"Manifest Destiny" 
Part 5 


She felt the chill run like lightening up her spine.  Liquid nitrogen 
in her blood. 

"Marin?" Elspeth's voice threated, almost animal-like.  Poised like a 
mercenary, her eyes blazed onyx as she held out the slender stiletto 
against the curve on Richter's neck.  "Do you have any other names? 
Any other secrets you're keeping from me?" 

Scully reached for a gun that was not there, and realizing that, 
frantically tried to recall every bit of hostage training she had 
ever had. 

"Elspeth . . . . Elspeth, please."  Her voice wavered slightly, the 
weapon shatteringly familiar. 

The car continued to roll on the asphalt, the roar of the wind the 
only sound slicing the tension.  Richter continued to drive without 
showing an iota of emotion at the situation. 

"It's just a name.  Nothing more.  It means nothing, Elspeth.  Trust 
me." 

"I've heard of you.  You did seem familiar--did you somehow recognize 
me then?"  Her voice grew bitter.  "You seemed to hate me pretty 
readily back when we first met.  Hasn't changed as it, Marin? Marin 
Laine, right?  The man who helped slaughter hundreds of innocents at 
Antioch?  The butcher--" 

"The baker, the candlestick maker.  What," an edge gaining to his 
baritone, "do you hope to gain from killing me?  Drive us into a 
ditch?  Kill us all?  I'm controlling the car now."  Scully noticed 
his knuckles turning white.  Tense.  "Don't do something stupid." 

"No, we seem to have enough of stupidity in this car to get us 
through purgatory and then straight on through to the gates of Hell." 

Overload.  It was neural overload.  What was happening now--in past 
situations Scully had handled them with the cool, steely demeanor of 
a professional, but she realized now how her life had been on a 
continuous spiral out of control since the colonists had arrived. 
Suddenly, she became livid at her audacity--her utter failure in the 
face of adversity, and then it came like a sonic boom, hot and full 
of madness--the red-faced feeling of shame. 

"Innocent men, women and children.  Did you know any of them?" 

"They were not innocents!  They were unnatural.  Hybrids.  Part of 
the race that came here to destroy us!  Am I suppose to have some 
sort of mercy for butchers?  Would you?" 

"In your case, no." 

"Pull over." 

At the intrusion of her voice, Elspeth and Richter both turned to 
look at Scully in surprise. 

"The tank is empty."  At that, the red light flashed on, the sound of 
gravel hitting the car's paintjob clicking through the dense fog of 
the tension as the car rolled gently to the side of the road.  "Put 
it down, Elspeth."   Control.  She felt its sweetness surge back into 
her body.  "You are a rational, intelligent woman.  Put the weapon 
down.  This can be talked out."  Scully said a silent prayer of 
thanks to God, hoping there was still a god out there to hear her. 

Elspeth remained where she was, though, the cool, needle-like tip of 
the stiletto pressed tightly against Richter's goose-prickled flesh. 

"Please."  There was gentleness in her voice, a soothing quality 
Mulder had loved, but never revealed to her.  "Please, Elspeth."  The 
humanity and fullness of her former-self was returning, a tidal wave 
crashing against her, and Scully embraced each explosion as it broke 
against her. 

The blade of the weapon slid back in, a metallic scrape signifying a 
new connection made, but there were still many bridges to cross.  Or 
to burn. 

The car came to a halt, sputtering dead. 

"I'll let you talk, Richter--or Marin.  I don't care what your name 
is anymore.  Give me a reason not to kill you, or make your peace 
with this world before I kill you."  Scully noticed as Elspeth shot 
her a glance, a definite weariness in her eyes, as well as hesitation 
and fear.  But her voice seemed to betray nothing.  "Make it good.  I 
can easily forget the definition of mercy." 

xXxXxXxXxXxX 

How did it come to this? 

"Where do you come off thinking that you have the right to play God?" 

How did once allies become enemies?  Twisted fate turned into twisted 
cruelty? 

"God is dead." 

In this darkest of places was it possible to ever be found?  Could 
they ever find their way out?  Was there another world out there--or 
was it just an illusion?  Just a place meant to exist in imagination? 

"Did you always have a complete lack of regard for life?  Do you 
think yourself a higher being?  A life greater than the rest?  Do you 
believe that somehow because you think that you are just and good, 
that you will be saved? 

Here, beneath the sky; beneath the soulless stars, were they destined 
for failure?  Loneliness?  Had their goals been too great--too full 
of hope to be allowed to interfere with the chaos of the universe? 

"Do you think yourself a hero?  Admired for your atrocities?  Do you 
live under the pretense that somehow, you are kind?  That you are 
loved? 

Now, staring into the face of Elspeth Parr, Scully could now clearly 
see layers upon layers of this woman, that she had never seen 
before.  Streaked mad like doomsday with rage and pain, Elspeth was 
about to collapse mentally.  There was more than anger to her, 
though.  Something in her eye--a line curved like a scythe. 
Something had broken inside.  Her eyes were wounded. 

"Know this:  They too were loved.  Those hundreds of people.  Loved. 
Do you understand that word?"  She walked in short steps in an arc 
like the swing of a pendulum.  Her voice dropped, gravelly and 
quiet.  "Loved.  That the anguish of their death . . . can still be 
felt. 

Elspeth sunk to her knees, slow and swaying.  Her head bobbed 
slightly, hair dipping into the mud. 

"It's your chance now.  Tell us your side."  She stood up slowly, 
little snaps exploding as the vertebrae in her back cracked. 
"Justify your existence."  All traces of vulnerability vanished.  "I 
dare you." 

Darkness was falling.  From where she stood, Scully could still see 
Elspeth's and Richter's faces, both strangely contorted like painted 
marionettes.  Both rouged with anger.  Richter had his head turned 
away, his left leg nervously carving patterns into the dirt.  He 
remained silent still. 

Scully could not help but find herself confused.  She was agitated, 
nervous, and jumpy.  In her acquaintance with both of them, she had 
never know this side to exist--the complete coldness and indifference 
to any sort of relationship they had once had before.  Although she 
was not sure, she had sensed that Elspeth and Richter had, in the 
months and weeks before their flight from Rhode Island, gotten closer 
to each other.  They had let each other into places that Scully was 
certain, no one had reached before--or had not for a long time.  It 
was a place that she and Mulder had not even yet reached, in their 
many years together.  She bit her lip, unconscious of the action. 
Would she ever be given the option to work things out with Mulder? 
The thought came and went quickly. 

"Do you think I'm evil?" 

"I don't need to tell you.  You should be full well aware of what I 
think about you." 

"I'm not so sure anymore, Elspeth. There was one point where I . . ." 

"Don't fuck with me.  That has nothing to do with this.  Pull that 
manipulative shit on me again and I won't even hesitate to kill you." 

"Have you ," his voice began gaining a dreamlike quality, "ever done 
something--something that you knew others would find strange or 
harsh--even cruel, but you knew in your heart that it was for the 
greater good?  That whatever the immediate consequences of it, that 
the end would justify the means?" 

"So this is your excuse?  Your rationalization?  Tell me, Richter, 
did you even feel an ounce of remorse as you watched all those 
people die?" 

"I am not a monster!  Stop twisting things around!" 

"I'll kill you, you bastard  You are a  monster!"  Elspeth lunged 
forward, hurtling her full body weight towards Richter.  On the 
defensive, he planted himself and drew out a knife he had had hidden 
away, and poised it, ready to strike back. 

But they were both to be surprised.  As quickly as she was capable 
of, Scully reacted.  She kicked out her left leg and sent Richter 
falling to the ground and out of the path of Elspeth's murderous 
rage.  The momentum propelling her forward, Elspeth found herself 
stabbing at empty air and then sprawled out on the mossy ground.  As 
they both recovered and prepared for a counter attack, they looked up 
to come face to face with a determined looking Dana Scully and the 
barrel of a gun aimed  at their heads. 

They fell silent.  Feeling the adrenaline rushing through her, Scully 
took control. 

She had noticed during their escape that the car that they had taken had not been one 
that had been for sale on the lot.  As they had exited the car after the tank had run dry, 
she had bided her time, leaving the passenger's side as slowly as possible in order to 
search for something--anything that could give her an advantage.  She had been more 
thankful than surprised when she had found the gun sitting inside the glove compartment.  
Hiding it in the waistband of her pants she almost laughed as she thanked her good fortune 
for living in a country so deep-rooted in fear and paranoia that her chances as finding a 
weapon were in her favor. 

"Now you two listen to me.  I've been standing her watching you two 
argue.  But this," she gestured, jabbing the gun forward, "is drawing 
the line.  Whatever past atrocities, they are the past.  However 
horrible they were, there are more important things at hand.  If 
either of you can remember what we  came out here to do."  She 
glanced at Richter.  "But I do understand the difficulties.  Trust is 
a hard thing to gain in the first place. Regaining it may be more 
than impossible."  Scully drew in a deep breath. "I could have left 
you two back in the woods in Rhode Island to kill each other or 
whatever other madness you are capable of, but I came along.  I left 
my mother--the last of my family and the last link to my old life, to 
come and find this cure for this dying world.  To find this vaccine, 
that goddammit, I don't even know really even exists, but I'm here, 
and I want to believe that it does exist, and that it works.  God, how 
much I want to believe it." 

Her eyes fell to the ground as she tried to regain her composure.  "I 
want the both of you to get up now.  Back away from each other--I 
still don't trust you two to be near one another, and I'm sure 
neither trusts the other either."  Scully lowered her gun.  "Now 
there is something I want from you.  I want you to put your trust 
back into the objective.  Our mission.  If you don't think we can do 
this, then we might as well just kill  each other right now.  What 
will it be?  How do you foresee this ending?" 

Scully placed the gun on the ground now and kicked it away out of all 
of their reaches. 

Elspeth spoke first, her voice growing stronger with each word.  "I would give 
my life for this.  Anything to make things right again." 

They both then turned to look at Richter.  He nodded faintly.  "I'm 
in."  He was quiet for another moment, but then he spoke again.  This 
time, though, his eyes were only on Elspeth.  "But only if you can 
give me a chance to explain myself and to somehow regain all of which 
has been lost.   If you can open your heart and your mind and let 
yourself understand who I am and what I've done, then I will." 

A long silence followed and Scully feared that everything that they 
had arrived at was suddenly about to be lost.  But Elspeth erased all 
doubt as she struggled to shake the reluctancy from her voice.  She 
agreed and allowed them to enter into the next round of what would be 
the longest and hardest battle of their lives. 


XxXxXxXxXxX 


"What," Mulder asked, tugging on Invictus' pant leg, "what is it?" 

Invictus hauled himself the rest of the way up slowly, and turned, 
facing to the left of the pod, looking out over the water. He blew 
out a deep breath and stood akimbo. 

"Just get up here," he said distantly. 

Mulder climbed up the ladder, and stood on the deck of the sub, before 
looking up. 

"Oh my God," he said upon raising his eyes. 

He's seen destruction of this magnitude before, but never in person. 
What lay before him now, brought out a sick feeling of fear, and 
dread. 

What had once been the longest suspension bridge in the world, if 
Mulder's questionable memory served him, now lay before him in ruins. 

The middle section of it, in between the two towers, had been blown 
almost entirely away. What remained of the middle was held together 
by only a crumbling slab of concrete, and a few taunt cables. The 
southern tower had collapsed into the straits, only a small portion 
of it remained above water; like a huge white steel gravestone, 
reaching toward the heavens and calling out it's mourning in the 
sickening groans of steel, twisting in the harsh autumn wind. 

The northern tower had fared better, and was still intact. What had 
been the roadway had fallen to the waterline, hundreds of feet below. 
The cables that had once held it up were broken and ripped in all 
directions like the head of Medusa. 

"What the hell happened, here?" Mulder asked in a low tone, quietly, 
as if to not reawaken chaos in its deadly aftermath. 

"I don't know," replied Invictus. "I can't think of any explanation 
for this. Why would they. . . I don't understand." 

At that moment, the porthole on the sub hissed shut, grabbing both 
men's attention. Bubbles began to come up from the sides of the pod, 
and it hummed to life beneath them. 

"Oh shit!" cried Invictus, suddenly alert and turning in all 
directions looking around the top of the sub. "It's going back down!" 

Mulder grabbed the pack and strapped it onto his back, he turned a 
couple of times, unsure of what to do, and then he stopped and looked 
at Invictus. 

"Where's the boat?" he said, more calmly than he felt. 

"I don't know," Invictus said back, looking about him and seeing no 
craft. 

"WHERE'S THE BOAT!?" Mulder shouted. 

"I DON'T KNOW!" Invictus yelled, becoming slightly panic-stricken 
himself. 

As the craft lurched to life beneath them, and started to descend, 
Mulder began to hear the sound of a motor growing louder in his ears. 

He grabbed Invictus' shoulder and pointed southward, toward the lower 
peninsula, "Shit," he said.  "Look." 

There was a hard-bottomed inflatable speeding at them from shore. It 
was still almost a mile away, but it was making its way towards them 
at an alarming speed. Invictus looked to the north and swore under 
his breath. 

"There's two of them," he said.  "Get in the water. Swim for the 
bridge." 

Mulder opened his mouth to protest, but as he was about to do so, the 
pod completely submerged, and he was in the water anyway. He stepped 
off of the surface of the pod, and the temperature of the water hit 
him like a ton of bricks. 

"It's fucking cold," he managed to get out, the chill of the straits 
knocking the breath out of his chest, as Invictus dove in next to 
him. 

"And its going to get colder. Come on," Invictus answered, "we don't 
have far to go. Those HBI's are going to be here in a minute. Swim 
like the Army's on your ass." 

"They are," Mulder replied, trying to adjust his strokes to 
accommodate the pack strapped to his back, and the clothing he was 
wearing. 

"All the more reason to go fast." Invictus replied, gliding past him 
like a merman. 

XxXxXxXxXxX 

They reached the partially submerged wreckage of the bridge, near the 
middle. The part that had once been I-75, now lay in the water, a 
line of asphalt running up to the remaining bridge like a highway to 
heaven. Supported by a few taunt cables and the concrete itself. 

The two men heaved their weary bodies partially onto the decayed 
roadway, thoroughly winded. 

"I didn't think," panted Mulder, "that we'd make it." 

"Then next time," replied Invictus, letting his forehead fall wearily 
to his forearms, "don't think." 

They rested for a few minutes, catching their breathes, and watching 
the men in the HBI's cast back and forth in the water for them, 
searching for the escaped prisoner's in the early morning light. The 
sun was coming up behind Mulder and Invictus in the east, over Lake 
Huron. Mulder hoped the glare from the sun helped shield them 
somewhat. Until they made it up to the surface of the bridge, they'd 
be sitting ducks. 

"Come on," said Mulder, slowly pulling his way up onto the highway, 
"we've gotta get up here. We're going to have to climb up to the top." 

"You mean you don't want to swim?" Invictus smiled wearily at him as 
he worked his way onto the surface. The structure creaked a little, 
but held their weight. 

Invictus laid himself flat against the roadway, the water lapping at 
his sides. He looked up toward the top, gauging the distance and the 
terrain. 

"That's gotta be 200 feet," he said, "at an almost 90 degree angle. 
Prepare to wear your fingertips bloody young man, because this," he 
looked pointedly at Mulder, "is going to be a bitch." 

He started to pull himself up the incline, finding the cracks and 
chunks that were missing in the asphalt in plenty, and scaling the 
wall like a pro. 

Mulder followed suit, glancing up at Invictus with a slightly annoyed 
glare. 

"Are you," he grunted out, "good at *everything* you do?" 

"Well," said Invictus, pausing to consider the question, "yes. But if 
it makes you feel any better, I can't fish worth shit and dogs hate 
me." 

XxXxXxXxXxX 

Twenty-five minutes and  150 feet later, Invictus paused above a 
much-fatigued Mulder, and swore softly. 

"What is it?" Mulder asked quietly. 

"I think," Invictus panted, "I think they see us." 

"Shit." 

"They're coming this way. Fuck. Okay , flatten yourself out, and see 
if you can shimmy over to the side here, get around to the edge, near 
me, maybe they won't see us." 

Mulder nodded, saving his energy, and started to slowly make his way 
to the edge of the roadway, flattening himself to the asphalt, 
praying to remain undetected. 

"Alright," Invictus whispered above him, "they're right underneath us. 
Don't. Move." 

Mulder waited about two minutes, until he finally hazarded a look for 
himself. The HBI was slowly motoring itself away from them, south, 
toward the other tower of the bridge, the one sticking up out of the 
water.  Invictus finally spoke up. 

"They must have thought that we thought this was too risky, and went 
to the other tower. They didn't spend much effort looking. If they 
would have, they would have seen us." 

Mulder again nodded, and heaved a sigh of relief. Just as he did, the 
crack in the asphalt he was standing on widened, sending chunks of 
concrete down to splash in the water far below them. 

"Fuck!" said Mulder, harshly, as he lost his footing and flailed 
blindly with his right hand, barely holding on with his left. His 
hand hit a cable that was hanging down, and he clamped onto it like a 
vice, swinging onto it just as grip with his left hand slipped. The 
cable bit into his flesh, ripping chunks of skin from his palm as he 
slid down the cable. His slide began to gain momentum until his feet 
found the metal cord, slowing him to a stop. He gripped it powerfully 
with his left hand, bringing in his injured right to his chest. 

"Mulder!" Invictus nearly shouted, he strained to keep his voice down 
a second time and said, "Shit! Shit, shit, shit! Mulder! Mulder are 
you okay?!" 

Mulder remained quiet. 

"Mulder?" Invictus whispered, panic beginning to taint the edge of his 
voice, "are you okay, man?" 

He waited several heartbeats before Mulder quietly croaked, "No. I'm 
not. I'm… I'm not going to make it." 

"Bullshit, Invictus said more confidently. "You're not quitting now. 
Not on my watch  you're not. You're going to make it. We both are." 

Just as he finished talking, the gentle breeze that had started when 
the sun had risen just above the waterline picked up a little, 
gusting slightly through the straits. The cable Mulder was hanging 
from started to swing a little, and the bridge itself groaned.