Title: SHII (1/1) Author: aka "Jake" Rating: R (language, violence) Classification: X (X-File) Spoilers: Very vague references to episodes through season 7 Summary: It's the night before the Night Before Christmas. The Lone Gunmen are researching Spontaneous Human Involuntary Invisibility. Agents Mulder and Scully are trying to catch a murderer they can't see. "There are always murderers loose on the streets, Scully. In every city of every state. It's just that *most* of them aren't invisible." -- Fox Mulder in SHII. SHII by aka "Jake" Disclaimer: The characters Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Walter Skinner and the Lone Gunmen are the property of Chris Carter, FOX and 1013 Productions. "Terri" is mine. No copyright infringement intended. This is for fun, not profit. Author's notes at end. SHII PART I ___________________ "I'm an Invisible Man. It's no foolishness, and no magic. I really am an Invisible Man." --- H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man ___________________ JERRY (I) To: research@lonegun.net From: jerryd@vint.net Sent: Friday, December 17, 1999, 10:32 PM Subject: SHII To Whom It May Concern: I am responding to your inquiry (posted in Nov. issue of Lone Gunman) about the phenomenon that you are currently researching called Spontaneous Human Involuntary Invisibility. I have recently experienced SHII on several occasions. BELIEVE ME, THIS IS REAL! The first time it happened to me, I was standing in line at the post office. A woman came up behind me and asked the man in front of me if he was at the end of the line. He said yes! At first I thought they were just being rude. But I was also ignored (again!) when I got to the counter and the clerk skipped over me and helped the bad-mannered woman instead, not even acknowledging me although I was standing right in front of her! Everyone in the lobby acted like I wasn't even there! They looked right through me and didn't hear me although I was yelling by then. To me, everybody looked and sounded as always, except for the fact that they couldn't see or hear me. I couldn't understand what was happening. Since that day, I've experienced SHII quite a few times. I never know when it's going to happen. And in case you are thinking I'm just a nutcase, I've NEVER been abducted by aliens (a possible connection with SHII you suggest in your inquiry). Except for my power of invisibility, I'm just a NORMAL guy with a NORMAL job and a NORMAL life. If you want to interview me, you can contact me at jerryd@vint.net. Sincerely, Jerry ___________________ SCULLY (I) FBI Headquarters December 23 8:00 AM "Pick a file, any file," Mulder offers the moment I step through our office door. I would guess he's been here for a while. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows; his suit jacket is draped over the back of his chair. Sometimes I think he spends the entire night in this underground home-away-from-home of ours. This morning, he's holding out three manila folders, fanned out in his hands like a deck of cards at a magic show. Each folder is clearly marked with a bold, red 'X' on its tab. Obviously we have no shortage of unsolved cases to demystify today. "My choice?" I'm stupefied. This is certainly a departure from the norm. I can't recall a single occasion in our seven years together that Mulder actually allowed me to select the case. "Do I get to look at them first?" I ask, setting my half-empty cup of coffee down on my desk and hanging my coat behind the door. "Go for it, Scully." He slaps the folders down next to my coffee. Flashes me a smile. Then waits, hands on hips, while I sit to review the files. To make a point, I take a leisurely sip of my coffee before I open the first folder. My slow-motion start to our day's activities drives him nuts. Mulder is my opposite in most -- if not all -- ways. He is usually a barely contained bundle of energy, anxious to begin each morning rushing headlong at the world's most oddball phenomena at warp speed. Unlike me. Today is no exception. Okay. *Sip coffee.* Let's take a look. *Sip coffee.* File number one contains assorted background materials: firsthand accounts, photos, supporting affidavits, a clipping from "The Arizona Republic" dated November 8, 1999 with an article about...oh my...a pet psychic fair, in which the owners of dogs and cats -- a parrot, too, I see -- claim their pets have lived past lives. Human lives. Oh, here we go -- one pooch's "palm" reading disclosed "Amanda," a Doberman/poodle mix, was actually the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler. His owner, Mindy Goldberg is now under pressure from her family to sell the dog. Next case. "You didn't like that one?" Mulder asks when I slide the first file folder out of my way. File number two. This folder contains information about... "The Lizard Man of FEMA?" I ask. "Yeah, I didn't believe it at first either, Scully, but look--" Mulder rummages through the file's stack of papers. Locating the one he wants, he pulls out a deposition from an employee of the Washington State Department of Emergency Services who was attending a radiological defense pilot course in 1982 at FEMA training headquarters in Fredricksburg, Maryland. The guy claimed to have witnessed Louis Guiffreda, a cousin of George Bush, metamorphose into a giant lizard during the orientation. I close this folder, too, and place it on top of the first in the reject pile. "Okay, Scully, I can understand -- that one was kind of old. So...I guess we go with Door Number Three." Pleased as punch, he scoops up the third folder and grabs for his coat. "Hold on a minute," I say. "Give me that." I pry the final folder from Mulder's death grip. File number three. Spontaneous Human Involuntary Invisibility. "Spontaneous Human Involuntary Invisibility?" "It's a documented phenomenon, Scully." "Documented by whom? Why have I never read about it in the medical literature?" "*That* I couldn't say. But occurrences of human invisibility, 'vanishments' if you will, have been recognized for centuries. The ability to disappear exists historically in Indo-European and pre-Aryan shamanism, Hinduism, as well as with the Aborigines of Australia, the archaic peoples of North and South America, and the peoples in the polar regions. Patanjali, author of the Yoga-sutra, which is one of the earliest treatises among early Indian writings, describes his understanding of the process of human invisibility by telling us that concentration and meditation can make the body imperceptible to other people, and that 'direct contact with the light of the eyes no longer existing, the body disappears.' Remember Nathaniel Teager?" Nathaniel Teager, war vet who sought revenge on the military brass who left him and his comrades for dead in Vietnam. I remember him. He seemed to appear and disappear with the effortlessness of a blinking Christmas tree light. "Mulder, we never proved--" "Scully," Mulder interrupts, "you can't deny the possibility. Take Rosicrucianism, for example. In Europe in the fifteenth century, there were a number of Rosicrucian papers that discussed invisibility. One brother of the fraternity wrote all about 'how to walk invisible among men.' And H. Spencer Lewis, the founder of the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis in San Jose, California, stated that it was possible to gain invisibility via *clouds.* He said that clouds or bodies of mist can be 'called out of the invisible to surround a person and thus shut him out of the sight of others.' The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an offshoot of the Rosicrucian fraternity, described a 'Ritual of Invisibility.' Their manuscripts explained how to surround yourself with a shroud, which they described as looking like a cloud." Where does Mulder get this stuff? "A cloud shroud?" I ask. "A cloud of free electrons would absorb all light entering it -- it wouldn't reflect or refract light waves. Consequently, if a person is surrounded by such a cloud, he would become invisible." "Mulder, how does any of...this--" I gesture at the file folder, "fall into the category of 'spontaneous' or 'involuntary'?" "Well, if a person is somehow forming the light-absorbing, free-electron cloud around themselves unknowingly and without knowledge of the method, it could be classified as 'involuntary.'" "And how would they do that?" "Some kind of unconscious but focused mental process might be used to form the cloud." I squint at Mulder, and then take another quick look at the material in the folder. Ah-ha. "Mulder, this information links Spontaneous Human Involuntary Invisibility--" "SHII," he interrupts me, pronouncing the acronym as "shy." "Right, *SHII*...is linked with alien abduction experiences." "Well...yesss. Abductions by extraterrestrials and interdimensional beings have been--" "Interdimensional beings?" Okay, now it's my turn to interrupt; it's only a few minutes after eight and I've already had enough of Professor Mulder's Paranormal Theory 101. "Mulder, most of the information you have here was written by dubious sources at best...like a 'certified clinical hypnotherapist working with people who feel they have had non-human abduction experiences.'" "And your point is...?" "My point is, you'll be investigating SHII on your own today. Skinner has assigned me to do an autopsy. I'll be at Quantico most of the morning." "Scully, are you cheating on me?" Pretending to be jealous, he mugs exaggerated shock. "What's the case?" "Nothing you'd be interested in. Just a mundane strangulation." "Mm hm. So, Teacher's Pet, why did Skinner call on you?" "Because I raised my hand. I'm breaking in a new Forensic Technologist for the Bureau. A...uh...Terri Sproul, I think is the name." "Terry?" Mulder looks slightly worried -- for real this time. "Terri with an 'i.' She's an honor student at the Academy. And Mulder, if we come across anything that even remotely resembles an X-File, you'll be the first person I call." I hand the file back to him and go for my coat and the door. "Have fun today with your reluctantly vanishing masses." ___________________ TERRI (I) Quantico Morgue I am sooo excited! This is totally too cool. Today I will actually be working side-by-side with Special Agent Doctor Dana Scully -- my *idol* ever since she taught a semester of Anatomy my first year at the Academy. I plan to be just like her -- a real forensic pathologist. Although for now, I'm quite satisfied with my lowly role as technician -- as long as I get to work with *her.* She's the best -- everyone in the Bureau says so -- and there's nothing like learning from the best. I came in extra early this morning to get everything ready for her -- not to mention that I was too excited to stay away a minute longer. I set up the instruments the way we were taught in class, and got the table ready. Checked the mike and recorder, too. Everything is working A-OK. The victim's body is still waiting in cold storage -- I didn't dare try to move it myself. I was terrified it might drop on the floor or something. How embarrassing would that be? "Hi Dr. Scully, nice to meet you again. I dropped your corpse on the floor." Totally humiliating! Because the body we will be autopsying is a strangulation victim, I stayed up 'til like two in the morning reviewing all the muscles of the neck and thoroughly studying the human respiratory system. God, I hope I covered everything and don't end up saying something really stupid! Oh! Here she comes! Stop shaking, Terri. Dr. Scully is just a regular person. Yeah, right. Like she's not the smartest woman in the whole wide world! Wow! The only word I can think to describe the way Dr. Dana Scully looks is "glamorous" -- with a capital "G" -- in that classic movie actress kind of way. She's an absolute knockout, a combination of Betty Davis and Betty Grable. I know, I know, my mom says I watch too many old movies. But even in her scrubs and sneakers, Dr. Scully looks like she just stepped through those morgue doors straight from Humphrey Bogart's arms. I half expect to hear the score from "Dark Victory" playing over the building's PA system. "Hi, I'm Dana Scully." She reaches her hand toward me and when I take it, I'm freaking to be shaking the very hand that has dissected so many bodies and solved so many cases. "You must be Terri?" she asks because I'm too dumbstruck to introduce myself. Then she puts on her lab apron and a pair of safety glasses. She's the only person I know who can actually look great in those big goofy glasses. "Uh...yeah, that's me. I'm Terri." Oh, brilliant. Off to an impressive start, Terri-ol'-girl. "Shall we begin?" she asks and I can only nod. "Let's get the body on the table, then." I hurry to tug on a pair of latex gloves, cursing myself for not putting them on earlier -- before Dr. Scully could witness me putting two of my fingers into the glove's thumb. Of course her gloves slide right on in one perfect, elegant motion. Barely a snap of rubber. Gloves finally on, we wrestle the body into position on the steel table and I work up the courage to make conversation. "Uh...you don't mind working on the eve of Christmas Eve, Dr. Scully?" "Is this the eve of Christmas Eve? I hadn't noticed." Hadn't noticed? How could anyone not notice the excess of holiday cheer spread across Virginia like a quilted Christmas tree skirt? For goodness sake, there's even a sprig of mistletoe hanging from the florescent light above our heads. Gosh, this lady must be totally dedicated to her work! I make a mental note to give up celebrating all holidays from this moment on and throw myself completely into my job. Dr. Scully scans the victim's chart while I'm wondering what shade of lipstick she's wearing and where I might buy some for myself. Like it would go with my mousy brown hair. Hey, maybe I should dye my hair red! "Case number 706217. Brenda Suzanne Wallace, female, Caucasian, twenty-three years of age, one hundred forty-two pounds, five feet and four inches tall. We'll begin with an external visual exam." She speaks into the mike; her voice is controlled and clear. "Okay, Terri, tell me what we're looking at here," she quizzes. Luckily, she gives me a hint by pointing at the thin line of bruising around the dead woman's neck. "Um...a quarter-inch wide ligature mark circles the victim's neck. Uh...there are signs of contusions and edema. Uh...uh...sorry, I'm kinda nervous." I decide honesty is the best policy. "That's okay. Take your time. What else? What about the larynx?" "Oh, yeah. Larynx appears crushed. And..." I actually think to lift the victim's lids and look at her eyes. "Her eyes are bloodshot. Both of them," I say. "Excellent." Her single word of praise leaves me glowing. You'd think I had just won the Nobel for science or something. "Probable cause of death?" she asks. "Um...strangulation. But don't we already know that from the police report?" I'm the one who sounds like they're suffocating. Breathe, Terri, breathe. "We're here to deduce our own findings, independent of the police report. And, it's necessary to record our findings into the mike, no matter how obvious. So, notice the abrasions running perpendicular to the ligature marks. That's an indication the victim fought to remove what was around her neck. Let's take some scrapings from beneath her fingernails. Although we can expect to find her own skin and blood there -- from the self-inflicted nicks on her neck -- she may have dug at her attacker as well. If so, skin cells, traces of blood, body hairs or clothing fibers may be embedded under her nails, giving us some solid forensic evidence. Even the most microscopic clues may help us identify her killer. Go ahead and take the scrapings, Terri." I nod and do as she asks, careful to collect and label all the possible evidence. I'm a total nervous wreck while she watches. "Now let's continue with the visual exam, checking for additional contusions, possible lacerations or puncture wounds, as well as any skin anomalies or pathologies. Then you can make the Y-incision." Oh, Lord. ___________________ MULDER (I) Lone Gunman Publishers "Come on, Boys. Open up. It's cold out here." I jab the buzzer again and wait for the guys to check their surveillance camera and unlock their hobbit hole. They are sooo paranoid. I know, I know -- people in glass houses...blah, blah. After Scully left this morning for her slice-and-dice session at Quantico, I tried to connect with the first half-dozen or so self-diagnosed SHII sufferers in my X-File. Nothing. Not a trace of any one of them -- the irony of which is not lost on me. "Frohike!" "Coming. Coming," I hear over the intercom. "Hold onto your Yule Log." I try to ignore that strange and yet somehow curiously tempting piece of advice while listening to the deadbolts and latches click and glide into their unlocked positions. Frohike cracks open the door and peeks out at me. He's wearing a Santa's cap. "You alone, Mulder?" he asks and at first I figure he's just being his usual overly suspicious self. Then I realize it's not paranoia on his face, but disappointment. He's wishing I'd brought Scully. "I didn't realize Santa gave his elves the day off this close to Christmas, Frohike. Let me in." I push past him, eager to escape the December cold -- even if it's only to step into the Gunmen's odd, little hideaway. "Well, isn't this festive." I can't help but notice the blinking Christmas lights strung...actually, everywhere. "Hey, the holiday spirit is alive and well at LG. Deck them halls and all that," Langly's nasal twang comes cheerily to me over the mellow strains of Nat King Cole crooning "Chestnuts Roasting." "Nog?" Byers offers. "Uh...no thanks." "Don't be a Grinch, Mulder." "Mulder's always a Grinch." "We can't *all* live in Whoville, Boys," I tell them while Frohike stuffs a fistful of miniature candy canes into my coat pocket. "I'm here on business." "What's up?" the three Whos ask in unison. "I'm looking for any information you may have on Spontaneous Human Involuntary Invisibility." "SHII? Boy did you come to the right place," Byers tells me. "Why's that?" "We just ran an inquiry in last month's issue of LG asking our readers to share their personal experiences with SHII. Didn't you read your copy?" "I think I used it to wrap a dead goldfish." "Oh, so sorry to hear about your loss, Mulder," Frohike says with a tinge of sarcasm. "Anyway, the responses have been pouring in," Langly informs me. "Voila." He sets a hefty stack of handwritten letters, faxes, and printed emails on the desk in front of me. "Take a look at this one. A repeat customer. Kinda creepy." I read the email he hands me. To: research@lonegun.net From: jerryd@vint.net Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 1999, 2:18 PM Subject: SHII To Whom It May Concern: I experienced SHII again today. I told you before, this is happening to me more and more. I'm invisible at least once a day now, sometimes more. Today, I think it was today, I was invisible at the Walgreen's store. I need an extension cord. I DID need an extension cord, you know, for the Christmas tree lights. I don't know if I was invisible the whole time. A heavy girl, a clerk, was putting price tags on the extension cords. She stands on a ladder. She STOOD on a ladder and it was right in my way. The ladder put a signal in my head. Into my brain. She was trying to read my thoughts. I asked her to MOVE. She made me very angry. She put angry ideas in my head with her ladder. Sometimes being invisible MAKES ME VERY ANGRY!! Sometimes I'm not invisible and people just don't TRY to see me because they don't want to. But it's hard to know for sure. The Walgreen's girl did see me. She was just pretending, pretending, pretending she couldn't. Do you have a way I can tell when I'm really invisible and when I'm not? I need to know who is pretending and who isn't. The awful girl in the store got what she deserved. Sincerely, Jerry "You say this guy's written to you before?" "Yeah. His first email is in the stack." So, I sit for about an hour and read through the Gunmen's entire pile. Interesting stuff. I reread Jerry's two emails. His first message sounds sane enough -- well, for a guy claiming to be invisible. The second note sounds like he's taken a nosedive into the deep end of the insanity pool. "Mind if I keep these two?" I ask, pocketing Jerry's notes and heading for the door. "And could you trace our creepy friend's email address for me?" "You don't wanna stay and help us decorate the tree? All the ornaments are made from recycled computer parts this year." "Just get me the address." "No problema. Hey, be sure you bring those emails back, Mulder. That's research you know," Frohike warns me. I can barely hear him -- I'm already outside. PART II ___________________ "Extra-ordinary, I call it. Never heard tell of Invisible Men before, I haven't, but nowadays one hears such a lot of extra-ordinary things." --- H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man ___________________ TERRI (II) Quantico Morgue Oh, man, I've learned so much today! Dr. Scully showed me how to take blood, urine, and tissue samples for toxicology screens. We identified the victim's last meal, which was a ham salad sandwich with tomatoes and green peppers on wheat bread, milk, and a chocolate chip cookie. We reviewed all the structures of the neck. Boy, am I glad I went over those muscles last night! And now we're wrapping the body. Tah dah! Just in time, too. Here comes her partner. Of course, I've heard a thing or two about Agent Mulder. They call him "Spooky" around the Bureau. To be honest, he doesn't look weird at all. To the contrary -- this guy's a major hotty. He sort of glides into the autopsy bay with the lazy grace of a southern gentleman. He looks dark and brooding like Montgomery Clift in "A Place in the Sun." Put a Fedora on him and he might even resemble Sam Spade...a little. Well, except for his lanky physique and the tiny candy cane sticking out of his mouth. Dr. Scully doesn't look up when Agent Mulder joins us -- her concentration on her task is unbreakable. He kind of hangs back for a minute, watching her finish, rolling his candy cane around on his tongue. When he notices the mistletoe dangling above her head, he winks at me and takes a step closer to her. "Yes, Mulder?" She still hasn't looked up from the knots she's tying. He lightly touches a finger to her chin. It's enough for her to finally meet his gaze. Raising his eyebrows, he withdraws the candy cane from his mouth and uses it to point at the mistletoe. "You bring enough candy for all of us, Mulder?" she asks, ignoring his obvious invitation for a holiday kiss. His smile grows and he offers her his wet candy cane. She surprises us both, I think, when she takes it and pops it into her mouth. The red stripes on the candy match her lipstick perfectly. He looks pleased. Very pleased. "Thish ish Terri Shproul," Dr. Scully introduces me without removing her candy. "Terri, my partner Shpecial Ajjent Fosh Mulder." Agent Mulder reaches into his coat pocket and offers me a cellophane-wrapped candy cane. "So, Terri Sproul, who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail?" "Actually, I've been looking forward to working with Dr. Scully." I take his candy. He turns to Dr. Scully, a smile in his eyes, and murmurs, "Oh, isn't it nice to suddenly be so highly regarded." Although her face remains serious, her eyes seem to laugh back at him. It's like they're talking in some kind of code, a private language known only to the two of them. Their gazes are full of shared memories and secret meanings. I feel like a Peeping Tom, staring openly at an act of intimacy that deserves a heck of a lot more privacy than I allow. As you can imagine, there are numerous rumors about these two. Like for example, rumor number one -- the most popular by far -- is that Agent Mulder and Dr. Scully are sleeping together. Watching them now, it's easy to imagine them as lovers. He hovers over her with an air of possessive familiarity. She is totally at ease with his closeness. They've been partners for...well, practically forever, so... Rumor number two claims that Agent Mulder is gay and/or Dr. Scully is a frigid "Ice Queen." Completely impossible, if you ask me. I've never seen a gay man look at a woman *that* way before. And as for "Ice Queen," Dr. Scully could be the real reason behind global warming, what with the heat rolling off her like it is when he's around. Rumor number three is just plain mean. Some people refer to them as "Mr. and Mrs. Spooky" -- meaning they're married to their X-Files and subsequently have no social lives at all -- with each other or with anyone else. "So what was the cause of death?" Agent Mulder asks, tilting his head at the wrapped corpse and interrupting my conjecture. "Strangulation," Dr. Scully tells him. "The killer used an eight-foot long, black, indoor-use only extension cord, issue number BS-4758." His eyes widen in amazement. "You can tell all that from an autopsy?" He is incredulous. "No, I can tell all that from the police report. The victim was found in a local Walgreens with the extension cord wrapped around her neck. She'd been putting new price tags on the inventory just prior to the murder." "That is really, *really* interesting, Scully. As a matter of fact, why don't we talk about it a little more over lunch?" Dr. Scully glances my way, a hint to Agent Mulder that I'm still in the room. "Terri, can you join us?" Agent Mulder generously adds. "Oh! Thanks. Really? You don't mind me coming along?" I'm hyperventilating! "Not at all. This is your case, too," he says. I think I'm gonna faint. ___________________ MULDER (II) Paul's Diner After the ladies clean up and change, I drive the three of us over to Paul's Diner on South Street. We take a table by the window and order lunch. Ahhh! Two lovely women, a double bacon burger with onion rings, *and* coleslaw -- life is better than I deserve. "So, Mulder, what's so interesting about the strangulation of Brenda Wallace?" Scully asks as she daintily picks her way around her chef salad. Strains of "Silver Bells" tinkle over our heads via the in-ceiling sound system. "This." I unfold the Gunmen's emails from my coat and pass them to her. She carefully reads the notes before handing them to Terri. "Jerry sounds delusional, Mulder. Schizophrenic maybe. You don't put any credence in his involuntary invisibility claim, do you?" "Actually, I do." I notice Terri stops chewing her ham and cheese club and looks up from the email messages. Scully keeps right on eating however -- nothing I say surprises her any more. "But, beyond that, I think there might be a connection between Jerry and Brenda Wallace." Now Scully stops chewing, too. Maybe I can still surprise her. "Really." Her response doesn't exactly sound like a question. "Jerry doesn't specifically say he's killed anyone, Mulder." "No, but the details...the extension cord, Walgreen's, the heavy female clerk obliviously stamping price tags on the inventory...I think it merits a little look-see. I've got the Gunmen searching for Jerry right now." "Gunmen?" Terri eyeballs me, the blood draining from her face. "Don't ask," Scully advises, only increasing Terri's unease. "Uh...Agent Mulder, what did you mean when you said you believe this guy named Jerry sometimes becomes invisible?" Despite Scully's rolling eyes, I decide I like this girl. She exhibits a healthy desire for knowledge and an open willingness to learn -- two fine traits for a future FBI forensic pathologist. "It's a phenomenon called Spontaneous Human Involuntary Invisibility, or SHII," I tell her. "For real?" "No." "Yes," I override Scully's answer. "Fact: there is a fifty-five year old woman named Minerva Toulouse living in Tucson, Arizona, who has experienced SHII several times while at her local library, at restaurants, and in clothing stores. Although she's taller than average at five feet, nine inches and has red hair," -- I gesture at Scully's copper locks -- "not to mention she admits to being a rather 'flashy' dresser, there have been several occasions when the people around her simply have not noticed her. You wouldn't think a tall woman with red hair, wearing spike heels, a purple dress, and dangly earrings would be difficult to miss, would you?" "Maybe those people preferred not to look, Mulder." "Okay, Scully, you don't have to believe it. That's fine. Here's another story." "Emphasis on 'story,'" Scully tells Terri. "*True* story. Peter Whittington, a thirty-seven year old man in Gloucestershire, England, was at a private party in 1987. He walked upstairs to use the bathroom, where he was followed by a woman who also wanted to use the bathroom. The woman motioned for him to go ahead of her and she stood outside the door to wait her turn. Peter used the bathroom, came out when he was finished, and closed the door behind him. He then went downstairs where he tried to join a group a friends engaged in conversation. They all ignored him completely. He figured they were playing a joke on him, so he walked away and located his girlfriend. She, too, acted as if she didn't see or hear him. Peter began to get angry, feeling the joke had gone too far. He decided to go back upstairs where he came across the same woman standing outside the bathroom door, clearly still waiting for him to come out. When she saw him -- and she did actually see him this time -- her face dropped in surprise. She was certain Peter was still in the bathroom. Peter returned to the party downstairs where everything was normal once again and he could now be seen and heard. When he questioned his friends and girlfriend as to why they had ignored him earlier, they all swore they had never seen or heard him. And obviously, the woman upstairs had not seen him come out of the bathroom and go downstairs." "Mulder--" "Sometimes I feel like people look right through me," Terri interrupts shyly. "They act like I'm not even there." "There are several obvious reasons why someone might *feel* invisible," Scully explains, her predictable rationalization arriving right on cue. "For example, a person who falls into a category that society traditionally considers less important: minorities, women, children, the elderly...even students," -- Scully points to Terri -- "that person might take on the stereotyped role and believe it to be true to the extent that they feel unimportant and, to them, people don't seem to notice them. Or mental health might play a part in creating delusions of isolation and invisibility. But the important thing to remember is that in all these cases, the person is interpreting an internal feeling. There is no external evidence to verify their claim." "Scully, the phenomenon of Spontaneous Human Involuntary Invisibility isn't like that. Research shows that well adjusted, well-educated people can and do experience SHII and are taken totally by surprise at the occurrence of their invisibility. Often it takes several such occurrences before they realize they are truly invisible during certain times to other people. There's a big difference between a person purposely not interacting with you because of some cultural or personal motive versus a person not interacting with you because he can neither see nor hear you." "Mulder, I'm hearing *you* use that pesky word 'research' again. Who exactly conducted your so-called research? What scientifically rigorous methods were employed to obtain your data?" "Just because a group of researchers or a body of data is out of the mainstream doesn't mean it lacks validity. We've seen plenty of cases that don't fit neatly into the confines of the quantifiable. The phenomena exist nonetheless. Scully, why must we always go through this He Said/She Said round robin?" "You want me to throw science out the window, Mulder? Forget all my years of training?" "Excuse me," Terri interrupts. "Excuse me, please. I'm...I'mfeeling a little invisible right now actually." Oops. "Sorry." "Sorry." "Gosh. You two remind me of Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn." "Pardon?" "Tracey and Hepburn. In the movie 'Desk Set.' They're...verbally competitive," she chooses her words with great care. Hmm. Not exactly a compliment. Chagrined, Scully and I exchange guilty smiles. "Anyway," Terri continues, now that she finally has the floor and our attention, "Whether this Jerry guy was invisible or not, isn't it possible he killed Brenda Wallace?" "Mmhm." "Sure." "I mean, like, couldn't he be a murderous lunatic or something?" "Definitely. And Agent Mulder and I will pursue all avenues of investigation -- traditional and...not so traditional -- to find an answer to that question." Scully extends me an olive branch by briefly covering the back of my hand with her palm. "What'll you do next?" Terri asks. "I'd like to interview Jerry," I tell them both. "Scully, maybe you could check the crime scene at Walgreen's. See if any clues were overlooked." "Is there anything I can do?" Terri is hopeful. Before either Scully or I have the opportunity to let Terri down by saying no, several police cruisers slam to a stop in front of the grocery store across the street. Tires screech, blue lights flash, and sirens blare. The black and whites are immediately joined by an ambulance. "This looks interesting," I say to the ladies and drop a twenty on the table. "Shall we stick our noses where they don't belong?" ___________________ JERRY (II) Stop 'N' Shop Grocery Look at them. Just *look* at them! Crawling over this place trying to find me when I'm right here in front of their noses. I could laugh. I will laugh. HA HA! Hey, can't hear me? I'm right here. That lying son-of-a-bitch deserved what he got. He shouldn't have pretended he couldn't see me. He was trying to read my thoughts. THAT'S what he was doing. Stealing my thoughts. I HATE IT when people treat me like I'm NOT THERE! I'm invisible *now.* *Really* invisible. They can't see me. They can't read my thoughts. They don't know what I'm thinking. They don't know ANYTHING! That goddamn son-of-a-bitch. He deserved what he got! I WASN'T INVISIBLE THEN! NOW, I'm invisible. He should have answered me! He won't be pretending or lying OR getting in my head, in my *brain* any more. Trying to put his own thoughts in my head. Make me do things. Goddamn dead son-of-a-bitch. I gotta get out of here. Out of this store. They'll see me when I turn visible again and try to make me do things. Steal my thoughts. Wh...who the hell? "We're Agents Mulder and Scully from the FBI. Can you fill us in, Officer...uh, Greer?" Shit! Shit! Spies. I...DAMN! God damn it! "Did you see that, Scully? That carton of eggnog just fell out of the dairy case all by itself." I DIDN'T do that. He made me knock over that carton. I can hear him talking to me in my thoughts. He's looking straight at me! That FBI guy! He wants to make me do things. I can hear his voice in my brain. Who the hell is he? C-can he see...? No. No, he doesn't see me. He's looking away now. I'm LEAVING! No FBI man will be FUCKING WITH ME! ___________________ SCULLY (II) Stop 'N' Shop Grocery I make my way around Mulder only to nearly step in the puddle of eggnog inching its way toward the dead guy on the floor. The victim is a middle-aged black male with a meat thermometer embedded in his left eye. The plastic handles of two cheap carving knives protrude from his chest. The original packaging for the murder weapons is on the floor below a display case of kitchen cutlery and cooking gadgets. Our crime scene is located at the intersection of the baking aisle and the dairy case at the back of the Stop 'N' Shop Grocery. I guess we can rule out a premeditated murder here, but a crime of passion? Next to the frozen foods? While Mulder is busy explaining to Officer Greer the happenstance of our presence, I try to get a closer look at the body. I don't have a lot of time -- the EMTs have arrived and are already pushing us mere bystanders out of their way. I overhear Mulder ask Greer for the surveillance video from the camera perched in the store's upper corner. A discussion of jurisdiction ensues and I forgo the body to move over to the nearby display case. What's that on the floor? Below the case I find not one, but two tiny pills. "What did you find, Dr. Scully?" Terri asks me. "I'm not sure," I tell her while I snap on a latex glove and pull an evidence bag from my coat pocket. I drop the pills into the bag. The little labels stamped on the pills tell me the drug is Zyprexa, commonly known as olanzapine, an antipsychotic medication often used to treat schizophrenia. "What's that you've got there, ma'am?" Officer Greer growls next to my ear, his tone slightly accusatory. "Evidence. For you." I hand him the bag. Smile sweetly, Dana. "Do you suppose the FBI would mind letting the local PD do its own investigating?" He sounds pretty peeved. I decide to back away, give him space to do his job. Mulder is being ushered out of the store by two officers. He's repeatedly asking his escorts if anybody witnessed the murder. Yes or no, the uniforms aren't talking. "Come on, Terri." We trail after Mulder. Outside on the sidewalk Mulder is shaking himself free of the two officers, his lips pressed together in frustration. The policemen abandon him, eager to return to the crime scene...or eager to be rid of Mulder. "You're such a charmer," I tell him. "I want to see that surveillance tape, Scully." "Why? Despite the fact that the victim had a meat thermometer stuck in his eye -- which I'll admit is rather unusual -- this murder isn't an X-File. And this case isn't ours." Mulder is clearly annoyed, which worries me. A lot. Although I hate to admit it -- especially to him -- he has incredible instincts for crimes that are of an unusual nature. He can sniff out an X-File like a boar after truffles. If he has a feeling something numinous or extreme is going on in the Stop 'N' Shop Grocery, chances are there is. His damnably accurate intuition is just one of the many things I both hate and love about him. Bane of my existence, delight of my life, all wrapped up in one very complex package...with an exceptionally cute butt. "Come on, Mulder, give up." I place my hand on his sleeve. For whatever reason, this tiny gesture always seems to calm the beast in my partner. "Why don't you call the Gunmen and get that trace on Jerry?" I try to redirect Mulder's attention to the other case that isn't ours and isn't an X-File. Heaving a petulant sigh, he reaches into his coat for his cell phone. I pull Terri aside to give Mulder some privacy. "Where can we drop you, Terri?" She's clearly disappointed by my question. "My apartment's over on Hawkins Avenue," she mumbles. Great, now I have two pouting children on my hands. "Do you mind if I call on you sometime soon to assist me again?" A feeble attempt to cheer her. Maybe not so feeble. She beams at me like a brand new FBI-issue flashlight fitted with fresh Energizer batteries. D cells. I take it as a yes. "Sure, Dr. Scully. I'd love to. *Any* time." While Terri is gushing, Mulder has finished his call. "So, where are we going, Mulder?" He smiles, apparently pleased that he didn't have to sweet talk me into interviewing Jerry. "Martin Street." "Here in Quantico?" "Right here in Quantico. Only a block and a half from here." "That's within walking distance." "I noticed that." Mulder's intuition for something "extreme" creeps annoyingly up my spine. PART III ___________________ "I am a fairly strong man, and I have the poker handy -- besides being invisible. There's not the slightest doubt that I could kill you both and get away quite easily if I wanted to -- do you understand?" --- H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man ___________________ MULDER (III) Jerry Dufour's Residence After dropping Terri off at her apartment, Scully and I circle back to 128 Martin Street, residence of one Jerry S. Dufour, a.k.a., the Invisible Man. His apartment building is a shabby four-story affair with blinking Christmas lights strung around all the windows of the first floor. The front door is decorated with a rather frightening plastic Santa head. Buzzers for twelve apartments are located to the right of the door. We scan the names -- each is sloppily handwritten and two or three are next to impossible to read. I'm about to push the button marked DUFOUR #8 when one of the tenants nearly topples us off the tiny front porch in his hurry to exit the building. I grab the door before it closes. "Upstairs," Scully says, pointing up the narrow stairwell. The worn treads groan under our weight as we climb to the second floor. Number eight is around the corner to our left. I knock. "Mr. Dufour! FBI!" No answer. "Let's go, Mulder. He's obviously not home." "Wait a minute, Scully." I try the doorknob. Oooo. It's not locked. "Mulder, I don't need to tell you we don't have probable cause." "The probable cause is *invisible*, Scully -- just like Jerry." I poke my head in the door. "Mr. Dufour? Anyone home?" Not a sound. I shrug at Scully and step inside. Reluctantly she follows me. She has no idea how cute she is when her lips are pursed in that pretty expression of indignation. A Christmas tree stands unlit in the far corner of the room. Remembering Jerry's second email to the Gunmen, I notice there is no extension cord connecting the tree's Christmas tree lights to the wall outlet several feet away. But there is a Walgreen's bag on the couch. I peek inside it. It contains an extension cord -- which I wave at Scully. Next to the tree is a cluttered desk. It's topped with a small computer, a collection of family photos and several stacks of receipts, letters, and bills. Scully has decided to join my little treasure hunt at last and she heads straight for the desk to sift through Jerry's papers in. That's my G-woman! I decide to check the apartment's other rooms -- make sure no one is home. A short hall leads to the bedroom and I follow it, ducking into one room after the next as I go. Unless Jerry is invisible right now, Scully and I are alone. "I'm gonna search the bathroom first, Scully," I call back to her. Medicine cabinets can be treasure troves of biographical data. Wow. This guy actually has medicine in his cabinet. Lots of medicine. Clozaril. Risperdal. Zyprexa. "Scully? Come take a look at this." When she joins me in the bathroom, I point out Jerry's little pharmacy. "What are we looking at here?" I ask. "Zyprexa. That's interesting. I picked up two Zyprexa tablets on the floor of the Stop 'N' Shop, not ten feet from the dead body." Before I can say anything, she continues, "That doesn't really mean anything, Mulder. Zyprexa is a fairly common drug." "What is it used for?" "Schizophrenia, for one thing. As a matter of fact, all of these medications are prescribed for the treatment of schizophrenia. A person shouldn't be taking them all at once though." She looks more closely at the labels. "The dates are current but they were each prescribed by a different physician. I've got to believe these doctors aren't aware that Jerry is seeing more than one specialist." "Scully, didn't you say earlier that Jerry sounded schizophrenic in his email?" "You're jumping to conclusions if you're thinking what I think your thinking. We can't be certain Jerry Dufour was anywhere near either crime." "What did you find in the living room?" "Well, for one thing, Jerry works at Quantico." "You're kidding." "No. He's in Transport. Moves bodies in and out of the morgue. I also found this." She holds out a copy of the November issue of the Lone Gunmen. The inquiry about SHII is circled. "Well, we knew he wrote to the Gunmen. Twice," I mention. "No. Three times." "What are you talking about?" "Come take a look." She leads me back to the living room and the computer. The monitor is now on. "Scully! You didn't turn on this man's private computer did you?" "It was already on, Mulder. It woke up when I accidentally bumped the keyboard." "Accidentally, huh? Are you sure you're not beginning to pick up my bad habits?" She ignores my question and moves aside so I can get a closer look at the screen. "Check it out." To: research@lonegun.net From: jerryd@vint.net Sent: Thursday, December 23, 1999, 3:40 PM Subject: SHII To Whom It May Concern: How come you haven't answered my emails? Why don't you tell me how I can know for sure when I'm invisible? I HAVE TO KNOW! People are trying to steal my thoughts. They are trying to get in my head. There WILL be more deaths. I'm SERIOUS! --J "More deaths? We have to find this guy, Scully." "Mulder, we're reading this out of context. He may be talking about the deaths of his pet goldfish." "I don't see any aquariums in here." "Well, he may simply be delusional. Hallucinations are often a major component of uncontrolled schizophrenia. This note is too ambiguous to tell us much of anything." "Exactly my point. We need to question him." I don't know how to explain it to Scully, but I'm having that odd tingling sensation -- the tickle I get at the base of my brain when the pieces of an X-File start to pile up and fall together. I know I'm on the right track here, despite the flimsy evidence. There's a definite connection between this guy and the murders of Brenda Wallace and the man in the grocery. I know it. But how can I prove it? "Scully, check out the time stamp on Jerry's email. 3:40 PM. Today. Didn't we come in at about 3:40?" "Maybe the man that almost knocked us off the steps was Jerry." I shuffle through the photos on the desk. I don't see anyone who resembles the man we passed. But, hey, I don't keep pictures of myself in my apartment either. The ring of my cell phone startles us both. I answer it and am surprised to hear the voice of Officer Greer. He wants us to come down to Police Headquarters and take a look at the Stop 'N' Shop surveillance tape after all. ___________________ JERRY (III) Jerry Dufour's Residence My God! They're *here* -- snooping through my apartment. Trying to steal from me. Steal my thoughts. The FBI spies from the grocery store. Why are they here? How did they find me? They must be reading my mind. How do they know what I did? Are they in my head? Is that FBI spy man in my thoughts? Maybe he made me do the things I did. Or the other guy. The guy from the morgue. The...the rose. He's making me do things. The CROSS. He makes me invisible sometimes. They can't see me. They can't see me. She's going through my papers! SHIT! The FBI spy lady is on my computer. Damn. Damn her. How the fuck did they know where to find me? They won't find anything. There's nothing here. I won't let them read my thoughts. What? What's in the bathroom? What is he showing her? My pills! Shit, goddamn it. MONSTERS! FUCKING SPYING MONSTERS! I'm NOT crazy! Those damn doctors think I'm sick only because they can't believe I'm invisible. They don't LISTEN to me. They just keep yapping at me and pushing pills at me. Their voices are in my head. Take the pills. Take the pills. SHUT UP! PLEASE, SHUT UP! I'm NOT CRAZY! I'm not. Not. Not! That redheaded FBI spy, she's saying I'm crazy. What does she know? What can she know about me and what I go through everyday? She doesn't disappear and reappear over and over and over and over and over again. People don't know what it's like. They try to get in my head so they know what I'm doing. Make me do things. Like the guy from the morgue. The rose and the cross. The butterfly. He's dead. He's in my head. SHIT! They're reading my email. He thinks I did it. He thinks I killed those two fucking assholes. How does he know? How does he know? What is he? Some kind of mind-reading freak? I need to hide. Somewhere. Where they can't steal my thoughts. They're after me. What am I gonna do? Think. Think. Think. Those FREAKS are sucking the thoughts right out of my head! ___________________ SCULLY (III) Police Headquarters, Quantico Precinct Officer Greer ushers Mulder and me into his office and closes the door behind us. He's looking a little sheepish. "I guess I should apologize for kicking you out of the crime scene earlier today. Until I watched the surveillance tape, I thought we were dealing with an ordinary homicide. Now I don't know what we're dealing with. I've been told this kind of mystery is your area of expertise, Agents. I'd appreciate it if you'd watch the videotape and give me your opinion." Mulder doesn't hold a grudge. He's too interested to see what's on the tape. Greer's earlier territoriality is already ancient history. Greer slides the tape into the machine and pushes the play button. The quality of the tape is typically poor -- blurred and grainy. But it's clear enough to see the victim walking toward the Stop 'N' Shop's dairy case. "That's Mr. Arthur Pembroke," Greer identifies the victim. We watch Mr. Pembroke select a pound of butter, a container of sour cream, and a carton of eggnog from the shelves before placing the items in his cart. "Now look over here. At the far right of the screen." Greer directs our attention, pointing at the display of kitchen gadgets. It's difficult to make out through the blur of the video, but it appears as if a couple of items fly off the racks all by themselves. The packaging material tumbles oddly to the floor. The cutlery swings through the air toward Pembroke. Pembroke spins around, turning his back to the dairy case, a look of startled confusion on his face. Suddenly the knives are thrust into his chest, one after the other, seemingly on their own. Pembroke appears to be fighting off an attacker, but no one is there. As he sinks to the floor, the meat thermometer embeds itself into his eye. "Well?" Greer pauses the video. "Can you explain to me what's happening on that tape?" Oh, I hate this part of our job. Without pause or embarrassment, Mulder is going to present his farfetched theory, inviting disbelief and certain derision. Meanwhile, I will sit and cringe. Not because I don't believe Mulder necessarily, but because even though he doesn't show it, I know the mocking remarks do get to him. He doesn't wear the mantle of "Spooky" with pride and he doesn't particularly enjoy the contemptuous scorn he elicits from others. "I think we're looking at an example of Spontaneous Human Involuntary Invisibility." As usual, Mulder doesn't pull any punches. Greer stares, slack-jawed. "You mean like the Invisible Man?" "No, the Invisible Man's invisibility was not intermittent. It was constant. And it wasn't involuntary either -- at least not at the start. What I'm talking about here is a phenomenon where people disappear and reappear without any desire to do so -- usually without any fore-knowledge and sometimes without any recognition the event is taking place. Also, The Invisible Man had a voice that could be heard. People who suffer from SHII can neither be seen nor heard. Another interesting difference is the fact that The Invisible Man would wrap himself in bandages and wear clothing to be seen, whereas SHII sufferers disappear clothes and all." I predict Greer is going to say, "You can't be serious." "You can't be serious, Agent Mulder." Right on cue. Now Mulder's going to ask, "Why not?" "Why not?" Do I know my partner or what? Mulder is absolutely serious, of course, when he asks this question. "Agent Mulder, is there any scientific proof that this...what did you call it? Spontaneous...?" "Spontaneous Human Involuntary Invisibility." "Yeah. Is there any proof this is for real?" Mulder shoots a quick glance my way, trying to gauge whether or not I plan to contradict him. I decide to give him an early Christmas present by keeping quiet. "There has been research." He chooses his words carefully. "Many detailed accounts have been reported." "No shit?" "Officer Greer, we have a suspect." That perks the policeman up. "Who?" "Jerry Dufour. He lives at 128 Martin Street. We'd like to bring him in for questioning. Wouldn't mind if you'd help us locate him, surveil his apartment building." "Sure, I could put a couple of uniforms over there. Will they be able to see him? Being he's invisible and all." "He's not always invisible." "Ah. Okay. Well, maybe you can do me a favor, too." "What's that?" "I'd like Agent Scully to autopsy the body of Arthur Pembroke. I understand that's *her* area of expertise." Greer nods at me. Good -- I was hoping to get a closer look at Mr. Pembroke. "Where's the body now?" I ask. "I had it transported to Quantico." I smile at his presumptuousness. "Great," Mulder says and stands. "Scully, while you're autopsying Pembroke, I'll go through the morgue's transport records. I want to see who Jerry Dufour has been moving in and out of there over the past three to four weeks." I decide not to ask him what it is he thinks he's going to find. He'll let me in on it soon enough. "Okay, Mulder. I'll call Terri. See if she wants to help me with another autopsy. ___________________ TERRI (III) Quantico Morgue I can't believe my good luck! Dr. Scully has called me back to help her with another autopsy -- the guy who was killed at the Stop 'N' Shop. I'm sooo excited. This has been the best day of my life. Oh, guess I shouldn't say that...considering what Mr. Pembroke's day was like. Dr. Scully will be here in just a few minutes. Mr. Pembroke -- the dead guy -- is already waiting for us on the autopsy table. One of the men from Transport helped me get the body into place. Thank goodness. I don't think Dr. Scully and I could have managed it on our own. Mr. Pembroke is a big man. Three hundred and eight pounds! Mr. Pembroke still has two knives sticking out of his chest and that meat thermometer thing in his eye. The cause of death seems pretty obvious. But as Dr. Scully says, we need to make our own independent conclusions based on a thorough examination. Who knows? The guy's wife could have been slowly poisoning him with arsenic prior to the stabbing. He might have drawn his last actual breath just before the first knife was stuck in his heart. Okay, so it's not likely, but it's possible. What was that noise? "Is someone there? Is that you Dr. Scully?" Weird. I don't see anyone. Guess my nerves are a little on edge. Huh? I'm sure I heard something that time. "Hello? Hello!" PART IV ___________________ "The whole fabric of a man except the red of his blood and the black pigment of hair, are all made up of transparent, colourless tissue. So little suffices to make us visible one to the other. For the most part the fibres of a living creature are no more opaque than water." --- H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man ___________________ JERRY (IV) Quantico Morgue She's not a doctor. Is she? I hate doctors. They think I'm CRAZY. YOU'RE JUST A KID! Right? HA! I see you but you don't see me. That dead guy -- the guy lying on the table -- is as dead as a stone. I killed him at the Stop 'N' Shop. He deserved to die. He was just like all the rest. All of them are trying to make me do things and steal my thoughts -- they make me ANGRY. He made me kill him. I can hear him talking to me now. The dead guy is in my head. The rose. The cross. The butterfly. The dead guy from the morgue. NO, the *other* dead guy from the morgue. The rose! The cross! The butterfly! From before. He makes me do things. He makes me invisible sometimes. This dead guy, this dead guy right here, not the one from before, he is crawling into my head right now. He's mad because I stuck that thermometer in his eye. I had to shut him up. Shut him up. Keep his thoughts out of my head. SHUT UP! He's saying I should go to the girl. The doctor girl. I WON'T TAKE ANY PILLS FROM HER! Is she really there? The dead guy wants me to touch her. The rose. GRAB HER BY THE NECK AND SQUEEZE UNTIL SHE BURSTS OPEN! The cross. Make her thoughts come falling out. The butterfly. This girl. She is going to die. Now. ___________________ SCULLY (IV) Quantico Morgue I'm running late. Terri's probably downstairs already. It took Mulder and me longer than we expected to extricate the work log from the transport chief. You'd think it was some top secret, for-your-eyes-only, FBI information, and Mulder and I were covert operatives trying to steal the damn thing to sell to world terrorists. Jesus. Well, Mulder's got the log -- with the stipulation that the transport chief stand over his shoulder while he goes through the list. When the elevator doors open, I head for the morgue. Pushing through the autopsy bay doors, I can't believe what I'm seeing. The body of Arthur Pembroke is lying face down on the floor; the autopsy table is tipped over behind him. Instruments are everywhere. "Terri?" Then I see her. Oh, God. Terri is pushed against the back wall, struggling against...what? She seems to be choking. "Terri, are you all right? Can you speak?" That seems like a lame thing to ask, but it's the appropriate question when you suspect someone has a blocked trachea. I cross the room to get to her. She thrashes at something. She looks scared to death. "Dr. Scully--" she manages to cry out. So there's nothing caught in her windpipe. Suddenly she's gasping again. "It's him," she squeaks, her face swollen with blood. She mouths the word "help" but no sound makes it past her throat. I draw my weapon. What the hell do I aim at? "Federal Agent! I'm armed!" I yell. Two tears squeeze out of Terri's closed eyes and roll down her cheeks. She's starting to lose consciousness. She's barely fighting at all anymore. "Stop it or I'll shoot!" My words are ridiculous. Useless. There's nothing here. I move closer. I don't know what to expect. I reach out my hand to touch Terri but I feel *it* instead. A solid surface. Warm. Moving beneath my palm. I see absolutely nothing. Terri is thrown to the floor and I reel from a hard shove to my breastbone. Something hits me in the side of the head. I grab for it and manage to latch onto something. It shakes free and strikes me again in the face, blurring my vision. Another blow bashes my head. I don't know where this thing is coming from. It might be across the room or it might be standing right beside me. When a tray if instruments spills off a nearby counter, I aim my gun and fire. I have no idea if I hit anything or not. All I can hear is the ringing echo of my shot and the breath rushing in and out of my lungs as my heart pounds hard in my chest. I scan the room, looking for any movement. There's nothing. Cautiously I go to Terri. I try to determine how badly she's hurt and at the same time watch for the thing I can't see. "Terri? Are you okay?" She's whimpering. "N-no. My arm..." Her arm is broken. And a bruise is forming around her neck. The undeniable imprint of human fingers appears out of broken capillaries and blood beneath her skin. "Is it gone?" Her voice is tiny. She looks as if she might cry and she's trying very hard not to. "I don't know, sweetie," I whisper back. I dig into my pocket for my cell phone. When I find it, I punch Mulder's speed dial. "Mulder," he says. His voice -- steady and safe -- comes to me from several floors above. "Come down to the autopsy bay. But be careful." From the tone of my voice he knows not to waste time asking questions. "On my way," he assures me. I sit on the floor with Terri and wait for him. Terri's knuckles are white from gripping the sleeve of my coat. I stroke her hair, hoping to calm her and me. We watch the door. Mulder appears only moments later, out of breath. He must have taken the stairs. His weapon is drawn. He gives a quick look our way before scanning the room. "I think it's gone, Mulder." "What was it, Scully? What happened?" I just shake my head. I have no idea what actually occurred here. Mulder, still alert, every muscle taut, joins me beside Terri. "Her arm is broken," I tell him. "Someone or something tried to strangle her." He takes in the marks on her neck while dialing 911 on his cell phone. Next he calls for a forensics team to dust for fingerprints and comb the room for clues as to what happened here. I continue to sit, frozen and stunned, at Terri's side. It doesn't take long for the EMTs to arrive. They inspect Terri and carefully load her onto a gurney. "Scully, you go with Terri to the hospital. I'll stay here and wait for the forensics team. I'll catch up with you later." "Be careful, Mulder," I say before I follow Terri and the EMTs out of the morgue. ___________________ TERRI (IV) St. Mary's Hospital Oh, man, I'm still shaking. Dr. Scully stayed with me while the doctors set and cast my arm. She hasn't left my side. Right now she's sitting in the chair next to my bed. Thank goodness. She saved my life. I don't know from what, but it was powerful. I thought sure I was going to die. I've never been so scared in all my life. That grip on my neck. I couldn't breathe. My throat still hurts. I keep thinking of Brenda Wallace and the marks on her neck from the extension cord. And that meat thermometer in Mr. Pembroke's eye. Agent Mulder arrives. He's holding a long-stemmed rose. "You doing okay?" He offers me the flower. Oh, he's so sweet. "Yes, thanks. I'm fine. Dr. Scully saved my life." "Mmm. She's a hero." He leans down and kisses her cheek. Just a peck, but wow! I hope someday someone looks at me the exact same way he's looking at her right now. His expression is all gentle and awestruck. Just like Gary Cooper when he falls in love with Ingrid Bergman in "For Whom The Bell Tolls." "The doctors want to keep Terri overnight. Just a precaution. She hit her head pretty hard when she was thrown to the floor," Dr. Scully tells him. "Looks like you were hit pretty hard, too." He runs his thumb over the huge bruise on her left cheek. "I'm fine," she says and gives his hand a squeeze. Man, if they're not lovers... Well, it's none of my business. "Did forensics find anything?" Dr. Scully asks him. "Yeah, as a matter of fact, they did. A few drops of fresh blood on the floor. Right below the spot where they dug your bullet out of the wall." "You think I hit some...one?" He shrugs. "They're running the blood type against yours and Terri's. And Mr. Pembroke's. They found mucho fingerprints, too." "I'd expect that. That room is used by a lot of people." "Agent Mulder? What do you think was in that room with us? Do you really think it was an invisible man?" "Yeah, Terri. I do." He's totally serious. And I believe him after what happened today. "I think it's like you said earlier -- the killer is a lunatic who just happens to be invisible. And I'm pretty sure he's Jerry Dufour." "But how could a human being become invisible?" I've seen The Invisible Man like a hundred times and still don't get the part where Griffin -- the Invisible Man -- tells Kemp all about the refraction and reflection of light and if you remove the pigment from a man there's nothing left to see, yada, yada. I wait for Agent Mulder to explain it to me. "I'm still doing some background work on that. I've got the Gunmen on a scavenger hunt for more information. I faxed them the list of names from the transport log -- all the bodies transported by Jerry Dufour between December first and two days ago." "What's the connection between those bodies and our...uh...invisible man?" Agent Scully asks. "I think Jerry might have picked up something from one of the bodies he was transporting." "What -- like a germ?" Dr. Scully looks doubtful. "Not exactly. I'm thinking maybe something more mystical than that." Agent Mulder's cell phone rings and he steps out into the hall to answer it. "Dr. Scully, do you think we were attacked by an invisible person?" "I'm not sure what to believe after today, Terri. But I do trust Mulder. He's...had a lot of experience with these kinds of things." Agent Mulder sticks his head back in the door. "Scully, Greer wants us down at the station. He's picked up Jerry." ___________________ MULDER (IV) Police Headquarters, Quantico Precinct "What do you mean he's gone?" I can't believe it. It didn't take us ten minutes to drive from the hospital to the precinct. "I'm sorry, Agent Mulder. He's not here any more," Greer apologizes. He's looking embarrassed...and nervous. "Why did you release him?" I'm incredulous. "Uh...we didn't. He...well...just disappeared. Vanished into thin air. One minute he was sitting in the interrogation room and the next he...wasn't." "Didn't you have anybody with him, watching him?" "We put a guard outside the door..." Damn it! I begin to hope there's a chance Jerry's still in the interrogation room. If no one has opened the door... "Has anyone gone in or out of the interrogation room since you noticed Dufour was missing?" "Sure. We searched the room, of course." Shit. Shit, shit, shit! "Agent Mulder, I didn't think you were really serious about all that invisible man stuff earlier today. I mean, who would believe--" "You saw the surveillance tape! What the hell did you think happened in the Stop 'N' Shop?" I might as well be talking to the damn walls. I'm pacing back and forth in Greer's office, ready to crawl out of my skin. I want to slug Greer in the face. He's such an idiot! Scully puts her hand on my sleeve. Her touch is so light it's almost not there, but as always, it somehow manages to calm me. At least enough so I don't punch my fist through the wall...or Greer's face. "Mulder, it's late--" "And there's a murderer loose on the streets," I say. I know, I know -- there are always murderers loose on the streets. In every city of every state. It's just that *most* of them aren't invisible. "There's nothing more we can do here tonight, Mulder. Come on, I'll drive you home," she offers. I know she's right, but I'm still pissed. Like a child, I slam the door on my way out. I even slam the car door once I get inside. Scully is not impressed. I decide to pout all the way to Alexandria. Traffic is light on 95 at this time of night. It doesn't take us very long to drive the thirty miles from Quantico to my apartment. But by the time she parks the car in front of Hegal Place, I'm feeling pretty guilty about my childish outburst. Why does Scully put up with me? I decide I should try to redeem myself before she heads to Georgetown. "Why don't you come in?" I offer. "I'm tired, Mulder. I should head home." Wrong answer, Scully. "Come in. It's been hours since we last ate. Aren't you hungry? We could order pizza?" She's looking tempted. "How about Thai?" she bargains. "Whatever you want." She turns off the car engine but doesn't budge from the driver's seat. "You're paying," she stipulates. "Of course." Her hand goes to the door, but she stops to glance in the back seat. "You got something back there, Mulder?" I follow her line of sight. "No. Why?" "Just thought I heard something shift, is all." PART V ___________________ "Suddenly he became aware of a strange feeling at the nape of his neck. He tried to raise his head, and encountered an immovable resistance. The feeling was a curious pressure, the grip of a heavy, firm hand, and it bore his chin irresistibly to the table. 'Don't move ...' whispered a voice." --- H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man ___________________ JERRY (V) Hegal Place, Alexandria He's in my head -- he knows I killed those two MONSTERS! FBI freak. He's a freak and he thinks he's gonna kill me. But he's not. He's not gonna get me because I'm gonna get him first. He thinks he's smart, but he's FUCKING STUPID! GET OUT OF MY HEAD! He knows I tried to kill the girl. The girl doctor, the doctor girl. And HER, too. The redheaded FBI spy lady freak. He wants to make me do things. He wants to put his thoughts in my head. Like the dead guy at the morgue. The rose. The cross. The butterfly. Sometimes he makes me invisible. The rose. The cross. The butterfly. The rose. The cross. The butterfly. I'm invisible now. You can't get what you can't see, FBI spy freak. And I'm gonna follow you right upstairs. I'm gonna kill you! I'm gonna kill HER, too! Just wait. ___________________ SCULLY (V) Hegal Place, Alexandria In the elevator ride up to Mulder's apartment, I suddenly feel very tired and begin to doubt my decision to come up. Seeing my weariness, Mulder wraps an arm around my shoulder and draws me close. I lean into him, allowing him to carry the weight of the world for me. "Tired, Scully?" "Mmm." My forehead drops to his chest. His heartbeat drums out the pounding in my own brain and the throbbing pain from the welt on my cheek. The lingering smell of his aftershave comforts me, makes me feel strangely safe. I relax into him and wish we could stand like this forever. Especially when he tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear and presses his lips gently to my temple. "You could spend the night," he suggests, talking into my hair. I shake my head no, but wrap my arms loosely around his waist, threading my hands beneath his coat. A very contented-sounding sigh heats the crown of my head. When we reach the fourth floor, the elevator shudders to a stop and I don't want to open my eyes. I don't want to move. "We could either get out now, Scully, or we could ride this elevator all night." Sounds like a very good idea. "Come on," he tugs me along, steering me toward his apartment. Mulder unlocks the door and propels me toward the couch where I take off my coat and sink into the cushions. He disappears into the kitchen to get the House of Thai menu. It feels good to sit down. I lean my head back and watch his fish swim lazily through their little underwater world. "You only have two goldfish, Mulder. What happened to the others?" "Jeffrey and Dana went belly up," he answers, emerging from the kitchen with the menu. "Here. Pick whatever you like." "You named your fish after Spender and me? In the same tank? No wonder they died." Mulder shrugs out of his trench and suit coats and tosses them into a chair before backtracking across the room to shut the door. "They lasted longer than 'Bill, Jr.' and 'Fox.'" He slips the tie from his neck. "What's your pleasure?" "The Pik Pow sounds good." The thought of the peppers, onions, and fresh basil makes my stomach growl. I hand the menu back to Mulder. He's about to dial the take-out number, when he notices the blinking light on his answering machine. He hits the button and Langly's voice fills the room. "Bingo, Mulder! I think we found what you're looking for. The guy named Roger Morton from your list was an active member of the Rosicrucian Fellowship. He was also affiliated with the OOTLB Clan. That stands for Oracle of the Lazy Butterfly. For real! We did a little checking into OOTLB -- which they say means 'magical person.' We found they are a worldwide group of 'experienced Magic Workers.' Their motto is 'We don't just practice Magic, we live it.' Although they don't advertise it, we did a little digging and found they have a 'Ritual of Invisibility' similar to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn -- an offshoot of the Rosicrucians. They hint at that invisibility cloud thing you were talking about. Anyway, we're pretty sure Morton is your guy. Catch you later." Mulder rubs his hand across his chin and drops into the desk chair. "You mind telling me what all that means, Mulder?" "I think it means--" Mulder suddenly grabs at his throat; a strangled grunt escapes before his breath is cut short. His chair teeters backward and he nearly spills over. I draw my gun, but for the second time today, there is no place to aim. Mulder is between me and an unseen force. Mulder struggles frantically for air, his face turning purple. He is pinned to the chair, being pulled backward. There's no way for me to move around him, cover his back -- he is already in the corner of the room. I position myself off to his side. Still, there is no clear shot. Mulder wrestles against his invisible force. He manages to inhale a single gasp of air. I breathe with him, not realizing I had been holding my breath, too, suffocating while he suffocates. Mulder struggles harder to wrench himself free. He tries to draw another breath but can't. His empty chest hitches, needing oxygen, but the spasm brings no relief. The only sounds in the room are the scrape of the chair and the scuffle of Mulder's feet against the floor as he works to stand and pull away. I can barely hear it; I'm deafened by the blood rushing by my own eardrums as Mulder's panic grows. I am overwhelmed with helplessness -- Mulder's and mine. I don't want to watch him die. I'm frantic to think of some way to break him free. In my anger and fear, I move closer until the distance between us is no more than a few inches. Despite the danger to us both, I want to touch Mulder, feel him under my hand. Even more, I want to touch the unseen force that strangles him, to know with certainty that something is there. I explore the air with my left hand, trying to make contact with the invisible entity. Then to my astonishment, Mulder's gun lifts from his holster to his temple. No hand holds it, but the barrel presses into Mulder's skin, denting the fragile flesh beside his eye. A frightful ripple of tears nearly blinds me when I see the metal of the gun cutting into the fine, soft hair at Mulder's brow. Every sense tells me that what is happening is impossible, but yet there it is, playing out before me. Then, when the trigger twitches beside Mulder's ear, I shout. "Jerry! Don't! We can help you! You don't have to do this." At my cry, Mulder thrusts himself to his feet, hauling his attacker with him. The gun fires into the ceiling and I grab for it. My hand closes around the metal and around something solid and warm, too. Invisible muscles contract beneath the grip of my fingers. The unseen arm jerks away from me, pulls free from my grasp. Mulder's gun spirals across the floor and lands somewhere under the bookshelves that hold the fish tank. Mulder shifts for leverage. He's still trapped, held tightly around the neck by a phantom arm -- an arm made strong from lifting dead bodies in and out of the morgue day after day. Damn it! I'm still not in a position to fire my weapon. Mulder is too vulnerable. His enemy is using him as a shield even as he kills him. With a desperate twist of his upper body, Mulder lurches and pulls his attacker with him. Their combined weights plunge them across the room. Toppling, Mulder shoves himself into the bookcase. Books rain down from the uppermost shelves. The fish tank rocks from the impact of Mulder's body. The glass shatters and the water explodes, spewing across the desk, the couch, the floor, drenching Mulder and his assailant. That's when he appears. I can see him. I have a target at last. "Stop!" I yell. But before the word is out of my mouth, the attacker has grabbed Mulder's gun from the wreckage on the floor. He aims at me. I fire my gun and put a bullet through Jerry Dufour's head. ___________________ TERRI (V) Paul's Diner, Quantico December 24 Agent Mulder and Dr. Scully are treating me to lunch. Kind of a getting-out-of-the-hospital/Christmas Eve celebration. It's great to be sitting here at "our" table, while they goof with each other. He makes a Mr. Potato Head face at her and she sticks out her tongue at him. They're so funny and cute together, they remind me of William Powell and Myrna Loy in "The Thin Man." Yeah, yeah, I *know* -- I watch too many old movies. "Terri, did I show you this?" Agent Mulder hauls his turtleneck down to his collarbone. Oh my God! His neck is black! "What happened?" "I had the last dance with Jerry Dufour." He pulls the shirt back into place. "He visited my apartment last night." "He's dead, Terri," Dr. Scully tells me. "How?" "Scully shot him. She's my hero now, too." He takes her hand and beams at her. I think she's embarrassed. "Was he the one? The one who killed Brenda Wallace and Arthur Pembroke?" Gosh, I can't believe they've waited this long to fill me in. "We're pretty sure he was." Dr. Scully picks up a French fry from Agent Mulder's plate and twirls it in his puddle of catsup. "Remember the scrapings you took from under Brenda Wallace fingernails? A hair from those samples was identified by the lab as a match for Dufour's. The blood on the morgue floor was his, too." "Your bullet hit him!" "Mmhm. We found an entry and exit wound on his body just below his fourth rib." "So he was the man who attacked me?" "Yes, he was the man who attacked you, Terri." "But how...how did he make himself invisible?" "He didn't do it on purpose," Agent Mulder explains while he wipes a spot of catsup off Dr. Scully's lip with his thumb. "The day he transported the body of Roger Morton to the morgue, Jerry found *this* amulet in the body bag." Agent Mulder withdraws a small metal disk from his pocket and places it on the table. "You can see it has the Rosicrucian symbol of a red rose in a gold cross on one side and the OOTLB butterfly on the back." He flips it over to show us. "The deceased, Roger Morton, had been an OOTLB Magic Worker, meaning he believed in and practiced ritualistic magic. I think the amulet was originally used for the OOTLB 'Ritual of Invisibility.' Anyway, when Jerry found the amulet, he decided to keep it, not realizing its power. We removed the amulet from around Jerry's neck last night in my apartment." "But if Jerry didn't know how to use the amulet, how did he become invisible?" "I have a theory about that," Agent Mulder says and waits for Dr. Scully to roll her eyes. "Go ahead, Mulder. You know you want to tell it," she says instead. "Well, I'm thinking the amulet permits a person to form a light-absorbing, free-electron cloud around themselves. Roger Morton knew how to make that happen through the ritual. But Jerry didn't. With Jerry, the formation of the cloud came from unconscious brain activity -- intensified by his schizophrenia -- interacting with the amulet. When Jerry stopped taking his medications, the symptoms of his disease worsened. And his ability to disappear increased. Who knows? Maybe at first he wanted to be an invisible man, so he stopped taking his medication. Or maybe the affects of the amulet made him forget to take his pills. Either way, the outcome was the same. He became less and less lucid and more and more invisible. A deadly combination." "That theory is so full of holes, Mulder." "Maybe so. But it's *my* theory and I'm sticking with it." He makes the Mr. Potato Head face again. "Mulder, I've been wondering what made Jerry become visible last night after the two of you crashed into the fish tank. Do you have any 'theories' abut that?" "As a matter of fact, I *do.* It's possible that getting doused with the water from the fish tank or just the shock of the blow when we crashed into the bookcase was enough to momentarily focus Jerry's thoughts, overriding whatever unconscious brain activity was necessary to maintain his invisibility." Dr. Scully gives him a dubious squint. "Or it could have been just a coincidence, Scully. After all, Jerry didn't stay invisible *all* the time. His invisibility came and went without any conscious control." Agent Mulder pops a French fry into his mouth with a satisfied flourish. "Hey, I got each of you two lovely ladies a Christmas present." He reaches both hands into his trench coat pockets and withdraws two identically wrapped boxes, which he nudges across the table at us. Dr. Scully's face lights up like...well, like a Christmas tree. She gives the box a shake. "Should we open them together?" she asks me and I nod. We rip into the paper. "Oh, Mulder, you shouldn't have." We're each holding a brand new copy of "The Invisible Man" on videotape -- the original 1933 version starring Claude Rains and William Harrigan! This is sooo cool! "Thanks, Mulder." Dr. Scully leans over and kisses him right on the lips! Oh my goodness! He kisses her right back! I blush while they sizzle like Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in that amazing love scene in "Notorious"! If you ask me, Agents Mulder and Scully are *definitely* lovers. "So, Mulder. What's our next case? Pet Psychics?" Dr. Scully asks when she finally sits back in her seat. "I was thinking the Lizard Man of FEMA might be fun." THE END "This beats ghosts." --- H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man AUTHOR'S NOTES: I would like to thank Sarah for inspiring the character "Terri" and Jen for her unwavering support.