"Snapshots 13:Detection" By Dawson E. Rambo Disclaimer: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, and any other tangentially mentioned characters were created by Chris Carter, and remain the copyrighted property of him, TenThirteen Productions, and Fox Television, a unit of 20th Century Fox, Inc. All characters are used without permission, and no infringement is intended. Classification : MSR,V,X Rating : PG13 Summary : This is the continuation of my story "Snapshots." In this part, Dana and Fox travel to San Diego at Skinner's behest so Scully can attend a forensics conference and Mulder can get a much needed break from the X-Files, as well as slowly begin to acclimate to his new relationship with Scully. While vacationing, Mulder discovers some disturbing evidence regarding a series of deaths that had been ruled accidental. ----------------------------------------------------------- "It was one of those great stories that you can't put down at night. The hero knew what he had to do and he wasn't afraid to fight. The villain goes to jail while the hero goes free. I wish it were that simple for me. And the reason that she loved him was the reason I loved him, too. And he never wondered what was right or wrong... He just knew" "Hero" The Pointe Hotel, San Diego Room 1013 Friday Morning 0636 hours "Wait a minute, Mulder...let's not jump to conclusions. There is still a hell of a lot more of investigating that has to be done before anyone can definitively say that some...what? Government hit squad is removing problem children from the convicted felon population? God, Mulder, just on the surface the idea is ludicrous!" Mulder indicated his laptop screen with a single fingers. "Numbers don't lie, Scully. The numbers say that something is happening." "Let me see," she said, turning the screen to face her. She worked the keys quickly, digging a little deeper into the data. "Look, here...this guy died in a car accident. No conspiracy there, right? Happens a thousand times a day." She continued to scroll. "This guy...heart attack. A stroke after that. The guy after him...suicide. Hung himself. Left a note and everything." Mulder's face showed the first tinges of uncertainty. "Well, you have to admit that the numbers, when taken together like this, look suspicious." "I'm not arguing that you've discovered a significant statistical trend here, Mulder. What I am saying is that it's a little bit early for you to don your armor, climb up on your horse and go charging off to tilt at windmills." He rubbed a hand over his stubbly face, his eyes suddenly tired. "Yeah, you're right," he said. "I don't know what got into me." Scully smiled. She took the laptop off his thighs and put it on the bed. Taking his hands in hers, she smiled at him, looking into his eyes. "Mulder...do you have any concept of what you You saw a single news report, and that...sparked something inside you. I don't know how that mind of yours makes the connections it does, but within twelve hours you have enough data to open a case file, maybe even an X- file, with a little more research. Do you have any concept of how amazing that is?" He shrugged. "I never thought about it like that, Scully. It just...happens." She kissed him suddenly, a short, hard, intense kiss that rocked him back. "I'll tell you what's going to happen now," she said, standing and walking over to her dresser. She found the earrings he had given her and donned them, studying herself in the mirror. "I'm going to go downstairs and attend the morning session. You, Mulder, are going to get up right now, shower, shave, and put something comfortable on, go down and sit by the pool." She saw the look on his face and smiled at his reflection in the mirror. "Don't pout, Mulder. I want you to take that laptop and work it to death. Do all the research you want. Let that mind of yours loose." The look of confusion on his face was priceless. "Scully...we're on vacation!" "Yes," she said, turning to face him. "That's true. But, I know you well enough to know that if you don't satisfy yourself about this, you're going to be impossible to live with for the next week. Once you satisfy your curiosity...you'll be much easier to get along with. So...go for it. Just don't forget we have a lunch date." She walked over to where he was still sitting and held out her hand. "Deal?" "Deal!" he said, taking it and pumping. "So go and get in the shower. I have a meeting to get to." Mulder stood up from the bed and turned to go the bathroom. He had taken barely half a step when he felt Scully's hand on his left buttock, gently squeezing, her nails lightly scratching the skin. He stopped and turned back to face her. "Yes?" She looked at her hand on his ass and slowly raised her eyes to meet his, one delicate eyebrow gently arched. "Nice ass, Mulder." "Glad you like it," he said. She patted the cheek. "It'll do," she said, leaning up to kiss the corner of his mouth. "I gotta go." He watched her walk out of the room, wondering what he had done to deserve a woman like her. National Security Agency Fort George G. Meade, Maryland 0840 Hours EST (0640 Hours PST) The National Security Agency, created by an executive order signed by then-President Harry S. Truman in 1947, is the premier intelligence agency in the world. Charged with the collection and analysis of signal intelligence (SIGINT) and Electronic Intelligence (ELINT), the basement computer complex of the NSA houses possibly the single largest, most powerful collection of computing machines ever known to man. Three separate Cray XMP's work around the clock doing hundreds of millions of computations per second, keeping an ever-vigilant electronic eye on the enemies of the United States. Other, smaller computers, computers powerful enough by themselves to run banks and airlines, do little more than what amounts to housekeeping duties for the massive Cray supercomputers. A computer system charged with intercepting the highly classified, deeply encrypted diplomatic and intelligence message and signals traffic of practically every country in the world is understandably complex. That complexity, when viewed through the right prism, can provide opportunity. So much of what the NSA did on a daily basis was so highly classified that the huge majority of it's employees, all the way down to the custodians and cafeteria workers, had to successfully qualify for a Top Secret clearance. Not well known to those outside military and intelligence circles, there are higher classifications than Top Secret. When you enter into the world of electronic intelligence gathering, where the tiniest leak about methods of collection and analysis can mean the end of a successful mission, collection platform, or a life, institutional paranoia becomes a way of life. Projects are classified above Top Secret, with special compartmentalized access required. Employees cleared for the details about one project may be kept completely in the dark about another, if they are not deemed to have the magical "Need to Know." If someone knew how to play the game correctly, they could keep a project hidden from prying eyes for years without discovery. Which is why a small PC-sized computer sat in a wiring closet in a network junction room at the National Security Agency. If the network managers and technicians were asked what the computer was for, and they were to look in their massive internal database of equipment and purposes, they would be told that the computer was working on a given project for the Images and Platforms group, and that the project was classified, and to leave it the hell alone. If Images and Platforms asked Signals and Lines what the box was for, they would be told that it was a project for Analysis and Gathering, and before long, it would vanish into a maze of paperwork requests for security clearances, and long, long before anyone actually got a clearance high enough to ask the magical question, the PC-sized computer in the wiring closet in a junction room at the NSA would have long since vanished and subsequently destroyed. Because that PC computer, specially built to perform a single, crucial task, was neither the property of the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the ATF, the FBI, or any other member of the alphabet-soup of agencies that made up the federal government's so-called "Intelligence" community. It belonged to a group made of up people that belonged to all those agencies, and more, a group that existed outside of the government, and although the members of the group did not consider themselves above the law, they did consider themselves self-appointed administrators of the law. Which is why a computer that had been nicknamed "Wuzzle" sat in that NSA wiring closet day after day, performing that single, crucial task: Watching the NCIC computer. The National Crime Information Computer is owned and operated by the FBI. It is the NCIC computer that is accessed every time a speeder is pulled over by a highway patrolman. If you've ever been arrested and fingerprinted, you have some sort of record in the NCIC. Any valid police jurisdiction in the country can enter a warrant into the NCIC, and if you are discovered in another state, in another city or town, the police there can quickly and accurately access your complete criminal history. Wuzzle was put in place as a tripwire. Its' single job was to watch access patterns into the NCIC and warn another computer, somewhere else in the United States, if it noticed a specific set of circumstances. That morning, at just after 3AM local time, Wuzzle's internal program had noticed that something was going on at NCIC, something it had been programmed to do. So it started paying attention. Any packet of data that flew by Wuzzle on the way to or from the NCIC was sniffed by its' program, and if the packet in question matched the parameters that Wuzzle had been taught to look for, Wuzzle recorded them, saving them for later analysis by someone with less silicon and more grey matter for a brain. Another subroutine inside Wuzzle executed, and spare copies of the sniffed packets were quietly stashed on anonymous accounts across the country. One last subroutine executed, generating a single email message to another location somewhere in the vast computer network that spanned the country. It contained three single bytes. 9 1 1. The recipient would know what the message meant, and according to Wuzzle's program, he had only one thing left to do. Systematically, Wuzzle started erasing itself off the hard drive, block by block, overwriting itself with random patterns of ones and zeros until the only thing that was left was a small chunk of the operating system. Wuzzle's last instruction was to delete that last part of itself. For the first time in almost seven years, Wuzzle wasn't watching over the NCIC. The Pointe Hotel, San Diego Poolside 1033 Hours "Thank you," Mulder said to the waitress. She had just refilled his coffee cup for the sixth time and Mulder was wondering how he was going to be able to take a pee without leaving the laptop. It wasn't that he had any real desire to take the computer to the men's room with him, it was just that the data on the screen was so fascinating that he was having an impossible time concentrating on anything else. "Can I get you anything else?" Mulder looked up at her. She was beautiful, by California standards, with sun-streaked hair and a smile that had obviously been augmented by the best dental science had to offer. "You wouldn't happen to have a copy of the Statistical Abstract of the United States, would you?" She blinked at him, and her perfect smile faltered just a bit. "I can check with the front desk," she offered. Mulder had the suspicion that she was programmed to say that whenever a guest asked her a question that she didn't know the answer two. He also felt that the front desk probably heard from this waitress far more often than they would have liked. "No, that's all right...if I need it, I can get it off the Internet." She smiled at a word she recognized. Pointing at Mulder's laptop she asked, "Is the Internet in there?" Mulder chewed his lip, wondering if the millstone of humiliation outweighed this time by the need to mess with her head. "Yes," he finally said. "Yes, it is. The entire Internet is inside this teeeeny little computer." She seemed to consider this for a moment, and Mulder saw her mind struggling with the concept. She wasn't sure what, exactly, the Internet was, but she could hear something in Mulder's voice, something that wasn't quite teasing. It was more... Mocking. "Cool," she finally said, straightening up and readjusting her tray. "If you decide to go swimming, let me know and I'll get you a towel." Mulder just nodded, his attention already back to the laptop. The waitress turned to go, and Mulder thought of something. "Wait! You can do something for me, after all." She turned back, all smiles. "Yes, sir?" Mulder patted his pockets. "Do you have something to write with? And something to write on?" She handed him her ticket book and pen. He tore the top sheet off and turned it over, quickly scribbling a note. Folding it, he addressed it. "Please make sure that Dr. Scully gets this note. She's attending the conference here at the hotel." "I'll make sure he gets it," the waitress said. Shrugging, Mulder decided to concentrate on the computer rather than correcting the waitresses misconception about Scully's gender. If she did what the note asked her, the waitress would be able to see for herself. The Pointe Hotel, San Diego Main Ballroom 1052 hours "Dr. Scully? There's a message for you." Dana took the note and opened it, swiftly reading it: Dana- Let's play hooky. I've got a lot to show you. Grab your suit and meet me by the pool. Love, M. Dana closed the note, holding it between two fingers, tapping it against her chin. She had to admit that the conference was utterly boring. It was scientifically valid, and important to her work...to a point. That point had long since been approached, met, and surpassed. The idea of putting on her suit and playing hooky with Mulder for the rest of the day was intriguing. She opened the packet that she had been given and checked to see what the afternoon held. Two boring lectures and two even more boring Q&A sessions as the attendees tried to prove that they grasped the incredibly arcane and technical points that would be raised during the lectures. I really shouldn't, she thought. Four years of college, four of medical school, and I never, ever cut a class. The Bureau is paying for this. They expect their money's worth. But still... The Pointe, San Diego Poolside 1145 hours Mulder was tapping on his keyboard when he saw Dana exit the hotel onto the pool deck. She was wearing her bathing suit, a garment he had never seen her in before. It was basic black, a modest one-piece that was cut high on the hip, but not immodestly so. The neck was scooped just a little, just enough to show a delicious little tease of cleavage. She had a towel casually tossed over one shoulder, and she carried a paperback book in the other. Her eyes were invisible behind her sunglasses as she walked around the perimeter of the pool. Mulder noticed that every single male eye in the place was fixed on his partner, and he took a moment to try and look at her as these men were. Not as her partner, her friend, her lover, but simple as a m-a-n. She was beautiful, that much was for sure...but why? Fox tried to distance himself from his feelings for Scully, just for enough time to capture a stray testosterone-fueled thought flying around the pool deck. Well, for one, it was the way she moved. She wasn't sashaying around, swinging her hips or anything obvious...but her gait was slow, sweet and sensual. She walked like a cat, Mulder decided, careful and even, each step placed precisely so. His eyes traveled up her legs, stopping at the swell of her buttocks. OK, he thought, Mulder, you've had to look at that for four years. You've finally gotten your hands and lips on it. You know what it looks like clothed, naked, and in the shower. It's time to admit it. You're entitled. Scully has a ass, he thought. There was just something about it...maybe it was because it was ass, but he didn't think so, judging by the looks of the other guys situated around the pool. No, it was unanimous, and official. It was just a perfect butt. The rest of her petite body wasn't outrageous enough to stop traffic dead, but it was proportional, and nicely assembled. It turned more than one head. Her hair...red, like the fires of hell itself. That spoke for itself. Her face...He looked at her face and felt himself losing contact with that part of himself, the majority of his consciousness wanting to lose itself in her beauty. Her mouth...that cupid's bow upper lip, her slight overbite, the even, perfectly white teeth, even that tiny little beauty mark below her left nostril that she tried to hide with makeup (for God only KNEW what reason,) was sexy. "Mulder, what are you staring at?" she demanded. "You," he said simply. "Just you, Scully." "Well, stop it. You're making me uncomfortable." "Sorry, Scully. Have a seat." She sat down next to him, scooting her chair closer to his which earned her an annoyed look from the waitress. "Dr. Scully?" she asked, her face an obvious mask of patronizing snootiness. "Yes?" Dana asked, completely unfazed. "Can I get you anything to drink?" Dana thought about it a minutes. "Margarita. On the rocks. No salt." The waitress wrote her order down, turned to go, but stopped. "If you don't mind me asking, what kind of...doctor are you? The kind that reads lots of books and talks to people that have problems in their heads?" "No," Dana said, turning to look up at her. "I'm a pathologist." Seeing that the word meant nothing to her, Scully returned her attention to Mulder at the exact moment she said, "I cut up dead people. Isn't that right, Dr. Mulder?" Mulder, who had been in the process of taking the last sip of coffee in his cup in anticipation of the waitress refilling it when she returned with Scully's drink, promptly turned his head and spewed his coffee onto the concrete pool deck. The waitress didn't notice, now turning her attention to Mulder. "Oh, you're a doctor too? What kind? No," she said, holding up a hand. "Don't tell me...plastic surgeon." Scully's eyes dropped to the woman's chest, and an unkind thought raced across her mind. "As a matter of fact..." Mulder started, and then felt two blue eyes boring in the side of his head. "...I'm a psychologist," he finished. The word didn't mean anything to her as well. "I work with..." "Psychos," Dana helpfully supplied. The waitress nodded, popped her gum, frowned and walked away. "What a mental midget," Dana muttered. She glanced over at Mulder who was forlornly examining his coffee cup. "Out?" she asked. "Nope," Mulder said. "I've got just about half a sip left..." He was gently swirling the cup, obviously preparing to savor the last little bit. Dana glanced over at the retreating form of the waitress, and then down at her own body. "Mulder, do you think my breasts are too small?" And that's how the last mouthful of coffee ended up on the pool deck as well. "Never mind," she said, wondering why she had asked such a totally out of character question as that. Well, it's not that hard to understand, she thought. Here I am in California, surrounded by women who have more silicone in them than a Pentium computer, women who spend six hours a day in the gym or at the beach. It's really hard not to feel a little...threatened. "Scully-" Mulder had started, trying to find the words. "Forget it, Mulder. I was just kidding." He closed his mouth with a snap, and turned his attention to the laptop, blushing furiously. "So...what have you got?" "Enough statistical data to start agreeing with you a little more. It seems you were right... it just seems to be a statistical anomaly, that's all. I have to do a tiny bit more research, but I'm sure it'll bear out what I'm thinking." "What do you need?" "The abstract," he said, glad that he didn't have to refer to the book by it's full name with Scully. He took a moment to consider this, his fingers rising off the keyboard for a moment. God...smart was just sooo sexy. "It's on the net," Scully said, and at that moment, the waitress reappeared with Scully's margarita and a refill for Mulder's coffee. "Excuse me," she said, "but I couldn't help overhearing. Were you talking about the Internet?" Dana looked Mulder, who just shrugged. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I was. Why?" Pointing at Mulder's laptop, the waitress said, "Because it's in there." Dana opened her mouth to answer particular statement and closed it when she felt Mulder's foot nudging her under the table. "That's right," Dana said, thinking quickly. "I forgot." "Oh, no problem," the waitress smiled. "I'm used to dealing with brainy people. My father was a notary public." Mulder thought for a moment he was going to physically restrain Scully from going after the waitress, but she managed to control herself long enough to be served. Her job done, the waitress moved off, her hips swaying gently in the midday sun. "Stupid!" Scully hissed. "She's too stupid to live!" "Yeah," Mulder agreed, glad that the discussion had been moved to safer topics. He finished typing on his keyboard and then closed the laptop. "Until I either get to a library, or jack back into the net, I'm done, Scully. What do you want for lunch?" She regarded him over the top of her sunglasses. "Truth?" "Nothing but," he insisted. "Room service and a bubblebath." "Scully-" "I'm a redhead, Mulder! I'm already starting to feel a little warm! Make you a deal... we go up right now, undress, get into a huge bubblebath, eat lunch...and when we're done, I'll drive you to the library myself. Deal?" "Deal," Mulder said, standing up, grabbing the laptop and offering his hand to Scully. She glanced at it and then took it, oddly pleased that they could hold hands in public. She'd carefully gone over the list of attendees for the conference, looking for anyone that she might remotely know, or have heard about through Bureau circles. As far as she could tell, for now at least, they were safe. McLean, Virginia 1500 Hours EST (1200 PST) The conference room was a windowless, sterile affair decorated in stark white and gleaming stainless steel. A man sat at one end of a very long conference table, his hands clasped before him on the table. He had an air about him, a certain animal tenseness that warned others of something they couldn't quite name. He looked like a caged beast, sometimes, and at others, he was no more threatening than a kitten. That was his gift, he knew. It was also his curse. He'd been summoned here unexpectedly, and the man was a little nervous. The tone of voice on the other end of the phone had indicated panic, no matter how hard she'd tried to hide it. Presently, his boss, the woman that had called him, strode into the room. She carried a slim manila file in her hand. She walked over to where the man sat and slid the folder in front of him. "San Diego. Your flight leaves in three hours." The man opened the folders and saw the official FBI photographs of Dana Scully and Fox Mulder. He closed the folder with a slam. "No!" he shouted. "I told you - no cops, not ever. I don't care what-" "Silence, you fool," the woman commanded. The man's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing, his lips a tight, thin line. Her time would come, he knew. "I don't want you to kill them. I just want some information. Each of them has a laptop. I want you to break into their hotel room, steal both laptops, and any other computer related items you find. That includes printouts and diskettes. Get it all. Toss the place. Make it look good." The man thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. "Nope." "You will do exactly as I have instructed!" she hissed. He smirked. "Give me one good reason, lady." "Because...they're onto us, my dear. They're onto you!" The Pointe Hotel, Dan Diego Room 1013 1210 hours They had split the chores. Mulder was busy fiddling with the tub taps, trying to get the temperature exactly right. Scully was on the phone, ordering lunch. Both tasks completed, they met in the middle of the room. "I ordered champagne," Scully said, slowly threading her arms around his neck. "Sounds nice," he said softly. He was looking at her funny, trying, but not quite able to meet her eyes. "Mulder? Something you want to tell me?" "Remember your question? Down at the pool?" Dana thought for a moment before remembering. She felt the blush quickly rising in her cheeks. "Mulder, I said I was-" And then his fingers were across her lips, silencing her for once. "They're perfect...because they're part of you, Scully. Lots of guys look at a woman as a collection of parts. Nice legs. Good ass. Great tits...but I love , Scully. All of you. Every last inch of you. It doesn't matter what they look like, or how large or small they are, Scully...they're perfect because I've felt you rub them across my back in the middle of the night. I..." he faltered for a moment, and Scully felt the warm sting of the tears behind her eyes. "I...think about them nursing our children one day and I want to cry with joy. I know that sounds dumb-" Scully kissed his fingers, and spoke around them. "No, Mulder...it doesn't sound dumb. It's just about the most perfect thing you could have said." "Just about?" Mulder asked, pout showing up on his face. "You didn't ask to see them," Scully whispered, her grin lighting up her face. ------------------------------------------------------------------- END PART 13 Sorry it took so long...but my thumb is killing me, and it's hard to type. :( "Hero" Music and Lyrics copyright (C) 1993 David Crosby. From the David Crosby album "Thousand Roads" produced by Jan Crosby. Performed by David Crosby and Phil Collins. All rights reserved, lyrics used without permission, and absolutely no infringement was intended. Copyright (C) 1993 Atlantic Music, Inc.