Thanks for all your help, guys. I wouldn't be here without you.

Rapture 1 - I left my head in San Fransisco

Early Spring, somewhere in the Mediterranean

It was evening. Usually the light from the slit windows of the simple chapel barely lifted the warm gloom, but today the red stone of the walls glowed softly with the light of a hundred
candles.
Giles de Rais knelt before the altar in silence. It had become his habit to hold vigil here, especially before an undertaking as great as that which faced him now. The weight of his armour was uncomfortable, but he had always borne it before. On the altar before him his sword lay sheathed and waiting.
Giles breathed deeply. He loved this place, where he could be alone with his God. His soul dwelt here, on the altar with his sword. He loved the timeless scent of the candles, of the polish
used on the wooden benches, of the cool stone. Distantly he heard the soft sounds of the Mediterranean evening outside: the cries of the gulls, the hooves of the horses restless in their
stables in the courtyard below. Above him slow bells rang the seventh hour and Giles raised his dark, lined face up in silent prayer.

'Bless this Thy servant, Lord. Strengthen his sword arm in Thy service. Let his shield hold against Thy foes. Let him prevail against the infidel and the corrupters of Thy truth. Let all Thy foes be scattered and destroyed. By Thy grace, grant us victory in the Holy Land. By Thy grace, grant us the holy city of Jerusalem...'
The chapel door behind him creaked open softly and Giles sighed.
He had indulged himself long enough, if the worship of the Lord could be called an indulgence.
Rising stiffly from his knees, he turned to the door and to the darkly robed knight who waited there for him in the shadows.

'What is it, Richard?'

'Forgive me for disturbing your prayer, Grand Master.'

Giles waved the apology aside. 'Speak your message. What news?'

'We've secured the satellite link with Geneva, my lord. The electronic fund transfer is scheduled to take place this evening, as soon as we have confirmation.'

Giles nodded as he left the chapel with the other. They walked through an ancient vaulted hallway, side by side.

'And the rest of the arrangements for the exchange?'

'All in place, my lord. Do you think it is wise to put our trust in the Russians?'

'It is the Lord that we place our trust in. Have faith, Richard. These will be glorious days indeed.'

'Yes, lord.'

'Has that call about our other concern come through from America yet?'

'Not yet, my lord. Not since Anne's report of a possible source of information two days ago. She'll call as soon as they have anything more.'

'It's taking longer to find him than I anticipated,' Giles mused.

The other knight nodded. 'He's hidden for a long time, lord. But there have been rumours
that he's back in the game now. We'll find him.'

'Oh, we'll find him. The time has come for him to be found.'

***

Giles was eating alone in his chambers when a light tap on the door again disturbed his thoughts.
'What is it, Richard?' he asked, as the younger knight entered and bowed.

'Grand Master, there's news from New York.'

'Does Anne have his name?'

'No, my lord. But we have a date and a place.'

'That being?'

'Maine, in the United States of America. 1979. A community of godless degenerates. It is a possibility, nothing more. But a strong possibility, nonetheless.'

Giles nodded. His face remained emotionless. 'Only seventeen years ago. Then he may still be using the same identity. God has smiled on our endeavours, Richard.'

'Anne says that she'll continue the investigations. There'll be police records. She'll find others who were there.'

'Godless degenerates, you say?'

Richard nodded. 'Yes, lord.'

'Then instruct Anne to be thorough in her search for the truth. When there is more news, find me. We'll decide how to handle the matter then.'

Richard paused, then said, too eagerly, 'Do you want me to go to America, lord? To aid Anne?'

Giles smiled, but the smile did not reach his eyes. 'I will consider it, Richard. I know you grow weary of guarding my old bones.'

'No... never that, lord,' Richard whispered, with the sudden fear of one who realises that he has unwittingly crossed a dangerous line.

Giles turned to look out of his window, over the sea below.

'Hard for a warrior when his duty forces him to stay behind, while others go out into the world to battle.'

'To serve you, and G..God, is all I ask, Grand Master,' Richard whispered. His face was pale.

'But God should come first. Never forget that.'

'No, Grand Master. N..never. Never.'

'Sometimes you let your enthusiasms run away with you, Richard,' Giles continued mildly. 'It would be unfortunate if Methos were to be slain before his appointed time. Unfortunate for both of us.' No need to remind Richard of the other times his enthusiasms had run away with him or of the unfortunate consequences then.

'I would be careful, Grand Master,' Richard protested in a whisper.

Giles sighed. 'I know that you would try, child. More than any of the others, you are like a son to me.'

'I would rather d..die than disappoint you, lord.'

'Then be patient,' Giles said, sternly but gently. 'This is a delicate time. Many of our plans are coming to fruition only now, after centuries of waiting. I will ask Anne if she has a use for you. We shall see.'

Richard bowed low, recovering a little of his composure.

'I'll do as you wish, Grand Master. Whatever you command. Anything.'

'Just be patient, Richard,' Giles chided again, but with a trace of satisfaction beneath his words. Well trained, this one. 'The last battle will be soon enough. The other three all have their
tasks, but you will be the one to lead my horsemen.'

He turned away from the window, to face his companion again. 'Now, the other matter. How goes the exchange?'

'Julian and Georgia will send w..word this evening,' Richard said eagerly, glad to be on safer ground again. 'When they do we will make the first half of the payment. They'll return to Tbilisi by helicopter and take a commerical flight back to Constantinople tonight. The Russian will be there and they will complete the exchange then.'

'Good. Good. All to plan.' Giles de Rais allowed himself to smile grimly. Eight centuries of waiting, of hiding, over at last. 'Then the last, great days are finally upon us.'

* * *
The Same Evening - Somewhere near the Turkish/Iraqi border.

The village was of a kind that had hardly changed in a thousand or two thousand years. It had no name, or at least no name that mattered. The mountains it was nestled in were grim and bleak.
The air was very cold and a thickening mist rose from a wild and icy stream that tumbled down through the rocks. The village itself was little more than a cluster of low, dark tents, animal
pens and mud brick huts, most roofed with weathered planking or corrugated iron. The iron, and a few empty fertiliser bags piled under a stone, were almost the only signs that this was the
twentieth century, and not the tenth. No smoke rose above the village, although it had snowed lightly the night before and the cold was bitter.

The distant chattering of a helicopter echoed through the valley, but there was no-one left to hear it except the sheep huddled in the pens, milling restlessly and bleating in sleepy panic. But
as the helicopter descended, the downdraft from its rotor blades blew the light covering of snow from still shapes that lay silent on the hard ground.

Georgia de Milly clung tightly to the rail at the side of the helicopter and made ready to alight. The helicopter did not land, but stayed hovering just a foot or so above the ground. A good pilot, Georgia thought, with the winds in these mountains.

The Russian Army Major beside her was shouting: '...biohazard suits just... precaution... virus has a short lifespan... death of the host...'

She nodded to show that she understood, and she did, they had gone through this many times before. She was in no danger, of course, but she had put the awkward suit on for the sake of
appearances. The Russian jumped out and held his hand to her, and she stepped lightly down. Julian followed clumsily. It had been hard for them to find a biohazard suit that had fitted him.
In the end they had taken the suit belonging to the Russian's big, silent bodyguard and left him behind. The helicopter was army, but the bodyguard was not. The Mafia, or whatever they
called themselves here, were running this show. Absently she wondered how just much they had paid the Major for this betrayal.

They hurried, bent down, until they were far enough away from the noise and the draft of the helicopter. The Major turned then and waved the helicopter away.

'He can't land here,' he explained. His voice was distorted by the suit. 'Too dangerous.'

'When will he return?' Georgia asked. Now the noise of the helicopter had faded, it was the rustle of the suit that filled her ears.

'I'll radio him when you've seen enough.'

Georgia nodded, and knelt down at the side of one of the snow covered mounds. She felt rather than heard her strong, silent Julian moving to stand behind her. Gently, she brushed the snow
away with her gloved hand. A woman. No, a girl, really. Her hair tied back under a black scarf, her dark eyes open, staring at nothing. There was no pain on her face, just a look of faint
surprise.

'She was feeding her chickens when she died,' Georgia said. She raised the woman's cold, tight hand and pried the fingers open. A trickle of grain fell out of the cold palm onto the snow.

'The virus acts very quickly,' the Major said. 'Once it enters the system, death can be expected in around eight hours. It breeds first in the upper respiratory tract and the nasal passages. It begins by producing the same symptoms as a mild cold or an allergy. Coughing and sneezing. This is the time when the risk of passing on the infection is greatest. Then the virus undergoes a mutation and enters the bloodstream. As it reproduces it releases a toxin that builds unnoticed until it
reaches a critical level. The only symptom is a little tiredness, right up until the moment when the heart muscle is paralysed by the toxin. Death is instantaneous at that point.'

'And the infection is airborne?'

'Yes. The virus can survive for up to twelve hours outside the human body without finding a new host.'

Georgia nodded absently and closed the woman's sightless eyes, as well as she was able to with the thick gloves.

'Why did your people create such a thing?' she asked curiously. 'Surely this is too dangerous to be used as a weapon?'

The Major shrugged. 'It was created by accident and kept for research purposes. The stocks should have been destroyed but with the troubles it was overlooked.'

Georgia nodded. 'Do you care what we are going to use the virus for if we buy it?' she asked.

The man's face grew guarded, as far as she could see behind the mask. 'But you want it for research too, of course,' he said, too quickly, too nervously. 'You know it would be suicide, to
release this into the populace?'

'Oh yes,' Georgia said. 'No-one would escape.' She looked away, up into the hills. 'Eight hours incubation time and no visible symptoms. Here it doesn't matter. There is nothing within twenty miles in any direction and the passes were sealed so the virus couldn't be spread to other villages. The wind is up into the mountains, away from the other settlements.'

'Your people planned it very well,' Georgia said, with a pleased little smile.

The Major shook his head. Desperation underlaid his voice. 'No. You don't understand. Here it doesn't matter. But if it were to be released in a place like Moscow, or New York, or Tokyo...'

Georgia nodded. 'We've carried out our own projections. There would be no place, anywhere in the world, that would be safe. If a drop was released in Times Square it would spread to the taxi
drivers, to the commuters, to the businessmen, to the airports, to other cities, to other countries. And nobody would know, until people started dying around them. No immunity, no cure, no
time to contain it. It would be the end of the world.'

'The end of the world,' the Major agreed, soberly. Relieved that she understood.

'Will these deaths be noticed?'

'They will blame Iraq,' the Major said with a shrug. 'But with the passes down it will be weeks before this place is even found.'

Georgia nodded absently. 'We've seen enough,' she said. 'We're ready to go now.'

'I'll radio for the helicopter.'

******

Two months later, San Francisco, USA

The apartment was on a street high above San Francisco Bay. The area had seen better days, but there was a friendly feeling about it. The painted boards of the houses were pleasantly weathered,
and most of the tiny front gardens seemed well cared for. This was a street where children were not afraid to play outside, at least during the day; where cats warily eyed each other from
their places in the sun. Far below, the bay glittered under the warm spring sun. You could imagine living there, buying your Sunday morning newspaper in the store on the corner. A quiet
neighbourhood, but today there were police cars parked up on the pavement, radios crackling, doors slamming. As Mulder and Scully pulled up, an ambulance drew to a halt behind them. A little way back down the street, a small group of locals had gathered, silent, shocked and disbelieving. Scully knew the look on their faces; this couldn't happen here.
*Yeah, right,* Scully thought to herself. Wherever a murder happened, it was always someone's neighbourhood.

The apartment was like the street: not quite what it had been, but still someone's home. Every windowsill in the cramped front room was lined with potted plants. A battered sofa faced the
window, covered with a badly tie-dyed throw, lumpy cushions, crumbs and cat hairs. A few empty Chinese takeout cartons stood on the low table in front of the sofa. The little table was
piled high with papers and as she walked past, Scully noticed a leaflet about a 'Save The Dolphin' protest walk, a flyer asking for money for a pet sanctuary, a brochure advertising cheap singles holidays, a pair of garish plastic earrings. The walls were painted orange, making the rooms seem smaller. They were hung with posters, batik art and lopsided macramé.

Scully ducked to one side to avoid the police photographer who was immortalising the sofa on film. She had had an aunt who had lived alone in an apartment much like this one. For Scully's aunt, the days of love, peace and flower power had never ended. She would have found a kindred spirit in the woman who had lived in this apartment. Here was another place that was filled with the sense of cats and kindness, of childlessness and of a life spent sadly clinging to the past. It
touched Scully strangely and filled her with a rising sadness as she walked through to the bedroom with her partner. Angrily she pushed the feeling back. This was work. She couldn't let it get to her. In the background the police radios barked and hissed. Mulder flicked his authorisation at the man on the door to the bedroom.

'Agents Mulder and Scully. FBI.'

The man stepped aside. He was local police, Scully thought, and he looked pale. That was a bad sign. Police in a city as big as this usually acted as if they'd seen it all. Often they had.

'Where's the body, officer?' Mulder asked as he pulled on a pair of latex gloves.

'Bedroom and bathroom, Agent Mulder.'

'The bedroom and the bathroom?' Scully asked. 'Are there two bodies?'

'Just the one, ma'am. See for yourself.'

The bedroom had the old familiar stink of the murder scene; blood and worse. Scully felt the acid rise in her stomach. The body was a woman's body, an obese, middle-aged woman. An obese middle aged woman without a head. Scully swallowed and pulled her tape recorder out of her bag as Mulder slowly opened the bathroom door. The head lay in the sink, facing them. The eyes were tightly closed, the expression almost peaceful. The doors of the cabinet above the sink were flung open, revealing shelves crammed with department store samples and old make-up.

'Who found her?' Scully asked the man on the door.

'Neighbours hadn't seen her for a couple of days, so someone came to the window to see if she was ok, ma'am.'

'Are there any suspects?'

'Not yet, ma'am. We're still trying to find out whether she had any family or close friends. It doesn't seem like it.'

Scully nodded. 'Let me know if they find anything.'

She turned back to Mulder, who was still standing looking at the head. He raised his gloved hands slowly to the doors of the bathroom cabinet, then swung them shut. The doors were mirrored: Mulder's own pale face was reflected back at the two agents. And
over it the words, written in blood:
'COME AND SEE.'

'She was beheaded with a single stroke,' Scully said. They were sitting in the rental car, drinking coffee outside a corner store on the way to the airport. It was dark and starting to rain.
'Whoever killed Naomi Redburg must have used an incredible amount of strength.'

Mulder nodded.

She continued: 'The weapon was probably a sword of some sort. It would have to have been razor sharp and probably fairly heavy. Any ideas on what 'come and see' meant?'
Mulder nodded absently again, and Scully looked at him in irritation. 'You're not listening. What is it with you today, Mulder?'

Mulder put his coffee down and shook his head, as if to wake himself. 'I'm sorry, Scully. It was just... she was someone I knew from a long time ago. It must be seventeen or eighteen years now.'

He caught Scully's look of disbelief. 'Mulder, why didn't you tell me?'

'I didn't know myself until I saw the head. She called herself something different.'

'Mulder, I'm sorry...' Scully began.

Mulder shook his head. 'I hardly knew her. It was just a shock.'

'Did you tell the detectives?'

'There's not much too tell. I only knew her for two or three weeks.'

'Old girlfriend?' Scully asked. She couldn't keep a note of incredulity out of her voice.

Mulder shook his head. 'She didn't have any boyfriends. She didn't have any enemies. She was just... nice. Harmless. I didn't even notice her that much. She was just around.'

'Around where?'

Mulder shifted evasively. 'Just around, Scully.'

He caught Scully's glance. 'Eighteen years ago would have been around the time you went to
Oxford, right?' Scully asked.

'You're not going to drop this, are you Scully?'

'No, Mulder.'

'Look, Scully, just drop it, OK?'

Scully sighed. 'C'mon, Mulder. How bad could it have been? If it's anything that could have the slightest bearing on the case you really need to tell me about it.'

'You really aren't going to drop this, are you.'

'No. And we've got another two hours to wait before we check in at the airport. You may as well just get it over with now.'

Mulder sighed. 'Ok, Scully. But you're buying the next coffee.'

'Sure,' Scully shrugged. She would have been willing to go up to a three course meal with wine thrown in to hear this one.

'I spent part of the summer of '79 in an alternative community in the woods in Maine.'
*Woo! Jackpot!* Scully thought to herself.

She said: 'I'm sorry, Mulder? You did what?'

'I spent part of the summer...'

'I heard the first time. You mean, some kind of new age place?'

'Pretty much. Tents in the woods, vegetarian food...'

'Pot? Free love?'

'Well, that's what I hoped.'

'And?'

'No such luck. It was a nightmare, Scully. They called it Rivendell.'

'Rivendell? Tell me you're joking.'

'I'm afraid not.'

'But you stayed there? Why didn't you just get the first bus back home?'

'At first I didn't want it to seem as though I was... you know, wimping out. Then I made friends with one of the other guys there. After a couple of weeks we got sick of it and took off
for Vermont together.'

'And Naomi was there?'

Mulder nodded. 'She was one of the older people there. One of
the sixties people.'

'And she called herself by another name?'

'Sunflower.'

'I don't understand why you went there in the first place.'

'I have a second cousin. Herbert Jenks. He was taking off with his girlfriend to this place. She was a wannabe new-age hippy - you know, aromatherapy, save the dolphins, harmonic
convergence... She'd heard of this place and she talked Herb into taking her. I was feeling kind of rebellious. I was heading for England in the autumn and my father was going on at me to get a summer job and earn some money. So I tagged along with Herb and Saffron instead. I knew it was a mistake after we'd gotten three miles down the road.'

'Tell me more, Mulder.'

'Saffron sang bad folk songs all the way up. She had a thin, whiny voice that set my teeth on edge. I think even Herb got sick of it. He was only hanging on because he thought she'd
sleep with him when they got there.'

'Did she?'

'Uh-uh. She went for this guy called Jacques who could play the guitar. As far as I know Herb spent the summer sulking and getting stoned.'

'And eating lentils.' Scully commented.

'Maybe lentils taste better when you're high on grass,' Mulder mused. 'It's hard to imagine them tasting any worse.'

'So the summer was a disaster.'

Mulder shook his head and smiled distantly. 'Best summer I've ever spent.'

'I don't understand.'

'Like I said, I made friends with one of the other guys there. He was great. He must have been four or five years older than me, but he knew so much stuff. I mean languages, literature,
philosophy... everything. He was smart and funny and laid back... All my life I'd been trying to please other people and here was this guy who just did his own thing and didn't care what
anyone else thought. That was kind of a revelation. And he really liked me. I mean, this was someone I connected with, straight away.'

Scully nodded. 'Sounds like you got pretty close.'

'Yeah. We stuck around camp for a couple of weeks then I had a bad argument with Herb and we decided to head off to Vermont together to look for flying saucers.'

'Find any?' Scully asked, with a little smile.

'No, but it didn't matter that much at the time. We camped in the woods, went fishing together... We stayed in the woods for days at a time. We climbed mountains and spent the night up
there watching the sky and just talking. It was incredible, Scully. Then every few days we'd come out of the wilds and find some diner where they sold burgers. I can still remember how
good those burgers tasted...'

'Sounds idyllic.'

'It was the first time I can remember since I was twelve years old that I was unconditionally happy. I didn't ever want that summer to end.'

Scully glanced at his face, and saw it glowing with the memory. She sighed, a little enviously.
'That's a sweet story, Mulder. What was your friend's name?'

'Adam. Adam Pierson.' His face clouded a little. 'We lost touch at the end of the summer. I haven't seen him since.'

* * *

'Mac, did you ever hear of an immortal called Naomi Redburg?' Joe Dawson asked, looking up from his week-old USA Today.

'No. I don't know the name, at least,' Duncan called from the kitchen area of the barge. 'Why d'you ask?'

'There's an article here about a mysterious beheading in San Francisco. Just a couple of lines. "A single woman living in a San Francisco apartment was found beheaded in her bedroom last
week." Whoever it was left the head in the bathroom sink.'

'It's irresponsible leaving a mess like that,' Duncan growled.

'And you didn't have any record of her?'

'None. If she'd lived in the middle of nowhere I'd understand it, but an untraced immortal in San Francisco... Means someone in the west coast area is really screwing up.'

'When did it happen?'

'This paper's a few days old. Last weekend, I guess.'

'Anything on the immortal that took her head?'

'Nothing there, either.'

'Then it may not have been an immortal,' Duncan pointed out. He sat back down beside Joe, setting down two cups of coffee.

'A common or garden serial killer, you think?'

'We are talking about California, Joe.'

'Yeah. I suppose so... What is it, Mac?'

Duncan had stiffened. 'We've got a visitor.' He moved to his feet, then relaxed as he heard Adam call.

'Mac? You in there?'

'Come on in, Methos. Coffee's on the side.'

Adam entered, shaking the rain from his hair.

'Paris in the springtime? You can keep it,' he muttered. 'It's rained every time I've been here in the spring since they stopped calling the place Lutetia.'

'Every single time?' Duncan asked with a raised eyebrow.

'Well, ok, maybe not every single time. I think the rain held off in 1462 and we had a couple of days in '53 when the sun actually came out.'

'1953?' Joe asked.

'53BC.'

'You were here during the Gallic wars?' Duncan asked, settling back in his chair.

'Yeah. And all I could think about was getting my butt back to Rome where it was warm and dry.'

'We've got central heating now,' Joe commented.

'We had central heating then, Joe.'

'You're in a bad mood this morning,' Duncan said.

'Just the weather getting me down.'

'So it's nothing to do with that lecture you're giving tonight?'

'Hah. Don't remind me. How did I get talked into that one anyway?'

'It's not as if you haven't done it before, Methos.'

'I've done it a lot of times before. That doesn't mean I have to enjoy it.'

He poured himself a coffee and nodded towards Joe's newspaper. 'So, any news from good old Seacouver?'

'Some woman in San Francisco was beheaded,' Joe said. 'A Naomi Redburg. We don't have any record of either her or her killer.'

'Naomi... wait a minute, Naomi Redburg? That name rings a bell. Is there a picture?'

'Only a paragraph. "A 51 year old single woman living in a San Francisco apartment was found beheaded in her bedroom last week. In a gruesome twist, police reported that Naomi Redburg's head had been separated from her body and placed in the bathroom sink Neighbours described her as a woman who kept to herself, and had few friends. She was known to be a supporter of several animal and children's charities. Police say that as yet there is no suspect for the murder."'

'Naomi Redburg...' Adam said slowly. 'Let me think. I knew a woman called Naomi Redburg about eighteen years back. She wasn't an immortal but she would have been about the right age and I could imagine her ending up somewhere like San Francisco. It's probably just a coincidence...'

He let it trail off. Joe sighed. 'I'll try to get you a picture, Adam. If there's any kind of
immortal connection we need to look into it.'

'Was she... is she a close friend?' Duncan asked.

'Not really. There were a couple of other immortals she hung out with. Maybe one of them.'

'Who were they?' Joe asked.

'Have you ever run into an immortal called Arch Drake? Pompous little guy with a beard? Made his first fortune about twenty or thirty years ago and he's been living it up ever since?'

'I haven't run into him,' Duncan said. 'Not under that name, at least.'

'I think I've heard of him,' Joe said. 'He's hardly taken any heads. Born somewhere around 1907. He's in the gossip columns a lot doing the playboy millionaire thing.'

'You read the gossip columns, Joe?' Adam asked with a grin.

'Since about 1980 his chronicle has been a mass of newspaper clippings. He made immortal in 1942. He did all the usual. A few months of shock, a decade or two of irresponsibility, followed by the 'what does it all mean' stage. He's on the 'what the hell, may as well sit back and enjoy it' stage now.'

The two immortals nodded.

'The psychology of immortality,' Adam mused. 'I wonder if anyone's written a thesis on it?'

'Feel another degree coming on?' Duncan asked.

'Yeah. It may be time to move on. I've been in Paris a bit too long. My colleagues from the university are starting to say how well preserved I look for a guy in his late thirties. I can get
away with another three or four years here at the most.'

'That's a shame,' Joe said.

Adam shrugged. 'Hell, I'll just do what I always do. Come back in twenty years' time and say I'm my kid. Maybe it's time I took medicine again. I could always minor in psychology.'

'Yeah,' Joe agreed, rubbing his shoulder. 'I'd say you could do with a refresher. When did you say you studied medicine last?'

'Heidelberg. 1453. You survived, didn't you?'

'Yeah, but things have kinda moved on since then. You know, anaesthetics, penicillin...'

'Not drilling holes in people's skulls to let the evil spirits out...' Duncan added with a grin.

Adam rolled his eyes. 'Everyone's a critic. Medicine's a tough degree. It takes a lot of commitment. I watch ER. I know these things.'

'So, Arch Drake,' Joe said, steering the conversation back onto course.

'Yeah. I met the guy while he was between the total irresponsibility and what's it all about stages, back in 1979. As far as I can work out he'd spent most of the two previous decades into the free love and drugs scene. He spent some time in London and San Francisco, mostly getting stoned and wearing polyester suits with big collars...'

Duncan winced.

'Been there, huh?' Adam asked innocently.

'You should've seen his sideburns.' Joe said with a grin. 'I'll try and dig up some pictures for you.'
Duncan shot him a disgusted look, and Adam's smile grew wicked.

'I'm gonna hold you to that, Joe. But Drake. He wanted to talk to other immortals, to try to find out what was going on, so he set up this sanctuary. I think it was mostly for his student's
benefit. Kid was starting to ask the usual questions. Where do we come from, why are we here, yadda yadda yadda.' He shrugged. 'So Drake bought a few square miles of woodland in Maine and got an Native American shaman to consecrate it. Whether that made it holy ground or not
I couldn't tell you. Anyway, Drake set up a camp there and said all immortals were welcome, as long as they left their weapons outside. There were five of us there when I stayed, and between
ten and twenty mortals at any one time, mostly Jewish kids from New York. The camp was... you know the kind of thing. Everybody was supposed to live in peace and harmony and meditate on their reason for existence.'

'So what were you doing there?' Duncan asked dryly.

'I heard there was a new immortal in Paris who took his time over his kills. He sounded enough like Kronos for me to think it might be a good idea to get out of the jurisdiction for a few
months until he went away again. The sanctuary seemed like a good idea at the time.'

'So you left your weapon outside and wore flowers in your hair?'

'I'm sensing a certain amount of cynicism from you, Mac,' Adam said, with an air of injured innocence. 'Why is it so hard for you to believe I might want to be more in touch with my inner
self?'

Joe shook his head. Duncan just snorted. Adam grinned.

'Ok, so I kept my sword and no flowers. I did actually give up meat for a while. Thought I'd give the health food thing a try. Then after a while I thought, what's the point? It wasn't like I was going to die of a heart attack or anything. The whole thing got tired pretty fast. I spent a couple of months there before I got bored out of my mind and headed off to Vermont with this kid
I met there.'

'Who were the other immortals?'

'A guy who called himself Jacques. I knew him as Jacques Lemarchand back in medieval France. A real creep. He just wanted to take drugs and get laid. There was a woman, Rebecca Kirkwood. She was taken in a fight in Toronto a few years back. Then there was a kid called Max Donnelly, from Boston. He was pretty new. Drake's student. I haven't heard anything about him
since.'

'Donnelly was killed a couple of years ago,' Joe said. 'Picked a fight with the wrong guy and got his head taken. I think it was only his second or third time. He kept a pretty low profile. What about the girl you went off with?'

'Not a girl. He called himself Mulder. Fox Mulder. He wasn't an immortal. He was seventeen or eighteen years old. Kind of screwed up but I liked him a lot. He was very intelligent, very
intense. Desperately lonely and unhappy. A nice kid.'

Joe said gently, 'It sounds as if you miss him.'

Adam nodded, and the laughter left his eyes. 'Yeah. I miss him. The whole mentor thing... there's as much in it for the mentor as the pupil, maybe more. We got pretty close, but in the end I had
to let him go. It was just too dangerous if Kronos was around and hunting me.'

'Did you keep in touch with him?' Joe asked.

'No. He went to university in England, I came back to Paris. I told him I didn't have an address there yet. He sent me a postcard care of the university but I never answered it.'

'Another regret?' Duncan said softly.

'Yeah. Another regret. I wonder what he's doing now?'

* * *

'Ok, Mulder, let's recap.'

'It's not as if we have anything else to do,' Mulder agreed.

'We're investigating sightings of an urban bigfoot in Washington State,' Scully said.

'Finding an ecological niche as an urban scavenger is a common phenomenon with smaller carnivores like raccoons or foxes.'

'And we've uncovered what appears to be an subterranean bigfoot cult living in secret rooms beneath the warehouse of a supermarket that's been closed for a refit.'

'Yeah. That sounds about right.'

'Who captured us when we came here to investigate the mysterious footprints in the freezer room.'

'Can't argue with that. Does your head still hurt?'

'From being clubbed with that frozen turkey leg? What do you think Mulder?'

'Looked pretty painful to me.'

'So now we're sitting lashed together, back to back, slowly freezing to death, in the ice cream and popsicles section.'

'You know, I didn't know they made low-fat creamsicles. Wouldn't that make them milksicles?'

'The local police chief thinks we've headed out into the woods investigate a similar sighting.'

'You think maybe we should have told him where we were?'

'I think it would have been sensible, Mulder,' Scully said, with hardly a quiver in her voice. 'He probably won't start looking for us for a couple of days now.'

'When does this store open?'

'The poster outside said the refit would be finished in May. Another month. Maybe in a week's time someone will come down here to check if the stock's ok. You realise we're probably not
going to survive that long, Mulder?'

'Actually, Scully...'

'What is it, Mulder?' Scully asked, in a voice full of foreboding.

'I think we've been put here as a sacrifice to the bigfoot.'

'You think what?'

'A man called Albert Ostman who was reported captured by a bigfoot family in 1924...'

'Cut to the chase, Mulder,' Scully said in a dangerously calm voice.

'Bigfoots are carnivorous, Scully. They store their food in snowdrifts to keep it fresh.'

'So what you're saying...'

'Yes, Scully?'

'Is that we've got to hope and pray that this particular bigfoot is more partial to frozen turkey than half-frozen FBI agent.'

'Judging by the footprints I'd say this one has been coming straight for the popsicles. Must have a sweet tooth.'

'So essentially, we're tied in up a cold storage room, in a supermarket that nobody knows we're visiting, where our frozen bones won't even be found for anything up to a month, waiting to
turn into frozen snacks for our friendly neighbourhood carnivorous urban bigfoot.'

'I just can't believe that the security company here has been infiltrated so heavily by bigfoot cultists. I mean, don't they screen those guys?'

'So we're going to either freeze to death, or be ripped to pieces.'

'Actually...'

'What, Mulder?'

'We're probably going to freeze to death *and* be ripped to pieces.'

'Good,' Scully said. Her voice had risen by another couple of notches. 'Great. I'm glad we've cleared that up. So we're tied up in a cold storage room, in a supermarket nobody knows we're
visiting, waiting to freeze to death and then be ripped to pieces by the world's first urban bigfoot...'

'I hate to say this, Scully, but your conversation's starting to get a bit repetitive...'

Scully took a deep breath, then another. It didn't seem to help.
'If we get out of here, Mulder, I'm going to rip you to pieces myself,' she muttered.

Both stiffened at a faint, muffled trilling noise.
'Cellphone,' Scully said with sudden renewed urgency.

'What do you think I've been trying to get a hold of for the past half hour?'

'I didn't really want to ask.'

'Got... to... knock it... out of my... coat... pocket! Damn...'

'Could you use an elbow?'

'If you wouldn't mind, Scully... ow!'

'Were those your ribs?' Scully murmured, without the slightest trace of remorse. 'Sorry.'

'That's going to leave a bruise,' Mulder said, in a faintly accusing voice.

'Wait a moment... I can feel the edge... How can you get a signal down here, anyway?'

'Langley fitted it with some kind of Japanese grey import receiver chip.'

'Well you've only got yourself to blame if it microwaves your ear. Hold on... got it!'
The phone was jolted out of Mulder's coat pocket onto the floor, where it continued to ring accusingly.

'We're going to have to go over, Scully...'

'What do you mean? No, wait!...'

The two of them toppled slowly over from their perch on top of a
stack of Ben and Jerry's boxes.

'Ooof!' Scully groaned as she hit the ground hard.

'Almost got it...,' Mulder said, through gritted teeth. He shuffled around, dragging them both with his bound ankles. He strained his nose towards where the receiver lay. On his third try he managed to flip the receiver plate open.

'Mulder,' he said. 'Sir...'

Scully heard Skinner's voice squawk tinnily and accusingly at Mulder. She couldn't quite make out the words.

'No sir,' Mulder said. 'We're in Washington State. Exactly? We're in a Safeway store in a place called Cascade, sir.'

More squawking.

'Not shopping, sir. We've been tied up by cultists and left as a sacrifice for an urban bigfoot in the warehouse freezer... no sir! Don't hang up!'

Scully closed her eyes and sighed.

'He asked!' Mulder said defensively.

'Just use that nose of yours to dial 911,' Scully said resignedly.

'You know, I got offered a job in the IRS when I left college,' Mulder said.

'Dial the number Mulder.'

'It's at times like this it starts to look like an attractive alternative career.'

'Just dial the damn number, Mulder.'

***

The seats in the waiting area just down the hall from Skinner's office seemed to have been designed to cause the maximum amount of discomfort in the minimum amount of time. Mulder remained standing, while Scully sat and shifted uncomfortably.

'I still don't know how that detective could possibly have heard us from outside the warehouse,' Mulder said eventually.

'Forget the warehouse, Mulder,' Scully said wearily. 'There must have been an air duct or something.'

'I suppose you're right,' Mulder said. He still had a vaguely dissatisfied look on his face. 'What was his name again? I didn't quite catch it. Ericson?'

'Mulder, forget the damn warehouse. The guy probably just didn't want to let on that he had contacts on the inside. There's nothing strange about it.'

'Yeah, I suppose you're right. I'd have asked him but he looked bothered enough with that anthropologist kid hanging around taking notes.'

'So what was that about?'

Mulder shrugged. 'Some kind of research into closed cultures. If he wants closed cultures he should try this place.'

The two of them waited in silence for a while.

'So what does Skinner want us for this time?' Scully asked.

'He wasn't too specific on the phone. Something about the Redburg case.'

'Mulder, he'd understand if you didn't want to take this one. I know there's not much of a personal connection...'

'I want to know what's going on with this, Scully.'

Scully sighed. 'It looks to me as if California just has another random serial killer on the loose, Mulder. I suppose the chances of it having anything to do with your hippy commune are pretty remote.'

'It was not a hippy commune, Scully. It was an alternative community.'

Scully just raised an eyebrow. 'Mulder, it was a hippy commune. You lived in a tent and ate lentils. You tuned in and you dropped out. Why were we called in here, anyway? Serial killings don't rate an X-file.'

'There have been a lot of murders by beheading over the past few years, Scully. Too many for one person to be responsible. They're happening all over the world. There was one in India last month, there's been a series in Russia going back at least three years, two recorded in central Scotland since 1995, twelve in the States, four in Canada... those are just the ones we know about. It's an X-file because beheading is such an unusual way of committing a murder. It's messy and difficult. It takes a lot of strength and a relatively large and heavy blade. There are a whole lot of easier ways to kill someone. There'd have to be a damn good reason for doing it this way, but it's anybody's guess what it is.'

'So what's your best guess? What's behind all this?'

'I don't know. The official theory is that there's some kind of connection with the Russian mafia.'

'But you don't buy it?'

'The victims are chosen too randomly and they're too widespread. A high proportion of them were mercenaries and criminals, but others were blameless people leading ordinary lives. Some are completely untraceable, others have had two or more identities linked to them. One of the bodies found in Scotland was a parish priest. There were three in France found weighted down in the harbour of a burnt out World War II submarine base. One was identified by his dental records as an escaped prisoner from a Romanian mental hospital, for the other two, nothing. A housewife in Toronto, a student in Milan, a traffic cop in Mount Vernon, Illinois...'

'A middle-aged hippy chick in San Francisco. I get the picture, Mulder. But you must admit that there could be an Eastern European connection. Maybe some of the murders are random serial killings, but others could be linked to the Russia Mafia. You said yourself that a high proportion were criminals and mercenaries.'

'There's no empirical evidence linking them to a single organisation.'

'That we know of, Mulder. Suppose there's a criminal group which executes traitors by beheading.'

'You'd think the rest would learn by example pretty quickly, Scully. It usually only takes a couple of executions to keep the rest of the workforce in line. Even a group the size of the US Mafia doesn't kill more than a handful of traitors a year. We're talking about twenty or thirty executions a year every year for the last five years. An organisation with that kind of internal disruption would disintegrate. You'd expect mass defections, leadership struggles, gang warfare. We don't have any record of any criminal society here or in Russia where that's happening. Nobody's going to the police asking for protection, nobody's turning informant. There's nothing.'

'What if the killings aren't internal? What if they're assassinations?'

'That's a possibility, but the victims don't fit the profile. When you pay for an assassination you don't waste your time on small time criminals, especially not with a modus operandi as exotic as this. You go for politicians or senior policemen or businessmen. There are a couple of businessmen we know of who were beheaded but none of them were involved with anything particularly illegal or controversial.'

'Anything else you'd like to tell me?' Scully asked. 'Come on, Mulder. Give me the punch line.'

'Most or all of the victims had other sword wounds on their bodies, most of them partially healed. The injuries were consistent with injuries sustained in a one to one sword fight. The most interesting fact is that in most cases where time of death was known, there was usually simultaneous localised atmospheric electrical activity.'

'Oh please, Mulder.'

'With one or two exceptions none of the victims had any injuries consistent with being bound or manhandled. In a number of cases there were blood traces not belonging to the victim in the vicinity.'

'What about Redburg? There was nothing like that. She was a frightened, middle aged woman who was manhandled, tied up, then beheaded. No electrical activity, no evidence of fighting, no other sword wounds, partially healed or otherwise...'

'Yeah. I know. It doesn't fit the pattern. But there is a pattern, Scully and maybe 95 out of a hundred beheadings fit almost perfectly.'

'So you're suggesting what? That these people come of their own accord to their deaths? That they duel with swords before they die? That's completely irrational, Mulder. Why would a housewife from Toronto willingly participate in a duel to the death?'

Mulder shrugged. 'I've got to admit, it's got me beat. I thought you might have some ideas.'

'What about religion? Could there be some kind of fundamentalist connection?'

'That's the current theory,' Mulder admitted. 'The millennium is bringing some pretty strange groups out into the open. The swords suggest something like the medieval knight orders. They're very popular with the conspiracy theorists at the moment.'

'You should know, Mulder.'

'Come on, Scully. You've seen the books at the airport. The Templars, the Masons, the Holy Grail.'

'On the same shelf as the ones about Hitler being cloned by Aliens and how Nostradamus predicted Baywatch. Strangely enough I usually give them a miss.'

'Yeah. I had you pegged as more of a Jackie Collins fan.'

Scully gave him a sour look. 'Tread carefully, Mulder. By this time tomorrow the whole FBI could know about your little stay in 'Rivendell.''

'Hey, I take it all back...'

'Excuse me, Agent Mulder, Agent Scully?' Both agents looked round in surprise.

'He'll see you now,' Skinner's secretary said, from the doorway.

Skinner sat behind the desk, glasses in one hand, wearily rubbing his forehead with the other. Mulder felt a pang of undirected guilt. Whenever Skinner looked this rough it was usually his fault for one reason or another.

'Sir?' Scully asked.

'Sit, Agent Scully, Agent Mulder. It's about the Redburg case.'

'The woman who was beheaded in San Francisco?'

'Yes. There's been another death which Interpol believes is associated. Since you've both been involved with the earlier case I'd like you to pool your information with the Surete and assist with their investigation in an advisory capacity.'

'Who was killed sir?' Mulder asked.

'A man called Archibald Drake was murdered a few days ago in France. He was an American citizen. Same MO, same graffito as in Redburg's bathroom. There's no known connection between the two of them...'

'Yes there is, sir,' Mulder said. His voice sounded sick, even to himself.

'I don't understand, Agent Mulder,' Skinner said. Scully looked
at him with concern.

'You knew Drake too, Mulder?'

He nodded. 'I'm sorry sir. I should have mentioned it in my report...'

'Mentioned what, Agent Mulder?' Skinner's voice was suddenly several degrees colder.

'That I knew Redburg.'

'You knew Redburg? You're damn right it should have gone in your report. What the hell do you think you're playing at, Mulder?'

'I knew her in passing, sir, that's all. It was more than seventeen years ago. I wouldn't even have mentioned it except...' He paused, not certain how to continue.

'Except?'

'An Arch Drake was there too. Somehow I don't think the name's that common.'

Skinner shook his head. 'Mulder, you have one minute to explain the connection between these two people.'

'I met them both in 1979, in Maine.'

'Where, Mulder? Summer camp?'

'No, sir. Not exactly. Arch Drake ran a kind of alternative
community in the woods.'

'A hippy commune.' Scully added, not altogether helpfully.

'Thanks, Scully,' Mulder muttered under his breath.

Skinner leaned back wearily in his chair. *Why am I not surprised?* his expression said.
'And you lived in this hippy commune, Mulder?'

'I came with some people I knew and stayed about two weeks, sir. Redburg and Drake were both there.'

'At the hippy commune,' Skinner said, without inflection.

'They called it Rivendell, sir,' Scully chimed in brightly. Mulder glared at her.

'Rivendell,' Skinner said. 'I see. Were they particularly close, Agent Mulder?'

'No sir. I had the impression that they hardly knew each other, but as I said, I was only there for a short time.'

'What did you know about Drake, Agent Mulder?'

'Nothing much. He seemed to be in charge. I think he owned the place. I was told that he was wealthy.'

'Drake was an extremely rich man,' Skinner agreed. 'Anything else?'

'He seemed pretty bored by the whole thing, sir. He didn't seem to be particularly serious about it.'

'And why were you there, Agent Mulder?'

Mulder frowned. 'Is that relevant to the case, sir?'

'Just curious, Agent Mulder,' Skinner said. His face was still expressionless, but Mulder was given the discomforting impression that both the AD and Scully were finding the whole conversation extremely amusing.

'I was seventeen, sir. It was the summer before I went to university. I ended up at the camp by accident, stayed for a couple of weeks, hated it and moved on. End of story.'

'You seem rather defensive about the whole thing, Agent Mulder,' Skinner remarked.

'Wouldn't you be, sir?' Scully asked. She earned another glare from Mulder.

'Sir, getting back to Drake...' Mulder said.

Skinner took pity on him. 'Yes. Drake. Did it seem likely to you that he would have kept in contact with Redburg?'

'Not really, sir. They had nothing in common. As I said, they weren't close. I wouldn't have said that they were even friends.'

'Was there anything else strange going on at the camp? Anything that might have pointed to some kind of illegal activity?'

'Some soft drug use, sir. That's about it. Of course if anything was going on I wouldn't have known about it in a couple of weeks.'

Skinner nodded, apparently satisfied. 'At least we can rule out the possibility that the killings are random and unconnected. You'd better try to think back to the time you were there, Mulder, and see if you can remember anything else that might shed some light on this. I need names and possible locations for anyone else who may have been there at the time. I'll set things in motion at this end.'

'It was more than seventeen years ago. It'll take me a while to remember the details, sir,' Mulder said uncertainly.

'It'll be something for you to do on the flight to Paris. You're both leaving tomorrow.'

'Sir, one of the people I knew from the camp went to university in Paris that autumn. There's a possibility that he's still there.'

'The Surete will assist you if it's necessary, Agent Mulder. Make whatever investigations you see fit. Just don't step on any toes doing it.'

'Thank you sir. I'll try to tread carefully.'
Skinner's expression clearly said that he'd believe it when he saw it.

Back down in the basement office a week's mail waited on Mulder's desk. Mulder gathered the files he'd need for Paris, and that done, flicked through the pile of health insurance offers and invitations to business excellence seminars. There was little of interest, except for a couple of badly photocopied but imaginative conspiracy zine articles. Most of the contacts who sent him the really interesting stuff were too paranoid to make what to them was the obvious mistake of sending it through the US mail to the FBI building in Washington DC. One letter caught his eye, his name and address hand-written in ink on white vellum. He tore it open and sighed as he read the first few lines.

'Renounce thy sin, Fox Mulder, forsake thy corruption and come into the Lord's light. Confess to thy evil and your soul may be saved in the reckoning which is to come...'

Mulder sighed, opened his desk drawer and stuffed the letter into a bulging envelope marked 'Repent!'.

'What's that, Mulder?' Scully asked as she returned with two cups of coffee.

'They want me to repent, Scully,' Mulder said dryly.

'Apparently the world is going to end.'

'Doesn't getting those letters bother you?' Scully asked, sipping her coffee.

'Used to,' Mulder said with a shrug. 'Now it's kind of like the junk mail I keep getting from the Reader's Digest. You know how it is. At first you read through all the attachments and decide whether you want the $500,000 or the $50,000 a year for life and whether you'll go for the holiday or the car if you return it within fourteen days, and you stick the little stickers in their boxes and put it all in the right envelope. Then after you've had three or four of them you think 'what the hell' and bin them as soon as they come through the door. It gets tired.'

Scully frowned. 'I thought you got Langly to hack into their computer and take you off their mailing list?'

'Yeah. He did. It lasted six whole, wonderful weeks. The FBI could really learn something from those guys, Scully.'

'So why are you keeping the letters?'

'For posterity?'

'I don't think posterity is going to be that interested, Mulder.'

'Maybe I'll save them until I need something to cheer me up.'

'Maybe you can read them on the plane.'

'Skinner wanted a list. I'd better get to work on that.' Even to himself he sounded depressed.

'You want me to pick you up at your apartment?' Scully asked.

'Yeah. I'll be packed and ready around seven.'

'Then I'll see you then.'

She had reached the door when she heard Mulder say, 'Scully, wait. I think I remembered something.'

'What is it, Mulder?'

'"Come and see." The words that were painted on the mirror. I think that's from the Bible.'

'That covers a lot of ground, Mulder. Are you saying there may have been a religious motive for the deaths?'

'I think the words are from the book of Revelation.'
Scully waited patiently for more. Mulder wore the abstracted look he always wore as he searched through his memories.

'So what does it mean, Mulder?' she asked after a moment.

'There are hundreds of different interpretations of the book of Revelation.' Mulder said. 'It's a work of prophecy describing the end of the world. It was written by the apostle John in around 95 AD after he was banished to the island of Patmos by the Romans...'

'Mulder, I know all that. I had a good Catholic upbringing, remember? Just tell me what you think it means. Until I can get to a copy of the New Testament I'll settle for that.'

'Well as far as I can remember, 'come and see' is the phrase used by the Lamb of God to summon each of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.'

***

The airport was like most airports, air-conditioned, starkly utilitarian, filled with facilities that were only used because there was no other choice by people who only there because they
were just passing through. Their flight was delayed and Scully went to try to find some coffee that had been brewing for less than three hours while Mulder bought a newspaper and flipped through it absently. He barely registered the front page: reports of some kind of chemical warfare attack on a remote Kurdish village, a new crisis in Northern Ireland, a lacklustre attempt to find a new angle on the Whitewater scandal. Even the Dilbert cartoon only briefly brought a smile to his face. *Skinner is the pointy-haired boss* he thought, but he knew that the comparison was unfair and his heart wasn't in it. He rolled the paper up and left it on the uncomfortable seat for the next bored traveller.

*This whole thing is bugging me a lot more than it should. What's your problem with this, Mulder? You're supposed to be a psychologist. Work it out. It'll be something to do while you're waiting for a plane you don't want to get on to take you to a place you don't want to go to.*

'All right, Mulder, what's wrong?' He looked up abruptly as Scully sat down beside him and handed him a grey and watery looking coffee.

'This was all there was?'

'That's it, Mulder. It's that or Burger King's own.'

Mulder took a sip and grimaced. 'This makes death by dehydration seem like an appealing alternative, Scully.'

'Nobody's holding you down and forcing you to drink it, Mulder.

And you didn't answer my question. What is wrong with you today? You've hardly said a word since I picked you up.'

'You're always saying I talk too much, Scully.'

'It was refreshing for a while,' Scully admitted blandly. 'But I was starting to get worried. You've never been quiet for this long before.'

Mulder sighed. 'Ok, Scully. It's just that... well, the time I spent in Maine was special to me. It's separate from everything else in my life. For a couple of months I was happier than I could ever remember being before. I don't want to go back and start tearing it apart. I want to remember it the way it was.'

'Two people have already died, Mulder. This is the only connection we know of between them. You don't really have a choice.'

'I know I've got to do it, Scully. Nobody said I had to like it.'

'You weren't even at the camp that long. Anyway, I thought you said you hated it.'

'I did. This is more about the time I spent with Adam Pierson. I'm starting to remember a lot of things that didn't make sense. At least they didn't then.'

'There's something you should know, Mulder. While I was waiting in line for the coffee, I called in to check with Skinner. He told me to tell you that according to immigration there's no record of any French or United Kingdom citizen named Adam Pierson being in the US when Naomi Redburg died.'

'That's something, I suppose.'

'What did you mean, about things that didn't make sense?'

'I haven't really got it clear in my mind yet. I need to spend some time thinking it through.'

'Like Skinner said, you've got the whole flight.'

'It'll probably be more fun than eating the airline food. Though that's not really saying a lot. I've had trips to the dentist that are more fun than eating airline food.' He paused in thought for a moment. 'Now I think back, a couple of the times I've been shot were more fun than eating airline food.'

'You could always watch the in-flight movie,' Scully suggested.

'What is it?'

'I can't remember the title but I think it stars Macaulay Culkin.'

'Does he get shot?' Mulder asked, without much hope.

'Apparently it's one of those 'rite of passage' stories. It's supposed to be very moving.'

'You might have told me, Scully.'

'That there was going to be a Macaulay Culkin film?'

'That I'd died and gone to hell.'

'The kind of movie you like doesn't get an airing on reputable
airlines, Mulder.'

'I'd pay extra.' Mulder paused in thought for a moment. 'Do you think Skinner would let us upgrade to first class if I made the case that it was essential for my mental health not to be strapped into a seat and forced to watch a Macaulay Culkin movie?'

'Mulder...'

'Maybe I could get him to do it on constitutional grounds, Scully. Under the cruel and unusual punishment clause or something...'

'I think I preferred it when you weren't saying anything,' Scully muttered to herself. 'Come on. I think they just announced our flight.'

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