Out There

by Kadorienne

“Everyone’s quick to blame the alien.” ~Aeschylus

So, if you haven’t already read the fic, go read the commentary-less version, because I’m about to spoil the whole thing.

X-Files is a great show in many ways; it’s aesthetically stunning and gave the world Dana Scully. But it has also encouraged the weak-minded to fall for ludicrous superstitions. This fic is my humble effort to help Scully bring some rationality to the UFO issue.

Also, I couldn’t help waxing snarky about a lot of things.

Plus I’m including my Joseph Campbell-esque Hero’s Journey preoccupations.

Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb….

Yes, Klaus sings himself to sleep this way in canon. I dunno; apparently the Japanese have a sense of humor that we stuffy Westerners would consider goofy.

Klaus did not remember who had first sung this song to him. It could have been his mother, but she had died before he was a year old. He remembered nothing of her. Perhaps it had been one of the servants. But at some point, the song had come to mean safety and rest to him.

Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow.

Schloss Eberbach had been built late in the thirteenth century. It was a fortress, fortified with thick stone walls. Virtually impregnable. Anyone should feel secure here.

And everywhere that Mary went, Mary went, Mary went….

But then, Klaus should be able to feel secure anywhere. He was tall, strong, and skilled at hand-to-hand combat, and his Magnum was under his pillow, in easy reach. If any man on the planet could defend himself, it was Klaus. But he hadn't been able to, on… certain occasions.

And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.

Ouch. That line in itself was reason enough to forget this song forever.

He gave up the battle for sleep and opened his eyes. The glowing digital letters beside the bed said 3:37.

He rubbed his eyes, annoyed. At least when thoughts of that damned thief kept him awake, he could take a cold shower, or go out and run. Then his body would be numb and he would be exhausted and he could sleep. But with this, it was sleep that was the danger.

He was tired. His body was demanding sleep. Years of discipline had taught him to fall asleep at will, a conditioned reflex which almost invariably worked even when he was tense, worried, or in danger. After all, in his profession he might have to sleep under such circumstances, and lack of rest could cost him his life.

But this danger was too much.

With resignation, he switched on the bedside lamp, pulled out the latest issue of his favorite gun magazine, and forced his concentration onto the printed page.

When it was nearly five a.m., he fell asleep with the light on, his face pressed to the magazine.

His alarm went off at eight.

* * *

Three hours of sleep was not sufficient to make a considered decision, but then, he had little choice. He dragged himself into the office on time, feeling like hell, too groggy even to snap at the alphabets effectively. Not that they cowered any less; that, too, was a conditioned reflex.

Agent A had his Nescafé ready for him, as usual, but Klaus only took one sip. He had already had three cups at home, in order to fuel himself enough to get to work, and while he was still only half-awake, his heart was racing from the caffeine. He would wait until he really needed it before consuming more.

Relenting enough to rest his forehead on his hand, propping his elbow on the desk, the Major sifted through the files on his desk. He stopped when he found the report from his routine annual physical. Routine, except that it hadn't been due for another two months. He had insisted on taking it early, and had demanded more tests than usual, along with thorough X-rays. The only explanation he had given was that he couldn't sleep.

Now he went through the report intently, searching the charts and measurements which he scarcely understood for something, anything, that could give him an answer.

He didn't find it. The only problems the doctors had found with him, besides the inevitable effects of nicotine, were those caused by a month or so of inadequate food and sleep. The X-rays revealed nothing unusual either. There was nothing here.

Well. The only remaining course of action he could see was one which, a very short time ago, he had dismissed as too eccentric. He unlocked his bottom drawer, took out a form he had filled out one sleepless night without expecting to ever really turn it in, and headed for the Chief's office.

He ran into the Chief in the hall. The Chief was still wearing his hat and coat; he was arriving late, as so often.

"Were you caught in traffic, sir?" Klaus asked. His tone was sympathetic, but a faint smile twitched the corners of his mouth.

The older man scowled. "I was going to call you in this morning, Major. I've read the reports on your last mission, and you-"

Klaus cut the tirade short by handing him the form. The words stopped, choked in the Chief's chubby throat. He read over the form as if searching for a hidden trap.

"You're requesting vacation?" he gasped. "You?"

The Major shrugged grumpily. "I hate vacations, but apparently there is such a thing as working too hard after all. I can't sleep." He paused, then forced himself to finish. "It's affecting my performance."

The Chief looked at the form again. When he looked up from it, his expression had become understanding. Klaus seethed. 

"I'm glad you can see that," the Chief said. "I was going to suspend you if you refused to take vacation. Take all the time you need. Go somewhere pleasant and relax. Have fun."

"I hate having fun. Sir." The Major turned to stalk back to his own office.

"You can leave as soon as you've debriefed your alphabets," the Chief called after him.

Hero’s Journey: Klaus has been refusing the Call To Adventure for a while, but at last has accepted and is heading to the Underworld – that is, an exotic (to him) location far away from home.

* * *

The alphabets stared out the window as their superior's black Benz disappeared around a corner, still not really believing it.

"Iron Klaus took a vacation?" Z said at last, bewildered.

G glanced at him, then smiled mysteriously and turned away from the window.

"Don't say it," A warned.

Whenever Klaus takes a vacation in Eroicafic, it’s so he can nail Dorian to a mattress somewhere. Or get nailed to one. Naturally everyone jumps to conclusions.

"Why not? We're all thinking it," G said. "How many vacations has the Major taken since we've known him?"

"One," B said. "And that one they made him take, when his school reunion happened."

"There's only one reason our Major could possibly want some time away from his work," G said, still smiling. "And that reason is English and larcenous and well-dressed."

"SHHHH!" A hissed. "What if someone told him you said that?"

G fluttered his lashes at the taller agent. "Are you saying I'm wrong?"

A swallowed. "I'm sure we'll have even more work to do with the Major away," he said hastily.

"I think the Major deserves it," B piped up. "He's been alone so long and it's so obvious that-"

"That if the Major ever thought that we had guessed at something that he didn't think we needed to know, we'd be living in igloos and fighting off polar bears before we knew what hit us," A finished firmly.

A brief silence answered his words, before the alphabets all scurried off to their desks. There really was, after all, a lot of work to be done.

*           *           *

Dana Scully made a neat incision and laid the scalpel down. "What do you think of this, doctor?" she remarked.

In this fic, Scully is sort of an anti-Hero. Not in the conventional sense, but her journey is a foil to Klaus’s, and her decisions are different from his.

The other woman leaned close, frowning. "The liver is an odd color. Could be some kind of poison; let me get a sample and I'll send it to the lab."

Scully moved aside to let Dr. Kerry Weaver get a better angle and watched the woman's intent expression with approval. Her hair was a muted red, not Scully's fiery copper, not quite shoulder length. She wore no makeup, and the clothes under her white lab coat were the indifferent sort worn by those who are married to their jobs. Her grey-green eyes were fixed on her task like a laser beam.

Meet Dr. Kerry Weaver from ER. A Lesbian in canon, and it wasn’t too difficult to throw them together.

Nothing like a capacity for concentration.

Dr. Weaver looked up abruptly and their eyes met. Scully simply held the other woman's gaze for a long moment without smiling or speaking.

Dr. Weaver looked down at the cadaver for a second, considering, and then back to Scully. "How long are you going to be in town, Agent Scully?" she asked.

Scully smiled. "At least a couple of days. Maybe you could tell me where a good restaurant is. You getting hungry?"

Dr. Weaver smiled back. Before she could reply, Scully's cell phone rang. She took it out and glanced at the display. Mulder, who else?

"Scully here," she announced, pushing the button.

"Scully, you won't believe what's just happened!"

"Probably not. What is it, Mulder? You're still here in Chicago, aren't you?"

"No, I'm in Cincinnati. But I won't be for long. We've got to get to Phoenix right away! Your flight's in one hour. Delta, flight 981."

And Mulder delivers the Call to Adventure.

"Mulder, I'm still in the middle of an autopsy, not to mention that I'll have to go by the hotel for my suitcase! And speaking of the autopsy, we've found-"

Scully attempts to refuse the Call. But in a moment, she’ll accept it, having little choice.

"Oh, right. Your suitcase. Hang on."

"Mulder!" she said, but received no reply except her partner's distant voice, asking someone a question. A minute later, he returned.

"Okay, Scully. An hour and forty-five minutes, flight 645. I'll see you in Phoenix."

"Are you flying there tonight? Where will you - Mulder!"

One of my betas told me she almost rebuked me for making Mulder too over the top, before she remembered that he really is that way.

It was too late; he was gone. Scully glared at her cell phone, then looked regretfully at Dr. Weaver. A potentially lovely evening, gone.

One of these days, Scully told herself, I am going to tell him why he struck out with that entomologist Bambi Berenbaum.

Pleasant thought, innit?

*           *           *

Someday he would have to come to Vienna with a wealthy man, Agent G reflected as he paused in front of yet another window. Haute couture hardly figured into a petty agent's salary. He loved his work, but if he had learned of his own love of elegant clothing earlier in life, he might have chosen some other profession. As it was… well, he was still young and pretty. There was plenty of time to meet the right man, one who could support him in the style to which he aspired to become accustomed.

If it wasn't too late for the Earl of Gloria - and evidently it wasn't! - it wasn't too late for him either.

G moved on only as far as the next window. The mannequin in this one was sporting an absolutely adorable suit of the palest cream, with a tailored skirt and flared blazer. G studied it longingly for a minute before looking at his watch. There was plenty of time before he had to meet his contact and collect the data the man was bringing - he had set out early on purpose so that he could enjoy the excellent window shopping Vienna offered. He knew he couldn't possibly afford the suit, but he could go in and try it on, at least. Thank goodness he was already dressed normally, that is, in a dress. Some establishments became awfully squiffy about men who were dressed as men coming in and trying on women's clothing. Completely unreasonable of them, G thought.

I got into a big debate with my betas about the word “squiffy”. I got it from L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle and it meant offended. My friends contended that it means “drunk”. We looked it up and discovered that both meanings exist, but it means drunk more often. Alas, I’m attached to it and can’t stop using it to mean offended.

G had gone inside and was torn between exploring the store's wonders in earnest - there were a dozen counters of jewelry he was just dying to look at - and hunting down that cream suit in his size when the sound of his alias made him whirl around.

"G, darling," the rich-as-cream English voice drawled, "what a pleasant surprise."

G felt all his flirtation mechanisms kick into gear. He fluttered his lashes up at the Earl. The Major wasn't anywhere in sight, so he couldn't take umbrage. "Lord Gloria. You look absolutely fabulous," he gushed, even as he fretted that he could never think of anything intriguing to say when Eroica was present. Men like that just scattered his wits.

Eroica smiled charmingly. "Sky blue is definitely your color, darling," he said. "Every man in here is looking at you."

G blushed at that, but he didn't mind; he knew that blushing suited him. But the Earl's words made him realize that he had better leave. If the Major was anywhere nearby, and saw G, then the Major would wonder if G had put two and two together and arrived at the obvious sum, and G would be shopping for a flowered snow suit.

G was casting about for an excuse to flee when Eroica stepped closer and leaned over him, eyes dancing with mischief. "I don't suppose this is a business trip, G? And that your strapping boss is anywhere nearby?"

"I thought he was with-" G stopped himself, knowing it was too late. The Earl's eyebrows were raised.

Thanks, G. Without your help there I wouldn’t have had a story.

"With?" Eroica prompted.

G found himself even more speechless than usual in Eroica's presence.

"G." The Earl's expression was serious now. G swallowed. "Where is the Major?"

"On vacation," G squeaked.

"Vacation?" Eroica echoed incredulously. "Surely you mean he's pretending to vacation as a cover for a mission, don't you?"

"Of course," G said, seizing the excuse. Then realized he had made a mistake, because such hasty agreement was a clear sign of a bald-faced lie.

The Earl gave him an appraising look, then put a hand between G's shoulderblades, gallantly steering him deeper into the store. "Let me buy you a dress, darling. Has anything caught your fancy? And while you're looking them over, why don't you tell me all the latest gossip."

The adorable cream suit was made of cashmere, G soon learned. And a good thing, too, he reflected with resignation; he was going to need something both stylish and warm.

*           *           *

So here our Major is in the “Underworld”. He has now, in Hero’s Journey terms, Crossed the First Threshold.

Klaus had managed to sleep on the plane. He had slept for almost the entire transatlantic flight, in fact, feeling secure enough to fall asleep for the first time in nearly two months.

That didn't prevent him feeling apprehensive as soon as he disembarked. America was not his favorite place, though as places that weren't Germany went, it wasn't too bad. There weren't likely to be many English accents to trigger distracting associations. And it was far away from home and most of the people who knew him, which, for the moment, was important.

The airport, of course, was the usual hell of screeching children and idiots talking on cellular phones. He stepped out of it into the slightly less horrible hell of Arizona heat. It was like stepping into an oven. Well, he had been prepared; he was wearing a sleeveless undershirt.

Sleeveless undershirt. Yep, that’s our Klaus!

It was a relief to get into a rented, air-conditioned Benz and onto the highway to his hotel, even though he promptly discovered that Phoenix drivers were the absolute worst in America. Aggressive didn't even begin to describe it. Aggressive, psychotic, and just plain stupid all at once. He was going to have to start threatening to send errant agents here instead of Alaska. What an ignominy it would be to die of Arizona traffic after all the bullets and bombs he had evaded.

I have been to Arizona and I have never seen worse drivers anywhere.

So stop acting like a first-year agent. This is a mission. Treat it as such.

And he did. He was traveling under a false name, and his suitcase contained no clue to his purpose. All of the books he had been reading recently in his search for answers had been dumped anonymously at a junk dealer's in Bonn; no one would find them in his home. The contact information he was going to use was safely stored inside his head.

He was going to look like an idiot, he knew. But then, the people he was here to talk to all looked like idiots too.

The hotel was medium-priced and very pleasant, though far from luxurious. The walls of his room were of dark wood paneling, and the blinds had been lowered against the relentless Arizona sunshine; a series of narrow bars of light fell onto the wall across from the window. The air conditioning was going full blast; the room felt almost like Germany.

In the safety of the quiet room, he hung up his suits, filled the drawers with neatly folded undershirts and boxer shorts, and ordered room service. Then he couldn't put it off any longer. He picked up the phone's receiver, glared at it for a minute, and then dialed a number he had committed to memory.

"Mr. Myers? My name is Josef von Luger," Klaus began. "I read about your… organization, and I wish to speak with you."

Klaus’s alias here is a tribute to the German colonel in the excellent movie The Great Escape. Part of what was good about that movie is that some of the German officers, including Colonel von Luger, were honorable men.

"For what purpose?" The voice on the other end was polite, gentle, but a little guarded. "Are you a journalist?"
            "No," Klaus said promptly. "I… that is…."

"I think I understand," the voice replied, warming up a little. "Would you like to come over this afternoon?"

Mr. Myers gave him directions, and Klaus set out well in advance of their four o'clock appointment. He took a cue from the hotel staff and cranked the air conditioning in the Benz to full blast. Heat and cold might be a matter of discipline, but there was no need to ignore the technological excellence of the temperature controls in a good German car.

The office was on the outskirts of the city, allowing Klaus to see a good deal of authentic desert landscape on the drive over. Genuine cacti with arms sticking out, just like in the pictures. Very few trees, little vegetation at all, and that little scrubby and sparse. The occasional mountains were not the gently sloping, grassy swells he was accustomed to, or the snow-capped grey beauties of the Alps. They were pyramids of red rock that stuck up almost straight out of the flat ground. And the ground was flat – he could see for at least fifty miles in all directions, just flat brick-red ground as far as the eye could see. Looking at the desert landscape from the coolness of his car was slightly surreal, like watching a Western in a comfortable movie theater, seeing the cowboys shield their faces from the blistering sun.

His father had taken a dim view of all things American. Klaus had never heard him overtly deride them, but as a boy he had sensed that cowboy movies were a semi-illicit pleasure that it would be best his father didn't hear about. This had of course added to the thrill of watching craggy-faced, hardened men gallop to their deaths on horseback, ruthless men living in a ruthless world. A world that Klaus had known somehow that he belonged in, even then. The landscape here matched the world Klaus lived in: pitiless, inhospitable, allowing survival only for those who wrested it from the environment by force.

But he had reached the small office park that was his destination now, and the true beginning of his mission. He allowed himself to sit in his car for a moment after parking it, steeling himself.

At four o'clock precisely Klaus walked into Mr. Myers' office in the three-room suite that housed the Phoenix Foundation for the Study of UFOs.

Mr. Myers didn't look insane. He actually looked quite ordinary, not quite middle-aged, a suit that wasn't as sharp as Klaus's, neatly trimmed brown hair, glasses. As Klaus shook his hand, he had the impression that Mr. Myers intended for his expression to be a consoling one. But he invited Klaus to take a seat and then waited for him to speak.

Klaus delayed his planned speech for a few seconds by glancing around the office. The walls were painted dreary off-white, the carpet a nondescript blue. As seemed to be the norm in this land of pitiless sun, the window was covered, in this case by a Venetian blind which kept the sunlight out completely, and the room was refrigerated. The only illumination came from the two lamps on Mr. Myers' desk, each of which threw pools of light below them and onto the ceiling.

Three bookshelves were crammed with UFO books, and on the walls were a few framed photographs of UFOs. From his reading, Klaus knew that these were ones which had not been explained away as swarms of insects or hoaxes or something equally dull. He had personally identified a couple of them as fighter jets, but they were American experimental models that Germany did not officially know existed, so he did not enlighten Mr. Myers. As a matter of fact, monitoring UFO reports had proved a fruitful way of keeping track of such advances in other nations. But the other photos he could not classify.

"I have read your book," Klaus began when he could put it off no longer. "As well as several others. I came to talk to you because you seem to have your… feet on the ground. More than most experts in this field. You have a strong sense of the scientific method." Mr. Myers only nodded, waiting for Klaus to come to his point. "I have a number of questions about your work, if you don't–"

And now we get to the meat of the fic.

Mr. Myers interrupted him. "They've come for you, haven't they?"

Klaus could not answer.

"More than once? Or did they start when you were a child?"

Klaus's chest was tight. After a moment, he groped for his vest pocket a bit desperately. "Do you mind if I smoke?" he managed.

Mr. Myers seemed about to object, but then said, "Go ahead." He stood and opened the window, raising the blind halfway, allowing a square of merciless sun to pour in. Klaus lit up and sucked in the smoke gratefully. Mr. Myers stood leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets, watching him with compassion.

"The first time, I was about twelve years old," Klaus said at last. "I don't remember very much about it. I think I tried to tell the adults, but of course they didn't listen to me." A sound of birds singing floated in through the window. Klaus was irritated; he didn't want to hear anything so cheerful now. "I think that they came for me several times over a few months, and then it stopped. And I forgot. I made myself forget."

Many abductees report that their first experiences occurred around puberty.

"But you remembered at some level," Mr. Myers supplied.

"You could say that." Klaus chose his words carefully. "I always knew there was something in me, in my mind or soul, that I did not wish to look at too closely." No need to tell Mr. Myers what he had assumed it was.

By now, I figure every Eroicafan knows Klaus’s little secret without my explaining what it is.

"And did they come for you again during your adolescence?" he prompted gently.

"I do not think so. I think the last time was when I was twelve, but then, two months ago…."

"They came again."

Klaus's Adam's apple bobbed. "Yes."

"How much do you remember?"

"Enough." Klaus inhaled the last of his cigarette and promptly lit another. "Mr. Myers, tell me. How is this possible? Unless we are all deranged, these beings have to live millions of light years away, and they have managed to elude detection by our most advanced technology. They can apparently move right through walls."

Mr. Myers spread his hands helplessly. "They are far more advanced than we are, is all that I can say."

"Then why are they bothering with us? Why come all this way to poke and prod inferior beings? Surely their scientific curiosity must be satisfied by now. With their technology, they must be able to get all they need to know about us from a few hair samples, yet they continue to abduct the same people over and over again. Why?"

"If we could figure that out…."

"Then we might be able to discern a way to fight them," Klaus finished.

Mr. Myers looked faintly startled. "Fight them?"

"Of course. You don't propose that we simply continue to allow them to use us as guinea pigs, do you?"
            Mr. Myers stammered. "I don't see what we can do against beings with their abilities."

"There has to be something. Even if their technology is more advanced. Rome was brought down by barbarians. There is no such thing as an impregnable fortress or an invincible enemy. They have a weakness. They probably have several."

Mr. Myers looked at him for a minute. "I have never heard of anyone escaping. Or of anyone harming one of them."

"Never? Not even a disputed account?"

"No," he replied reluctantly.

This is true. Nowhere in the UFO literature is an escape, rescue or retaliation recorded.

Klaus frowned. Not only was this bad news, it was… odd.

"Mr. Luger – sorry, Mr. von Luger – tomorrow evening we're holding an evening of lectures about this. We hold them every week. They're not open to the general public. If you'd care to attend, you could question some more experts, and, well, find out that you aren't alone. You're not the only one."

"You were – taken?" Klaus asked. The other man nodded. "You don't mention that in your book."

Mr. Myers looked at his desktop. "There was no place for it in that particular work. I was discussing hard data, the sightings that can't be explained, the photos, the consistency in the reports of abductions." He shook his head and looked up, suddenly self-deprecating. "No, that's an excuse. The truth is that I didn't want to tell a world full of strangers about it. I'm sure you can understand that."

"You are the first person I've admitted this to," Klaus confirmed quietly.

Mr. Myers looked sympathetic. "You haven't been able to tell any of your friends? Family? Your wife?"

"I'm unmarried. No, I haven't spoken of it to anyone. They would think I had lost my mind." And he would have been suspended and ordered to see a psychiatrist and probably take drugs of some kind, and he would have become the laughingstock of the intelligence community – "He's stopped sending agents who screw up to Alaska, now he sends them to Neptune!" – and his father would – well, no point in dwelling on that.

He wondered abruptly what Eroica would think if he knew. Maybe he'd have been disillusioned. The iron-clad superspy gone barmy. A rather large chink in the armor. Terribly sorry, old chap, but I can't stop to waste my time on lunatics, you know how it is. Pardon me while I go find another unattainable lust object who won't bring me crashing down to earth with those dreary old shortcomings. Might have been able to live with bossiness and art ignorance, but paranoid delusions are just too unromantic–

"If you want to talk about your experiences, Mr. von Luger, I can give you the names of a few therapists who understand that–"

"Mr. Myers," Klaus interrupted, fighting to keep the irritation from his voice, "I am not here for sympathy. I am here for answers."

"Then be there at seven tomorrow and maybe we can give you some," the American replied, resigned.

Klaus nodded politely and left. This meeting had been mostly a waste of time. But he had no idea what else to do. He would be there the following night.

*           *           *

Scully Crosses the First Threshold.

Mulder greeted Scully in Phoenix with the news that Ted Paulson, the man they were there to investigate, had been detained at a mental health institution. "They'll release him tomorrow unless he acts really buggo," a bored policeman had explained to Mulder. "He hasn't really done anything, he just seems erratic. They'll give him some happy pills and turn him loose in the morning."

The institution was fairly isolated, a short distance outside the city limits. It was built in standard institution style: sheer white walls inside and out, the rooms uniform in size and shape and color, irritating fluorescent lights giving out low-grade illumination throughout. The building itself felt like a straitjacket.

They were shown into a quiet room that contained a table, several chairs, and nothing else except for a mirror on one wall which they all knew was a window from the other side. One of the psychiatrists, a Dr. O'Hara, had insisted upon being present while they questioned Paulson; he sat a little apart from them and observed the conversation with a detached, knowing air that Scully considered the height of pomposity.

Paulson ignored the psychiatrist and instead focused on Mulder and Scully. "FBI," he said. "I knew it."

"What did you know?" Mulder asked promptly.

"You people know! You know that I'm telling the truth!"

"The truth is what we're here to determine, Mr. Paulson," Scully said patiently. Somehow she hadn't thought that either medicine or the FBI would one day put her in a mental institution listening seriously to ravings. And Paulson was raving. His hands were shaking, his eyes flitted about constantly, and his words tumbled over each other. Interrogation 101 could have told anyone that Ted Paulson was not a "reliable witness".

Anyone, that is, except Spooky Mulder. "Why don't you tell us about your experience, Mr. Paulson?" he asked. Scully tried to keep her expression neutral.

"The first time was when I was a kid. Maybe eleven. And they've come for me every few years ever since then. And there's always a lot of times together – they'll abduct me three or four times inside a month, then they won't show up again for a few years."

"What do they do to you while you're there?" Mulder prompted. Scully sneaked a look at the psychiatrist. He looked ever so slightly disdainful.

"They shine a light in my face so I can't see them clearly," Paulson said, starting to shake harder. His eyes lost their focus as he entered into the memory. "I can't move. Not that I'm strapped down or anything – I'm just paralyzed. I think they put something on my chest, though, that weighs me down, and I can hardly breathe. Sometimes I see their hands coming at me, with tools, syringes, things. Sometimes I see their – faces." His voice cracked on the last word.

Scully would admit one thing: he wasn't acting. The man was terrified.

"What do their faces look like, Mr. Paulson?" Mulder asked, leaning forward, attentive.

Paulson shuddered, then gave Mulder a narrow look. "Pale clammy skin, no noses, those big eyes – black, dead eyes." His expression became distant again as he lapsed into silence.

"You're not going to detain Mr. Paulson?" Scully asked the psychiatrist noncommittally.

The answer was a supercilious smile. "Doctor, if we detained everyone who believed that he had seen aliens, half the population of Arizona would be locked up. This is one of the nation's UFO hot spots, you know." Mulder nodded in agreement. "Ted isn't a danger to himself or others. He'll be on medication. And with counseling, he'll come to terms with his–"

Before the psychiatrist could finish, the door was thrown open unceremoniously and a short young woman stormed in. A tag clipped to the breast pocket of her snug navy blue vest identified her as a psychiatrist. "And just what kind of medication are you planning to inflict on my patient?" she demanded.

Enter Scully’s Guide, in the initially dubious form of an unorthodox shrink who practices hypnosis.

"Dr. Katchinowski." The older doctor did not seem pleased to see his colleague. "There is no need to eavesdrop through the one-way mirror. If you wanted to be present, all you had to do–"

"What kind?" she repeated.

"Pimozide, of course," he replied with an air of martyrdom.

"I don't need any fucking medication!" Paulson snarled, standing. The older psychiatrist quietly went to the door, opened it, and beckoned to someone outside while Paulson continued with mounting agitation. "I'm not crazy! It's the truth, and the federal government and the FBI knows it! They came for me, and they're going to come for me again! They–" But at this point two orderlies entered and firmly escorted him, still ranting, outside and down the hall.

The older psychiatrist gave Dr. Katchinowski a sour look. "Excellent work, Hep Cat."

"I suppose if I had come in here and pumped him full of dangerous chemicals, you would have said that without the sarcasm," Dr. Katchinowski retorted. "You know perfectly well that Pimozide causes insomnia, irritability, and in some cases, an increase in psychotic symptoms. And that's just the beginning. I don't suppose that you made any sort of inquiry into his current diet." When the older man only rolled his eyes, she continued fiercely, "That man obviously consumes a criminal amount of caffeine, and I saw at least four symptoms of the effects of food coloring. And I'm sure you're aware," her voice dripped with sarcasm, "that FD and C Yellow Number 5 reacts badly with Pimozide. I don't suppose it occurred to you to remove some chemicals from this man's system."

"We can't just unleash a delusional paranoiac onto the world without stabilizing medication–"

"How much evidence do you need to see before you admit that all that damned snake oil doesn't work? Now, if we use hypnosis to get to the bottom of his trauma, and teach him meditation and yogic breathing techniques to calm himself, and maybe some St. John's Wort to raise his spirits, then–"

She’s based on Ichabod Crane as played by Johnny Depp. Can you tell? You can’t? Oh.

Dr. O'Hara stood up and spoke with an air of finality. "I am not in the mood for your Jedi mind tricks, Hep Cat. We are putting Ted on Pimozide and that is final." With that, he stalked out, leaving Dr. Katchinowski with the two FBI agents.

When I started studying hypnosis and meditation, my roommate at the time teased me by calling it “Jedi mind tricks”.

Scully stood, looking the remaining psychiatrist over. Scully had been on her guard the minute the other woman had mentioned hypnosis; it had been a hypnotist who had convinced Mulder that he had seen aliens abduct his sister. And from her argument with Dr. O'Hara, this woman sounded like a natural-food nut. Though she did look healthy, Scully conceded as she sized her up; a lot of granola freaks looked like they had some sort of wasting disease, but Dr. Katchinowski's figure was trim under the neatly pressed shirt, her pale complexion clear and innocent of makeup, her shoulder-length black curls shiny. Her clothing was downright prim, the shirt buttoned up to her chin, the vest and matching longish business skirt impeccably ironed, giving her a vaguely anachronistic schoolmarm look. Her sole jewelry was a tarnished chain around her neck; the pendant was hidden inside her shirt.

"Dr. Katchinowski? I'm Special Agent Dana Scully." Dr. Katchinowski turned quickly, looked at Scully with wide eyes, and shook her proffered hand mutely. "And this is Special Agent Mulder. Why did you watch through the mirror instead of joining us?"

Dr. Katchinowski's entire demeanour had changed. Her fury had been dropped and she was standing with her arms held tightly to her sides, her head slightly bowed as if in deference to the others, and when she spoke, her voice was quiet and apologetic. "I didn't learn that my patient was being questioned until you had already begun. Naturally I was both interested and concerned, but I didn't want to disrupt your conversation."

Scully raised an eyebrow, and Dr. Katchinowski's eyes widened a little. "Thanks for not disrupting our conversation," Scully said wryly.

The psychiatrist looked as if she'd been slapped. Hardly the confident air one hoped for from one of her profession, Scully reflected.

"I'm sorry – I didn't mean to interfere with your work, it's just that the side effects of that stuff, for a man in his state of mind–" She stopped herself, and suddenly gave each of them a sharp look. "Why is the FBI questioning Ted?"

"We're investigating his disappearance," Mulder spoke up. "You may know that he was missing for three days under very mysterious circumstances. As his psychiatrist, can you shed any light on that for us?"

She ducked her head again. "I'm afraid not," she said, her voice shy again. She gave Scully a sideways look, biting her lip, before asking her, "The FBI doesn't really take this seriously, does it? I mean, UFOs?"

"People temporarily disappear all the time," Scully said swiftly. "I see no reason to conclude that extraterrestrial or supernatural forces are at work. But we do need to find out what was behind his disappearance."

Dr. Katchinowski sighed. "Your being here just fuels his fantasies, you realize," she told them.

"What makes you so certain that they're fantasies, doctor?" Mulder asked.

Please don't embarrass me too much, Scully prayed silently. If her partner would just give up all his outrageous theories, he would be one of the Bureau's stars. It was a criminal waste.

The psychiatrist looked at Mulder in surprise. "Didn't you get it? He says that he spent his absence on board a UFO. The little green men come to visit him all the time, he says."

"And you don't believe him."

She looked exasperated. "I don't say it that way to him, of course. And he doesn't trust me enough yet to tell me what's really bothering him."

"And what is that?" Scully asked.

"He hasn't told me yet," she repeated patiently. "But it's probably some problem with his parents. That's what's usually behind fantasies like this. No one cares if your parents liked your brother best, or if the kids in school picked on you. But say that aliens abducted you, or that your father was the High Priest of Satan and tortured you in Black Masses, and people can't hear enough." Disgust dripped from her voice.

"Thank you for your time, Dr. Katchinowski." Mulder passed her his card. "I just have one more question for you."

Dr. Katchinowski took his card as if she were afraid he would snatch it back when she reached for it. "Yes?" she asked nervously.

"Why did Dr. O'Hara call you Hep Cat?"

Irritation wiped out her shyness for a few seconds. "My first name is Hepzibah."

Mulder nodded. "I sympathize. My first name is Fox."

"Good God," Hepzibah said with feeling, and left.

*           *           *

Klaus was there for the lectures at seven precisely, but of course the sloppy Yanks running it didn't start on time. He chose a seat in the back of the room. At gymnasium and university, he had preferred to sit up front, where he could more easily grill the instructors, but intelligence training had taught him to make sure he could always see as much of the surrounding space as possible. None of the other attendees seemed particularly odd, as Americans went.

Notice the little dig at my own nationality. I like to poke affectionate fun at us via Klaus. Also through him, I poke affectionate fun at the rabid patriotism he and I share.

Examining the people around him was so deeply ingrained by Klaus's training that he did it automatically, even when he didn't expect to need to. Otherwise he might not have given a second look to the couple who entered just a moment before the lectures started. Colleagues, he was certain. The man was tall, with light brown hair, narrow eyes and a nondescript face; the woman petite and redheaded, with an impeccable makeup job. Both were wearing dark suits. Black suits with blazers in Arizona. Klaus mentally snorted; it was a cliché in the intelligence community that FBI agents always looked exactly like FBI agents. He had no doubt that was what they were. Aside from their clothing, the redhead was too coolly self-possessed for a woman as short, young and pretty as she was. And they both had that indefinable air of alertness people in this profession acquired, and that hint of coldness in their expressions that came from having to keep so many secrets.

He took note of them and then turned his gaze away, but remained peripherally aware of them. He had a slender hope that they wouldn't notice him and sense that he was one of their sort, but it was in vain; the redhead's gaze stopped on him and she nudged her companion. The man looked at him, nodded once, and then leaned to speak in the redhead's ear as the first speaker approached the podium.

The lectures weren't very informative to Klaus. One was pure speculation about the aliens' plans to conquer the earth. Another was a report about UFO sightings in the last couple of years, material Klaus's research had already made him familiar with. The final one convincingly debunked crop circles, which Klaus found encouraging; if these people were willing to listen to skeptics, they might not be total cranks.

Don’t get me started on crop circles. The guys who started that whole hoax came forward and confessed years ago and still people believe. Know what? The crop circles in the abysmal movie Signs were made with the exact same method those two original hoaxsters used. Why the **** would aliens come all the way here just to flatten wheat anyway? Aside from that some of the circles are kind of pretty, what use do they have for flattened wheat?!? And while we’re asking questions about the incomprehensible, where the hell was M. Night Shyamalan’s head when he decided to make that clunker?

Once the last lecture was over, Klaus stood and noticed the Fibbies moving in his direction. He stood still, waiting for them to approach; since they had apparently recognized him, it would be best to speak with them rather than rush out.

"It's Iron Klaus, isn't it?" the male Fibbie asked as he drew near. Klaus was resigned; being the best in his field meant being known.

"You have the advantage of me, Herr FBI," he said, telling them that he knew that much, at least.

I know foreigners don’t use their native honorifics when they’re speaking English. Nor do they normally drop phrases from their own languages into otherwise English conversations. But for some reason, we English speakers love to imagine that they do. I try to restrain it, but sometimes I just can’t resist. At least I never have Klaus append a random “Ja?” to the ends of his sentences. I mean, when I was taking Spanish classes, I never did that: “Me gusta jugar al tenis, yes?”

"I'm Special Agent Mulder, this is Special Agent Scully."

Spooky Mulder. Klaus wanted to laugh aloud in despair. He had gone to a foreign continent with a fake identity to investigate this in privacy, and had walked into what amounted to an ambush.

Poor Klaus. Didn’t you know this was a Kadoriennefic? Sadistic plot twists are all part of the territory! Have you forgotten what I did to you that time you had amnesia?

This is a Hero’s Journey point: Guides always show up to help the Hero in his Quest, and often they are, at least at first, in some way repugnant to him.

"Ah." Klaus shook their hands. "Mr. Mulder. I have heard about you." And of all the Fibbies on earth, he was probably the one Klaus least wanted to see. Not that he wanted to see any of them.

Unfortunately, it was occurring to Klaus that, Yank lunatic or not, Spooky Mulder might be exactly the person he needed to speak to.

Used to his own notoriety, Mulder didn't bother to take offense. "Would you mind telling me what interest NATO has in UFOs?"

Yes, I would. "As you people are fond of pointing out," Klaus said curtly, "this is a free country. I have every right to attend lectures on any subject I wish here."

"If you're here on intelligence business, I'm sure that you'll agree that it's in our best interests to cooperate," Agent Scully said coolly. "We could conceivably be pursuing the same information."

Klaus now regretted having set foot on this benighted continent and attended this evening of crank lectures. If the FBI thought that NATO was interested in something on American soil, it could cause no end of petty turf wars as they demanded to know what it was. Inventing an imaginary mission was even more perilous; he could hardly tell them that he was spying on their government, one which was an ally of his own. Not that he had never spied on a friendly government, but he couldn't very well say that.

But the last thing that he wanted was for anyone to know that Iron Klaus believed that he had been abducted by aliens.

"I am on vacation," he informed them. "You may check with the Bonn office if you don't believe me. I happened to hear about these lectures and thought it would be amusing to take home a few stories about Yank eccentricity. You people are all clinically insane."

That’s it, Major, see if you can’t get on their good side.

He saw a hint of tightly controlled annoyance in Scully's eyes, but Mulder's face lit up with sudden excitement. "You're an abductee!" he exclaimed.

"Mulder," Scully said sharply, and this time her feelings showed clearly enough: she was embarrassed.

"Look at him, Scully, he's got all the signs. You're a doctor; what do those dark circles under his eyes say to you?"

Giving Klaus a glance of apology, she tartly suggested, "Jet lag?"

"I've seen that haunted look in enough faces to know what it means!" Mulder declared. He looked Klaus in the eye. "They've been coming for you, haven't they, Major? When you're asleep? How long has it been going on?"

Klaus was too shocked to reply. Unfortunately, this confirmed the FBI madman's insight.

"Please, you've got to tell me what you know about this," Mulder was going on, intent as a hound on the scent. "If they're coming after members of the intelligence community, this could be even bigger than I thought!"

With a sinking sensation, Klaus realized that Mulder was right.

"The first time it happened, I was only twelve years old," he said slowly. "So I don't see how it could have anything to do with my work for NATO."

Mulder's eyes gleamed. Scully stared at him, obviously wondering if he was pulling their legs.

Mulder said, "Unless maybe they pre-programmed you to join NATO so that they could - my God! Maybe that's why they abduct people in their early teens: so that they will control the next generation of power brokers! This gets bigger all the time!"

Believers can always find a way around the facts.

"It sure does," Scully said, sounding far less than impressed.

Klaus drew a breath. "Can you tell me how to stop them?" he asked. "Or what they're after? What they are?"

"All I have is theories," Mulder admitted. "But–" Before he could continue, Mr. Myers appeared.

"Hello, Fox, good to see you again," he said to Mulder. "I see you've met Mr. von Luger."

"Just now," Mulder replied, accepting the alias without a blink. He was that much of a professional, even if he was nuts. He and Mr. Myers talked about the latest UFO news for a couple of minutes while Klaus and Scully eyed each other warily like a couple of strange cats. Then Mulder said, "I'm sorry to have to cut this short, you had some terrific speakers tonight, but I'll email you, okay?"

With that, they headed for the door. "Mr. von Luger," Mulder said, "why don't you join us for a cup of coffee so we can discuss this further?"

"Of course."

Herr Mulder, it seemed, had been to this area in the course of his offbeat research more than once. Klaus followed him and his partner in his rented Benz to an all-night diner not too far away. The place was vile. It was too harshly lit, revealing all too well the hideous turquoise of the plastic seats and the chips on the edges of the greenish formica countertops. The staff consisted chiefly of young punks. Their waiter was a perfect example of everything objectionable about his generation. All of his hair had been shaved off except for a small patch of bushy curls at the center of his forehead and the de rigeur scraggly goatee. Each of his ears had five earrings in them, and his nose had three. Tattoos of cartoon characters adorned his arms. He communicated mostly in grunts, and ambled away with their orders as if he had years to fill them in.

The waiter was based on the clerk at Blockbuster’s I had to deal with the day I wrote this scene.

The diner didn't have Nescafé, but they did have a tolerable brand of instant coffee. They settled down with their cups, Mulder nibbling sunflower seeds. Klaus reluctantly told them his story, hoping fervently that he did not regret it later. He saw no other choice; the "experts" he had come here to consult had not been able to help him. Another agent, who believed in this sort of thing and knew a great deal about it – that could be the solution.

When Klaus was finished, he turned to the woman. "Agent Scully," he said, "what do you think?" She had been visibly restraining herself throughout his story.

"From a practical perspective, to travel millions of light years just to–"

"Then what has been happening to me?" Klaus demanded. "If you could explain it away, I would be eternally grateful." His tone was sarcastic, but in fact he meant precisely what he said.

She pursed her lips, all business. "Have you had your home examined for signs of forced entry?"

"I examined it myself. Nothing."

"Are you sure? Sometimes ventilation systems and–"

"Agent Scully, I live in a thirteenth century stone fortress. Breaching Schloss Eberbach is not merely a matter of sliding a window open."

"I see." She looked pensive. "Without being able to examine the site, I would have to say that this was probably a clever abduction by a rival agency using sleeping gas and–"

"They didn't ask me any questions," Klaus insisted. "Why would enemy spies kidnap me and not ask me any questions? And how could they do it, repeatedly, without leaving any sign or waking the servants or–"

"They probably used a combination of drugs and hypnosis to prevent you from remembering what they asked you," she answered. "I admit it's somewhat difficult to believe, but the only alternatives are that you were visited by beings from another planet… or that you're making all of this up."

Klaus wished he could believe her explanation. Her manner was somewhat cold, her voice analytical. Klaus found that he rather liked her, in his remote way. He seldom liked people at all, and women almost never. 

I figure Klaus would probably like workaholic Lesbians, which most of us are. For the same reason he likes nuns: they’re serious and aren’t going to try to get him into bed.

"Fraulein, I have seen plenty of terrorists and spies. They don't look like that."

"You saw them?" Mulder asked, leaning closer.

"Yes." Klaus's throat closed, and he felt his skin go to gooseflesh.

"And?"
            "You know what they look like," Klaus muttered. He didn't want to discuss that. "You've seen the pictures."

"Are they the tall greys, the dwarf greys, or the Nordics? And what kind of smell do you notice?"

"The dwarf greys. The smell is a horrible stench, like rotten eggs, just like all the accounts I've read."

Mulder was slipping into lecture mode. "Some people report pleasant smells, like flowers, usually roses."

Humph. "And what are Nordics? I haven't heard of those."

"Dwarf greys, tall greys and Nordics are the three most common types of beings seen by abductees. Nordics are the most human-looking ones. Their features are very human, and they're tall and fair-skinned with long blond hair."

"There are human-looking alien abductors with long blond hair who smell like roses?" Klaus asked, staring.

When I learned that detail of some “abductions” during my research, I knew I had to make some use of it. It was just too good to leave out.

Mulder nodded. "Yes, though they're not as common as the greys.... Is something wrong, Major?"

Klaus sat forward abruptly and changed the subject. "Herr Mulder, tell me what you believe is going on."

Mulder made himself more comfortable. Scully had evidently heard this all before; rather than pay attention to her partner, she watched Klaus's reactions to his words.

"When I was eleven, my sister was abducted from our home and never seen again. I now believe that she was taken by aliens. I had blocked out most of my memories about it, but under deep hypnosis a few years ago, I began to recover them. I was already in the Bureau – I was a profiler – and I began to investigate the urban legend that the U.S. government has been covering up what it knows about aliens and their visits here."

Klaus frowned. "No offense to your nation," he said insincerely, "but it is notoriously inept at keeping secrets. I cannot imagine your government successfully concealing something like this."

"Not the elected officials, no," Mulder agreed. "But I believe that there is a shadow government working behind the scenes to conceal alien visitors. I've heard of people bribed and intimidated into keeping quiet about what they know, I've heard–"

"Why? What is the point of keeping this secret?"

Mulder fiddled with a sunflower seed. Klaus reminded himself that the Fibbie wasn't one of his own alphabets; he couldn't yell at him to stop it, even though it was driving him up the wall. "I believe that the U.S. government has been exchanging technology with aliens. People keep trying to explain away UFO sightings by pointing out that they happen near military air bases; the UFOs are experimental aircraft. But I believe that they are experimental aircraft built using alien technology."

And I just told this Yank one of my two darkest secrets, Klaus thought with self-disgust.

Aloud he said dryly, "If the U.S. has such valuable technological contacts, I have to say that I envy you. An exclusive relationship with advanced aliens would indeed be a diplomatic coup that would put any Soviet defection in the shade."

"Do you think it might be possible that the governments of Europe might be running a similar cover-up?" Mulder asked, watching him carefully.

"No, I do not," Klaus said, truthfully. "I have never seen or heard anything to support that idea." Not that I'd tell you if I had. "If you are right, Herr Mulder, your country has the aliens to itself. I suppose I should be grateful the aliens chose a friendly nation and not Soviet Russia or Red China to befriend."

Of course, in those countries people who accuse the government of conspiring with aliens get locked up or simply shot. Some UFO authors insist that the U.S. or U.K. government is trying to assassinate them, but apparently the highest, most covert government echelons, not to mention incredibly advanced aliens, can’t even bump off a couple of crank writers. If my government really was trying to kill these guys, I’d find its incompetence more troubling than its lack of scruples.

Scully smiled briefly. "Wouldn't that have made more sense, Mulder? Think of it – China. A huge population for them to abduct and experiment on, and a totalitarian regime that keeps everyone too frightened to ask questions. It would have been much more practical for the aliens to ally themselves with them than us."

"Maybe they chose us because of the melting pot," Mulder said, undiscouraged. "China is an ethnically homogenous nation. We are the most ethnically diverse nation on earth, we have a representative sampling from almost every group in the world. This country is a treasure trove of genetic material for them to experiment with."

"What?" Klaus said.

Mulder was really getting into it now. "I think that's what they're doing. Experimenting with genetic engineering to create a human-alien hybrid. In the course of my investigations, I've encountered former Nazi scientists." He broke off and looked at Klaus, as if afraid the mention of Nazis would offend him, but Klaus kept his expression neutral, and Mulder plunged on. "After World War II, our government made a deal with the devil; they gave Nazi scientists amnesty in exchange for their knowledge, for what they had learned by experimenting on Jews and other undesirables in the camps. I believe that they have been continuing their work here, in secret, in cooperation with aliens."

Klaus sighed deeply, gazing into his coffee cup. "You are saying," he said after a bleak moment, "that you are living in Nazi Germany." At Mulder's quizzical look, he pressed on, "That your government is committing unspeakable acts in the name of science and concealing it from its citizens. That was the situation in Nazi Germany. Only a handful of people actually knew what was going on, but the rumors kept traveling until towards the end no one could doubt–"

"Yes, you could put it that way."

Klaus grimaced. "If a totalitarian dictatorship could not keep such activities well concealed for one decade, how could a pushover government such as yours do so for half a century?"

Pardon me for belaboring the point, but for some reason, people who live in free countries love to pretend that they’re not. I just get tired of hearing it. Go spend a year or so in China or Iran, now that the USSR’s fallen apart, and then come back and see if you can’t scope out the difference. Hint: if you go around publicly whining about how evil the government is and don’t get shot or arrested, you are living in a free country. Write this on the blackboard 200 times.

"I'm not sure whether to be gratified or insulted by that," Scully remarked, lifting a well-shaped eyebrow.

"Herr Mulder," Klaus said evenly, "I have heard more theories than you can imagine about evil Nazi geniuses still at large and up to no good in Hong Kong or Brazil or Wisconsin, somewhere. None of them have stood up to examination. I have spent years of my life chasing down neo-Nazi terrorists who wish to revive that madness. They could not organize a Girl Scout bake sale. All they can do is kill random civilians. Hitler's movement is as dead as he is."

"That's his cue to tell us that Hitler's brain is being kept alive in a jar in the basement of the Pentagon," Scully said.

"Don't be ridiculous, Scully. Hitler's brain is at MIT."

Klaus looked at Scully. "Is he joking?"

"I can never tell anymore."

"Listen to me! Our government is conspiring with Nazi scientists and aliens to perform experiments in genetic engineering on human subjects! They've been doing it since World War II! I have reason to believe they've been monitoring thousands of Americans born in the last fifty years!"

What reason? Probably that it sounds exciting.

"For what purpose, Mulder?" Scully asked in exasperation.

"To create the perfect soldier!"

"Let me get this straight, Herr Mulder," Klaus said. "You believe that a significant number of young Americans are the products of multi-generational experiments in creating the superman?"

"Yes!"

Klaus looked pointedly at their waiter, who was lounging against the counter.

"It isn't working," Klaus said.

Scully suppressed a laugh with visible effort. "Mulder, maybe that's what's wrong with our society! Maybe that's why we have the lowest literacy rate in the industrialized world and soaring crime rates! It's because the genetic engineering experiments failed and we've created an inferior human being!"

"Or maybe it's just too much television," Klaus muttered.

Mulder elbowed his partner suddenly, oblivious to her annoyance. "And this proves what I was telling you the other day, Scully."

"What?" Klaus demanded.

Scully wearily explained, "I pointed out to him that the vast majority of abductees are on the fringes of society. They're not very successful professionally or personally, and don't feel they truly have a place in society. Aside from the obvious psychological benefits of being able to claim that aliens are interested in them even if their own species isn't, it would seem that if aliens were abducting humans, they would choose prominent people with valuable information and influence–"

"And I told you that they abduct the prominent people too, but those people don't come forward!" Mulder exclaimed. "They have too much to lose if they talk about what's happened to them. And you see? Is a NATO intelligence officer from an aristocratic family prominent enough for you? And he crossed the ocean under an assumed name before telling anybody about it!"

"That much is true," Scully conceded. "But Mulder. Have you ever heard of Occam's Razor? It's the principle that a hypothesis should never be developed beyond necessity. We don't need extraterrestrials to explain any of this."

It was clear the Fibbies were now in the well-worn grooves of an oft-repeated debate. Klaus pulled a few of those dreary green American bills out of his pocket and dropped them on the table. "Thank you for your time. I would consider it a matter of professional courtesy if you would both do me the favor of not repeating anything I have told you. Good evening." He rose, pulled on his coat, and walked out. He had little optimism that Spooky Mulder would keep his mouth shut. Word would get out. His reputation would be ruined.

Thus far, his mission was an unqualified disaster.

*           *           *

It had taken a lot of fluttering of lashes and proffering of cash aimed at a dozen different men, but twenty-four hours later Dorian had discovered where the Major was. Klaus was being careful to cover his tracks, even from NATO, it seemed. Josef von Luger indeed. And Arizona – what on earth was Klaus doing there, of all places? If it really wasn't a mission…. As Dorian chose his wardrobe for the trip, because of course he was going to Arizona as soon as he could get a flight, he entertained all sorts of unlikely speculations. Maybe Klaus was meeting a girlfriend there. Or a boyfriend. Or maybe this was a secreter mission than usual.

Unlikeliest of all, maybe Klaus really was taking a vacation.

But to Arizona? No, Klaus's patriotism was sincere to the bottom of his soul. His idea of fun, if he had one, would be set in Germany. If he wanted to enjoy himself, he certainly wouldn't go to America to do it. 

Dorian's curiosity was piqued. He had to know what Klaus was up to.

He checked into the best suite Klaus's hotel had to offer. Once installed, all he had to do was watch the lobby until Klaus marched through it on his way to the parking lot. Then he broke in.

His paranoid darling was being even more secretive than usual. Nothing in the room gave any sign of what he was here for. The only reading matter was Klaus’s usual cars-and-guns fare, and of course a stack of that morning’s newspapers. No phone numbers, no notes, no special equipment.

But of course, there was the wastebasket. And Klaus hadn't thought to be careful what he left in it.

The only thing of interest was a crumpled note with the hotel's letterhead. Not in Klaus's forcible, angular letters, but in a neatly curving script, doubtless from one of the young ladies at the front desk. A phone message.

"Mr. Von Luger: Call Mr. Mulder." And a local phone number.

Dorian dialed the number and got the front desk of another hotel. He smiled and requested the hotel's address, then drove to it.

His luck was holding. One of the clerks at Mr. Mulder's hotel was family. It only took a little hinting that Mr. Mulder needed to see Dorian, ah, privately, for the young man to discreetly reveal the room number.

No one was inside, so Dorian was able to poke around at his leisure.  What he found was very interesting.

The FBI. Well, well.

And judging from Mr. Mulder's books and barely-legible notes, it was the Nutcase Task Force.

His partner was evidently female, unless the FBI issued licenses to G's sort, and very dull. Her possessions included several dark suits, a couple of sets of workout clothes, some high-quality cosmetics, a laptop, a sheaf of casefiles, and the latest publications on law enforcement and medicine. In short, exactly what an FBI agent should be packing on an assignment. Appropriate almost to a fault. Just like Klaus, come to think of it. Either she believed she had to compensate a great deal for being female in this profession, or else she had something to hide.

Klaus and the FBI. This was a party Dorian had no intention of missing. But first, he was going to have to find out what all these intelligence types were up to.

*           *           *

Mulder and Scully reached the Luke Air Force Base at nine in the morning. Mulder had made the appointment with Colonel MacColl before he had flown out.

Paulson, Mulder had explained the previous night while Scully was trying to read the file, had served in the Air Force to get money for college, stationed in Arizona. During that time, he had been under the command of Captain MacColl, now a colonel. MacColl had officially reprimanded Paulson for minor infractions on several occasions. Mulder had done a little digging and discovered that MacColl had a record of being extremely hostile to UFO researchers.

"He had a couple of guys I know arrested for taking pictures near Area 51 four years ago," Mulder had informed her.

"Mulder, I grew up on military bases. Taking photographs without permission of restricted areas on military property is illegal. You know that. Of course MacColl had your friends arrested."

Mulder, naturally, had been disappointed at her sensible remarks, but had gone on to cite numerous articles that quoted MacColl's remarks about UFOs and Area 51. "Yeah, we've got ET in the vault next to the kamikaze dolphins!" he had shouted at some demonstrators with picket signs demanding that the government reveal its alien coverup. On another occasion, as he had some zealous UFO researchers firmly escorted out of his office, he had screamed after them, "Will you god-damned cretins get a god-damned life? We don't have any god-damned aliens here!"

Kamikaze dolphins are another ludicrous urban legend. There has never been even one kamikaze dolphin. In his book Man and Dolphin, John C. Lilly explains how this myth started: the Navy tried training dolphins to retrieve lost equipment on the ocean floor. In the process, they discovered that dolphins can distinguish between different types of metal. When a Navy official mentioned this bit of trivia at a press conference, a reporter asked what use could be made of this ability, and he shrugged and said, “Use your imagination.”

They certainly did. Some hack spun a highly creative yarn based on the idea that dolphins would be trained to suicide bomb any boat that didn’t have a plate made out of some type of metal on the bottom of it. It should be pretty obvious that the margin of risk here would be outrageous; what if it was a large boat and the dolphin missed the plate and blew up the good guys? How could the Navy ensure that every boat belonging to private citizens, every yacht and cruiser, had the plate? And every boat belonging to every friendly nation, so we didn’t end up accidentally blowing up, say, British submarines? And how long did they think it would take the Soviets to figure it out and put the plates on their own boats? Plus, how could dolphins be trained to do something this complicated in the first place? And finally, an automated missile would be more efficient and far less prone to error than a dolphin. The whole idea was silly and a total fabrication, but it was cooked up three or four decades ago and is still showing up in MAD Magazine and Keanu Reeves movies.

"Sounds pretty suspicious, don't you think, Scully?"

"What sounds suspicious, Mulder?"

"An awfully heated denial, isn't it? Methinks he doth protest too much. Why else would he be so vehement?"

"Maybe because he's telling the truth? Because he's sick of having to deal with ludicrous allegations? Would you just consider that for one minute, Mulder?"

Mulder had started lecturing her about opening her mind. After listening to his oft-repeated exhortations for a few minutes, she had suggested tartly that he had a closed mind that could not accept that perhaps there weren't any aliens at Area 51, and he had gotten mad and kept quiet for most of the rest of that day.

But they still had their appointment with MacColl, and they arrived for it a few minutes early. They were shown into his office almost immediately by an African-American sergeant who remained by the door, stony-faced.

Colonel MacColl looked to be in his fifties, a tall, broad-shouldered man with bright red hair only slightly salted with grey. His expression was grim. When the agents entered, he was conferring with another officer; as they stepped inside, he quickly shoved a computer disk into his top drawer and banged it shut with what seemed unnecessary force, and adjusted the angle of his computer monitor a little to make sure they couldn't see it. His desk was piled with papers, and the phone was ringing.

One of the earlier versions of the Roswell myth included an irate Air Force captain with red hair. Later versions promoted him to colonel and gave him a black sergeant as an aide. His threats also escalated from mere warnings not to talk about the aliens and crashed flying saucer to arrest threats to death threats. The red hair may relate to the common belief that redheaded people are hot-tempered, or it may have something to do with the fact that there was a redhaired officer at that air base – about ten years after the Roswell Incident didn’t happen. Also, the U.S. armed forces were integrated only a couple of years before the Roswell Incident didn’t happen, so it’s a little unlikely, though not impossible, that an African-American sergeant would have been assigned the job of assisting a colonel that soon. For a complete analysis of the Roswell myth and the numerous versions it’s gone through since its instigation, I highly recommend UFO Crash at Roswell: The Genesis of a Modern Myth by Saler, Ziegler & Moore. Also most episodes of the History Channel’s series “The UFO Files”.

Also, someone needs to write redheaded colonel/black sergeant slash.

"Sit down," he said gruffly, picking up the phone. "MacColl here," he said into it. He listened for a minute, rattled off a few orders impatiently, and hung up. Then he looked at his visitors. "What does the FBI want?"

"We're investigating Ted Paulson," Mulder spoke up. "Our data shows that he was under your command."

"That was years ago," MacColl stated. "What kind of trouble's he gotten into?"

"What makes you think he's in trouble?" Scully asked quickly.

"If he wasn't, why would you be asking about him? Besides, he was always getting into trouble. Stupid little things, mostly. Neurotic. Hardly Air Force material." The Colonel's voice was sharp with scorn. The other officer waited quietly.

"What kind of trouble?" Mulder prompted.

MacColl looked at one of the stacks of papers in front of him in a way that suggested that they were really much more important than pestering Fibbies, and answered with a show of great patience. "Minor insubordination. Drunkenness on duty. Habitual breaches of military etiquette. Uniform out of order. Trespassed on unauthorized areas on several occasions. Nickel-and-dime troublemaker."

"Unauthorized areas?" Mulder asked, instantly on Full Red Alert. "What was he doing?"

"Just walking in and wandering around, as I recall," MacColl said indifferently.

"What kind of unauthorized areas, sir?"

"Officers' clubs, high security areas, anyplace he wasn't supposed to be. Women's barracks, too - back then the rules governing fraternization were much stricter." From the Colonel's tone, he had approved of this.

"Why do you think he was trespassing on the high security areas, Colonel?" Mulder asked.

MacColl looked impatient. That is, more impatient than he had already looked. "Same reason kids sneak looks at their dads' copy of Playboy or try their moms' cigarettes. Because they're not supposed to. But by the time you're old enough to enlist, you really should have outgrown that kind of stupidity." He leaned back in his chair. "Now, are you going to tell me what Paulson's gotten into? Hasn't he grown up yet?"

Scully opened her mouth to reply, but Mulder cut in, "Last week, Paulson disappeared under strange circumstances for three days. When he returned, he informed authorities that he spent the time on board a UFO. He-"

Mulder got no further. MacColl shot to his feet, instantly livid. "Don't tell me that FBI agents have started believing this kind of crap!"

Scully drew a breath. "Sir, we are trying to determine-"

"Get out of here!" MacColl shouted. "And don't come back here with any more of this flying saucer bullshit! Unlike you damned Fibbies, I have actual important work to do, I don't have time to indulge anyone's god-damned fantasies about aliens! There is no such thing as aliens and I'm god-damned sick of listening to this crap! What's your name, anyway? I'm reporting you to your fucking Bureau - if they're actually employing morons who buy this crock no wonder the country's going to hell! We might as well have let the Soviets take over the planet if we were just going to-"

That was the last they heard as they were herded out the door by the sergeant, who then closed the door to the Colonel's office very firmly.

*happy sigh* I love Colonel MacColl. Can you tell?

Scully sighed. "Nice going, Mulder."

"He's hiding something. I'm sure of it."

Scully closed her eyes. "He's not hiding anything. He just shared everything he knows about UFOs with us."

"Scully, excuse me, but you can be incredibly naïve."

"I need some coffee," she said wearily. Or a sane partner. Or a week at the beach.

Or….

"Mulder, I'm going to go talk to Dr. Katchinowski again. Now that she's been working with Paulson for a couple of days, she might have something more to tell us."

"I'll go with you."

"I don't think that's a good idea. You saw how shy she was. She might be more ready to open up to another woman, you know?"

*cough*

He frowned. "If you really think so. I'm going to call the Major. I want to tell him more about what I know."

Sure, Mulder. As it stands, he might not yet be completely convinced that you're straightjacket material. But Scully just nodded agreement and got into the car.

Dana Scully, Stealth Lesbian, she thought wryly. She studied her partner’s face and saw no speculation about her there, only his usual absorption in his work and his wild theories.

At times she worried that working with a slightly deranged genius was going to ruin her career, but it had its points. One of those being that he was so intent on finding some shred of evidence for his theories that he remained oblivious to her personal life. Surely any other man would have wondered, or made a move on her by now. But he was more interested in aliens than in going bump in the night with her, and so her secret remained safe.

Secret. She had thought she was home free, once she’d finished her internship. Maybe it didn’t matter so much, these days, but she wasn’t about to take the chance. She’d thought she could open a practice and finally have a nice, discreet relationship, one that would last for years. Maybe a lifetime.

Then had come the amazing opportunity, never expected. The Federal Bureau of Investigation. What could be more distinguished? Would she ever have any other opportunity for accomplishment that equaled this?

Her personal life could wait. And if she wasn’t entirely satisfied living alone and devoting herself to her work, at least it offered her plenty of chances to travel, to meet women who lived in other states and couldn’t possibly expect a commitment from her.

Women like Hepzibah Katchinowski. Who, unless Scully was very much mistaken, wouldn’t mind meeting her outside of office hours.

Mulder/Scully ‘shippers baffle me. It’s perfectly obvious from canon that Scully is a Lesbian, and even if she weren’t, she deserves better than a man who’s suffering from paranoid delusions and is at the mercy of his own emotions in a way no one whose age is a two-digit number should be. I was amazed that Chris Carter ended the series with that utterly unconvincing attempt to put those two together. It was almost as silly as the aliens.

*           *           *

The second time Dorian dialed Mulder’s room, he got an answer. Once he had Mulder on the phone, Dorian introduced himself, affecting one of his stuffier accents. Americans loved British accents. "I'm here doing research for my book, and one of the UFO chaps gave me your name, said you were the only one who could give me the real story," Dorian started – it never hurt to begin with a good dose of flattery – and plunged on with a lot of fake references until he was sure his quarry's head must be spinning.

A lot of nonsense and a couple of minutes later, he had secured an invitation to discuss occult rubbish. Mulder had agreed to meet Dorian before he knew what hit him. Within half an hour, he was sliding into a booth, one of those circular booths designed to accommodate large parties, in a loathesome coffeeshop. It was actually sort of fun to be in such a dive; it was like being in an old film noir about a private eye. Mulder helped the illusion along with his impeccable suit and serious expression. And Dorian was all ready to play the role of mysterious, alluring blond.

He had done what he could to pass himself off as a serious scholar. It wasn’t easy, as even in the drabbest suit he looked like a butterfly. Even if he did something to hide his hair, he was just too pretty. Still, he tied it back and wore a suit that even Klaus couldn’t have objected to, complete with a nice dull tie. And he listened to Mulder’s spiel about UFOs and government coverups with a serious, studious expression, without laughing even once.

“That’s all very interesting, Mr. Mulder,” he said when Mulder was finished, “but your explanation is a bit… mundane for my tastes.”

“Oh?”

Never taking his eyes away from Mulder’s, Dorian launched into a theory a friend of his in London was wont to discourse on if not firmly discouraged. “My own contention is that some geographical areas are in some way conducive to paranormal events. If you chart sightings of UFOs, ghosts, yetis and lake monsters, you’ll find that they tend to happen in the same areas. Unless the plesiosaurs are in touch with the aliens, the most plausible explanation is that these are not distinct phenomena, but are connected to the place. How, I don’t know yet. I’ve been thinking it may have to do with irregularities in the earth’s electromagnetic field reacting with the electrical reactions in the human brain.”

Sightings of paranormal things of different kinds do tend to gather in the same areas, and the theory Dorian’s referring to may be the reason.

Mulder pounced on this theory and started lecturing, almost to himself, about possible support for it taken from ancient legend and contemporary occult theory. And they let this sort run around loose over here, Dorian thought bemusedly.

After a few minutes he didn’t really listen to what Mulder was saying, only kept an unwavering gaze fixed on Mulder’s face. And, bit by imperceptible bit, moving closer to him in the confines of the booth.

“On the other hand,” Mulder said, changing course as he apparently realized that he was destroying his own theory, “this geographical idea of yours wouldn’t explain the photographs I have of unidentified spacecraft, among other things.”

UFO documentaries broadcast, appropriately, on the Sci-Fi Channel prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that fuzzy lights can be captured on film.

Dorian let a moment pass before speaking, studying the other man with a gaze that was just barely this side of decent. In the pause, Mulder’s eyes suddenly widened, and he flushed very faintly. Dorian suppressed the urge to smile. Straight men were so cute when they realized that allure like Dorian’s transcended orientation.

“Surely most of those photos are secret military aircraft, Mr. Mulder,” Dorian countered, lowering his voice, allowing just a hint of sensuality to creep into it. Just a hint.

Mulder’s eyes flickered nervously up and down Dorian’s form, apprehension warring with curiosity. “You sound like my partner,” he said, a little dazed.

Just the opening he had been waiting for. “Your partner? That tall chap I saw you with, who had the long dark hair?” Dorian murmured, not breaking their gaze.

“Hm? Oh, no. My partner’s a woman, actually.” Mulder was so intent on his reaction to Dorian that it didn’t even occur to him to ask when he’d seen him with Klaus. Just as Dorian had planned.

“Really. I thought he didn’t look like an American.”

“He’s not,” Mulder answered absently. “He’s German.”

“He also didn’t really strike me as the sort to believe in aliens,” Dorian prompted gently, leaning just a hint closer.

Judging from the glazed look in Mulder’s eyes, Dorian wouldn’t have to be alone this night if he didn’t want to be. “Hard not to believe in them when they’re coming for you in the middle of the night.”

Dorian’s eyes widened in simple disbelief before he could control himself. “You’re joking!” he blurted.

Which entirely broke the spell he’d been weaving for the last hour. Oh, well. At least now he wouldn’t have to shake off an unwanted conquest.

“I’m not joking. He’s here to talk to UFO experts about his abduction experiences.”

“You don’t think he’s having you on?”

“No. I’ve encountered my share of people claiming to have seen and experienced things they didn’t, but he has all the earmarks of the genuine article. Including the secrecy; fakers always want to tell everyone all about their experiences, but the ones who really have them are usually very secretive. He didn’t even admit to me that he was an abductee until I figured it out.”

No longer bothering to flirt, Dorian looked at the tabletop, lost in thought. “I see,” he said at last.

“So, Mr. Red, have you studied ley lines to see if they fit into your theory?”

“What? Oh, yes, of course.” Dorian looked at his watch. “I must dash, but let’s discuss this more later, shall we? I have your number.”

With that, Dorian beat a hasty retreat. Once alone, Dorian laughed aloud. Klaus, abducted by aliens? What alien would dare?

He had to get to the bottom of what Klaus was doing here.

*           *           *

Hepzibah had decided to be a psychiatrist when she was sixteen. That was when her mother had to be institutionalized, the effects of nearly two decades of abuse of prescription drugs having at last taken such a heavy toll that she could no longer function even in the minimal way she had all along. Throughout Hepzibah’s childhood, her mother had managed, in between the binges on various medications, to impersonate a functioning adult enough that no one cared to take action. Hepzibah’s father and teachers managed to overlook her bruises, her nightmares, and her habit of flinching when people touched her. Her life had been utter chaos until her mother was unable to maintain the façade at all and had to be, as her aunts tactfully said, “put away”. And watching the sobbing, shaking woman huddling in the corner of the institutional cot, a woman who bore little resemblance to the tyrant of her childhood, Hepzibah had tried, very hard, to forgive.

And she thought she had made progress, until her second year of college, when she had abruptly and for no apparent reason descended into black depression, relieved only by occasional anxiety attacks. The university doctors offered her antidepressants, but the memory of her mother’s uncontrolled behavior had given Hepzibah an aversion to medications of any kind; she even abstained from aspirin despite her frequent headaches.

But her state of mind had become steadily worse, until she was on the verge of giving in, because it seemed that her choice was between mind-altering drugs and a lifetime of being unable to so much as do her own grocery shopping.

That was when the miracle had happened. Her lifelong habit of compulsive reading meant that at just that time, a book about meditation had fallen into her hands. After using its techniques to soothe her panic attacks, she had become intrigued. Exploration of self-hypnosis, yoga, and carefully chosen herbal remedies had followed. Her interest as much as the techniques themselves had pulled her out of the depression, and the focus of her career was set. She was on a crusade against the hazardous medications and the archaic, barbaric techniques – electro-shock therapy, for God’s sake! – that had destroyed her mother by inches over the course of Hepzibah’s life.

Since writing this, I’ve learned that electro-shock therapy is not always bad. However, it has been heinously misused in many cases. I didn’t alter Hepzibah’s across-the-boards condemnation of it because characters who are right about everything are annoying. I’m also more skeptical about herbal remedies than she is, though some are highly effective, if you can find a reliable brand.

She had grand visions of reforming mental health institutions all over the world, though as of yet she hadn’t even convinced her own immediate colleagues. She reminded herself of Dorothea Dix and Florence Nightingale and persevered. In the meantime, in her private practice she had solved the problems of literally hundreds of people by giving them the techniques they needed to control their own state of mind.

As for her own… she was still working on it.

*           *           *

"Under hypnosis," Hepzibah explained, leaning forward in her seat, "the human brain makes alpha waves. That's the same kind of waves the brain makes for any kind of creative activity, whether it's dreaming, fantasizing, or composing a symphony."

They were sitting on the sofa in Hepzibah's spartanly neat apartment, with a few relevant books open on the coffee table and a couple of cups of herbal tea slowly turning lukewarm.

Hepzibah's head was still spinning. When Agent Scully had called her, she had made it clear enough that this was a professional call. But discussion of what might lead to the alien delusion had blossomed into a far-reaching conversation about psychiatry in general, and the FBI agent showed every indication of being fascinated by Hepzibah's unorthodox approach. The discussion had begun at Hepzibah's office at the Institute, but they had become so absorbed that it had become necessary to repair to Hepzibah's home for access to her library, which filled every wall in her apartment to bursting.

Hepzibah was not given to optimism, but having a glamourous redhead hanging onto one's every word was apt to addle the judgment. And at this moment, Hepzibah was quite content to let it get addled.

"So memories recovered under hypnosis aren't reliable."

Hepzibah managed not to snort. "I should say not. People under hypnosis go where they want to go. They want to remember aliens, they remember aliens. They want to quit smoking, they quit smoking. That is all there is to it. And there is no solid evidence that there even is such a thing as repressed memories, anyway. I have seen too many lives destroyed by false memory syndrome to put much stock in it."

"But you favor the use of hypnosis?"

"It is a tool. Like any tool, it can be misused." Hepzibah remembered her tea, took a small sip, and set it down, her whole body tense with the joy of her favorite subject. "It's better than dangerous mood-altering drugs."

"So, the people who have recovered memories of being abducted by aliens under hypnosis? They wanted to remember this?"

"Or their therapists wanted them to. There are therapists who specialize in alien abductions, and their clients know this going in. They know what they're there for. It's a good racket, fueling the fantasies of disturbed people."

"Must be," Scully agreed. "But I got the impression Paulson was a little more than a neurotic who needed something interesting to whine about. He seems pretty serious about the aliens."

Hepzibah frowned, forgetting the other woman for a moment as she considered. "There is something more there. I'm consulting two neurologists tomorrow to see if they can shed any light on it."

Which they can. Notice that I’m setting up a plot point here.

She gave Scully an inquiring look. “But… your partner believes in all this? They tolerate that at the FBI?”

“My partner’s theories may be a little… out there,” Scully replied firmly, “but he is a great agent.”

She said this in canon. Notice the phrase “out there”, which is used with three different meanings in this fic.

“I’m sure he is,” Hepzibah agreed hastily.

Scully smiled, studying her. Then changed posture and tone abruptly, dropping the professional crispness in a breath. "So, doctor, what do you do for fun around here? Mulder is harassing some poor German, and I need a native guide. Know anyone qualified?"

Hepzibah stared at the other woman, frozen in place. She had been firmly squashing hope ever since Scully had called her, and now it was crystal clear that there had been no need to do so.

Don't blow this one, Hepzibah, she told herself, but all she could seem to manage was a fair imitation of a deer caught in headlights.

Scully's smile widened. Aww, isn't she cute, she was visibly thinking. Hepzibah felt hot, despite her rigorously air-conditioned apartment. Maybe she should undo her top button.

Her top button. Yep, she and Klaus would get along….

"Um," she said, remembering that the other woman had asked her a question. "Not really. I have no social life."

Scully gave her a challenging chin down, 'Oh, yeah?' look up thorough her eyelashes that made Hepzibah's pulse race. "Really? A woman of your talents?"

"Well. Um." Hepzibah's vocal cords felt paralyzed. All of her finely honed relaxation techniques had temporarily vacated her mind.

I really love characters who are professionally and intellectually confident but personally less so, like Ichabod and Emma J. Russell and, in a different way, Klaus. I find it quite charming.

"I can hardly believe it," Scully went on, clearly enjoying Hepzibah's flustered expression. "Mulder could be right. There may be something in the water in this town that makes people around here blind or crazy."

"Well, I spend most of my evenings at school – I tried acupuncture a couple of years ago and was intrigued at how effective it was, so I'm working towards certification as a Doctor of Chinese Medicine, and...." Hepzibah realized she was babbling and shut up.

"You're so health conscious. Do you ever have a drink?" Scully asked.

"A moderate amount of wine is very beneficial," Hepzibah retorted. When Scully didn't answer, just kept smiling, Hepzibah belatedly noticed the opening and started stammering. "I have a couple of bottles. I don't know anything about wine, I let the store guy pick them for me, but if you like...."

"Would you like me to open one for you?"

"Please do, Agent Scully," Hepzibah managed, relieved. She wasn't good at opening wine bottles at the best of times, corks having a lifelong grudge against her.

"Why don't you call me Dana," the other woman said breezily, rising. They both went into the kitchen. Hepzibah opened a cabinet and held up two bottles. Scully glanced at them and selected one. "And you... do you have a nickname?"

Hepzibah opened a drawer and proffered a corkscrew, then took two goblets from another cabinet. "People who want to annoy me call me 'Hep Cat'."

I gave her the last name “Katchinowski” just so she could have this nickname. Since she was based on Ichabod, I wanted to give her a quirky, preferably Old Testament, name, and thanks to Walt Kelly, I’ve always loved the name Hepzibah.

Scully took the bottle, briskly grasped it between her thighs, had the cork out in about half a second, and grasped both goblets in one hand and filled them with a smooth efficiency that had Hepzibah gaping.

Scully really did this in one episode, the one where the shapeshifter guy disguised as Mulder put the moves on Scully. Mulder crashed through the door right before they smooched and didn’t even think to follow up on it. “Yes! Agent Scully wants me and I shall do nothing about it, nothing!” Come on, even Mulder’s not that crazy. Oh, but back to the wine, I almost passed out from her sheer Scullyness.

"And people who don't want to annoy you? What do they call you?"

The other woman met Scully's challenging blue eyes and regained a measure of composure. "Hepzibah."

"Hepzibah," Scully repeated, offering one of the goblets. "Quite a mouthful."

"It's from the Old Testament," Hepzibah stammered. Unable to endure the silence, she went on to fill it. "It means 'She is my delight'."

An Israeli emailed me to tell me that a better translation would be, “My desire is in her.” Woo-hoo!

Scully just looked at her for a long minute. "I like it," she said at last, setting down her goblet and the bottle. Then she stepped closer and cupped Hepzibah's face in her hands, making the brunette's knees buckle. "Hepzibah," Scully said softly, right before kissing her.

Hepzibah let herself melt against the other woman. Now, if only she didn't faint before they made it out of the kitchen, everything would be fine.

As it turned out, undoing her top button did help, after all.

*           *           *

Returning from the hotel's gym, Klaus opened the door to his room and stopped halfway through it. "God damn it," he said.

Anyone who hasn’t already figured out what Klaus is cussing about, go to the bottom of the class. Enter the Hero’s Ally.

"Lovely to see you too, darling."

With resignation, Klaus stepped the rest of the way inside. "I don't suppose you'd get out of this country if I asked you nicely."

"If you asked me nicely, Major, I'd have to summon gentlemen with straitjackets. But then, that might be in order anyway.” Dorian was seated comfortably in the only real chair in the room, wearing an unusually tame suit that only made his tumbling curls and pretty face the more striking.

With a couple of choice German curses, Klaus closed the door behind him and took a few wary steps into the room. “How did you find out I was here?” he demanded, stern.

“I can’t divulge my sources.”

“I’ll send all twenty-six sources to Alaska,” he growled.

“Oh, don’t blame your poor alphabets. They’re more discreet than your new friends at the FBI. Though I’m dying to hear what business you have with the Americans.”

“There are things I am not at liberty to disclose.”

“Of course. So, Major, how can I help you? What are you trying to get out of that screwball Fibbie?"

It was Klaus's habit on any mission to prepare several lies for various contingencies. Now he told one of them. "We believe the Americans borrowed some of Germany's top-secret technology for their experimental fighter jets. My mission is to find out if this is true."

"Spying on our own allies?"

"Don't pretend to be naïve," Klaus snapped. "Don't you have secrets from your friends?"

"Like that aliens have been kidnapping me?"

Klaus was not quick enough to conceal the flash of stricken panic in his eyes. The lack of sleep and the pressure really were getting to him.

Dorian now looked very serious. Klaus could detect no mockery or playfulness in the Englishman's sculpted face. "Then it's true? You really believe that…."

Defeated, Klaus sank down on the sofa and put his head in his hands. "It's hard not to believe when it's happening."

After watching him for a moment, Dorian went to the minibar and poured a couple of drinks. He came to sit next to Klaus, keeping a reassuring distance between them, and handed him one. Klaus took it and stared at it, but did not drink.

"Major, talk to me," Eroica said. "Who else can you trust with this? You haven't told NATO, have you?"

"No."

"Just a couple of Yanks who are nutty even by colonial standards. Talk to me. Tell me what's going on."

Klaus did. His reputation was already as good as ruined, and he trusted Eroica more than a couple of Americans he barely knew anyway. He had rarely indulged that trust, and certainly had tried not to let the thief know it existed, but perhaps now was the proper time. When he was finished, he saw that Dorian was watching him nervously. "You think I'm crazy."

"I always have," Dorian said, with a little of his usual flippancy.

"Do you believe me?" Klaus found himself asking quietly.

Dorian studied him before speaking carefully. “Major, if anyone else in the world had said this to me, I wouldn’t have believed a word of it. Since it’s you… and you obviously believe that what you’re saying is true….” He hesitated. “I don’t know what to think,” he said at last. “Have… have you seen a doctor?”

“Of course. No nice tidy solutions there. Believe me, if I could believe there was something physically wrong with me, causing me to hallucinate, I would be happy to accept such a solution. Almost anything would be better than believing that what is happening to me, is happening.”

Dorian looked at him steadily for a minute. "I don't think that you're lying," he said at last. "Will that do?"

"You do think I'm crazy."

"What do you care what I think about you?" Dorian said absently, then became lost in thought. He seemed to mull something over before looking back to the Major. There was sincere concern in his eyes, and Klaus did not know whether to be chagrined or gratified. "Major. What can I do?"

Dorian has already concluded that this is his fault. Yes, Dorian sweetie, the world revolves around you.

Klaus sighed. "I have no idea. That's why I'm here – I hoped that one of these people could give me some clue…."

"You're not used to not knowing what to do," Dorian said gently.

Klaus should have been angry. He wasn't. He was grasping at straws by now. Dorian was a straw.

"When did this start?"

"About two months ago."

"And when was the last time… this happened?"

"Last night. Going to another continent didn't help me at all."

Dorian thought about that for a few minutes. "Did those Fibbies tell you about Colonel MacColl?"

"I've never heard of him."

Dorian tsk'ed. "They've been holding out on you. And you an officer of an allied nation. Mulder thinks this MacColl bloke is part of the UFO coverup conspiracy."

"How do you know?"

"Before I met him, I broke into his hotel room and poked through his things," Dorian answered casually. Klaus looked sour, but did not bother to complain. "Why don't you call your trusty alphabets and get them to dig up whatever NATO has on Colonel MacColl?"

Klaus frowned and lit a cigarette. "I didn’t want them to know where I am."

"There’s one who won't tattle on you."

The Major snorted. "How can you be so sure?"

"Promise not to send him to Alaska?" At Klaus's glare, Dorian insisted, "It'll be very useful for you, cross my heart."

"I promise," Klaus agreed, resigned. He could always do something else to whichever of his subordinates it was.

"G accidentally let me know something was up with you. It wasn't his fault, truly; it was entirely due to my sex appeal. And now he's petrified of what you're going to do to him. He'll do anything you ask, trust me. He wouldn't dare tell anyone where you were."

"Verdammt. Very well. I'll call him from a pay phone; no need to let him know where I'm staying."

"Major. You need some recreation. Why don't you go hiking with me? There's mountain trails only an hour outside the city, and everywhere looks like a postcard. I'll be a perfect gentleman, you needn't worry on that score."

"Idiot," Klaus said automatically. "Tell me where you're staying. I'll contact you if you can be of use."

*           *           *

Scully and Mulder were both asleep when the phone woke them at 11:21 that night. Mulder answered the phone first. What he heard instantly galvanized him into full wakefulness.

X-Files fen know that the time 11:21 cropped up all the time on that show. For those few who still don’t know, November 21^st – 11/21 – is Mrs. Chris Carter’s birthday.

So, cue Scully’s Test, preparing her for the later Ordeal.

He put the phone down and charged into the sitting room. “Scully! Get dressed!”

"UFO sighting?" Scully asked bleakly, sticking her head out the door.

"Nope. Two aliens have been shot," he retorted, a little smugness sneaking into his excitement.

"What?"

"Paulson. He called the police and told them he's shot two aliens! Get dressed!"

In less than half an hour they were dressed and parking in front of Paulson's house. Hepzibah Katchinowski, bandbox-neat as ever in a grey suit, arrived on the scene only a minute after Scully and Mulder did. She gave them a wary look but did not greet them as they all made their way over to the officer in charge.

"Special Agent Mulder, FBI," Mulder said, flashing his credentials. Scully held up hers as her partner went on, "And this is my partner, Special Agent–"

"I'm Dr. Katchinowski. I'm Mr. Paulson's psychiatrist," Hepzibah cut in. Her voice was high, even a little shrill, and her entire body was tense, as if she expected to be attacked for interrupting. But out of her scowl, her eyes were anguished. "What's happened?"

“It’s all right, I’m here now.”

"His psychiatrist, huh?" The policeman seemed distinctly unimpressed. Hepzibah, on the other hand, planted her feet on the spot as if she had more right to be there than anyone else. He took her name and number in a contemptuously leisurely fashion before explaining.

"911 got a call from your patient about an hour ago. He says that he's shot and killed two space aliens who came here to kidnap him. He's still in bed, he's too scared to move from the spot, and he's still got his gun, so the officers can't get in there. Think you can talk him out of there, doctor?" The cop's tone was skeptical.

"Just give me some time," she ordered, as if she had the authority to do so. "If I'm calming him down and winning his trust and then a bunch of cops come in waving guns at a crucial moment, we could lose all the ground I've won with him."

“You must never move the body!”

She started for the house, but the cop put a hand on her arm. "Now, just a minute, doctor. We're going to do what we find necessary to resolve this situation safely. If that means going in there 'waving guns', we're going to go in there waving guns. And we can't just let you walk in there. The man is armed."

Mulder saw the opening and took it. Stepping closer to the policeman, he spoke in a confidential tone. "Agent Scully and I will accompany the doctor and protect her from harm." He gave the policeman a man-to-man look that assured him that he would keep the lady doctor out of trouble.

"You carrying?" the officer asked.

 "Yes, sir." Before more arguments could be raised, Mulder strode past him toward the house, drawing his gun. Hepzibah followed irritably, hurrying to keep up with his long legs. Scully, more practiced at taking long strides to compensate for her stature, brought up the rear. One thing she had to admit, her crazy partner could be pretty clever at handling difficult locals. Of course, this time they had ended up babysitting a fruit-loop shrink, but at least they were getting inside.

"If there are dead aliens inside, shouldn't we wait for the Men In Black to come and collect them and frighten us all into silence?" Hepzibah asked sarcastically as they reached the front door.

"She has a point, Mulder," Scully said. "Shouldn't operatives of that shadow government of yours be here sealing off the area and stealing the evidence?"

"That's exactly why we have to hurry," he said. Hepzibah made a little dash and managed to reach the stairs before the others did. She planted herself on them and blocked the way, folding her arms.

"Let me handle this," she ordered. "I am his psychiatrist, and I know what motivates him and what he needs."

"We have no desire to shoot your patient, Dr. Katchinowski," Scully assured her firmly. "I'm a doctor as well, you know. And Agent Mulder considers Paulson a valuable witness."

Hepzibah gave Mulder a withering look before turning to progress up the stairs.

Two uniformed policemen were standing outside Paulson's bedroom door. After looking at the FBI badges, they surrendered their place to the three newcomers. Hepzibah claimed a spot right in front of the open bedroom door. There was a very short hallway from the door into the room proper, preventing them from seeing Paulson or the expected aliens.

Hepzibah closed her eyes, took three slow, deliberate breaths, and visibly willed her muscles to relax. The annoyance and worry cleared from her face almost completely, leaving only concentration on the moment at hand. When she spoke, her voice was far lower and more pleasantly pitched.

"Ted?" Hepzibah began calmly. "It's Dr. Katchinowski. Are you all right?"

"I got them!" Paulson's voice was shaky. He was clearly even more agitated than he had been in the institution.

"Have you been hurt, Ted?" Hepzibah asked again, still speaking calmly.

"No. Not this time. I got them before they got me."

Hepzibah's words were evenly paced, slow, tranquil. "Are they still in there?"

"Yes. But I don't know when more of them might come for the bodies."

Hepzibah closed her eyes and drew another long breath. "Do you remember the FBI agents, Ted? Agents Scully and Mulder?"

The panic in Paulson's voice increased. "Are they here to get me?"

"We're here to protect you, Mr. Paulson," Scully said quickly. Somehow she didn't think right now would be the best time for Mulder to explain to Paulson that he believed him. "May we come in?"

Silence answered. After several moments, Hepzibah spoke again. "Ted? I'm going to come in there and talk to you. Is that all right?"

"You can't do that!" Mulder whispered. "He's got a gun!"

Hepzibah shrugged. "He's my patient."

"Dr. Katchinowski," Scully protested in a low voice, "Paulson is highly unstable and could unexpectedly–"

"Agent Scully," Hepzibah said with unexpected authority in her voice, "you may be a doctor, but I am the psychiatrist here. I know what I'm doing."

Scully lifted an eyebrow. Before any of them could speak again, Paulson's voice was lifted again. "All right, Dr. Katchinowski. You can come in. Only you. No one else, do you understand me?"

"I'll get him to let you two in after a minute," Hepzibah assured them in a low voice. Mulder tried to detain her with a hand on her arm, but she neatly evaded his grasp and walked in. They heard her soft footfalls stop for a moment, then proceed. Then a soft creak; apparently she was sitting on the edge of Paulson's mattress.

"Why didn't you help me stop her?" Mulder demanded of Scully, still keeping his voice low.

"Like she said. She's the psychiatrist," Scully replied. But the truth was, she had been impressed by Hepzibah's nerve. And any port in a storm….

Hepzibah was speaking quietly to Paulson, asking if he was all right, instructing him to take slow, deep breaths. Scully realized that Hepzibah's slow, rhythmic speech was calculated to lull her patient into a light hypnotic trance. Hepzibah was right; she did know what she was doing. Her patience seemed endless.

When Paulson's voice sounded calmer – actually a lot calmer, much calmer than someone who had just shot two extraterrestrials could be expected to sound – Hepzibah asked him what had happened. Scully and Mulder strained their ears to hear the account: this time, when the beings came for him, he hadn't been paralyzed, he had been able to reach for his gun. He had shot them and then called the police, but now he was afraid that other aliens would come to avenge their fallen comrades.

When his account was finished, Hepzibah asked if the FBI agents could come in. It took her a few minutes, but she got him to agree to put his gun on the bedside table. "We need to recruit her," Mulder muttered.

"Wonder how she'd do with a gunman who didn't already know her," Scully murmured back. Still, she was pleasantly surprised. The fruit-loop shrink had done it. Perhaps Hep Cat had more hidden depths than she’d thought.

"Agent Scully? Agent Mulder?" Hepzibah's voice came from the bedroom. "You can come in now."

Scully entered first, on the theory that a short, attractive woman would be less alarming to Paulson than a tall man. The only light was from the small lamp on the bedside table. A swift glance around verified that Paulson's gun was on the table, but it was still within his easy reach. They would do something about that promptly. Paulson was huddled in bed, still under the covers, sitting with his back against the headboard, clutching the sheets around himself. He had the fatigued look of someone coming down from extreme excitement. Hepzibah was sitting beside him, not close enough to touch, but with her gaze trained on him attentively. Like a good shrink, she was giving him her undivided attention.

Which had to be difficult, given that there were indeed two dead aliens lying on the floor in pools of bright red blood.

Behind her, Mulder gasped. "Get his gun," Scully muttered. Her partner obeyed woodenly. Once he had it, she stooped between the aliens.

Now that she was this close, even in the dim light she could see what had happened. She sighed and felt each chest for a pulse. As she had expected, there was none.

Reluctantly, she reached for the first alien's head and pulled his rubber mask off.

Mulder cursed softly in disappointment. Hepzibah glanced away from Paulson just long enough to nod grimly.

Paulson's eyes widened. Scully pulled the second "alien's" mask off, hoping that she hadn't undone all Hepzibah's good work.

"I know them!" Paulson gasped, his voice strangled. "That's Mike and Vinnie, from work!"

Hepzibah looked pained. "Yes. Listen to me. It will be all right. Continue to breathe slowly, into your abdomen…."

Paulson was staring at his dead coworkers, horrified. "I didn't mean to –  I never would have – oh, my God–"

Hepzibah continued her soothing speech. Paulson visibly wavered between continuing to panic and falling back under her calming influence.

"What can we do, Dr. Katchinowski?" Scully asked quietly.

Hepzibah gave her an approving look, and in the same lulling cadences, she said, "Help me take Ted to the psychiatric hospital. They have facilities for, er, custody. The police would want to arrest him, but he doesn't belong there, Ted isn't a criminal. He needs a safe environment for the night where I can look after him."

"We'll take care of it," Scully said.

It wasn't too difficult for them to claim the right to take Paulson into FBI custody. Scully suspected that if the policeman had known they were taking him to a hospital instead of a federal prison, things would have been different. As it was, Hepzibah was able to coax Paulson to come with them quietly. The reality of what he had done was sinking in and he was showing signs of depression now, slumping his shoulders and weeping quietly. Hepzibah looked gloomily determined, and never stopped talking quietly to her patient.

Their combined credentials got Paulson into a private room in the criminal wing of the institution with a minimum of interference. Scully and Mulder left Hepzibah there with him; she stated that she intended to stay with him until he was ready to go to sleep.

"She's dedicated," Scully remarked as they got into the car.

"How early do you think you can get up?" Mulder asked.

Scully looked at the glowing numbers of the car's clock. It was nearly four in the morning.

"Eleven," she groaned. The adrenalin and caffeine were wearing off, and she could feel it.

"I'll knock on your door at 11:30 for our lunch date, then."

"Lunch date?"

"Don't you think Iron Klaus will be interested to hear about this?"

*           *           *

Iron Klaus was. When he had heard the entire story, they sat without speaking at the coffeeshop booth for a few minutes.

"That was a vicious prank," Klaus said at last. "Those bastards got what they deserved."

"I'm going to question General MacColl again this afternoon," Mulder announced. "The truth is out there."

There’s that phrase again.

"I have to wonder if investigating Paulson will lead you to it after what's happened," Klaus said, thoughtful. “Tell me. Do you think this Paulson man genuinely believes that he is being abducted by aliens?”

“Absolutely,” Mulder said at once.

Scully considered before saying, “His behavior last night clearly demonstrated that he does believe in it, yes.”

Klaus stubbed out his cigarette and lit a new one, his motions unhurried and deliberate. A plan was at last beginning to fall into place for him. “We need a new approach. We need to find out what is happening, once and for all.”

“And we will do this how?” Scully lifted an eyebrow.

“By lying in wait for them. Watching to see exactly what they are. Possibly apprehending them, if we can.”

“I’ve been trying to do just that for years,” Mulder protested. “What do we have that will enable us to succeed where so many others have failed?”
            Klaus’s face was grim. “Bait.”

Comprehension began to dawn on the others’ faces. Mulder's eyes widened. "You mean…."

"They've come for me several times in the last two months. I have no reason to think that they intend to stop anytime soon. They will come for me again. They have abducted me once since I came to America already. So, if we were to lay an ambush – if someone could keep watch as I slept, stand guard until they came for me–"

“Then we can catch the aliens in the act!” Mulder finished, his eyes ablaze with enthusiasm. Noticing his partner’s wry glance, he urged, “Aren’t you with us, Scully? This is the opportunity of a lifetime! Think what proving that aliens exist would do for your career!”

“I’d rather not,” she said, wincing.

“Are you going to stand watch with me, though? It would be better—“

She looked harassed. "Of course I'll participate, if only to disprove the alien theory. Let me suggest that you and I sleep in the daytime so that we can keep watch over the Major at night. Perhaps if we use our suite, sit in the outer room with the bedroom door open so that we can hear if anything goes on–"

"Agent Scully," Klaus cut in, "I know you don't believe us, but I have to warn you just the same. I don't know what you two will be able to do against these beings armed only with a couple of pistols. I could be placing you both in grave danger."

"We're federal agents," she said crisply. "We accept the risks."

"I'd feel better if we could get more people," Klaus frowned, "but there's scant chance of that."

"Careful," Scully warned. "I've learned that if I make remarks like that, my partner makes a phone call and next thing I know, half the peanut brittle in town has put itself in sacks and shown up."

I stole that phrase from Ray Bradbury.

"Scully, just because my associates' theories fall outside your narrow preconceived–"

"I have another idea," she cut in smoothly, ignoring her partner. "Let's set up a video camera so that if anything happens, or doesn't happen, we'll have evidence."

Some abductees have tried to sleep with video cameras filming them. According to the books that mentioned this, the aliens compel them, via t