Sea Gate
Coney Island, Brooklyn
10:30 p.m.

Wow...it'd been ages.  He'd forgotten how
great these babies were, smothered with
relish, dripping spicy brown mustard and
wrapped in a marshmallow white, ersatz
toasted roll.  Beyond esculent; totally
slurb-worthy.  Their irresistible odor
alone could turn him into a head case in
one intense session.

He watched Scully, seated alongside him,
in the passenger seat, pop another French
fry in her mouth and smile over to him
ingenuously.  With the napkin in his
hand, he stretched for her, and dabbed
her mouth until every trace of gloppy
ketchup was gone, before the goo soiled
her pastel black cardigan.  She 'slayed'
in the color, he appraised, yet another
time in so many hours; sharing the league
with mortal combat.

"Good, huh?" Langly said, stuffing the
remainder of the hot dog into his
munching mouth.

Scully nodded in rapt approval.  "I-I
want m-more fra-franks!"

"Here, take this."  He reached into the
Nathan's feedbag, bringing up a
frankfurter that would have been his
fourth, magnanimously handing it off to
her.  He drained the green-embossed
lettered beer mug which bore the same
name as the takeout bag, and let out a
loud, draggy sigh of contentment.  "Ahhhhh!
Classic burp food," he gloated, then feeling
the pressing need to, he belched.  Compunction
was an afterthought.  "Like, 'scuse," he
sheepishly apologized, and guzzled more beer.
Reluctantly parting with the mug's lip, he said,
"This grub rocks.  Too bad the Nathan's in malls
don't come close to the 75-year old original of
nineteen sixteen glory.  Must be all this salt
air."  That, or the fact that he hadn't had even
a single beer for such a long time."

Mulder polished off his hot dog and
silently agreed.  Although, mall Nathan’s
were all right with him, in a pinch.  He
slid forward on the scrubbed velour fabric
of the Caravan SE's couch seat to pat
Langly's leather ensconced shoulder.  "You
had a tasty idea, Scarecrow," he awarded,
suppressing his own beer-fueled burp.
"Didn't realize how hungry I was."  He
leaned over then and smoothed down Scully's
somewhat frizzed hair.  To which, she in
turn, bestowed a kittenish smile heretofore
given only to the golden apple of her eye in
her present state of Langly bliss.

Mulder pinched her cheek with middle and
index fingers.  It was cozy seeing her
smiling at him this way.  It was easy
admitting how much he missed the twinkle
intertwined, with that breath-halting
gleam, once reserved solely for him on
those *you're almost there, Mulder*
occasions.  He remembered the ribald
manner in which he'd joked about her, and
felt ashamed then.

Pay the piper...born losers find new an'
improved ways to lose.  Mulder blinked a
brace of times before nipping his whine
of a reverie in the bud.

"For a change," Frohike tartly yielded
between bites of his second frank.
Renewing the badinage, "Don't let it go
to that moptop you call a head."

"I'm so full of dogs, onion rings, fries,
suds and clams, I'll let that go, 'So-
pic'...uh. Uh, Melvin.  It's cool."  Now
was not the time to launch oppugns, no
matter how tempting.  There was a time to
be rebarbative and a time to 'fly the
white flag.'  This was ScullyTime, aside
from his sneaking a little 'Miller Time'
in, as well.  Time to be sharp.  He tucked
the empty mug away under his seat to keep
the prize for a souvenir.  "None of you,
'cept Scully, since she won't remember, can
say I never did anything for you guys," he
reminded since the field meal had been his
treat.  What had come over him?

Frohike was about to say that wasn't all
Langly was full of, but thought better of
it, regarding Silvio, and his internal
promise made about calling a 'dis' truce.
Well, a mild one until all this 'short
shrift' was over.

"And I too am liking this Nathan's speedy
food.  'Muy bueno,'" Silvio chimed in as
he downed another fry.  "There is
certainly nothing that compares to this
in the rainforest."

"May I quote you?  And, yo, it's not
speedy," Langly appended.  "It's Fast.
And in some cases, beyond hyperdrive."

"Byers, are you okay?" Frohike asked,
mindfully eyeing the very, of late,
taciturn man.

"Fine."

"You're not acting like it."

Byers gazed out the semi-tinted window,
and, not satisfied, unlocked the sliding
door, opening it.  He got out and scanned
the dimly lit, forest-like Bayview Avenue
park.  Good thing they had someone who
knew the way around, in the form of Langly
with them.  Though he didn't know the
actual mileage, the ride from the airport
to this Brooklyn locale had seemed long.

Mental distension gripped his mind.  His
brow crinkled.  What was a worrier to do?
This was the park, wasn't it?  What she'd
written?  Where she'd said she'd be...
His face contorted into a rictus of
relief mingled with anxious care.

The tract was punctuated with a good many
brand new looking, as well as weather-
worn picnic tables.  If it had been a
good eight or nine hours earlier, it would
have been bustling with high-spirited,
picnickers and barbecuers from the area's
rent-controlled housing complexes, on such
a prematurely mild Saturday afternoon, so
early in spring.  Beyond the petite peninsula's
picnic area lay a well-tended ball field, which
could barely be made out by meager dint of the
park’s sparse lights, and beyond that, the
Verrazzano Bridge loomed far off in the nocturnal
distance.

Scully dove a hand into her French fry
bag, turned cattycorner and offered him a
handful of her ruby-stained crispies,
through her open window.

"No thank you, Scully.  Maybe later,"
Byers replied vacantly, not really even
registering the gesture.  The only
appetite he wanted satisfied was having
the woman of his hearth and kettle dream
here with him.  Random movement caught his
eye then, beneath one of the tables and
his breath caught...no.  He released a sigh
of overreaction.  No, he soured.  It was
a homeless person trying to get comfortable
for the night.

"How long are we gonna wait?" Frohike
demanded to know.  An immediate answer to
his question went begging.  He framed his
next one with more understanding his aim.
"Wanna use the goggles, John?  I brought
'em along just in case.  They beg to be
used under these sort of circumstances.
You'll be able to pick up clear to that
Mark Twain High School over there, for
the Gifted and Talented."  No response.
Straining to sound even more reasonable,
"She's got the number, buddy.  Maybe she
couldn't get away for the...the time
being, so--"

"Let's give it a little longer," Mulder
deftly cut in.  He leaned back to Frohike
who was seated directly behind him in the
extreme back, on the driver's side.
Motioning for him to come forward, and
press his ear in tight, Mulder whispered,
"Where do we have to be in such a hurry?
Rendezvousing with Susanne is the
itinerary.  Right?  Cut him some slack.
He's on automatic pilot at the mo."

Frohike nodded, dutifully accepting his
chastening.  He started unzipping his
shoulder bag, and once he'd extracted the
night vision opticals, handed them up to
Mulder to pass them on to Byers.

"Hey, Byers," Mulder sang out, "Frohike
thinks you'll have a better shot spotting
her with these."

A startled looking Byers wheeled around
as though the F.B.I. Agent were intruding
into the insular world of his private
construct.  "Maybe you're right."  Once
he'd fitted himself with the elaborate
specs, he surveyed what had been
previously viewed, unaided.  The
difference made, was the world, despite
the fact that Langly said he looked like
Atom Ant gene spliced with The Fly.
"Thanks, Melvin," Byers acknowledged at
length.  As he scanned, he discovered
that a substantial number of tables were
being employed as makeshift domiciles.
"I take back all those times I slighted
the use of your standby."

"Never took offense, buddy.  My hard-won
enhancements take the efficiency variable
to a higher power."  Frohike winked at
Mulder, and the knowing government
employee clapped his forearm.

"You're aces, Frohike."

"Hey, I do what I can for the cause, man.
As long as we've got a viable stake in
it.  The fair Agent Scully is as viable
as I can think of getting...if you span
my drift."

"I wanna ride on that roller coaster,
Cutie!"  Scully started jouncing up and
down on the springy seat with too much
give for a passenger's own good.

"Sorry, sport."  Langly put out his hand
to make her stop doing a frenzied
imitation of a jack-in-the-box.  "The
Cyclone's not open for business yet.  Too
early.  If we're still here by Memorial
Day, maybe we'll give it a blast.
Bizarro--that's one banged-up witchy
cheap thrill."  Unleashing a prodigious
sniff, he continued, "Not everybody's got
the balls for it.  Uh--present totally
worthy female company excepted, I sprint
to add."  Winking at her, he cradled his
opinion in an aside meant mostly for her
ears only.  "You've got more balls than
most of us sittin' here in this metal
box-mobile, Punkin.  No doubt.  You're
right in step with the babalicious
lovelies themselves...Xena and Gabriel."

"I've never given her any flack over that,"
Mulder substantiated, hunkering in closer.
"Worship from afar, eh, Langly?"  The
reddening tech-head shrugged, looking quite
found out.  "Fact is," Mulder went on, his
voice heavy with admiration, "I've had to
borrow some of hers, more times than I feel
comfortable remembering.  Hey, don't look
so surprised."

Hero worship works both ways, Langly thought.
I’ll be as smarmy as I wanna be, where
Scully's concerned...Langly was all set to
lay a snide remark on Mulder, by way of a
telling reference to Scully's pluck in the
face of a coast-eating hurricane and a fresh
water eschewing sea monster, as a specific case
in point, when, from out the corner of his
peripheral vision, he noticed a smallish young
man, standing in the outer vestibule of the
nearest complex building, number three-one-nine-
four, waving frantically.

"What's up with that?" the hacker
extraordinaire mused aloud, and pointed.

"Not sure," Mulder nattily responded,
"but looks as though he wants our
attention in the worst way."

"Byers, swing around the van," Frohike
ordered, "and--"

"Yo--group, I don't need night vision for
a positive I-D."  Langly started the
vehicle and demanded that Byers haul
himself back in.  "That's--"

"Mata Hari," Frohike rounded off for him,
annoyed with the wisenheimer for having
cut him off.

He was about to tell him so, when Langly
gunned the engine in perfect synchronization
with the precipitous hail of whizzing bullets
which suddenly peppered their immediate
environs.

The makeshift domiciles were alive with
repeating, death-dealing commotion; sound
and fury incarnate.

"We're all right!" Mulder yelled,
thankful that he'd grabbed Byers in at
the precise moment, his reflexes, hair-
trigger, to subsequently, then, lunge for
Scully to pull her down, clear of harm's
deadly way.  "Byers, slam that door!
When we're even with Susanne, net her,
and we're gone!  Get the lead out,
Scarecrow--and hope by some twenty-mega
ton magic, they miss the gas tank.  With
the firepower they're spewing, we're
sitting ducks if you don't pour on the
speed!!"

In crouch-drive mode, Langly nodded,
gulped heavily and quipped, "More like
shi--"

"For posterity," Frohike announced,
escalating in pitch and volume over
Mulder and Langly.  He'd already ripped
the digital minicam from his bag, and,
ignoring the danger, or selectively
choosing to be oblivious to it, was
recording the wild proceeding.

Mulder barked over the screech of the tires,
peeking up at his zealous friend in stark
disbelief, "FROhike, if you get yourself
killed, don't expect me to attend the
funeral."

"I've never assumed you would.  What
makes you think I'll be the one to go
fir--YOWZEE--that was close!"  A bullet
tore through the right side window panel,
shattering it into a kazillion pieces,
raining sharp, shimmering shards all about,
to lodge itself somewhere in the spiffy
interior.

"SEE?  Now downsize yourself before you
spring a leak," Mulder commanded, wishing
he were driving, and not powder-puff foot.

Not needing to be told, Silvio was kissing
the floor upholstery with all the tenacity
of an inflamed lover.  Fleetingly, he
re-evaluated his decision for tagging along
with the crazy 'Americanos.'  What, 'Querido
Dios,' had he thrown himself into now?

Langly made a careening U-turn, over the
street's center, upraised divider and
beelined it for the anxious woman, who,
upon seeing what was going down, had
sought flimsy cover behind some motley-
looking shrubbery.

Even before the van was even with the curb,
the boyish version of the DOD's darling,
flung herself into the beleaguered vehicle,
atop the lap of her astonished beau.

"Is everyone all right?" Susanne questioned
in a belligerent voice, over the melee still
raging on the opposite side.

"What about you?" Byers spoke up, with a
voice he didn't recognize, finding his
fuzzy-coated tongue; the lingual sensation,
a by-product of fear, and having had nothing
to eat since very early that morning.

"I'm fine.  But if any one of you suffer
harm in any way on my account, and, believe
me, I'll deem it my account, it will be
unforgivable.  Now, as they say in very bad
B movies, 'Get us out of here!'"

"Who're the shooters?" Mulder burned to know,
as he slid over and made space for her.
Susanne poured herself into the roomy
intervention, wondering where to begin.

Sighing belaboredly before supplying the
cogent details, she pressed her tapered
fingers into her flushed cheeks.  "Contagion,
who've had a vested interest all along.
Sadly, I was too blind sided to see this.
Blinded by my devotion to...Gra..."  She
made herself stop.  Haltingly, she began
again, "I never dreamed they'd locate me
this quickly, although his insidious spies
are everywhere.  Nor..."  The slouch-jeaned,
black turtleneck and pants jacket wearing
woman came forward to the edge of the seat;
easily, she wouldn't've had a pinch of trouble
passing for a Backstreet Boy.  She settled a
hand on Scully's quivering shoulder.  "They
want her too...now."

"Scully?" Mulder intoned, sounding incredulous
and nonplussed in the same breath.  "Why?"
Clearly, well past agitated, "So why shoot to
kill then?"

"For further experimentation.  To carry
out their ultimate agenda.  Trust me,
although, I realize most of you here have
a huge problem with that, they weren't
aiming for her, nor for me.  Tough luck
for the rest of you for getting in the way.
It's obvious the line I spoke to John on,
when describing Scully's plight, was none
too secure, as I'd hoped.  They have more
intricate resources and specialized, eclectic
boltholes of tracking and surveillance than
even this government.  And the entity's still
in its infancy.  Now how scary is that?"

"Who are THEY?"  Byers moved up alongside
her.  He removed the baseball cap she was
wearing bill backwards, raking her make-
up free face with concern-driven eyes.  He
palmed her shorn head, noting that her tiny
lobes were naked.  She wasn’t even wearing the
zircon chip-studded earrings he'd bought for
her in Vegas.  She was devoid of any
conventional trappings of femininity.

"Timmy, and his evolving cell of underground,
terrorist subversive-thugs."

"TIMMY!" the Gunmen blared in discordant
harmony.

"The all you can eat shrimp, with boobage
-shoot me in the carotid with your scuzz
drug-program me-and play me for a robotical
assassin Timmy?" Langly croaked, more than
a little unnerved by the confounding revelation.
"Like, hold up.  We saw his arrest go down on
the tube.  What?  The li'l prick escaped right
out from under their big noses, or somethin'?"
He relaxed his stranglehold on the steering
wheel as he made a deft left on Mermaid Avenue,
through the heart of the urban-renewed, seaside
Coney Island community, heading for the Stillwell
Avenue D-F-N and B subway lines of the terminal.
Was he ever thankful he’d managed to have gotten
them away unscathed.  He began breathing normally
again as the adrenaline rush ebbed.

"The right little Nazi himself," Susanne confirmed.
"And he had the colossal nerve to call me DARPA's
moll.  He's the Teflon man.  The charges didn't
stick.  Once he'd been sprung, by the powers that
want him to be, the stalking his group's
perpetrating, began."

"Timmy?" Byers echoed again.

"And an every-day-people cast of many minions.
Think about it, John.  He killed Grant, and on his
way to your suite, told me that after he blew you
three away, I'd be the exclusive property of his
radical fringe faction.  To continue producing the
A-H until his, their, ultimate goal is reached."

"Let me guess," Mulder jumped in, "'resistance is
futile.'  Governmental overthrow, courtesy mass
mind control."

Susanne nodded, hanging her head in sluicing
dejection.  "You cannot fathom how much I wish I'd
never pursued this research."

Byers fitted his arm around her shoulder and
squeezed.  "You had no choice in the matter."

She seemed to relax somewhat, but her voice
was a whisper.  "That's what I keep telling myself.
A stunning mess.  We're agreed?"

"Messy, but waste management has become my, well
Scully's and, our, stock and trade lately."  Mulder
patted his onetime quarry's back.  "First order of
business...  Can you inject Scully back into this
universe?"

Susanne scrunched up her face, the look of the
hunted etched into every new line she'd earned in
the hardest way.  "That depends on how good someone
here is at getting some coke."

Frohike, who'd chosen to keep silent up until this
point, insinuated himself into the parlance.  "Well,
that shouldn't be too hard.  Pop into any deli
convenience and snag a liter."

"Not that Coke," Susanne adjusted.  "A little of
the stuff they used to lace the soft drink with,
way back when.  Cocaine's molecular structure can
be reconstituted into another A-H counteractive,
if such is indicated, after I examine Scully."

"The serious real thing," Langly muttered,
picking up the thread.  A hairbreadth of one.
"If it's blow you need to score, I'm just the
ex-junkie who fills the bill."  As he sped the
van through a yellow light, he capped, "It's been
nearly a decade, but this ex hasn't lost his touch...
Like ridin' a bike," he picked up steam; his
braggadocio building, "doesn't matter if you haven't
done it in ages.  You never forget how to score
dope..."  What he'd been struggling to piece together
on the plane had just been confirmed, concerning his
favorite drug.  Molecular simularity, and with
Susanne's expertise, the solution.  Well, he gave
himself an 'A' for effort, at least.

Frohike rolled his weary, teary eyes, tapped Byers'
back so he could shoot him a probing look, which
seemed to employ telepathy...'you can take the drugs
outta the boy, but you can't take the boy outta the
drugs, or whatever the addictive substance to abuse
of choice happened to be.  Byers turned his head
back around, not wanting to think past Susanne's
verbal summation and indictment of a traitor's
clandestine activities.  A true patsy of his own
twisted ideas.

Silvio who was now lodging comfortably in his seat
once more prodded Frohike from his morose reverie.
"Does this mean your government will soon be made
to topple?"

Frohike shrugged and mumbled something which
sounded like, "Don't bet on a new deck just yet.
This house of cards has still got plenty of
stability in it at the moment, my friend..."

As the party rode on to the destination Susanne
had instructed Langly to take them to, the eldest
member of the group prayed silently to himself for
their collective sanity, such as it was, to remain
primordially intact.  A biting malaise gnawed at
his gut, and he wished he'd remembered to pack the
Mylanta, in the scramble to get here, as well as
his sub-pocket-sized, dog-eared New Testament with
the Psalms.

...Dear, Lord, he offered up off the cuff, 'the
spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak...lead
him not into temptation...' Help him score for
Scully's sake.  Please don't abandon us to
ourselves...