Chataqalan 3

Monica's bed had been slept in, which Scully found both reassuring and disconcerting: reassuring because that meant Monica hadn't been devoured by a jaguar or attacked by a hook- handed weirdo while out on her fern-walk, and disconcerting because that meant Scully had fallen asleep before nine o'clock and then slept like an exhausted, deaf rock. She'd needed the sleep, she supposed. If she were honest about it, she hadn't had a decent night's sleep since William was born; if she were brutally honest about it, she hadn't had a decent night's sleep since she'd met Mulder. That was okay though, she thought as she brushed her hair and pulled it back in a low pony tail in preparation for another day of slicing and dicing, some of those sleepless nights, especially lately, had been a lot of fun.

She spotted Monica in the mess tent, already seated, laughing and chatting in Spanish with a group she sort of recognized from the Argentinean delegation. To join them or not to join them, Scully wondered as she joined the long food line. Her Spanish was lousy and-

"Good morning, Dr. Scully."

Recognizing the voice and thick accent, Scully turned. "Dr. Vetkova," she said. "Good morning."

"You are sleeping well, yes?" Vetkova asked.

After yesterday's conversation, Scully wasn't at all sure what to make of Vetkova. Experience had led her to divide the world into friends and foes, leaving very little middle ground. At the moment, she couldn't say for sure which category Vetkova fell into. As she frequently reminded Mulder, though, it was never a bad idea to play nicely with the other children on the playground. At least until they tried to stomp on your sand castle or shoot you. "Very well, thank you."

Vetkova nodded. "You are lucky. All night I hear tick tick tick. You hear this?"

Scully shook her head. "No."

"This sound comes from inside my tent, but I look and look and see nothing. I am wondering what this could be."

Scully took up a package of wrapped cutlery and a tray. "Maybe it was an insect."

"Yes," Vetkova agreed. "I think perhaps it is an insect. A bug, you say, yes? A small bug."

"Probably," Scully agreed. "There's no shortage of exotic wildlife around here."

"You have these bugs in your tent?"

Scully shook her head. "Not that I've noticed."

"Perhaps you should look," Vetkova suggested.

"Perhaps I will, after my shift," Scully conceded. She filled her travel mug with coffee and checked out the day's offerings.

"I have a small baby at home," Vetkova said. "Nadya."

Scully waited for Vetkova to continue. When she didn't, Scully, said, "I have a son, too. William."

Vetkova nodded, giving the impression that Scully had finally remembered and delivered her line. "Nadya is seven months old and she does not like to sleep, so I do not get to sleep. So I do not enjoy all night this bug." Vetkova turned to Scully. "The trucks make noise, too."

"Trucks?" Scully stirred in cream and sugar.

"The trucks that come last night." Vetkova stirred her own coffee. "Bringing more bodies."

"Oh," Scully answered. The bodies she'd worked on yesterday had come out of a refrigerated shipping container that was serving as their morgue. She hadn't thought about how or when they'd arrived. "I didn't hear them. How many trucks?"

"Two I saw. Many bodies and many soldiers with many guns. They are afraid the bodies will escape, no?"

"I don't think those bodies are going anywhere," Scully replied grimly.

"The burning, it is massive."

Scully nodded. "Toast please, and scrambled," she said to the woman behind the food table. "Very extensive, yes."

"I was before working in the field like this when many people were burned."

"Oh?" Scully asked.

"In Kazakhstan. 1998."

The fine hairs on the back of Scully's neck bristled at Vetkova's mention of the Kazakhstan massacre. Her own horrifying brush with death at Ruskin Dam had taken place just days after that. Scully accepted her plate of toast with a nod and an automatic 'thank you' and waited for her eggs.

"The burning was different then," Vetkova said, selecting a container of yogurt.

"These - ah, this time, these are a combination of regular burns and chemical burns," Scully answered. She'd found traces of at least two different acids in skin samples she'd collected, residue from some lye-like substance, too.

"I think maybe this time it is different also."

"Morning, Dana," Simon said as he joined the line, effectively placing himself between Scully and the other woman. He turned to Vetkova with a tight little smile. "Irina. Fancy meeting you here."

"Dr. Fisher," Vetkova acknowledged with a tight little smile of her own.

"So what looks good this morning, Dana?" Simon asked, turning his back on Vetkova.

"Dana," Vetkova said, "I would still like to talk later, if possible."

Simon turned on her. "Talk about what, Irina?"

Vetkova bristled. "Excuse me," she said as she cut around Fisher and Scully. "I hope to see you later, Dana."

Scully frowned. "Dr. Fisher-" she began, prepared to tell Simon to mind his own damned business.

"You know her?" Simon said. "I mean, from back in the real world?"

"No," Scully answered, "but-"

"She's nuts," Simon said bluntly.

She blinked at him. "Excuse me?"

"Nuts," he repeated, then said something to the cook in oddly-accented Spanish. "Her father is rumored to be Russian Mafia. Her mother's a doctor by trade but she's way up in the World Health Organization - probably bought her way in. Irina's a dilettante of sorts; she just shows up at all these unnatural disasters, scalpel in hand, gleam in her eye. If there's a mass grave, you can bet she's been knee-deep in it. Then she publishes a load of questionable papers filled with a load of questionable data in a load of questionable journals."

"She told me she was trained as an immunologist," Scully said.

Simon's brows rose. "Did she? That's a new one." He took a plate of sliced fruit and set it on his tray. "Her credentials are suspect at best. She's in a big hurry to make a name for herself, though, and in one respect, she's succeeded."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," Simon said, accepting his plate of eggs. "They call her 'The Vulture.' Fitting, don't you think?"

"Dana!"

She turned at the sound of her name. Monica was standing by the door. "See you at the briefing?"

Scully opened her mouth to reply, but she was caught off guard by another tremor passing through the ground. This quake, less intense than the one the day before, merely made her sway, but brought sudden eerie silence to the tent as each diner looked to his left and right, wondering if everyone else had felt what he or she had. Then nervous laughter erupted, as everyone returned to their meal.

"Christ," Simon grumbled as he took note of the coffee now mixed liberally with his scrambled egg, "I'll be bloody glad when we're out of here."

Scully did not disagree.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

The briefing had gone as Dana expected - yes, there were more Bodies than expected, yes, they were making progress nevertheless, no, there was no new information as to the what and the why. ASAC Perez related that as least three caustic chemical substances had been found on the victims, and more results were expected from the lab in Mexico City within a day or two. And, sorry, telecommunications were still not what they should be, but at any moment now, they expected that to change.

"How was the date?" Dana had whispered to Monica as Perez droned on about the need for everyone to stay within the perimeter of the camp and to be on the lookout for anyone not associated with their group.

Monica had seemed to consider the question carefully. "Weird," she finally whispered back.

It was not the answer Scully had expected. But then, she reflected as she made her way to the work tent, her last real date had involved talking tattoos, ergot poisoning, and several murders, so who was she to judge?

"Morning Dana," Drew said as she entered the make-shift autopsy tent.

"Morning," she replied as she slipped into her gown. "You're here bright and early. I didn't see you at the briefing."

Drew shrugged. "I keep thinking the sooner we get started, the sooner we'll be finished, which, of course, is not the case, but hope springs eternal. Did they say anything shocking or unexpected?"

Dana gave a rueful grin. "Do they ever?" She donned her surgical mask. "Simon not with us today?"

"Nope," Drew replied. "They asked him to help one of the other teams. Seems a bunch of the Swedes came down with whatever the politically correct term for Montezuma's Revenge is."

"Lucky them." She tugged on one glove, then the other. "So it's just you and me?"

Drew nodded. "Just you, me, and Joe Doe #01-07554," he said as he handed Scully a clip board. "Shall we?"

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

This morning's post-mortems were no different than the eight from the day before, with one exception: try as she might, she could not focus fully on the task at hand. She could blame lack of sleep, strange surroundings, and unfamiliar equipment, but the truth was that Vetkova's cryptic words about what she'd encountered in Kazakhstan kept running through her mind. Those burns were different, Vetkova had said, but she thought maybe these burns were different too. What did it mean, if anything? Had Vetkova really been trying to tell her something in her own covert way, or were her awkward attempts at friendly conversation just that -- friendly but awkward? And what about Simon's scathing assessment of the woman?

"How'd your call go last night?"

Scully looked up from the spayed thoracic cavity of Body Number Four for the day. Heat had curled the body in on itself so that it was almost in a fetal position, which made her job tougher than necessary. "My what?"

Drew slid a number of x-ray films in front of a portable light box. "Your phone call," he answered.

"Oh. Fine?" she said, as if she was trying to guess the right answer..

Drew wrote something on clip board. "Your husband, right?"

"He's -" Scully began, then remembered her marital status, or lack thereof, was none of Drew's business. "Why do you ask?'

Scully carefully extracted the heart from the thoracic cavity and placed it on the scale. The heart, like the other internal organs, had essentially been cooked. Odd combination, she thought - execution-style murder combined with conventional fire and chemicals. Someone wanted these people seriously, irrevocably dead. But the internal organs - it was almost as if . . .

"You seem to be the only one in camp who got a call in or out last night. I was just wondering if you got cut off or if the line held." He looked up. "Or did you mean me asking about your husband?"

"Oh. The connection wasn't too bad," she said. "It cut out a few times, but reconnected. No luck this moring, though. Drew, these bodies have all been scanned for signs of residual radioactivity, right?"

Drew flipped through the papers he held. "Says they have. Why?"

Scully shook her head. "Probably nothing. Can you help me flip this, please?"

Drew came to her assistance. "So this is your way of saying you're not married?"

They turned the body onto its other side as Scully considered her answer. She never knew how to refer to Mulder. 'Partner' didn't say enough, and 'husband' was a lie. He'd proposed a couple dozen times, in principle, and she'd accepted, in principle, but 'fiance' sounded wrong somehow, and 'boyfriend' sounded worse.

"Almost," she finally answered.

"Almost?"

"Almost married."

Drew grinned, and Scully got the distinct impression she was being laughed at.

"Monica says you've got a baby."

Scully nodded. "William. He's home with his dad."

Drew returned to his light box. "This the guy who's almost your husband?"

She hadn't thought of it that way. Mulder, her almost-husband. That made her his almost-wife. Almost. "Yeah. Him."

Drew was silent a few minutes, typing notes into his laptop computer and flipping through a stack of forms.

"So Monica really delivered your baby, then?"

Scully sighed, wondering why, of all the things she and Drew could have talked about, Monica had to pick that topic. "It's a long story -"

"Funny, that's what Monica said, too," Drew said.

"That's because it really is a long story," Scully said. "Really long, but yes, she did."

"Wild," he said, shaking his head.

'You don't know the half of it,' she thought, but didn't say.

"So what's he do?"

Scully pried a bullet from the back of the skull, held it up to the light. Same small caliber round she'd seen in the others. It fell into the metal tray with a clank. "He who? Mulder?"

"Is that his name? Mulder? Unusual."

"It's his last name," she said. "And he is, as they say, between jobs at the moment."

"Monica said he was a profiler with the FBI."

"He was," she replied. "He's not anymore."

"Tough job, that. Why'd he leave?"

'Speaking of long stories,' she thought as she continued her work. "It was just time," she said.

Drew nodded. "Do you want me to shut up?"

Scully paused. "No, of course not," she said. But if he decided to shut up on his own, she was sure she could handle it.

"I'm a nosy bastard and I'm bothering you. Sorry." he said. He drew his fingers across his lips. "Consider it zipped, Doctor Scully."

The Q and A session over for the moment, Scully continued with her inspection. There was little she could do with these bodies after all the photographs were taken, the skin and hair samples were collected, and the x-rays were done. She continued meticulously examining the body, however, wanting to be sure she didn't miss anything that might make positive identification possible or help implicate those responsible.

"So, who's John?" Drew asked, bringing what must have been all of three minutes of silence to an end.

"John?"

"Monica wanted him to send her boots?"

"Oh, he's her-" Scully stopped. There was a slightly raised patch about the size of a shirt button just to the left of the entry wound. She ran her finger over it, gently at first, and then a little more firmly. "Drew, would you take a look at this?"

"Sure," he said. "What is it?"

"I'm not sure," she replied, handing him the lighted magnifying glass she'd been using. "I noticed something similar on the last body, and on two yesterday. It's hard to see with all the burning but. . . "

Drew peered through the lens. "Is that - what is that?"

"I don't want to prejudice you."

"A tattoo? Or, no," Drew straightened, "more like a scar, but discolored. Tiny bugger."

"I think it might be a brand," she replied. "I took some samples from the area on the bodies this morning, but these -- can you see a shape there? Or am I imagining it?"

Drew squinted. "I'm not sure. Is it - a spiral, I think," he said. "A counter clockwise spiral?"

Scully nodded. "That's what it looks like."

"Interesting." Drew frowned in thought. "Ritual scarification is practiced by a lot of cultures and subcultures. Rites of passage, group membership, clubs, that sort of thing. Aborigines and Maori are two I'm familiar with, but it's not uncommon. And, of course, nowadays, you can easily get it done at any reputable tattoo shop."

"Probably some of the disreputable ones too," Scully said, briefly flashing on her own ritual scarification of not so many years ago, and the very dead club she'd almost joined as a result. "Yesterday Monica mentioned-"

"Monica mentioned what?"

They both turned. Monica was standing at the door of the tent, wearing a lab coat and a bemused expression. "Oh, hey, Drew," she said, trying a little too hard, Scully thought, to sound nonchalant.

"Afternoon," Drew responded in much the same tone. "Sleep well?"

Monica nodded. "Just fine, thanks."

"Good timing, Monica," Scully said. "Grab a mask and some gloves and come look at this."

Monica complied. "What am I looking - oh. Hey, another one."

"You've seen these before?" Drew asked.

Monica nodded. "Mattiasson's group had three or four yesterday in those photos I was cataloguing. Base of the skull, just like this one. They flagged it."

"Alpha Site or Beta?" Scully asked.

"I'm not sure," Monica said. "I'd have to look. Where's this guy from?"

Drew checked the toe tag. "Beta. But-"

"So this gives weight to the theory that this is some sort of gang warfare," Scully said. "These brands or tattoos, whatever they are, might indicate group affiliation."

Monica nodded in agreement. "The victims all appear to be native, likely Mayan in descent, and pretty much all of them have been O+ blood too, so that's not too far a stretch to suggest it's one group taking out another."

"But spiral patterns like that are pretty common," Drew interjected. "The sun, or mother earth. It's a motif that shows up over and over. It doesn't have to mean a lot of anything."

"Still, it might give us a break on this case," Scully said. "If we can find out if there is a particular group that uses this as their symbol, we can find out who their enemies are."

Monica nodded. "We should probably go to Bobby with this."

"Hang on," Drew said, holding up both his hands as if he were trying to flag the play. "Aren't we getting a little ahead of ourselves? This is hardly conclusive. And who is Bobby?"

"ASAC Perez," Monica said. "I think Dana's right about it potentially breaking the case."

"I think-" Scully began, but Drew cut her off.

"I don't know what you've all been told," Drew began, "but we were specifically cautioned to stay out of the investigative side of this."

"But-" Monica began.

"But nothing, Monica," he countered. "This is a matter for the Mexican authorities-"

"Of course, but-"

"The last thing they need or want is a bunch of Yank cowboys-"

"Pardon me?" Reyes said. "Where the hell do you get off, Drew? You're not-"

"Not what? Not barking mad? Damn right, I'm not."

Apparently, Scully thought as she stepped between them just as she'd been taught in hostage negotiations class, the date had been something more than simply weird. "Whoa," she said. "Hold on. Look, you both have valid points-"

"I think-" Drew and Monica said in unison.

"Hang on a minute," Scully repeated. "Yes, I think this could help break the case. But Drew's right. It's not conclusive. But it's definitely suggestive. However, there could be lots of explanations, right down to coincidence. I think it's too soon to go to anyone in any official way, honestly."

Monica nodded. "I can see that," she said, but Scully knew from her tone she was far from convinced.

"Are you still cataloging today, Monica?"

Monica shook her head. "I'm playing denier today. I'm assisting Dr. Vetkova."

"The Vulture?" Drew snorted and rolled his eyes. "Oh Christ."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Monica asked.

"Vetkova's a crank," he said. "She believes in all kinds of crazy-arsed shit."

Monica folded her arms across her chest, tilted her chin upward. "People have said worse about me. And from what I've seen, crank or not, she's an excellent forensic examiner."

"Fine." Drew shook his head, then threw his hands up in surrender. "Fine. I give up. I need a bottle of water," he announced, then headed for the door.

Scully waited until Drew was clear of the tent, then cocked her head toward the exit. "What the hell was that all about?"

Monica looked bewildered. "I honestly have no idea."

"Did you two-" Scully started, not sure how or even if she should finish the question.

Monica shook her head. "We went for a walk. We JUST went for a walk."

Scully frowned. "So why did he just storm out of here?"

"Beats me," Monica said. "But why do I feel like I should be following him?"

Scully cocked a brow. "Maybe because you're really, really thirsty, too?"

"That must be it," she agreed. "Or maybe I want to make sure he doesn't go running to Bobby and take all the credit."

"Heaven's no," Scully said dramatically. "We are not nearly that petty."

"No, of course not," Monica agreed in the same tone. "We're professionals."

"Complete professionals."

"Complete professionals who are suddenly parched."

Scully grinned and bent back to her work.

Monica got half way to the door when she spun around. "Oh, I forgot." She pulled something from her pocket. "Irina wanted me to give this to you. For William."

Scully took the object in her gloved hand. "An Easter egg?"

"An Easter egg puzzle keychain," Monica corrected. "Pysanky, I think it's called. Pretty, isn't it?"

Scully held it by the chain. It was about the size and shape of a small hen's egg, predominantly black, but decorated with an elaborate, intricate geometric pattern, and coated with glossy lacquer. Squinting slightly, she could see the hair-thin joints where the pieces abutted. "Very pretty," she said. "Strange gift for a baby, though."

"Irina can't help it." Monica shrugged. "She's a crank."

"So I've heard." Scully slipped the trinket into the pocket of her lab coat. "I'll have to thank her at dinner."

"See you then," Monica said and left.

"See you then," Scully echoed.