From: Sean Smith <ez042725@peseta.ucdavis.edu>
X-From: rkwong@engin.umich.edu (Roberta Chi-Woon Kwong)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.quantum-leap.creative
Subject: "Quanta" part 2/17
Date: 12 Apr 1995 21:48:06 GMT
Message-Id: <3mhhqm$ah2@srvr1.engin.umich.edu>

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--------------------------------------------------

Part 2 of QUANTA

	
 
	"Okay Mulder, I give up.  What _do_ tomatoes, Sacramento, and a Tom
Clancy novel all have in common?" By now their rental car was cruising
south on Interstate 5 toward Sacramento and the flooded fields extended
toward the horizon on either side of the forest green Ford.
	"Very little actually."
	"Mulder..." The tone in her voice prompted a quick if bemused
reply.
	"The tomatoes are just a way to get us out here.  As for the other
two; have you been keeping up on the lists of Military base closings,
lately?"
	"No.  Just the usual political infighting about whose district
should take cuts."
	"Well, Sacramento has two prominent bases.  One's being closed; no
real surprise there.  But it turn's out that the one being kept seems to
be the superfluous one.  They're dumping the one that has some seriously
unique aircraft repair facilities; the kind that keep all the big
transports and bombers in the air."
	"So you why are they abandoning this Air Force base?"
	"I think they're getting rid of it because it would be suspicious
if they kept two bases so close together.  I want to know why they're
keeping this smaller base."
	"Dare I even ask what you suspect," she slowly blinked twice as she
drawled it, her eyes twinkling.
	The tires hissed along the gravel as the car rolled south toward
the rising dark mass of an impending storm.  Mulder paused as the car was
buffeted by a windstorm.
	"I suspect that we're hunting the most elusive radio station known
to mankind."

	*			*			*

  	Dana Scully keyed her password into her PowerBook's security program,
and shrugged out of her jacket while it decoded files.  Standing, she
walked across the small motel room to hang it in the built in closet.  Of
the many things that could be said about the house-sized motel she and
Mulder had checked into, one of the few positives was that it was close to
the campus.  For two sparsely furnished singles, the shriveled woman
behind the desk had asked an exorbitant price.  The excuse she'd given
while scratching a narrow wrist was that it included a parking space. 
	<Look on the bright side Scully, its the Bureau that foots the
bill.> Winter light filtered through dull tan curtains, catching upon the
dust motes spinning in the air.  In the semi-dark of the motel room, the
brown polyester bedspread seemed to blend into the thin carpet.  She
assumed Mulder's room was just as promising.
	Returning to the small table in the corner, and the straight
backed wooden chair she'd dragged to it, Scully began her report.  She
couldn't believe that the only connection to that book was the acronym
ELF.
	
	TA relatively recent addition to the spate of government conspiracy
theories is known as The Hum.  An unknown number of apparently unrelated
individuals nationwide have reported a loud, low-pitched, persistent
humming.  Their symptoms have no observed phenomonological or
physiological causes.  The obvious remaining option has been found to be
psychological treatment, a choice with which almost all physicians and
psychiatrists concur.  Nonetheless, a small group, led by outspoken
sufferers who call themselves 'Listeners,' disagree.  They claim that
they hear this hum because they are attuned in some way to a frequency
which the rest of the populace cannot detect.  Despite a total lack of
proof, and no evidence of any 'physiological differences' between t he
Listeners and the general populace, they continue to search for the source
of The Hum.
	The target for most of the searches is the government's Extremely
Low Frequency, or ELF, radio system.  Intended to communicate with
American submarines worldwide despite their locations, the ELF
transceivers use frequencies which can penetrate ice, water, and even
solid rock.  It is via this system that submarines receive orders,
conceivably even those to launch a nuclear strike.
	Because of its tactical importance, the number and location of the
ELF transmitters is secret, as is their budget.  It is Agent Mulder's
belief that Mather AFB, located in a suburb of Sacramento, is one such
site.  He also believes that it is the base's location, adjacent to the
northernmost shoots of the San Andreas fault, that permits the alleged ELF
signal to radiate away from the shoreline, and affect individuals hundreds
of miles away.
	Presently, there is no evidence of any kind to support such wild
conjecture.  There is also no information as to what Agent Mulder plans to
do in order to garner such information.'

	Dana stopped typing and closed her small leather notebook.  The
blue glow reflected off her pale complexion as she reread her report.  She
paused a moment, then deleted the last sentence before she saved the
report to her XFile Folder.  Her hand hove ed briefly over the keyboard
before she decided not to send her report to Quantico via modem.  <Better
wait and see what happens before I decide what Skinner hears.  I wonder if
he still reads these anymore?>
	With that, Dana got ready for bed, and wondered if Mulder would be
knocking on her door later that night. 

  		*  		*		*

	"Do you know how we might leave a message for Dr. Holland, then?"
Scully managed to keep her best smile on as she asked her third
undergraduate where Davies Holland was.  Agent Mulder had long since
stopped smiling when he asked.  Scully had seen the muscles in his jaw
work after the last young kid with acne and a sweatshirt answered 'Sorry,
I dunno.' That's when she decided that she ought to do the questioning.
	The undergraduate handed the two Federal Agents a slip of paper
and suggested that they try leaving him a note.
	"Thank you very much.  By the way, when did you last see Mr.
Holland?" Dana kept smiling conversationally.
	"Oh, I almost never see him.  He picks up his mail by phone, and
has his TAs teach his 123 class for him.  Personally, I think he's
clutching on his thesis." Scully guessed that the department had grad
students do some of the secretarial work too. 
	After filing the new information away in her head, Scully thanked
the young man and headed for the door.  Mulder managed to be there ahead
of her, and held the door.
	"Thanks, Mulder."
	"Good news.  We don't have to walk past that hog barn again.  We've
done everything we can to locate this Holland, and left him my mobile
number.  Now we've got some free time."
	"We're still working Mulder.  We can't just disappear-S
	"Holland did.  Why _can't_ we?" Scully's sidelong look told him
what she thought. "Come on, we can't poke around his lab without his
permission, even if we could find it.  We've tried his home, his office,
his department.  He has no E-mail address, and we don't know who else to
talk to.  The most we could do is run around here digging up the facts old
Disappearing Davies can tell us when he comes out of his burrow."
	"You just want to go poking around the airbase, and you don't care
that its odd for this Holland to disappear all of a suddenS
	"Of course I care, Scully.  Now I'll be twice as difficult when we
meet him." Fox turned as he spoke, facing Dana with an easy grin, his
black overcoat easily blending with the craggy trunk of the aging oak
behind him.  "Come on, you heard him yourself ; this Davies guy is never
on time and is always missing.  So we wait for him to return our calls. 
We'll have our mobile phones with us, so we'll still be in contact.  If he
doesn't call by tomorrow, then we look for him.  Deal?"
	"Deal," Dana replied as she stepped past him and onto the street. 
"But don't blame me if the airbase is boring and the good doctor is really
named Jekyll." She ended up facing Mulder across the dark, slick surface
of the car.
	"Trust me, Dana...the airbase _won't_ be boring."

		*		*		*

	"Mulder, I'm impressed.  Is this the point where you tell me we've
run out of gas?"
	"I don't know Scully.  Would it work?" Mulder finished parking the
car amidst the high grasses of a hill overlooking Mather Airbase, and
turned off the headlights.  In the dim blue glow from the moon she could
see the flash of his teeth as he smiled.  Dana decided to ignore him. 
	"So, here we are, a mile from your airbase.  Do we don camouflage,
and sneak in under the wire, or just run in with flashlights and badges?"
Dana always could miss sarcasm by inches, and still hit humor.
	Fox unzipped his soft leather hiking jacket and repositioned
himself in his seat.  "I was thinking more of staking out the flights into
and out of the base.  There might be unusual cargo craft coming in and out
of the base.  That would be the best way to bring in parts and crew for
any large radio installation."
	"That would make sense, Mulder, but there's a couple of problems. 
How do you know any shipments are being made tonight?"
	"I'm guessing."
	"We're here on a guess?  I'll admit you've got a record-breaking
streak of good hunches going, but isn't this a little extreme?"
	"Well, they just had massive flooding in this area, and the Pacific
Fleet just scaled back submarine deployments..." Fox tapped the fingers of
his left hand on the rim of the steering wheel.
	"...Because they need to repair the ELF system to communicate with
them," Scully finished Mulder's thought. "Okay, that makes sense.  So how
are we supposed to see these planes?  Nightscopes?"
	"I stopped by the Lone Gunmen Press before coming here, and picked
up a set of low-light binoculars.  That reminds me, Froehicke sends his
warmest regards."
	"I'm thrilled.  Are those...people... the only ones you spend any
time with off duty?"
	"Have you checked out the club scene recently?  I'll stick with the
monsters that _look_ like monsters.  So, Scully, what else do you read
besides _Red October_?"
	"A lot I pick up from friends," Scully knew full well he was
switching the topic away from his private life.  "I hadn't thought you'd
have had time to do a lot of leisure reading yourself."
	"I don't.  I heard about the ELF bit in the book at TLG."
	"Weren't you reading it back at the Hoover Building before we
left?"
	"Just borrowed a copy to check up on what I heard from Froehicke."
	"What did you hear from him?"
	"Apart from a lot about how hot my partner was, not much." Scully
had made more of an impression with the conspiracy freaks at TLG than
she'd wanted.  "Listen, why don't you break out the burgers we picked up
on the way out here."
	"This is why you were looking for the drive through."
	"No stakeout is complete without junk food.  I even brought some of
my own." Dana heard the sound of a plastic bag crumple in the dark, and
recognized the sound of Mulder's sunflower seeds.  She started to reach
for the bag of food they'd bought earlier, but stopped. 
	"You know, it'll be next to impossible to tell the difference
between the cargo shipments and the planes brought in for repairs.  Once
they wheel the plane into one of those hangers, they could load and unload
anything they wanted to, and we couldn't see a thing."
	"Just one of those little hitches in an otherwise excellent
stakeout.  It certainly beats the hell out of listening to wiretaps for
eight hours a day."
	Scully said nothing.  She looked at Mulder for a moment, and a
flash of recognition dawned in her eyes.  She realized that this stakeout
was definitely not what it appeared to be.  With a thin smile, she
unbuckled her seat belt and pulled two white paper bags up from the car
floor.  While Scully began setting the fast food on the dashboard, Mulder
turned in his seat to rummage through his bag in the back seat.
	"Be careful, Mulder.  If you keep bouncing, you'll lose your
shake." Despite her words, Dana sounded amused.
	Mulder sat back in his seat, placing a leather case next to him. 
"Yes Mom Scully!" Even he had heard her mother's tone in her voice.
	"Try sister, Mulder.  Melissa was always bouncing around and being
difficult.  That and the shakes remind me of her."
	Mulder was surprised at this.  'sually they didn't get into this
sort of talk. "I guess that's another thing we have in common, Scully."
Mulder sat and drank his shake quietly.
	"Somehow Mulder, I don't see a lot in common between you and my
sister." She smiled playfully and bit into her hamburger.
	Fox set his drink down on his knee, and stared at his hands, "No,
I meant you and I, Scully.  My sister Samantha was difficult too." He
didn't look up. He usually didn't say much about his childhood because of
his sister's disappearance. 
	Quickly, Scully swallowed her bite.  She'd intended to try having
a simple conversation with her partner and her friend.  She didn't
understand why his feelings were running so close to the surface tonight. 
Certainly, she'd missed his meaning at first. 
	"I'm sorry, Mulder.  You don't usually talk about her."
	"We don't usually share milkshakes.  So, Scully, what do you figure
an ELF transmitter looks like?  I bet it's bigger than a breadbox." He
smiled at her, and took a bite from his sandwich.
	<Again he shuts me out.  We start talking, one of us gets personal,
and then he runs and hides.  Damn thing is he does it with that little kid
smile.> "Look for something Army Green."
	For a moment, they both looked through the windshield toward the
cluster of lights in the darkness that was the airfield below.  The night
was so impenetrable that they could barely see the grasses around the car
sway in the wind. 
	"I'll keep that in mind."
	
		*		*		*

	Several hours later, the car was still.  Gone were the strains of
Sheryl Crowe.  Gone too the lively banter.  The smell of fast food still
lingered, as did the sleeping forms of the two agents. 
	Fox's head was tilted back against his headrest, the binoculars
loosely gripped in one hand.  Even sleep did not deprive his face of its
marks, the worry too firmly set in his mind to be uprooted by mere
unconsciousness.  His eyes flickered back and forth behind his lids.  But
whatever he saw there, it did not break him free from the little death of
sleep.
	Dana was turned in her seat, her arms fast around her.  With the
hood of her jacket up, and her head nestled against the chair, she was
nearly unrecognizable.  In the dark, it would have been difficult to see
her knuckles whiten as she clenched her jacket tighter.
	In her mind, she was gone.  Or rather, she remembered the terror
of her abduction, and the fear of _being_ gone.  Her mind replayed every
autopsy, every exhumed body, every identification by family, and numbered
her amongst the desecrated dead.  Nothing left but an abused, abandoned
shell. 
	She remembered nothing of her earlier kidnapping, despite the
months that had passed.  But in this dream, she could replay every
scenario, imagine every extreme possibility she'd excluded from her waking
mind.  And interspersed with it were images.  Images of Donnie Pfaster,
the man who had nearly killed her.  Images of Fox Mulder, the man who-
	Scully awoke with a small start, blues eyes staring wildly into
the depths of the night.  Her breathing still quickened, Dana pushed her
hair back from her face and closed her eyes. 
	Her eyes popped open.  The blackness behind her eyelids was too
full, too empty.  Far better to keep staring around the car.  For a
moment, Dana played with the crucifix around her throat. 
	That cross, however, now reminded her more of her partner than
anything.  It had been his only link to her when she had been kidnapped
before, and although she now wore it again, it reminded her of how he must
have felt.  Blinking slowly against her fatigue, Dana turned to look at
Mulder.  He breathed softly, unaware he was being watched.
	More than anything, she wanted to wake her partner, to talk to
him.  When she awoke in the hospital, months after her first
disappearance, Mulder had been haggard and drawn.  He'd brushed off her
questions with his usual humor, and yet he'd seemed darker somehow.
	Her mother and sister had been there that time, and she'd talked
some with them.  From them she'd heard that Fox had tracked down every
lead zealously, and treated her family well, never giving up the search.
She expected no less of him.  But they too se emed to be holding back from
her.  And that she hadn't expected. 
	And now her experience with Donald Pfaster highlighted her own
uncertainties.  When Fox had come through Pfaster's door, he did not seem
to be a caring partner, but an avenging angel.  Something, somewhere, had
changed with him, and she knew not what. She prided herself on her
strength and abilities, just as her late father raised her to do.  She'd
trained to deal with crises, and death.  And she'd learned to how to work
well, professionally, with a partner.  Now all these things seemed to hang
by the slimmest of threads.  For a moment, Dana was aware of the crux she
found herself in.
	She looked at the sleeping form of her partner, Fox.  <Damn him. 
He catches sleep at the oddest times, and can never sleep through the
night.  He calls me at midnight regularly, and the one time I want to talk
in the middle of the night, he's out like a light!  Perfect.> His brow
wrinkled, and he murmured something unintelligible.  <Sounds like he's got
enough of his own troubles.  Whatever I feel, whatever I think, I'm not
saying anything to Mulder.  And I sure as hell am not going to wake him up
to deal with my problem.  Hell, I can't believe I broke down like that the
other night.>
	Mulder continued to speak softly in his sleep. <Shoot, if he wakes
up now, we'll have to talk, and I'll be upset, and he'll look at me with
puppy-dog eyes, and I'll fight with him just to keep silent and hurt him
or I'll start talking, and If I start talking I'll keep talking and I
don't think right now I want to hear what I have to say to my partner,
because I know he's hiding something, and-> Quickly, she decided to soothe
her insomniac friend.
	"It's okay Mulder, go to sleep."  Her breathy voice was low and
soft.  Mulder turned his head slightly.  It brought his face into the
light of the moon, and she saw the pain burnt into his sleeping face as he
would never show her when he was awake. 
	"Find her."  Two words, barely coherent, escaped him in his sleep.
	"We'll find her, Mulder.  Go to sleep. I'll help you find your
sister."  She rested her head on the seat again, still speaking with Fox
soothingly.
	"Pfaster."  Dana's eyes came fully open.  She realized he'd been
speaking about her.
	"You found me Mulder.  I'm right here.  Everything's okay, Fox."
	Slowly, Mulder quieted down, like a child locked in the grip of a
dream.  Now they were both face to face, and she scrutinized him while he
slept.  <You shouldn't be doing this Dana... You can't go prying answers
out of someone while they're asleep.  It would be...unethical.  Well, not
if it was something small.  I mean, I couldn't say, 'So Mulder, what
happened while I was gone?' or 'What's with you and my sister?' That would
be wrong.  But if I said something about the case, and he talked in his
sleep , it wouldn't be so bad.  Take 'Why did you really drag us out to
the middle of nowhere?'>
	Almost without thinking, she spoke the last aloud.
	"Time."
	Discussions of morality and ethics are a fine thing.  But 'Time,'
was too much of the wrong type of answer for Scully. "What time, Mulder? 
What time"  She touched his arm gently.
	"With Scully."
	"Why?"  Her voice was taunt.
	"Excuse."
	"An excuse? To talk to me?" It took effort to speak softly.
	"No."
	"No?"  That _really_ took effort to keep her voice soft.
	"Away.  From work."
	<He wants me to take a vacation with him.  Oh.  I guess he can't
believe I broke down the other night either.  Even my partner thinks I'm
slipping.  Enough for him to want me to take a _supervised_ vacation. >
	Earlier, that thought had occurred to her.  The stakeout was so
flawed, that she'd wondered if the whole thing might be for her benefit. 
At the time, it had seemed sweet. Now, it took on an insulting light,
<Doesn't he trust me enough to be honest with me?  I should be thankful he
didn't drive me out here early enough to watch the sunset!  The whole
thing, the ELF, the genetic engineering, all of it was just to confuse me. 
Make me come along, and never think that he's dragged me out here to
rest.> Dana dropped back into her seat and crossed her arms.  <I wonder
if that's really a military base.>
	Scully was too tired to track down all the things about this she
didn't like.  She tried listing them all, so she could tell them all,
loudly, to Mulder when he woke up.  She was asleep before she found a
third reason.