what_wings_dare | 🅧 Please explain to me the scientific nature of 'the whammy'

"Assuming Dr. Nemman isn't responsible? Whoever is has enough power to pay him off." She looks out the window, considering it. There are plenty of far-out possibilities, even, without going off the planet. "And maybe friends who can exert pressure on the Bureau to have the previous investigation closed. I wouldn't call it likely, but it seems more plausible than Martians."

He'd been hoping she wanted to keep discussing the radio, not the case - the mundane solutions to the latter are a lot more visible than the former. But he'll take any conversation, at the moment. It's strangely gratifying, to get to try his theories out on someone, even when the result is doubt.

"How do we incorporate the deaths outside the state?" he asks, curious to see her explanation. "I'm not convinced Nemman's trips out of town line up."

"It's hard to say," she agrees. "But he doesn't have to be personally responsible to be involved. It could be related, or coincidental-- if we knew more about the substance I might be able to venture a better guess."

Organ-stealing rings, maybe? That sounds like an urban legend, but still more likely than aliens.

"Could be as simple as a novel street drug overdose, though I admit it's unlikely."

"That depends on how many street drugs you can get out here." There's probably nothing better to do in a one-horse town - plenty of kids smoked grass back on the Vineyard - but anything exotic seems more likely to pop up in cities first. They're looking at rural deaths in fairly rural states. "Of course, in that case, we'd probably have to hand it over to the DEA."

"We would. But it would still be an explanation." And isn't that what matters? Figuring it out. Finding justice. He shouldn't be disappointed, right?

"I don't know how that would tie in to the radio interference, though." She offers a tight smile, not that he's looking. "I suppose that's why we're here."

"I suppose it is." They're pulling into the local cemetery, which makes arguing the issue further a moot point - for now. Mulder has no doubt that'll change as they gather more evidence. Right here, right now, he's hoping to find something significant.

They park near the grave in question, and he turns in his seat to look at her. No apparent squeamishness yet. "We're on."

The truth is she's a bit doubtful that they'll find anything-- not because she disbelieves the connection, but considering the process of decomposition even embalmed bodies undergo, and the potential volatility of an unknown organic compound... If Agent Mulder has thought this through, she doesn't have to tell him, and if he hasn't, he'll have the not-so-pleasant surprise once they get the victim to the morgue.

"Which body is it?"

She opens her folder again for a quick refresher.

"Ray Soames." He's already getting out of the car. "C'mon, I'll introduce you."

Terrible jokes for what's kind of an exciting afternoon. There's something to be said for exhuming a body - all the potential discoveries that await them. And, it turns out, all the fury of the local ME getting territorial. They have it out while his daughter tries to get him to leave, and eventually the daughter wins.

Then it's just Mulder and Scully and a cemetery full of uncracked coffins. Mulder leads them up the hill toward the gravesite. "What'd you think of the cause of death on Soames?"

It's far more eventful than she was expecting, and they haven't even really started.

"I'll admit, it seemed suspicious when I was reviewing the file," she admits. "After that..."

Whatever else may or may not be true-- she doesn't trust Nemman as far as she could throw him. She's more curious than ever about what they'll find-- whether there's enough evidence to figure out what he's hiding.

"Given the time, I'm not sure how much we'll be able to tell," she admits. "But this is the best we can do..."

"We'll find something," he says, and if confidence sounds a little like faith, that's your lying ears hearing what isn't there.

He watches with a mix of approval and fascination as the crane pulls the casket from the earth. Easy, easy - and then there's a startling crash as the harness snaps. The casket goes skidding down the hill, and Mulder's running down after it, trusting that Scully's going to follow.

Dana had imagined-- as most people with Bureau desk jobs do, no doubt-- that field work must be somewhat more exciting. But this is the kind of thing that only happens in movies, isn't it? An exhumation now and then, sure-- not business as usual, but it's routine enough. An exhumation of a possible serial killer coverup victim going flying down the hill is... it would be comical, if this weren't deadly serious.

She does freeze for a moment as the casket rolls, but takes off after Mulder. Not as fast-- he has longer legs and no high heels-- but she's no slouch. And besides, eventually the casket comes to rest with a sickening crack as it hits a tombstone.

They try to stop him from opening the casket, but there's no way in hell he's going to do that. Mulder cracks it and catches sight of a spindly body within. Not in the shape you'd expect from an embalmed corpse - and even if it were, it wouldn't be human, anyway. That's not a twenty-year-old boy, no matter how you slice it.

He looks up, catching Scully's eyes, and for a moment, he's almost gleeful. Look what we found - and it really is a 'we.' He'd half-expected her to stay uphill, looking down disdainfully. Instead, she kept up with him.

And then he's all business, barking orders. "Seal this up! I want this casket moved immediately. No one looks at it, no one touches it."

Possibly if she were less shocked, she might try to talk him out of it-- this is the sort of thing that should happen in sterile surroundings, and without the possibility of onlookers. But she's too curious, and he's too determined, and--

There's no way that thing is human.

Her returning glance is a little closer to panic because what the hell is that.

"I think we've found something," she murmurs grimly. She's not sure what, though.

"I think this is what Howard Carter felt like," he mutters back, eyes shining. Mulder takes her elbow, leading her back a few steps, and they watch as the casket is closed. Once it's on a truck, about to head to the coroner's office, he adds, "Let's follow that coffin, Scully."

Back to the rental it is.

Under the circumstances, she almost wants to go in the truck-- the glimpse they had at the corpse was strange enough that she's reluctant to let it out of her sight, like it's going to vanish. Or it's some kind of prank.

It's a while before she speaks.

"That can't have been a human body, Mulder."

"Nope." He feels like an ambulance chaser, tailgating the truck on its way back to the morgue - except ambulance chasers are usually speeding, and he's stuck a couple miles below the speed limit. All the energy vibrating through him has to go somewhere, and it ends up in his face and mouth, eyes alight as he glances over at Scully. "Even you see it."

Her new partner is, objectively, way too excited about this. Part of her wants to disapprove but the truth is she understands it all too well-- it's impossible not to be on the edge of her seat, faced with a mystery like this.

(Maybe there's something wrong with the both of them, she reminds herself. They both fell into dangerous mysteries far too early.)

"Then where is Ray Soames?"

"We'll find out." At a moment like this, anything's possible. They're going to crack this wide open. "Right after you get us a little more information about the imposter."

Normally, they could divide up the work. Mulder should be offering to visit local funeral homes and talk to Soames' family and friends. But there's no way in hell he's abandoning this casket until he can pick Scully's brain about what they just found. This is so much bigger than a matter of mistaken identities. It's bigger even than unexplained deaths in the Oregon countryside.

Fortunately, it's a short drive, and then he sends Scully in while he fishes a flashbulb camera out of his luggage. He comes into the autopsy room a few minutes later, ready to get close-ups.

It feels a little less surreal once they're at the morgue. The body is like nothing she's ever dealt with but the process is almost comforting in its familiarity; the body's on an autopsy table, the casket left... wherever they put it after taking it off the truck, and all she has to do is scrub in, slip her mask on, and prep her tools. It's not the fanciest facility she's seen, but it seems like they've got the basics covered.

No excuse, she thinks, for Nemman to have missed the mark so badly. He still seems the likeliest suspect.

She's just noted the weight and height of the body when Mulder comes in.

"You're sure you want to be here for this?"

It's almost rhetorical. In his place, she wouldn't miss it for the world-- not when this is so unexpected-- but this is likely to be a particularly unpleasant version of a process most people don't have the stomach for.

"Positive." Sure, the smell is nothing to write home about, but the creature stretched out on the table makes up for it. If it's disgusting, who cares? Mulder doesn't hesitate as he comes closer, focusing the camera in on the face, then parts of the body. "We're making history here, Scully. Think about what this could mean."

He has. In detail. Only his focus on taking photos is keeping him from expounding at length.

Well, it's his choice to make. She shrugs, takes a deep breath, and goes back to where she was.

"Ah... Corpse is extremely desiccated, and in an advanced state of decay. On external exam, distinguishing features include an oblate cranium and large ocular cavities-- Can you point that away from me, please?"

She turns away from the flash to grab a scalpel.

"Although interred in Ray Soames' grave, initial indications are that this subject is not human."

No glamour shots for Scully. Noted. He lets the camera hang, confident in the photos he's already gotten. If the body weren't evidence - and decomposing - he'd be inclined to touch it, just to prove it's real. "If it's not human, what is it?"

You know what it is, he doesn't say. We both do.

She shrugs a shoulder slightly.

"Definitely mammalian-- maybe a chimpanzee, or an orangutan."

Obviously not an alien.

"Commonly found in Oregon graveyards," he says, snorting. "We're going to need a better explanation for Soames' family. X-rays, tissue samples, blood type, toxicology, a full genetic workup - how fast do you think we can get them?"

"Genetic--" She looks up at him, a little incredulous.

"I'd be more interested in figuring out where Ray Soames' body actually is-- doesn't it seem obvious that this was buried so that someone could dispose of the evidence another way?" And by someone she means, probably, the medical examiner.

[ n a m e ; ]	Dana Katherine Scully
[ c a n o n ; ]	The X-Files
[ g a m e ; ]	spicy times in noctiumrp

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