Melvin Frohike muttered something wordless and grouchy as he snapped open the many locks on the front door of the Lone Gunmen's office, not so much because he was annoyed at the knock on the door, but because he almost felt it was expected of him.  He pulled open the large metal door to admit Fox Mulder, who had already raised his hand to knock again.

"Patience, Mulder. You know we have to maintain our security levels."

Mulder pushed past him without a word, heading straight for the large conference table where Byers and Scully were standing, looking over Langly's bony shoulders as he typed furiously on the keyboard of one of the several computers hooked up there.

"Someone's in a hurry," Frohike grumbled as he relocked the door and followed Mulder. But he knew if he was the one in Mulder's position, with a lover at death's door and a mystery to solve, he'd be just as single-minded.

Byers looked up as Mulder approached, noted the paper shopping bag in his arms, and asked, "What have you got?"

"In a minute, Byers," he replied, focussed solely on his partner. "What did you find, Scully?"

"I think we've got something, Mulder." She pointed at one of the monitors as Langly enlarged a section of it.

"This is a sample of Kimberly's blood," she said, before he could ask. "Do you recognize those?" She indicated at what appeared to be several small black gears shifting and rotating amongst the blood cells.

"Same as Walter's," he agreed. "But she hasn't turned into an HB pencil, yet, so what are they doing?"

"Good question. So far, they seem to be doing nothing more than-there-look-" She touched one of the enlarged black cogs on the screen as it emitted what appeared to be a red bubble that looked more or less just like the red blood cells that surrounded it. Mulder frowned, confused.

"They're making more blood, Scully? That doesn't explain why Kim would suddenly turn into a gun-toting homophobe."

At that moment there was a loud beep from a machine on another table at the far end of the room. Byers walked over to what appeared to be a microwave oven, if microwave ovens came with four extra computer motherboards, a keyboard and optional centrifuges welded to their sides. He slipped on a latex glove and opened the front of the machine, removing a small vial from a holder in the center. It appeared to be half full of some viscous pink liquid, with red grains of sand at the bottom of it. He tipped the vial gently and allowed a drop of the fluid to fall on a glass slide. Then he did something interesting and incomprehensible to the side of the machine, slipped the sample into a slot on the side of one of the circuit boards, and typed a few commands into the keyboard.

"You were the kid that always got beat up for winning the Science Fair contests, weren't you, Byers?" said Mulder, still staring at the monitor image of Kim Cooke's blood sample.

"Those guys were just jealous," Byers replied.

A minute later, one of the many printers scattered around the office started up, and Langly got up to retrieve the document, while Byers explained:

"It's an analysis system that Frohike built-"

"I programmed it!" added Langly. Frohike shot him a warning glance, which he chose to ignore.

"Anyway, it can analyze the makeup of the cells that the nanocytes are creating, to determine if there's any factors there that may have been the cause of Miss Cooke's bizarre behaviour."

Langly and Frohike were nearly coming to blows over the readout, both men tugging at the paper and glaring at one another. Mulder walked over to them and neatly plucked the document from their hands, and put it in Scully's, asking softly, "What do you see, Scully?"

She studied the strings of letters and numbers, which Mulder knew would have made no sense to him, and only a few minutes later, she announced, "I think-Mulder, I think this is ergot." Her back itched reflexively, and Mulder winced when she gave him a scared but level look. Then her eyes were drawn back to the page, and she continued; "but that's only part of it. See these letters here? They indicate a substance similar to decongestant, usually only found in asthma inhalers or nasal spray."

"Killer Otrivin?" Langly's comment was ignored when Byers gasped audibly. They all turned to stare at him, and he gulped uneasily and whispered,

"E-H."

"What's E-H?" asked Scully.

"Ergotamine-histamine gas," Frohike and Byers responded in unison.

"Have you ever heard of it?" Scully directed the question at Mulder, who suddenly flushed and looked away.

"I'm familiar with it."

"In small doses, it causes paranoia and anxiety in its subjects." Byers recited the words as if from memory, and looked even more pained as he did so.

"Byers ex-girlfriend designed the stuff," Frohike said to Scully, then turned to Mulder and added, "She used to get beat up at the science fair, too."

"But I don't understand how the nanocytes are creating it, or how we're supposed to stop it." Byers continued. Scully looked once more at the printout, trying to will out the answers they needed.

"When Walter was poisoned with these things," she said, her voice hesitant, "we considered a full blood transfusion. It's incredibly risky, but…" She shrugged, indicating she didn't see any other option at this point.

"That might not be necessary," said Mulder. All eyes in the room were suddenly drawn to the shopping bag, which he had held, almost forgotten, the whole time.  He reached into it, and pulled out what appeared to be an ordinary Palm PC, and a small stylus to go with it. Handing it to Langly, he reached back into the bag and retrieved a videotape. This he put into Scully's hands with a small frown.  She glanced down at the label on the front of it, which read M/Sk101301.

"Is this--?" she hesitated, and Mulder gave her another sad look, and nodded.

"In a past life I might have paid good money for it," he told her with a sick grin.

"Where did you get this?" Langly asked, and Mulder turned his attention back to the bespectacled blonde man, who was running the stylus over the front of the unit quickly, scanning the small monitor on it with a look that was part awe and part greedy longing.

"Let's just call it a lovely parting gift, and leave it at that. What can you tell me about it, Langly?"

Scully wondered about the angry catch in Mulder's voice, then looked back at the video in her hands, and thought to herself that she might have an idea where this stuff had come from, as she remembered a junior G-man with more longing looks than experience under his belt…

"It's not local. Looks Japanese. There's no trademark, and it looks like the serial number's been filed off. Somebody was making sure this puppy never got traced." He reached behind one of the computer monitors on the desk, found the power cord he wanted, and plugged it into the Palm PC. He tapped buttons on it with the stylus, typed in a command on the main keyboard, and suddenly screens were popping up on the monitors with frightening speed.

"This baby's loaded!" Langly couldn't hide the admiration in his voice. "Man, look at these codes, passwords, safety nets-"

"Can you figure it out?" asked Scully.

"I could probably get into the main code system and get one of these other programs to translate everything, take it apart line by line-"

"What about transferring all the relevant data from the palm unit to the mainframe, then creating a virus designed specifically to destroy only files that came from that particular unit." Frohike suggested.

"Could the unit be disassembled manually?" Byers wondered aloud. "Maybe cross the generational wires with the active links until the unit stopped producing the nanocytes, thus negating their behaviour…"

"Is there an off switch?"

All four men turned to stare at Scully, who still held the video in her hands and was looking down at it. There was a long silence, which was broken when she raised her eyes to them, then raised one eyebrow as well.

"Well?"

Mulder lunged for the Palm PC, but Langly beat him to it, unplugging it and flipping it over in his hands. Frohike grabbed it, nearly thumbed the switch on the back while fending off Langly, who was grabbing for it, then turned and gave Mulder an understanding look. He pushed the small machine into Mulder's nerveless hands and said,

"What have we got to lose?"

Without hesitation, knowing no good would come from second guessing himself, Mulder shut the machine off.

Scully let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. They all waited anxiously, wondering if the machine was going to blow up, or melt, or maybe turn into a piece of cheese. When none of these things happened, Langly asked, "Can I keep it?"

"Sure," said Mulder.

"Now what happens?" asked Scully.

"Now, I guess we head on back to the hospital and make sure everyone's still alive. Come on." Mulder turned to walk away, then turned back to his three friends, peeked into the shopping bag he was still hanging on to, and gave the Gunmen a hard smile that turned up the corners of his mouth, but failed to touch his eyes.

"Thanks, guys. As a reward-" He tossed the bag onto the table beside the computers and, watched their eyes widen as the bag tipped and bundles of bills spilled out of it. "Consider next month's publishing costs to be on Alex Krycek.  Let's go, Scully." And he turned and headed for the door, his partner right behind him.

Langly turned the Palm PC over in his hands. "I wonder if I can program it to play Dig Dug," he mused aloud.
 

THE HOSPITAL

Kimberly Cooke awoke with a start. She had been having the worst nightmare of her life, dreaming about killing her boss, Assistant Director Walter Skinner. She wondered what the heck her subconscious had been thinking, and wondered, too, if the extra piece of Bailey's cheesecake before bed had done it to her.

She tried to sit up and fell back hard against the bed, suddenly realizing she was strapped down.  Just like in her dream. She tugged frantically at the bonds, but they gave no slack.

"What the-?" Her voice sounded thick and hoarse, like a person who's been yelling a lot, and she realized with a grimace of distaste that she smelled bad. Sour and scared, like old sweat.

"Hey." The word came out in a whisper, and she tried again, first attempting to lick dry lips with an even dryer tongue. "Hey!" A little louder, now, and then, despite the pain it put on her throat, she began to holler in earnest.

"Hey! Help me! Somebody! Can anyone hear me? Help! Help! HELP!"

*****

In another room, in another wing, Walter Skinner stirred as he felt himself awakening from bad dreams of hellfire and smothering heat and grinding pressure. He thought he ought to open his eyes and end the disquieting pictures forming in his head, but it seemed like too much work, so he opted to just turn his head, then turn it back, wincing at the stiffness in his neck and shoulders. He thought that maybe someone was in the room with him and, in a voice that sounded suspiciously like he'd been gargling with broken glass, he grated out the first word that came to mind.

"Fox?"

"Mr. Skinner? Can you hear me?" A soft voice, but not hesitant or unsure. Definitely a female voice. 

His reply was an inarticulate grunt, and he still didn't open his eyes. Something pulled in his gut, and he winced and his next words were bitter. "What the hell happened to me?"

"Shhh…" was the doctor's reply. "Everything is going to be just fine. Let me go find one of the doctors working your case, and they can get you the answers. Just lie still, and I'll be right back."

He heard the woman walk away quickly in a flurry of crepe-soled footsteps, calling out for a doctor MacArtigan.

He wondered where Mulder was, what had happened and where he was, felt that stitch in his side again, and, as the pain didn't recede, but rather seemed to grow in intensity, took refuge back in unconsciousness, hoping Fox would be there when he woke up.
 

CAPITAL ICE RINK
ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND

Alex Krycek slammed his real hand against the set of lockers hard enough to shake them on their frame, and leave a small dent in the locked one next to his own. Mulder had conveniently left the key in the lock for him, but had removed all the contents, including the video and all his trade secret funds.

"Fuck!" He hit them again, hurting them not at all, and succeeding only in adding a sharp pain in his hand to the throbbing headache Mulder's attack had left him with. He glared at the open empty locker a moment more, then, when he realized he was attracting unwanted attention, he walked away, muttering dangerously:

"This is so not over, Mulder."