Renegade:Los Angeles By XFBandit Edited by Scott Carr Disclaimer: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Walter Skinner and any other tangentially mentioned characters created by Chris Carter remain his copyrighted property, and the property of 1013 Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. No infringement of copyright is intended. Classification: XNoir, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe Rating: R (language, adult themes) Spoilers: None that I can think of, but a familiarity with the show through at least Season 5 is pretty much required. Feedback: Please. Author can be reached via drambo@sonic.net for comments, suggestions, condemnations and so forth. Author's Note: Yes, this is it. The first (and probably only) Bandit sequel. 1 Waves of sonic energy pummel me from every direction. The music is so loud it has moved beyond noise and has taken on a palpable physical presence. It has taken me six weeks to find this place, to track this man to his lair. They know we're onto them. They're running and hiding. Frightened children without their masters. The hate burns deep inside me, a malice-tumor that feeds on itself night after night. Nights are the worse. When the sun goes down, all things become possible. My nightmares slowly coalesce from milky-white tendrils of fear into something terrifyingly real. Every noise is amplified, sharpened. Every subtle movement is somehow malignant, threatening. People strolling casually down the street become potential adversaries, possible hunters. With twelve down and four to go, the finish line is in sight and my willingness to take chances has fled me. Six weeks of painstaking research has brought me to this place. It has no name; an illegal club, it stays one step ahead of the police by moving often. No one knows who runs it. No one knows who's responsible. Like HIV, just when the police are ready to move in, it vanishes and springs up in a new location, virulent, deadly. I move through the crowd, the sweaty, muscular bodies parting for me, perhaps sensing danger. Eyes skitter across my face, haunted, lonely gazes looking for a partner, if only for tonight. I can feel him. He's close. I worry that he can feel me, that the ability to detect and avoid danger he's perfected over the course of his life has somehow warned him that I would be coming for him tonight. But Frohike's intelligence is superb, as usual. From across the room, I spot my prey. He sits at a table, surrounded by lackeys. They think he's a highly-connected narcotraficante, a mover and shaker from Columbia with his own government in one pocket and the LAPD in the other. I know better. His name and face are known to me as well as my own. I have come here tonight for a single reason. To kill. 2 The call came two hours ago. Scully didn't move from her position by the door. Seated on a chair, back straight, the compact .45ACP with the squat, ugly silencer screwed to the barrel in her hands, her eyes didn't even flicker when the cloned cellphone chirped on the pillow next to me. I flipped it open and raised it to my ear. I said nothing, waiting. "Me," Frohike whispered. I closed my eyes, hoping for good news. "Moving." I waited. "I'll call when he lands." I slapped the phone closed and let it fall from my hand to the bed. "On the move," I said softly. Scully didn't even nod. I opened my mouth to ask, and then shut it without making a sound. I try not to think about the things that torture her. Deep inside me, in a place I don't want to admit exists, I know why she's here. Why she's by my side. Like me, those things that once loomed large in our minds and souls have given way to the cold hand of revenge. It squeezes our hearts in the middle of the night, in our dreams. And yet... Part of what tortures me is the dichotomy between the ice in my veins and the fire in my heart. I don't think I'd be able to do this...I don't think we'd be able to do this if we didn't feel the way we do. About each other. About what might have been. I can never know what she thinks, what she feels...for sure. I only know what I feel, and what I think she must. Our most recent target, Moscow, filled in the last piece of the puzzle. Sixty miles north of the city, in a snowbank fifty yards from his dacha, my target...our target explained that final missing detail. Samantha. Samantha and Scully and all the others. The files we found beneath the Earth. The vaccination records. Why...how it was possible to do what they wanted. Frohike, that mad artist whose canvas is technology, noticed it first. He called it a causality loop. The moment he mentioned it, Scully's brow furrowed and she nodded. "I'd been wondering about that," she said softly, the first words she'd spoken in three days. I looked between them, my face asking questions my voice couldn't. "If they come back and kill us, how can they be sure they won't kill the wrong ones?" Frohike explained. "They have to come from somewhere." My frown deepened. "Mulder, c'mon," Frohike said. "Remember those old SciFi novels from the 40s and 50s? Guy travels back through time, whacks his grandfather, he vanishes. Get it?" I did. And it was a question that needed answering. Moscow answered it for us. In the snow, the barrel of my pistol in his mouth. I'd already explained myself. Explained his situation. "Two choices," I'd said softly. "You will die. Accept that. You can go quick and painless, or slow and messy. Give me the answers I want, and I promise to make it fast." Choking on the taste of my SIG, he nodded, his eyes blinking rapidly. "How can they be sure?" I hissed into his ear. "How do they know exactly who not to kill?" The target sighed deeply, painfully. I had to think of him like that. A target, not a man. Not a...person. I withdrew my pistol only far enough to allow him to speak. "Sister," he moaned. The sound of the hammer coming back under my thumb broke the cold silence of the forest. "Your s-sister. The...files. All of it." "Be. Specific." He took a breath, swallowed, and shattered my world. "They thought of that. The...timeline issues. Killing your own ancestors. They thought of that. They thought of everything! I told them! It was madness! Insanity! There was so much information! So much to be collected, analyzed!" He took another breath. I took an evil little delight in the idea that he just might be wondering which of these deep, shuddering breaths he was taking might be his last. And that small part of me that was still a functioning, feeling person was ashamed. "They knew. They knew which women...which genes were needed. They had to make a decision. What...time, what place to come back to. There was no way to visit all the proper timelines to make sure the specific genetic information, the specific...specimens were collected. "They...they made a decision. A concentration of genetic markers existed at...at the proper time. The 40s. Late 40s." Roswell. I felt the muscles in my jaw tightening. "The others...specific genes that they needed, fresh, unspoiled, undiluted. They went further back. Arizona, Mexico..." He trailed off. I heard Scully behind me, covering my back. "Quickly, Mulder." I nodded, even though I knew she wasn't looking at me, and knowing that she'd...feel my nod. "The Anasanzi?" He nodded. "All of them? The missing civilizations?" He nodded again. "And...others," he moaned. "They needed...unspoiled specimens. Eggs. Ova." Penny Northern. All the other abducted women. The Allentown women. Scully. Horrified, I listened for Scully, saw her in my mind...turning, coming over, unscrewing the silencer, wanting this bastard to hear the gunshot that would end his miserable life. She never moved. Her eyes swept the forest, looking for threats, protecting me. The ever-present .45 in her hands, that same ugly silencer screwed to the front, an MP5-N slung across her back in case things got interesting. "They grew...test specimens here, in this time. To make sure that the harvested samples were...viable." "Scully? Scully is a...mother to this nightmare?" Terrified, the man shook his head, his teeth clicking on the barrel of my pistol. "N-no! You don't understand. Specific women were...taken, abducted, never to be returned. Others...others that had...what they called ...generic...DNA patterns...those were...hyperovulated. Harvested. They could be recombined, adjusted, finessed. The Scully woman was... chosen for two reasons." I knew one of the reasons. To warn me off. "What's the other reason?" I hissed. He shook his head. "I can't." I regretted having thumbed the hammer back. It would had been a persuasive action. Instead, I lowered the pistol from his face, reached into my pocket and found my silencer, a twin to the one on Scully's pistol. Screwing it into place, I reached up with one gloved hand and covered the man's mouth. Deliberately, I put the muzzle against his right kneecap and pulled the trigger. I rode the scream out, pushing my glove into his mouth, drowning him out. "Tell me," I said. "...too many...if too many people know what's coming...the timeline...future...it...spoils. Warps. Bends and twists on itself. Too many people know already. They warned us. Any more...if any more people are told..." The man's eyes were defocusing, glazing. He was going into shock. "Scully," I said. She needed no further instructions. Reaching into the right thigh-pocket of her black cargo pants, her hand returned with a Morphine styrette. Without taking her eyes off the forest, she jammed it into the meat of his thigh. The narcotic took effect instantly, and the target moaned gratefully. "Talk," I said. "That was only enough for a few minutes. The pain will be back, I promise you that." He nodded, seeing the end, realizing that he had one last chance at redemption. I don't believe in the God Scully does, but he probably did. "...her ova...special, in a way. If combined with the right genes, problems resulted. Timelines are variable. In another timeline, she had a baby...a son. He had a son, and that son had a son. And so on. Eventually..." He gasped, the narcotic taking deeper hold. "He's going under," I whispered. Scully moved again. Another styrette; Narcan this time, instantly counterbalancing the Morphine. Not enough to completely mask it, but enough to bring the bastard back. "She can't have children. Too much of a risk. So they...took it. Took it from her. No children." One last question. "My sister?" He shook his head. "So sad. Amazing...amazing coincidence. Your father, his involvement in the Project. When he discovered that his daughter was...required...he couldn't handle it. Her. Her womb was needed. When combined correctly...Stalkers." I blinked. That's what the fuckers were called. Alien shape-shifting hunter-killers. They called them Stalkers. "Shape-shifters?" I hissed. He nodded. "Only possible with...your sister as the...source." I wanted to vomit. All the pieces had finally fallen into place. "You know how they find...now, don't you?" He shook his head again. "Others...know. I don't. Wasn't told. Bend. Bend the timeline if I know." He was babbling. "I'm done," I whispered. I looked over my shoulder for her. "I'm done," I repeated, hoping she understood. Her face spoke volumes. I stood. "I mean it," I said. A long moment passed between us. Finally, nodding, she reached into her pockets again. A full styrette of Narcan later, and my target was completely awake, moaning piteously. I leaned down. "You," I whispered. "You and the fifteen others. Markers. Buoys. Roadmaps. They gave you something. Injected you with it." His eyes widened as he finally understood. I leaned closer. "I want you to know something," I whispered. "I want you to know that this isn't pleasant for me." I paused. "I'm going to have nightmares about this for the rest of my life." He nodded. Accepting his fate. I blew his brains into the snow. 3 After this one, four more. He's seated at the back of the club, in a booth. Surrounded by his "security," nothing more than steroid-pumped cattle. Tactics demand that they be taken out first, but that would give my target time to react, to move. He might dash into the crowd, losing himself in the sea of bodies, and then more innocents would die. So he must be my first target. But that would give the cattle time to draw their own weapons. I must not die, so they must be neutralized. Scully handles that part for me. I spot her in the crowd, dancing. Her clothes cause every male eye to follow her. Gay or straight, they watch. They cannot help themselves. For this mission, she has become Sex. The younger women, women who are accustomed to being stared at, women who have the gift (and the curse) of youth stare, eyes narrowed, wondering why the men look, not understanding, not grasping what makes a woman beautiful, sensual. I catch her gaze, and she smiles at me. The men dancing with her turn and glare, but I'm already moving. Scully moves with me, in tandem, sixteen feet away. Her body moves with the music and the crowd parts with pleasure to watch her pass. They part for me for...other reasons. Her hands come up, a small pistol held in her slim fingers. This one isn't silenced; there's no need. The music is loud enough to drown out the galloping hooves of the Apocalypse itself. And Scully's gun doesn't feed on gunpowder; it uses compressed air. The tranq darts hit the bodyguards a half-second apart. Face-first, they hit the table, sending dinnerware and drinks flying. My target glances at them, and then up at the crowd, alarmed. Things start to happen quickly. My pistol is out from under my trenchcoat, coming up, acquiring. The red dot blazes from the small laser, cutting a path through the smoky haze. It centers on his heart. He sees the swath cut through the air by my sight, and glances at his chest, and then up, into my eyes. I want to ask him why, but I know why. And I've stopped looking for answers. I have my answers, every horrific one of them. The pistol barks twice. His brains explode from the back of his head, splattering the mirror behind him. I am moving before they start sliding towards the table, Scully behind me. She's doing her part. Screaming and pointing at the back of a man ducking into the restroom. All eyes are on him as I make my way through the crowd. Towards the exit. Towards number thirteen. THE END One Last Note: Once again, I'd like to thank Scott Carr for his incredible editing contributions to my stuff. Those of us who are lucky enough to work with Scott count ourselves amongst the blessed, for he takes bits and bytes of our ideas, shakes them up and returns....magic. Thank you, Scott.