Echo: The first outbreak (1/?)
By: Commodore X

Categories: MS/UST, X-File

Summary: When a deadly virus, created by our own 
government, sweeps the country, its up to Mulder and Scully to 
find a cure. (After Mulder burns down her kitchen, of course.)

Ahem: The characters of Mulder and Scully are not mine, they 
are the property of Chris Carter, Fox Network, and 1013 
Productions, and I’m just borrowing them. So. Now that that’s 
out of the way. The science experiment in this story is a real 
one, with all the same real possibilities. However, the real one, 
when preformed, went off without a hitch. Also, for the record: I 
have no idea what gluon theory is. Thank you.

Email: KraneGirl@hotmail.com
*	*	*	*
The long corridor that led to high security wing 4B-30 was 
under contruction, and the scientists within Lab 47 had taken to 
wearing full winter clothing under their lab-coats to quell the cut 
of the frosty air in the building. Dr. Hal Morrison was one of a 
team of the highest-paid cutting edge scientists in the world, 
and they had just finished their final project for the Government 
grant.

The project.

Using a direct-flow particle stream, the scientists would be able 
to hyper-charge the nuclei of two gold atoms, forcing them to 
collide. Simulating—on a larger scale—the conditions present 
during the big bang. Creation. God’s work. 

Jesus it was great to be a genius. 

Hal had never before felt like such a Prometheus, bringing fire 
to the humans, playing god, hell, better than God. The worlds 
biggest takeover. Hal 1, God 0, and counting. Even through his 
lightning short blaze through M.I.T at age 14, his development 
of the Barrio-Shortex vaccine at age 18, and his numerous 
projects since then, quark strings, gluon theory, time travel, he 
had felt a twinge of dissatisfaction. He’d felt like the worlds 
youngest geezer: old, boring, and predictable. This was 
something different. This felt fresh, new, dangerous, because 
who knew what was going to happen? Sure, they could 
theorize all they wanted, since this type of atom collision was 
fairly routine in the natural world. A normal every-day event.

If you happened to be living on the sun.

But it had never been foced upon nature, never studied. 
Categorized and easily referenced? That was for secretaries 
and file-clerks. His science was on the edge, baby. Hal 
bumped his elbow into the short dark woman next to him. 
Hilary Thresher turned with a blink that conveyed her surprise 
at being interupted. She placed the computer disk on the 
stainles steel table. 
“Hal? What is it? Didja find something in the program?” Hilary 
was the biological researcher for the team. She was a living 
encyclopedia, and Hal found it quite amusing to drill her for 
hours about totally useless facts, from everything to the 
lifespan of the average prosimian, to the wingspan of the red-
collared Topeka hummingbird. It was a great conversation 
starter. Hal grinned at her, feeling larger than life. He was filled 
with a static nervous energy, had been all day, today was the 
day of the first test.

An Adam and Eve kind of day.

“Nothing new on the program. I’m just edgy. Are you excited?” 
Hilary smiled back, shaking her head.
“Nervous as hell. If this doesn’t work its gonna be my ass on 
the chopping block, but I guess you could say excited. My old 
Catholic Gramma nearly had a fit when I tried to explain it to 
her, started calling me Frankenstein. Can you imagine that? 
Some people are totally adverse to change.” She shook her 
head again as she went back to work, patting Hal on the arm. It 
was almost time. Just a few more calculations, and all four of 
them had a special guilded frame set aside for them in the 
textbooks.

If they weren’t there already.

Peter Sargent stood ticking off computer functions on a small 
bulleted list. Every once and a while he would look up, grimace, 
and erase furiously. He glanced in the direction of the two 
computing stations. Then, for the first time in what seemed like 
ages, he smiled a smile wide enough to flash his teeth and light 
up his eyes.

“Almost there, ladies and gents,” he murmered, his face 
mirroring the same glint of excitement that the others held. 
“Almost. . .The pause was painful. . .there.” A piercing tweedle 
from one of the computers announced that a match had finally 
been found for the calibrations of the direct flow particles after 
six months of careful searching. All in the room spontaneously 
applauded, and Hal felt a tingle grow up his spine. The room 
seemed heady with anticipation.

They were good to go. 

The four scientists on the team were relegated to an 
observation lab with a glass partition looking out on the test 
area, a huge metallic cylinder, with tunnels on either end that 
ran for miles. Hilary took up a position with her face almost 
pressed to the glass, looking for all the world like a child 
checking the window of a candy store. Peter shifted from one 
foot to another, and tapped his nails busily. Lauryn Borgeaux 
called the computer settings, sounding like she was checking 
flight status.

“EPK monitor, do you have a steady temp?”

The reply was affirmitive.

“You guys over at RA, are you keeping an eye on things?”

“Let’s see your stats Millie, I don’t like the look of that progress 
chart.”

She walked over to the small blue computer at the edge of the 
room.

“Hold onto your hats folks,” she whispered, her voice 
resonating fiercely in the quiet room. Then she punched in the 
action code. With a click, the room was awash with a red glow. 
The flow of particles was barely visible by eye. A white beam of 
light pierced the room. All those present gasped.

“It’s beautiful!”

“Have you ever seen. . .”

“ The most amazing. . .”

Suddenly, the flash grew brighter, steadily overtaking the red. 
The room was harder to look at. Someone in the corner gave a 
yell, and Hal heard the creak of a door being thrown open and 
shut. The room was filled totally with the bright light, it was 
impossible to look at. Hal closed his eyes as he heard the rest 
of the scientists start to scream.

He never made a sound.

Funny, though—Hal thought distractedly, feeling something 
stripped away inside of him, feeling the walls of the room 
expand—that irony could be present in one’s own death. His 
project, his obsession with creation, had been the tool of his 
destruction. He glanced at the writhing bodies of his collegues 
across the room, watching as a faint pulse of light grew 
pregnant in them and pulsed outward, creating the illusion of 
extremely fast movement. So this is what dying feels like, he 
thought, his mind growing grayer, as he faded out, he had one 
last thought: Oh, hell. Frankenstein dies in the end. We all die.

Creation.

Destruction.

Jesus its great to be a genius.

*	*	*	*

For reasons unknown to Mulder, Scully was lying on his couch, 
curled up, in HIS shirt. She made gentle puttering sounds with 
every breath she let out, and clutched his afghan under her 
chin. She was wearing his hockey jersey, several sizes to 
large. The sight made Mulder shiver.

Whoa there, buddy.

He reached out uncertainly and touched her forehead, as 
gentle as a puff of rain. Brushed a hair out of her eyes. They 
fluttered open at the tender touch. The moment seemeed to 
last forever, as they gazed at each other, uncertain of what to 
do. Then Scully’s eyes widened, her mouth opened, and then 
she started screaming.

“Don’t you give me that innocent look, Mulder, don’t you EVEN 
DARE! I wouldn’t be here in your apartment, on your couch that 
is about as comfortable as a cement slab, if it wasn’t for you.” 
Using more creative Navy vocabulary than he would have 
known, she described every wretched thing he’d ever done. 
Starting with being born. Then she punched him in the arm.

Whoa there.

He was rocked back by the typhoon of insults, and thrown off 
balance by the tiny, stinging punch. He had no, NO idea what 
she was talking about. What did he do? A terribly exciting 
thought rose in his brain like a demon. He brushed it away. She 
wouldn’t be here lying on his couch if he had done that. And 
she would probably shoot him, not punch him. He recognized 
the beginnings of a hangover (read: a huge stomach ache and 
a cardboard mouth). A feeling of dread settled over him. He 
was in deep—

“What do you have to say for yourself, Mulder? Don’t just stand 
there! I expect full apologies from you, not a dumb look of 
horror. Reel that tongue back in!” He looked up and her, 
opened his mouth, and. . .

Rushed to the bathroom. Whoa there, buddy.

After he had staggered out, to his profound dissapointment, 
Scully had changed into a t-shirt and conservative pants, and 
was neatly folding the afghan on the couch. She looked at him 
expectantly, and put her hands on her hips.

I’m sorry, Mom, the other boys said that drinking was the cool 
thing to do.

It’ll never happen again. Promise.

He looked at her and she stared back, raising not one eyebrow, 
but two. Going great guns, are we, Scully? He said,
	
“I’m sorry, Scully, I don’t know what to say! What did I do? I 
don’t remember anything!” She gave him a hard stare, and 
threw up her hands.

“Oh, right, how perfect. The man with the photographic 
memory happens to forget setting fire to his partner’s 
apartament.” She picked up the afghan again, and gave it a 
vicious tug. Mulder backed away, semi-frightened, and fully 
shocked.

“I what? I set fire to your apartament? How?” Scully glared at 
him and then, seeing that Mulder really didn’t remember, 
sighed and sat down on the couch.

“Last night, you arrived, quite late, waking me up. You were 
drunk, as you probably know now, and raving on about. . .” she 
blushed, “about how much you love me, and nonsense. You 
blundered about, clumsier than usual, and manage to find a 
candle, that you wanted to light, to,” she blushed deeper red, 
and Mulder, feeling faint, matched the shade perfectly.

Nice. Real nice.

“. . .to lighten the mood. Anyway, you burnt yourself on the 
lighter, dropped the candle on the floor, and I reached for the 
nearest liquid, which happened to be a bottle of wine, because 
the fates conspire against me to make my life a miserable joke, 
and the fire basically ruined my kitchen before the firemen 
came and put it out. Then, since the fumes from the fire were 
so bad, I drove us to your apartment, where you obviously don’t 
keep any of my clothes, but why would you, so I had to wear 
one of your old and dare I say smelly shirts, Mulder, and you 
passed out on the bed.” So all because of you I have to 
renovate my house, I spent one of the worst nights of my life, 
and. . .you don’t even remember.” One of Scully’s eyes was so 
wide Mulder thought it would pop out of her skull. He tried to 
hold back the huge wave of laughter that was building like a 
tsumami in his chest, threatening to overtake him, but couldn’t. 
It was. . . .just. . . .so. . .damn. . . .funny. He sat weakly on the 
couch, howling and holding his roiling stomach. Scully, eyes 
open wide in shock, gave him a glare which would have 
stunned cattle.  The glare faltered. Then she began to smile, 
and soon after started to giggle. Then to chuckle, then to bellow 
laughter so that they both held on to their stomachs to keep 
themselves from falling over. They leaned against each other 
and tried to breathe, but the situation kept striking them and 
they couldn’t help it. Maggie Scully entered the room, using her 
daughters key, took in the situation, and sighed.

“Did you get her drunk, Fox?” He managed to nod no, but that 
thought struck him and he muffled another chortle of laughter. 
Maggie sighed again. “Well I hope you two are having a good 
time, because after you eat your breakfast which I brought 
because I know that as a bachelor Fox isn’t going to have 
anything but orange juice or beer, you need to go see the 
insurance company. And Fox, some woman named Luanna 
stopped me outside the door as I checked to see your 
apartement, threw a check at me, and told me that if you 
wanted a good time to go somewhere else, and to keep your 
damn money. The language that woman used!” Maggie Scully 
had a wry grin on her face as Mulder’s laughter ran dry and 
Scully’s was renewed. “Well, don’t stand up on my account, 
you two, I just came here, using the key from Dana’s 
apartament, to see if she hadn’t been burned up along with her 
kitchen, and now that I see that she hasn’t and is actually 
laughing about it, I guess no one wants an old woman around.” 
Mulder gestured at Mrs. Scully to take a seat on the couch.
 
“Hi, Mrs. Scully. I’m sorry about all this, but it just struck me 
that I didn’t remember any of it.” Maggie patted him like a 
mother would pat a naughty child.

“Well, now, it isn’t so unusual to have little jags at your age. 
Next time, just remember not to involve Scully or candles in 
them” her eyebrows raised a notch—like mother like daughter, 
“you have plenty of time for that when you’re more. . .coherent.” 
Then she walked into the kitched with the groceries, and left 
Mulder and Scully in the living room, with little warning bells 
going off in their heads.
*	*	*	*