Extreme Possibilities
(Part Two)
by Annie Reed
(FancyKatz@aol.com)

*  *  *

Historian's note:  This story takes place early in the second season of
X Files following the episode "Little Green Men."  


*  *  *

Disclaimer:  All characters are the property of Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen
Productions, and Fox Broadcasting. No infringement of copyright is intended.
This is a work of fanfiction and is not for profit. Unaltered copies may be
freely distributed as long as no money is received in return and this
disclaimer is included on the copies. Whew... hope I made everyone happy
there!

Author's note: I would like to thank Rhoda and Melissa for continuously
cracking the creative whip at me to get this story done, and I also want to
thank Cheryl, my guardian worrywart, for her patience.

*  *  * 

9:45 p.m.

  Mulder listened to the tape again, ignoring the scream at the end, trying
to concentrate on the music. His electronic surveillance set up was a
big reel-to-reel job and wasn't equipped for the microcassette from Dana's
answering machine. He'd had to resort to the tiny tape recorder he carried
with him to dictate his notes. The first couple of times he'd played the
tape, he'd noticed Scully jump, just a little, at the scream. Now she
seemed calmer, concentrating more on the music -- what there was of it --
instead of on the scream at the end.
  "I think we'll have to take this to the lab to get it analyzed," Mulder
said, stopping the tape. "This little recorder isn't cut out for analysis."
  Dana looked down at her feet. She felt a little foolish now, running to
Mulder with something that was probably a prank. At least he wasn't teasing
her about it.
  "I don't know, Mulder," she replied. "I don't think I want to get the
Bureau involved in this. It's probably just someone's idea of a joke."
  Mulder thought back to the Scully who had shown up here 15 minutes ago,
unannounced, out of breath, and white as a sheet. "Not a very funny joke,
Scully."
  Instead of replying, Dana turned around and stared at the wall. For the
life of her she couldn't figure out what was making her so jumpy about
these calls. She had been through worse in her time with Mulder,
everything from a genetic mutant who tried to kill her to microscopic
insects who'd nearly succeeded. So why was she so jittery about this?
Maybe Mulder's paranoia was rubbing off on her.
  Mulder removed the headphones he'd slung around his neck when Scully came
in, and got up from his small table. He moved behind his ex-partner and
gently placed a hand on her shoulder. He could feel the tension in the
bunched up muscles beneath his hand. "Look, Dana," he said, "I'll take the
tape in myself. No one has to know it's yours. Coming from 'Spooky'
Mulder, no one will give it a second thought," he added bitterly.
  Scully turned around to face him. She wasn't about to have him subjected
to more ridicule, or worse yet, let him get himself in more hot water,
especially not over her. "Mulder..." she began.
  Mulder interrupted her. "Scully, we have to be careful. We've both made
powerful, dangerous enemies. I don't have to remind you of that. Some of
those enemies I made long ago, and now they're your enemies, too, because
of your work with me. Because of what we've seen."
  Dana took a deep breath. "I know we've made enemies, Mulder, but they've
backed off. We're not a threat to them anymore. They closed us down, sent
me back to teaching, you..." she gestured around the dingy hotel room with
its chipped and peeling paint, "here. Besides, I don't think placing prank
phone calls to me is their style."
  Mulder closed his eyes. She was probably right, but something had sent
her running here in the middle of his surveillance, something that made her
instincts scream danger to her, even if her logical mind was trying to
write it off as a childish prank. Mulder believed in instincts, especially
Scully's, and most particularly, his own. And his instincts were telling
him there was more to this than just prank phone calls.
  "Humor me, Scully," he said, opening his eyes to stare into her blue/grey
ones. "Sometimes a little paranoia can be a good thing," he added with a
small grin.
  To his relief, she grinned back. "A little paranoia, Mulder? Who, you?
That's like saying World War II was a little skirmish." She looked back at
his tape set up. "You better get back to work, and I'm going to go home."
  "You can stay for a while longer, if you'd like." For some reason,
Mulder didn't like the idea of her leaving just yet. Something felt wrong.  
  "No, that's okay," Scully replied. "I'll just unplug every phone in the
house, and tomorrow I'll call and get a new number." She smiled at his
unasked question. "Don't worry, Mulder, I'll give you the new one."
  "Hey, Scully?" Mulder called as she opened the door to leave.
  "What?"
  "Take the normal precautions, okay?" She didn't respond, but her smile
faded. "For me... I'll feel better."
  "Night, Mulder." And then she was gone. Fox Mulder walked back over to
the table and sat down, putting the headphones back on. He adjusted a
couple of knobs on the surveillance control board and the volume came
back up. More of the same endless chatter he'd been listening to for weeks.
Only his mind wasn't on the voices conveyed by the headphones, but on the
maddeningly faint noises on the tape in his pocket, and on the woman who
had just left.
  
*   *   *

FBI Headquarters
7:50 a.m.

  "Where'd you get this, Mulder? This doesn't sound like the same stuff
you've been sending up here for analysis lately."
  "A guy's gotta broaden his horizons, Murray," Mulder responded. "Think
you can clear up the sound, bring up the music a little?"
  "I can give it a try." Murray made some adjustments on his control panel
and then turned to the computer keyboard sitting to his left. He typed in
a few commands and looked at the graphic display on the monitor.  
  Murray loved this stuff. For a kid of nineteen, this was his dream job,
working with computers and audio equipment. And for the FBI, yet. While
other hackers his age were trying to avoid the government, he used his
computer skills, and his natural ability with sounds, in working for the
government. Not only was he staying out of trouble, unlike some of his
friends, he was getting paid pretty well for doing something he would be
doing anyway, for free. Not that he would ever tell anyone that. And he
wouldn't be using the state of the art equipment he had at his disposal
here at the Bureau, either. This stuff made his old hacker set up look like
tinker toys.
  The stuff he got to analyze was amazing, and this tape was no exception.
But then again, Mulder always brought in the most interesting stuff, which
is why Murray had set aside his other work to concentrate on this small bit
of tape. He knew there was music there, just out of the range of human
hearing, but he'd find it. You just had to know where to look, and Murray
did. When he first started hacking, he'd broken into a software company
that was developing a program to restore old audio recordings. He'd lurked
in the company's databases and program documentation for weeks, learning
everything he could about the technology of restoring lost sounds. And now
that knowledge was coming in handy.
  "Hmmmm, this is interesting," Murray said, studying the screen. He
pointed at one part of the graphic display. "See this line here?" Mulder
nodded. "It shouldn't be here."
  "What do you mean?" Mulder asked. Sometimes Murray forgot that not
everyone could make sense of these computer displays.
  "Well, these intermittent spikes," Murray tapped the screen at several
different points of the display, "represent the musical sounds. The steady
line down here," he pointed to a lower line on the graph, "is the noise
created when the tape passes over the recording head. But this line... I
don't know what this is. The frequency is just out of the range of human
hearing." Murray typed in a few more commands and the screen displayed the
entire recording.  
  "Can you play it again?" Mulder asked. He watched as the graphic
redisplayed on the screen. This time Murray noticed as well.
  "It's not there at the beginning... almost, but not quite," Murray said.
"Sort of like it clicked on after the phone was answered."
  "Could it be caused by surveillance equipment?" Mulder asked. He kept his
voice steady, but his mind was racing. Surveillance of Scully's home
phone... Mulder didn't like the implications of that.  
  "I dunno," Murray replied, fiddling with the control panel and then the
keyboard. The display changed into color bars. The unknown tone was
represented on the screen by a steady cyan line. "Surveillance doesn't
usually leave this kind of a signature on tape. Normally it's just a click
at the beginning, like someone picked up the phone twice." Murray turned
to look at Mulder. "I guess you're asking 'cause if it was surveillance,
maybe someone's watching the watcher?"
  Mulder nodded. As he'd expected, Murray had assumed this tape was from
his current assignment. He was such a gullible kid, Mulder hated deceiving
him like this, but he wasn't about to tell Murray where the tape really
came from. "Something like that," Mulder muttered.
  "I'll keep playing with it. I know I can get you the music, though
it'll take a little while. I have to remove all the other tape noise and
then run a program to extrapolate the missing notes, but I think I can
come up with something by this afternoon. This other stuff?" Murray
shrugged. "I'll let you know."
  "Thanks, Murray," Mulder said, moving toward the door.
  "Mulder?" Murray hesitated, and Mulder could have sworn he saw a slow
blush building in the teenager's face. "Say hi to Scully for me, okay? I
haven't seen her since she got transferred to Quantico."
  Mulder smiled. Murray had a crush on Scully, something which she
tolerated while trying to let him down easy. But like a lot of teenage
boys trying to grow into their hormones, Murray couldn't take a hint. And
in his case, Mulder suspected that the kid had only recently begun to
discover that girls were more fun than computers and sound boards.
Mulder remembered being that young once. About a million years ago.
  "Sure, Murray, I'll tell her the next time I see her." Mulder was
rewarded with a huge grin as Murray turned back to his equipment, intent
on unlocking the secrets of the universe from one ten second scrap of tape.
'No,' Mulder amended, 'I don't think I was ever that young.'
  
*   *   *

Quantico, Virginia
1:30 p.m.

  Changing her phone number had been easier than Scully anticipated.
Dealing with the phone company since the breakup of Ma Bell usually meant
getting shuffled from one carrier to the next, listening to endless voice
mail messages which required her to press 1 for option a, 2 for option b,
and so on. But this time she'd been pleasantly surprised. After only two
voicemail sessions, she'd reached an operator in customer service who
actually seemed to believe that her job was to give prompt, courteous
service to the phone company's customers. What a novel concept, Scully
thought.
  She'd explained to the operator that she'd been getting crank calls and
wanted a new home number, unlisted. The operator had assigned her a new
number which would be effective within 24 hours. Under the circumstances,
the operator suggested that Scully not have calls to her previous number
rerouted to the new one. No kidding, Scully thought to herself. The
operator also suggested that Scully add caller i.d. to her phone, and
Scully agreed. The operator explained that under certain circumstances,
like long distance calls or cellular calls from out of the local cell
area, the phone number of the caller would not be displayed on the i.d.
device attached to her phone. Scully knew that, of course, but let the
woman explain it all to her. She was just doing her job, after all.
Catching this crank caller through caller i.d. was a long shot, but
stranger things had happened.
  Dana sat at her desk, looking at the caller i.d. device she had
purchased at lunch, but not really seeing it. She still felt silly about
this whole thing. Here she was, a special agent of the FBI, an instructor
of forensics at Quantico, a survivor of the X Files for heaven's sake,
having to spend time and energy dealing with a crank caller. In the clear
light of day, she felt ridiculous about her actions last night. Running to
Mulder in the middle of the night like a scared little girl. That wasn't
like her at all. She had always prided herself on her self-reliance but
last night it had deserted her. She couldn't even tell herself she was only
looking to her partner for backup or maybe a fresh slant on a disturbing
question. Mulder wasn't her partner anymore. The fact that he was the
person she went running to last night told her more than she wanted to know
about the depth of her trust in him, the depth of her feelings for him. 
  Her feelings... <He's not your partner now, Dana,> the annoying voice
inside her head whispered to her. <What's your excuse?> 'I don't need an
excuse, there's nothing to excuse,' she thought. But if there was nothing
to excuse, why this train of thought at all?  Why even consider it?
'Official or not, he's still my partner, and my friend, and that's that,'
she thought angrily. Anything beyond that she refused to consider for now,
maybe for always.
  Her office door opened abruptly, ending her reverie. She looked up to
see Mendelton standing in the doorway, a sheaf of white paper in his hand.
His exam, no doubt, judging from the set of his jaw and the barely
suppressed glare in his brown eyes. He may not be a doctor, Scully thought,
but he sure has the attitude down pat.
  "Agent Scully, do you have a minute?" Mendelton asked, walking into her
office and closing the door behind him, as if he assumed she had nothing
else planned for this moment in time other than to talk to him. Calm down,
Dana, she told herself.
  "What can I do for you, Mr. Mendelton?" she asked politely, leaning back
in her chair.
  "I'd like to talk about the way you graded my exam." Mendelton placed the
offending test on Scully's desk as he sat in one of the chairs opposite
Scully. She noticed that he had scribbled notes next to each of the
comments she had written in red pencil on his exam. If this was any
indication, he apparently intended to refute every comment she had made.
  "Do you feel you were judged unfairly, Mr. Mendelton?" Scully was careful
to maintain a neutral tone of voice.
  "Each of my answers was correct, Agent Scully. I have noted text
references next to each answer. If you will look to the text, I believe
that you will see that my exam responses mirror the findings..."
  "You're right, Mr. Mendelton," Scully interrupted. "You did give
textbook answers to each question on the exam."
  Mendelton was clearly puzzled. "I don't understand. If I gave textbook
answers, why did you grade my exam the way you did?"
  Scully sighed. Despite her carefully worded comments, it was obvious
that Mendelton just didn't get it. "Mr. Mendelton, why did you join
the FBI?"
  Mendelton paused before responding. He clearly was not prepared for the
abrupt change in the direction of their conversation. Dana tried to ignore
the guilty little pleasure it gave her to shake this guy up. "I don't
understand," he repeated. "You want to know why I joined the FBI?"
  "Yes." Scully waited, seeing the struggle on his face as he tried to
decide what would be the appropriate response to her question.
  "What does that have to do with the way my exam was graded?" Obviously
he was stalling, trying to determine why she wanted to know so that he
could decide on the best way to answer the question.
  "It has everything to do with the way your exam was graded,
Mr. Mendelton, because it has everything to do with the way you answered
the questions." Dana stopped, refusing to give him any more clues as to
what she expected him to say. She wanted the truth from him, not some line
he thought would get him in good with the teacher.
  Mendelton stared at her for a minute, collecting his thoughts, then
leaned back in his chair. When he spoke, his voice had lost the tone of
self-righteous indignation it had carried since he'd appeared at her door.
  "I've never been really good with people, but I've always had an interest
in medicine. My father is a well-known thoracic surgeon in Manhattan and
my mother is a neurologist." Now that's a hard family act to follow,
Scully thought, as Mendelton continued to speak.  
  "Early in medical school I realized that my strongest interest was in
pathology. My father was not pleased, to say the least," Mendelton said,
a trace of bitterness in his voice. "He planned on me specializing in
thoracic surgery and joining his practice following my residency. When I
was recruited by the FBI, I thought it might be a way to distinguish
myself in pathology, and I've worked very hard to accomplish this goal.
I've always done extremely well in school and on my exams, at least until
your class."
  Dana didn't know what she'd expected, but she was certain that what
Mendelton had just told her was the truth. And if it was, maybe there
was some hope for this kid after all.
  "Mr. Mendelton, first I want to thank you for telling me the truth,
not just what you thought I wanted to hear." Dana could see him breathe
a sigh of relief. "And I want you to know that while your reasons for
joining the Bureau might not be the best, if you have a genuine interest
in pathology, and are not just choosing it because it's a medical
speciality where you do not need a good beside manner, you may indeed
distinguish yourself here."
  Mendelton's face started to relax into that smug, doctor-as-god look
he unconsciously wore. At least she knew now where he got it, but that
still wasn't something she was going to tolerate. Not around her.
  "But," she emphasized, "in order to distinguish yourself, you have to
look beyond the textbook. Anyone can memorize textbooks and produce the
answers you did. What I'm looking for is an understanding of the science
of forensic medicine." Mendelton started to protest, but Scully was
relentless. "I guarantee you that in your career you will be presented
with forensic evidence which will point to an easy, obvious conclusion,
but that conclusion will be wrong. And when you are wrong in this job,
Mr. Mendelton, either innocent people are convicted, guilty people escape,
or people die. What I want from you, and what the Bureau will require from
you, are alternatives to the obvious, answers within the realm of
possibility but which are not in plain view."
  "Extreme possibilities?" Mendelton asked, a small trace of sarcasm in
his voice. Apparently her reputation as "Mrs. Spooky" had preceeded her.
  "Just because the possibilities may be extreme, Mr. Mendelton," Scully
replied coldly, "does not mean they are incorrect. It depends on the
evidence presented. What you have to develop, both for the Bureau, and in
order to pass my class, is the ability to tell when the extreme is not
only possible, but correct."
  Dana put on her reading glasses and picked up a file from the stack on
her desk, a clear sign of dismissal. "Now, if there's nothing else,
Mr. Mendelton?"
  Mendelton took the hint and gathered up his exam. As he opened the door,
he nearly tripped over a package in the doorway. Without a word he picked
it up and placed it on Scully's desk before leaving.
  Dana stared at the package, a small box about the size of the hardback
book she was reading. She wasn't expecting anything to be delivered to her.
It could have been a new textbook, but the normal bureau routing slip
wasn't attached to the outside. Scully's internal alarm starting ringing
loud and clear.
  Opening her desk drawer, Dana pulled out a letter opener and a small
flashlight. Carefully, without moving the box, she shined the light around
the outside edge, using the letter opener to gently probe under the edge of
the box lid. She saw no wires or any other telltale signs of explosives
within. Dana, you're really getting paranoid, she told herself.
<Better safe than sorry,> she heard her mother's voice say in response.
  Taking a deep breath, she lifted the box lid straight up and set it down
on the desk next to the box. She was relieved to see only tissue paper
inside. Using the letter opener, she probed at the tissue paper, not
really knowing what she was worried about. When the letter opener
encountered nothing more sinister than the outline of a small shape within
the tissue paper, Dana realized that she'd been holding her breath and
let it all out in one big sigh. Mulder, if this is from you, you're dead
meat, she thought as she used the opener to fish out the tissue paper.
  Dana frowned at the object she uncovered. It was a crucifix, one that
was meant to be hung on the wall. She looked further into the box, but
there was no card, no indication of who this was from. Her hand went to
the small crucifix at her throat. Her mother had given it to her years
ago, when she was sixteen. Dana was not a religious person, and she wore
the crucifix more out of sentimental value than religious beliefs. Her
mom couldn't be trying to bring her back into the fold, not now, could
she? Well, one thing for sure, it didn't come from Mulder.  
  Dana decided to call her mom when she got home. Maybe canceling dinner
had hurt her mom more than Dana thought. Of all her brothers and sister,
Dana lived closest to her mom and had been her support during the months
since her father's death. Maybe this had been her father's, maybe... 
  The phone rang, interrupting her chain of thought. Dana breathed a
sigh of relief when it turned out to be her lab assistant with questions
about the setup Dana wanted for next week's lab work. Turning her
attention to the phone call, Dana put the lid back on the box and set it
by her briefcase, hiding the gleaming white enamel surface of the cross.
  
*   *   *
End part two.
