"Feedback with Extreme Prejudice"

Name: Branwell

E-Mail: COMBS-BACHMANN@WORLDNET.ATT.NET

Date Finished: March 31, 1999

Rating: PG-13, Innuendo

Category: Story with Humor, a little MSR.

Archiving permission: Anyone may archive this. Just keep my name with
it.

Time: Set in the late spring near Washington D.C., in the year 2007.

Disclaimer: Chris Carter, David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, and Ten
Thirteen productions created and own the characters you recognize.
My writing is for fun, not profit.

*****************
*Content Warning*
*****************
PLEASE DON'T READ THIS UNLESS YOU ENJOY LAUGHING AT YOURSELF A
LITTLE. I spend plenty of time writing and reading fan fiction, but
I can't help seeing the humor in the enterprise. I believe there is
a comical side to every human endeavor. I myself have never received
anything but the kindest and most constructive feedback from the
fanfic community, so this is NOT based on my personal experience.
Nor do I intend any criticism of any particular genre, author or
story.

Spoilers: Nothing specific. I'm taking for granted my own vision of
the final outcome of Mulder's and Scully's quest. I am a hopeful
person.

Summary: A future writer of fan fiction finds herself in trouble
with someone who takes it very seriously. The Lone Gunmen involve
Mulder and Scully in this situation.

***************************
I was still so shell-shocked it didn't even seem strange that the
two FBI agents interviewing me were playing footsie under the table.
At least he was. From the way he winced painfully about five minutes
into the interview I guessed maybe she was playing something
rougher.

"Are you OK?" I asked.

"Sure. I'm fine. I got shot in the shoulder some ten years back.
Sometimes I feel it. You know, when the weather changes."

He gave his partner an aggrieved look. Agent Scully kept her eyes on
her EN, but there was the hint of a satisfied smile at the corners
of her mouth.

"Never mind our problems. You've been through a terrible ordeal
yourself," she said sympathetically.

It already seemed like a dream, or a story I heard about from
someone else.

The police here at the station were visibly awed when they told me
who was coming from FBI Headquarters to follow up on my case.
Apparently these were 'special' special agents. I gathered that
since they did something very important to end the BioTerrorism
Crisis five years ago, they more or less picked their cases.

The agents had electronic notebooks with the full complement of my
vital statistics and the evidence collected by the officers who
rescued me. Now they wanted to hear my story.

"Do you want me to tell everything I know now or just what I knew
when it started?"

The question was clear to me, but I was surprised that it seemed to
make sense to them.

"Just tell it in the way that's easiest for you. We'll figure it
out," Agent Mulder said with an encouraging smile.

"I guess it all started a couple years ago when my high school
boyfriend dumped me. I had some time on my hands and I started
watching the 'Case Not Closed' series on TV. You know, the one with
Detectives Walker and Reilly."

They looked at me blankly.

"You know, the one where in between hunting criminals he's trying to
find out the truth about whether his brother really died in the
first attempt to colonize the Moon. Or if the moon colony was a
front for something else like weapons development. Anyway, I found
out there were webcoms dedicated to the show. People were analyzing
it and collecting UDIs of the actors. And they were writing stories
about the characters and webbing them. But nobody was writing some
of the stories I'd like to read. So I started writing stories and
webbing them into the CNCcom.

"At first I was careful. I stuck to Vignettes meant to be part of
the episodes. Then I started doing my own case files. I got some
very nice feedback, very appreciative. I liked to have Walker and
Reilly become romantically involved. On the show they leave the
relationship ambiguous, but a lot of us think they should be lovers.
So we make it happen in the stories."

If Agent Scully had to suppress another yawn more violently than the
last one she'd swallow her tongue. Her partner's eyes were wandering
up my legs to the too-small sweater I had to borrow until I got my
clothes out of storage. He was a little old to hook up with a
college student, but just the age to be enthralled by the idea. And
damn he was sexy, even at forty-plus!

"Anyway, one fan went completely unmedicated in his reactions. He
called himself 'Casemaster.' He sent lots of e-mails full of
compliments-couldn't say enough nice things about my stories. Then I
started experimenting. The e-mails from Casemaster got sort of
critical of my plots. He didn't like it if I ended a story with them
separated, even if I meant it to be temporary. Then I webbed a story
where Reilly had a one night stand with a stranger.

"You'd have thought I released a news bulletin saying Casemaster's
mother sold herself to neo-Reaganites in EMRAIL rest rooms! These
filthy e-mails started coming that screamed hate and threatened me
with all kinds of horrible things! He wrote that Reilly would never,
never, never do that, how dare I defame her, and he'd teach me a
lesson!

"I didn't know how he could do anything, since all he had was an e-
mail address. I deleted all his old sends and screened out new ones.
In fact, I didn't spend much time on fan fiction for a while. My
course load at college was tough. Then I got one from a different
address, but it was him! The message was 'You'd better start writing
again and do it the right way. This is your last warning.' I just
quit reading my e-mail."

"You know you really should have notified the police you were
receiving threats," Agent Scully said gently.

"I know now. At the time it seemed . . . unreal. I didn't want to
believe anything bad could happen. That's being in denial, right?"

"This wasn't your fault," her partner reassured me firmly.

"Then, on October 30th , I was leaving the library alone at dusk.
There was a van outside and a tall woman was trying to balance a
pile of binders while she unlocked its back door. I went over to
hold them for her. I thought she was one of the librarians. There
were so many binders I could barely see over the top. She unlocked
the back door, but instead of taking the load back she took out
another binder and added it to what I was holding.

"'This is everything you've written---except for 'Night of Shame,'
she said, frowning at me."

"Before I could react, something pinched my thigh and everything
started to go black. I remember she grabbed my feet and started
tipping me toward the open back door of the van, but I never felt it
when I hit the floor."

Agent Mulder tapped the keys on his EN and checked something.

"Nobody saw anything at any of the sites, Scully. She must have
mapped out their schedules religiously and then sacrificed the whole
operation anytime there was a witness in the area. They found
hypodermics and prescription tranquilizers for injection when they
searched her house. Please go on, Ms. Behan."

"When I woke up I was lying on a cot in handcuffs on a chain."

Here I broke down a little. I expected to be murdered, probably
slowly and painfully, in punishment for what Casemaster considered
inaccurate characterization. That's who it was, of course.

Agent Mulder reached across the table and took one of my hands,
while he offered me a tissue with the other. It felt very pleasant,
and I managed to squeeze out a few extra tears.

"When I looked around the little room, I saw her standing over in a
corner. It was a woman after all."

"'Have you figured out that I'm Casemaster yet?' she snapped at me."

"Yes. I know. Please don't kill me. I didn't mean to be
disrespectful to Reilly. It was just so much fun to . . . ."

"'Shut up. You'll write the way you're supposed to. The one before
you thought it would be funny to have Reilly make it with Walker's
evil twin. Maybe I would have lowered the voltage on the Taser if
I'd known about her heart condition. But maybe not.'"

"For the next six months I wrote fan fiction the way the Casemaster
wanted it. I never got out of that windowless room except to use the
bathroom. There was a PC for me, but it wasn't netted. She did the
story sends using a new name instead of my old one. I slept on a cot
next to the computer. I was allowed to watch the show and re-runs,
and CD'd episodes on the DV. She had a gun ready whenever I wasn't
in handcuffs. After a while I thought I was going to die in that
room."

More tears fell here, and Agent Mulder took my hand in both of his
with a consoling look on his face.

"Come on, Ms. Behan. You'll feel better after you wash your face in
the ladies' room," Agent Scully suggested briskly.

After I splashed cold water on my face at the double sink, Agent
Scully gave me a conspiratorial smile in the mirror.

"You were dragging your wing a little conspicuously in there,
weren't you Ms. Behan? My partner has a weakness for wounded birds,
so I've learned to step in and protect him from . . .
misunderstandings."

For a moment I was tempted to go with the emotional breakdown
option, but something told me that Agent Scully would be a hard
sell. With that alabaster face and burning halo of red hair, all she
needed was a heavenly sword to fit her for a dragon hunt. I'd rather
have her on my side.

It's true, I still didn't feel normal. I was upset and hyper, but I
was basically OK. It had been a hell of an experience. I couldn't
help thinking that I really had something to write about AND I might
get paid for it!

"I was scared, but right now I feel high. It turned out pretty well,
since I didn't get hurt," I answered honestly.

"Later you'll have flashbacks, but they'll diminish as time goes
on," she assured me.

"Did you ever get kidnapped?" I asked curiously.

It just sounded like she was speaking from personal experience.

"Yes," she answered, with a look so haunted that I felt I should be
offering her comfort, instead of the other way around.

She wasn't a good example to illustrate how abduction doesn't bother
you much after a while. The angelic warrior had shrunk down into a
small, fragile woman. It was another minute before she came back to
herself.

"But that was a long time ago," she continued, with a failed attempt
at a smile.

I was happy to change the subject.

"Lieutenant Graham told me you two are famous for ending the
BioTerrorist Crisis."

"Well, we certainly didn't do it alone. I sort of . . . discovered
how to create the vaccine we needed by analyzing data Agent Mulder .
. . found."

"Did you ever see any BiTers yourself? I remember in junior high
kids passed around the wildest stories about how they weren't
human."

"Nobody would want to hear about what we saw and did, Ms. Behan.
Anyway it was indescribable. Agent Mulder almost died."

She twisted her hands and ducked her face away from me as she spoke
the last words. Instead of venturing another disastrous topic of
conversation during the walk back to the interview room, I stayed
quiet and thought about my own experience.

I'd never admit it of course, but it was sort of freeing to be
plucked out of ordinary life and ordered to do nothing but indulge
my authorial self. You can't blame ME. This madwoman will kill me if
I don't write fiction. I can't be expected to worry about term
papers, or finals or laundry. And it was certainly flattering that
she was willing to commit major felonies to harness my storytelling
powers. There was this down side, though. She had total creative
control and she was completely insane.

At first I was just thankful to be alive, and I wrote megabytes of
lovely romance between Walker and Reilly and amongst all the other
characters who ever appeared on the show. Casemaster didn't even
balk at a CNC/101 Dalmatians crossover. Finally this became cloying,
and I couldn't resist adding some edginess. The first time I had
Reilly give the new martial arts instructor the once over was the
last. My captor turned the screen toward herself and read the story
with no change in expression. Then she stalked out of the room and
returned holding the Taser. I was begging shamelessly for mercy
before she got within ten feet of me.

"No other men for Reilly. Have you got that?" she snarled.

"Yes, ma'am," I whimpered.

She continued to stand over me, holding the Taser threateningly. I
couldn't help leaning away from it as far as the handcuffs would
permit. After a minute her expression softened.

"I'll tell you what, women would be all right. Have you ever thought
of having her taken captive by a woman . . . ."

"No," I said loudly. "No, I never thought of that. Farthest thing
from my mind."

"OK, the usual romance is fine," she shrugged.

It just got crazier from there. My stories contented her for a
while, but it's like they were a drug that her body built up a
tolerance to. Before two months had passed, events in the CNCcom
were driving her into a frenzy on a regular basis.

"Those damned lazy archivists at Central CNC! They still haven't
gotten around to posting your last story," she stormed.

"What do you care?" I tried to soothe her. "You already got to read
it."

"It's the principle of the thing. Besides, who knows what other
stories might be out there that I haven't found because they haven't
been archived at Central yet?"

"You mean you think there's somebody out there who's better than
me?"

Jesus, was this what happened to Patty Hearst? I was jealous!

"Do you think I could kidnap Sami and force her to manage a
comprehensive archive of CNC stories from here?" she asked me
eagerly.

Gee, that would be pretty interesting, having Sami as a roommate.
She's probably read more CNC fan fiction than any other living
person. I'd like to know what she REALLY thought of my stories. I
think.

"No, you couldn't do that. I'm pretty sure she'd find a way to get a
message for help out if you let her manage an on-line database and
website," I advised her reluctantly.

I couldn't let someone else be condemned to this kind of existence
just so I'd get feedback.

Agent Scully and Agent Mulder didn't need all of those details. When
we resumed the interview I just told them that I settled into a
fairly smooth writing routine. Then I explained that the show itself
started to get on the Casemaster's nerves. For some reason Mike
Murphy, the originator of the 'Case Not Closed' series, sort of let
the characters get out of control that season. In each episode the
writer made them do whatever the plot required, whether it was
something that made sense for them or not. It became my job to make
the episodes fit together and keep the Walker/Reilly romance alive.

"She started to get really agitated after every new show. We'd sit
there and watch, and my palms would be all sweaty. If I didn't make
it work she'd kill me, and kidnap another writer. She was reading
other people's stories in secret. Sometimes she forgot and referred
to an incident that wasn't in my fiction. I knew by now that she'd
kidnapped at least three fanfic writers before me. I was number
four---or higher. The pressure was on.

"I'll never forget that one group of shows in the middle of winter.
No one on earth could have made them coherent. First there was this
really touching story where Walker gets shot while he's getting the
antidote for a slow-acting poison that one of their enemies put in
Reilly's coffee. He thinks he's dying, and he tells her she's the
most important person in the world to him. And then he doesn't die.
But next week she tries to warn him that his old college roomie
takes regular trips on the space shuttle even though he claims to
work in food service at NASA. The guy may not be trustworthy anymore
even though he and Walker took peyote together during spring break
twenty years ago. Walker accuses Reilly of being hysterical from
PMS. Then he ditches her and follows this guy to a secret
installation where he nearly gets blenderized into hydroponic
concentrate for growing moon tomatoes. Maybe that's why the week
after that she walks over his unconscious body to get out of a
burning building and forgets to tell the firefighters that he's
inside. If he hadn't happened to wake up when the dog peed on him
. . . . You get the picture."

They nod, but I'm not sure they do. All this background is
meaningless if you're not into the series. It wouldn't mean
anything to them that Casemaster started pacing up and down the room
for hours while I wrote, muttering to herself about "cleaning out
the production office like the Augean stables" and "the show's
obligation to the loyal fan base to be faithful to the characters
they love." And finding writers to restore a "vision of the series
as a contemporary American myth of betrayal by technology."

The FBI doesn't need to understand all the nuances. They just need
to find her. Because she left the house where I was imprisoned a few
hours before the police arrived, and she hasn't been seen since.

"How did you manage to find me before it was too late?" I asked.

Agent Mulder's eyes unglazed and he became animated once more as he
answered my question.

"There were no clues at all. The local police called in the FBI
right away. None of your friends or family knew you wrote fan
fiction, so that avenue wasn't investigated. Detectives profiled the
abductor as a typical serial killer who selected victims at random.
We didn't get involved until personal friends of mine presented me
with some interesting information. They're fans of "Case Not Closed"
and apparently they follow the fan fiction and admire your stories.
When your name stopped turning up on newsgroups and you didn't
submit any more stories, they got curious. These guys can get netted
information that isn't, uh, readily available to the average user.
They traced your pseudonym to your real identity and found out that
you'd been declared missing. When they found new stories that
reminded them of yours being posted under another name they got
suspicious. They analyzed the language and concluded you were still
out there writing."

"That was when they came to us." Scully took up the story. "We got a
warrant for your hard drive. First they checked saved messages for
clues and then recovered as much as they could of deleted data. That
was when they found fragments of the old threatening e-mails. Then
it was just a matter of getting disclosures from the servers and
finding a street address. She didn't bother to conceal her true
location from her net server, since she never thought anyone could
connect her to you."

"Wow, it wasn't even their job and they did all that detective work.
I don't know how I can thank them."

"I'll tell them how much you admire their skills. Unfortunately...."

Agent Scully's satphone started trilling and she took it into a
corner with an apology. In a moment she came back to the table.

"That was Agent McCrory. He's with a forensics team at a Maryland
address. You know the one," she said meaningfully, raising her
eyebrows at her partner. "We've got that appointment in an hour, but
he wants the post mortem started as soon as possible. I told him I'd
do it."

He looked dubious at her proposal, and then gave a sigh of
resignation.

"He's right. We can't afford to delay it. Be careful in the traffic.
I'll take the EM to our appointment, and maybe get a cab home."

He stood up and walked her to the door. Then they shocked me by
proceeding to kiss each other as though there were nobody else in
the world, much less right there in the room with them. I wasn't
that surprised that they were personally involved. The clues were
all there. The kiss itself was what took me off guard. It wasn't the
routine, see-you-later-at-home-pick-up-a-quart-of-milk pressing of
the lips that I expected from a couple in their forties. It was an
I-might-drag-you-into-the-broom-closet-right-now-and-have-at-you
kiss. It had me examining the floor and ceiling for hidden meanings
in the tile patterns.

Agent Mulder's eyes followed her out of the room as though she were
taking all the visible light with her. If Agent Scully was worrying
about competition from me, she should spare herself the anxiety. He
might like to look, but she had annexed his heart and soul long ago.
Coming between them would be like getting between wild seas and the
shore. Whatever was in the middle would get ground into sand, but
neither of them would change.

"I'm sorry if you were embarrassed, Ms. Behan, but I'll tell you
right now it won't do you any good to file a complaint," he grinned.
"They'll fill in all the forms and send you a nice letter of
apology, but we've negotiated some terms with the bureau that
require their unconditional acceptance of our personal lives."

He sat down again across from me.

"I know you can't really pass experience on to the young. Each of
you has to accumulate your own. As I did. You wouldn't believe me if
I told you how long it took for me to figure out what was important
in life and to recognize how I sabotaged my own happiness over and
over again. They almost killed her before we got a handle on the
bio-disasters."

His hag-ridden expression was a match for hers when she spoke of
their famous victory. It must have come at quite a cost.

"Let's hope you're a faster learner than I was. What I was going to
say before was that the local police are going to continue to keep
an officer at your dorm until we catch the Casemaster. We thought we
were right behind her. We lost the trail in Louisiana. But we'll
find her. Until then don't go running off anywhere alone."

I shook his hand and rode back to the dorm with the policewoman who
was on the first shift there.

It took a lot of paperwork to straighten out my transcript and get
registered for the current quarter. Even worse was the necessity to
buckle down to boring textbooks every day. Luckily I had a contract
for a more interesting book. Microsoft Publishers wanted an account
of the horror of my abduction in my own words.

I was struggling with it three weeks later when I got a call from
Agent Scully.

"We're in the east lounge downstairs. Can you come down and talk
about security? This is kind of unofficial but we've got concerns."

I wasn't worried anymore, but maybe I could reassure them. Before I
left I considered the last paragraph I wrote. What was the best way
to word it?

"I wept bitter tears when I finally resigned myself to my fate. I
would never see my loving family again, or realize my dream of
earning a bachelor of arts degree with a double major in popular
culture and DV fan fiction."

Or?

"Inside I laughed bitterly at this latest twist of fate. To my
family I'd always be that unreliable youngest kid who disappeared
without a word of explanation. The dean would just shake her head
and claim that this justified all the doubts she voiced about my
seriousness of purpose."

Apparently "bitter" was destined to come into it somewhere.

Fifteen minutes passed quickly. When I first walked into the dimly
lit lounge with its continually glowing DV, I thought they must have
given up waiting. Then I realized that the couple sharing the big
blocky armchair in the corner weren't college students.

The agents were seriously off-duty today. They were dressed in
sweaters and jeans instead of those formal looking suits. He
sprawled in the chair with his long legs stretched out and his arms
around her. She sat sideways on his lap, her legs over the arm of
the chair. The rest of her was curled up against his chest. His
cheek rested on the crown of her head. Their eyes were closed. They
looked as comfortable as two cats enjoying a patch of sunshine under
the window.

I walked up to them and stood hesitantly. It was a dark, rainy
morning outside. In the close atmosphere of the almost empty lounge,
they had fallen asleep.

A small, older man wearing retro black plastic-framed glasses looked
away from the nearby screen and saw me.

"You must be Circe. I'm Mel Frohike."

He motioned me to a seat across from his.

"They were up all night on a stakeout. Afterwards they got a message
that the local police were calling off your protection today. They
thought you might be afraid. Mulder could call in some favors, get a
bodyguard for you."

"That's sweet of them, but I don't think it's necessary. I never
thought Casemaster would come back for me. She was ready to move on.
Are you an FBI agent too?"

"No, just a friend. I'm one of the guys who brought the case to
Mulder. He asked me if I wanted to come along and meet you."

"Wow, you're the reason I got rescued. I don't know how to thank you
enough!" I enthused. "I know! I'll put you in my book."

He looked appalled at this generous offer.

"No, I don't want any publicity. There is one thing you could . . .
." he went on, with a sheepish look.

"Excuse me, have you been following that story?" I asked, nodding
toward the DV screen.

"Oh, you mean Mike Murphy and all that turmoil over 'Case Not
Closed.' Of course. I'm a fan."

It was news time on the Hollywood Network. The reporter was smiling
vacantly. She repeated the same words they'd been saying about him
and the show for the last four days, just as though she believed
we'd never heard them before.

"Mike Murphy remains secluded in his mountain retreat for the fourth
day since his surprise decision on Tuesday. He fired everyone on the
production and writing staffs of his popular series 'Case Not
Closed' in a single e-mail. Always insistent on maintaining his
privacy, he's refused to see any media representatives. The rumor is
that he's conducting hiring interviews on-line even as I speak.
Scripts already purchased may or may not be produced. Mr. Murphy did
send a UDI to this network explaining his new philosophy in regard
to the show. Here is a byte from that UDI."

"They must be re-running it for that one guy who's been lost in a
rainforest for the last four days," Frohike commented cynically.

"Or too busy at his work to have time to watch it," I added softly.

Mike Murphy's appearance was less finished than usual. He read from
a paper instead of holding forth expansively the way he usually did
during interviews.

"Did he always have that tic?" Frohike questioned.

A muscle at the corner of Murphy's mouth twitched at intervals, and
sometimes his eyes strayed to the side, away from the videocam.

"No. He must be drinking too much coffee while he's putting his new
strategy together."

Once again I listened to Murphy's new mission statement.

"It came to my attention that we had strayed far afield from the
original vision of the series as a contemporary American myth of
betrayal by technology. At the same time we have an obligation to
the show's loyal fan base to be faithful to the characters they have
come to love. It will be a labor of Hercules, but I intend to
reconcile these aspects of the show starting right now. In the
future writers will be committed first to the show's vision of
reality, second to character continuity, and lastly to their own
interpretation of these elements."

The reporter flashed her teeth at us in commentary and went on to
the next news item.

"The FCNC newsgroup already had a spoiler from somebody who
supposedly knew a writer Murphy interviewed. They claimed that there
would only be a single room with one bed left at the next motel
Walker and Reilly checked into," Frohike told me.

"Will there be spooning?" I asked him.

He nodded happily.

"You were going to ask me something when I interrupted you," I
reminded him.

"Yes, well, I know you're a good writer. It would mean a lot to me
and my friends if you would write something just for us about when
you were kidnapped."

He looked me over with a decidedly lascivious gleam in his eye.

"Why don't you write up the details of how that strapping, dominant
woman took advantage of you while you were shackled helplessly to
the PC?"

"But she didn't . . . ." I started to object.

"You're a writer," he broke in, waving his hand airily. "Use your
imagination."