Kenneth
Bloomington, Illinois
Christmas Eve
6:42 p.m.
Kenneth sips his coffee, staring silently for the
thousandth time at the digital display at the
base of the Mr. Coffee on the kitchen counter.
Sean and "Brenda" have left quietly for school,
stealing anxious glances at him as they slip out
the door.
"OK," Kris sings, grabbing her purse from the
table and shrugging into her jacket. She
experiments with a kiss; Ken submits, wanting to
please her, wanting to be pleased by the physical
intimacy. "Try to have a good day, Sweetie."
"Mm, yeah," Ken murmurs with a false and fleeting
smile. Kris regards him with worry and something
else, and nods. The door closes, and his
shoulders relax as he hears her Camry ease out of
the driveway.
Alone in the house, he feels momentarily normal. Ken risks a glance out the backyard window. His heart quickens as a small, rust-colored creature scampers across the grass and up a red maple that one day had appeared on the lawn.
It takes a moment for Ken to stop shaking and finish his coffee.
**
Ken hopes to pass quickly by the cubicle which
happens to open onto the hallway, hopes "Brad"
has been called into a staff meeting, hopes Brad
has contracted this year's superflu or has been
caught shtupping his secretary and has been
unceremoniously added to the unemployment rolls.
"Kenneth," "Brad" calls out, wheeling around from
his PC. Ken freezes, fixes a smile on his face.
"See the Bulls last night?"
"Mm," Ken shakes his head and moves on,
registering the look of -- what, hurt or
contempt? -- on his coworker's face. Ken's hand
instinctively burrows into his overcoat pocket,
caressing the cool, comforting steel...
From the field report of Special Agent Scully
Bloomington, Illinois
Christmas Eve
11:22 p.m.
The Scotch pine, strung with bold primary colors and blazing whites, was perched on the roof of the seven-story concrete and glass Farmstead Insurance complex, on the building's public face -- a misdemeanor breach of corporate protocol, like ripped jeans on Casual Friday or a graphically incorrect but good-natured e-mail joke tacked to the coffee cubicle.
For Mulder and I, the tree was a beacon, guiding the Bloomington P.D. Crowne Victoria down Veteran's Parkway and toward its grim destination. Even a good four blocks away, I could see Farmstead Insurance' northern edifice blush rhythmically with reds and blues, a sort of perverted Christmas display signaling discord on Earth and the ever-prevalent ill will of men.
"Shit detail for Christmas Eve, huh?" the BPD captain empathized, his eyes locked on the parkway as he wove tightly between the holiday diners and last-second gift-grabbers. "Really appreciate you letting us drag you all the way to Hell and gone."
The captain's evocation of damnation on this
sacred night, in the midst of this crisis -
particularly given its lethal potential -- caused
me to shudder. I tried to shake it off as
Scully's perpetual preternatural itch. The
condition always emerged full-blown during the
holidays. All I'd faced, all I'd lost in every
familial, physical, and spiritual sense, came
home to roost each year, like a dark Yuletide
angel haunting my door. Mulder's agnostic, off-
track faith in forces unseen saw him through the
season, but my nagging doubts about the existence
of anything but molecules and silence beyond this
earthly veil collided constantly with my Good
Catholic Girl angst, forcing an uneasy compromise
of blind, ritualistic faith.
The captain's broad shoulders convulsed. "This's
just a total blast from the blue, Agent. Ken
Ralston's kind of mid-exec level at Farmstead -
big house with a three-car garage on the east
side of town, Peoria debutante wife, honor roll
kids, runs the company United Aid campaign every
year, that kinda thing. We're in the local Lions
together, just pretty much know him to see him,
though."
"Any idea what might've caused this kind of uncharacteristic behavior?" I asked. "Any personal or professional setback, tragedy in the family?"
The cop shrugged. "Ralston had a major accident
in September - nearly drowned saving his kid out
at Lake Bloomington. He was under for, Jesus,
maybe 15 minutes before they got to him, and they
had to bring him back at St. Joseph's.
Hypothermia, they were afraid he might have
suffered brain damage, but he seemed to pull
through just fine. At the time, I suppose."
Though the unit's heater was on full-blast, a
chill was spreading from deep within me. The
captain's unconsciously religious references
sapped the warmth from me, fed my nearly
constant, seldom-spoken fear that Death, once,
Hell, twice or thrice cheated, was circling back
to claim my soul or that of a suitable
substitute.
"...but apparently, there must've been some kinda brain damage or just, what do they call it with the Viet vets? Post-traumatic syndrome? Cause his work performance started going in the toilet, the wife said he started acting distant. Shit, my old lady says the same thing every NBA tournament. Sorry, Agent Scully - no gender stereotypes intended."
I woke from my contemplations. "As they say,
stereotypes usually have a basis in truth. For
example, the stereotype of the successful
suburban breadwinner, the ideal family man, can
become a mask for hidden fears and insecurities.
A near-death experience can drastically alter a
person's perceptions of their daily reality,
redefine their essential ethical and emotional
precepts."
"Whoa," the captain chuckled amiably. "Dumb cop,
remember?"
"She's saying it can fuck you up something awful," Mulder provided.
"Now you're talking my language. OK, folks; here we are."
**
Mulder accepted the wire and the microcam, but
refused both the ankle holster and the vest.
"Might as well wear a red cape and jab him with
sharp sticks, don't you think?" he posed, making
permanent pals with the Peoria PD Tactical Unit
commander BPD had called in to deal with this
rare instance of white-collar mayhem.
"Guy asked specifically for you, huh?" the commander asked drily, as if the very idea was both absurd and offensive. "What makes you such a big deal?"
Mulder smiled broadly - he was used to such jibes from his "brothers" in law enforcement. "Must be those commercials I'm running during Judging Amy, I guess. Hey, I think we've got enough tape on the mike here, Sergeant, unless you want to take me to dinner and a Julia Roberts movie."
I bit on my inner cheek. Making friends and
influencing people in the face of danger - that
in itself was ample evidence of Mulder's faith in
something larger than human foible and the
acceptance of macho cohorts.
"I don't like the camera," I murmured, staring at the small device, no larger than a lapel microphone, being affixed to poke through one of Mulder's buttonholes.
"Digital, with infrared transmission, totally
wireless," the captain said, as if I'd asked to
see the new 2001 Hondas. "Got it on a pilot
basis, some big Japanese company hopes to makes
some bucks with the metro cop shops."
"I don't like it. Ralston trips to the fact Mulder's taping him, he could go ballistic."
"Evil bellybutton eye steal man's soul," Mulder chanted ominously. He caught the look in my eye, and grinned reassuringly. "Look, Scully; if Ralston is that attentive, he might be a little more interested in why I have about five pounds of duct tape wrapped around my pale torso. I think the camera's a moot point. Besides, if you can track Ralston's reactions and assess the risks up there, maybe there's less chance Lance here" - he nodded at the tactical commander - "will blast a few holes in either Ralston or me."
"Ordinance costs too much to waste on a fed," the commander stated. "And the name's not Lance. It's Captain Slaughter."
Mulder's brows rose. "Charlie Babbitt made a joke," he muttered in a perfect Dustin Hoffman.
The tactical commander sighed. "Button up and haul ass, Rain Man."
**
The picture was sharp, if somewhat grainy, and the camera angle, from navel level, was disorienting. The view of the elevator button panel was abruptly interrupted as Mulder panned to the commander, who just looked blankly ahead.
"Lance is wearing the latest in tactical law
enforcement gear, from Kevlar Klein," my partner
observed with a faintly British accent. "From the
fashionably rakish Sig nine millimeter to the
reinforced Green Beret boots and accessorized
Mace canister, Lance is ready for a night of
hostage negotiation or the hotdog line at a
Detroit hockey game. This ensemble says no to
wadcutter bullets with a capital 'N.'"
"Think Ralston's going to need more protection than you," the commander responded.
**
Kenneth Ralston had struck at about 4:45, as the
end-of-the-day crowd was thinning out but his own
departmental team continued to toil on a tightly-
deadlined project. He had two semi-automatic
pistols and far more backup ammunition than
appeared warranted to subdue a 56-year-old
supervisor, two fellow mouse-pushers, and an
administrative assistant barely out of community
college. Within an hour, after Ralston had made
his unusual and very specific singular demand, it
was obvious his judgment regarding weaponry had
been sound.
The tactical commander hung back at the elevator, covering Mulder's back as he approached the departmental suite where Ralston had set up shop. As I leaned forward at my makeshift monitoring station in a board conference room, I heard the hollow ringing of Mulder rapping on the glass suite door.
A disheveled face appeared as the door swung
partially open. Ralston was fairly young, early
30s, slightly receding hairline fringed with an
obviously expensive cut. The digital microcam
captured only grays, but I could make out a dark
Polo pony against Ralston's light sports shirt.
What had pushed this man from his likely world of
sports and investments and cookouts into a dark
universe of reprisal and burgeoning violence? As
a physician, I had only my experience to help me
hazard any psychological theory, but I could see
even though the digital grain the stress that
tugged at Ralston's eyes and mouth and placed
Mulder in a volatile, perhaps deadly, situation.
"Two extra larges, half sausage, half Canadian bacon, and an order of wings?" I heard Mulder ask. The Bloomington P.D. captain rustled behind me.
The man blinked. "You have to be Mulder, right?
Thanks for coming, man; get in here, please. I
don't trust Dudley Doright at the elevator."
"Ah, he's OK, just watched a little too much NYPD Blue, maybe," my partner said as he slipped into the office suite. Mulder trained his buttonhole cam immediately on the four hostages on the floor near the receptionist's desk. Their wrists were bound before them, and their fear transcended the depersonalization of computer imagery. I heard Ralston lock the suite door with a sharp snick.
"Guess you never heard of 1-800-COLLECT?" Mulder inquired as Ralston gestured him to a chair.
Ralston slumped into a chair facing Mulder, pistol gripped tightly in his right hand. "Man, I'm sorry, I really am. I know this is a shitty way to do this, but I've got no options anymore."
"Everybody in good shape, I trust?"
Ralston glanced back at the quartet on the floor.
"Oh, sure, yeah. I don't want to hurt any of
these people, I really don't."
I frowned as I stared at the computer monitor. It
had been a curiously phrased remark. "These
people," who according to Ralston's personnel
file, had worked with him over the past five
years. A coworker had told the captain Ralston
and his colleagues had shared a close
camaraderie, at least until recently.
I thought of a case a few years back, a similar
desk jockey hostage-taker, convinced his
supervisor was some form of monster who was
draining the life from his fellow wage-earners. A
rather transparent delusion, giving literal
meaning to our essential feelings about
authority. Except Mulder had shared the man's
suspicions, nearly losing his badge and life in
the process, and Skinner generously wrote the
case off as a folie a deux - a delusion shared by
two.
What had flavored Ralston's delusion?
"Hey," Mulder greeted the hostages. "I'm Special Agent Fox Mulder, and we're going to see if we can't resolve this as quickly as possible, OK? So what are your names?" I applauded the gesture: Mulder not only was reassuring the frightened knot of captives, he was reminding Ralston of their humanity. I wondered again at Mulder's ability to keep his own humanity in the face of the cosmic truths and colossal doubts he tilted daily at.
Ralston calmly allowed the hostages to respond to
Mulder's roll, tensing visibly as a small but
muscular and well-groomed man - one of the two
fellow drones - stammered out his name, Brad
Scheffler. Mulder settled back into his chair, as
if preparing for a 60 Minutes interview.
"So, they tell me you're not quite yourself these days," he said casually.
"Shit," the captain murmured behind me. He and I both knew it wasn't good negotiating strategy to immediately question the hostage-taker's mental state or sanity.
"Exactly," Ralston responded happily, surprising us all.
**
There's a famous psychological case study - a
young boy so emotionally detached from those
around him, so alienated from the joys and
feelings of others, that he had come to believe
he was a robot. Dissociation was a not uncommon
response to the pain and emptiness of feeling
untethered from the mass of humanity. My - a
psychotherapist had explained it to me once: When
we cannot adapt or fit in, we tend to erase
ourselves through passive surrender, others
though dismissal or negligence, or, in too many
of the cases Mulder and I have investigated,
both, bottling our pain inside until it explodes
in resentment and agony and irreparable damage.
Ken Ralston's story was a magnum opus of dissociation.
"I realized something was seriously fucked up a few days after the accident, after they put me in a private room at St. Joe's," he told Mulder."I'm not like a news junkie or anything, but the soap operas and the trash talk shows were driving me out of my tree, so I started watching CNN. So anyway, they're doing some newsbriefs, talking about President Bush's trip to China or something, and they show the president getting off the plane. And it's not him."
"What?" the captain muttered rhetorically.
"It's not him?" Mulder probed.
"It's not Jeb Bush."
"Jeb Bush is the president?" Mulder asked it without a trace of irony or ridicule.
"Except he's not anymore," Ralston said, reliving what must have been the world-shaking impact of his "discovery." "And that wasn't all. Like I said, I'm not a current events guy, but there were all kinds of screwy things going on. Anwar Sadat wasn't the president of Egypt any more, and there was no mention of the Bosnian peace accord. It was all that was on CNN for weeks before it happened.
"I tried to write it off to some colossal case of post-traumatic disorientation, maybe even some brain damage - I was underwater for a godawful long time. When I got home, things seemed better, at first. Yeah, the furniture seemed a little different in places, the kids were a little rowdier than I had remembered. But, hell, what happened to us was kinda rattling, you know. But then, a few weeks later, Kris - my wife - and I got in bed, and she started, well, you know. She wanted to make love."
"And you couldn't," Fox said sympathetically. Impotence wouldn't have been an unusual response in the aftermath of Ralston's accident.
As if he had read my mind, Ralston sighed. "Kris was very understanding about it, said it would take a while after what had happened to get back to, well, to normal. But the thing is... Fuck."
"Hey, take your time."
"The thing is, there isn't any normal," Ralston said, through his teeth, "I haven't been able to get it up for more than a year. You could ask my doctor, but he says nothing was wrong before the accident. So I'm wondering what the fuck's the matter with everybody, maybe with me. Sean, my eight-year-old, suddenly is great at math and sucks at reading, the opposite of what it was before. And Brynda, my girl, is now Brenda, and the goddamned birth certificate in our fire safe says so, even though I picked the fucking name myself."
I felt a growing sense of apprehension. Ralston's carefully civilized conversation was deteriorating into erratic cursing. Contain the chaos, I willed Mulder.
"And when you came back to the office here," my partner concluded, "These people were waiting, including him."
I tried to determine who "him" was, but one of the hostages beat me to the punch.
"Kenny, man, it's me," Brad Scheffler wailed. "We went to fucking high school together!"
My chair squeaked back as I gripped its arms and
the captain leapt to his feet. Ralston had
knocked his chair over and trained his automatic
on Scheffler. The supervisor squeezed his eyes
shut as the administrative assistant whimpered.
"Brad," Mulder asked, politely. "Give us a few minutes here. I want to hear Ken's version right now, OK?"
The courteous banality of Mulder's response seemed to defuse the situation, but the tactical commander appeared in my peripheral vision. "He's losing it, you can hear that. I think we need to start devising come alternate responses."
I wheeled around. "I disagree. Agent Mulder's a behavioral scientist - his methods are a little...unorthodox...but he has control of the situation."
The commander planted his left cheek on the
table's edge. The monitor jiggled. "I know about
Mulder. And you. I know who you both are, and
what. It raises serious questions about whether
you should even be sitting here."
"Can we stay on task here?" I snapped. He seemed unfazed by the ice in my voice, but he rose and moved temporarily away. The commander hadn't been the first to do his homework, nor had he been the first to register his disapproval about Mulder and I's place in the Bureau.
"Does he?" the Bloomington captain asked with no discernable emotion. "Have control?"
"Yes."
He nodded and looked back to the monitor.
"So I walk in, and here's this guy I've never seen in my life sitting in the next office," Ralston continued. "I introduce myself, and he just looks at me like I'm fuckin' insane. Asks how I'm feeling, asks about Kris and the kids. I ask about Ted, where he went to. I hadn't heard anything about Ted getting fired or quitting or anything. Brad here just keeps looking at me, which I've gotten incredibly tired of getting from people, so I just shut my mouth and get back to work.
"But there are things, you know? My Windows isn't
working quite the same - the keyboard commands
are slightly different, and I damn near delete a
major report the first week back trying to print
it. The company claim procedures are a little
wacky, though I admit they seem to work better,
and the paperwork is just slightly out-of-whack.
That's the thing, man: Most of the changes are
just little things, like somebody went with ALT-F
for the Word File menu instead of the Format
menu, or the Coffee Butler is now Mr. Coffee, and
there's no such fucking thing as a Coffee Butler
machine, and everybody looks at you like you
ought to be committed for even suggesting there
is."
Mulder leaned forward, with the effect of zooming
in on Ralston's face. "So it's as if the world
you're living in now has been revised - like the
choices people have made were different, but not
drastically."
"Like a parallel universe," Ralston sighed."Somehow I came
back from the dead to a world where Bill Gates decided to make the Save key
a Delete key and Ted is off somewhere, probably
playing on the PGA tour like he always wanted
to."
"Woodrow Wilson --?"
"Story by Jack Finney about a man who finds
himself in a parallel world where Wilson's on the
dime instead of Roosevelt. Nothing like that,
huh?"
Ralston was silent for a second, and I wondered if Mulder had pressed some hidden and deadly button within the displaced corporate family man. But Ralston slumped back in his chair, his eyes haunted.
"Just one thing," he said.
**
"Um, Agent Scully," the captain coughed. "This is Kris Ralston, Mr. Ralston's wife?"
My irritation at being drawn from the monitor dissipated immediately. "Mrs. Ralston."
She was blonde and trim and as wholesomely
Midwestern as a Wisconsin extra hand-picked by
Steven Spielberg to play a farm-raised suburban
housewife. "Are you people going to get him out
of this alive?" Kris Ralston asked tremulously.
"He's not a violent man; he never was. There's no
need to hurt him, because I know he won't hurt
those people."
"Mrs. Ralston, my partner is a trained expert in psychological behavior, and I can assure you his one and only objective is to bring your husband and his coworkers out of that office, alive and well."
Kris virtually collapsed into a chair. "It was all so good before we almost lost him. Now, it's like he's..."
"A different person?"
"That's what he seems to think, isn't it? Except
he's not different; we all are."
**
"I was really thinking about seeing a shrink -
the hospital had recommended it, and Kris
supported the idea. Then, one morning, I was
having a bagel. A round bagel." Ralston chuckled
bitterly at the notion. "I look out the window,
and there it is, sitting on the fence. Like
seeing a dodo or a tyrannosaurus eating out of
your bird feeder. I don't know how I avoided
seeing them before."
"What?" Mulder asked.
"It was a squirrel. A red one. Just sitting there as if nothing was wrong."
"And that was unusual because?"
"Because they're all fucking dead, every single
red fucking squirrel in North America, or the
world, for that matter. I remember when I was a
kid, when that disease hit all of them. You'd
find them lying on the ground, even falling out
of trees. They blamed it on some new strain of
rabies or avian influenza or something. But
here's one sitting in my backyard, like he just
came out of a fucking 25-year hibernation. I
start yelling for everybody to come see. The kids
are like bug-eyed at Daddy waving his arms like a
bloody lunatic, and Kris... Kris is just...standing
there crying, man. And that's how I knew it
wasn't me, Agent Mulder. Because of the
squirrels.
"So I started doing some research on the Internet, which wasn't easy because it seemed like every word I keyed in brought up some porno site, which isn't how it is...well, you know."
"Yeah, I know, it's awful." Mulder coughed.
"I checked the Library of Congress, history sites, the White House home page, old '60s sitcom fan pages, anything that might help me understand and, I guess, 'pass' for whatever normal is in this world."
"Did Gilligan get off the island in your world?" Mulder inquired.
Ralston then laughed, a release of tension and dread that made me relax as well. Kris was biting her lip, her eyes welling.
"Yeah, matter of fact," Ralston replied, showing me a glimpse of the nine-to-fiver who'd seemingly been left at the bottom of a lake somewhere.
"They get back to the mainland, hate how much things have changed in the five years they were gone, and move back to start their own society. With a resort hotel, of course."
A thought had been formulating in my mind, one spiked with too many pre-med psych courses and, possibly, too many years basking in the brainwaves of Fox Mulder. I took a breath, and turned to Kris. "Mrs. Ralston, what happened? Right before the accident? What changed?"
**
"I think it started in 1945," Ralston said.
"That's where the differences start, where things
start to peel off."
"Peel off?"
"Things start to develop differently than I remember them. Joe McCarthy has those horrible Communist witch hunts here; he got caught with a young boy in my world before things really got going. Nixon almost beat Kennedy in my world. The Watts Riots never happened where I came from. Disco never happened in my world."
"Yow, can I go?"
"And, of course, there's the squirrels. Nothing
changed before 1945, that I could find, that is.
Then I found your theories. I was visiting a lot
of the paranormal discussion forums on the Web,
and I came across your theories about time,
parallel planes of existence. It didn't take long
to track the messages to you, through some of the
others.
"You said you thought it was possible that there
might be several, maybe infinite timestreams that
split off into different probabilities, and that
maybe cosmic calamities or events could cause
disruptions in existing streams."
Mulder grinned. "Shoulda stuck to the Britney
Spears chatroom, just knew it. Look, Mr. Ralston,
Ken, that was just my wildass speculation, a
little Einstein, a little Stephen Hawking, a
little Sliders, probably. The good Fox episodes,
not the sucky Sci-Fi Channel ones."
"What does 1945 mean to you?" Ralston probed abruptly.
Mulder was silent for a second. "The end of World War II? The A-bomb..."
"August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay drops the first
bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Some 130,000 people
killed, injured, or missing, and 177,000 made
homeless. Three days later, we drop the second
one on Nagasaki. A third of the city's wasted,
and another 66,000 people are killed or injured.
OK - so what if by splitting the atom, they did
something else, something more, um, more cosmic?"
More silence. "Well, scientists suppose a relationship between matter, energy, and time, and they've found subatomic particles with some pretty strange properties that defy physical law as we know it. You're saying that when we split the atom on that massive a scale, we might have started some other kind of subatomic chain reaction? Two timestreams 'peeled off' from each other? Only one problem I can see: The bombs dropped on Japan weren't the first atomic blasts, and, of course, Earth isn't the center of the universe. Major natural nuclear events must happen every day somewhere in the universe. By your theory, alternate timestreams would be splitting off all over the place."
"How do we know I'm not just the first guy to
cross over between timestreams?" Ralston
demanded. "Or how do we know other people
haven't? Look at all the psychos and lost souls
out there. These people on the street who
could've just dropped out of nowhere. Maybe I'm
just the first one who knows what happened to
him. What? That's funny?"
Kris and I straightened at the new note of tension in Ralston's voice. Mulder's unpredictable responses could short-circuit the violence in a room or, in the wrong circles, bring on a minor shitstorm.
"No, it isn't what you said," Mulder mused. "You ever see It's a Wonderful Life?"
Ralston leaned back, struck dumb by my partner's
non sequitur. Then he grinned. "Jesus, haven't
seen that one in years. I love it at the end
where Jimmy Stewart comes running into the house
hugging everybody, even though he thinks they're
about to haul his ass off to prison."
"Jimmy Stew--?" Kris murmured curiously. I held up a hand.
"It's a wonderful movie," Mulder agreed. "I
always thought it was one of the most underrated
sci-fi flicks of the '40s."
"Sci-fi?"
"Sure. The whole concept of alternate realities -
the chain reaction of interpersonal and cosmic
changes resulting from George Bailey's sudden
non-existence. A Christmas Carol explores some of
the same territory, in some ways in an even more
philosophical --"
"Uh, Agent, pardon me, but what the fuck does this have to do with anything?"
"Well, look around. Here we are on Christmas Eve;
you got pulled out of the water to find yourself
in this strange new world where everything's
turned out different than you remember. I've been
summoned to make sure you don't take yourself out
along with these folks."
Ralston shook his head and smirked. "What, that makes you Clarence the Angel or something?"
"Teacher says, 'Every time a witness sings,
another agent gets his wings,'" Mulder recited.
"Hey, you called me, right? Pretend you've been
touched by an angel for a second, and cut me a
little slack. You got your folks' phone number
handy?"
Ralston leaned forward, the gun still tightly in
his grip. "There's just my mom now. Why do you
need her number? I can tell you anything you want
to know. She's been through enough -- don't bug
her, man."
"From what you've been saying, she's not your mother, anyway."
"She's my mother, just in another, Jesus, life?
Even if she wasn't, I wouldn't dump this on her."
"Listen, Ken," Mulder said placidly. "I want to
help you, but more than that, I'm here to make
sure nothing happens to these people. Way the
media is, if your family hasn't called your
mother, the Action News Team has filled her in.
At the risk of being tactless, you've made this
omelette; what eggs are broken are broken. Can I
have the number, please, Ken? Trust me."
Ralston sighed and rose, backing to his desk.
"Let me check the Rolodex. For my own mom's
number. Jesus." He rifled through the cards,
glancing frequently at Mulder. My partner didn't
budge, thank God.
Finally, Ralston reluctantly handed him a relatively new card. Mulder propped it on his knee and punched out a number.
"By the way, Ken, when did your dad die?" he asked before hitting the send button.
"Here, you mean? About a year ago, hit his head
in the tub. In my timestream, he's been gone
since I was about 12."
I nearly jumped a yard when the phone rang at my elbow.
**
"Mrs. Ralston?" Mulder inquired. I remained
silent - I'd learned long ago to ride his rhythms
and just trust his odd instincts. "This is
Special Agent Fox Mulder with the Federal Bureau
of Investigation. I'm with your son right now...No,
ma'am; he's just fine, Mrs. Ralston. Nobody's
been hurt, and he doesn't want to hurt anyone. If
you could answer just a few questions for me,
maybe we can resolve this real soon. Yes, it's
very important. Thanks.
"First off, how did Ken and his dad get along?
It's crucial that you're absolutely straight with
me."
"Mulder, I was talking to Kris Ralston, the wife?
What she told me may cast some light on the
situation." I filled him in as quickly as his
unrelated question allowed.
"That's interesting. They do a lot of things together? Oh, like fishing, baseball, hunting? Ah, really. What kind? Uh huh. And when did they start doing that?"
"I'm sure you realize this isn't an X-File, Mulder. I think Ralston's a victim of a dissociative fugue, except where a person in a fugue state normally forgets his personal identity or wanders away to establish a whole new identity somewhere else, Ralston has dissociated his environment rather than himself. Here's the kicker: Dissociative fugue usually occurs after serious psychological stress of some kind, such as the death of a family member, the loss of a job, or a failed relationship."
"That's very illuminating, Mrs. Ralston. One last
question, if I may. Is Ken a movie buff? I mean,
does he follow movies, actors. No? Hmm. OK. Yes,
ma'am; I will certainly tell him that. Yes, I
believe I can. Just try to relax, Mrs. Ralston."
"Mulder, you have to be careful here. If you just tell him--"
With a click at my end and a beep from the monitor, he was gone. "Damn it, Mulder," I cried out. Whatever game he was playing, I was now 'out.'
"He won't want to hear that," the tactical commander said blankly. "If your 'partner' tells him he's a Section 8, it could push him over. Especially if he gives him any details."
"Mulder's a behavioral scientist," I said through
my teeth. "He knows what buttons to push and when
to push them."
"Gotta man in a window across the courtyard with
infrared and a long-range rifle in case the wrong
button gets pushed. Thought you ought to know
that." The commander sauntered away.
I glanced back at the Bloomington captain. He sighed deeply and shrugged. Under the circumstances, it was probably as strong a vote of confidence as Mulder could get.
Then I made some connections I supposed Mulder wanted me to make. I turned to the anxious woman beside me.
"Mrs. Ralston, is your husband a movie buff?"
**
"What do you do here, Ken, specifically?" Mulder asked.
"We all work in death claims - investigations, mostly," Ralston answered slowly.
"Pretty shitty work, I'd guess. Buffy slips some rat poison in Aunt Sarah's chamomile tea. Marge shoves Earl down the trailer steps, then tries to cash in on the big lotto. Joe puts a bullet through his brain, not realizing he's canceling his family's ticket with the insurance company."
Ralston's gun hand elevated an inch or so.
"What's your point?"
"My point is, you're a trained insurance investigator who witnesses the dank side of humanity and the darkest grief imaginable on a daily basis. When your - or his dad, if you wish - died in what I have to believe is a rather unusual household accident, I have to think that would rouse an investigator's suspicions. It would mine. What do you think the other Ken Ralston might've found out?"
"I don't know," Ralston responded, tersely.
"OK. Now, do you recall how your dad died, when you were 12?"
"Heart attack, plain and simple, no question. It devastated us - he was a wonderful guy."
Mulder was silent for a second. "You know, it's, well, just, strange."
"What?"
"Your mother, his mother, whatever, said you and
your father had your issues. Like a lot of guys
who were raised in a rural environment in the
'50s, she said your dad was very concerned about
raising you according to his own very specific
definition of a real man. Her words, not mine. It
seems that when Alternate Ken turned 13, his dad
initiated him into the grand Central Illinois
tradition of squirrel hunting. According to his
mother, he didn't much take to it. Ken's dad
practically had to force him to go."
Ralston sat rigidly, staring at Mulder.
"And now you tell me you come from a world where
the squirrel has been wiped from the face of the
Earth. Bear with me, Ken. You tell me you live in
a world where McCarthy never hunted Communists,
never killed the careers and souls of hundreds of
men and women. Where Anwar Sadat was never
assassinated right at the height of hopes for a
Middle East peace treaty. Where the war in Bosnia
was about to come to an end after centuries of
civil strife. Where Gilligan, Skipper, and the
rest found their way back to society, found it
wanting, and chose to return to their island
Eden. And your Dad died of natural causes before
you would even have turned 13."
Ralston looked tightly at Mulder. "So you think I'm a mental case, too?"
"I'm stating another possible scientific explanation for your situation. See, I don't know if you realize it, but in addition to being versed in the paranormal, I'm also a behavioral scientist. You've given me one possible rationale for what's happened to you, within the context of physical science. I view psychology as merely the laws of physics as regard the human mind. Mental stimuli, emotional trauma, and guilt influence our actions just as physical forces affect matter and energy. You want me to go on?"
Ralston breathed deeply. "All right. Just in English, please."
"First, I want to ask you to release these
people."
Ralston laughed harshly. "You're shitting me,
right? You do think I'm whacko, don't you?"
"Labeling you as whacko makes as much sense as labeling a quark or a tachyon as an aberrant personality. No, I have a very specific reason for wanting these people out of here, so we can talk candidly. Look, you still got Clarence the Angel here as a hostage."
"Good man," the captain murmured behind my shoulder. I was reserving judgment; I didn't like Mulder going mano-a-mano with an emotionally distraught, armed, delusional man.
"This works, I'll eat my baton," the tactical commander said tactlessly.
"I'll supply the salt," I offered, my eyes riveted on the monitor.
"There's something wrong with this," Ralston hesitated, rubbing his temples.
"I have no desire, nor hopefully do any of the officers downstairs, to see my brains decorating these tastefully appointed walls," my partner assured him. "Nobody's going to pull a Steven Seagal just because it's me instead of four taxpayers."
"Pull a who?"
"Wow, that must be a wonderful universe you come
from. What do you say, Ken? You called me; you
trust me. Trust me for a few minutes longer. A
few more minutes won't really matter either way,
will they, Ken?"
"Sure, let 'em go, sure," Ralston finally announced, wearily.
"Thanks. Let me call down, let 'em know they're coming, OK? After I send these guys down the hallway - that way, you know there aren't any tricks, no cops waiting outside the door."
"Sure."
"Shit, he's giving away the goddamned game!" the tactical commander shouted. "I can't possibly get anybody into position before he releases those hostages."
"I believe that's the new game plan," I suggested. "Everybody comes out alive."
The commander planted a hand a foot from my elbow
and leaned dangerously close to my left ear. "I
don't know how many NYPD Blues you've seen,
Agent, but that's my game plan, too. I just have
a lot more moves and a lot more experience on the
field."
"I don't see any point to this," the captain
snapped. "The man's done what he's done, and at
least he getting the hostages out of the firing
line. As for the rest, I'd suggest we do what I'd
be doing at St. Mary's Christmas Eve Mass right
now, if this day hadn't gotten so totally fucked
up."
This bit of theological counsel, coming from such
an incongruous source, knocked the fight out of
the tactical commander, and transported me
momentarily to a place I'd repressed, of candles
and icons and rosaries, of the basso-profundo
rumbling of my rough military man father reciting
Latin phrases I had no doubt he understood
perfectly, of freshly scrubbed good Catholic
girls with simple and unsullied faith.
"...and lead us not into temptation..." The hairs on the back of my neck bristled at the whispered invocation. I looked to my side, where Kris Ralston sat, head inclined, eyes squeezed shut, lips moving softly. The captain looked up at the tactical commander, who nodded curtly and walked away.
Mulder and Ralston were done untying the
hostages, who they now herded to the suite door.
Mulder's micro-cam swept the hallway outside,
then panned back to the group. "Move as fast as
you can to the elevators, and go to the cafeteria
floor. OK?"
The hostages nodded numbly and allowed themselves to be ushered into the hall. Ralston's supervisor had to help one of the traumatized desk jockeys along, but they finally disappeared into the elevator car, and I heard Mulder exhale.
"I think we're alone now," he told Ralston, who
frowned at the joke. "They don't know that one in
your universe, do they? You must be hell on
karaoke night. Let's call downstairs now, OK?"
"OK," Ralston said in a new voice, one I didn't like.
My phone rang a few seconds later. "Hostages are
on the way down - don't let Lance exercise
extreme prejudice on 'em," Mulder advised.
"Mulder," I said, my voice dry and high. "I don't
know what you have in mind, but make damned sure
you know what the hell you're doing. If you get
yourself killed, I'll dog you into Eternity."
"If this is going to turn into a personal call, I'm afraid we'll have to terminate the discussion. You know company policy." The line went dead.
**
"Under my theory, this started about a year ago,
when Eugene Ralston died in a household accident.
Ken Ralston worked in death claims; it was only
natural he'd be curious. Maybe he picked up on
some bad vibes or an off-tone. Maybe he found out
his mother had a role in his father's death;
maybe he found out his father had been drinking;
maybe there was a fight. Whatever happened, it
hit Ken hard, all the more so because he'd never
gotten along with his father."
"Look, don't patronize me," Ralston said.
"OK. Bad blood plus death frequently breeds guilt, and it isn't unreasonable to assume a daily litany of death and deceit at the office added to the stress. But I believe things came to a head just before your accident at the lake."
"Before?"
"I don't know how it happened, but you found out about your wife."
"Mulder," I barely uttered, my heart beginning to pound in my ears. Ralston raised his weapon, his eyes locked on Mulder's.
"What about Kris?"
"Think about it, Ken: If indeed Brad Scheffler's been working in this office with you for more than five years, why would he be the only person to vanish from your world when you came back from the dead? The man your wife's been having an affair with over the past several months."
"God," the captain murmured. "Glad he got Scheffler outta there." Kris' face was buried in her hands as she wept silently.
"That's a bit much to ask of even cosmic coincidence, isn't it, Ken? Couldn't it be the final blow to your emotionally fragile state, combined with your brush with mortality, your second chance, as it were, could've spurred you to mentally erase Scheffler from existence?"
Ralston leveled his gun, his face locked in knotted muscles.
"You got a shot?" the tactical commander demanded urgently into his radio, I assumed to the infrared sniper across the courtyard.
"Roger," the radio crackled. I sat mute before
the monitor; I knew I should try to delay the
execution order, but I couldn't speak or move.
The gun wavered, then moved swiftly to Ken Ralston's temple.
"Fucking shit," the commander murmured.
"Ken," Mulder said with a maddening serenity. "I
thought I just explained to you why that won't
get you anywhere. That is why you asked me to
come here, right?"
Ken Ralston's electronic image began to shake, and even through the microcam's relatively low- resolution transmission, I could see his irises disappear in a sea of welling tears.
I jumped as Ralston dropped his weapon with a clatter, and remembered again to breathe as Mulder engulfed him in his arms...
**
My partner came through the cafeteria door a few minutes later, his arm around Ralston's shoulder. The Bloomington captain accepted the man gently, then handed him off to Kris Ralston. As Ralston collapsed into his wife's embrace, she began to sob, out of relief, remorse, release, I don't know.
The Peoria tactical commander clamped a hand on
Mulder's shoulder and turned him around. "You
must use a powerful antiperspirant, 'Lance.'"
Mulder grinned. "Merry Christmas, General."
I moved quickly around the desk.
"Hey, Scully, hope you saved some eggnog for me--"
And that's when I slapped him, as hard as I possibly could.
**
"Your face feel any better?" I asked timidly as Mulder and I hurtled through the stratosphere somewhere over the Eastern Corn Belt or the Appalachians. The Peoria tactical commander, whose name in fact was Ted, threw us both a curve by volunteering his weekend flying skills to get us back to D.C. and Christmas dinner. Under the circumstances, the combined influence of the Bloomington and Peoria P.D.s and Farmstead Insurance were enough to get us early morning clearance out of Bloomington Airport.
Mulder waggled his jaw. "You hit like a girl. Then again, I take pain like a 5-year-old."
"You frightened me. You took an unnecessary
chance, and charged headlong into what could have
been a tragic outcome. I could have..." I looked
out into the black sky.
"Look," Mulder said calmly. "I had to slap Ralston, shock him into accepting what I was telling him. That's why I got Scheffler out of the office. If I was going to get Ralston out of there alive, I had to convince him his condition was psychological, not physical.
"Don't you see where this was going? Why do you
think Ralston asked for me? He could have e-
mailed me, called me, and the odds were his story
would have intrigued me enough to meet with him.
So why force this dramatic scene? Was I going to
get him out of this hostage situation clean? Too
late for that. Did he honestly believe I'd have
the answer to his dilemma, that I could teleport
him back home? Of course not. The only possible
reason for Ralston to summon me was to confirm
his worst suspicions. I'm the FBI's loose cannon,
the guy who values the truth over the
consequences, who'll buy into anything -- except
of course Ben Affleck's acting ability. And once
I'd confirmed his theory, Ralston felt he could
take the step he had determined was necessary to
return to his 'world.'"
I looked at Mulder, dimly lit in the tiny passenger compartment. "To go back the way he came in."
"Exactly. The only solution Ralston could reason out was to leave this existence and take the chance of passing through the same wormhole or corridor or rift he'd entered through. I don't believe Ken Ralston would have taken my life back there, but I think he was willing to take his own life on the off-chance he could return home."
"So the realization that he was profoundly delusional actually saved his life."
Mulder breathed. "The Big Lie for the greater
good. I guess I've learned well. Call it my
Christmas gift to Ralston and his family. I'll
testify as to his emotional state; maybe he'll
get a light sentence for treatment. Every day,
some headshrinker plants a false memory in some
willing patient's skull -- maybe a misguidedly
talented therapist can persuade Ralston that this
is his home, that Kris and the kids are his
reality. God help him and me."
"Mulder, you don't really believe Ralston's story is true, do you? Parallel universes? Alternate realities?"
My partner leaned back in his seat. "Who's to
say, Scully? In our world, Joe McCarthy throws
'50s America into a state of Cold War panic,
helping form young Eugene Ralston into a macho
role model intent on making his son a 'real' man.
Maybe a real man who can't emotionally connect
with his wife, who then takes up with Brad
Scheffler. In another, McCarthy is disgraced and
Eugene dies young, leaving his son to grow up in
a kinder, gentler world where Nixon's darker
nature doesn't emerge and he almost wins against
Kennedy. In their world, Jeb Bush gets interested
in politics rather than banking; in ours, Laura
Bush becomes our first woman president. And in
the world our Ken Ralston dropped in from, Brad
Scheffler shows an aptitude for Renaissance
literature instead of actuarial tables."
I smiled at the idea of Jeb Bush in the White
House instead of his far-brighter sister-in-law.
Might as well have the president's goofy, tongue-
tangled husband, George, in the Oval Office.
"If there are parallel realities, maybe we're not
talking about dinosaurs evolving into the master
species instead of humans, or the U.S. becoming a
monarchy ruled by France. Maybe the differences
for the most part would be incremental -- a
different path taken here, a different roll of
the dice there."
"My God, if that were true, what happens to our basic spiritual beliefs, to our concept of a higher power guiding the universe?"
Mulder shrugged. "Why are our concepts of science
and religion and psychology and faith so rigid
and mutually exclusive? From a theological view,
humanity is tested every day. Racial attitudes,
tolerance, charity -- maybe these are that higher
power's way of putting us through the rat's maze.
Maybe there are a hundred, a thousand, a million
test groups out there, all vying to become some
sort of golden people. In a universe of black
holes, quasars, and Paris Hilton, why is that an
impossible notion?"
It was just like Mulder, deconstructing the
entire Judeo-Christian precept while arguing for
the existence of God. "You presented such a
compelling case for dissociative delusion," I
pointed out. "What could possibly make you prefer
such a fantastic alternative?"
Mulder smiled. "Did you ask Kris Ralston if her
husband was a film buff?"
"As a matter of fact, he is not."
"All right, then. Do you remember Jimmy Stewart?"
"A little before my time, Mulder. He was a promising young actor back in the '30s and '40s, right?"
"Who, like many Hollywood stars of his era, enlisted to serve his country during WWII. In the final days of the war, following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Stewart, a U.S. Army Air Force pilot, experienced engine failure and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. You ever seen It's a Wonderful Life?"
"Gary Cooper, Donna Reed? It's a classic. They used to show it, what, 200,000 times every Christmas. Now the network promotes the shit out of it. Who hasn't seen --?" I stopped. "But Ken Ralston said..."
"That Jimmy Stewart starred in It's a Wonderful
Life, which Frank Capra's Liberty Films produced
after Stewart died. And that's the kicker. Maybe
Ken Ralston might've had his head in a cave and
not seen one of the cinema's greatest Christmas
stories, next to Lethal Weapon, of course. But
it's a little-known fact that Stewart originally
was the studio's prime pick to play George Bailey
in It's a Wonderful Life, before his tragic
death. That isn't general knowledge. Where would
Ralston have gotten such a piece of information,
even to help formulate another piece of his
fantasy?
"I believe that in Ken Ralston's alternate world, Jimmy Stewart survived the war to portray George Bailey. But had I backed up Ralston's theory, where would he go from there? Stranded in a strange world among strangers who were near approximations of those he loved? Even in our own world, there's often little keeping even the sanest person anchored in place."
I took Mulder's hand, feeling him stroke the gold band on my left hand, the one he'd given me a year after I'd joined the X-Files.
"Well, one other good thing came out of this," I suggested. "I think Ted up there has changed his view of married agents, even if Assistant Director Doggett hasn't. The whole time you were with Ralston, he kept grumbling about knowing 'what we are,' and questioning my ability to back you up. Now, he's chauffeuring us back to Washington."
Mulder winced. "Which reminds me, Scully: You
were supposed to bring the dessert for Christmas
dinner, weren't you? You know Samantha loves your
French silk pie."
"I can rustle up something from the side of the Gello Pudding box," I assured him. "Mr. Spender can have a pack of Morleys for dessert. I know he's your parents' oldest friend, but I wish he'd find another family to scrounge Christmas dinner from or get on the patch or something."
Mulder just smiled and squeezed my hand. Below, I could see the lights of Washington's Charlton Heston Airport.
"Merry Christmas, Fox," I murmured.
"Merry Christmas, Melissa," he responded before dozing off.
END
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