In his worst nightmares, he had never expected that the journey to this remote corner of the world would take so long and stretch his resources so far. When his associate had come to him, promising answers to a thousand questions, he had expected another trip to some obscure room in the State Department. How many meetings had been held there, in secret? Too many to count, in the years since his involvement with Corona, wining and dining dozens of men who would happily see him dead, if only they could conduct their experiments without his intervention. Men like Victor and Takeo, monsters more frightening than anything Director Hoover had described in those files.
They had arrived at the construction site for McMurdo on Ross Island several weeks before, under the guise of a geological team providing logistical support for the Amundsen-Scott project at the South Pole. There had been little chance of argument over their presence; everything had been cleared through the New Zealand authorities earlier in the year. The journey from the Aucklands had been nothing compared to the trek since their drop onto the mainland of ice itself, a constant struggle with equipment and the darkness. But the rationale was that travel during the end of the long Antarctica night would cover their tracks when they diverged from the traditional routes. And now, after chilling night after night in hastily-constructed Jamesways, they stood on a small ridge, overlooking a facility that made the efforts at McMurdo almost laughable.
“A testimony of the human will, isn’t it?” his associate breathed. His chilled exhalation seemed to hang heavy in the air. “To build such a place, in such conditions, in the darkness of winter at the bottom of the world.”
He turned to his associate, shaking his head. “This had better be worth it.”
“Oh, it is, it is,” his associate assured him. He pointed to one of the figures under the powerful lights that illuminated the plain while buildings. “Comrade Arntzen has been sent by Strughold as our liaison with the Soviets. After what they discovered at Tunguska…”
“Yes, of course.” He certainly did not need to here more propaganda regarding the spread of Communism, not after Operation Paper Clip. “Has Conrad seen any of this?”
“He knows as much as we have discovered.” His associate looked at him meaningfully. “This is very important, my friend. What we have uncovered here must be kept within the strictest of confidences. Strughold has made it clear that we will know the truth, we few, and no others. Even our other associates must remain unaware of the full implications.’
“I agreed to the terms,” he said angrily, pressing his arms more tightly against his body as a stiff breeze leapt over the ridge. “Just the three of us. ‘Selective truths’ for the others.”
“Then there is no reason for us to remain in the dark and cold,” his associate replied, and the young man started down the ridge towards the base. He followed, the blistering cold seeping into his joints, making every step a struggle. It took a good twenty minutes to get to the nearest door, and even then, there was a long wait while their identities were confirmed by Arntzen.
“This way,” his associate said, gesturing towards a manhole in the floor. He looked at it skeptically, but his associate merely shrugged and started his way into the shaft. He followed once again, secure in the knowledge that his associate would never place himself in a situation that might prove fatal. They came to a landing, and by the time he stepped onto the slick, dark surface, his associate was pulling out a cigarette, lighting it with a flourish.
“Here it is, Mulder,” his associate Spender said. He pointed into the massive center of the bowels of the alien spacecraft, where thousands of human beings were being stored in chambers filled with liquid. “This is what we face. This is the plan that the colonists have in mind for us.” He looked at Mulder expectantly. “Now do you see why we had to keep this part to ourselves?”
Bill Mulder looked at the distended torsos of some of the oldest specimens, and found that he was having difficulty breathing, his head swimming. “I thought…I mean, at Roswell…it only controlled the technician.” He pointed to the chambers. “We saw nothing like this!”
Spender nodded. “The same virus is at work. As we saw at Roswell, the bodies themselves appear to be nothing more than…a suit, I suppose. A host. The true alien intelligence is within the virus itself. An intelligence with the ability to control matter and energy at such a perfect level that it can remain intact without a material form.” He gestured towards the chambers. “It would appear that this can happen, if the virus wills it to happen.”
“My God,” Mulder breathed, and then he turned to Spender. “We need to find a way to stop it.”
Spender sighed, shaking his head. “We found this place based on information we recovered from the crash site. We still don’t know if the aliens are aware of our presence. We have yet to actually encounter them directly. Some force must be bringing any newly infected human beings to this central location. Maintaining a low profile, but learning as much as we can, is essential. As are the other aspects of the Project.”
Mulder looked out at the seemingly endless rows of humans in storage. Now he could understand the terrible reasons for so many of the horrific experiments that were being conducted, using the DNA recovered after the war. All the attempts to create a human being that could withstand the control of the black oil virus, no matter the cost, or lacking that, creating a new army that could resist that much longer. All of it made sense now, but even in this moment of revelation, he had his nagging doubts.
“How long has this been here?” he asked suddenly. He wasn’t entirely sure why he needed to know, but he followed the impulse.
Spender shrugged. “It’s hard to say. There is a layer of ice immediately above the upper surface of the torus that is perhaps a million years old. There are reasons to believe that this is the original vessel, the ship that brought them here. Much of the design appears to have been modified to make space for storage. The areas that retain original construction seem suited to liquid transfer.”
Mulder looked at the walls, and saw the troughs to either side as Spender pointed them out. “A million years,” he murmured, and then he turned to Spender. “There’s still something I don’t understand. Why are they here?” He looked back towards the pods. “Why all of this? If they came here a million years ago, we never would have been here. Humanity didn’t evolve until much later. The dinosaurs would have been extinct already. So why then?”
Spender shrugged. “Strughold believes that the aliens came here and engineered humanity’s rise, so that our DNA would be compatible. Tests seem to indicate that there is a great deal of DNA that we do not use, which is identical to key sequences of the viral DNA. We have been unable to unlock the secrets of why it is there, and how we can use that to our advantage.”
Mulder shook his head. “That doesn’t ring true. If anything, that ought to make our job easier.”
Spender gave Mulder a barely tolerant smirk, and tossed his finished cigarette into the void below. “In the end, it doesn’t matter. Our goal now is to twist this advance warning to our advantage.”
Spender started climbing back towards the surface, but Mulder couldn’t help but hesitate, taking one last look at the horror that had been unveiled. Sooner or later, they would run out of time. The aliens would learn of their involvement, of the plans they had set into motion. They would need to find a means to survive before that could happen. But even as he turned to follow Spender, he couldn’t help but wonder if he would ever discover the answers to the questions that plagued him.
Even more, he wondered if humanity’s future depended on it.
****
SEPTEMBER 12, 2001
He came to a stop a few feet from the edge, peering down into the massive expanse where an alien spacecraft had once been buried. It had been just over three years since that fateful day, when everything had come into crystal clear focus, when so many of his fears had been realized. He remembered the frantic moments when he had Scully draped over his shoulder, the cold ripping into both of them with every movement, climbing as quickly as possible to escape the creatures that had been released by his own actions. As always, the answers he had been granted had led to ever more questions, but with the death of the men that had kept those secrets, Mulder doubted that he would ever know the whole truth.
“Dr. Luder?” Mulder turned to see the faint outline of a slightly large man running towards him, bundled against the cold. Mulder mused that he ought to be feeling the same frigidity, but whether from anxiety or some other source, the harsh conditions seemed to have little effect.
“Dr. Luder,” the man repeated, as he came close enough to see Mulder clearly. The man looked down into the crater, and then back at Mulder. “I thought maybe you would be here. We all have come here to see it again and again, as if we cannot believe it to be a true thing.”
“Hard to believe,” Mulder agreed, and then he started walking towards the makeshift research base. “I’m surprised that you’re the first group to actually come here and look into it, to be honest, Dr. Laufer.”
“Simon, please,” the man said in his thick Israeli accent. “There are few enough of us that we can afford to be on a first name basis.” He gestured for Mulder to enter the main building first. “Besides, how often do we get visitors in this part of the world?” Mulder couldn’t argue that, and so he smiled and stepped into the warmth of the small but fully functional module.
The module itself was broken into three sections, each separated by an arrangement of mated doors that provided a crude airlock-style protection from the elements. The main section was the research facility proper, where most of the instruments were stored. There was a small mess in one corner, Mulder noticed, which was likely the usual scientists’ half-hearted concession for the need for food. Mulder knew from his previous experience that one of the other modules would be a bunking area, and the other would likely be a storage and waste facility.
Three people were hunched over various instruments, looking up only when they realized that Simon had brought in their visitor. Mulder hesitated at the door, not quite sure who was who. At least Dr. Laufer had been waiting for him at the nearest way station, as he had been informed at McMurdo. There was a very fit, almost too thin Russian woman sitting near a refrigeration unit, studying a printout. She seemed a bit young. In the center of the room, near a machine which Mulder had seen Scully using from time to time, was an older American man. Mulder also spied a short, older woman halfway under a desk.
“Some quick introductions,” Simon said with a wide smile as he pulled off his outer layer of clothing. “To our left we have Dr. Tatiana Smoleeva, our expert in ice core dating and all things chemistry. By the DNA analysis equipment is Dr. Mitch Kasten, previously of John Hopkins University. And over by the very broken NMR machine is Mary Martusciello, our resident engineer.” Simon gestured towards Mulder. “Everyone, this is Dr. Michael Luder. I’m sure we all remember what our esteemed leader has said about him, yes?”
Mulder raised an eyebrow at the reference. “And where is Dr. Leakey?”
“He is over in the cold storage facility,” Tatiana said evenly, and then she looked back down at her printouts, as though all of the excitement had passed. Mulder glanced at Simon, who simply shrugged with a wide smile on his face.
“You will have to excuse Tatiana,” Mitch said, walking over with a grin and a handshake. “She has a tendency to be a bit of the ice queen, if you catch my drift.” Without looking up or even changing her expression, Tatiana gave him the finger, then continued as before.
“So if you don’t mind my asking,” Mary said from under a desk, where she was apparently pulling on a number of jury-rigged wires, “what brings you to our little home away from home?”
“I asked the same thing,” Simon said, turning to Mulder. “Since Robert only said that you might have some insight into what happened here, I thought perhaps you might be able to explain your visit in a little more detail.”
“Well, I hate to disappoint you,” Mulder said finally, walking over to the small table and sliding wearily into the nearest chair. “The fact is, I know about as much as you do. I was given a tip that your research down here was something I might be interested in, on a personal level. Something you found or were supposed to have found back a couple months ago?”
Simon shared a worried glance with Mitch as Mary slid out from under the desk. Even Tatiana looked up from her work, glaring at him with suspicion. After a moment’s hesitation, Simon walked over to the table and took a seat opposite Mulder. “What have you heard? What were you told specifically?”
Mulder had wanted to wait until he could talk to Dr. Leakey to bring up the very unusual means by which he had been informed of the research facility, but he knew that it was important to gain the trust of the people he would be staying with. Moving slowly, not wanting to alarm the researchers, he unzipped his field jacket and pulled out the weathered fax that had been sent to AD Skinner’s office. He handed it to Simon.
“I have some contacts at the Bureau,” he said quickly, before Simon could question the references to the FBI on the fax. “This fax was sent to an Assistant Director, if you can believe it, addressed to a former agent named Fox Mulder. Mulder used to work in a department of the Bureau concentrating on unsolved cases, usually with overtones of the unexplained or paranormal.”
“Robert said that you had written articles in various magazines on such things,” Simon muttered as he glanced through the papers. His expression was disturbed as he passed the pages to Mitch. “Debunking some photos in one instance, supporting the idea of panspermia in another. Interesting that you would be sent here, though given Robert’s reputation, it can be understood.”
Mulder knew exactly what Simon was talking about. Dr. Robert Leakey, the leader of the research team, was a renowned figure on the fringes of paranormal speculation. He had caught Mulder’s attention with a recent book on the subject of the sixth extinction, something that Scully had referenced many times after his misadventures with telepathy a couple years earlier. His involvement with the research had added a new layer of mystery to the question of what kind of research was being done.
“So you have no idea who suggested you come here?” Tatiana asked, her accent suggesting a Western European education. She tossed the fax onto the table as she passed.
Mulder gathered the pages, sliding them back into the field jacket. “No clue. I made some attempts before coming here to discover who it was, but the closest I came was a general region of New Jersey.”
Simon nodded absently, deep in thought. “Well, regardless of how you came to be here, it would seem that you are meant to know what we have found. And since you are still outfitted for a walk in our glorious weather, I think we should take you to see Robert and our find.” He stood, then pointed over his shoulder towards a small desk with a transistor radio. “But if you don’t mind, I’ll let McMurdo know that we have arrived safely.”
Mulder nodded, and as the others returned to their usual routine, he found himself wondering what was happening back home with the investigation into Kersh. With all of the rush to get settled before finding some way of getting down to Wilkes Land, he had only had time for a few short messages. Scully had mentioned that things had turned out well, but there was also something in the way she said it left him more than a little uneasy.
“Gulf Breeze.”
Mulder looked up to find that Tatiana was staring at him, her handsome Slavic features still impassive as they had been since he walked in the door. “I’m sorry?”
“Gulf Breeze. You wrote an article on the photographs.” She stared at him for a slightly uncomfortable moment. “You said they were faked.”
Mulder vaguely remembered his article in Omni, and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Nope,” Tatiana said bluntly, and then she looked back down at her printout.
Mulder watched her for a moment, an expression of bemused confusion on his face, and then he heard Simon cry out. Everyone turned as Simon demanded confirmation, not once but twice. Mulder stood, suddenly very worried by the agitation in the man’s voice, and he noticed that even Tatiana found Simon’s reaction to be unusual. After listening carefully to something on the headphones, Simon clicked off the radio and turned, visibly shaken.
“I…they…good God,” he stammered, and then he took a deep breath to calm himself. “Terrorists attacked the United States early yesterday morning, their time. They hijacked planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York.” He looked at Mitch with sympathy as the older man’s face went pale. Then Simon looked towards Mulder. “They also crashed a plane into the Pentagon.”
Mulder immediately thought of Scully and their son, wondering what, if anything, might have happened as a Bureau response to such an act. “Any word on what we’re doing about it? Government response?” he asked, forcing himself to moderate his tone of voice, maintain some sense of calm.
“None,” Simon said with a heavy sigh. “They are stunned at McMurdo. They say that all air travel is terminated.” They all looked at each other, shared grief and concern on their faces. Mitch seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, and Simon and Tatiana spoke softly, wondering how their own people might react. Finally, Mary stepped over towards him, looking at him with sympathy.
“Looks like you might be staying longer than you expected.”
****
SEPTEMBER 12, 1951
“Mulder.”
He looked up from the reams of data stacked on the small but functional table, wondering what else he might be told, now that he had seen the worst of it. Spender had continued to educate him in the details as soon as he had been given enough time to settle into the reality of the situation. Truth be told, he didn’t think that time would ever come. But for now, he could deal with whatever new twist his associate might drop into his lap.
And then he saw the haunted look on Spender’s face. When they had been in the bowels of the alien spacecraft, surrounded by thousands of other human beings with no chance of survival, Spender had retained the subtle confidence of a man who knew what he was dealing with, a man with a goal clearly delineated in his mind. Now, there was simply a look of confusion, almost a loss of words.
“What?” Mulder asked, standing. “What is it?”
“We found something,” Spender said, looking away for a moment, his mouth moving aimlessly, as if unable to shape the words he needed. Then he forced himself to continue, looking into Mulder’s eyes. “Something we never could have expected.”
Spender motioned for him to follow. Gearing up for an excursion outside, Mulder was surprised when Spender shook his head and pointed towards the entrance to the spacecraft. They climbed down to the usual landing, and then Spender took him towards one of the troughs, pointing out that there were some grooves that could be used as handholds.
“Where the hell are we going?” Mulder asked gruffly.
“There are some vents in the ice, where hot gases escape from time to time,” Spender replied. He looked towards the top of the trough. “This leads to one in particular near the top surface of the craft.” Without further explanation, he began climbing. Mulder followed, finding it remarkably difficult to maintain the proper grip on the slick surface of the trough. For a moment, he wondered if he was clinging to something covered with the aliens themselves, but he quickly forced the thought out of his mind.
After a long climb, they came to the top of the trough, and walked down a passage lined on either side by infected humans in containment. Mulder looked closely at a few of them. They were all completely naked, suspended in an odd liquid with a vaguely green tinge, though the exact color was hard to determine given the low, distorted light. Each victim had a strange, almost organic tube inserted into the mouth. He wondered if the tube was meant to keep the victims alive, or to nurture the creature growing within.
Below one of the pods, Spender stopped, pointing to a small opening in the wall about eight feet from the ground. “It’s just above here.” He jumped up, taking hold of the rim of the opening, and pulled himself into the small enclosure. Reaching down, he took hold of Mulder’s arms and helped him do the same. Mulder followed Spender as they crawled through a tight passage, finally emerging under a shaft in the ice. The dark Antarctic winter night could be seen high above, past the figure suspended about a quarter of the way up the shaft.
Spender took hold of one of the ropes, at the end of which hung an elaborate harness. He directed Mulder to another of the harnesses, and then showed him how to secure himself. Once everything was ready, he pulled on the rope, and Arntzen slowly pulled them to the area that was illuminated. As soon as Mulder came close enough, he saw the shape within the ice, and let out a disbelieving gasp before he could stop himself.
“Is this what I think it is?” Mulder finally asked, turning to Spender.
His associate nodded. “Perfectly preserved. The ice is so hard and compressed that we cannot get a good look at it, but the shape says it all.”
Mulder swore under his breath, and then something far more unnerving crossed his mind. “How old is this ice layer?”
Spender smiled without humor. “About a million years.”
Mulder looked back at the object in the ice, and realized that as confounding as things had appeared to be before, now he was completely at a loss.
****
SEPTEMBER 12, 2001
The cold storage facility was less than a hundred yards from the main research module, but Mulder found that he was still completely numb when he and Simon arrived. The news of the terrorist attacks had given way to a sense of helplessness. Mulder had never intended his visit to last more than a day or two, weather permitting, but now he had no idea when he would be able to leave. It could be days, even weeks. And all that time, he would be unable to contact Scully.
“Dr. Luder?” he heard, and he realized that Simon had been calling his name. He nodded an acknowledgement, and Simon continued. “Dr. Leakey is in the back room with the find. I think you’ll understand why he spends so much time here, once you see it.”
Mulder nodded absently, following Simon until they came to a small room. Standing by the door was a man outfitted for the field, taking notes with a slightly trembling hand on a stiffened notebook. Simon knocked on the wooden frame of the doorway, and Dr. Leakey turned with a start.
“Simon? Ah, and Dr. Luder, I presume.” Leakey gave him an evaluating look, and then smiled. “I was hoping you would arrive soon.”
“Michael arrived earlier in the morning,” Simon offered, and then he sighed. “Just in time, actually. There’s been some bad news.”
“Oh?” Leakey said, catching the subdued tone of Simon’s voice. “They aren’t calling us back, are they?”
“I would say not,” Simon replied with a weak smile. “There was a terrorist attack on the United States. The World Trade Center towers collapsed. Thousands were killed. A few hundred more at the Pentagon.”
Leakey’s expression fell, and he shook his head sorrowfully. “It never seems to end, does it? I assume Mitch knows?”
Simon nodded. “He appears to be all right for now. But I already put a request in for news on his son.” Simon turned to Mulder. “Mitch’s son works in the city, near where the towers are…were, rather.”
They stood in silence for a moment, and then Leakey turned, gesturing towards a large blocky object covered with a dark drape. “We found this about a quarter mile away from the crater itself,” he explained, as they walked fully into the room. “You know the theories about what happened here?”
“I’ve heard a few,” Mulder replied carefully. “The boys at McMurdo say it was some kind of meteorite.”
Leakey shook his head. “Not even close. For one thing, a meteorite large enough to create a crater that size would have resulted in enough of an impact to register on a number of seismic instruments, even ones off the continent. And the pattern of ejecta material is completely wrong for that kind of strike.” Leakey pointed a single finger towards the ceiling. “Whatever caused that crater, it came up through the ice and emerged intact.”
“Some kind of eruption?” Mulder replied, testing Leakey a bit.
“More like a vessel of some kind,” Leakey answered, exactly as Mulder anticipated. “Any eruption would have resulted in a very different pattern of melting. And it never would have left a piece of ice from a layer this old, this large, where it landed.”
Mulder looked down at the hidden object. “This is a piece of ice?”
“Well, in a manner of speaking.” Leakey pulled the covering off the object, and Mulder found himself utterly stunned.
There, suspended within a cloudy block of ice that had to be hundreds of thousands of years old, was the unmistakable form of a human being.
****
SEPTEMBER 19, 1951
Mulder and Spender stood over the table, looking at the conflicting sets of data, trying to get a sense of what they were looking at. The last several days had been spent carefully shaving thin layers of ice away from the body, gathering as much evidence as they could without disturbing the body. Every layer was being tested for approximate age, as well as samples from around the structure itself.
Along the way, they began finding traces of material trapped in the ice itself. Most of the traces only confirmed the age of the core samples to a higher degree of confidence, but over time, they began finding traces of materials that were more and more unlikely.
“The ice layer just above the craft itself is definitely more than a million years old,” Spender repeated, pointing to the stack of papers. “We have at least a few hundred tests that give us the same general time period. So the aliens did arrive then.”
Mulder shook his head. “Then explain why these samples, in the same layer, give us an age practically the same as the snow falling on our ceiling.”
Spender cursed, pulling out another cigarette. “This is impossible.” He gestured towards the stacks of data. “This vessel is buried under tons of ice, all of which shows layering consistent with the theory that the ship has been in this exact spot for a million years, at the very least. Probably more.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “So how do we get supposedly modern ice forming in the same layer?”
“Not the ice, necessarily,” Mulder reminded him. “The analysts say that even with the data indicating modern origin, it’s the trace elements that are throwing off most of the results.” Mulder sighed. “Are you sure that all of the analysts are current on this? It could be someone new, misinterpreting what they are getting out of the machines.”
“No, they’ve all been here since the beginning,” Spender said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “At least there’s one thing they agree on. According to the melt patterns they’ve managed to detect, the ship didn’t land here under it’s own power. It crashed. It was only the soft quality of the surface that kept it intact, and there are probably the same self-repairing devices on this vessel as we found at Roswell.”
“Which tells us that they didn’t intend to come here,” Mulder said speculatively, and then he shook his head. “Or something went wrong on the way down. Who knows?” He started pacing, running through the possibilities in his mind. “Could the trace elements throwing everything off be from space? Or wherever this thing comes from?”
Spender shook his head. “The analysts insist that the most conclusive evidence has a terrestrial source. Whatever it is, it came from here and apparently now.” He sighed. “The fact is, our instruments are likely too crude to give us any real information. We already know from the tests at Andrews that the propulsion systems operate using some kind of relativistic effect. The kinds of things Einstein predicted.”
“So it could be that when the ship came down, the propulsion systems were still working,” Mulder mused, and then he shook his head. “Wouldn’t we get a whole lot of different results, then? We’re only getting the main layer at more than a million, with pockets and trace materials from this time period. Nothing in between.”
Spender sighed, rubbing his eyes. They had been staring at the data for hours. “Enough with the ice core data. There’s the body as well.” Spender tapped one of the sheets of paper. “The subject is male, we know that much. We haven’t been able to get close enough to risk going for a tissue sample, but as close as we are, it’s obvious that this man is not some kind of missing link. He looks no different from you or me.”
Mulder hesitated, and then nodded. “It paints a picture, doesn’t it? Two possibilities. The body is one of the humans from the pods, a recently infected human with no outward signs of gestation. Something happened. Maybe there was a venting action during an unexpected moment, and this body wound up in the ice.”
“We already ruled out the steam as a source,” Spender reminded Mulder.
“Which leaves us with the other possibility,” Mulder replied. His expression became troubled. “That this apparently modern human being was in this part of the world over a million years ago, at the same time that this UFO crashed on our planet.” Mulder shook his head. “It makes no sense. If this guy was even close to the crash, he should have been toast. Hell, he shouldn’t have even been there! No human should.”
“The oldest pod goes back roughly 50,000 years,” Spender said, “and you’ve seen them. They hardly look human.”
Mulder nodded, and then stopped pacing. “We need that tissue sample. We need to know where this man came from.”
****
SEPTEMBER 19, 2001
The week had passed in a haze of discovery and endless mystery. Tatiana had gone over the data with him more than once each day, showing him again and again how the ice core samples proved the age of the frozen body. There was no question about it. The man was encased in a block of ice over a million years old, tossed from the top surface of the alien ship that he had seen three years earlier.
At first Mulder thought that it could have been one of the victims trapped within one of the pods. So many of them had burst open in those final moments, sending eviscerated bodies everywhere, as the newly “born” aliens had escaped the spread of the vaccine. But even with the obscured view, it was clear that the body was fully intact.
“But there are traces of ice and other materials that are from the modern era,” Tatiana had pointed out, tossing her cropped brown hair to one side with a hint of irritation. “This should not be.”
“I don’t know,” Mulder said, scanning the information as if he knew what to look for. “Robert says that the body was tossed to the surface about three years ago. Isn’t it possible that the modern ice formed over the older ice since then?”
“No, no,” Tatiana murmured, pointing to the data. “Notice how it’s more or less random.”
Soon it was just another facet to the mystery. Mulder had fallen into the pattern of wandering around the science module, staring at each new piece of information as each instrument spat out its analysis. More and more it became apparent that they would have to find some way to look at the body more clearly.
“Someone has done it before,” Mary said at one point, during one of the many visits to the cold storage module. She had pointed to one side of the ice block, where one of the several cores had been taken. “Look at the stratification of the ice here. Someone shaved off layers of ice in a very methodical way, in sections.” She looked at them gravely. “They were trying to get close enough to take some kind of sample, but they stopped.”
“Who else could have been here?” Mitch had asked, rubbing his chin, when they returned to the warmth of the science module. “There wasn’t one bit of evidence of a previous research team having been here.”
That had caught Mulder’s interest. “Well, how did you find out about the body in the first place?”
“An anonymous tip,” Robert had replied. “An envelope was sent to my office at the university, filled with satellite pictures of this region of Wilkes Land before and after the crater appeared. No names, just information about the line of credit, the arrangements for travel, the other suggested members of the team.”
Mulder had caught the similarities immediately. “No information on where it came from, or who was backing the research?”
“Just a return address,” Leakey had replied, seemingly alarmed by Mulder’s tone. “A post office box in New Jersey.”
It hadn’t taken long for everyone to make the rest of the connections. If there had been any questions about why Mulder had been directed to the site, the fact that his “invitation” had apparently come from the same source put any fears to rest. They had all assumed that he was just another player in the game, called to the site just as they had been, with little warning or explanation. But there were still more than a few questions that needed answers.
“So, Robert,” Mulder said, slumping into the chair across from Robert’s desk. “What were you told about this place? Did you know what you were supposed to find?”
“Actually, there was very little information provided in the original proposal,” Leakey admitted. He gestured towards the small stack of books on the desk. “I’ve gained a bit of notoriety writing books on the idea of the sixth extinction.” He saw Mulder’s unconscious reaction. “You’ve heard of it?”
“Vaguely,” Mulder admitted. He decided that it wouldn’t be odd for “Dr. Luder” to have heard something of it, as an investigator into the paranormal. “I had a colleague who once looked into some of the theories and lore at one point, a few years back.”
“The long and short of it is,” Leakey explained, “there have been five previous recorded periods of sudden, mass extinction. Looking back on the cycle, there should have been a sixth extinction by now. We’re overdue. And there are a number of indicators that point to its coming.” Leakey seemed to be staring into the distance. “The twilight of the human race, Dr. Luder. Predicted by science, referenced in any number of ancient texts and prophecies. Notably, the Apache, the Navaho, the Hopi, the Aztecs.”
Mulder nodded. “That was more or less what I had been told.” He glanced in the direction of the massive crater. “How does all of this fit into your theories?”
“There have been some oddities over the past several years,” Leakey observed. “A couple of them spring to mind, like the mass killings of past abductees at selected locations around the world. The appearance of this crater a few months later, and then the systematic destruction of several key military laboratories and research complexes in the United States and Europe not long after that.” He shrugged. “Call it a hunch, if you like, but I believe there is something more to it all.”
“Alien abductions?” Mulder asked, staying in character. “That is a sign of this coming mass extinction?”
Leakey smiled, gesturing towards his books. “The prophecies speak of two things, more than anything, Dr. Luder.” He leaned forward, as if speaking in confidence. “They say that something comes out of the skies, and they say that we bring it upon ourselves. I know you’ve heard the stories about Dreamland, Area 51, all of that...who hasn’t? They got the technology somehow.”
Mulder nodded absently, but his mind was spinning. Leakey was closer than he might imagine. “So when someone pointed you here, telling you that there was something to find...”
“It was like the answer to an unspoken prayer,” Leakey admitted with a nod. “Imagine our surprise when we found the evidence that suggested that some kind of large craft emerged from under the ice, and then the body perfectly frozen in that slab of ice. Somehow the pieces fit together.” He tipped his head to one side, looking at Mulder as if he were questioning something. Mulder tensed.
“You know, the others, they were all chosen because they believe in the idea of alien visitation, now and long ago, but you...you are not so sure.” Leakey smiled oddly. “And Tatiana is an expert on the dating of ice cores, Mitch is an expert on biology, especially genetics. Mary has a lifetime of experience on the maintenance and repair of specialized lab equipment. Simon, a longtime geologist and radio operator. Everyone called here, contacted for the team, had a specialized function. So, Dr. Luder, what exactly is your reason for being here?”
Mulder hesitated, forcing his expression to remain perfectly calm. Granted, that was easier for him than most, but it still required an effort. “Who knows, Robert?” he replied finally, flashing Leakey a smile. “Maybe I was sent to keep you honest. Even play devil’s advocate.” Before Leakey could respond, Mulder tossed out a question. “Ever wonder if our benefactor knew what you would find here?”
“More than once,” Leakey admitted, apparently letting his earlier suspicions go. He sighed, glancing in the direction of the cold storage module. “Which only begs the question...how would someone know that it was here, if that person had never come here in the first place?”
“Only if someone else had known, and had told that someone,” Mulder murmured, and he immediately thought of the one person that would have to be the main suspect. But if that were the case, why leave the body intact? Why let it remain in the ice all those years?
“Only one person knows the whole story,” Leakey said finally, and he gave Mulder a knowing smile. “And when this little study is over, I have every intention of finding out who it is.”
“Robert!” they heard Simon call, and then the large man was standing in the doorway, breathing heavily. “Robert,” he repeated, a smile on his face. “You’ll never believe it.”
“What?” Leakey asked, standing as Mulder did the same. “Did you find something?”
Simon nodded. “Mary and Tatiana removed the sections of ice, the ones that had been filled in from the earlier examination.” He took another moment to catch his breath. “Whoever it was, they stopped for a damned good reason.”
“What?” Mulder pressed, moving towards the door. “What did you find?”
“Radiation,” Simon replied with a chuckle.
“What the hell,” Leakey muttered reaching for his field jacket. “What kind?”
“Cosmic background radiation,” Mulder said, before he could stop himself. From the look of shocked affirmation on Simon’s wide face, he knew he was right. And he also knew that he was getting much closer to whatever reason he had been sent to the bottom of the world.
****
SEPTEMBER 23, 1951
As soon as the radiation had been detected, all work on the recovery of the body had ended. Spender had been the one to give the order, and Mulder couldn’t entirely disagree with the logic of the order itself. The radiation could not be classified by the conventional science of their day, but both men had seen it before. The wreckage recovered at Roswell had exhibited the same unique patterns of energy, periods of decay that matched none of the terrestrial sources known to man. Those same patterns had been evident, though masked by the more obvious effects, of the victims of the possessed technician on that same site.
And so Spender’s suspicions were obvious. His associate suspected that the man trapped in the ice above the spacecraft was either infected with the black oil, or he had been otherwise been in contact with another alien vessel. It had already been confirmed that the vast spacecraft under the ice had only trace amounts of the unknown radiation, making that an unlikely source.
“As strange as it might sound,” Spender had said, as the columns of data soon painted the picture, “the vessel under our feet shows little or no signs of having been in space for any extended period of time. Almost as if it were built here, taken into space for a short time, and then crashed here soon after.”
“And in contrast, the human being trapped above it seems to have been in space much longer, or exposed to something that had been in space,” Mulder had replied. He had looked up towards the lightening Antarctic sky, towards the sea of stars. “If only we knew how he got there, who he was.”
“It no longer matters,” Spender had commented, with his typical lack of patience. He tossed his cigarette to the floor, pressing it out with his boot absently as he left the room. Over his shoulder, he added, “We’ll send our final report on the matter to Strughold, and then make our preparations to leave. We want to be back at the McMurdo site when the next cargo ship arrives.”
But the questions haunted him in the night, leaving him more and more positive that the identity of the frozen man was the key to the mystery of what had happened in this place. Let Strughold and Spender remain in the dark, if they wished. Let them focus only on the threat to humanity, if that was their sole concern. He knew, in the darkest corner of his heart, that the presence of a human being suspended in ice above the surface of that alien vessel was more than just an odd twist of circumstance.
It wasn’t until the second night after the work was halted that thought gave way to action. He had waited until the others were asleep before slipping away, something that was more than a little difficult with Comrade Arntzen seemingly always keeping a watchful eye on each and every person in the station. But his position as an associate of Spender’s had given him just enough personal latitude to secret his way into the alien craft.
He had followed the path to the shaft of ice enough times to know it by heart, but even so, it was a difficult path to walk alone. The trough was constantly slick with that unknown source of moisture, the mixture of condensation and something other, and each handhold was precarious at best. Carrying the necessary equipment for his task made the task even more absurd. But he was determined to get what he needed, even if it would only be the first step towards getting answers.
Once or twice, he though he had been followed, and he slid between two of the hanging pods, waiting for some sign of whether his suspicions were true. He stared into the faces of the victims trapped in that strange, unknown fluid, and wondered if they were still conscious at all, if there was any awareness of what was happening to them. He wished to everything holy that they were not.
It took him two attempts to take hold of the slick rim of the vent, and the effort of pulling himself into the cold passageway nearly exhausted him. His lack of sleep was wearing on him, dragging him down, but he pressed on. Soon he was standing at the bottom of the shaft, staring at the stars, and seeing the distance he would have to climb, he nearly lost hope. It was only the siren call of the unknown that forced him to drive the first spike into the ice, then another, and another.
More than two hours had passed before he was standing on two pitons, his elbows pressed hard against the ice below, staring into the space left by the removal of layer after thin layer of ice over the past week. The faint illumination of the light from his cap reflected from the ice that remained between him and the unknown corpse, and even now, it was impossible to see any of the man’s features. He scanned the figure until he determined where the ice was the most thin, and then he carefully removed the tools from within his jacket, ignoring the bite of the cold.
He knew that he was taking a horrible risk. If the man had been infected by the black oil, as Spender suspected, then attempting to extract a tissue sample would be a grave error. The man would still be alive within that icy tomb, under the constant demands of the alien intelligence keeping him conscious, forever waiting for a means of escape, a new host to inhabit. But Mulder was willing to take the risk, because even if he were exposed to the virus, he would answer the question that needed to be answered.
There was doubt in every inch that the thin bit of the drill drove into the ice, until the slight release of pressure told him that he had found his prize. Carefully extracting the drill bit, he waited for the fateful spray of darkness. But as he had hoped, it never came, and with a smile, he removed the thin glass tube and inserted it into the hole. He expected his first attempt to pierce the frozen flesh to fail, but then the glass sank deep into the skin. Mulder wondered how that could be, but then he reasoned that the end of the drill bit must have cut into the skin, the friction leaving the exposed tissue just warm enough to allow the extraction.
The process was long and tedious, and by the time he had a handful of useful tissue samples, already frozen by the conditions, his legs were buckling and he was nearly spent. He had no idea whether or not they would remain useful long enough to get back to the mainland, but now he had at least some hope of getting enough information to begin his investigation. The process of gaining genetic profiles of every man, woman, and child in the United States had already begun. The smallpox program had been uniquely tailored to that purpose. If this man was truly a man of their time, the recent past or a time soon to come, then he would find out.
Even if it damned him to hell.
****
SEPTEMBER 23, 2001
“All right, then, here’s what we know,” Leakey said, standing at the depression carved into the block of ice. There had been some progress in slicing away more and more of the ice around the body, but the features still weren’t clear. But that time would soon come. Mulder could feel it in the excitement of everyone around him, in the rapid beating of his own heart.
“Whoever this man is, he was exposed to some kind of cosmic radiation found only the space beyond our own atmosphere. Whoever it was that originally discovered this body, it was roughly fifty years ago, based on some of the fibers we found trapped close to the innermost layer of reconstituted ice, where the final cut would have been made.” Leakey pointed to a small dot that was subtly different in appearance from the rest of the ice, and a thin line ran from that spot to the dead man’s arm. “Whoever it was, they also took at least one tissue sample from the body. Whether or not that sample was viable, we cannot know. But recent advances in genetic identification and DNA extraction would seem to suggest that it is at least possible that any sample could have been useful.”
Mitch gestured towards a second thin line, slightly to one side of the original, still exposed to the air. “We’ve taken our own sample, and my preliminary study of the sample suggests that this man is from our own time period.”
“And my own analysis of the ice taken from just above the body,” Tatiana added, “still indicates that it formed over a million years ago. Not very accurate, given the sample type and the conditions, but that’s my best.”
“Which means that we have conflicting evidence,” Mulder said, summing it up for everyone in the room. “What about carbon dating of the tissue samples?”
“Not a clear indicator,” Mary reminded him. “Only tells us if he’s older than fourteen thousand years.”
“But it tells us something,” Mulder countered. He looked to Simon. “How long before we get some kind of reply from the federal government?”
“Things have been slow since the attacks, especially with the various intelligence organizations,” Simon reminded him. “But we might get something today. Tomorrow, more likely, but there’s a chance.”
“The radiation tells us nothing, given the minor changes in cosmic background radiation over the time periods in question,” Leakey reminded them. “So all we have is a body of seemingly modern origin, trapped in ice over a million years old, which was sitting over something very, very large that emerged from the ice about three years ago.” He looked at all of them, one by one, until his gaze fell on Mulder. “Does anyone have anything to add?”
Mulder considered his options, the reasons why he might have been called among them. His brief experience with the artifacts with the same kinds of radiation, much more powerful, had to be part of the equation. But he could tell that there was something more to it. Even as he absently rubbed his thumb against the flesh where his scar used to be, the scar that had marked the removal of an unknown growth in his brain, he decided that he had to tell them something more.
“I might know something,” he muttered, as though it had just occurred to him. Leakey’s expression seemed to say that he suspected as much, but he waited for Mulder to continue. “There were rumors of a sighting a few years ago, around the time you mention. A huge UFO that crossed over Antarctica and was detected by the Australian military.” He looked at the others. “That’s all I know.”
“No rumors of who might have found this originally?” Mary asked with a skeptical raising of an eyebrow. She looked at Leakey. “That’s what worries me, Robert. Whoever it was that found this body and took that sample, there’s no way they could have done that without knowing about a UFO, if it was right there under them.”
“There were no permanent stations down here fifty years ago,” Simon observed. “None of the crews would have come into this region.”
“But it was just after Roswell,” Leakey observed.
And after the loss of the Zeus Faber, Mulder thought to himself, but of course he didn’t mention it. “So it was probably the military,” he muttered, walking towards the now much smaller block of ice. “We’ve done all we can without cutting close to the body, risking damage, haven’t we?”
“Yes,” Mitch replied, shaking his head. “But to be honest, there’s only so much we can do down here on our own. And no matter when this man was born, or how he might have gotten that far into the past, he’s been on ice for a million years.”
“I know what you’re saying, Mitch,” Leakey said with a sigh, “but we need to be very careful if we proceed. No matter what mysteries surround this find, it is still something that the scientific community ought to hear about. We ought to do what we can here, and then prepare to leave for McMurdo as soon as we can. Even if we have to stay there for an extended period of time, waiting for the travel restrictions to be lifted, we can be ready to go.”
He nodded to Mitch and Mary, who prepared the saw to cut through the ice once more. While Mary set the blade and the others stepped away, Mitch turned to Leakey. “Where do we cut?”
“Around the head,” Leakey answered quickly. “We can work on the rest later.” He shrugged, flashing a quick smile at Mulder. “After all, the best publicity shots are going to be the ones that show a face, right?”
Mulder smile back, but he felt something stirring in his stomach. He couldn’t help but think that this was the real reason he had been brought to this place. There was something here he was supposed to see, and he feared that once the face was revealed, he would find the mystery to be far more real than it was for him now.
“I’m going to check in with McMurdo, see if they have any responses yet,” Simon said, stepping out of the clamor generated by the saw as it tore into the hard, compressed ice.
Mulder watched him leave, and then turned back towards the action in front of him. The first cut of ice fell away, and Leakey bent down as Mitch let out a curse. They both seemed to look at each other in confusion and awe, and then they looked towards Mulder and Tatiana by the door.
“There’s something on the back of the neck,” Mitch said as Mulder stepped forward for a closer look. As soon as Mulder heard those words, he knew what he would see. Indeed, there they were, jutting from the spine, just as they had on the others he and his former fellow agents had encountered nearly ten months earlier.
“Some kind of alien?” Tatiana muttered, voicing everyone’s thoughts.
“Maybe,” Leakey mused, and then he looked to Mitch.
“Tissue samples come out dead perfect for humans,” the older man replied to the unspoken question. “There were some slight irregularities, indicating exposure to some kind of virus, but nothing active.”
“Glad to hear it,” Mary muttered, and then she set the saw against the ice covering the front of the head. “Stand back.”
She worked more carefully this time, and soon they could see the shade of the man’s hair. It was a rich brown, peppered liberally with gray. Mulder would have guessed that the man was in his fifties, maybe a little older, given the fact that he was clearly one of the aliens or super-soldiers that had caused so much trouble. The same kind of thing that he had been becoming, before Scully’s quick thinking had saved him. At least, he thought to himself, for a little while, if his suspicions were true.
A good portion of the ice slid from the block, and with a start, Mary stopped cutting. She stared at the revealed face for a moment in shock, and then looked towards Leakey. He was staring at the dead man’s visage as well, but then he looked up at Mulder in disbelief. There was something in the way Leakey was looking at him, something that struck him to the core of his being, and he knew. Even before his legs took him unbidden to where he could see it clearly, before he fell to his knees, staring, he knew what he would see.
“There was nothing,” he heard Simon say in the distance. “They said to check...what is it?”
“Don’t bother,” Mitch answered softly. “We know who it is.”
Mulder didn’t hear anything after that, other than the beating of his racing heart. He was frozen in place, staring into the unseeing eyes that were a mirror to his own, into a face that was contorted in pain and suffering. And he knew, as his fingers reached out to touch his own weathered and stiff flesh, exactly what his future would hold.
****
SEPTEMBER 30, 1951
No longer concerned with solving mysteries, there was little left to see or do, and so Mulder had been told that they would be leaving by the end of the month. The weather had hampered those plans for a few days, leaving Spender more and more irritated with the loss of useful time. But Mulder used the time to his advantage.
Having already taken the first steps towards keeping secrets from his associate, Mulder had begun taking solo trips into the alien craft, studying the faces of the victims trapped within the pods, gaining a sense of the span of time represented by the collection. It had occurred to him more than once that the anthropologists would be amazed to see the progress of human evolution. The religious institutions, he had already considered, would have had enough to deal with after seeing the alien spacecraft.
Which made him wonder how the politicians would react, if they might discover what he and the others knew. The incident in the Pacific had been carefully concealed, with the remaining living victims of that encounter kept under lock and key. Spender and Mulder made a point of visiting with each of them as needed, to hear their stories, even more than once when the victims began to forget the previous interviews. Each time, hoping for something more, some new piece of the puzzle that might help them deal with the threat of the impending invasion.
The night before, during one of his walks, he had found himself staring into the face of the technician from Roswell. Spender had never told him what measures had been taken, once it was clear that the infection would remain. The man had been sedated and taken away. Mulder had always wondered if that had actually worked, if the black oil had ever found a way to escape into the world at large. But it was apparent now that it had chosen to develop a more natural form for itself, once it had used its human host to no avail.
Four long years, endless sleepless nights, and so little to show for it.
Most of that time had been spent developing a eugenics program that sickened him to the core, or weaving a network among the intelligence communities to expand the Project into more areas. The State Department had become their center of operations, matching the need for progress with the need for secrecy. Few in the executive branch knew the truth about Roswell, beyond the most general details of the MJ files, and most of that was hidden within the disinformation that had become a way of life.
Now he was waiting by the door, outfitted for the journey ahead, ready to return to the game with a renewed sense of purpose. It was easy to forget the threat to every man, woman, and child, when sleeping with the enemy. Coming to this place, seeing the thousands of men and women already dead, suspended in time, had put it back into perspective. He had to continue, had to press on, if there was any chance for the future.
But he also knew that there was more to the puzzle than Spender or even Strughold wanted him to see or investigate. Whether their blinders were authentic or simply another level of deception, Mulder couldn’t say. He knew only that there were questions that might never be answered, and he intended to see at least some of those mysteries solved.
The tissue samples were carefully stashed where they would remain cold during the long trek to the McMurdo site. It would be a few months, perhaps even years, before he would have the personal power and influence to seek answers without the risk of prying eyes. Certainly the scientists of Operational Paper Clip were not an option. Perhaps this would be another instance in which his position within the Department would be an asset.
“Everything here is in place,” Spender said as he finally joined Mulder by the door. “Our Soviet associate informs me that our opposite numbers in his government have decided to send a few of their own scientists here.” Spender let out a chuckle as he blew out the acrid smoke of his cigarette. “He hopes that at least one of them is a young woman with a taste for older men.”
“Hell of a place to raise a family,” Mulder mused, looking at the cramped and always chilled room.
“The only way he’ll have one,” Spencer reminded him. “We come and go at Conrad’s sufferance, after all. We could be just as...unfortunate.”
Mulder thought that permanent exile was more than simply unfortunate, but he kept that opinion to himself. “Any word on the transport?”
“We should still arrive before them,” his associate breathed, pulling his pack onto his shoulders. “There’s talk that things are heating up back at home. Senator McCarthy is gaining momentum in his crusade.” He sighed, tossing his cigarette to the floor. “In some ways, the best thing that could happen for us, I suppose. Concerns of national security make some of our programs more popular. Still, this is a dangerous time to be keeping secrets.”
Mulder nodded absently. That had been another aspect to the challenge, one that had become a natural liability. “I’m sure the senator would love to meet our present company.”
Spender smiled, an expression with little true mirth. “Perhaps this is an opportunity as well. Something to discuss on the trip home.” He pulled on the thick gloves, and pulled open the door, gesturing for Mulder to follow. When Mulder hesitated, Spender simply continued towards the transport, unconcerned.
Mulder took one last look at those who would remain, casually ignoring the men who had the luxury of returning home. It was unlikely that any of these men knew the whole story, and Mulder doubted that they ever would. Few, if any, would live to see anything other than the bleak expanse of Wilkes Land. For them, as much as anyone, he vowed to get answers.
With one last check of his gear, Mulder opened the door, and stepped out into the icy Antarctic morning.
****
SEPTEMBER 30, 2001
The last seven days had passed with little notice from Mulder. Time had simply been erased from his senses, after that first glimpse of his own aged featured, frozen in millennial ice. The others had simply left him to contemplate his fate, studying his remains as though nothing had changed.
But everything had changed. All of his fears had been confirmed in that one damning instant. Whatever combination of anti-virals and blood transfusions that Scully had used, it had only been a temporary fix. The changes in his body and mind over the past year had been the beginning of the process that had ended with his conversion into one of the very things that he had wanted to resist.
Now it was clear that he had lost that fight, and that his time was running out. Whoever had sent him to this place knew what he would find, and had intended it as a warning. That much was clear. More than that, his benefactor had to know that the circumstances leading to this moment were just as important. If this was his body, maybe a dozen years older than he was now, how had he become trapped in ice a million years old? There were no easy answers.
Mulder knew what the evidence appeared to say. He had heard Tatiana outline the evidence time and time again, and he had seen the alien spacecraft with his own eyes. The cosmic radiation was at levels consistent with a recent, long-term excursion into space, perhaps even deep space. It appeared that he had been on the alien ship just before it had landed or crashed, and once he had found himself outside of the vessel, he had been frozen in the ice.
He knew from his own experience that the alien technology was self-repairing. It could have survived a crash into the Antarctic expanse in the distant past, once way or another. The evidence that Scully had uncovered regarding the inactive alien genetic material within every creature on Earth suggested that the immense craft had been the beginning of the alien invasion. How he might have become a passenger on that vessel, at some point in his future, he could not understand. The presence of minute traces of other modern material hinted at the possibilities, but there was nothing certain to be found.
Simon informed him, at some point, that there was a transport arriving by the end of the month to take them back to McMurdo. There was some disagreement among the others, in terms of where they might go from here. Leakey wanted to publish as soon as possible, but Mary and Tatiana were worried over the possible complications and consequences. When Simon announced his true identity to the group, that division became even more profound.
Only Mitch seemed to remain above it all, concerned for more than just his own gain or loss. Mulder wondered if it had something to do with the lack of information regarding his son. The news was hardly comprehensive, of course, but the major events had found their way even to their remote location. Much of what he heard sounded far too familiar, and when he heard about the newly minted Office of Homeland Security, he heard the words of Dr. Kurtzweil echoing in his ears. Whatever remained of the conspiracy, they seemed poised to take advantage of the very real threats to national security.
“You should eat something before we go,” Mitch said finally, sliding into a chair across the table. “At least drink some water.”
“Not right now, thanks,” Mulder murmured, still lost in thought. Then he saw the notebook clenched in Mitch’s hand, and a feeling of dread passed through his chest. “What? What did you find?”
Mitch hesitated, and then placed the notes in front of him on the table. “We’ve taken a good number of samples from...the body. There’s something odd about them. They retain a great deal of integrity, given the harsh conditions and the time frame.”
Something struck Mulder as he heard that. “Are you saying that I’m alive?” He caught himself quickly. “The other me.”
Mitch shook his head. “Not possible.” He saw Mulder’s expression. “What, you seriously think that someone could live through that?”
“This is a bit of a special case,” Mulder said with a grin, one with little genuine feeling behind it. “The virus that causes those, um, spikes to develop...it keeps the body alive under rather extreme conditions.”
“I can believe that,” Mitch replied, obviously curious, but keeping it to himself. “I know that you explained what you knew, that you had been infected with some kind of unknown virus, possibly alien...but I thought you would want to know what my own study of the tissue samples came across.” He tapped the notebook, as if considering how to explain it. “You said you were exposed to at least four different supposedly alien contagions?”
“That’s right,” Mulder confirmed. “The first one was about seven years ago. My partner and I had gotten involved in some case, and it turned out that there was an attempt to create some kind of hybrid. People had been modified until they could breathe underwater, heal from massive wounds, that kind of thing. They had green blood, thinner than our blood, and it carried a retrovirus. Exposure could kill a normal human being.
“The second time was less than a year later. There was some kind of alien, supposedly a bounty hunter of some kind, and he had the same kind of blood. Only his blood was more potent than the hybrid’s. I was infected, and I only survived because my partner realized that cold inhibited the progress of the retrovirus.”
Mitch interrupted him. “You said before that your partner, Scully, she saved you in that instance using anti-virals and blood transfusions.”
“Yeah,” Mulder replied. “That’s why she tried it this last time.” He sighed, sitting up straighter in his chair. “Anyway, a couple years after that, I was forced into an experiment involving the actual alien virus, the black oil virus. I was injected with a kind of vaccine or treatment that the Russians were working on, and then I was exposed to the virus. It was weak, but it still had an effect. It eventually led to some kind of growth in my brain.”
“And then there was this last time,” Mitch said, as if reminding himself. “The origins of this last virus are in question, I know, but from what you say, it worked a lot like the black oil virus did with Scully.”
Mulder nodded. “That’s right. Something was growing inside of me, replacing me with a healthy version of myself, or something to that effect.”
“Only instead of it being alien, like you thought,” Mitch said with a frown, “you were told that it was some kind of genetic engineering done to create super-soldiers. Something the government was doing.”
“That’s right,” Mulder repeated. “Going somewhere with this?”
Mitch smiled, but there was something in his expression that seemed troubled. “My specialty is genetic research, specifically work with vaccines and advanced antibiotics. I’ve worked with literally thousands of different tissue samples, and so I have a lot of experience in terms of how these things leave their fingerprint on those exposed or infected.” He shook his head. “The fact is, every virus tries to do what you describe, on some level or another. It changes the genetic structure of the host organism according to the specific instructions etched out in its own genetic strands. The effect is what makes it easy to tell which virus was involved, or in most cases, which ones.”
“So what do the tissue samples tell you?” Mulder pressed, wanting to get to the point.
“According to what you’ve said, you might have been exposed to three different types of virus,” Mitch continued, “if you consider the first couple instances to be the same general contagion. Only the tissue samples we have mark successive infection by a single viral strain. The only differences appear to be evolutionary, in terms of the development of the virus itself.”
“How is that even possible?” Mulder asked, glancing down at the mess of handwritten notes. “That makes no sense at all.”
“Actually, it does,” Mitch countered. “The methodical and rapid changes that mark the gestation of a new organism are nearly identical to those needed to result in these super-soldiers. It’s a matter of scale and complexity. One virus rebuilds from the inside out, towards the purpose of maintaining much of the original characteristics, and the other lies at the opposite extreme. But the purpose of the changes is the same.
“Also,” he said, pressing on, “the effect of the retrovirus in terms of enhancing human abilities mirrors that of the super-soldier virus. The real question is not how they are related, but when they are related...which mutation, if you will, led to which stage in the evolution of the virus.”
Mulder nodded. It ran counter to many of his own impressions, but how much of that was the effect of the lies he had been told? “Does your study of the tissue samples give you any clue as to how this evolution might pan out?”
“I don’t have the resources I need to be sure,” Mitch admitted. “But just from what you told us, and my background, I think I have a rough idea.” He turned to a blank page, and wrote it out as he said it. “Two stages of the virus are airborne, but lethal. The others are not airborne, but are pervasive...it truly becomes a part of the basic structure of the infected cells. One version of the non-airborne virus has vast abilities to re-construct itself, but only to the original form. The other can effectively take any form. The more primitive version of the airborne virus has limited regenerative factors, while the advanced version is much more fluid and robust.”
“And this would mean what?” Mulder said, and then he saw what Mitch was writing. “That’s impossible.”
“The least mobile version of the virus is the super-soldier version, which you said was the product of genetic engineering,” Mitch said, ignoring Mulder’s lack of belief. “You said yourself that they are trying to find a way to infect the mass population with this virus, and the best way to do that is to develop an airborne version of what they have now. I think, if I could get the materials I need and samples, I could prove that the changes necessary in the structure of the super-soldier virus, to make it airborne, would render it lethal.”
“The retrovirus,” Mulder breathed. Then he shook his head. “But still, that doesn’t explain much at all.”
“Think about it, Mulder,” Mitch said, almost pleading. “The super-soldier virus creates an additional growth on the back of the neck. You said that the hybrids you’ve encountered with the retrovirus in their systems also have a growth in the same place, and it’s the central organ for some kind of replacement circulatory fluid, which carries the virus itself.”
He kept writing, sketching out his idea. “The lethality is likely some kind of basic inability on the part of the virus to adapt to the newly infected organism. It becomes locked into the unique genetic structure of whoever had been naturally born with this kind of system in place.”
“Born?” Mulder said, and he remembered the warnings about William. “They’re trying to find a way to do that, to modify the virus so that children will be born with the changes already in place!”
Mitch nodded. “That fits the progression perfectly. The next step would be to modify that version into a virus that could adapt to a potentially infinite array of genetic structures. That would probably not work at first, but the process...”
“They could create humans that could modify their own genetic structures,” Mulder realized. He looked at Mitch in awe. “Change their appearance at will.”
Mitch nodded, visibly excited at Mulder’s newfound interest. “Yes! But the lethality of the airborne retrovirus would remain the greatest obstacle. It wouldn’t take long for whatever scientists were developing this genetic program to realize that they wouldn’t need the airborne vector if the virus was able to move of its own accord.”
It all fell into place in Mulder’s mind, a clear path forward. But that was the very thing that bothered him about Mitch and his theory. Too much was speculation, and it still left so much unexplained. Too much of what he had seen and experienced in the past didn’t seem to fit. Everything pointed to the black oil being the foundation behind it all, not the ultimate end result.
“You have me interested,” Mulder admitted finally. “But why tell me this now?”
“Because this is the ultimate puzzle for me, Mulder,” Mitch answered sincerely. “Whoever sent us here had to know that would be the case. I think the same applies to the others. Given time, they might realize that there is a specific reason why they were chosen to be here, to find...what we found. But if Robert goes to the mainland and starts telling everybody about this, and the people behind this genetic engineering program know what we have...”
“You want me to convince Leakey to come with us, to keep this a secret,” Mulder realized.
“At least long enough to meet whoever it is that funded this research facility in the first place,” Mitch reminded him. “Anyone with this kind of influence, these resources, ought to be able to set us up with the kind of equipment I would need to get a solid workup on this thing.”
Mulder considered the notion and found himself more than willing to agree. He could keep the contacts and resources he had already set up in order to maintain contact with Scully, while also working on this other avenue of inquiry with Mitch. At the very least, it had the potential of helping him uncover some way of protecting his family. He might even find some way to prevent what they had found from coming to pass.
“All right, I’ll see what I can do,” Mulder said, rising with the intention of meeting with the others. Then he realized that they were already in the process of leaving. The transport had arrived.
“We can work on him all the way to McMurdo,” Mitch assured him. He placed a reassuring hand on Mulder’s shoulder. “We’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise.”
Mitch rushed off to gather the last of his belongings, leaving Mulder to his own thoughts. He took one last look at the empty research module, a part of him still too stunned to accept what he had seen and heard. But the hopeless, numbing feeling that had threatened to overwhelm him had been dashed away by the possibility of answers. If the future wasn’t bright, then at least it wasn’t quite so dark.
Thinking of what that future might bring, with one last check of his gear, Mulder opened the door, and stepped out into the icy Antarctic morning.
