The X-Files: Olympia free porn video

What could possibly connect a missing space shuttle, a winged demon on a killing spree in the dead of night, and a militia group? Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate what turn out to be linked cases, but why is one of them acting so out of character? (Note: contains only very minor TG) THE X-FILES: OLYMPIA by BobH (c) 2014/2016 [Note: This originally appeared as two separate stories (and part of a third) on another, non-TG website and is set during the 1990s heyday of the original run of the X-Files. With the short new season currently airing on TV, I figured some of you here would be interested in seeing it. Those with long memories might recognise a few bits of older stories of mine I've repurposed for this one, too.] ****************** Since taking charge of the X-files two weeks earlier, Fox Mulder had been diligently working his way through them, becoming as familiar with every case as he could. It was fascinating but lonely work. More than once he had found himself wishing he had a partner. On this particular morning, he took down a dusty box from a high shelf that was unlabelled. Inside was a reel of Silvertone Recording Wire and an old cardboard folder which had been stamped OSS: TOP SECRET along with the date '5th June 1948'. Which was strange. President Truman had disbanded the OSS in September 1945. Even more intriguing was the name written in the top right corner: Arthur Dales, the man who had once run the X-files. BERLIN, MAY 1947. "My name is Arthur Dales, and at the time of these events I was twenty- six years old. This recording is my account in my own words of the events that led to me being invalided out of the group. It had been the coldest winter anyone could remember, the worst for a century, but now spring was here at last and it was time for me to step up my activities. After my army unit's entry into Berlin in 1945 and our encounter with a Nazi magician - see my previous interview - I was recruited by a section of the OSS that was essentially a black ops version of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section. Where the MPAA were charged with finding and protecting fine art and cultural artefacts, our job was to secure more dangerous items, things the powers that be had long known of but whose existence was kept from the general public. Because I spoke fluent German, I was able to go undercover. When President Truman officially dissolved the OSS in September 1945, our section continued operating as if nothing had changed. Well, one thing had. Instead of the Office of Strategic Services, we now called ourselves the Occult Security Service. In 1947, using the name Erik Schmitt, I was passing myself off as a Grossscheiber, also and less respectfully known as a Sussstoffgangster, a 'big-time operator' in the black market. Anywhere else my criminal activities would have earned me opprobrium, but in Berlin in 1947 the black market *was* the German economy, virtually the only means of survival for a people condemned to starvation rations and lack of fuel, clothing, and medicines, so I was accorded respect by almost everyone. I was running a large illegal operation dealing in things such as medicines, industrial chemicals, stolen art and antiquities, and precious stones as well as more basic and - to the average German - more vital commodities such as food and tobacco. My main base, and the warehouse for much of my 'stock', was a bombed-out factory in the British-controlled sector of Berlin, one that had been stripped of all its machinery by the Russians in the orgy of looting that had followed their capture of the city two years earlier. On the day it happened, I was in the factory when the main doors were thrown open and a pair of trucks came screeching in. A grinning figure in a US Army uniform leapt out of the cabin of the lead truck and ordered his men to get the doors closed quickly. "The heist went perfectly," said Heinrich Kreuger, my chief lieutenant, sauntering over. "Two trucks laden with Lucky Strikes and Camels, apparently held up by members of the US occupation force. With the shoot-out a while back between British and American soldiers over that train, no-one will have any difficulty believing we were real soldiers looking to make a fast buck." "Good," I replied, "Those cigarettes will let us keep the small fry paid off and happy for a couple of months." With the official currency all but worthless, cigarettes had taken its place as the basic unit of exchange in the barter economy that then held sway in Germany, "Any more on that other business?" I asked. "No, but the men are still saying it's a nosferatu - a vampire," said Kreuger. "I've told them there's no such thing, that nosferatu are superstitious nonsense, but they want to know what else could have torn out the throats of two of our lookouts without being seen. I'm not sure what to tell them, Erik." The OSS had ordered Kreuger and me to set up the operation we now found ourselves running. Like us, they had known what was coming, what had played out hundreds of times before. Within hours of the occupying forces arriving there would be widespread looting, first by the natives themselves and then by the troops. Museums, libraries, private homes - nowhere would be immune. The choicer items would inevitably find their way into the hands of the occupying forces. This was all utterly predictable. The first and oldest rule of war: to the victor the spoils. Much of this booty would be shipped back home by the military. Soldiers at every level, from privates to generals, would get involved. Some items, however, would be traded locally. Rare and ancient items of great value in more civilised days would be traded for the necessities of life or for quick money. Some of those items, unbeknownst to their sellers, would have mystic powers. With the way the Nazis had scoured Europe for such things, it was inevitable some would find their way onto the black market. The OSS had a great interest in securing such items and Berlin, a city with its four sectors controlled by different occupying powers, was the obvious place for them to be traded. The organisation Kreuger and I had built up had us perfectly positioned to acquire any that found their way on to the market. In fact we were expecting to get our hands on what looked to be a very promising find within the hour. "We've got more to worry about at the moment than vampires," I said, at length. "You're sure the Armenian has the package in question?" "As sure as I can be," said Kreuger. "I first noticed him sizing me up at the big open air black market in Bulmke. You really ought to come along one day, Erik. It's an amazing sight. The biggest one in all of Germany. A man can pick up almost anything he could want. Anyway, when I spotted him lurking around when I was at the Tiergarten and the Alexanderplatz on black market days, I figured he wanted something. Got a couple of the boys to 'invite' him over for a little chat. Said he had a line on a jewelled mace alleged to have magical powers looted from some schloss or other in Bavaria and he'd heard we were interested in that sort of thing." "OK then. Get the cigarettes unloaded and we'll wait for him to show. In the meantime, let's eat." I tossed Kreuger a can of 'bully beef', corned beef bartered from a British army NAAFI unit, and grabbed one for myself. I stabbed the top of the can with the bayonet I kept in my boot and prised it open, spooning the meat into my mouth with the blade while I watched our henchmen unload the trucks. It wasn't cordon bleu, but it was good enough for us. We were both used to foraging for whatever we could find, eating or sleeping whenever a lull in the fighting presented itself. Compared to many of the situations I'd eaten in over the past three years, and what I'd been forced to consume, this was almost luxury. I watched Kreuger as we ate, still not fully at ease with this blond, blue-eyed 'ex'-Nazi. Kreuger had been a Sturmbannfuhrer in the SS and, like others of his kind, recruited by our side at the end of the war. Two years ago I'd been doing my darndest to kill people like him; now I was supposed to work alongside him. It wasn't easy. We were just finishing our repast when someone rapped on the door. It was the Armenian. Tossing the empty bully beef can onto a rusting pile of its discarded twins, I wiped my bayonet clean, slipped it back into my boot, and went over to let him in. Krekor Ourganian was a tall, sallow-skinned fellow with a large and imposing nose. In more prosperous times he would have stood broad and erect, but in these straitened days he looked as stooped and undernourished as all too many others in this tired and defeated country. I wondered what his story was, but not enough to ask. Under his arm, clutched tightly to his side, was a paper parcel, tied with twine. "Is that it?" I said, without preamble. Neither of us had time for the niceties. "Yes," said the Armenian, glancing nervously at the dozen or so men I had in the warehouse. "Let me see it," I said, holding my hand out. He passed the package to me and I tore off the wrapping. The mace was everything he had said it was. Heavy, and encrusted with precious stones, there were words in some language I did not recognize, cast into the gold it was made from. "Nice workmanship," said Kreuger, coming over, "but I don't recognize the period." Neither did I, but I got the sense the mace was incredibly old, that its age was measured not in centuries but in millennia. "Ekri fumin thalasu," came a strong, sepulchral voice from somewhere overhead, its words bouncing around the hollow interior of the factory. I dropped the mace and whipped out my mauser, even as Kreuger and our men were pulling out their own guns, all of us aiming them upwards, peering into the darkness of the roof trusses, high above such illumination as our oil lamps provided. "Artki ekrus Maladon," came the voice again, and we all squeezed the triggers of our pistols, almost simultaneously. Not one of them would fire. "A powerful artifact, the Mace of Maladon," said the voice, its tone darkly amused, causing me to notice one of the jewels embedded in the mace was now glowing brightly. "Stopping fire from igniting is but one of its abilities, and why it must be returned to me." Then it was among us. Diving down out of the shadows, bat-wings extended, came something out of a nightmare. Talons slashing, fangs tearing into flesh, it had eviscerated four of my gang before any of them had time to react. Like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck, the men stood there, paralysed by shock. Not so Kreuger and I. Even as it tore Krekor Ourganian's head from his body, I was pulling the pins from a couple of grenades and pitching them among the oil drums holding the fuel for our trucks, figuring the damping field created by the mace would prevent them from exploding. I pocketed the pins, hoping I would need them again but fearing I would not. Kreuger meanwhile had grabbed a sword, a beautiful blade a Prussian officer had bartered for food, and was slashing at the creature. The flashing blade was keeping the demon at bay, but not for long. Even as I ran to aid Kreuger, it knocked the sword from his hand with the sweep of a wing and was on him, fangs sinking into his neck as a taloned hand plunged into Kreuger's gut, ripping out coils of intestine. Running at the monster from behind, I leapt onto a crate and launched myself at him, burying my bayonet between his wings, deep in the muscles of his back. He reared up, roaring in anger and in pain, monstrous wings beating the air and sending him soaring up towards the roof with me hanging one-handed from the bayonet embedded in his back. He tried to shake me off, but I flicked the wrist of my free hand, activating the spring-loaded sheath strapped beneath my sleeve and shooting a long, thin stiletto out into my waiting grasp. I thrust this blade into his side with all my strength, but not with enough speed to prevent him from grabbing my arm. He cracked it like a whip, and I howled in agony as it snapped in several places above the elbow. He had me now, easily dislodging me from the bayonet and throwing me to the ground with all his formidable strength. I hurtled fifty feet, only the crates of cigarettes I crashed onto saving me from being badly hurt. The creature alighted almost casually, folding his wings up behind him and pulling out the two blades I had sunk into him. He licked the blood off each then dropped them, slowly turning his head to survey the blood- drenched scene of carnage before him. Except for the Armenian, everyone else was still miraculously alive, though all had been immobilized and were dying. I realized it wasn't a miracle when he began to feast. It had been deliberate. The creature liked his food still kicking. 'Nosferatu' my men had called him, but this was no simple vampire of legend and he did more than just leave teeth marks on the neck. As much cannibal as vampire, he tore great gobbets of flesh from his victims, rending their bodies with his bloody maw. When he had dispatched our henchmen, he turned his attention to Kreuger and I, like a gourmet deliberately saving the best for last. Kreuger lay unconscious where he had fallen during my attack on the creature. Lifting Kreuger's head now, he plunged his fangs deep into his neck. Kreuger's life began ebbing away to the rhythmic sound of the creature sucking him dry. I saw the life leave him, watched Kreuger die. I staggered to my feet, my shattered arm hanging loosely at my side. Dropping Kreuger's lifeless body to the floor, he turned to face me, slowly pacing across the thirty or so feet that separated us, moving like some great cat closing on its crippled prey. "And so to the wolf," he snarled. "The first wolf I met on this world was the Spartan. When I fell from the stars all those years ago, I thought I had fallen among sheep. He taught me otherwise." Barely able to move, I watched him scoop up the Mace of Maladon from where it lay some ten feet away from me. "Thalasu ekri," he said, and the jewel on the mace that had been glowing ceased to do so. He started closing the distance between us, but it didn't matter. I was standing in front of a window and he wasn't. It was four seconds since he had cancelled the damping field the mace was generating. The grenades had five second fuses. There was a thunderous explosion as the grenades detonated amid the fuel drums, filling the whole warehouse with an enormous fireball. I was lifted off my feet and blown through the window, landing hard on the road outside, some thirty feet away. Concrete is a lot less forgiving than crates of cigarettes, and I felt more bones break. The pain was so intense that I blacked out. I came to in a military hospital several days later, and eventually learned what had happened at the factory. The meagre resources the Berlin fire brigade were able to bring to the task were woefully inadequate and the blaze was left to burn itself out. Some eyewitnesses talked of seeing what looked like Satan himself fly out of the flames, his body ablaze as he described a fiery arc across the night sky before crashing to the ground. His body was totally consumed, leaving nothing but ash. Sadly, this was also the fate of almost everything in the factory." That was where the wire recording abruptly ended. Mulder switched off his wire recorder, an old model from 1953 he kept in his office. This account amazed him. The creature was clearly an alien, it had admitted as much when it said it 'fell from the stars', but it was totally unlike any of those described in the literature. Could it have been a solitary, stranded traveller, he wondered, the only one of its kind ever to visit the planet? It was an intriguing thought. And in the form of the mace it had commanded voice-activated technology that was - to quote Arthur C. Clarke - sufficiently advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic. Mulder put everything back in the box, replaced it on the high shelf, and sighed. That had been fascinating, but it was frustrating not having anyone to share it with. SPACE SHUTTLE OLYMPIA EARTH ORBIT The light streaming into the shuttle orbiter began to turn orange as it hit the atmosphere, before reaching a deep salmon color, the result of the ionisation of the air running over the surface of the craft at hypersonic speeds. Anyone viewing the rear of the shuttle would also have seen the big shock waves that hit the tail as the air came off the wings and nose. Having taken this ride before, Mission Commander Nathan Winters smiled. He knew this was all perfectly normal, with only a slight buzz as they came down from supersonic to subsonic speed. Now that the mission was almost over, he couldn't help reflecting on how it had began, ten days earlier.... It had been only an hour or so after dawn, but the Florida sun was already brutal as it bounced off that vast expanse of bone-white concrete and in through the windows of the vehicle carrying the seven astronauts across to the launch pad. Winters was hardly new to this but the butterflies in his stomach had been no less than on his first mission. Not that he had let it show. As Mission Commander of the Space Shuttle Olympia this time out it had been his job to inspire confidence in his crew and he had personally briefed the newbies on what to expect based on his own experiences. He glanced around him at them now, all in their space suits and securely strapped back in their seats, proud of what they had accomplished. This was Winters' third shuttle mission, and his first as Mission Commander. His pilot was Qing Yuan Zhang - Colonel, USAF. Just like Winters, only he was now retired from the service. They had known each other almost twenty years, though this was the first time they had been in space together. The five Mission Specialists were husband and wife team Joe and Carole Branson, Jill Reilly, Mark Stoker, and Ray Washington. Winters, Jill Reilly, and the Bransons were all married with children, the others all unmarried and childless. In Qing Yuan's case, this was because she had put career ahead of family, and Mark Stoker was gay, though discreet enough this had never caused any real problems with NASA. Ray Washington was black, quiet, intense, the youngest member of the crew - Winters had never really managed to get a satisfactory 'read' on him. These were the people Winters had shared his life with for the past ten days. Now they would be going their separate ways. They had had a lot of tasks to get through, but it had been a pretty routine mission, as unremarkable as a shuttle mission ever can be. Beside him now Qing Yuan made some adjustments, keeping the nose high to dissipate any drag, and Winters took a moment to run an appreciative eye over her. Tall for an Asian woman, she still had the same slender figure he'd admired when they first met as young military graduates over twenty years ago. While not as conventionally beautiful as, say, Jill Reilly with her red hair, classic features and fashion model figure, Qing was still an attractive woman and Winters wondered - not for the first time - why she had never married or had any relationship that had lasted more than a few months. Perhaps she had just never found the right man. Their return to Earth was not a flight so much as a controlled fall, but though quieter and longer than the launch (an hour as against eight minutes) it had the potential to be every bit as dangerous. For a long time these missions had been regarded as entirely routine. That was until January 28, 1986, until Challenger. Winters was musing on this when it happened. The light coming in through the windows suddenly vanished, blinking out as instantaneously as if a switch had been thrown. In the eerie silence that followed, the total blackness was broken only by the lights from the instrument panels. Then Qing Yuan made her announcement. "Commander, the Earth...!" "What about it?" "It's not there anymore." As suddenly as it had gone away, the salmon light of reentry returned, streaming in through the windows. "Planetary status?" asked Winters. "It..it's back," said Qing Yuan, sounding shaken. "I don't understand what just happened." "Neither do I. It's like we were cut off from the universe for a few seconds there. I have no idea what that was." They all had a lot of time to think during the remaining descent, and Winters had no doubt what everyone was thinking about. As soon as it was possible to reestablish radio contact with mission control he did so. "Come in Mission Control," he said, "this is the Olympia orbiter. We have successfully completed atmospheric reentry." This was greeted with silence. Winters waited ten seconds and was about to send the message again when the radio crackled into life. "Uhh...please repeat, orbiter." "I repeat, this is Colonel Nathan Winters, commander of the space shuttle Olympia. You may have lost us for a few seconds there - we're not sure why - but the orbiter successfully completed atmospheric reentry." More silence, then the radio crackled into life again. "Acknowledged, Olympia. We're also puzzled by the loss of contact on this end. We'll debrief you when you land." "Huh," said Joe Branson, "he was trying to sound calm but I could tell he was freaked out about something." "It has to be the loss of contact," said Carole Branson. "They were monitoring the descent and must've seen something they don't like, so they're taking precautions." The orbiter landed on the high desert of Edwards AFB ten seconds later than scheduled according to the onboard chronometers, jolting the crew forward against their restraining harnesses as the rear parachute deployed, rapidly reducing forward momentum. As the craft slowly came to a halt, they loosened their harnesses and removed their helmets. "I wonder what this place was really like back when it was called Muroc?" said Winters, as a way of breaking the silence. "I suppose we've all read the books about that time, even talked to some of the original Mercury Seven who started out as test pilots there if we were lucky, but nothing can truly recapture those days." "Always sounded pretty primitive to me," sniffed Jill, "and a macho boy's club, too. I'll take modern conveniences and attitudes over that any time." As was standard procedure, there would now be a wait on the runway of several hours to allow the orbiter to cool. Soon, a small fleet of vehicles would be racing towards them, teams deploying to the front and rear of the orbiter to test for presence of hydrogen, monomethylhydrazine, hydrazine, nitrogen tetroxide and ammonia, while others would attach purge and vent lines to remove toxic gases from fuel lines and the cargo bay. Except none of that happened. "Where are the recovery vehicles?" asked Mark Stoker after a few minutes. "Good question," said Winters. "Olympia to Mission Control, come in please." "Olympia, this is Mission Control, please remain calm while we decide how to proceed." "Explain, please. Is this anything to do with what happened to us during our descent, with the few seconds we seemed to be somewhere else?" "Affirmative, Olympia. But you weren't gone for a few seconds...you vanished for over six minutes." HANGAR 43 EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE CALIFORNIA. Winters removed the syringe from his arm, replaced the needle with a cap, and placed it in the drawer at the front of his isolation capsule. He then pulled down the small shutter. As soon as this locked in place it released the lock on a similar shutter outside the capsule allowing the white-coated medical personnel monitoring him to remove the drawer on their side and retrieve the syringe. This was also how they got food in to him. He had been fed twice in the twelve hours he had so far spent in here. The capsule was twelve feet long by six wide. It contained a bed, a desk, a chair, the complete works of Shakespeare, Dickens, and Twain, and -behind a half-screen at the rear - a toilet. Winters had to supply blood samples before every meal. He was guessing stools and urine from the toilet were also being collected and tested. Whatever anyone thought might be behind what happened to Olympia, they were taking no chances. Winters understood their caution, agreed with it even, but that didn't mean he wasn't missing his family. When they were eventually allowed to leave the orbiter, an isolation vehicle had carried him and the others from it to this hangar, where they were each decanted into a separate isolation unit. These were lined up in a row in the center of the hangar, with gaps of several feet between them. With only a single window at the front, this also meant none of them could see the others. Watching the activity through his window, Winters was puzzled by the fact that despite Edwards being a military base he had yet to see a military uniform. Everyone was either wearing white coats over civilian garb or they were dressed in coveralls. Thirty minutes or so before this last blood sample transfer, a table and two chairs had been placed in front of his capsule, a microphone placed on the table, and a cable from the microphone plugged into a jack on the outside of the capsule. This had to mean someone was finally coming to interview him. And about time too. Apart from the medics instructing him on how to take samples, he had not spoken to anyone since being separated from his crew. A small door within the larger hangar door opened and two people entered. A man and a woman, they were dressed in business suits and long coats. As they got closer Winters could see that they were young, the woman maybe late twenties or early thirties and the man a couple of years older. Both were good-looking, the woman particularly so. A redhead, she was very much his type, the sort of woman he had pursued before he married. The pair seated themselves at the table, put the files they had been carrying down on it, then the woman switched on the microphone. "Good morning, ah...Colonel Winters," she said, her voice coming in clearly through the speaker mounted above the window, "do you know who we are?" "No," he replied, shaking his head, "I have no idea." "So you don't recognize either of us?" "No, should I?" They exchanged a glance, then the man wrote something on the pad in front of him. "I'm Scully, and this is Mulder," said the woman. "We'll be asking you questions about both your life and the mission. Please answer them all fully to the best of your ability." "Of course." "What was it like," asked Mulder, "going up in Olympia?" "The scariest part of any spaceflight occurs just before take-off," he told them, "the tension, the anticipation, starts when you get out of the bus at Kennedy Space Center Pad 39B and stare up at those huge rocket engines, filled with highly explosive fuel. Then you take the elevator up a hundred and fifty feet and walk across the short walkway leading into the shuttle itself. A couple of technicians help strap you in, but when the door seals, you and your crewmates are on your own. There's an hour or so where you're lying on your back, while all over the launch site, technicians are running like hell to get last minute checks done before the final countdown -there's a launch window of only five-to-ten minutes and you dare not miss it. Six seconds before lift- off, the liquid rocket engines ignite and you feel a slight shudder. At zero, you lift off. The noise and vibration are almost indescribable. But it doesn't matter, because you're on your way into the heavens. On your way into outer space." "And when you got into orbit?" asked Mulder, clearly fascinated. "The difference between the g-forces pinning you to your seat during the ascent and the gentle pressure of the restraining harness stopping you from drifting out of that same seat after you've achieved orbit could not be greater. Unsurprisingly, the latter is far more pleasant to experience than the former. Not that there's much time to contemplate such things. No sooner did we achieve orbital insertion - at a height of 122 nautical miles and an inclination of 51.6 degrees - than we had to run through a series of systems checks with Mission Control back in Houston. Nevertheless, I still paused as I caught sight of the moon coming into view around the edge of the planet below, and gazed at it wistfully. 'I know what you're thinking,' Qing Yuan said to me, 'How does that quote of Gene Cernan's go again?' 'Yes, I am the last man to have walked on the moon,' I replied, 'and that's a very dubious and disappointing honor. It's been far too long.' And he was right. It has been. I always thought I'd walk on the moon one day, but I guess that's never going to happen now.' 'You never know,' she said to me, 'anything might happen.'" Mulder jotted down some more notes, then slid the microphone across to Scully, who had slipped on her spectacles and been studying what Winters assumed to be a file on him. "Was it all work on board, or did you get some downtime?" she asked. "Of course we did. After the initial tasks had been completed along with the mandatory exercise routines, I got to enjoy my first period of downtime since the launch with Carole Branson. She and I were at the head of the initial meal rotation." "What was the food like?" "Meals for astronauts might have improved since the 1960s and the days of food in a toothpaste tube, but they're still nothing to write home about. But at least the break meant we got to talk about something Carole had been wanting to discuss." "Mission related?" "No, personal. She told me my son Todd had asked her daughter Donna to their prom. He'd told me he was going to. I don't think I've ever seen him so nervous." "Donna is the eldest of Joe and Carole Branson's two daughters," said Scully, checking another file. "That's right, and Todd is the middle of my three sons. We and the Bransons are next door neighbours back in Florida. Carole thought it was sweet, the captain of the school football team being so nervous. Todd's pretty fearless most of the time, too, but he should take a leaf from his older brother's book when it comes to girls. Danny could sweet talk the birds from the trees. Carole asked me if my wife Mary and I were getting used to the idea we'll soon be grandparents yet, what with Danny's wife Susan about to give birth any day now." "When's she due?" "A week, according to her doctor. And we're delighted at the prospect. We'll be the most doting grandparents you've ever seen. Danny and Susan told us the child's gender - mainly so that I would know in advance what colour to paint the nursery. And I have to tell you, I'm really looking forward to holding in my arms the grandson who'll carry my family name into the next generation." "Interesting. What else did you discuss?" "I asked her if she was nervous about the EVA schedule for our second day. She admitted she was, but that mostly she was looking forward to it. Joe had been on a spacewalk before, had talked her through it, and assured her it was a blast. Which it is, though actually working on the satellites is hard work. It takes so much longer to perform any task in space than it does back on Earth." "That was why you were there? Satellite maintenance?" "There was the usual package of scientific experiments to conduct, but the primary mission goal was the repair and servicing of two communications satellites. We serviced the first in situ on day two, and pulled the other into the shuttle for more extensive work five days later. Can I ask you something, Miss Scully?" "Go ahead." "What is it you hope to achieve with these questions? I haven't told you anything you couldn't have learned from my personnel file or the mission logs. Nothing I've said tells you anything about what happened to the Olympia during our descent or how it may have affected us." "On the contrary. You've told me a great deal, particularly in regards to your family." "I don't understand." "You don't have a wife," said Scully, "and your children don't exist, because you never married. " HANGAR 44 EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE CALIFORNIA. It was quiet in the main hangar where the Olympia was kept, the teams of technicians who pored over her during the day having all gone home for the night. "Looks like we have the place all to ourselves," said Mulder. "Good," said Scully, sliding her arms around his waist. Grinning, he leaned down and they locked lips, kissing passionately until she sank her fingers into his buttocks. "Owww!" he yelped, breaking their embrace. "Still sore from last night?" she said, grinning. "You play rough, lady. I hadn't expected you to claw my ass like you did, and I've got teeth marks in my shoulder." "Oh, poor baby," she cooed, fishing her lighter and a pack of Marlboros from her coat pocket. Lighting a cigarette, she took a deep drag then blew a long stream of smoke towards the ceiling high above their heads, smiling appreciatively. Returning the lighter to her pocket, she paused and ran her thumb over the words engraved on its gold surface for a few seconds before putting it away. "What do you think it means?" she said, wandering over to the orbiter and gazing up at it. "What do I think what means?" "The flag on the fuselage," she said, "it's got fifty stars on it." "That's how many states our country has on their Earth, Major Scully," said a new voice. They turned to see their superior striding across the hangar towards them. "Colonel Skinner!" said Scully, dropping her cigarette to the concrete and hastily twisting it out beneath the toe of her shoe. "So we're sure they're from a parallel universe," said Mulder, "and not our missing craft and crew somehow transformed?" "Yes, Captain Mulder, we are. And now that we've made that determination they'll have to be killed, of course. We can't risk cultural contamination, and there could be panic if the public ever learned parallel universes actually exist." "I understand, sir." "What about you, Major Scully? Are you ready to perform the autopsies?" "I've carried out autopsies on aliens," she said, "so a few humans won't be a problem." "Humans, yes," said Skinner, "but not from our world. In my book that makes them aliens, too." "If their shuttle and her crew ended up in our universe, I wonder if ours ended up in theirs," said Mulder. "And if so, what would they make of them?" "I doubt we'll ever know, Captain," said Skinner, "I doubt we'll ever know." EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE CALIFORNIA "Are we there yet?" "Very funny, Mulder," said Scully, as they pulled up to the gates of the base. She glanced across to her partner, who had been slouching in the passenger seat of their rental car since they had left LAX, then rolled down her window, "IDs please, ma'am, sir," said the uniformed guard on the gate, leaning in. They flashed their FBI IDs and the guard nodded to his colleague in the guardhouse, who raised the gate. "Major Meacham is expecting you," he said. "Please proceed to the reception building." Such was the vastness of the base, that this was no small drive. The sun had beat down on them from the moment they had landed at LAX, and leaving the outskirts of Los Angeles had also meant leaving greenery behind. From then onward the land had been yellow and parched. "Edwards Air Force Base," said Mulder, as they sped through the dry, flat landscape inside the fence, "formerly Muroc. Do we know what we're doing here yet?" "Deputy Director Skinner said we had been requested by name," replied Scully, "and it's apparently a matter of national security. Beyond that, I don't know any more than you do." Major Meacham was a square-jawed man with a military buzz-cut who looked to be in his early thirties. He greeted them eagerly when they pulled up outside the nondescript reception building. "Agents Mulder and Scully," he said, shaking their hands, "I'm glad you made it OK. My superiors weren't in favor of bringing civilians in on this, but you're just what we need." "For what, exactly?" asked Mulder. "It's the Space Shuttle Olympia," he said. "The crew returned to Earth yesterday and, well, the Mission Commander - Nathan Winters - is refusing to speak to anyone but Agent Scully." "Me?" said Scully. "But I've never met the man." "Did you read the personnel files on him and the rest of the crew we faxed across to you?" "We both went over them in depth on our flight out from DC," said Mulder. "Good, then if you'll follow me I'll take you to him. Leave your car here; we're taking my jeep." "I thought shuttle orbiters usually returned to Kennedy Space Center these days," said Mulder as they climbed into the jeep. "Yes, since 1991. They only land at Edwards now when the weather makes a landing at Kennedy impossible. We're fortunate that was this case with this flight." The trip to the Hangar 43 was a short one, and the major was waved through by the armed guards on the doors. Inside, he parked the jeep a short distance from an array of isolation chambers. Arranged in a circle, windows facing outwards, they all held a single occupant. In front of each window was a table with two chairs, on top of which was a microphone. Major Meacham led them over to one of them, holding a middle-aged man wearing a uniform. They didn't recognize the uniform, but they did recognize the man from the photo in his personnel file: Nathan Winters. His face lit up when he caught sight of Scully. The FBI agents seated themselves at the table, Meacham standing behind them. Scully pressed the button on the microphone that opened communications between them and Winters. "You came!" he said, grinning at her. "I always knew I was more than just another one of the many notches on your bedpost." Mulder's eyebrows shot up at this. "Don't say anything, Mulder," warned Scully, not needing to look at her partner to know his reaction to this. "Do you still have the cigarette lighter I gave you?" asked Winters. "Cigarette lighter?" said Scully, sounding puzzled. "But I don't smoke." "You don't? Since when?" "Since a couple of months during my teenage years. I'm sorry Colonel Winters, but I've never met you before. You must have me confused with someone else." "No, no, we were lovers," he insisted, "and why does everyone keep calling me 'Colonel Winters'? It's *Captain* Winters." "I'm sure this must be frustrating for you, Captain Winters," said Mulder, taking the initiative, "but we'll try to have you back with your wife and children as soon as we can." "What wife and children?" he shouted, angry now. "I don't have a wife and children! I never married!" "OK, OK," said Mulder, trying to calm him, "tell me about your mission." "Mission? You mean the flight? There isn't much to tell. I was just ferrying supplies up to the space station and carrying back scientists who were returning from an assignment on the moon at Clavius Base. But...why are you asking me all these questions? I insisted Dana be the one to interview me because something about this place seemed off. I wondered if maybe we weren't at the real Edwards but at some place in the Soviet Union made to look like it, that the strange event during our reentry was them somehow diverting the orbiter. When I saw Dana I was relieved. I thought it proved I was wrong. But she's not right either. What is going on here?" Mulder switched the microphone off, and turned to face Meacham. "We don't have a completed space station yet, we won't have for several years, and we certainly don't have a moonbase. As for the Soviet Union, it shut up shop eight years ago. Like he said, what's going on here?" "This man is delusional," said Scully, "that much is obvious." "Yeah," said Mulder. "Did something happen to him while he was in space? Is that why we were called in? Do you suspect an encounter of some sort with extraterrestrials?" "I think it's best if you follow me," said Meacham, turning on his heel. "There's something in the next hangar you need to see. It will explain everything." Intrigued, they got to their feet and trailed after him. The contents of the other hangar were not what either expected. "Wow," said Mulder, when he saw what it contained. "The crew went up in the Olympia," said Major Meacham, "this is what they came back in." The craft in the hangar was sleeker than the blocky shuttle, its lines far more elegant. "It's years ahead of the shuttle," said Meacham, "though the mass of the two is almost identical. We don't know whether or not that's significant." "How is this even possible?" asked Scully. "How could they have gone up in one craft and returned in another?" "I'm beginning to suspect 'they' didn't," said Mulder, gazing upwards and still marvelling at the craft. "You want to tell us what happened, major?" "The descent appeared perfectly normal," he said. "We were tracking it on radar. Only one minute it was there, and the next it wasn't. We thought we'd lost it, but six minutes later it reappeared - in the exact same spot it had disappeared." "What, no loss of altitude?" said Mulder. "None. Piloting the orbiter to earth from space has been compared to flying a refrigerator. It's an unpowered, falling object that you steer, but you can't arrest its descent. Yet in that six minute period it was arrested. It's as if the orbiter blinked out of existence for those six minutes. Only what blinked back into existence wasn't the same craft. And so far as its occupants and the onboard chronometers were concerned it was only gone for a few seconds. On the surface those occupants appear to be the same crew we sent up, but only on the surface, as you discovered." "No, they're not the same people at all, are they?" said Mulder. "They have to be from a parallel universe. Somehow as Olympia was descending over our Earth and they were over theirs, the two craft got switched." "That's the conclusion our scientists have tentatively reached, too, but... parallel universes? I have to tell you I'm having a hard time accepting it, Agent Mulder. That stuff's only ever been theory, and fodder for Star Trek episodes." "Not any more," said Mulder, "not any more." "If you're right then Nathan Winters genuinely is a captain not a major, and he really does know me," said Scully, "at least he knows the me of that other universe. I wonder what she's like?" "Sexually promiscuous and a smoker," said Mulder. "Beyond that, I mean. Is she still essentially the same person, or is she radically different from me?" "How different are the crew of this shuttle from our own?" asked Mulder. "Has anyone who knows their counterparts intimately been brought in to make that evaluation?" "No, and they won't be," said Meacham. "The only reason you two are here is because Captain Winters refused point black to speak to anyone other than Agent Scully - or Major Dana Scully, as he insisted on calling her. Apparently you two are with military intelligence on his Earth. As per protocol, his crewmates are insisting that only he should speak for them so we pretty much had to call you in on this. Also, your reputation precedes you." "Really? In what way?" "The X-files are more widely known about among powerful people than you imagine, Agent Mulder. Regular FBI agents would not have been allowed the access you're being given here." "Then I guess we'd better get back to extracting whatever we can from Captain Winters...." FBI HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON DC. THREE DAYS LATER "Have you seen the news, Scully?" asked Mulder, as she entered their cluttered basement office. "What news?" He indicated the TV, where the news anchor was reporting on a plane crash in which everyone had been killed. "I don't...." "It was the NASA jet allegedly flying the crew of the Olympia back across country," said Mulder. "The bodies of everyone on board were apparently burned beyond recognition." "You think they were killed?" "Maybe, maybe not. I'd like to think the plane was loaded with corpses before it was deliberately crashed and no one was actually killed, but I doubt if we'll ever be told the truth. I should've seen something like this coming. The crew from that parallel Earth may look like our people, but they're not. There's no way they could be allowed out into our world, particularly if there was any chance of them meeting the families of the crew of the Olympia. The absence of that crew needed to be explained, and what better way than by faking their deaths?" "What about the missing shuttle?" "I doubt the public will be told it's missing. I'm guessing the official story will be that a post-flight inspection has raised concerns and Olympia is being retired on safety grounds. After Challenger people will accept this, and no one need be any the wiser." "They'll never know it's lost in another universe. I wonder why the switch happened?" "Oh it might be really common and people might be swapping universes every day." "What do you mean?" "According to the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, we live in a multiverse containing an infinite humber of universes, some of which will be almost indistinguishable from ours. Perhaps we swap universes constantly and don't realise it. It would explain why you can put something down in a room and find it gone when you return a few minutes later. It hasn't moved but you have. You've gone from a universe in which the item is in that room to one where it isn't. You might not now be working with the Fox Mulder you first met, Scully. You might have worked with dozens of different Mulders over the years." "All of them with the same interest in pornography," said Scully, smiling wryly. "Hey, some things have to be constant across universes. Seriously though, if that is what happens, switching universes would be a natural phenomenon, and only very rarely would you get a switch where the differences were big enough to attract attention." "As in the case of those spacecraft?" "Yes. If I had to hazard a guess I'd say the fact the two craft had the same mass, were carrying the same crew, and were in the exact same location in their two worlds had something to do with why those particular craft swapped places." "So a natural phenomenon rather than something else?" "That would be my guess. As for why the craft are so different...The final Apollo mission was Apollo 17 and Gene Cernan was Mission Commander. There's a famous quote attributed to him: 'Yes, I am the last man to have walked on the moon, and that's a very dubious and disappointing honor. It's been far too long.' I'm betting that in their universe Cernan wasn't the last man on the moon, that unlike us they kept going. They set up a permanent moonbase and developed craft like the one we saw at Edwards. I like their space program more than I do ours." "The visitors' craft is the only remaining proof of the existence of that other Earth." "Yes, and by now it's almost certainly been moved to a secure location - I'm betting Area 51 - where its secrets can be unlocked and it will never be seen again." "It seemed so much more advanced than our orbiter. I'm still having trouble believing it was a commercial craft, but their Jill Reilly was some sort of flight attendant and had the uniform to match. Then there's that logo." "Pan-Am," said Mulder, "a company that ceased to exist in our world in December 1991 - almost eight years ago." "Do you believe what Winters said about a permanent moon base, and them having excavated an alien artifact?" "I think we have to, particularly given the report and photos in that secure pouch they were carrying back to Earth. What I want to know is whether we have a similar artifact buried on our own moon." They had not been allowed to take away the report, of course, but Mulder would never forget the photo showing the artifact. The image of that large, black monolith was seared into his brain. And it always would be. SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SIX MONTHS LATER It was after dark as Carter Johns jogged through the suburban sprawl of Canoga Park. The sharp late-autumn breezes of the valley were pleasantly bracing, cooling rather than chilling him. He was out pounding the largely empty streets this fine Thursday evening in order to clear his head. What with one thing and another, it had been a long few weeks and this was the first opportunity he had really had to cut loose in that time. Coming level with the local high school he saw the gate was open and so ducked in to use the track on their athletic field, which appeared to be deserted. This was the very school his children attended, and he decided it would be good to see the track as they saw it. It was while lost in such reflection that it happened. One second he was enjoying his run, and the next he was sent sprawling as something slammed into him at high speed from above. Stumbling to his feet, he staggered into the soft sand of the long jump pit. Even as he realized this, so he felt the air displacement as whatever had struck him landed softly behind him. Dazed, he turned to face his attacker. It was dark, but in the illumination provided by the streetlamps of the distant road and the security lights around the running track, he could make out its powerful, form, all color washed out by their sodium glare. He barely had time to take in any details before the creature lashed out, claws raking his throat and severing his jugular. Carter Johns slumped to his knees, blood gushing from his neck, then face forward into the sand. He did not get up. He would never get up again. Five minutes later and two miles distant, Gary Negretti was driving along the main San Fernando valley highway, listening to classic rock on his car radio. After a long, frustrating day at the base he was looking forward to getting home and settling down in front of his TV with a six- pack to watch the big game. He was contemplating the Dodgers' recent, woeful form, when something heavy landed on the roof of the car, causing him to swerve in surprise. As he straightened up, powerful talons stabbed through the roof, peeling it back like tinfoil. Instinctively, he threw the steering wheel as far right as he could, hoping the sudden lurch would eject his attacker from the roof. It didn't. Negretti took his gun from the car's glove box, swinging it upwards as he did so. He was fast, but the creature was faster. It grabbed his wrist before he could bring his gun to bear. The struggle only lasted a few seconds, but that was long enough for him to lose control of the car. Unfortunately they were on a bend. Even more unfortunately, they left the road at a point where a section of crash rail was missing, sailing out into the air. The creature took wing as they did so, soaring clear as the car crashied down the slope, totally out of control. Negretti cried out as he saw the trees at the bottom rushing towards him. Then the car smashed into them and he knew no more. Whether he was unconscious for seconds or for hours Negretti had no way of knowing know, but as soon as he came too he grabbed a second item from the glove box, released his seat belt, then rolled out of the car, scrambling unsteadily to his feet, gun in hand. And not a moment too soon. The thing hit him at speed, knocking him backwards. He fired at it as it tried to press its advantage, bullets slicing through the leathern skin of one wing. It hissed in fury, and Negretti got his first good look at its face. It was the face of a demon. Negretti paused for a moment, then resumed firing, his bullets driving the creature back against the car until he had no bullets left. When that happened he dropped his gun, pulled the pin from the other item he'd taken from his glove box, and lobbed the grenade over the demon's head and in through the ruined roof of his car. All this before it had time to react. The explosion was much bigger than he'd expected. It blew the car to pieces, setting fire to the trees and dry grass over a large radius. Fortunately, Negretti was far enough away and partially shielded by the creature for the blast to do no more than knock him off his feet. Ears ringing, he looked up, expecting to see the demon's remains spread over a wide area. Instead he spotted it in the air and already a hundred yards distant, flying away. The thing was tough as hell, but it had clearly had enough. Getting to his feet, he brushed the dirt from his uniform then started up the embankment to the road where he hoped to flag down a passing car. Despite being a self-professed devout Christian, it had been months since Gary Negretti had last set foot inside a church. He would remedy that tonight. SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA NINE HOURS LATER "It was peeled open like a can of fish, Agent Mulder," said the local cop showing him around the crime scene. "I've never seen anything like it." This was Detective Shona Reece, a tall, striking-looking African- American woman with short-cropped hair who reminded Mulder of the singer Grace Jones. Mulder was examining the ruined roof of the crashed automobile, the rips and indentations in the metal making it quite clear that it had been torn open by someone or something rather than by mechanical means. "And you say the driver survived?" "Yes, though he was pretty banged up. Claims he was attacked by some sort of winged demon." "A winged demon," said Mulder, almost smacking his lips at the thought, just as he had when alerted to the case. "Most of the major religions and peoples of the world have myths about winged demons of various sorts, from the very earliest civilisations onward. I wonder which type we're dealing with here?" "What, you think it really was a demon that did this?" She frowned and Mulder sighed inwardly at her reaction. "At this point I'm keeping an open mind and...hello, what's this? A bloody fingerprint?" "Yeah, we had it photographed but couldn't find a match. We thought maybe whoever or whatever it was had cut themselves tearing into the roof, but it turned out to be the first victim's blood." "Interesting," said Mulder. There was no reason for a demon not to have fingerprints, but he was surprised to discover this one did. It wasn't something he had encountered in any of the literature on the subject. "Can I speak to the driver?" "He's agreed to swing by the office later and answer your questions." "Good. I assume you took a ton of crime scene photos; can I get copies?" "Of course." "Excellent," said Mulder, starting back off up the embankment to where his car was parked on the road above. "Now let's get to the morgue and find out what my partner has discovered about the other victim." The local morgue was indistinguishable from a dozen others Mulder had visited, all of them chilly, brightly lit, and smelling of strong disinfectant. Scully seemed pleased to see him, managing a small smile when he and Detective Reece joined her there. "What've we got, Scully?" asked Mulder, nodding at the body on the slab before her. "The victim is Carter Johns, a 38 year old caucasian male. Death was due to exsanguination, the result of a severed jugular caused by severe laceration of the throat. After close examination of the lacerations, I'm of the opinion they were made by some sort of large animal." "Witnesses reported seeing a creature the size of a man launch itself into the air from the school sports field where the body was found and fly off to the east," said Mulder. "Those witnesses were all in moving vehicles on the road outside the school and it was after dark," said Scully. "None of them can be sure what they saw." "Nevertheless, a second attack occurred soon afterwards a few miles away from the first, and this time the victim survived." "Ah yes, the 'winged demon' you dashed off to find," said Scully, smiling. "Any luck with that?" "Not as yet, no. Is there any link between the two victims?" "Not that we've been able to find," said Detective Reece. "Gary Negretti claims never to have met Carter Johns, and there's nothing in their backgrounds to suggest a connection. Johns was an elementary school teacher, and Negretti is in the air force." "That explains the gun," said Mulder, "but he wouldn't have been authorized to carry a grenade." As he was saying this the doors swung open and two men in military uniform entered, one of them a familiar figure. "No he wasn't, Agent Mulder," he said, "and though it saved his life he *will* face a charge over that." "Yeah, like that's going to happen," said Detective Reece, under her breath. She said it quietly, but it was still loud enough for Scully standing next to her to hear. She frowned at the other woman. "Major Meacham," said Mulder, "it's good to see you again!" They shook hands, and Meacham turned to the other officer. "This is my superior, Colonel Negretti," he said. "He works at Edwards but lives off base. He's agreed to answer any questions you have." "So it really was a demon that attacked you?" "I know how crazy that sounds, but I don't know how else to describe it. It was the size and shape of a man but had huge, bat-like wings growing out of its back, and its toes and fingers that ended in pretty vicious claws." "Was it wearing anything?" asked Scully. "'Wearing anything'? C'mon Scully, it's a demon! Of course it wasn't wearing anything." "Actually, Agent Mulder, it was," said Negretti. "It was wearing blue jeans." "Blue jeans?" "Yeah, Wrangler stone-washed 501s. I'd just bought a pair for my teenage daughter, so I recognized them immediately." Seeing the look on Mulder's face, it took all Scully's willpower not to burst out laughing. "Was it wearing anything else?" she asked. "No shirt, no shoes, just blue jeans. Oh, and they had a Grateful Dead patch sewn on the right thigh." "The Grateful Dead...," muttered Mulder, shaking his head. He turned to Meacham. "Do you think this might have something to do with Olympia?" he asked, referring to the case Meacham had assisted them on six months earlier. "I don't see how? Do you have reason to believe this was something more than a random attack?" "No, not really," said Mulder, "I've just always had a hard time believing in coincidences." "Could you run us through the attack on you from the beginning, Colonel," asked Scully, "just so we can be sure we haven't missed anything?" He did so and they listened intently, interjecting the occasional question. "OK, well thank you for your time," said Mulder when he was done, "I'm sure we'll be in touch if we need anything else from you." When they had left, Scully turned to Detective Reece. "Did I detect some sort of negative vibe between you and the Colonel?" "Very perceptive, Agent Scully," she said. "He used to be my commanding officer." "You were in the military? What happened?" "I'd prefer not to talk about it, if you don't mind." "I understand." Mulder gave his partner a quizzical look, indicating he would have pressed Detective Reece further on this, but he accepted her decision not to and did not push the matter. "Right, well I guess we'd better interview Carter Johns' family," he said. It was mid evening by the time they got back to their motel, Johns' family having been unable to provide them with any reason why he might have been targeted. "It's starting to look like these really are unconnected, random attacks," said Mulder, as Scully brought their car to a halt in the motel lot, "which means we have nowhere to go from here. All we can do is wait for another attack." "I know," said Scully, as they climbed out of the vehicle, "but it's not something I want to think about right now. We had an early start and I'm beat. I'll see you in the morning, Mulder." "Alright. G'night, Scully, don't let the bed bugs bite." The motel they were staying at was a cut above those the FBI usually found for them, and came complete with a well kept swimming pool and some fairly decent poolside furniture. When Mulder woke and headed out for breakfast the following morning he was surprised to find Scully already sitting at one of the tables, a pot of coffee before her, poring over the notes they had taken the previous day and the crime scene photos. She was also smoking a cigarette. As he approached her, Scully took a drag on her cigarette and looked up. She ran her eyes over him appreciatively, then grinned. "Nice!" she said, exhaling a long stream of smoke. "Is there something you want to tell me, Scully?" he asked, frowning at his partner's unusual behaviour. "Quite a bit, actually," she said, "but I think you'd better take a seat first." Mulder did so, feeling uncomfortable at the way she was looking him up and down. "God, you really are identical to him!" she said. "I mean yes, I knew you would be, but knowing something and experiencing it are two different things." "Him? Him who? Scully, what are you talking about?" "That's just it, Fox. I'm not Scully - at least not *your* Scully. I'm not her at all." SHADY PINES MOTEL SAN FERNANDO VALLEY Mulder stared at his partner, wondering if this was some sort of joke. "You want to run that by me again?" he said. "Your space shuttle orbiter Olympia," she said. "Six months ago it ended up on my Earth, and our space plane ended up on yours." "You're saying you're the Scully of that other Earth?" "Major Dana Scully. Pleased to meet you, Fox." She held out her hand. He shook it tentatively. "Mulder," he mumbled, still processing this revelation, still not entirely convinced this wasn't his Scully pulling his leg, "everyone calls me Mulder." "Huh. Interesting." She took another drag on her cigarette. "So if you're over here does that mean my Scully is over there?" "No, it doesn't. We have no idea what caused the two craft to swap places and no way of replicating the phenomenon, but we have recently discovered how to project a person's mind into the body of their counterpart in another universe while they're asleep." "You mean...?" "Yes, this is your Scully's body but my mind is currently in the driving seat. While I'm in charge her mind remains sleeping. When I leave she'll wake up and reassert control." "The many worlds theory posits an infinite number of parallel universes. How were you able to home in on this particular one?" "By comparing material from your universe to material in our own, we discovered that on the molecular level each has a different 'quantum signature', an address if you like. Using that signature, priming the drug used in the process with such material, we're able to create a quantum link between a person in our universe and their counterpart in yours." "So why are you here now? Are you just testing the process?" "No, I was sent here for a reason. This 'demon' you're looking for," she said, indicating the notes on the table, "is also from my Earth. His name is William Dayton. I'm here to help you stop him." "So this William Dayton is not really a demon?" "No - if such things even actually exist - he's not." "Then who or what is he, and why is he killing random people here?" "The killings aren't random." "But there's no link between the victims." "Yes there is - just not on this Earth. On mine, Carter Johns and Gary Negretti are colleagues. Look, I probably ought to start at the beginning." "Good idea." "William Dayton was born in 1950, so he's now in his late forties. Like Carter Johns and Gary Negretti, he was with the air force and attached to Edwards Air Force base, but where they're big-wigs he's a military scientist. For reasons we don't yet fully understand, the process that brought us both here works better on some people than on others. From the beginning, the tests that were conducted identified him as the best candidate, followed by me, which is why he was the first to be projected into the mind of his counterpart over here. He w