PART 9-A
Narrative

Another boy, another road trip

The old man was surprisingly quiet on the flight back, which suited me fine.  It was bad enough having to sit next to him, to see him alive and watching everything around him the way a cheetah eyes prey.  He made one crack at the beginning, before we left the site, about how things had changed--obviously referring to my being with the group again.  I didn't know how much the Brit had told him, though he would've had to be careful about what he let out; the last thing the Brit would want was for the old man to come sniffing around and find out about our vaccine.

On the flight from Quebec to New York I put him in the window seat and I took the aisle.  We had the luxury of an empty seat between us because the Brit had bought three tickets but Morten was still back in the snow. I'm guessing I wasn't the only one glad for the space.  But I'd glance over every once in a while and I could see the old man tightening up the closer we got to New York.  After all, he was flying back to the men who'd tried to kill him.   I knew all too well what that was like, and he sure as hell deserved to find out.  But I knew he wouldn't let them off easy.  

My mind was all over the place: the silo; the bait-and-switch he'd pulled on me when I joined the group.  The way he'd taken Scully--not just to make a statement, or to use her, but to mindfuck Mulder.  It made me wonder why the hell I hadn't just pulled the trigger back in the snow, when I had the chance, but it was too late for that now.  And much as I hated to think about it, I knew in my gut the Brit was on to something: the old man had some key to surviving the future--some card up his sleeve--and I was going to find it and take it from him if it was the last thing I did.

The risk--because there's always a risk--was that he might find out about our vaccine.  We'd have to be incredibly careful, because having our work exposed wasn't likely to be worth whatever secrets he might have.

Of course, the situation with the Praise kid fell right into Mulder and Scully's hands in spite of Jeffrey's attempts to block Mulder from his little investigation.  It was my first glimpse of Jeff, the one the old man was actually willing to own up to as his son, and I only saw him from a distance, but he seemed like a wuss to me, a kid out of his depth who'd be calling out for some referee to make everything 'fair' when the pushing and shoving started.  Still, there he was, dropped into the FBI the same way I'd been once, a sitting duck with no clue what Daddy'd do when he didn't perform to expectations.

We did end up with the kid, though things didn't go according to plan.  Scully'd ended her babysitting shift early, so the guys they sent in ended up shooting Diana instead, not knowing she wasn't the target.  When I heard about it, I flashed back to that evening in Scully's apartment, Cardenal with his itchy trigger finger firing before he'd even had a chance to see who was coming through the doorway.  Well, it had kept me from shooting Scully.  In the end I was glad I hadn't; at some point Mulder could probably come to understand his father's hit as a strategic thing, but if I'd killed Scully, it would've been nothing but personal to him.  He never would have listened to anything I had to say again.

The old man turned the kid over to us and went off to check on Diana, who was barely hanging on, and then on to whatever scheming he had planned--something, whatever it was, to broaden his influence over the group.  He was back in the saddle and he wouldn't waste any time taking advantage of that. 

Me, I got elected to play delivery boy and drive the kid to a Consortium research facility in New Mexico.  Word had leaked to the media that a chess wunderkind in protective custody in the D.C. area had been kidnapped, and the men upstairs didn't want to take chances on any of their Fort Marlene employees recognizing him; they might start to question what they were actually working on.  The Brit wasn't coming along because as one of the higher-ups there was too much critical information Gibson could potentially have sucked out of his head.  Of course, there was our private vaccine project at stake, too, which was probably at least as critical as anything the group had going, but I'd been assigned the job and there was no plausible way to bow out of it.  Anyway, I was in between projects, with a real need for a change of scenery: my last effort to place an operative inside FarmaCol in the hopes of getting my hands on the vaccine had tanked the week before and I hadn't yet had a chance to regroup and figure out my next angle.

So a road trip it was.  It said something that the Brit hadn't seen fit to get me out of the assignment, though he'd slipped me enough drugs to keep the kid pretty much out of it for the duration.  The plan was to let the boy come around long enough so that he could eat, clean up and get himself between the rental car and a motel room under his own power, since there was no way I could carry him with only one good arm.  Then it would be back to dreamland; the last thing I needed was for this kid to pick all the background about Marita's vaccine out of my head and then spit it out for the group's researchers during some interrogation. It made me wonder whether the old man'd had anything to do with giving me this assignment.

The weather was hot, and at some point after I'd crossed from Virginia into Tennessee the air conditioning in the car broke down, which made things miserable.  I'd figured on going as far as I could before I stopped to sleep, but by the time we hit Memphis a little after midnight I was starting to weave.  No use running off the road and killing myself, so I got a motel and managed to shuffle the kid inside. 

Then I hit the sack, only to wake up the next morning feeling like shit--achy all over, headache... and two eyes watching me from the next bed.  I was feeling too bad to get out of bed, but I knew I had to get some food into the kid before I could put him out again, so I phoned over to the restaurant across the parking lot for some breakfast and then turned on the TV to let him watch until our breakfast came, hopeful that what Diana'd said in her report was true, that cartoons seemed to absorb him, that she thought they might help him block out the mental noise around him, something he'd want and find soothing.  I hoped it was true.  It made a certain kind of sense. 

He was a weird little kid, Gibson, one leg shorter than the other so that he kind of ambled when he walked, and he had this air about him--calmness or resignation or something else.  In a way he was like an old man in a kid's body. 

When our food came I only ate a little of mine, hoping it would settle my stomach rather than making it worse.  My attention was drawn to the kid, the way he just sat there on the bed, quiet, with the big eyes.  On the other hand, what if his focus on the TV was just a smokescreen?  What if he was actually going through my head like an open file drawer?  Frankly, he didn't seem to have the least bit of interest in me, but I could hardly afford to take chances.  As soon as he'd taken the last bite of his breakfast, I got out one of the little capsules of liquid, mixed it into his carton of milk and made him drink it. 

Ended up spending the whole day in the damn room--sleeping, for most part.  Figured the lack of air conditioning the day before might have had something to do with the way I was feeling, so I called the rental company and talked them into coming by and swapping the car out for another one.  It was probably the best thing I could have done because the area was a sweatbox--over eighty with high humidity even in the dead of night.  Gibson came around late in the afternoon.  I sent him in to take a bath and while he was getting clean, I ordered some food so I could feed him and put him under again. 

By then I was feeling better--not quite enough to head back out on the road, but a lot better than I'd been that morning.  I sent Gibson outside to eat on the covered patio overlooking the pool, hoping the scenery would be enough to keep his mind occupied.  Watching from the window, I tried to figure out what I thought of him.  He was obviously just a kid... and on the other hand, he was anything but.

Not that it was his fault what he could do. 

Still, lack of intent didn't make him any less dangerous.  Imagine what the old men could do with him--a human weapon.

And guess who knows all too well what it is to be a kid with his life planned out to advance the greater purpose?

I looked up, closed my eyes and reminded myself that I was on the other side this time, that even though life throws potholes in your path, this one wasn't mine to worry about.  I had a job to do, and critical information--potentially planet-altering information--to keep safe from the tentacles of this kid's mind.

As soon as his food was gone, I called Gibson in and sent him off to the bathroom to brush his teeth, but while he was in there images kept drifting in on me of the place I'd grown up and the daily routine we'd gone through, a whole line of us brushing our teeth, or folding our clothes, or standing with our bowls out, waiting for them to be filled.  Hoping they'd be filled.  Fighting over the few extra pieces of bread, but not so the grownups in charge would notice and get us in trouble.

I shook myself and glanced up to find Gibson standing at the foot of the bed. 

"Why do you do it," he said, "when you know what it's like?"

I shot him a look.  "Because I've got--"  Hell, I didn't owe him any explanations.  "Get your milk," I said, nodding toward the fridge.

There was no challenge to his words; it was that calm, detached tone of voice he was so good at, like he was several layers removed from face-to-face reality.  As if it was somebody else who was going to end up playing lab specimen in New Mexico.  

"I don't like milk that much," he said.  "Could I have it in juice or soda or something this time?"

"Milk's good for you."

He shrugged.  "What do you care?  You're just turning me over to them."  That same quiet, matter-of-fact delivery, but somehow the words cut.

"They told me to mix it with milk," I said, brushing his question aside.  "I don't know; maybe it reacts badly with something else.  Anyway, I'm not taking any chances."  I paused, softened my voice a little.  "Go on.  Bring it."

With a sigh he headed for the fridge.  Later, sitting on the edge of the bed to slip off my shoes after I'd come back from a walk, I took a good look at the sleeping kid: his short body, the round glasses on the bedside table, the smooth skin that meant he'd been taken care of all his life.  For a moment I flashed on the little Sergei from the orphanage.  He'd been so thin that socks bunched and sagged around his matchstick legs like burlap bags.  Then I thought of the Kazakh kid.  Wrong place at the wrong time, and not just once but twice.  I'd assumed someone would unsew him eventually, that the Oil would get out and the kid would have a chance to get away.  Never figured on things ending up the way they did.

I lay back down again, but sleep was muscled aside by a constant stream of unwelcome flashbacks from a childhood I had no desire to revisit.  Eventually I got up, packed up our things, put everything in the car, studied the map.  Eleven hundred miles to go--two days worth of driving, because I wasn't going to be pulling any marathon run.  Not now, after the way I'd been feeling.

By about 1 a.m. Gibson was starting to come around.  I managed to guide him out to the car and get him to drink more milk before he was coherent enough to realize what was happening.  I drove straight through, taking advantage of the cooler hours, such as they were, and glancing back every once in a while at the smooth, pale-skinned kid whose life had taken a bad turn due to a genetic toss of the dice.  

By mid-morning we'd made it to my stopping point, Oklahoma City.  Gibson was still out, and it would be a couple of hours at least before he woke up and could walk well enough to get himself into a motel, so I pulled into a park, found a shady spot and stretched out as best I could in the front seat, hoping to get a little overdue shuteye. 

When I woke up, the back seat was empty.  I threw open my door, staggered out and scanned the area, heard pounding.  It was hot now, and the parking lot had half-filled.  What would the kid do?  Hide somewhere watching for me to leave?  Run for the nearest adult and tell them he'd been kidnapped?  Go for someone in authority?  There was a complex on the far side of the parking lot, some kind of rec center.  If he'd headed there and he spotted me looking for him, though, would he yell--cause a fuss and maybe end up getting me arrested? 

But retribution from the old men would be a lot worse if I didn't find him.  My mind still moving like sludge after too little sleep but with adrenaline pushing me on, I headed for the building...

... and just before I reached it, I spotted Gibson standing next to a chain link fence at the corner of the complex, staring at something on the other side.

"I wasn't running away," he said, not even bothering to turn around, as I came up behind him.  "It was hot in the car, and I just wanted to look at the swimming pool."

I stopped to catch my breath and let my heart rate settle.  Frowning, I stared through the fence grid to where dozens of kids were splashing around in a huge pool.  They'd tried to put me in swimming classes once, when I was a kid, but the routine was grueling--they were looking for future Olympic hopefuls--and all I'd wanted was to play around and enjoy the novelty of the water. 

I looked at Gibson, his hair sweat-damp around the edges, his cheeks too red.  He seemed miles away.  Probably he was imagining himself in the water, cool and free.  I glanced at my watch.  Two plus hours until most motels would be accepting check-ins.  And I could hardly drug him now; he'd be dead weight by the time I had a room rented, and there was no way I could carry him in from the car without two good arms.

I refocused on the kids splashing and yelling beyond the fence. 

"It feels good."  Gibson looked up momentarily.  "The splashes, I mean."  After a beat his attention went back to the commotion in the water.  I waited, but no plea to join the others followed.  Unlike any average kid, he wasn't going to ask.  Not this old man in a twelve-year-old's body, who spent his life at arms length from the world around him.

"Stay here," I said.  "Don't you move."  And I headed off toward the rec building's entrance.  It didn't take long to find the unattended lost-and-found and swipe a towel and a pair of swim trunks that looked like they'd do the job.  Gibson seemed surprised when I got back, and I hoped that was a good sign--that the pool and the noise and all the other minds around him would keep him busy.  I told myself it was all a matter of practicality.

Gibson spent the next hour and a half splashing around, mostly on his own, avoiding the big kids who'd be most likely to bully him, spending a few minutes here and there playing with the kids around him.  Eventually I called him out, fed him, got us a motel and put him down again.

I sacked out myself, but as I drifted off I kept flashing on the look he'd given me when I came back with the towel and swim trunks, a huge grin lighting his face as if he were actually a live kid and not someone carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.  I could be wrong, but I'd grown up with a whole lot of kids and I knew the mindset well enough, as well as the signs of someone faking.  Gibson wasn't likely to be any real threat to the old men aside from his potential to disclose their secrets, and that in itself was a huge 'if', when you thought about it.  How likely was it that a kid would go seek out some government agency or official to tell them what he knew about an alien invasion?  Who, realistically, would pay any attention to a twelve-year-old no matter what he said he knew, especially if he told them how he'd gotten the information?  If he tried it, most likely they'd throw him in a psych ward, drug him up and he'd have even less control over the mind that was his only weapon, his only way of fighting back against a bunch of people who only wanted to use him.

I woke up around 10 p.m., got out of bed and started packing up the few things we'd brought inside.  Conveniently, Gibson was still asleep, a big relief because it meant I wouldn't have to deal with him about the drugs.  He'd started talking about side effects--nausea and dizziness.  He didn't ask me not to give them to him, probably because he knew that wasn't an option, but it wasn't like I'd have been filling him with the stuff if I didn't have a good reason.

When he did finally start to stir, I shuffled him out to the car, then stopped at a burger joint at the edge of town.  I bought him the cheeseburger and fries he asked for, then chickened out and slipped the contents of the sleeping capsule into his chocolate shake.  He made it halfway through his meal before he conked out.  I laid him out in the backseat and drove on.  In another nine hours--eight if I was lucky--I'd be at the facility, and if my luck held, it would be before the kid woke up.

I told myself the people at the lab would mainly want to know what he could do, maybe put him to work spying on somebody.  He obviously didn't let on to most of what he was thinking, so maybe if they treated him well, he'd give them more of what they wanted, and the situation would be a win-win. 

The cynic in me stood back laughing at the rosy picture I'd painted; like Gibson said, I knew from my own upbringing how likely that was.  But I made myself refocus on the road, put my mind on my driving.  The sunrise came up in blues and yellows, a gorgeous show that made the mountains stand out like rows of dark teeth.  It was cool and fresh, just above 60 degrees, and I opened the windows and let the air blow through the car.  When I'd glance back, Gibson was still safely asleep.

Just before nine in the morning I pulled up at the facility, thinking I'd gotten off scott-free.  But when I went to open the back door, two eyes looked up at me. 

"I thought you were asleep," I said, clearing my throat.  "How long have you been awake?"

Gibson shrugged.  "A few minutes."

We're here, I was about to say, but he probably already knew that.  "Come on, time to get out," I said.

He sat up but I could see that he was woozy.  I got his things from the trunk, took them into the office and went back.  Gibson scooted to the edge of the seat, stood up and started to stumble.  He looked up at me, those big, wide-open brown eyes and that bland expression that wasn't going to give away anything to a world where he was just a means to an end. 

"Come on," I said, putting my hand on his shoulder, guiding him by keeping him against my right side.  The doorway to the building came closer.  Finally we were in front of it.  "Chin up," I said, and gave him a pat on the back as a woman in a lab coat came to take him away.

I drove back to Albuquerque after that, dropped off the rental car, checked into a hotel, scheduled my return flight.  I was supposed to report in to the Elders, but I called the Brit, told him their delivery had been made and that I needed a few days off.  Then I booked myself on a flight to D.C. and sacked out.  I was afraid of seeing the kid in my sleep--hell, even the exit I'd taken off the highway was called Gibson Boulevard--but if I dreamed, I don't remember any of it.  Maybe it was the heat and all those hours behind the wheel.

End
 

Author: bardsmaid
Archive: only complete, and please let me know where it is
Spoilers: post-The Truth
Rating: worksafe
Summary: Back from retrieving CSM, Krycek is tasked with delivering chess wunderkind Gibson Praise to a Consortium research facility.
Disclaimer: The X-Files characters are the property of Chris Carter and 1013 Productions, but the real spirit of Alex Krycek belongs to Nicholas Lea, who brought him to such vivid, nuanced life.
 

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