Chapter 14: Shadows of Evangeline
March 10, 1998
La Jolla, Carol Howard’s residence
Scully woke at about 7 a.m. to find the bed empty. She frowned, sat up a little, to find she was alone in the cottage. Sunlight was streaming in the high metal-framed windows over the bed, glowing in patches on the imitation wood paneling of the opposite wall. Her clothes still lay in a pile, next to the backpack, where they’d been dropped so hastily the night before. She pushed the covers off, and rolled out of the bed to her feet. She made the bed, noticed that Mulder had set an outfit for her over a chair.
She smiled, took care of her ablutions, and then came back and put the clothes on. Cream colored slacks. A pale green tunic with a wide neck. She checked in the mirror. Hair... Mulder had braided it the day before, it was a little rough where her short real hair had worked its way out of the crown of the braid in the night. She unbraided it, ran her fingers through it until it was less fuzzy, studied it, then pulled it over her left shoulder, watching in the mirror as she managed a rough, loose braid, curling around her neck to hang down the front. She looked at it, sighed, took it out, did it again, and the results were better.
The door opened, and Mulder came in, sweaty and breathing hard. She laughed. “Did you run in your boxers?”
He looked down. “Didn’t have running shorts, wasn’t going to run in tweed, wanted to run. I pinned ‘em shut.” He looked at her. “You look nice. Dressed, but nice.”
She grinned. “Lech.”
Then she stood up, twirled. “Did I do okay on the braid?”
He came over, dropped a kiss on the right side of her neck. Then said, “Mmm hmm.”
She laughed, twisted away. “Your beard tickles. Have you figured out breakfast yet?”
“I’m going to take a shower first. Why don’t I meet you up at the main house?” He pulled his shirt off.
She leered at his bare chest. “I could join you...”
He laughed. “Now who’s the lech? I’ll see you up there.”
She chuckled, and walked out through the open door.
~~~
(ab)Normal Heights, new Office of the Lone Gunmen
The Gunmen woke to an amazing variety of cooking smells. Frohike squinted, found his glasses, and looked over at the kitchen. “Okay, now that is just weird.” He sat up on the edge of the bottom bunk.
Langly blinked, found his own glasses, “Yeah. But smells tasty.” He rolled onto his stomach and put his feet over the edge of the top bunk, dropped down without using the ladder.
Byers sat up in bed on a bottom bunk the next bed over. “Is that bacon?”
Skinner was actually wearing an apron. That wasn’t the strangest part. The strangest part was that it appeared that he and Krycek had actually made bacon, hash browns, scrambled egg and sausages.
Langly watched them moving around the kitchen. “Hey Krycek! Where did you learn how to cook?”
Krycek just shot him a look. “Smoking Man taught me.”
Frohike blinked. “Okay, that’s weirder.”
Krycek shrugged. “Cooking is a survival skill.”
Langly said, “Anyone think about how we’re presenting ourselves today?”
Frohike nodded. “I think, given what we found, we’re going to need to be people they already know. It will give us a little more time to just hang out.”
Byers frowned. “So you want to use the cover....”
Frohike nodded. “We’re going to have to make something up for those two, though.” He pondered for a moment. “Okay. Skinner, you’re Willie. Krycek? You’re Al. I’m Muggy, Langly there is Ralph, and John-boy is Jim.”
“Last names?” Skinner asked.
“You better hope we don’t need ‘em.” Frohike said, and stabbed a sausage.
~~~
La Jolla, Carol Howard’s
Carol was just putting the last touches on a platter of bagels, cream cheese, and various amendments when Scully came into the main house. “Good morning, Sally,” she said, “Have some breakfast.”
Scully smiled. “Looks lovely.” She took a bagel, spread cream cheese on it, and draped a piece of lox across it. “Oh, you have capers!”
Carol made her own sandwich. “I know a French doctor who says that eating fish provides the same brain chemicals as being in love. I’m not convinced, but it is tasty. The capers are just for salt.”
“So what can you tell me about the area?” Scully took a bite of bagel.
“Let’s see... we’ve got a mix of some of the snootiest property in California and student and campus housing. You’ll be in a condo near campus. Jogging distance if you’re spry. I’m not. Shopping... I do most of mine at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s just south of campus. You won’t be here long enough to justify Costco. There’s a mall just south of where you’ll be, and tons of restaurants in easy walking distance. We get sunshine most of the time, but the ocean keeps us cool. Our temperature range is between about 60 and 70 degrees most of the year. We sometimes get up to 80 in August, once in a while we’ll get up in the 90’s, but if you get four scorchers in a summer, it’s an unusual year.”
Mulder came in, wearing a polo shirt and khakis. “Morning, ladies.” He snagged a bagel off the tray and started eating it plain.
Carol smiled. “Good morning, Martin. Did you enjoy your run this morning?”
He said, around a bite of bagel, “The palm trees are relentless.”
“Can’t avoid them, but having the occasion fresh coconut makes up for it.” Carol gestured at the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining room. “There’s fruit there from the back yard.”
Mulder grabbed an orange, tossed one to Scully. “So what’s the plan today?”
“I think we’ll drop you off at the department of Sociology, while I take Sally over to investigate the hospital. Once she’s had a walk-through, we’ll come pick you up.”
Scully sighed. “I think I’m actually nervous.”
Mulder looked at her. “Why wouldn’t you be? New job and all. How long has it been?”
“Five, six years?” She busied herself with the orange peel.
Carol smiled. “Why don’t you two enjoy the rest of your breakfast? I’m going to go check my email.”
She climbed slowly to her feet, turned, and hobbled out of the room.
Mulder reached out. “You okay?” He took Scully’s hand.
She looked up at him, “I’m sorry, I just... I don’t know. I’m just off this morning. Back to work blues.”
He gave her hand a squeeze. “Might be nice to not be traveling for a while...”
She looked at him, half smile at her lips, but brows knit. “You know? I think I was getting the hang of the traveling. This is moving. And I hate moving.”
He scooted his chair over, and put his arm around her. Then gave her a cheesy grin. “But this is moving, with nookie!”
She laughed. “Martin, you dear, crazy man.” She leaned up for a kiss. “Aren’t you at all worried?”
He chuckled. “Sally, I am worry. It’s a normal state of being. Almost comfortable. Right at the moment, worry is being tempered heavily by ‘completely smitten with my wife.’”
She smiled for real then. “Yeah?”
He nodded seriously, then swiped a bite of her bagel.
~~~
9:00 a.m. Escondido
The Gunmen, Skinner and Krycek spent the hour after breakfast driving to Escondido, where they loaded the books, computer equipment, shelving and other sundries they’d collected into the empty boxes in the moving van. The bed was piled high with pillows, bedding, and a couple of dressers. There was just enough room for two of them on the sectional pieces, and Krycek and Langly strapped themselves in. Frohike drove, Skinner rode shotgun, and they pulled out of the storage park, Byers following in the van.
Half an hour later, they pulled into a cul de sac, then backed the truck as close to the condo as they could get. Frohike walked up to the front door, looked under the mat, frowned, tipped his head, and pulled a keybox from under a windowsill. “Ta da!” he said, holding the keys up. “Let’s do this.”
They quickly settled into a routine. Krycek handed boxes down from the truck, they bucket brigaded them into the living room. As soon as the boxes were clear, chairs followed. The dining room table was surprisingly heavy, and it took four of them to ease it down the ramp. The couch sections were easier.
By noon, they had the truck unloaded. Skinner started assembling bookshelves, and Krycek retreated to the soundproof room in the truck with a book he’d snagged during the packing. The Gunmen started running Cat-5 for the home network.
~~~
10:00 a.m. UCSD Thornton Hospital
Carol walked slowly up the path to the urgent care clinic, and Scully followed her. The sky was deep blue, the lawn ridiculously green. When they passed through the doors, Scully gasped at the huge hallway. “There are palm trees inside. That’s...”
“Ostentatious.” Carol chuckled.
They made their way to the urgent care, where the pleasantness of the decor warred with the human misery sitting in the waiting area. There were not many... but Scully suspected that in the evening the place would be full.
The next two hours involved a dizzying series of introductions, human resources paperwork, and a full tour of the hospital. Carol begged off the tour, and said she’d come back at noon. Scully put on her friendliest smile with the nurses, and a harried looking doctor looked delighted to see her.
“I’m Emma. Dr. Hadley. Can you work Friday from 3 to 11?” Emma appeared to be in her late thirties, a little grey in her black hair, tall and thin.
Scully laughed, returned the handshake. “Sally Harrod. And yes, I think so.”
Emma sighed with relief. “Thank god. I’ve been pulling double shifts, and Friday is my anniversary. Welcome aboard.” She looked at the chart in her hands, then said, “Hey, if you can drop by at 3 tomorrow, I can go over our protocols. I’ve got to go deal with this now,” she waved the chart, “but I can block out some time tomorrow.”
Scully nodded. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Dr. Hadley had already turned to go. Scully looked around, slightly dazed, then walked back out of the clinic and down to the parking lot.
Mulder pulled in a moment later, Carol sitting next to him.
She sank into the back seat, and took a deep breath. “I have a shift on Friday.”
Carol chuckled. “Let me guess. Emma cornered you.”
“You know her?”
Carol smiled. “I’m the one who placed you there, with her help. Gwynne said you’d need something part time, and Urgent Care always needs people. Especially good diagnosticians. She said you’re good at that.”
Mulder nodded vigorously. “She’s right almost as often as I am. More often about the medical stuff.”
Scully smiled. “It’s been a while since I worked in a clinical setting. I’ve been doing research for a while now. It will be... quite a change.”
Carol directed Mulder to a cluster of restaurants east of campus. She pointed out a café, and they pulled in. Over sandwiches, Mulder described his research. “We’re going to be looking at families in crisis, how the communities around them and differences in acculturation affect their interactions with the social service agencies in the area. I’ll be working with Child Welfare to do some interviews with families with children in the foster care system, as well as some of the foster families. The fact that Child Welfare is letting us do it is pretty amazing, but apparently Carol here sweet-talked them into it.”
Carol laughed. “Actually, they’ve been having a bit of trouble, and we told them that we might be able to pinpoint the problem. There have been a number of infant deaths. A friend who works there got me an in. Just try to keep your head down, leave the presentation of findings to us. We’re told you have a knack for ferreting out information.”
Scully snorted Pepsi out her nose and started coughing. Mulder frowned at her and patted her on the back. When she recovered, she said, “He’s um, persistent.”
He shot he a look. “You like that about me.”
She smiled serenely at him. “Yes, dear.”
~~~
1:00 p.m.
The Condo
When they pulled into the cul de sac to park, the first thing they noticed was a huge moving truck backed up close to one of the condominium units. As they walked up to the truck, a lanky man was sitting on the tailgate, grinning. Mulder squinted, then his eyes got wide.
The man hopped down, and held out his hand to Carol, who looked at him askance as he introduced himself. “Ralph. Nice to meet you. We’re old friends of Gwynne and the Harrods.” She shot him a look that said she knew exactly who he was.
He held out his arms, and a bemused Scully gave him a one-armed hug. “I wasn’t expecting you,” she said. “Gwynne said we’d have moving help, but...”
Mulder turned around, and burst out laughing. Skinner looked positively disheveled as he introduced himself as Willie. Frohike’s hair was sticking out at funny angles, and his beard made him look like one of the seven dwarves. He bowed and said, “Muggy, at your service.”
They didn’t recognize Byers at first. When he introduced himself as “Jim,” Scully squinted, blinked, and then gave him a hug. ‘Jim’ said, “Come on in, we’ll show you around.”
A car pulled up near the truck. Carol laughed and said, “I’ll let you get settled.” She handed Mulder and Scully business cards. “Call me if you need anything at all.” She smiled at the young woman driving the car. “Jodi is going to drive me back to campus.”
They watched her go, then followed Byers back into the condo.
Langly pulled the door shut, and said quietly, “We’ve been over the whole place this morning. At the moment there isn’t any surveillance. After today, all bets are off. How are you guys?”
Mulder looked at Scully, who grinned and actually giggled. She said, “Do you want to show them, or should I?” She looked up at him, standing next to him.
He smiled, and opened the backpack. As he opened the document box, he looked up at Skinner. “You’re going to kill us. But we need you to take something for us, and put it someplace safe, and out of sight.”
Skinner raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”
Mulder handed him a piece of paper. Skinner looked at it, blinked, looked at it again, handed it to Frohike, and surprised them both by stepping forward and catching Mulder and Scully in a quick bear hug.
Frohike said, “You’re kidding me, “ and handed the paper to Byers and Langly.
Langly laughed, and said, “Isn’t that a little fast?”
Byers said, “That’s one solution. Are you guys sure?”
Scully looked up at Mulder, and sighed. “Yeah.”
He slipped his arm around her shoulders, looked down at her. “Definitely.”
Frohike rolled his eyes. “Insulin. I need insulin.”
Langly chuckled, looked at the date on the paper. “I guess that explains what they were doing Sunday evening.”
Scully explained primly, “On Sunday evening, he was busy sweet-talking a priest in San Francisco. Someone who recognized me...”
Skinner sighed. “You do know this complicates things...”
Mulder laughed. “Actually, it rather simplified things. So how are you guys?”
Skinner and the Gunmen looked at each other. Langly stepped forward. “We’ve been in town a few days.” He looked down at the marriage certificate in his hands. “We... had a complication back home. But it gave us a lead.”
Mulder frowned. “You don’t look happy about it.”
Langly looked helplessly at Frohike. “I can’t... you tell them.”
Frohike took off his glasses, walked over to the couch. “You all will want to sit down.”
They all fit on the sectional, now assembled in an L in the corner of the living room.
Mulder slipped his arm around Scully’s shoulders, looked expectant.
Frohike looked at Byers. “You tell them.”
Byers frowned. “Well, we’ve got quite a bit of news. Some of it is... well, I was wondering, but given that...” He pointed at the sheet of paper Langly still held. “I think some of it is very good news. Some of it is very, very bad.”
Scully frowned. “What is the source?”
The guys looked at each other. “You won’t like it.”
Skinner said, “Can we tell you what we found? Then we can show you where we got the lead.”
“We received a list of addresses. It was more... complete than the list we had from the adoption database. One of the addresses... We went there. Managed to get access to a computer. It had... more information than we’d dreamed in it.” Langly faltered. “Do you want the good news, or the bad news first?”
Scully felt Mulder’s arm tighten around her shoulders. He said, “Give us the bad news first.”
Byers frowned. “Are you sure? It’s really...”
Scully almost growled. “Please just tell us.”
Skinner reached out, took her hand. “We found out what they’ve been doing with the ova they stole.”
She nodded, “Go on.”
“Twenty eight children have been born. Two fetuses are far enough along to be listed in the database.”
She felt her fingers start to go numb as the blood rushed away from her extremities. “Thirty....”
“The bad news is that if our information is correct, and we have no reason to suspect that it is not, twenty seven of them... didn’t make it.” Skinner looked at her, saw her face go white.
Byers leaned forward. “But the good news is that one did. You have a son.”
Scully breathed. “I have a son....” she echoed.
Byers was shaking his head. “Not just you. YOU. Both of you. Every child in the database that we found with your name on it, his name was on it too.”
Mulder said, disbelief on his face, “How?”
Frohike answered, “Our source says it was at Ellens’. Back in ‘93.”
Mulder let out a short laugh. “Did they say how? Because I would think I would remember...”
Scully shook her head. “You were so loopy... you didn’t remember anything.” She felt the blood rush back to her fingers. “I need to know how you know these things.”
Mulder looked down at her. She seemed to have slipped into investigation mode as a reflex. *I have to work...*
Skinner said, “You should come back out to the truck. But I need you to promise you will keep an open mind.”
The Gunmen filed out, Skinner followed.
Mulder looked at Scully. “Penny?”
She took a deep breath. “I can’t think about the ones that are gone... There’s a child of ours out there. They said two in utero? Whose uterus, I wonder? How are you doing? I’ve had a while to deal with the idea that they’d stolen my ova, my children from me. This has to be a shock...”
He closed his eyes. “It’s not the same for me... You know, take all you want, we’ll make more. But it must mean... I wonder if Emily was one of those 27. If she was mine...”
Her breath caught. “We know there’s a little boy out there who is, if the information is credible.”
He nodded. “What if he’s with people who’ve adopted him? Like Emily?”
She frowned. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. If his parents are in the kind of danger the Sims were in...”
He kissed her on the forehead. “Let’s go see what they’ve got to show us.”
~~~
They found the back of the truck open. Byers beckoned them to climb up, then pulled the door shut after them. When the door closed, he walked to the back wall of the truck, and twisted a handhold. The wall shifted, slid out of the way. Skinner, Frohike and Langly were standing inside the small chamber, and a darked haired man stood facing the other direction.
Mulder frowned. “Please tell me that’s not who I think it is...”
Langly nodded. “But he’s been helping. And he could have really screwed us over bigtime.”
Krycek turned around. “They could not have gotten into that facility without me. And I could have ripped this whole thing wide open.”
Mulder started forward, Skinner moved in front of Krycek and put a hand up. “Down boy. You need to hear what he has to say. Come into this room, it’s soundproof.”
Scully said, “How the hell could you possibly trust him?” and glared at Krycek.
Krycek shook his head. “Just come sit down.”
They crowded into the tiny room. There was not really room for everyone on the benches, and Langly sat down on the floor.
Krycek began. “You have no reason to trust me. But if you can believe it, things are changing. And my associates are not changing with the times. I went to extreme lengths to bring a weapon of sorts back from Russia. They are sitting on it. What was merely complicated has become tortured in the extreme with the recent burnings... There’s a new player. The war is heating up.”
“Cut the crap, Krycek.” Scully snapped.
He looked at her, annoyed. “Believe what you like. The fact of the matter is that your partner here has been infected and cured of the worst plague mankind will ever know. And the men I’ve been working with... their efforts have been to further that plague... they made noises about fighting it, but when push came to shove... they caved. And not all among them are advocates of the current course of action. Someone who as helped you in the past... when he understood what you might be about to try, he gave me a path of inquiry.”
“Are you saying you ratted us out, and someone told you to help us instead?” Mulder almost laughed.
“Not exactly. I was deliberately vague. But the specificity of the information...” Krycek looked at Langly. “He can tell you what it bought us.”
Langly pulled a memory card out of his pocket. “This should work on your MessagePad. It’s not complete... just a summary. But it should give you the basics.”
Scully took the card. “I’m still stuck back at, ‘Krycek helped...’ Surely you must know that every time he’s ‘helped’ in the past, we’ve nearly gotten killed.”
Krycek snorted. “I told you, things changed. I was doing my job. My job description has changed.”
Mulder looked at him, suspicious. “We’re supposed to believe you, because suddenly your job is, ‘Help the good guys?’”
“Believe what you want. The fact is that I got you concrete information safer and faster than you possibly could have hoped for, and I haven’t caused the world of problems I could have caused at any and every stage of your ridiculous farce.” Krycek looked down at the paper Langly was holding. “Oh you have got to be kidding me. You didn’t.”
Mulder said quietly, “I do not have to justify my personal life to you. Ever.”
Krycek rolled his eyes. “So you two are going all kissy face. Could you possibly have picked a worse time?”
Scully said, through gritted teeth, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but our lives have been hell for the past few years. Much of that hell you’ve caused. If we waited for some mythical right time, we’d be waiting until the cows come home, or aliens invade, or whatever the hell the theory is this week.”
Krycek looked down. “It probably doesn’t help, but his father and your sister... I.. and the man who shot your sister...we were the gun. Not the hand on the trigger.”
“And who was the hand that pulled that trigger, Krycek?” Mulder asked.
Krycek laughed. “You don’t know? Your father was killed by your father. Your biological father. What is it you call him? That Cigarette Smoking Bastard? But that’s really not the matter at hand, is it?”
Mulder just shook his head. “I can believe that man killed my father. Don’t give me that Vader crap.”
“Crap or not, I know that he claims to have three offspring. And you are one of them. If you don’t believe me, when you come back up for air, find Jeffrey Spender and have a blood typing done.”
“Spender? What the hell does that weasel have to do with it?” Mulder nearly spat.
“Your half brother,” said Krycek.
Mulder kept shaking his head. “You are so full of it, Krycek.”
“Whatever. Apparently he wasn’t content with children, he decided to try to mess with his grandchildren too. Who else would have paired you two so consistently? The rest of the Syndicate could care less. Understand that I have no upside in lying to you about this.”
“If you are a ‘gun’, Krycek, where are you pointed now?” asked Scully.
“My interest is in doing what I can to make sure that the appeasers don’t manage to screw us all while they’re busy screwing themselves. I don’t have any desire to ever go along for the ride in my own body ever again.” Krycek spoke with intensity.
Skinner said, “He gave Gwynne a vial of something he called a vaccine.”
“Gwynne? You met her?” Scully said, surprised.
Frohike said, “She knew who he was. What he’s done. We let her have the final say over whether he came... She was convinced.”
A question finally came to the surface. Scully asked, “Where is our son?”
Byers said, “Well, if the database is up to date, we believe he is in foster care in San Diego. Many of the children appear to have spent some or all of their time in foster care. It looks like the ones who are older than 18 months were adopted out, but since most of them didn’t make it that far...”
Scully winced.
Mulder said, “So finding him will be my job?”
Frohike nodded. Krycek said, “Dr. Calderon was very forthcoming with information.”
“Calderon? Isn’t he dead?” Scully asked.
“They’re clones. You’ve seen it before. This Dr. Calderon believed I was there on behalf of the Syndicate to evaluate the viability of the project.” Krycek shrugged. “Apparently they’ve got a cryo facility at the university hospital. I think you’ll be able to access that without raising eyebrows.”
“So what are you going to do now?” Mulder asked. “All of you?”
“Skinner’s going back in a couple days,” answered Langly. “We thought we’d go check out the place they’re keeping the surrogates, see what we can find out there. They’ve changed their modus operandi, and are using teens instead of old ladies for their incubators.”
“We... just the three of you? Or are you guys making Krycek your fourth Musketeer?” Mulder asked, almost bitterly.”
They looked at each other. “Krycek has access... We couldn’t have gotten a tenth the information without him going in there the way he did...” Langly shook his head. “He just walked in and the doctor logged us in himself. It was crazy. I wore a suit.”
Scully found herself laughing, in spite of everything. “Is that why you cut your hair?”
Langly nodded. “We decided that we’d rather lose the hair than lose the war.”
She looked at Skinner, who was becoming downright woolly on the chin, and said, “Nice beard, Sir.”
Skinner put his hand on his chin. “Easier to grow it on the road, and you’ve got to admit, it’s a good disguise.”
Mulder laughed. “You look like a lumberjack. Can I ask why you’re staying in town?”
Skinner shrugged. “I’ve got a lead of my own to investigate. And I figured I’d help get you guys settled. Besides, I wanted to keep an eye on Krycek.”
“The rest of you will be staying in town?” Scully asked.
Frohike nodded. “We bugged out of our office the minute we knew there was a leak. By the time we figured out that Krycek was the only person who had access to the listening station, it didn’t make sense not to keep going. A lot of the leads... you’d have no way of staying undercover and following them. The address is on that memory card he gave you. We’ll only be in contact if we find something worth moving on.”
Langly said, “We’ve got a squat, not too repellent, all things considered.”
“We were thinking we would contact Scully at Urgent Care if things got hot. Also, don’t forget your emergency squealers. We managed to bring our side of that equation with us. If you need to contact us non-emergency, Carol is probably your best avenue. If you tell her you have something for Heron, she’ll know what you mean.” Frohike said.
“Is there any point is us still seeking out the adoptive parents?” Mulder asked.
Scully nodded. “We need to find out how they’re getting access to the children, and what’s being done to the kids after they have them. Unless that’s in the files you got?”
Skinner shook his head. “There’s a lot of data, but several things are referred to obliquely. I think it would only make sense to the doctor writing the report. Krycek? Did he contact you yet?”
Krycek shook his head. “I was thinking I might need to go back over and bang heads if he doesn’t get a hold of me by tonight.”
“So are you a double agent, a triple agent, or so many agents that you can’t remember who you’re really supporting?” asked Langly.
“I’m no one’s agent right now. But as long as it serves me, I will let them think I’m helping them. There are things that I can do with access that you couldn’t get done any other way.” Krycek stretched. “Now, I’m getting tired of this box. How much longer do you need for the whole moving day thing?”
~~~
The “whole moving day thing” took hours more. Scully unpacked dishes she’d never seen, Mulder filled shelves with worn books he’d never read. Skinner shifted and moved and arranged, helping where he could. Frohike worked on the security system, while Langly and Byers continued with the network.
Krycek stayed in the truck until his phone rang. Calderon, with a report ready. Byers was outside the condo, feeding cable into a hook Langly had stuck through the wall. Krycek came to the edge of the truck and hissed, “I need to go get the thing...”
Byers went inside, and said to Langly, “You need to suit up. Time to go fetch Calderon’s report.”
Scully came over. “While you’re out, would you pick up an ironing board and an iron? And a couple laundry baskets? Oh, and some laundry soap. There’s a washer and dryer here already.”
Langly bowed. “Covert operations and errand boy, at your service. Happy to oblige.”
Mulder blinked. “Hey... could one of you play handyman?”
Skinner shook his head. “Condo. Grounds keeping is probably done by a service, hired by the condo management. It’s the whole reason people have condos, so they don’t have to deal with the landscaping.”
Frohike looked thoughtful. “Too bad. Yeah.”
Langly went out to the white van, pulled it up close to the moving truck. Krycek joined him, and they headed back to the squat to change.
~