Original Sin

Chapter Two


They sat in a small windowless office in the basement, each 
with a half-drunk cup of water, silent under the heavy churn 
of the air conditioning unit.  The noise vibrated Scully's 
bones and she longed for the peace and quiet of her previous 
basement, where the thick concrete walls generally kept the 
summer heat at bay.  

The scar in her neck itched, the way it always did when she 
was nervous; or maybe it burned, like a homing device, 
because she surely was back home again despite being two 
thousand miles away from the place where she had started.

Ruben hadn't really looked at her since they'd entered the 
room, content instead to destroy the waxy rim of his paper 
cup using one stubby fingernail.  "So," he said finally, 
"what was that all about back there?  Are you going to tell 
me how you knew Annie?"

Here, away from the body, she could almost make it not true.  
The woman's face looked like hamburger meat, almost 
unrecognizable.  It had been more than four years since that 
terrible night on the bridge.  The woman could be anyone.

"They said her name was Samantha."  She nearly jumped at the 
sound of her own voice.

"Samantha was her first name but she liked to be called by 
her middle name.  You still haven't answered my question."

"I was once on a case that involved a woman who looked very 
much like her, a woman who also called herself Samantha."

"What case?  When?  You're saying Annie's been in trouble 
before?"

Scully shook her head.  "The resemblance is striking but it's 
not the same person."

"You don't know that."

"The other woman died, Ruben.  She...drowned."  And then 
melted.  Scully cast a look at the door and wondered if she 
should warn the men on the other side that their victim might 
start emitting a noxious green gas at any moment.

The blood was real, she told herself.  You saw it.  This is 
not the same thing.

But Mulder's voice, after all this time, rang clear in her 
head: clones, Scully, there were at least five of them, maybe 
more.  The one in the river wasn't her, but somewhere there's 
got to be the original.  

She cleared her throat, ignoring her hot cheeks and the 
buzzing in her ears.  She forced herself to say the words 
that had gotten her into so much trouble before.  "Tell me 
more about your sister."  

"I don't really know where to begin.  She was living with the 
Ceteras when I got there and they adopted us both about a 
year later.  She used to hang off my top bunk bed like it was 
a jungle gym but I let her sleep up there anyway because she 
sometimes had nightmares.  She didn't like to talk about her 
first home and our Mom said it was because she'd been abused 
there.  She said that's why we should call her Annie, like 
she asked, because she was making a new life for herself and 
a fresh start called for a new name."

His face crumpled and he sniffed hard to control himself.

"You think maybe she had a sister?" he asked. "Possibly a 
twin, even, and that's the woman from your previous case?"

Scully was saved from answering by the reappearance of 
Detective Holloway.  "Sorry to interrupt you folks but I have 
some questions I need to ask Mr. Cetera."

Ruben crushed the remnants of his paper cup with one hand and 
made and easy toss into a dented metal wastebasket.  "I'll 
answer your questions but I don't know how much help I can 
be.  I haven't talked to her in almost three years now."

"You mind if I ask why that is?"

"We were already busy, you know, leading separate lives.  But 
then one day she called up and asked for my help.  She wanted 
to find her first family, the ones who had abused her and 
landed in her foster care to begin with.  I said there was no 
way I was going to help her go back down that path.  Do you 
know how many kids get adopted at our age?  The odds are less 
than one in a hundred.  We had two parents who loved us and 
she wanted to throw that back in their faces."

His face flushed.  Scully could see how angry he was about 
this imagined betrayal even now, and Holloway didn't miss it 
either.  

"I see," he said, making a couple of notes.  "And do you know 
if her search was successful?"

"Last I heard, it wasn't, at least that's what she told our 
parents.  But I didn't ask for regular updates on that 
particular topic.  Why?  Do you think she found them and 
that's who did this?"

"I've no reason to believe so at the moment.  What can you 
tell me about her ex-husband?"

"They split last year.  Jack always seemed like a nice guy to 
me, though I gather from my parents that he was kind of a 
dick to Annie during the divorce.  He's a fibbie, like Dana 
here, but I suppose you know that already."

Holloway raised bushy eyebrows at her.  "You're FBI?"

"Uh, yes.  Forensic pathology."

"And you say you knew the victim?"

Scully hesitated and smoothed a non-existent wrinkle from her 
pants.  "No, I was mistaken," she said.  "She strongly 
resembles a woman I knew back when I worked in Washington, 
but that woman is deceased."

"I can see why you were startled then.  Listen, Agent Scully, 
would you mind giving me some time to talk with Mr. Cetera 
alone?"

Scully met his gaze and he gave her a slight nod.  She wasn't 
sure if she was being removed due to her personal connection 
with Ruben or her professional connection to the dead woman's 
husband, but she wanted to try to get another look at the 
body anyway.  "I'll just be outside," she said, laying a hand 
on Ruben's arm.

He patted her distractedly, as his attention was still 
focused on Holloway.  "Are you looking at Jack for this?  Is 
that why he's not here?"

"We've spoken to him and he's on his way," was the last thing 
Scully heard as she closed the door on her way out.

It had been years since she'd pushed her way into a morgue 
uninvited and perhaps she was a bit rusty.  The ME, a 
heavyset man wearing a plastic apron and goggles, looked up 
in alarm the second she stepped through the doors.  "You 
can't be in here," he told her.

She saw the body had been cleaned for autopsy.  "I'm a 
pathologist with the FBI," she said as she took out her 
identification.

The ME didn't so much as glance at it.  "I don't care if 
you're J. Edgar dressed in drag," he said.  "Get the hell out 
of here."

So Scully was sitting on a bench in the hallway when a tall 
man came crashing through the doors.  He wore sunglasses and 
expensive looking clothes that reeked of cigarette smoke.  
"Who are you?" he demanded when he saw her.

"Special Agent Dana Scully," she said, trying her 
identification again.

He removed the sunglasses and stepped closer, towering over 
her.  It was then she noticed his holster.  "FBI?  Who sent 
you?"

She got up and around him to reclaim her personal space.  "No 
one sent me.  You are?"

He flashed his own ID.  "Jack Milgram, LA Bureau.  They told 
me to talk to a Detective Holloway about my wife.  She was 
brought here sometime last night."

"Your wife," Scully repeated, though she could guess already 
who he was.

"Samantha Milgram.  Is she here?  I want to see her."

"I wouldn't..."  But he was already charging through the 
doors.

"Hey!"  She heard the ME yell and figured she'd take 
advantage of the confusion to steal another look.  "This 
isn't a sideshow and I ain't selling tickets.  I'm telling 
you like I told her -- get the hell out of here."

"That's my wife."  Jack Milgram had stopped short in the 
middle of the room, sunglasses still dangling from one hand.

"Oh, hey, I'm sorry," the ME said.  "But you still can't be 
here right now."

"He's right, Agent Milgram," Scully said.  "You don't want to 
see this."  A bitter divorce, an apparent hot temper -- she 
was fairly certain Milgram would be needing a good alibi.

"Who the hell are you people to tell me what I want?  This is 
the mother of my children, for Christ's sake, and someone has 
slaughtered her like a common animal.  I damn sure need some 
answers."

"You'll get your answers," the ME told him.  "But not until I 
do my work and that isn't happening until you get the heck 
out of here."

Milgram turned and looked her up and down.  "You look like 
you've been around the block a few times.  What's your beat 
at the Bureau?"

"Forensic pathology."

"Perfect."  He waved his sunglasses at her.  "I'll go, but 
she's staying."

"The hell she is."

"I want someone from the agency at least observing this 
autopsy.  No offense, Doctor, I'm sure you're perfectly 
skilled, but she's my wife and I'm calling the shots."

"You've got no authority."

"Don't worry, I can get it."  He was already on his cell 
phone.  "Don't you let him out of your sight," he said to 
Scully.  "Tony, it's Milgram.  I need your help with 
something."

"Your friend is charming," the ME said as he went to get a 
fresh pair of gloves.

"I've known him for all of five minutes."

He gave her a skeptical look from the far side of the body.  
"You're really a forensic pathologist?"

"Trained at Quantico."

"With Gil Riley?"

"The very same."

"Gil's pretty sharp," he replied grudgingly.  "You talk to 
him, tell him Bob Bartleby said hi, ok?  I guess it can't 
hurt to let you watch, but just stay out of the way."

Scully put on a gown, goggles and gloves and took her place 
silently.  Up close, there was no denying it.  This was the 
same face from the night at the bridge.  She recalled 
Mulder's words as they had pulled the previous Samantha from 
the cold Potomac waters: "I think she's still alive."

"The deceased has been identified as Samantha Milgram, age 36 
years old.  Height is five foot five, weight at one hundred 
and twenty-five pounds."

Scully walked to the end of the body to view it from a new 
angle.  Outside of the violent beating, there was nothing out 
of the ordinary.  She had contusions on both forearms, 
probably from trying to defend herself from the attacker.  
But there was nothing to suggest she was a clone.

Of course, since cloned humans didn't actually exist to her 
knowledge, there was nothing in the medical literature about 
how to spot one.

She leaned down to study the part of the face that was still 
there.  Samantha Milgram had remarkably clear skin, with very 
little sun damage.  That could indicate good genes or a 
reduced period of exposure.

"Excuse me," Bartleby said pointedly, and she stood aside.  
"Cause of death is blunt force trauma to the head, resulting 
in a left orbital fracture and three separate skull 
fractures."

"Any idea about the weapon?" Scully asked.

"Something heavy, swung with a lot of force.  I haven't 
pulled any splinters out of her hair so I would guess we're 
not looking at a wooden weapon.  Maybe a pipe or an aluminum 
bat, something of that nature.  I'm sure you're used to 
seeing more exotic homicides given your work with the 
Bureau."

She'd frozen everything, left her old life just like that 
with burns on her face and Mulder behind a wall of ice 
yelling her name.  Only in her dreams did she thaw, painful 
ice crystals tinkling inside her cold, cold heart.

Life on the X-files had brought a mutant a minute, but it 
turned out that when you weren't looking for it, you didn't 
see monster men come crawling out of the sewers or regrow 
heads or disappear into a pile of ash on the carpet.  

Dana Scully, M.D., looked at the body before her and saw a 
grisly but ordinary murder.  She could walk away and let the 
local boys clean up after this one.  

But Special Agent Scully was already talking, the words at 
once familiar and distasteful. "We should scan the body for 
imbedded metal."

Bartleby widened his eyes behind the thick goggles.  "There's 
no evidence of a gunshot here."

"I'm not suggesting she's been shot.  I think you should 
check both the nasal pharyngeal passages and the base of her 
neck for a computer chip."

"Look, I don't know what sort of game you're playing hereŠ"

"Fine, I can do it myself."  She moved to ready the X-ray, 
but he grabbed her arm.

"The hell you will.  You're just an observer here, remember?  
I can still have you tossed out on your keister, FBI or no 
FBI.   You're in my house now and I make the rules."

"X-ray the body."  She met and held his gaze, and something 
he saw in her eyes made him let her go.  "It will just take a 
second," she said. "I'm sure Agent Milgram would appreciate 
your cooperation."

He threw up his hands in defeat.  "Fine.  You want an X-ray?  
We can check out all her fillings."

He performed the test and together they studied the film.  
Samantha Milgram had two fillings in her back molars and an 
oblong piece of metal lodged in her left sinus cavity.  
Bartleby's face was ashen in the eerie white light.

"Who the hell are you again?"

"Do me a favor," she said.  "Don't tell anyone about this.  
Not Detective Holloway, not even Agent Milgram."

"What is this thing?  You said it was a computer chip?  
Should I remove it?"

"Leave it for now," she said, already walking away.  "I'll be 
back."

"Hey!  Hey, you can't just leave now!"

She took out her cell phone and went back to the quiet 
hallway.  "Mom," she said with relief when the call rang 
through.  "It's me."

"Dana!"  Maggie Scully sounded both pleased and surprised to 
hear from her.  "How are you?"

Scully halted, momentarily thrown off her game.  When had her 
mother stopped asking, "Is everything all right?" at the 
start of every phone call.

"Mom, I need you to do me a favor.  You remember that letter 
I gave you?  I need you to send to me right away, same day 
express mail if possible."  She checked her watch and saw it 
was still only nine-thirty in the morning back east.

There was a long pause on the other end.  "You said not to 
give it back to you."

"That was before.  I need it now. I need you to have it sent 
to the Las Vegas Coroner's office."

"Las Vegas?  Dana, what's going on?  Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Mom.  I just need you to send the letter."

"The one from Fox Mulder."  As if there could ever be 
another.

Scully waited a beat, felt the world slipping away.  "Yes," 
she said as she eyed the doors to the morgue.  "The one from 
Mulder."

***

In his short-sleeved, button-down and khaki shorts, Scotty 
Griffith looked more like a tourist than a local, but that 
suited him just fine as he mixed among the scattered 
afternoon crowd at the MGM Grand.  The ostentatious adult 
funhouses all strove to be bigger and brighter on the 
outside, but down in the belly they were all alike: dark 
carpeting, no windows, and a maze of one-armed bandits with 
the same siren call.  The law now demanded the casinos 
provide smoke-free rooms, but the stale smell of years gone 
by clung to every draped corner.

Two years of working with Dot had taught him to keep his eyes 
open, so he checked out every face as he walked by; a pair of 
old ladies in velvet track suits gossiped as they worked the 
video poker; a balding man with a faded Lakers T-shirt cussed 
out the dollar slots.  Scott saw college kids, tourists from 
the deep South -- "honey, yew've got to come try this 
mahchine; it's based on Gilligan's Island!" -- and a bride 
and groom ignoring each other in favor of a Keno game.

No one matched the photo in his pocket.  "Excuse me," he said 
as he stopped a waitress carrying a tray of empty glasses.  
"Have you seen this woman in here at all?"

"Nope, sorry," she said after barely a glance.  "Lost your 
girlfriend, did ya?"

"Something like that.  Thanks."

He'd pulled the picture in and out so many times it was 
starting to look a little worn around the edges.  Dot had 
said it was possible this lady didn't want to be found, and 
so far, his investigation was backing that up.

He went to the front desk and was glad to see Marty Warren 
was working.  "Go away, we don't want any," Marty said 
without looking up, but he was smiling.

Scotty leaned over the counter like an overgrown kid.  
"Marty, how's it going?"

"Man, you should have seen me last night.  I was playing this 
fish and he's on full tilt, right?  Bet a pair of fives with 
a nine kicker, I shit you not.  So next hand I draw a big 
slick and damned if the same dude isn't re-raising me like 
he's sitting on the rainbow and its pot of gold.  I go all in 
and the asshole has a backdoor straight."

"Better to be lucky than good," Scotty said.

"What the shit you know about it?  You ain't either.  Hey, 
you up for a game tomorrow night?  One of our regulars is 
out-of-town courtesy of the LVPD."

"No, thanks.  I'm working a case."

"Figured as much.  Who's shagging who now?"

"This woman is missing," Scotty said, offering up the 
picture.  "Her name is Stephanie Jameson and I'm trying to 
find out if she stayed here."

"She don't look familiar to me, but let me check with the 
computer."  He hit a few keys and shook his head.  "No, man, 
I'm sorry.  We've got no Jamesons here now or in the last 
week."

"Thanks for trying.  Keep your eyes and ears out, huh?  I've 
got a bad feeling about this one."

"Will do, Scotty."

Outside, the sun was frying the strip into a shimmering 
mirage, heat radiating back off the concrete and drying 
everyone's eyeballs.  The local thermometer threatened to 
break one hundred and fifteen today.  Scotty paused to put on 
his sunglasses, not eager to leave the cool mister that 
sprayed the valets and bellhops every few seconds.

"Feels like you're in a goddamn hot house, don't it?"  The 
doorman tugged at the collar of his shirt.  "I don't care how 
dry they say the heat is.  Once you get over one-ten, you 
might as well be cooking from the inside out."

"Don't I know it," Scotty said.  "I've been to seven hotels 
today and each one it's harder to leave the air conditioning 
behind."

"Seven hotels?  You must be really particular about your 
room."

"No, I'm a PI.  I'm looking for this woman.  You haven't seen 
her by any chance?  We got a lead she might be checked in to 
one of the strip hotels."

The doorman took a long look at the picture.  "You know, she 
looks real familiar.  I know I've seen her someplace."

"Do you remember where?  Or when?"

"It wasn't too recent.  I don't think she was a guest 
here..."  He stopped and grinned.  "Oh, yeah, I got her now.  
I didn't recognize her with her clothes on.  She's a 
stripper.  Works out of the Foxy Lady, I'm pretty sure."

***

They lay fully clothed on top of the bedspread, curtains 
drawn and one small lamp illuminated.  "It's not even six 
yet," Ruben said.  "I shouldn't be this tired."

"You didn't get much sleep last night," Scully reminded him.  
"And it's been a long day."

"June twenty-eighth," he mused.  "Not far from the longest 
day of the year.  They're not even sure yet which day she 
died, whether it was early yesterday or late the day before.  
What do you put on the headstone in cases like that?"

Scully had no answer.  "Have you called your parents yet?"

"No, I had better do that.  I just can't imagine how to tell 
them.  They used to wait up for us when we were teenagers.  
The car would pull up in the drive and their bedroom light 
would go out.  Kids were home, time to get some sleep.  My 
father pretty much yawned through Annie's junior year of high 
school.  This is just going to kill them."

She reached for his hand and squeezed it.  "I'm sorry."  It 
was an apology in advance, for what she had to do.

"I'm glad you're here," he told her with a half-smile.  "I'm 
glad Jack had you watch the autopsy to make sure nothing was 
overlooked.  Thank you for doing that."

She withdrew her hand.  "You don't need to thank me."

"At least you can be of use here.  Holloway must have asked 
me a couple of hundred questions and I couldn't answer half 
of them.  We both know how this works, Dana.  If someone got 
close enough to do that to Annie, it was personal.  She 
probably knew the guy.  The cops want to know as much as 
possible about her life and all I can tell them is what she 
was doing three years ago.  If I'd stayed in touch more..."

"Don't.  You can't blame yourself."

"Absent any evidence to the contrary, I certainly can.  At 
best, I'm guilty of negligence.  I walked away from her at 
time she could have used my support."  

"Sometimes you have to walk away."

"That's bullshit.  I am not going to be one of those guys who 
feeds himself a load of crap excuses.  I'm going to face what 
I've done and try to make it up to her the only way I can, by 
helping catch the animal who did this to her."

He rolled off the bed and started unbuttoning his shirt with 
quick, angry motions.  "I'm going to take a shower and 
then...call my folks, I guess.  I wish there were some way to 
tell them in person, but I can't ask them to get on a plane, 
knowing there is terrible news at the other end and not 
knowing what it is.  Maybe if I stand under the hot water 
long enough, the right words will come to me."

He closed the bathroom door behind him with a quiet click, 
and Scully lay alone in the empty room.  It was nicer than 
any of the ones she ever stayed at with Mulder, with soft 
sheets, heavy drapes, and a working thermostat.  

Unbidden, came a memory from their first year together, the 
early days where they always seemed to be sharing a too-small 
umbrella.  He'd smelled like wet cotton and sun-flower seed 
salt, towering over her in his great black coat.  One day 
he'd pushed too far and they'd eaten dinner in their separate 
gray motel rooms.  Then after dark, just as she'd turned out 
the light, came the knock on their shared wall: shave-and-a-
hair-cut.

That he'd been there, watching light from under her door, 
made her smile.  She'd answered back: two bits.

The letter was in her suitcase now, inside a Fed Ex envelope 
from her mother.  Scully retrieved it with shaking hands and 
tore open the weak cardboard.  Attached was a slip of paper 
with the letterhead: from the desk of Margaret Scully.

"Be sure you really want this.  Some doors, once opened, 
cannot be shut again.  Love, Mom"

Underneath was a sealed white envelope with no writing on the 
outside.  He hadn't even given it to her in person.  Instead, 
she'd found it slipped under her front door the morning of 
her departure.  Fox Mulder was not one for drawn-out good-
byes.  She'd looked for him at the airport, waited for her 
phone to ring; for months she'd held her breath at every 
sound outside her apartment, certain he'd come to object, but 
he never had.

Her mother probably thought she'd been dying for the letter 
all this time.  In truth, she hadn't wanted to know, hadn't 
wanted to give him the last word.

She didn't need to read the letter; she could get what she 
needed without knowing the contents.  But once it was in her 
hands...

She caught her breath at the familiar script and nearly 
fumbled the pages away.  There was no salutation, just a slim 
piece of paper taped to the top with the message:

Only half of what you know is true.  

Then Mulder's handwriting continued: 

I got this in a fortune cookie the day before you were 
assigned to work with me.  I didn't even realize I'd kept it 
until about six months later, when I found it with a 
Wintergreen Lifesaver at the bottom of my coat pocket.

I thought it was crap, and particularly useless crap, because 
what is the point in knowing that half of your knowledge is 
wrong if you don't know which half?

Then you came along and your assessment seemed much lower.  
If you believed 10 percent of what I said, we were having a 
good day.  So I kept saving it because I thought it was 
funny.

It took years of arguing, but I want you to know I finally 
understand the point.  You don't have to know which half is 
right -- the point is to question everything.

There was a time when I didn't think I could do this job with 
you at my side.  Then quickly there was a time when I thought 
the opposite.  Now I don't know what to think, but maybe, at 
last, I can finally accept that as a good thing.

M.

She swiped at the tears in her eyes and shoved the letter 
back in her bag.  The envelope she took with her.  She paused 
to write a vague note to Ruben and drove their rental car to 
the morgue.  As she had imagined, Bartleby was still there.

"I need another favor," she said.

"Not until I get some answers."

"That's what I'm trying to attain."  She handed him the 
envelope.  "I need to test the DNA on this against Samantha 
Milgram's."

"That's an expensive proposition."

"It's important, and I'd prefer not to go through the Bureau 
on this."

"If I do this for you, I'm going to need some answers."

She folded her arms.  "Such as?"

"Such as what the hell is with that metal implant and how did 
you know to even look for it?"

"I've seen similar cases before.  As to the implant's 
purpose, I can only speculate.  Some think it's a tracking 
device.  Others suggest it's involved in mind control."

"Mind control?  Are you shitting me?"

"And you might want to consider moving Samantha Milgram to an 
unmarked location."

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Because the people who put that implant there just might 
want it back.  Run the test, and put a rush on it."

God help her if there wasn't a match.  God help them all if 
there was.

***

End chapter two.  Continued in chapter three.

Thanks as ever to Amanda, who catches all my klutzes.

Sorry for the slight delay.  I've been sick as the proverbial 
dog this week.

Feedback: yes, please!

Syn_tax6@yahoo.com