by: Margaret

A large black-and-white television monitor froze, and the aerial picture of a family in
distress became like wallpaper in the far corner of the darkened room. The Smoking Man
took in a large cloud of nicotine from his half-burnt cigarette and held it for a while
before finally letting the smoke out through his nostrils. He stared at Fox Mulder’s
enlarged frozen form. Cringing in the corner, flinching at the sight of the cell phone,
Mulder portrayed through his demeanor the childlike fear he had kept secret from the
world for so long. The Smoking Man would have never guessed that the key to his
enemy’s weakness lay in the nightmares of his childhood. What an auspicious day this
was indeed! You could not buy information this good.
He brought his cigarette to his lips, sucked at the paper filter again, and gazed at Bo
Duke’s confused expression. He smiled and swallowed before letting his breath out. This
one wasn’t as difficult to read. The young fair-haired farmer wore his emotions like the
medals on a General’s fancy jacket ~ right out in the open. In many ways, Bo Duke
reminded him of Patricia. There was nothing hidden there. All patterns and emotions of
the heart were laid bare, and hurting him would not only be easy… but amusing.
The old man reached into his pocket and felt the metal casing of a remote control.
Using his thumb, he traced the outline of an elongated button, and when he punched it,
the spotlights in the auditorium switched on. Then, he turned around and faced the
people behind him.
It was like being in a theatrical play with him as the main Shakespearean star. The
audience was a large group. Sitting semicircle in rows of chairs that circled upwards like
the mouth of a funnel, the men and women of the Secret Society watched the film of the
Dukes with distant, scientific fascination. The eclectic crowd came from everywhere:
Asia, South America, the Middle East, and yes, even America. All in all, THEY
numbered a little over a hundred and represented only a thin slice of the Secret Society’s
population. It was an intimidating sight. Here in this room sat the most dangerous, the
most secret, and the most powerful men and women on the face of the earth.

The Smoking Man was glad that he was with this group…and not. He loved the Secret
Society like a priest loves the Deity. The old man had lost all faith in religion and God a
long timeago. He knew from all the science that he had astutely studied since he joined
the Organization that Darwinian Evolutionism ruled the universe. The fittest animal
survived and multiplied, while weaker ones died off and became extinct. Man was part of
Darwinian Theory. The various religions around the world tried to deny this teaching,
preaching on the sacredness of the human soul. They claimed man was immortal and
made in the likeness and image of God. He and everyone else in the room knew better.
The assassin had no doubt that man was an animal ~ every bit as much so as the
cockroaches that roamed the hallways and the coyotes that lurked behind bushes. The
only thing that separated man from beast was intelligence. In the animal kingdom, nature
determined who did and did not survive by an animal’s physical ability to adapt to his
surroundings. Man was a little different. Because Man was an intelligent creature, it was
not his body but his mind that determined who stood where in the food chain. And in the
Darwinian model for mankind, it was politics that decided which human prospered,
which human did not, and which human did not get to live at all.
The Secret Society represented the best of the human species, the top of the food
chain, so to speak. Still, the assassin would have preferred to be out of the spotlight and
out of the company’s eye. If he had it his way, he would have remained the shadow in the
Shadow Organization. He was a loner. He didn’t like attention. His career choice
demanded anonymity. It was not his idea to give a representation and lead a discussion
on Patricia’s extraordinary powers. It was THEIRS, and because of that, he had no choice
but to comply.
He took a quick look around at the well dressed group, all clad in their Armani silk
suits and Bali leather shoes. A slight murmur resonated across the reclining seats. The
Smoking Man made his way to a microphone that stood in the center stage under the
glare of a revealing spotlight, feeling like a ringmaster in a circus. He blew into the metal
mesh to test the speakers, and the sound of his amplified breath resonated and brought
the crowd to silence. He cleared his throat and then began.
“As you can see, our experiment is doing well. Patricia’s powers are, quite literally,
mind-boggling. When WE started this experiment eight years ago at the child’s
conception, we had no idea what we were getting into. I believe I can safely say that none
of us ever dreamed that psychic skills could be this powerful.”
“Are you saying, sir, that everything we are watching: the incident with the car, the
clothes, and the computer are all being manipulated by the little girl?”
The Smoking Man turned to a woman’s voice that came from the upper left-hand
corner of the room. A middle-aged Japanese woman meekly stood up. She was dressed in
a short mini skirt, and though around forty, she looked like a shy college student posing a
silly-sounding question to a professor.
“I find that hard to believe,” she said in her high-pitched, thickly accented voice.
The assassin smiled. “Believe it, Madame Muriko. Everything you have just seen
came from little Patricia’s mind. You’re probably curious as to how this whole psychic
phenomena works. Let me explain.” The old man reached for a new cigarette, but didn’t
light it. He rolled the paper tube between his fingers as he thought. “You see, there are
two kinds of psychics in the world. There are those who can control their powers at will.
Just like you and I can control our hands and legs, these psychics can quite literally turn
their powers on and off whenever they feel like it. Little Patricia is NOT one of these
psychics. Then, there are other psychics who have no control over their gifts. They must
be stimulated by some outer environmental factor in order for their psychic skills to turn
on and run. Though Patricia doesn’t fully identify with this category, I would say for the
most part that she falls here. For some psychics, a touch of a person’s clothing stimulates
their skills. For others, a dream might ignite their gifts. What set Patricia off psychically
is an emotion. Patricia’s psychic trigger is fear.”
The assassin tossed his cigarette aside and pulled the remote out of his pocket. He
pushed another small button on the case, and the large television screen moved to the
left. The automatic wheels creaked as they rolled off the wooden stage, and a large room
with a one way mirror came into view behind it. Though Patricia could not see the
audience through the one-way mirror, the audience had no problem seeing her. The men
and women in the crowd leaned forward on their seats and stared into the tinted room
with the enthusiasm of fifth graders crowding around the new classroom fishbowl.
Patricia was in the corner, oblivious to the hundreds of eyes studying her. She crouched
on the floor behind a wooden rocking horse, the only hiding place she could find. She
had a Barbie doll in her hands, and with nervous energy she combed the synthetic hairs
and rocked the doll back and forth like a scared mother trying to comfort a scared child.
From between the horse’s legs, she shot nervous glances at the door. They were coming
for her. She knew it. She did not know exactly how much time she had, and the
anticipation almost drove her to tears. She rocked harder and held the doll close to her
chest.
“When Patricia is terrified,” the Smoking Man continued, “her power ignites and
focuses on a person. Her mind actually gets into her target’s head, and like we watch
movies on a screen, Patricia in her mind sees what terrifies her victim.”
The front door to the room suddenly swung open. Patricia quickly dropped the doll
and went on all fours. Like a cat, her back arched, and she huddled in the corner. Her
breathing and heartbeat raced with the speed of the armed soldiers that now entered the
room. The camouflaged men went straight to her, throwing toys and furniture out of their
way as they blazed a path to the rocking horse. The girl broke out in tears and screamed
as the horde surrounded her.
The audience watched the scene in the sound-proof room as if it were a silent motion
picture. The Smoking Man cleared his throat, turned his back on the display, and
continued. “Fear is Patricia’s focus. Once she sees what her victims fear, she funnels her
psychic energies into that emotion, like the lens on a high-powered camera. And once
that happens, all the powers, telekinesis, spontaneous combustion, levitation, everything
you saw in Hazzard kicks into motion, and what the victim of this psychic onslaught fears
in the deepest, darkest, recesses of his imagination becomes real.”
Two men grabbed the child by the ankles. Patricia screamed, and in a futile attempt to
get away, desperately clawed into the carpet. The captors lifted their prey up high off the
floor. The rug slipped through the child’s fingers, and Patricia howled as she hung upside
down like a fish held by the tail. She wiggled and struggled, her arms flailing wildly in
the air until two soldiers grabbed her by the wrist and carried the hysterical child like a
gunny sack to the middle of the room. More noise came from the door, and when the girl
turned her head, she saw four men enter the room, each carrying the corner of a small
metallic table.
“I find this troubling, assassin.”
The Smoking Man turned away from the soundless picture and towards the sound of a
man’s voice from the middle of the auditorium. The thick Eastern European accent
echoed and resonated off the walls, hiding the speaker from view. “What is so troubling?”
“Her powers.” A middle-aged, balding man stood up from the center of the rows of
seat. His round face and dark suit almost disappeared into the crowd behind him. “I find
her powers troubling. What is to prevent her from attacking us?”
The Smoking Man smiled. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket, and this time lit it
when he put it into his mouth. “Fear! The same emotion that stimulates her psychic
powers also binds her. Patricia finds it impossible to attack those people whom she is
afraid of. She gets paralyzed. Her mind freezes up, and instead of lashing out at her
attackers, her mind attacks the person that she is not afraid of. It makes no logical sense, I
know. But, that’s just the way it is.” He turned once again to the one-way mirror and
watched the scene inside with whimsical amusement. “Hence, I make sure that Patricia
fears me!”
The soldiers steadied the table in the cleared center of the floor, and at the sight of the
contraption, Patricia broke out in sheer panic. She threw her head, arched her back, and
screamed. She kicked and wiggled and cried. Her golden hair covered her red face and
cemented itself to her cheeks with the child’s tears. The harder she fought, the tighter the
men in camouflage gripped her arms and legs. They carried the girl to the table and
slapped her down hard onto the cold metal surface. She stiffened at the sudden feel of
slick aluminum on her back, and then she went as limp as a wet noodle.
She didn’t fight them anymore. It was useless, and she knew it. Her screams, her
struggles, and her kicks all came to a halt. The only thing that continued were the tears
that ran hot down her cheeks to the roots of her long, golden hair. The soldiers pulled out
leather straps from their pocket and quickly tied her droopy hands and feet to special
slots drilled into the metal structure. Patricia stared aimlessly into the ceiling, aimlessly
into the lights. She didn’t watch the men work at binding her.
The audience viewed the scene without any emotion, save that for scientific interest.
The Smoking Man watched the spirit of the girl drain from her face and eyes, and he
watched her mouth call soundlessly into the air ‘Help me. Somebody please help me.’
Then, in an effort to end the speech with a dramatic closure, he pressed a third button on
the remote control and the room behind the glass wall went dark.
The old man walked into the center of the stage, retaking the audience’s attention. He
pulled the microphone free from the stand and brought it close to his lips.
“I’m still not satisfied,” the Eastern man voiced again, cutting into the assassin’s
prepared speech. “Yes, the child is afraid now, but I think she is afraid because she is
young. Children scare easy. But what will happen when Patricia turns thirteen, fourteen,
or fifteen? Adolescence will remove whatever boundaries childhood imposes.”
The Smoking Man took a breath. “We know this. Let’s get something straight right
now. Patricia is a tool. We are studying her brain to figure out how her mind can do what
it does, and while she is in our grasp, we are using her psychic powers to further our
cause. She is a short-term solution, ladies and gentlemen. When we took her from the
orphanage, we never planned for her to reach adulthood. We will take whatever we can
from her, and then…”
“And then what?” the man from the audience voiced yet again.
The Smoking Man licked his lips. “My gun will do the rest,” he said.
What the old man said was enough. The Eastern European acknowledged the response
and finally sat back in his seat.
The assassin took one last look around the audience. “Are there any more questions?”
No one breathed a word.
“Good. Then, let us speak about the second matter at hand. Let us talk about our
enemies: Bo Duke and Fox Mulder. Let us talk about what Patricia can do to them.”

*****************************************************************

A band-aid and small bruise marked the spot where the soldiers inserted a needle.
When it was over, they told her that it was a vitamin shot, something to make sure she
wouldn’t get sick. She knew they were lying. She didn’t know what THEY put into her,
and in the end, she figured that it was best not to know. When she had finally settled
down and stopped screaming, THEY released her from the aluminum bed and sent her to
her room. The second Patricia went through the door, she went straight to her hiding
place under the bed.
THEY couldn’t see her here. The immaculate white room with no toys and
institutionally plain-looking furniture was about as comfortable as an airplane seat. There
were three cameras in the room that were strategically placed to ensure that the people on
the other end of the wires could see Patricia wherever she wandered and study whatever
she did. The little Goldilocks knew all about the cameras. She also knew why they were
there. The Smoking Man used to tell her when she was younger that they used cameras
because both he and THEY cared about her and wanted to make sure that she wouldn’t
get hurt. She’d stopped believing that a long time ago. She was now grown up enough to
know that THEY never cared about anyone.
Under the bed was her own little world, a place all to herself where no one, not even
the Smoking Man, entered. She kept what little toys she had here. Her drawings, some
magazine clippings, crayons, and bits and pieces of pretty candles. This was her treasure
chest, like the pirates of the olden days. And like a pirate she buried these things under
layers of cotton sheets where eyes could not see them and take them from her. She
reached for the head of the bed, and her little fingers grabbed hold of an old, beaten
cardboard shoebox.
She took off the lid, and inside all jumbled together in an uncoordinated grouping
were her toys. She reached inside and pulled out a pair of Ken and Skipper dolls. She
played with them for a while, using them to forget the trauma she d gone through an hour
before. She made the two plastic figures hold hands and run together through the carpet,
as she d seen happy couples running through the white sands of an empty beach on
television. Then, she decided to send them to the park. She reached inside the box and
pulled out an orange matchbox racecar.
The playing quickly stopped. She pushed her dolls aside and twirled the two-inch toy
in her fingers in the dim light that filtered under the bottom of the bed. Suddenly the
memories of early that morning flooded back into her head, and the glumness came back.
She didn’t like hurting the men the way that she did. When she went into their heads,
she could see that the blond farmer and brown-haired policeman were really nice people.
Manipulating the car and the computer brought her no joy… although the scene in the
grocery store had. She had to admit that the expression of shock on the storekeeper’s face
was a little funny. That incident did bring a naughty giggle. But the other things… the car,
the computer. These hurt the policeman badly, and she felt every blow in his heart as if it
were her own.
She laid her head down on its side and ran the little car back and forth in front of her
face. As she watched the toy, she thought about the farmer and about how he could see
her. He could see her! That had never happened before… ever! The Society called her
talent ‘astral projection’. They had a confusing definition for the fancy words, but to
Patricia the term simply meant that though her body was here, her mind was some place
else. That was how she did what THEY wanted her to do. If she had to hurt someone far
away, she had to “see” them to learn the secrets deep in their minds. She wished she
could use her talent to just run away from the building and the lifeless room THEY kept
her in, but she could not. THEY pulled that talent out of her and controlled it, while she,
like some lifeless remote control with no will of her own, obeyed.
She didn’t like it that way. The one saving grace, however, was that no one was able to
see her… until the farmer. To be truthful, she didn’t know whether this odd abnormality
was bad or good. At first, she d been scared witless. But after the incident at the store and
after the incident with the computer, Patricia had slowly realized something. This man
meant her no harm. She’d come to this unexpected realization while probing the blond
farmer’s mind looking for his fears. Unlike the soldiers who chased her at the compound,
the farmer ran after her out of concern. She could openly see his compassion side by side
with his fears. He was kind ~ kind like the nuns had been when she was living in the
orphanage.
She didn’t dare tell any of THEM about the farmer. She had to keep this a secret.
THEY would punish her if THEY found out. And as always, she was so afraid, so very,
very afraid of punishment.
She felt his presence before he reached the locked door to her bedroom. Quickly and
quietly, she curled up in a tight ball at the head of her bed next to the wall. She shut her
eyes tight and crossed her fingers on both hands. She buried her head in her arms and felt
the sting of tears threatening to fall from her eyes. “Please,” she whispered wishfully. She
turned her head upward, and like the nuns taught her to do, she clasped her hands
together and begged. “Please make him go away.”
She heard the Smoking Man’s lumbering footsteps stop at the door, and then she heard
the doorknob jiggle. The knob was locked. She bit her lip and from under her bed waited
anxiously for the metallic scraping sound of a key, but it never came. A few seconds of
silence followed, and soon, the footsteps continued down the hall away from the room.
Patricia let out a sigh of relief. She hadn’t even realized that she’d been holding her
breath.
Her body relaxed from the tight-knit coil it was in, and she sprawled out on the floor
and gently rested her cheek against the carpet. The moment had passed, and as it
disappeared, it took the fear with it. Now all that was left was the loneliness that had
never left her for a second in the three years she spent as the Society’s prisoner. She
thought about the nuns, about their smiles and hugs and kisses back at the orphanage. It
was safe there. It was warm and filled with laughter… not like here.
The more she thought about all she had lost, the more Patricia’s loneliness ate into her
soul, until at last tears of pain trickled out of her eyes. In a small voice, small enough to
make sure that the microphones in the room could not pick up on what she was saying,
Patricia pleaded, “Please God. If you exist, if you really exist, please, PLEASE get me out
of here!”
Then she turned her head to the side, muffled the sound of her whimpering with her
bruised arm, and bawled.

*****************************************************************

Bo Duke was having what Jesse would call an all-out conniption fit, and though his
mind was blown, he did pride himself on doing a relatively good job hiding his panic
from the world. Though the rest of the day passed without any more weird incidences, his
family was still shaken. When Fox had mentioned the possibility of a ghost, Daisy had
refused to go to her bedroom alone. She and Dana now seemed joined at the hip. Uncle
Jesse had hit the phone fast and hard, looking for a preacher to come by the house and
say any kind of prayer for the farm. The local pastor had left earlier that day to go on a
fishing trip, and now the old farmer was burning up the phone lines like the General
burned up tires, calling every favor in from every friend to find the man and drag his hide
to the farm. And Mulder was burning the midnight oil with the Gunmen over the net
searching for any clues in their files for the identity of the ghost.
Luke and Cooter took the most rational approach. Luke outright refused to believe in
even the possibility of a poltergeist. Both he and Cooter were working on taking the
General apart piece by piece. Right now, the majority of the engine was scattered on the
floor of the barn. Bo had helped in the beginning, but didn’t stay long. The image of a
little girl with long, golden hair haunted him. Was she a ghost like Fox said? The young
farmer wanted to believe his older cousin. He wanted to believe that Luke’s logical and
deductive reasoning was correct, because if Luke was wrong and Fox’s theory was
correct, then life would become infinitely more terrifying.
He still didn’t tell anyone about what he d seen. Before he threw everyone into a
deeper level of panic than what they were already in, he had to make absolutely sure that
his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. After wandering away from Luke and Cooter in
the barn, Bo made his way back to the front of the house next to the large bush that
nestled close to the door. It was dusk now, and getting hard to see the ground. He pulled
out a flashlight that dangled from his back jean pocket and flipped it on, searching the
grass where he d seen the child sit Indian style. Nothing. He went around the barn, trying
to track where she d run. He looked for any clues that a little girl had been on the
grounds. There were none.
Realization hit Bo in the face with the weight of one of Boss Hogg’s safes. Luke was
wrong. Fox was right. And for some reason, he and he alone was seeing the ghost. His
stomach crunched into a tight knot, and the young farmer switched the flashlight off and
doubled over to catch his breath. He didn’t understand what this all meant, and he really
didn’t know what to do next. He slowly staggered back to the front of the farmhouse and
leaned against the wall. Ahead in the distance, the lights from the barn shone bright out
the window and wide-open door. Against the quickly darkening sky, it really looked like
the light at the end of a long tunnel. Inside he could see the man he trusted blindly, the
man he relied on when things became dark and confusing. Bo finally straightened,
steeling his determination, and walked briskly to the barn to talk to his cousin Luke.
“No, Fox! No! You can’t be right because there ain’t no such things as ghosts!”
When Bo got to the entrance of the barn, he heard his friend and his cousin in a hot
and heavy argument. Luke was wearing his stubborn “I’m going to get to the bottom of
this” Duke demeanor, while Mulder scowled at the man in flushed frustration. Cooter
was in the barn too. The grease-covered mechanic buried his capped head deep into the
engine of the car. Whether the exaggerated gesture was out of hard work or was an
attempt to avoid the ongoing argument, Bo couldn’t tell.
On a workbench not far from the car, a laptop computer sat next to a bunch of tools.
The faces of Langely, Frohike, and Byrnes stared blankly at the two arguing men like
frozen characters on a TV show. At the sight of the long-haired hippie, Bo wanted to go
over to the computer and Langely’s video cam image to say “hey”, but then Fox rebutted
Luke’s argument, and Bo stayed where he was.
“Won’t you even give it a second of thought!” Mulder angrily stomped towards the
elder Duke until he was nose to nose with the man. “You can strip this car all you want,
Luke Duke. You can strip this car down to the hull, but I’m telling you, there is no remote
control in there! You have a ghost on the farm!”
Luke angrily crossed his arms and stood his ground. “There ain’t no such things as
ghosts!”
“Yes there are!” Mulder contested. “I’ve seen them!”
“Mulder! Would ya please just give your imagination a rest! We don’t have time for
scary stories tonight! There is a logical and rational explanation here. All we have to do
is find it!”
“Good luck!” All heads, including those on the computer screen and Bo’s, turned to
the mechanic. Cooter slowly pulled his head out from under the car’s hood. He laid a
wrench down on a wooden stool behind him, his gaze apologetic. “Luke, I’m sorry to say
it, but there ain’t nothin’ in here.”
“There has to be!”
“Uh… Luke?” Bo stepped insecurely across the barn threshold.
Langley caught sight of his old friend, and a broad smile crept across his face. He
pushed his thick-framed glasses close to the temple of his forehead and gleefully called,
“Hey there, farmboy!”
Bo turned to the video cam, smiled and waved. “Hey there, Lone Rangers!”
Frohike frowned. “Gunmen! Lone Gunmen!”
Bo quickly nodded. “Uh, sure. Whatever. It’s nice to see y’all again! Even if it’s in
cyberspace!”
Langley leaned forward into the camera, betraying through his antsy posturing his
almost child-like excitement. “Hey, by the way, Mulder tells me that you guys got a ghost
in the house. Dude! That is just so cool! Do you have any idea how long me and my buds
have been looking for a real-life ghost to catch on film and broadcast on the Internet?
Geez! You people are so lucky!”
Luke threw his arms into the air in sheer exasperation. “Is anybody listening to me?!
There ain’t no such things as ghosts! They don’t exist!”
Bo swallowed nervously. But he had to say this. “Well… uh… maybe they do.”
Luke turned to his younger cousin, his eyebrows raised high in surprise. Mulder
quickly forgot about his argument, and Cooter walked over to stand next to the computer
and the men on the screen. Bo felt all eyes on him, and he swallowed hard again. He
thought for a second how to say what he wanted to say diplomatically, then gave up on
that idea.
“I’m seeing the ghost!” he finally blurted. “I’ve been seeing her all day! Everywhere we
go, and everywhere we turn, I see her! And, I… I think she’s following me!”
Luke and Mulder’s jaws simultaneously dropped open. “Come again?” they asked.

**

Call it sad and twisted. Call it the sign of a man with no life, but Fox Mulder had not
felt this good in days. He lived for stuff like this. Except for the Lone Gunmen, no one
else seemed to share Fox’s enthusiasm. Bo explained to the men what he’d seen earlier
that morning. Then he explained it again to the girls. He explained it one more time for
Uncle Jesse, and then Mulder grabbed a pen and pad of paper and asked the young
farmer to repeat the tale yet again for the record.
Bo gave a long, loud sigh. He was not a patient guy, and this was taxing what little
patience he had left. He shuffled to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair, and slowly sat
down.
“Fox, I already explained this ten times over! You know the story better ‘n me by
now!”
The rest of the Dukes soon followed Bo’s example. Luke and Jesse pulled out chairs
beside Bo, while Daisy gently laid the laptop computer on the center of the kitchen table
so that the Gunmen could also be part of the conversation. Scully did not opt to sit down.
With an aura of dissatisfaction, she crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “Mulder, what
are you doing?”
Fox looked up at his partner. “I’m writing out an X-file report.”
Scully lowered her head and shook it. “Mulder, you and I are not part of the X-files
anymore! The X-files is gone! What do you think you are doing?”
Fox Mulder was infamous for having a poker face. But at Scully’s statement, a look of
hurt overwhelmed his features. Bo picked up on it, and quickly tried to mend the tear.
“Dana, it’s okay. I don’t mind, really. Go ahead, Fox. Ask away.”
“Why don’t I get some coffee?” Daisy offered. She jumped out of her chair and didn’t
even wait for an answer as she scurried off to the kitchen counter and the coffeemaker
near the sink.
Jesse fidgeted uneasily in his chair. He took his hat off, and in a fit of nervous energy,
twirled and scrunched it in his hands. “Fox, I’m almost afraid to ask this, but what do you
think is goin’ on here? Why are we all of a sudden being haunted?”
Luke let out a quiet but frustrated sigh. Bo turned to his cousin, knowing that he was
still having a hard time accepting all of this. It was clear that he wanted to say something,
but for politeness’ sake, Luke was biting his tongue really, really hard. Bo tried to send a
look of sympathy his older cousin’s way, but he couldn t catch his eyes.
Mulder ignored them. Focusing all of his energies on the old farmer, he took a couple
of seconds to think how to put what he wanted to say into words. “Mr. Duke, I really
think that there is a ghost on this farm. Whether or not it is really a little girl is too soon
to tell. It could be trying to trick us. But I do believe that it is attracted to Bo for some
reason, and I also think that there is a connection between them.”
Bo’s throat went dry. Boy, did he wish Luke’s rational theory was right. Daisy slowly
laid a canister of coffee in the center of the table, and quickly forgot about it. She rushed
over to Bo’s side and grabbed his shoulder. What Mulder said obviously terrified her. The
younger cousin tried to put on a show of bravery as he reassuringly held her hand. His
palms, however, were ice cold.
“There is a way for me to tell if my theory is correct,” Mulder went on, still locked in
Jesse’s gaze. “I can use hypnotherapy on Bo to figure out what the connection between
him and the ghost is.”
Luke jumped out of his chair. “NO! ABSOLUTELY NO!”
“Why not?” Bo asked.
Luke looked down at his younger cousin and to his obvious surprise saw that Bo
actually wanted to give Mulder’s suggestion a shot. “Are you forgettin’ what happened the
last time this family fooled around with hypnosis? I tried to blow up the General Lee, and
Daisy thought that she was the heiress to a millionaire! Ain’t nothin’ good ever come out
of hypnosis, and there ain’t nothin’ good gonna come out of it now because there ain’t no
such things as ghosts!”
Mulder threw his pencil on the table in frustration. “LUKE!”
“GENTLEMEN!” Langley’s shrill voice coming over the air caught everyone by
surprise. The long-haired computer geek sat back in his chair and gently pushed his
glasses up from the tip of his nose. “Can I make a suggestion?” he calmly asked.
Luke lowered his head. He was out of line and he knew it. He pulled out his chair and
slowly sat back down, getting hold once again of his emotions. Mulder leaned back in his
chair, acquiescing to his friend’s request. Langley waited until everyone in the room
settled into a quiet calm, then he continued.
“Why don’t we just wait and see what tomorrow brings? Mulder, you know as well as
I that sometimes these freaky, paranormal things that occur happen and just leave. It’s
like they’re just passing through, and they disappear as quickly as they came.”
Fox slouched low in his chair and nodded in reluctant agreement. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“Well then why don’t we wait and see if this thing is still hanging around the farm
tomorrow? All of you guys look exhausted anyhow. Just go to bed and forget everything.
And, Mr. Jesse Duke? Would you mind if we Gunmen drove down to your place?
Whether there is a ghost on your farm or not, this is a killer story for our Internet
magazine!”

*****************************************************************

He put a cigarette between his lips and took a puff as he watched a small television
monitor on the top of his makeshift desk. He didn’t have the sound on. He really didn’t
care about the conversation. All he was interested in were the peoples’ actions and facial
expressions. He could judge the success of this “trial run” from these two things alone,
and from what he saw, his little experiment was a success.
“How many cameras do you have in that house, assassin?”
He turned around, surprised at the sound of a thickly accented female voice behind
him. The Asian woman stood near the entrance of the door in an Armani suit. Her hair
was tied in a tight bun, and her dark attire made her almost disappear into the shadows.
“Well, how many?” she asked again.
The Smoking Man smiled. He was impressed with the woman’s uncharacteristic
bravado. “Five,” he finally said, answering the question. He pulled out a cheap plastic
chair and sat down, trying in vain to make himself comfortable. “There is a camera in the
kitchen, one in the living room, and finally one in each bedroom. Plus,” he shifted
uncomfortably in the hard seat, “I have two men staking out the house from the trees.”
The Asian woman walked slowly towards the desk and craned her neck around the
corner to catch a glimpse of the television monitor. “Nothing in the barn or in the cars?”
The Smoking Man smiled. “That would be overkill.”
He took another puff, and as he let the smoke pass through his lips, he studied the girl
through his man-made cloud. The woman knew his eyes were on her, and she decided to
play along. She went to the corner of the desk and sat on top of it, pulling her mini-skirt
back a little to show off her legs.
The old man’s eyes fell on her knees. “I have to hand it to you, Madame Muriko,” he
said trying hard to keep this very interesting chitchat going. “There are not many people
who can sneak up on me the way you did.”
The middle-aged beauty smiled. With delicate fingers, she reached for the back of her
head. She pulled the pin in her bun loose, and immediately, her dark, shiny hair fell to
her shoulders. The Smoking Man had to take a breath at the sight. “I am not like most
people,”
Muriko said, posing like a model in a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.
The Smoking Man gazed into her almond eyes, and putting his cigarette down, leaned
towards her. She responded by quickly jumping off the table, teasing him as she slowly
walked around the desk and fondled with her hair. “I take it the Committee has chosen
you to be it’s final decision maker?” he asked, playing along.
Muriko nodded, tracing the outline of her chin with a strand of her jet-black hair.
“Yes, I am the final decision maker, and I must truthfully say, assassin, that I have a few
concerns.”
The old man smiled and chuckled. He picked up the stick of nicotine and gnawed
anxiously at it’s end. “And how can I… HELP… you, madam?”
She turned off her flirting like one turns off a lightbulb. Muriko stopped and crossed
her arms. Her smile disappeared and suddenly she was all business. “It has always been
this organization’s policy not to kill Fox Mulder,” she said with cold seriousness. “Mulder
is not only a hated man, but an admired one as well. Killing him would give credence to
his conspiracy theories. Killing him would start a holy war with the FBI and the United
States Congress. If that happens, it would be detrimental to our cause.”
The Smoking Man pushed his chair back and pulled open a drawer. Pieces of cheap
metal scraped against each other, making a high squeal. He pulled out a bundled
newspaper and threw it on top of the desk. Muriko picked it up and unfolded it. “That’s
tomorrow’s newspaper,” the Smoking Man explained. “You see, Muriko, the key to Fox
Mulder’s weakness lies in his reputation. Right now there are powerful people who are
intrigued with his conspiracy theories even though they hate the man’s guts. If we can
break his reputation and make him look like a lunatic, like one of those homeless, mad
drunkards that roam the street at night, people will lose their intrigue… not their hate!
Hence, when Fox Mulder finally does disappear, he will not be missed, and his work with
the X-files will die with him.”
The woman unfurled the paper, and there in the front page was a picture of Bo Duke
and Fox Mulder rushing out the door of a store in their skivvies under the headline
G-MAN REVEALS ALL. Muriko covered her mouth and quickly muffled a laugh. She
refolded the paper and tried to get the picture out of her mind so that she could regain her
serious mood. “You think now is the appropriate time to strike?” she asked, trying
desperately to change the subject.
The Smoking Man nodded. “Fox Mulder is at his weakest now. His X-files is gone,
and his reputation is bordering on total collapse. When that paper comes out, he can
finally be eliminated from the playing field.”
“And what about the farmer?”
He stiffened at the question. His jaw tensed. His back straightened, and the long
period of silence that followed killed the joviality in the room. He picked up his cigarette
and in nervousness took a puff. “He’s personal,” the old man finally said.
Muriko was silent for a few seconds as she assessed the sudden change in mood. She
walked over to the desk and gently laid the newspaper back on top of it. “Assassin,” she
said softly, “you know as well as I that we cannot afford to take our work personally. I
know that you were close to Alex Krycek. I know that you wanted him to take over when
you finally retired. I know he was like a son to you. I know that Bo Duke played a
significant role in having him thrown into prison, but I also know that people like the
Dukes are but peons in this game of ours. You do not know the folk of this region; I have
studied up on them. Unless you mess with them directly, they are no danger. But if you
do, they will fight with a ferocity you cannot imagine. Personal revenge is a poor reason
to go to war.”
The Smoking Man snuffed out his cigarette on a plastic ashtray and leaned forward in
his chair. “Give me what I want, Muriko. I have been at this job a very, very long time,
and in the business of destroying people and getting away with it, no one does that better
than me! Simply say the word, and Fox Mulder will be out of your hair forever! His
X-files will degrade into obscurity on the Net.”
“And the farmer?” she asked, crossing her arms in judgmental doubt.
“Give him to me as a present,” the Smoking Man replied. He was falling back into a
frisky mood with the woman. He smiled and reached for her arm, running his rough
fingers up and down the smooth dark silk suit. She obliged him and extended her hand
outwards to run her manicured fingers through his gray-streaked hair. “Give him to me as
a retirement gift, as a sign of your affection for me.”
Muriko smiled at the last statement. She closed her eyes and nodded. “Very well,” she
said. “Proceed. You have the Society’s blessings.”
She turned and headed towards the door, both her hips and hair swaying to the rhythm
her high heels made upon hitting the hard floor.
“Muriko!”
She stopped at the old man’s inquisitive calling. “Yes?” she asked as she glanced over
her shoulder.
The Smoking Man licked his lips. “Will I… get a chance to see you again?”
The Asian woman’s eyes turned dark with pleasure. She knew exactly what he was
asking. She pressed her maroon lips together into a devilish smile and replied, “Assassin,
the day Fox Mulder and Bo Duke die will be the day I let you see me again in private.”
“Very well, fair lady,” the Smoking Man said with a courteous bow. “In that case, I
will see you tomorrow.”

*****************************************************************

There is no pain when you are asleep. When Patricia came to this realization months
ago, sleeping became her favorite activity. When you are asleep, you don’t know about
the cameras that watch you incessantly from the corners of the room. The men and
soldiers leave you alone. You are not forced to seek out and hurt people. And most
importantly, you forget about those whose souls you tore asunder. You forget your losses.
The hugs and kisses the nuns at the orphanage gave fall into a black hole in the
subconscious mind. The happiness you experienced at the orphanage is erased from your
memory, and the pain of losing all that you loved disappears right along with it.
Patricia wished she could fall asleep. She lay on top of her bed staring blankly at the
ceiling trying hard to quiet her mind. It was no use. She was frustrated with herself. She
tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position on the stiff mattress in the white,
lifeless room. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not put her mind at rest. The
events of that morning ran through her memory over and over and over. The farmer, the
policeman, and their fears plagued her. Soon, very soon, THEY would make her attack
them again, and she didn’t want to hurt these men. She really, really didn’t.
And then it happened. Her mind flashed, and pictures of the imminent future invaded
her head. She had no control over it. It ran like a movie playing on a television set.
Patricia jumped up out of bed. She tumbled to the floor and crawled back under the
mattress. The vision scared her. She scrunched into a ball next to the box of toys, trying
hard to escape the unwanted pictures that played against her will.
“NO!” she whined. “NO! NO!”
Patricia saw a vision of the future. Very soon, the Smoking Man would burst through
the door. He would make her do things she did not want to do ~ bad, terrible things. And
when she was through, the policeman’s and farmer’s fates would be sealed… and that
scared Patricia most of all.