Chapter Text
Sweat trickled from his brow down the side of his face, his heart nearly as audible as the clamor of his steps. His breathing accelerated, now coming in short, panicked huffs. He sucked in the damp, musty smell of the Pentagon’s basement and blinked, fast and repeatedly, urging his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Something is in this room, he thought. Something that warranted eight security guards and a level of clearance he’d only heard about in quiet whisperings and rumors. The guards weren’t particularly hard to outsmart; he’d seen an opportunity and gone for it wholeheartedly, swiping a keycard pretty smoothly, if he did say so himself. But he knew, for a reason he was yet to discover, that being caught in this room was as good as a death sentence.
Still, with the quest to reveal a truth propelling every pointed movement, he had to find out.
Catching his breath, Mulder scanned the room from left to right, trying to spot anything unusual. File cabinets lined the perimeter. A light shone through a window near the ceiling, causing flecks of dust to make themselves known in the relative dark of this cellar. Computers seemingly from 1989 were stacked to the side and, for all intents and purposes, this area appeared to be the basement of a government building.
He would know.
He walked a little further where rows of book shelves were paralleled, like a library. He saw a few books, but the metal shelving units stored mostly bunsen burners, Erlenmeyer flasks and other kinds of sciencey things Scully liked to use. Some tubes were empty, but some contained a translucent green substance. Jars were lined up, open, big orange buckets on the shelves below them.
Radioactive, they said, Skull and cross-bones. In case you didn’t speak English.
Mulder took a deep breath and began to walk towards the green flasks when he heard the distinct and hurried thud of footsteps in the stairwell – the one leading to the long narrow hallway he ran down just a minute ago. Someone was coming.
He didn’t have much time. His eyes took in the entire room quickly.
To the left of the back exit, his only hope of escape, there was a lab table and chair, blueprints laid out on top. He ran towards them, his stomach nearly in his throat.
(When I panic, I make this face, he’d told Scully once.)
No, not blue-prints, he realized when he reached the table. Maps. Bellefleur, Oregon, one said. Longitude, latitude, elevation. Trees drawn to scale. A compass without a needle was pictured to the right of the image. His palms were clammy with fear as he shoved the map to the side, revealing a sketch. The building plans for what appeared to be an ovular aircraft, mathematically outlining some kind of plotted evolution from plane to saucer, miraculously hovering, wingless, in the design.
A final product.
Mulder heard the distant footsteps reach the hallway, the echo of heels moving across a cement floor reverberating throughout the room.
He swallowed, turning his head back to the drawings. Under everything was a manila envelope. The label read: Oculus Mentis. He memorized the site of it, the texture and weight of the folder in his hands as he leafed through a list of familiar names and dates. Billy Miles. Theresa Hoese.
Drawn on the back cover was a cerebrum, wires attached to the frontal lobe. Mulder exhaled through a quivered upper lip, realizing then that he’d been holding his breath to monitor the approaching sound. Very close.
He had but seconds to find something more solid and he knew it. Fueled by adrenaline and a raging anger within, he noticed a bin full of cartridges. What looked like miniature floppy disks. Hundreds of them.
The footsteps in the hall came to a halt as they reached their destination.
The door to the basement was pushed open in a rush just as Mulder closed the materials, slid one of the chips up the cuff of his suit, and slipped out the back exit, running quietly up the side-stairwell which led directly outside. But not before he’d seen (and looked directly at) the glaring lens of a surveillance camera pointed directly at the lab table where he knew he’d never be able to return.
Shit, he thought as he reached the street and was blinded by the sun. A headache pushed its way into his consciousness, his hands suddenly shaking as they hailed a cab.
“Drive!” was all he could say.
Oculus Mentis. He said the name to himself, locking it away in his memory.
Mind’s Eye, he translated, working the few bits of Latin he’d retained from his studies at Oxford.
Snapshots of what he’d seen floated through his mind as he tried to keep them viable in his memory. The names, the drawings, and coordinates. Numbers and letters haphazardly scattered in his brain, both fragmenting and congealing incoherently. He remembered the small camera lens with the red light on in the distance, recording his discovery.
Oculus Mentis, he whispered, not loudly enough for the driver to hear.
Latin for I’m screwed.
He shook the sleeve of his jacket until the tiny disk fell into his lap. Rubbing it between the pads of his fingers before shoving it into his deep pockets, he tried to gain control of his breathing.
Once he composed himself, he would tell the cabbie his address. He would go home, aim for a calm and strategic demeanor, and write down everything he could remember. He wasn’t sure what he had his hands on, wasn’t sure what he knew. The only thing of which he was certain was that for someone somewhere who had a recording of his panicked visage, it would fall into the category of ‘too much’, so he’d have to control every compulsion, every instinct inside of him, to not share the information with Scully.
He had to find a way to keep this knowledge alive, quite certain he wouldn’t be able to ensure the same fate for himself.
++++++++++++++++++++
Strughold came rushing through the doors of the Building Garage, out of breath and panicked, his aging body protesting against such exertion. He caught his balance and stumbled toward the cloud of cigarette smoke, knowing who he’d find there observing the construction process.
“Mulder knows,” Strughold said, breathing between the two syllables. He became increasingly conscious of his tie around his neck as he exhaled.
His boss appeared calm, though terminally ill, breathing in a near-exhausted cigarette through an airway in his neck. Strughold had to look away. Every time.
“Mulder?” the boss said, chuckling as he wheezed. “What does he know?” His words came out slow and divided, time and space surrounding each syllable.
Strughold rushed to get out the words. “The security camera in the basement. There’s a recording. His face… he… He saw our plan.”
His boss’ face grew pale, but he maintained an expression of relaxed condescension as he blew out a cloud of grey smoke through his nostrils. He paused, sucking in air. “Did he take anything?”
“Nothing. He ran out the back.”
The boss wheezed. “Add him to the list.”
Sweat dripped down the side of Strughold’s face. “How?”
“‘How’? Just add him to the list.”
“He’s not going to fall for it like the others. Not after he’s seen –”
“What do –” his boss interrupted, needing to take a coughing break before continuing. Strughold dared not speak. “What do you know about magic?”
He swallowed, giving himself much needed distraction by looking at the shiny spokes on the boss’ wheelchair. “Magic?” he whispered. There was no such thing.
“Magic,” the boss repeated. “Is nothing more than what the mind invents when the eyes are distracted.”
Strughold took a moment to let that one sink in while the boss suffered a prolonged wheeze.
“You’re saying--”
“If we show Mulder what he wants to see,” the boss said, cocking his head to the left and using all of his energy to tap the cigarette out against the arm of his chair. “What he thinks he’s looking for…” The boss took a final deep breath. “…Then he’s as susceptible to deception as the others.”
“How will we get him there?”
“I’ll take care of that, Conrad.” Strughold shivered. The sound of his boss using his first name always had the effect of exacerbating the fear within him. He dragged out the single syllable in a fashion that reminded him of death. “Just finalize the design.”
Strughold blinked, his heartbeat nervously stammering. “And what about the risk we’ve discussed?” he said, braving up and meeting the boss’ eyes. “Turning Mulder’s quest into a crusade?”
The boss laughed, probably as best as he could manage, motioning to the pack of Morleys on the nearby desk. Strughold lit one and handed it to the dying man before him.
The boss was still coming out of his chuckle when he said, “We’re not going to kill him, Conrad.” Another puff through his larynx, the smoke coming out like fog on a stormy morning.
Just as Strughold was about to walk away, he heard the cracked voice of his boss, muttering a few final words before turning his chair around. “There will be plenty of time for that later.”