopod. First one hand, then the other shot out, ripping through what remained of the host body. The jellied flesh slid to the floor in a gray heap as the creature grabbed at Mulder's foot. He kicked at it furiously as its claws slid down his legs. Just as it stumbled from its pod, Mulder yanked himself from its grip and in one smooth motion swung himself up and into the vent.
Inside Scully moved feebly.
"Scully!" he shouted. "Keep going!"
She made a guttural sound in reply, moan-ing softly, but moved ahead.
"Keep going, Scully—"
They inched onwards, Mulder pushing her when she no longer had to strength to con-tinue. At last the vent opening loomed above them, a square of pearly gray light. Mulder pushed her through and followed, gasping at the bite of cold fresh air as he crawled forward. He looked back constantly to see if any of the creatures were following.
He and Scully were in the space formed by the air pocket, where Mulder had first fallen down from the ice shelf. All around them, the ice and snow which formed the walls of the cavern were melting.
Overhead a crater-sized hole had opened, and they could see bright blue sky through the whirling mist. Mulder shakily got to his feet. Again he looked back.
With an inhuman shriek, one of the crea-tures leaped from the vent opening, claws extending toward him. Before it could reach him, a blast a steam erupted and sent it hurling back down. There was a low, threatening rum-ble. More steam curled up from the vent. With a cry Mulder grabbed Scully by the shoulders. He threw her toward the far wall, leaping after her and covering his eyes.
Behind them, a volcanic blast of steam shot from the vent they had just left, exploding upwards and melting what remained of the snowy walls. There was a deafening hiss as the blast subsided. Mulder grabbed Scully and stumbled toward where there was now a slop-ing embankment, leading up to the surface of the ice sheet.
They reached the top; Scully coughing as she caught her breath, Mulder panting heavily. Together they staggered away from the vent. They came to a small rise and clambered up it, falling often in the soft snow. When they got to its summit, they turned to look back.
Below them was the ice sheet. A series of regularly spaced holes had appeared in it, and through these steam was blasting, defining the circular structure beneath. The white domed tents, dwarfed now by the gargantuan edifice under the surface. As they stared, steam from below blasted with hideous force, the sound so loud they covered their ears against it. Mulder grabbed Scully's sleeve and pulled her protec-tively towards him.
Through the cloud of condensing steam the ice station could just be glimpsed, like an abandoned toy village in all that waste. Suddenly the ice beneath it rippled, and with-out warning the entire sheet gave way. The ice station plunged downward, caving in to the very center of the buried ship. As it did so shock waves radiated outwards. The ground trembled as the horrified Mulder realized what was happening.
"We've got to run!"
He dragged her after him, the two of them looking back to see where the ice shelf was col' lapsing.
Magnificent geysers shot hundreds of feet into the air, powered by the superheated core below. Ice sheared off in an ever-expanding circle, and steam vents erupted everywhere now; they now fled through a hellish landscape of smoke and flying snow, chunks of ice and burning debris. In the center of the collapsing shelf a black shape appeared, resolving itself into a dome as the ice and steam burned off. The black dome grew more and more immense as they ran, struggling to outrace it.
With a cry Scully fell, arms flailing at the soft snow. Mulder yanked her back to her feet, his ears numbed by the roar of the emerging spacecraft. He grabbed her hand, but before they could flee farther the ground beneath them sheared away.
They fell, and fell, and finally landed, hard, on the flat surface of the ship. As it lifted into the air they slid off it and down, plummeting through the air until they crashed onto the exposed ice sheet below. Ice chunks fell in a terrible rain all about them. Mulder crouched over Scully, trying to shield her from the deadly hail of debris, as the vast black hull of the spacecraft continued to rise above them, so huge that it blotted out the sky. Faster and faster it rose, gaining momentum as it broke free of the frozen weight of the icy crater that had imprisoned it. Scully moaned, her face pressed down into the snow. Above her, Mulder stared awestruck as the ship lifted clear of the earth, rotating slowly as it hovered in the sky. For the first time he could see it clearly, the network of spokes and cells that held it together and the smooth central dome.
It continued to rise, its shadow passing over the two tiny figures on the ice below. Mulder turned to watch it pass, the shadow moving like night across the snow, swallowing a small sturdy shape in the near distance—Mulder's snow tractor. And now the craft began to glow as with some unimaginable heat, transforming itself into pure energy. All around it the sky shimmered and pulsed, as the craft seemed to expand.
And then, with a last blinding, deafening burst of energy, it disappeared into a cloud for-mation.
Echoes of its passage rumbled across the ruined landscape. The spacecraft was gone.
Mulder stared at the empty sky, then at Scully. As though awakening from a fever dream, her eyes opened and she gazed back at him. Then, slowly as a child falling asleep, he lay his head down upon the snow. His body heaved with exhaustion; his eyes closed. Moments later he began to shiver, unconscious.
Next to him Scully lay, still as death. A freezing wind howled cross the waste, sending eddies of snow whirling down into the vast crater left by the ship's passing. Then Scully began to cough. She fought to lift her head, blinking.
She looked at Mulder. His face was white, his body limp. With all the strength she had, she pulled him close to her, cradling him against her body and warming him.
She gazed back over her shoulder, at the immense crater left by the ship, dwarfing the wasteland around them, two tiny figures invisi-ble against the immensity and desolation of the endless ice.
CHAPTER 14
FBI OFFICE OF PROFESSIONAL REVIEW J, EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING
WASHINGTON, D.C.
"—in light of the report I've got here in front of me^in light of the narrative I'm now hear-ing-"
Assistant Director Jana Cassidy sat in the middle of the conference table, flanked by her colleagues.
She held a slender sheaf of papers and glanced at them as she spoke, choosing her words carefully. At the end of the table sat
Assistant Director Walter Skinner, his gaze flicking from Cassidy to the auburn-haired woman who sat at a smaller table in the center of the room, the chair beside her conspicuously empty.
"—my official report is incomplete, pend-ing these new facts that I'm being asked to rec-oncile.
Agent Scully—"
Dana Scully tilted her head. Her face bore signs of minor frostbite, but otherwise was healed. Her expression was even and com-posed, but as Cassidy spoke her blue eyes dark-ened with restrained defiance.
"—while there is direct evidence now that a federal agent may have been involved in the bombing, the other events you've laid down here seem too incredible on their own, and quite frankly, implausible in their connec-tion."
Cassidy flipped through a file on the table before her. The faces of the other board mem-bers mirrored her own—curious and slightly annoyed. Only Walter Skinner looked uncom-fortable as he shifted in his seat.
"What is it you find incredible?" Scully asked coolly.
Jana Cassidy suppressed a smile. "Well, where would you like me to start?"
As she spoke, a black-clad figure moved silently through the Dallas Field Office hun-dreds of miles away. Gray light filtered down through small windows set high above the floor, the only illumination until a flashlight beam suddenly pricked through the darkness. The beam swung back and forth, momentarily igniting jars, shattered plastic, twisted bits of wreckage. At last it settled on a table set up with microscope and magnifying glass, where several small vials were nestled in a cardboard box.
The man holding the flashlight moved quickly, silently, purposefully to the table. He was tall and gaunt-faced, his hair close-cropped. When he reached the table he extended one gloved hand and without hesita-tion picked up a vial, a tiny glass bottle con-taining fragments of petrified bone. The man glanced at the contents, then pocketed the evi-dence. As quickly and quietly as he had arrived, he disappeared, and the room was dark once more.
"—Antarctica is a long way from Dallas, Agent Scully," Jana Cassidy continued without a beat. "I can't very well submit a report to the Attorney General that alleges the links you've made here."
She picked up the file, then dropped in pointedly in front of her. "Bees and corn crops do not quite fall under the rubric of domestic terrorism."
Somewhere in the wilderness west of Dallas, a seemingly endless field of corn began to blaze as a phalanx of men wielding flamethrowers began to walk slowly and purposefully along the rows.
• • •
In the FBI Office of Professional Review, Scully shook her head, once. "No, they don't."
"Most of what I find in here is lacking a coherent picture of any organization with an attributable motive—"
Cassidy paused and stared directly at Scully—the first sympathetic look she'd given her since the proceedings had begun. "I realize the ordeal you've endured has clearly affected you—though the holes in your account leave this panel with little choice but to delete these references from our final report to the Justice Department—"
In an anonymous cul-de-sac, three unmarked tanker trucks sat beneath the blazing sun. A man in dark clothes, eyes masked by sunglasses, moved slowly alongside first one and then another of the trucks, painting bright green words and a gleaming ear of corn on the tanks: nature's best corn oil.
• • •
"And until a time," Jana Cassidy finished smoothly, "when hard evidence becomes avail-able that would give us cause to pursue such an investigation."
As Cassidy spoke, Scully's hand slipped into her coat pocket. When the Assistant Director grew silent, Scully stood and approached the conference table. She removed something from her pocket and placed it in front of Jana Cassidy.
"I don't believe that the FBI currently has an investigative unit qualified to pursue the evidence at hand," said Scully.
Jana Cassidy frowned and picked up what the agent had set there: a tiny glass vial con-taining a dead bumblebee. She studied it as, without asking permission, without another word, Agent Scully headed for the exit.
As the door closed behind her, Cassidy fur-rowed her brow and turned to Walter Skinner, her expression unreadable.
"Mr. Skinner?" she asked, and waited for his reply.
• • •
CONSTITUTION AVENUE WASHINGTON, D.C. NEAR FBI HEADQUARTERS
Fox Mulder sat on a park bench near the Mall, reading that morning's Washington Post. When he reached a small item in the national news his eyes widened.
FATAL HANTA VIRUS OUTBREAK
IN NORTHERN TEXAS REPORTED CONTAINED
He looked up. A figure was approaching him. When it grew closer, he saw it was Scully.
He stood and handed her the newspaper. "There's a nice story on page twenty-seven. Somehow our names were left out."
Scully took the paper without looking at it. Mulder went on, "They're burying it, Scully. They're going to cover it all back up and no one will know."
In a state of great agitation, he spun on his heels and began to walk away. Scully followed him.
"You're wrong Mulder," she said. "I just told everything I know to OPR."
Mulder stopped and looked at her dubi-ously. "Everything you know?"
Scully nodded and they began to walk again. "What I experienced. The virus. How it's been spread by bees from pollen in trans-genic corn crops—"
"And the flying saucer?" he broke in mock-ingly. "With the infected bodies and its little unscheduled departure from the polar ice cap?"
Scully looked at him grudgingly. "I admit I'm still less than clear on that. On what exactly I saw. And its purpose."
Mulder halted and turned to her. "It doesn't matter, Scully," he said. "They're not going to believe you.
Why would they? If it can't be programmed, catalogued, or easily ref-erenced—"
"I wouldn't be so sure, Mulder," said Scully.
Mulder's anger had turned to intense impa-tience. "How many times have we been here? Right here.
Grasping at the unbelievable truth? You're right to leave. You should get away from me. As far as you can."
"You asked me to stay," Scully said chal-lengingly.
"I said you didn't owe me anything," coun-tered Mulder. "Especially not your life. Go be a doctor, Scully."
Scully shook her head. "I will. But I'm not going anywhere." Mulder's eyes narrowed as she went on,
"This illness, whatever it is, has a cure. You held it in your hand—"
She took his hand and gazed up at him "—if I quit now, they win."
They stood without speaking. In the dis-tance, the Cigarette-Smoking Man sat in a nondescript car, his grim, dread stare focused on them. He took a last puff on his cigarette and flicked it onto the street.
The car's electric window rolled up, and he drove off.
FOUM TATAOUINE, TUNISIA
Early morning heat shimmered above the rows of corn stretching endlessly towards the hori-zon. In the near distance, a man in traditional Arab garb led a second man in a dark suit through the green and golden stalks.
"Mister Strughold!" the Arab shouted. "Mister Strughold!"
Conrad Strughold emerged from the rows of corn. At sight of the man behind the Arab, Stughold's eyes narrowed very slightly.
"You look hot and miserable," said Strughold evenly. "Why have you traveled all this way?"
The Cigarette-Smoking Man stared at him coolly. "We have business to discuss."
"We have regular channels," said Strughold.
"This involves Mulder," said the Cigarette-Smoking Man.
Strughold winced almost imperceptibly. "Ah, that name! Again and again—"
"He's seen more than he should," said the Cigarette-Smoking Man.
Strughold made a dismissive gesture. "What has he seen? Of the whole, he has seen but pieces."
"He's determined now," insisted the Cigarette-Smoking Man. "Reinvested."
"He is but one man. One man alone cannot fight the future."
The Cigarette-Smoking Man held something out to Strughold. "Yesterday I received this—"
Strughold took it from his hand: a telegram. He read it, then stared at the horizon without actually seeing what was there. Then he dropped the telegram. In silence he turned and headed back towards the cornfield.
On the ground the telegram rustled slightly in the wind. The words showed stark black against yellow paper.
X-FILES RE-OPENED. STOP. PLEASE ADVISE. STOP.
The wind rose, lifted the telegram and sent it spinning into the air. The telegram fluttered and swooped, rising higher and higher, until finally it disappeared into the sky. As far as the eye could see, row and rows of cornfields stretched. Acres of cornfields; miles. Extending across the Tunisian desert until they reached the horizon, where two immense white domes reared up against the horizon.
Chris CARTER is the writer and producer for The X-Files Feature Film, as well as the creator, executive producer, and frequent writer for the award-winning television series.
Mr. Carter has received an Emmy Award Nomination, a Writers Guild nomination, and two nominations for directing from the Directors Guild of America. He lives in Los Angeles.
ELIZABETH Hand is the Nebula and World Fantasy Award-winning author of Glimmering, Waking the Moon, and Winterlong. She lives in Maine.
