Title - The Dollar Bill Trick
Author - Lady Disdain
E-mail - The_Lady_Disdain@mailcity.com
Rating - G
Summary - 
Spoilers - Requiem
Distribution - Gos, Eph, are okay. For others just 
ask first. 
Disclaimer - Mulder and Scully and their ensemble 
cast are owned by Fox.
Randomness - I'm reading the most amazing book, "How 
To Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a 
New Age" it totally gives you an idea of where the 
skeptics are coming from. I highly recommend it. 
-Thanks to Jen for beta-
-----------------------------
The Dollar Bill Trick by Lady Disdain 
<The_Lady_Disdain@mailcity.com>

"The truth may not be helpful, but the concealment of 
it cannot be."
 - Melvin Konner

 She stared at the blank expense report with utter 
disdain. Of course over the years she had gotten used 
to filling out the reports for the X-Files but now...

 Now her work was filled with a sense of urgency. 
There was one and only one case and it hungrily 
devoured all of her time and energy like a fire 
starved for oxygen. She could feel herself weakening, 
gasping for air but refused to show it.

 Because now it was truly the survival of the 
fittest. All her supervisor, John Doggert, needed to 
shut the X-Files down was one show of her frailty and 
she hated him for it. 

 She understood Skinner's decision; rather than make 
Doggert an obvious replacement for Mulder he made 
Doggert her superior. The choice was understandable 
but not forgivable.

 Doggert looked at her with the eyes of a member of 
the 'boys club'. He saw a woman who had thrown away 
her career and blindly followed an idiot around the 
world. In his eyes Scully was a ditched woman. And 
she was supposed to answer to him.

 In her fury she gripped the papers tighter, her 
nails making creases in the margin.

 "Dana."

 Her head jerked up and the sound of her name. 
Doggert was standing in the doorway, her eyes 
narrowed at him, despite his seniority he insisted on 
calling her by her first name.

 She sat up straighter and folded her hands on her 
desk. "Yes, sir?" That last word came out as a 
mockery of its original meaning.

 He took two more steps in the lion cage; his head 
slightly cocked as he chose his words carefully. "I 
wanted to talk to you about investigating other--"

 Doggert was interrupted by the shrill of her cell 
phone; she motioned for him to wait a moment while 
she took the call.

 "Scully."

 "Agent Scully, its Byers. There have been some 
developments. You need to get down here, now." Byer's 
normally clear voice shook.

 Her eyes got wide, "Is this about Mulder?"

 Byers hesitated, "...just come over." And then he 
hung up on her.

 She put her cell back in her pocket and began to 
gather up her things to head to Lone Gunmen HQ.

 "...I'm sorry Doggert--"

 He interrupted her, "John."

 She glared at him, "Doggert, I have to go."

 "But Dana, I need to talk you about--"

 "Sorry, something's come up." She was already 
putting on her coat.

 "But..."

 And she left her supervisor standing alone in her 
office, a ditched man.
*****************************************************
 "Hey Scully, you have a dollar?"

 "Frohike..." She growled at him as she put down her 
purse, her heels softly clicking on the concrete 
floor. Byers had answered the door and told her it 
would be a couple minutes.

 "No seriously, this is cool." Langly piped up. After 
her look he added, "You'll still be able use it."

 "Fine." She took out a dollar and laid it on the 
table.

 "Now," Frohike instructed, "turn it over so the 
pyramid side is face up. Here's a pen. Draw an upside 
down triangle on top of the pyramid. Ok, now read off 
the letters the points of your new star touch."

 She strained her eyes to look at the tiny letters. 
"M...A...S...O...N, FROHIKE!" She rolled her eyes and 
playfully punched him in the arm. She laughed at the 
smug looks on Langly and Frohike's faces. It felt 
good to laugh.

 Byers walked in and frowned, "The dollar trick?"

 Scully smiled and nodded.

 "Thought so, they've been waiting a week to show 
that to someone..." He shrugged and then continued." 
Agent Scully, I'm sorry for the delay, there was a 
problem with the circutry of the--" He paused at the 
arch of her eyebrow, "Anyway, come this way."

 All four of them walked into the back room where 
Byers had setup, of all things, a projector.

 Scully sat down at one of the computer terminals and 
listened.

 "Since about February this year there have been 
reports of--" Click. The wall now showed a picture of 
clouded sky. "chemtrails from military aircraft." 
Click. Another picture of the sky.

 "Don't all airplanes leave a contrail in their 
wake?" Scully asked.

 "Yes, but ground reports from people with telescopes 
and binoculars say that these trails are coming from 
booms on the aircraft and were happening at too low 
at an altitude to be the traditional jet trails." 
Byers replied.

 "And that's why it's taken so long for us to find 
out about this. The people reporting this were 
amateurs. And we were kinda busy with looking for..." 
Frohike let his voice trail off.

 Click. This time the photo had the definite grid 
pattern.

 "Its been theorized that Americans are being used as 
guinea pigs for some sort of bio-experiment, an 
effort to 'thin the herd', or to vaccine the public 
against bio-warfare." Langly added.

 "We didn't put everything together until we found 
where these reports were coming from."

 Scully knew the answer but in an act of disbelief 
asked where.

 "Houston."

 Even though she was sitting her knees went weak and 
she felt her stomach lurch. She saw all too clearly 
the final order of the doomed syndicate. The black 
oil mixed with chemicals to make it disappear into 
the air as it was released. All over the country the 
very act of breathing would invite in an alien virus 
which would lie dormant until...

 By some evil twist of fate there was actually a 
window in the back room. She stared up above the 
industrial buildings and into the blue sky as tears 
streamed down her face.

 She needed him here. 

 She felt Byers awkwardly put his arm her. She looked 
up and smiled at him as she wiped the tears from her 
eyes.
*****************************************************
 "No." Her voice was unwavering, this was final.

 "But Dana, I don't understand. It's been three 
months and you've turned up nothing. Nothing. 
Everything you've investigated has been a dead end. 
Its time to take other cases."

 "No, Doggert, its not." She wasn't just being 
stubborn she was right.

 "Why?"

 "Because this case is the only one that matters." 
And it was.
*****************************************************
 Somewhere in the desert of Texas a helicopter lands 
next to a waiting airplane. Out of the copter steps a 
tall dark man and blonde haired woman.

 The soldier on the ground salutes and the man rolls 
his eyes.

 "What's the news on the operation?"

 "Everything has gone smoothly. All sprays have been 
successful." The pilot barked back.

 "Very good." The Krycek paused for a moment. "I 
think its time that we take this to a national 
level."

 "Yes sir. It will be done."

 And with that Krycek and Marita left.

 As they were buckling themselves into the seats of 
the helicopter Marita spoke, "I still don't 
understand. Ok, so we do this and the whole world is 
vaccinated. Great, so people aren't going to die from 
the, " She swallowed at the painful memory. "virus. 
How are we going to survive the inevitable war?"

 The helicopter began to lift off the ground. 
Krycek's only reply was, "You'll find out." 
----------------------------
Author's Notes - Both the dollar bill trick and the 
strange chemtrails in Houston *are* real. You can 
find more information about them at:
http://www.NeoSoft.com/~cshramek/

Send feedback to: The_Lady_Disdain@mailcity.com
:-)

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