3:02 AM
"Agent Scully?"
Skinner looked into her hospital room, belatedly making sure that she was not trying to get some sleep. During nights like these, he always seemed to have a problem keeping track of time. The fact that he was even allowed to stalk the halls and monitor her progress was even more damaging to his body clock.
"I'm awake," Scully murmured. She was still sitting up in her hospital bed, but now she held a flimsy piece of medical film in her hand, staring at the picture burnt into the plate.
Skinner froze, unable to work out the expression on her face. "What is it?"
Scully shook her head. "Not what I was expecting, that's for sure."
"Is...everything all right?" he asked, trying to be discrete.
Scully sighed, and then looked towards him as she nodded with a slight smile. "Apparently the sharp pains are due to a slight pull of the diaphragm. The doctors say it's a common enough occurrence."
"At least it wasn't what you feared," Skinner said, slipping into one of the empty chairs by her bed. "But I get the feeling that's not what you were talking about when you said the news was unexpected."
"No, it's not," Scully admitted. She lifted the medical film again. "They're gone."
Skinner leaned forward, staring at the film in disbelief. "Are you sure?"
"Hard to tell from this, I know," Scully said. "But I watched the ultrasound. The cysts are gone. Both sides. Completely dissolved and absorbed."
Skinner sat back, and after a moment of reflection, simply shrugged. "I wouldn't know if that's normal or not. But it must be a relief."
Scully sighed. "Yeah. A relief." She laughed suddenly, slipping the film back into its envelope. "And why should I be surprised? After all, I'm only a barren woman giving birth to a child that was completely unexpected. Why should I be shocked when something like this comes along?"
Skinner smiled, and then pointed to the film. "No sign of any effect from that infection by the insect?"
"None," Scully confirmed. Suddenly, she shifted the topic of conversation. "How's Agent Doggett?"
"I just got a call from Detective Tommy Egan of the NYPD," Skinner said, pulling his cell phone from his pocket and giving it a little wave. "Apparently he ran into a little trouble. Turns out that insect is from the Amazon, or someplace nearby. And there was a whole nest of them hidden on the premises of the Manheimer building. Doggett thinks that they got them all, but he's going to check for himself."
"Is he out of his mind?" Scully said, a look of complete disapproval in her eyes. "Is he trying to get himself killed?"
"According to Detective Egan," Skinner said with a smirk, "one of those insects was controlling the man keeping watch over the building. It may have escaped when the other insects were dealt with. He wants to make sure it doesn't sneak out before the building can be secured."
Scully shook her head, and then slumped back into her pillows.
"Is there some reason that all of my partners have this death wish?"
***
Long Island City, NY
3:15 AM
Doggett stood just inside the employee entrance of the Manheimer building, checking the flares to make sure they were secured in his belt. He had already double-checked his clip, making sure it was full, and the flashlight in his hand had been refit with fresh batteries.
Tommy had practically begged him to keep wearing the Kevlar vest, but Doggett wove him off. "We both know it's useless," he had told his friend, "and besides, the vest would just reduce my range of motion."
And so he was standing in his tattered jeans and the remains of his black muscle shirt, sweat and dirt smeared on his arms and shoulders, weapon and flashlight in hand.
The NYPD had moved one of the searchlights into position behind him, and so his path was clear for half the distance to the concrete bunker where Londner had last been seen. There was no assurance that the man would still be there, or that he would even be involved, but it was the logical place to begin his sweep of the building.
Within moments, he was standing at the solid door that marked the interior of the building. He gave Tommy a nod, and then he kicked the door open, letting the blinding light from the outside spill into the expanse of the production area before running in.
Before the thick metal door slammed closed, leaving him in darkness once again, he was rounding the corner to the production office, sweeping the interior with the beam of his flashlight. Shards of glass littered the concrete floor where the insect had burst out of the locked bunker. When a cursory inspection of the office yielded no signs of Londner, Doggett pushed the door open and checked behind the cubicle wall.
The fabric was frayed from repeated exposure to the insect's corrosive fluids, and the floor was discolored and worn down to the concrete, but there was no sign of Londner or his probable remains. That was hardly conclusive, since the other bodies had been completely consumed, but Doggett still had the feeling that the man's body was still in use.
Doggett went still, listening for any hint of the tell-tale humming of the insect's wings. But there was nothing. A moment passed, and he decided that it was long past time to lure the beast to him.
He ran quickly to the shipping area, still sweeping every shadow and crevice with light, and found that the door that had concealed the other insects was still open. He took a quick look at what remained, and nearly dropped the flashlight when his vision finally registered what it was seeing.
The walls and floor were covered with a thick layer of green fluid, which had long since eaten away the paint and coating from the surfaces. Within that fluid, thousands upon thousands of larvae slithered and snaked over each other, searching for some source of food and reproduction.
Doggett felt himself starting to wretch, but he stopped himself when he realized how much danger he was in. Quickly moving the beam closer to his feet, he noticed that a growing number of worms had left the comfort of the fluid, slowly progressing in his direction.
Snapping out of his shock, Doggett ran to the nearest remaining drum of material, and checked the sides of the drum. Sure enough, there was a flammable label on its side, and it was full. Londner had mentioned something about most of the raw materials being flammable, and Doggett was willing to bet that the material that had harbored the insect to begin with would be flammable too.
Doggett jumped behind the drum, and with one hard kick to its side, pushed it over in the direction of the open door. The top of the drum burst open, spilling a noxious, oily liquid across the floor and into the larvae-filled sea.
He slipped one of the flares out of his belt, ripping the top off and watching as the larvae writhed as they found themselves exposed. He waited for a few breaths, just long enough to see if Londner would intervene, and then he tossed the flare into the flammable pool.
The liquid rushed into a wall of flame instantly, lighting the room with an orange intensity in seconds. Doggett ran towards the loading dock as quickly as possible, and as he dove into the darkened space, he pushed himself against the far wall and brought the beam of his flashlight across the ceiling and walls to fend off any attack.
But no attack came. Seconds later, there was a massive explosion within the formerly hidden room, washing Doggett with a sudden blast of heat. He covered his eyes, almost too late, and felt himself break into a hard sweat as the flames quickly began fill more than half of the shipping area itself.
Doggett wasted no more time. He pulled himself to his feet against the wall, and ran towards the production area, pulling out another flare as he passed into a darker section of the building. The flames in the shipping area illuminated most of the space, but there was an entire section that was completely shielded.
Nodding to himself, Doggett grabbed one of the remaining drums of flammable liquid, and rolled it close to the edge of shadow. Forcing the bung open, he pushed it until it began to roll, dumping a wide swath of flammable liquid in its path. When the drum was nearly to the opposite wall, he tore the top off the second flare and tossed it into the natural oil.
The back of the production area exploded into flames, and the drum careened into the lowered back portion of the production area before expelling the rest of its contents. Doggett heard a sudden screech, and within the space of remaining shadow in the ceiling above, he saw the insect soar towards the doorway leading into the office area.
Doggett aimed, firing two shots, but both missed. Cursing, he ran towards the door to the offices, checking on his flares along the way. Three remained. Between the flares and the flashlight, he wondered if it would be enough.
Sliding the flashlight into his belt, he pulled out another flare. With a quick motion, he activated it, running into the office area, drawing a line of fire on every possible hint of motion. When he came to the first intersection between hallways, he stopped and checked his position.
From his position, he could tell that the entire executive row was lit by the searchlights still shining in the windows of the computer room. That meant that nearly half of the offices on the ground floor were covered. The position of the lights also told him that the rooms on executive row were now fully lit by a new set of searchlights arranged on that side of the building.
That left only a few areas unlit: the lab hallway, the QC lab in the center of the building, and the completely unknown second floor.
Doggett considered his options, and then realized that he there were roughly four spots that he would need to cover with the flares, and only three flares to work with. And those would only work if he moved quickly.
He pushed open the door to the lab hallway, running down its length before stopping near the door to the back hallway. Pulling open the door to that hallway, he lowered his gun. Looking slightly away, but keeping one eye down the weapon's sight, he fired one shot at the bottom hinge. The door lurched to the ground, and the top hinge bent from the weight.
Now that the door was able to stay open on it's own, Doggett dropped the flare so that its light would shine down both hallways and cast anything in shadow if he were to look down either hallway from any other position.
With only two flares left, he glanced up at the ceiling. Unlike the production and shipping areas, there was no place for the growing volume of smoke to escape. It was beginning to creep through the ruptured vents and into the offices. Visibility would soon diminish into a thick cloud of poison that even the searchlights outside would not be able to penetrate.
With no time to spare, Doggett ran back down the lab hallway, turning towards the door to the production area. Through the slot window, he could see that the flames had slowly spread to cover nearly the entire floor, and the various sprinklers along the ceiling were not functioning. That meant that while there was little chance that the insect could escape the flames to safety without detection, there was also a chance that Doggett would be caught in the same trap.
Just beside the production door was the glass door behind which a stairway to the second floor resided. Pulling out his fourth flare, he pulled open the door. With a quick motion, he activated the flare and tossed it to the top of the stairs, covering the stairway and presumably most of the hallway up there with its blinding light.
Doggett reviewed the layout of the building in his mind. There had been no sign of the last insect during his entire assault on the building, which meant that it had to be in one of only a few areas. The additions to the back of the building had all been covered in flames. The fire in the larvae room would spread to the storage tank within moments, which would no doubt eliminate whatever might be hiding in the garage.
Covering as many possibilities as he could think of, Doggett quickly searched the rooms on the first floor that were not covered by the flares or the searchlights outside. They were all empty, and while there was always the chance that the insect could be in the ducts, the toxins in the growing flow of hot smoke would have to have affected it by now.
And there was the matter of Londner's body, which he had not found, suggesting that the insect was once again in possession of the man.
Doggett quickly came to the inevitable conclusion that his quarry was on the second floor. He cursed himself for not thinking ahead, not demanding to see that part of the building as well, and he knew that he could not count on the flare to cover the entire second floor on its own.
But he could count on it to cover that end of the second floor hallway, and so he sprinted through the front of the building and down executive row, until he was standing at the bottom of the other set of stairs leading into the darkness above.
Remembering the horde of insects that had emerged from the same stairway perhaps an hour before, he scanned the darkened corridor thoroughly before starting up the incline. A glass door that had once been at the top of the stairway was now shattered and discarded against the side of the corridor, and Doggett had to look down for a split-second to negotiate the climb.
As his eyes flashed back up to the hallway above, a short stretch that joined the long hallway that was brightly illuminated by the flare at the other end, he saw the faint outline of a thin man within the shadows. The flicker of the flare's light, caused by the rising column of smoke escaping from the flare's burning, caused a swirl of red and black to dance in Londner's sunken eyes.
Doggett bounded up the rest of the stairs, his eyes firmly on Londner. The man was watching him, a lethal intelligence, as he stepped closer. Even that much closer, Doggett could only make out a darkly lit silhouette.
Londner spoke, a deep gravelly noise. "Do you celebrate this slaughter? Do you glory in the death of a species?"
Doggett shook his head, his eyes darting towards the darkness, wary of his vulnerable position. He leveled his weapon towards Londner, aiming directly at his neck. "It's not a matter of that, Londner. But it's not really you, is it?"
"No," he confirmed, as he turned slightly to stare at Doggett directly. Only half his face was lit in the low, swirling light, his eyes bearing down on his opponent. "The man was a tool. A means to an end. A vehicle. As you will be."
Doggett pulled back the trigger, taking careful aim. "Sounds like you're the last of your kind. But you know what? I don't care. Whatever you are, however you might be able to control that man, you're a killer, plain and simple. The rest is just a detail."
A wisp of smoke rose into his next breath, and as Doggett coughed, Londner struck out without a hint of warning. The gun fired, the bullet slamming Londner in the gut, and the old man was tossed back into the darkness. Doggett recovered quickly, feeling around the floor for his weapon.
Giving up on the search when it was obvious that he was wasting time, he swept the darkened portion of the hall with the beam of his flashlight, pulling out his final flare as he did so.
The short and long hallways met on the second floor near an open area, but now Doggett saw that there was a slight extension of the smaller hallway that he had not seen while facing down Londner. Stepping carefully down that hall, Doggett noticed that there was an office hidden on one side of it.
A chance sweep of light along the wall caught the nameplate by the door, and Doggett realized that he was at the end of the line. It read "M. Londner", and there was literally nowhere else for his target to hide. Sliding the beam into the office, it fell on the old man's face.
Londner stood leaning against the wall, holding his hands against the massive wound in his gut. Strangely, there was a smile etched across his face, even as the smoke from the raging fires nearby began dipping towards the top of his head.
"Very good," he whispered, his voice weak. "And yet, you only serve our purpose."
Londner waved a bloody hand around the dark room, inviting Doggett to inspect the man's former office. For just a moment, Doggett did so. That was when he noticed how wet the carpet was under his feet, and how it seemed to writhe. In one corner, a small drum with Portuguese markings stood, its side ruptured.
"A contingency," Londner rasped, his body obviously failing. "For some unfortunate body to uncover, should the others be destroyed."
A sudden pain ripped into Doggett's lower legs, and he stumbled backwards, resting against the wall of the short hallway. He focused the light on his legs, and saw through the tatters of his jeans that larvae had burrowed under his skin, beginning the painful infection that was rapidly spreading.
But his backward motion had allowed him to stumble out of the contaminated portion of the carpet, and he resolves himself to end it once and for all. Taking up the flare, he ripped the top off and let its light flash around him. He heard Londner scream in agony.
Forcing himself to his feet, his muscles erupting into spasms from the invasion of pain, he tossed the flare into Londner's office. The floor exploded into flames as the flare contacted the soaked carpet, killing the larvae that had been released and leaping onto Londner's body.
Doggett watched as Londner lurched forward, his arms and head shaking uncontrollably. His chest burst open in a torrent of enflamed blood, and the insect that had been controlling Londner emerged, racing towards Doggett.
Knowing what the creature intended, Doggett forced himself to dash for the stairs through the smoke. He heard the insect impact into the wall where he had been standing. He tried to make it to the stairs without losing control of his movement, but the agony in his legs left him tumbling forward. He was tossed and bruised as he crashed down the stairs headfirst, his arms unable to break his fall.
He landed just within the area covered by the searchlights in front of the building, but the smoke from the burning building obscured it just enough that the insect was no longer fully disabled by it. It dug its stinger into his left shoulder, tossing him into the middle of the executive row.
Every instinct within his mind screamed for him to crawl into the nearest strip of shadow, to avoid the light and surrender to the invasive whispers that slithered through his consciousness. But he fought those instincts down, driving them away, forcing his own desire for self-reservation to maintain control.
The pain searing through his body with every motion, Doggett forced himself to his feet as he managed to catch the insect across its eyes with his clenched fists. Stumbling towards the front of the building, where he could see the faint outline of the officers watching for his emergence, he waved his arms to get their attention.
Just as he reached the shattered remains of the computer room's entrance, the insect knocked him to the ground with a slash across his lower back. By now, the infection in his legs had progressed to the point that he could no longer support his weight, and he fell to his hands and knees as the insect landed on his back.
A sharp pain lanced into the back of his neck, and his jaw went tight as he shouted with gritted teeth. "Shoot it! Kill it!"
He saw Tommy's silhouette just before the deafening hail of gunfire erupted through the air above him, and the weight of the insect burrowing under his flesh disappeared as it was torn to pieces. Its corrosive fluids gushed down on his bare, bloodied back, and he screamed in agony as darkness threatened to descend.
The last thing he saw before night fell was Tommy's face, tears rolling down his cheeks, a distant voice repeating his name over and over, until all was silent.
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