Extra-Sensory Perception

Chapter Six:


Police Headquarters
Avalon, N.J.

	Agent Scully walked up to the nearest law-enforcement officer, sitting 
at a desk, while Mulder walked next to and slightly behind her.
	"Sir, could you please tell us where Sarah Carter is being held?" She 
asked, somewhat impatiently. 
	He looked up from his desk, and spoke through a mouthful of doughnut. 
"She's down the hallway, third cell on the right."
	Scully nodded to him. "Thank you."
	Mulder was walking ahead of her now, but then stopped short in front of 
a cell. 
	In front of them, behind bars, a girl in a neon orange uniform reclined 
on the thin prison mattress. She was propped by by her elbows, her chin 
resting on her hands. She lay on her stomach, her lower legs 
absent-mindedly swinging back and forth in unison. A book lay on the 
pillow in front of her, and she gazed intently at it. 
	Mulder spoke first. "Sarah Carter?"
	The girl sat up, startled. "Yeah?" she asked, pushing a hand through 
her unruly blonde hair.
	"My name is Fox Mulder," he nodded in Scully's direction, "and this is 
my partner, Dana Scully. We'd like to ask you a few questions."	
	"What sort of questions, may I ask? I've already told them everything I 
know."
	"Well," Scully said, opening the cell door with the key, "maybe there 
are some things that were missed. It's our job to figure that out."
	Sarah rolled her eyes. "Look, when I tried to tell the truth, they 
wanted to put me in the loonie bin. It's brought me no justice. All I 
want to do is find that little girl, and get the hell out of here."
	Mulder nodded in understanding, then stood across from Sarah. "I'm 
sorry that you have to stay here," he said, looking around at her grey, 
dark surroundings. "I know how you feel."
	Sarah's hands clenched on her knees. "No offense, Mr. Mulder, but how 
could how possibly know how I feel?" She looked up at him, anger shining 
in her green eyes. "How would you feel, to find a litle girl, lost and 
unconsious, then when you try to go for help, you can't? Something takes 
that little girl away from you, and you can't do a damn thing about it! 
And then you're blamed by your peers and your own mother for that little 
girl's disappearance, and maybe even her death... and you're treated  
with scorn, like you're some sort of-- some sort of monster! Then locked 
into a cage so that you can't get out and do it again...." she was 
whispering now, her voice quavering with emotion, then looked up at 
Mulder. "How could you possibly know how I feel?" But when she looked up 
into his eyes, she saw nothing but compassion and understanding, and 
perhaps even a shiny layer of tears. She looked down at her clutched 
hands.
	"We're so sorry that you have to go through this, Sarah," Scully said, 
putting an arm lightly on her shoulder. "We don't like this any more 
than you do."
	Sarah looked over at Scully, then up at Mulder. "I know you don't." Her 
voice was still barely above a whisper, but she gave him a little-half 
smile, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.
	"Okay if I sit down?" he asked.
	Sarah scooted over on the small mattress, lifting her book onto her 
lap.
	"What are you reading?" Scully asked.
	Sarah held up the book. " 'Jose Chung's FROM OUTER SPACE.'"
	Mulder exchanced a look of recognition with Scully.
	"Good book?" he asked.
	"It's okay," she said, recovering fro her outburst. "It's about these 
two FBI agents, Muldrake and Linsky, who work on finding UFOs. Linsky's 
a square, and Muldrake is, I quote, 'a ticking time-bomb of insanity.' I 
wonder who those guys really are."
	Mulder nodded. "I know Muldrake. The guys call him 'Spooky.' Seems like 
an okay guy to me, though."
	"Oh, I don't know," said Scully. "Rumor has it he was just let out of a 
mental institution, claiming that the A.D. was in danger of being eaten 
by a giant, blood-sucking cricket."
	Mulder gave Scully an almost inperceptible glare, but Sarah caught it.
	"Hey...are you guys the real FBI agents?" she asked excitedly.
	Scully looked over at Mulder, then said: "Yes. Yes, Sarah, we are. But 
don't tell the world, please. We've already got ourselves enough of a 
reputation."
	"Your secret's safe with me," Sarah said. "So, you guys found any EBE's 
yet?"
	"No," "Yes," the two agents said, simultaniously.
	Sarah raised her eyebrows. 
	"Sarah, about your story," Mulder said in an attept to change the 
subject. "You had said that you'd handed the girl over to two dolphins. 
What did these dolphins look like?"
	Sarah shrugged. "They were bottle-nosed. They had the usual great, 
smiling mouths, grey skin, pink belly. Why?"
	"Your aunt mentioned that you have an affinity for dolphins, Sarah," 
Scully said, sitting down on the other side of her. 
	"Yeah. I got really fascinated with them last year, after I read about 
ESP, and about some Dolphin-Man Communication machine."
	Mulder almost gaped, but tried to keep his face straight. "A machine?" 
he asked.
	"Yeah, way back in the 60's. There was this guy named Batteau, who 
translated the dolphin's garblings to real words, on a screen. But on 
the day that the experimentation was to begin, he drowned. Military 
covered it up pretty quick. I myself find it hard to believe that 
Batteau just drowned, out of the blue. Way too coincidental. The man was 
a trained professional. The military covered it up because they didn't 
want the people to know. Why, though, I don't know."	
	Mulder took a moment to soak all this in. "You say this man's name was 
Batteau?"
	"Yeah, that's it. Why?"
	Mulder took a long, hard look at Sarah. "You've done a lot of research, 
Sarah. Where did you find all of this out?"	
	Sarah looked at her hands. "Actually, it was by accident. I was surfing 
the net, looking up anything I could for this project I had to do about 
Animal-Man communication, and stumbled across it. It was an essay by 
some guy, but I forget his name. I read the whole thing, and had it 
printed, but then I lost it. Never found that page again, but something 
made me look it up. I spent a few hours in front of the microfiche, 
getting nausiated, but found nothing. It's completely off-record, 
whatever it is that happened."
	Mulder took out his little notebook, scribbled something down on paper, 
then passed it to Scully. After a moment's hesitation, she looked up and 
nodded at Mulder, who took his notebook back.
	"Sarah," Mulder said,  "How about taking a trip to Washington?"

					*	*	*

Exact Location Unknown
Washington, DC
8:03 p.m.

	Mulder knocked on the small, inconspicuous door in the abandoned alley. 
Scully stood behind him, next to Sarah Carter.
	"The Magic Bullet?" Sarah asked, pointing at the door.	
	"The name of the company," Mulder said. "You'll see."
	Scully nudged Sarah, then whispered, so that Mulder couldn't hear: 
"These are the most paranoid men on the face of the earth. Watch out for 
the little guy."
	They heard approaching footsteps, and then a voice. "Yeah, hello?"
	"Frohike, it's me. Scully"(and Mulder accentuated the name) "and I need 
some help on a case."
	"Who's the chick with you?"	
	"A friend," Scully said, making sure to drawl out her words in a sexy 
voice.
	More footsteps were heard, along with low, illegible voices. Then the 
sound of what must have been a zillion locks being opened. The door 
opened, and Frohike's face popped out.
	"What's the password?" he asked.
	"What?!" Mulder exclaimed.
	"The password. I'm not asking you, I'm asking the chick." Frohike 
leered at Sarah.
	Sarah responded calmly. "I don't know it, and I don't really care. I 
just need help to clear my name, and if means that I have to deal with 
your idiotic attempts to pick me up, then fine. But please quit leering 
at me. I know Kung Fu."
	"My Kung Fu's the best," said Frohike. Then he looked at Mulder. "She's 
hot."
	"Down, boy."
	Langly's head popped out the door on top of Frohike's. "Hmm. 
Dorothy,"he looked at Sarah, "TinWoman," he looked at Scully, "and 
Toto," he finished, grinning at Mulder. "Well, come in, come in! That's 
a horse of a different color!" he said, looking pointedly at Sarah, then 
opened the door for them to enter.
	"I'm *not* going in there, agent Scully. That man scares me," she said, 
looking at Langly. "He looks like someone out of a Mike Myers movie."
	"Yeah, baby," Frohike said, drawling on the 'yeah.' They entered The 
Lone Gunmen's apartment, hearing Frohike dead-bolting the door a 
thousand times over behind them.
	Byers was sitting at the computer, and looked up when Mulder and 
company came in. "Mulder? Scully?" He looked at Sarah. "Who's your 
friend?"
	"This is Sarah Carter," Scully said, and made introductions. When they 
were through, Mulder spoke up. 
	"Have you guys ever heard of the name Batteau, a marine biologist?"
	"Sure," Byers said. "He's the guy who made the dolphin communication 
machine way back in the 60's, then coincidentally died on it's premiere 
experiment. Military covering it's tracks, as usual. The machine was 
gone until the late 80's, when Japanese scientists started re-working 
the project. Why do you ask?"
	"Well, it seems out chain-smoking friend has some business with the 
Japanese *and* the DOD in conjunction to this machine."
	"Langly, go check it out." Langly stepped over to the computer, obeying 
Byers.
	"What's he doing?" Sarah asked.
	"He's hacking into the top-secret Department of Defense Database."
	"Don't pay any attention to Frohike," Langly said. "*My* Kung-Fu's the 
best."
	"Yeah, whatever," Frohike said. 
	"What's with the vest?" Sarah asked Frohike.
	"Oh, this?" he looked down at his white woolen vest over the red 
flannel shirt. "Got it at a thrift shop. You like it?" he asked her 
hopefully.
	Scully spoke up. "It suits your personality perfectly."
	"You flatter me, Agent Scully," Frohike said, then raised his eyebrows 
up and down. 
	Sarah rolled her eyes.
	"Hey Mulder," Langly said. "Come take a look at this."
	The group crowded behind Langly, who was obviously basking in the 
attention.
	"Looks like the DOD is hiding yet another project form the good 
american people. They're experimenting with dolphins, all right. 
Evidently they're injecting some sort of virus into the dolphins, which 
boosts their agility, but also causes an almost rabid-like response to 
other animals, including humans. At least, creatures that it doesn't 
know. I guess that their natural fear of man is enhanced by 40, 50%, but 
they learn to adapt to the creatures who take care of them."
	Langly continued scrolling down the screen, his decoding program 
working along as he went. "Ooh, check this out. Seems they've re-built 
the machine that Byers was talking about. They're communicating with 
them, in order to give them missions, it seems." Then he stopped 
scrolling. "Oh, christ," he said. "The latest mission is to order the 
dolphins to New Zealand, carrying some sort of virus with them." 
	"Oh, my God," Sarah murmered.
	He resumed scrolling. "It shouldn't effect the dolphins, but it does 
effect humans. I can't be sure what it does, but it's got something to 
do with something called Purity Control.. And a vaccine with an unknown 
origin." 	
	Scully looked at Mulder, who said, softly, "Oh, shit."