Title: The Days are Just Packed

Author: Branwell

Date Finished: Nov. 20, 1999

Rating: PG-13 for language, and disturbing images.

Category: Story, Recounting events between scenes of the episode,
"The Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati"

SPOILERS: Great, big, fatal spoilers for "THE SIXTH EXTINCTION:
AMOR FATI" follow. They're even in the summary.

Archiving permission: Please archive for the Spookys. Anyone else
may archive this also. Just keep my name with it.

Disclaimer: Chris Carter, Nicholas Lea, Milt Pileggi, Mimi Rogers
and Ten Thirteen productions created and own the characters you
recognize. In his dream Krycek sees things in terms of Bill
Watterson's wonderful comic creations, Calvin and Hobbes. My
writing is for fun, not profit.

Thanks: I wish to thank bugs for words of encouragement and
advice.

SECOND WARNING: SPOILERS FOR "AMOR FATI"
IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING.

Summary: Viewers of the X-Files miss really important scenes due
to episode time constraints. This explains how Scully got access
to Mulder in time to save him.

--------------------------------------------------------------

"If you want a job done fast, ask a busy person." Anonymous.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Krycek fielded the flying plam easily with the mallet in his left
hand, even though it had been a frozen fetus that he'd kicked
toward the wicket. It was the vials of ova that were murder to
get past the twenty-yard line in one piece. He passed the plam to
Susie, who was on the opposing team. She'd half kill herself
getting it inside the zone defense. His teammate Moe would block
her before she could score, as he always did.

She ran at top speed across the long, damp grass toward hole ten
thirteen. The creek was running high today and Susie was short.
She might have to swim it.

Susie claimed to benefit from spiritual guidance on the playing
field. He suspected she mistook passing out from exhaustion
for the meditative state.

The only reaction from the right-fielder to Krycek's cynical move
was a twitch of his tail. Hobbes' hazel eyes gleamed with a cool
challenge as he surveyed the field. His big nose seemed to quiver
with repressed excitement. Krycek paused a moment to admire his
tawny coat, boldly slashed with black stripes. The lithe,
powerful limbs. The big, broad paws that could pin him flat on
his face in effortless seconds. The softly furred white belly.
The strangely human . . . .

"Hey, you, Krycek! Your teammate's in trouble!" Calvin yelled at
him from the other side of the dimensional barrier. He jumped up
and down, tearing at his wildly disheveled blonde hair. "The
rules just changed again. Hobbes is on your side now."

Supposedly Hobbes was no longer on Susie's team, but she screamed
at him to dive for cover. She seemed to be pointing at Krycek.
Hobbes cupped his paws behind his ears and shook his head at her.
He squinted into the distance and registered no alarm. Krycek
turned to look behind him.

Holy shit. The Tenebrous Chicken from the Planet of Kungtz had
Hobbes in the sights of her Seductolator. There was no time to
use the Atomic Cerebral Enhance-o-tron to figure out an answer.

He reacted instinctively, shouting instructions at the goalie.
"Moe! Get between that Chicken and Hobbes!" Moe was stupid enough
to do it. He just wasn't fast enough. The energy-sucking beam
from Chicken's weapon laid the proud tiger out like a beautiful
rug.

By now Krycek had set his Death Ray Blaster to 'Enigmafry.' He
pulled the trigger and Chicken disappeared in a tornado of black
feathers. Moments later they started drifting back to earth.

Hobbes lay unmoving, a thin layer of dark, shredded plumage
settling on his fur like ash from a volcanic eruption. Calvin
stood over him, prodding worriedly at his side with a careful
foot. "Get up, Hobbes. We've only got five minutes before the
fifty-first quarter starts."

Susie knelt beside the fallen tiger. Taking out a box of band-
aids, she began applying them liberally to his head.

Calvin's voice quavered a little. "Hobbes, you can get up now.
Don't forget. There's one rule that never changes in Calvinball.
No one can really die. Not for real."

Krychek knew better. All the rules changed constantly. It was the
same as having no rules at all.

When he woke up he remembered the dream perfectly, and recognized
its importance.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Krycek paged through his well-worn "Essential Calvin and Hobbes"
while he drank his breakfast tea. He sometimes considered hunting
Bill Watterson down and making him an offer he couldn't refuse.
He could resume drawing his classic comic strips or become an
example to withholding, perfectionist idealists everywhere. But
not today.

Today Krycek had other business. He already had a full schedule,
and then that dream came along. There was nothing like a journey
through the unconscious to highlight guideposts and warning signs
on the road of life. He couldn't ignore the message zapped
straight to his brain from the unplumbed depths of his mystical
Russian soul.

He'd be putting a lot of pressure on himself, but stress made
life interesting. Still it wasn't fair. Sometimes he felt like
nothing would ever get done if he didn't do it. With a long, put-
upon sigh he rose and went to the bathroom to glue on his beard
and mustache. At least after today he could lose the homeless
schizo look for good.

Outside, the sunny day lifted his spirits almost against his
will. He got two seats all to himself on every bus he took.
Perhaps it was because of the book "Alien Menace in Your Milk"
that he took care to read with his lips moving. That and the mad
glare he directed at anyone who looked at him. Everybody wanted
to avoid eye contact with a paranoid drifter. In an hour nobody
would remember his face. It worked every time.

His confidence was soaring by the time he reached Skinner's
office. The nano-controller rested safely in his pocket. Its
microscopic soldiers worked wonders on blood vessels. The A.D.
still didn't know what it could do to nerves.

"What do you want?" Skinner barked at him.

"I want to talk to Kritschgau," he responded politely.

"Here's the phone book," Skinner said, offering the D.C. White
Pages to Krycek with a tight smile.

Krycek didn't even take the controller out of his pocket before
he hit the button and started the sequence he'd worked out last
night. The alarm on Skinner's face boosted his spirits even
further.

One of the test subjects had begged to be shot before the insects
inside him tunnelled their way out. Another had chewed through
the veins of his own wrists in search of release.

Skinner writhed in utter silence for almost two minutes before a
muted howl escaped him and he fell forward on his desk. Even then
it wasn't until Scully erupted into the room like a mini-Mulder,
rabid and unannounced, that Skinner scribbled numbers and a
street on a piece of paper. If Krycek had known how fast Skinner
would cave when Scully's welfare was at stake, he would have
invited her to the A.D.'s office himself.

Krycek had five exit strategies planned. Number two worked
perfectly.

--------------------------------------------------------------

His fake CDC credentials convinced Kritschgau to open the door
quietly. The continued pretense won him a demonstration of the
laptop's souped up memory capacity. Everything Scully knew had
been stored in multiple formats on the computer.

"I'll take charge of getting this to our headquarters," he
reassured the perplexed Kritschgau.

"Nobody told me you'd be coming," he objected.

"Security. We don't want things like that going out on phone
lines," Krycek answered, looking grave.

Kritschgau regarded his long, stringy hair with distaste. "Look,
I was a security expert before you were . . . ."

Krycek shot him casually before he finished his pompous sentence.
The bullet went high, but it did the job. A quick search
convinced him that Kritschgau had no information beyond the
computer files. He started a fire anyway in a spontaneous
celebration at shucking the hated disguise. Burn, hippie wig,
burn, he chanted to himself, dropping it onto the flaming trash
pile. Then he headed for his next rendezvous.

In the morning his source had told him the procedure was
scheduled to start two hours ago. He had time to sweep Fowley's
place for surveillance before the operation ended and she
returned.

---------------------------------------------------------------

He was almost finished when the front door opened.

"You left before it was over," he observed to Fowley. "So even
you found Golgotha too painful to witness."

"Not you too," she said, wrinkling her nose in a girlish manner
that didn't suit her. "He didn't choose death to save the world.
He's just a victim of circumstances."

"He was betrayed with a kiss though, wasn't he? The analogy isn't
completely worthless."

Fowley's hard stare flicked away from him toward the pile of new,
fragrant leather luggage beside the door. He sidled backwards.
She wouldn't come any farther into the room unless she could
maintain a comfortable distance from him. He continued talking as
he moved.

"No, you couldn't watch. He got to you, didn't he? You're torn up
inside over what you did to him. Well, I'm going to give you a
chance to make it right." He flashed her one of his whitest
grins.

"Make it right? It is right. I did what I had to do for all our
sakes."

"Keep telling yourself that. It'll get you through all but the
worst nights. Getting ready to flit I see," he said, with a nod
toward the luggage.

She nodded back warily.

"Give me your card key to the facility," he told her. "I'll pass
it on to Scully and she'll get him out when they're done. At
least he'll have a chance at survival."

Fowley smiled at the clock on her living room wall. "I heard you
like to live dangerously. There's no forgiveness when it comes to
security breaches. No."

"Come on. You know they don't care if he lives or dies. They just
don't want to be bothered or busted."

"He knows too much," she protested.

"He won't remember details. Even if he does he'll be as helpless
as before."

Fowley remained silent, her lips fixed in a firm, straight line.
Krycek contemplated her set face.

"It's what he might remember about you that bothers you, isn't
it. You'd rather he died than realize how you used him."

He had to hand it to her. She knew how to resist the urge to fill
a silence. Only the brick-red color mounting in her cheeks
confirmed his belief.

"Bitch," he said, as he started toward her.

She shrugged in a gesture of surrender. "All right, I'll give you
the card."

Fowley watched him carefully as he slipped the card into a
prepared envelope with his gloved hand.

"Why do you care?" she asked bitterly.

"A wise man---or woman---doesn't waste resources. He might be
just the ally I need some day. Besides, I had a dream . . . ."

Fowley had backed up toward her luggage again as he spoke. Her
hand moved as swiftly and smoothly as a white snake into an
outside pocket of her carry-on. She looked at him in horror as it
came up empty. He looked back without surprise and spoke without
anger.

"Did you forget that I'd been here a while? You're not terribly
smart. How did you manage to fool him all these years?" Krycek
stepped closer, indicating with a movement of his gun that she
should step away from the door. Her shoulders drooped in defeat,
but her eyes still glittered with unmistakable purpose. "Love
blinded him, didn't it? And that insane loyalty of his." Krycek
laughed out loud. "Did you know he's still trying to believe in
Skinner? Hell, he's trying so hard he's got Skinner trying along
with him!"

When she launched herself at his gun hand he was ready. He shot
her twice in mid-lunge. The small caliber bullets didn't send her
flying backward. She spun a little and fell heavily, clutching at
her chest. He stood over her while she gasped soundlessly for
air.

"Don't worry. I don't want the credit for this. If he lives he'll
think that in the end your love for him won out over your other
loyalties. Maybe it'll be enough to keep him from eating his gun
some night."

Krycek took two steps backward to avoid spatters. The third
bullet went neatly between her terrified eyes.

He moved hastily to the bathroom where he grabbed bath towels to
absorb the blood. After wrapping her head and torso, he went back
and carefully removed the shower curtain. He shrouded her in a
semi-transparent, blue seascape of foaming waves and jutting
rocks. Her body folded up neatly and fit into the back of her
walk-in closet. The new luggage made a wall that concealed the
odd looking bundle completely. The worst part was swabbing the
rug with cold water to get the blood out. He bagged the towels in
plastic and stacked them in the utility closet.

His knowledge of her solitary habits convinced him that he had a
week before a cleaning crew found her remains. Her unorthodox
associates might be quicker. He had no idea how they'd react.

As she commented, he liked to live dangerously. The contents of
the laptop would bring a seven figure payoff from the highest
bidder. Her ticket on the Concorde to Paris would make a nice
bonus after he hacked into airline reservations and changed the
passenger name. He didn't have much time.

There was a flight to New York leaving at 11 P.M. He had one more
stop to make before he went home to pack.

The taxi driver waited while he climbed the steps to Scully's
floor. He slipped the envelope under her door. Mulder's life was
in her hands now.

It was a perfect pass.

In the stairwell he couldn't resist brandishing the laptop over
his head like a trophy. The winner and all-time champion . . .
Alex Krycek. He bowed to invisible multitudes before he exited
into the street.

The End--Return to Index