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Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 15:10:52 +0000
From: Lyle Bontrager <lbontger@wmcstations.com>
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Subject: The Way VII: Thursday
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Title: The Way VII: Thursday
Author: RocketMan >lbontger@wmcstations.com<

see part one for other:::::this has nothing to do with the movie

=====
"If you'd accept surrender, give up some more.
Weren't you adored.
I cannot live without you, matter of fact.
I'm on your back."
--"Walking After You", Foo Fighters
"And now I will show you the most excellent way."
--1 Corinthians 12:31
=====

The window creaked and groaned as he shoved it up, and they paused to
see if any of the guards had heard the noise.

Insects whistled, screamed, and chirped, the grass rustled with night
animals and wind; the world did not wait for them.

He peered around the side of the wall and pushed the window up a bit
further, the barest amount needed to let him slide through.

Scully went in first, landing behind the desk and tumbling to the floor
as Mulder shoved her. Quickly he came in and yanked on the window,
ignoring her frown of protest.

Looking at her on the floor, he shrugged.

"I saw one of the stooges making his way around to this side." he
explained.

She stood and crept to the couch in the counseling office they had seen
that first day. There were papers spread out on the table and scattered
along the floor, but they seemed untouched since she and Mulder had last
seen them.

He was easing open the door, searching the hall for people that would
know they weren't supposed to be there.

He motioned for her to follow and they crept along the hallway, heading
for the center of the building and the common room where he would find
the other doors.

The place was silent and tomblike, with the bones of tables and childish
drawings and tiny chairs rearing up for them to stumble over. Their
footsteps made silent pattering on the thin carpet and the very eery
silence of the place made her wish to hear the sounds of children,
running through rooms and jabbering about fantasies.

She could almost see the phantoms of the day, almost hear the mothers
saying good-bye, the fathers picking up, almost smell the peanut butter
and jelly sandwich smiles.

She shivered as Mulder touched her and looked in the direction his
finger was indicating.

The door off the common room was ajar.

They froze in an instant and when no one emerged, dropped to a crouch
and began slipping forward.

Scully stuck her head just inside, yanked it back out, then caught
another look. She felt like she was doing the Hokey-Pokey or something.
She signaled to Mulder that all was clear and he led the way.
~~~~~

"It's gone," he breathed.

She pushed around him and saw empty shelves lining the walls, faint
green stains where something had been.

On the other wall were the file cabinets, the huge metal drawers holding
names and ova to repopulate the world.

She shuddered.

His face was anguished as he turned to her. "I swear, Scully. I wouldn't
make up something like that."

"I know, Mulder." she said and she felt oddly safe now. She had not seen
what he had, did not have to see what he had. She could still have the
hope that there was doubt.

"Scully, it was here."

She nodded. "They must have seen what you did. "

He sighed. "I wonder if anything else is here."

The room was silent and cold, slick with memories of what had been,
frigid with the fear that it *had* been.

She shuddered again and followed him to the stairs.
~~~~~

Down the stairs and through a hallway.

This was the slow death march they carelessly forged ahead.

At the end of that hall was a room. No window, no lock.

He opened it.

"An army," he said.

She again had to push him aside and when his body stopped blocking her
view, she saw rows and rows of bubbles.

Bubbles. Huge plastic encasements that housed one child each.

She gaped and stared down the rows.

Millions.

That was the number that came to mind.

It stretched forever, undulated beneath ground in an elaborate honeycomb
of bubbles and babies. Each bubble was hooked up to a motor and
electrical equipment, moniters and medical supplies.

There were a thousand, a million eyes turned directly on them.

Mulder could feel his knees buckle.

"Oh . . . my . . . "

"Mulder," she interrupted. "Look. New ones."

In the end row were less developed children, still really fetuses, held
in a kind of thick pale green amniotic fluid inside a bubble.

She walked to the rows, not heeding Mulder's sharp tug on her sleeve to
come back.

She saw more names. More parents of these unknown children.

She glanced over to Mulder, saw that he was pecking carefully at a
keyboard, glancing up at a blue computer screen that had been left on.

The glowing bubble in front of her was about the size of the growing
life inside, and she assumed it got bigger as the life got bigger. It
was supported by braces in three places and hooked up to machinery as
well. She read the name on the small plaque and closed her eyes.

"Mulder?"

"Huh?" he grunted, looking up at her for a brief second before becoming
asorbed in the computer again.

"Mulder, I think you should come here."

"Okay, just a sec-"

"Right now, Mulder."

He flashed his eyes to her sharply and stood up, taking long strides to
reach her within seconds.

She waved a hand at the bubble, at the plaque containing the names.

He looked. He shuddered. 

"I thought I killed it," he moaned.

She shook her head. "Or . . . or this is another . . . another-"

"More? How many are there? Is this whole underground lair filled with
ours?!" 

His voice was too loud, too shrill; she backed away from him and closed
her eyes.

She looked back at the glass, at the life there, so small and frail and
innocent, even in this place.

She did want him to kill it. It wasn't right.

His hands were fiddling with the connection tubes, touching them, not
trying to remove them, not trying to stop the life there.

"Scully...."

He looked right into her, needing  her guidance, needing to know what
was right.

She shook her head and he dropped the wires like he'd been burned.

He raised his hands and touched the glass, the warmth of it flowing into
his muslces and relaxing his body.

He looked at the baby for a long time.

His eyes turned to her. "Can we take it out of there?"

She but her lip and shook her head. "I wouldn't think so. That's . . .
that's it's womb."

She sounded hurt, hurt not to have it be in her, rather than some glass
bubble surrounded by a million other children.

"Scully?"

She closed her eyes and took a breath, then looked at him straight in
the eyes, expecting something she didn't want to even think of.

"Scully, they're all staring at us."

Her head whipped to the side and she looked around.

The bubbles that contained no fluid were large, big enough for the
children in them to move and play in.

She didn't think these kids played though.

"Mulder. The kid from the playground. Right there."

He followed her pointing finger and saw intense eyes staring at him.

"They look like zombies," he whispered.

The room was dim and the eyes seemed to glow from every space, catching
fire to them and asking for nothing.

They were cold, cold eyes that saw nothing but endless rows of bubbles
and the ocassional forced exit to the top.

She shivered and walked along the rows, touching the glass in an attempt
to show the children inside that she didn't mean harm, that she wished
she could free them all.

She turned to Mulder.

"Can we get them out of there?"

"You don't think they have some kind of disease or anything?"

"Mulder, can we get them out?"

He sighed. "I guess. They got the boys out, didn't they?"
~~~~~

When the bubble popped free, the boy made no move to get out.

Scully stared at him. "Come on. It's okay. We're going to get you out of
here."

She reached out her hand and he scuttled backwards, whimpering.

"It's okay, it's okay," she said and withdrew her hand.

"Maybe we should get some of the younger ones, Scully. They might not be
so completely brainwashed."

She looked into his eyes and saw his own pain. She hadn't been thinking
about how this was effecting him.

It was his child too, over there.

They drifted along the rows until a curious face made them stop. A
little girl was pressed close to the glass, her nose smearing the
streakless bubble and eyes opening wide.

"She looks eager to get out."

Mulder began stripping the screws and she began dislodging various
things, trying to help him.

The bubble made a sucking noise as it popped open and the girl took a
hesitant step to the opening.

Scully held out her hands, encouraging.

Sounds far off made the girl tense, and Mulder twisted around, looking
to the door to see if anyone was coming.

When he turned back around, the girl was collapsing into Scully and
burying her body into the arms holding her.

He moved to the next bubble and began doing the same, working
relentlessly until the thing was open, even broken.

He went to the next as she tried to call the boy out of the thing.

They went on like that for ten minutes and when Mulder turned to look
back at her, she had three girls clutching her and one boy shaking with
tears on the floor.

He walked slowly to them and gathered the boy up in his arms, cradling
the sobbing thing as he tried to surpass his fear.

Scully tugged on his jacket, her eyes wide.

"Mulder, look at him." 

He shrugged his shoulders, not knowing the importance of her words,
simply that she was half-sick with the sights before them and possibly
feeling undone.

But she led him to the last bubble he had opened and ran her finger on
the plaque, glancing at the boy in his arms.

Names and numbers.

Their names.

He glanced down at the little boy and felt his whole body shake.

"I picked him up and forced him out, Mulder. I couldn't let him stay
inside."

He couldn't breathe.

Looking back along the ones he had opened, he saw that most still held
crying, sobbing children, children who hadn't wanted to come out.

And then he froze.

"Oh no."

He turned to her and grabbed the little girl she could barely keep in
her arms and shoved her forward.

Stumbling, with two little girls hanging in her arms, frightened and
silent, she glanced back.

Military . . . coming in, streaming in through the door they had found,
and all the other doors, spaced out evenly along the underground cavern.

He pushed her into a work station, held her head down as he lifted his
eyes, glancing back to the soldiers checking things, locking the bubbles
back up.

Shivering, the little boy opened his mouth to wail again.

Mulder clamped his hand down over his mouth and hissed into his ear.

"Quiet."

The boy's brown eyes glared at him and he squirmed, lashing out and
hitting the other girl in his arms.

He panicked as the little girl took a breath to cry, saw things falling
apart, knew they were dead, they were caught.

And then Scully's hand sneaked around and slipped over the girl's mouth.

It was silent.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

She gave him a grin and felt his relief run through her, even though
they weren't free of this by far.

His face froze into pain and she felt the blood drain from her face.

She stiffened as the muzzle of a gun was placed to her neck, and then
the click of the safety coming off.

"Don't move." 

Mulder was shifting his body, putting the little girl more to the side
and she realized she could not see the little boy anymore.

Their little boy.

What was Mulder doing?

"I said, don't move. I have no qualms about killing her."

Mulder froze.

She wished she could see the face of the man, but she dared not turn
around.

Where was that little boy?

Her breath hitched and the girls were pulled from them, screaming.

She shook as she heard them punished, beaten, thrown back into their
bubble cages and locked in.

Then Mulder's body uncoiled and he sprang forward.

The gun slammed into his thick skull and he crashed down, landing
directly on top of her.

Grabbing him, clutching his head in panic and an odd sense of
detachment, she checked his scalp. 

Looking down, she did not see the butt of the gun come.

Lights exploded and there was nothing.
~~~~~

end of Thursday
so how do you like this so far?
In Him
adios
RM