TITLE:	Sacrificial Lamb in the Lion's Den
  BY:	nychen
  EMAIL:	nychen@gatech.edu
  WEBSITE:	http://nychen.com/xf/
  CATEGORY:	x-files || angst || scully-torture
  RATING:	R || violence, language

  SUMMARY:	what would you give up to save your life partner?
  SPOILERS:	none
  DISCLAIMER:	i don't own anything except this story.
  ARCHIVE:	post anywhere just remember to give me credit and links.

  WRITTEN:	06.21.01
  LAST UPDATED:	03.04.02

 [ SACRIFICIAL LAMB IN THE LION'S DEN // Part 1 of 1 ]


\\\ Somewhere in a cabin, in the woods ///

"…it's not true…it's not true…" she said repeatedly slowly and softly, shaking her head side to side. Her lips barely moved when she spoke. The blue tinge of color on her lips frightened him.

"Scully, you've lost a lot of blood. You're going into shock." He managed to mutter quite steadily, though the thoughts in his head were flying around manically.

"…it's not true…"

"What, Scully?" Mulder leaned closer to his partner and cradled her chin to his ear. He could feel her soft breath on his cheek as she spoke again.

"It's not true…it's not, is it, Mulder?" Scully whispered ever so quietly.

The question startled him. She addressed him so honestly, asking him something that could be her last words. The last sweet words of her voice that he would hear, and it was just an answer she so desperately wanted to know.

Scully took another breath and paused, as Mulder saw the tears slip down her cheek and it pulled at his heart the pain that she was suffering because of him. He was so close to her he could almost feel the warmth of the blood from his partner's shoulder flowing down her arm. Blood was everywhere, drowning her; soaking into her skin like alcohol into air.

"What's not true, Scully?" He replied, their eyes still deeply focused on each other's.

"Th-that you would let me die…to save your sister, S-Samantha?" the words slithered off her tongue, difficult and with an unease to them both.

The room was dead quiet, no sounds beared notice but the slow breathing of the woman and the man sitting beside her on the bed. Even the snow outside seemed to stop, the winds blowing nowhere into the trees.

Her words rang in his ears '"…you would let me die to save you sister, S-Samantha?"' Mulder hadn't realized he was holding his breath, the shivers ran though him chilling him to the bone at the boldness of his partner's words. She had dared to ask, but did he bear to give an answer?
 
"Y-you're in shock, Scully…" Mulder uttered desperately and quickly, the words rang true yet he only said them because he didn't have the answer. Or he did and he couldn't bear to say them to her. She was in no condition to hear such things.

"Mm-ulder, it's okay, you know…I know you miss her so much." These words slipped from her tongue so easily shielding the pain she was suffering. These words he heard stunned him because she had meant them, and he knew it. Because Mulder knew his partner would give her life to save another, no matter who - and more so now because the life she would save was his sister's.

He stared at her face, so solemn and downcast, he couldn't hurt her any more than he'd already done. He didn't feel his hand give way to her chin as her head bobbed down to her chest; she said nothing. Scully just closed her eyes, letting the pain take her away. From here, from him. Maybe the answer to her question was even too difficult for her to hear. She wanted to truth as much as he did, but both had already sacrificed so much.

Too much.

Now the sacrifice was each other. Their partnership as FBI agents and their friendship as two souls together searching for a bigger truth to themselves was now on the line as each went quiet, withholding the answers from each other.

Mulder blinked. His mouth opened, his lips moments away from spilling the truth of his soul to the woman lying next to him. Dying…ready to give her life away for his - and his sister's.

And he just needed to give her the answer she wanted. A simple 'yes' would suffice, and it would all be over. Her pain, his pain…their search. The truth would come out.

Mulder blinked again as he felt something soft and heavy crumple against his right shoulder. Scully's body had gone limp and fell forward onto his. Mulder abruptly snapped out of his self-absorbed thoughts, he was guilty of so many things. He had let so many things and people slip away in his life, but not her; not his soulmate.

He gently swept his arm around Scully's sagging body and lifted her up and leaned her upper-body against the headboard of the bed. The blood from her shoulder had soaked through her clothing and the bed sheets, even through his clothing. The amount of blood was startling, and he had to take action fast.

"Scully? Scully, stay with me." Mulder said as he touched his hand to her face, cupping her cheek and wiping the tear away. Her eyes were still closed, but fluttered faintly as his fingers ran up her cheek. "Scully you've got to stay awake, okay?"

He whispered a few reassuring words to her, but the words were meant to reassure him she would be okay. More than okay.

He gently lifted Scully's left arm, receiving an agonizing moan from Scully as he did.  He gripped her elbow, but was careful not to further the large gash around her inner elbow region as he quickly unwrapped the scarf around his neck with his other hand. His fingers were thoroughly wet in fresh blood by the moment he was ready to bandage her arm.

"Scully, Scully, listen…this is going to hurt. You're bleeding down the arm, so I'm going to wrap the wound with my scarf. I'm going to have to tie it hard, so just take a deep breath, okay?"

Silence. With the scarf still in my hand, Mulder brushes a strand of hair from his partner's face and once again lifts up her chin ever so slightly.

"Scully? Please…okay?" he pleads, his lower lip quivering with the weight of the world on him. "Ready?"

"Mhm…'kay," she forces through her now gritted teeth.

He looks into her eyes again, sees her approval shrouded in tears of present and forthcoming pain.

He wraps the scarf numerous times around her upper arm till both ends are in his grasp. He yells '"Now!"' before he pulls both ends tightly together and hurriedly ties it into a knot just above Scully's inner elbow.

A small grunt and low groan escape from Scully's throat as Mulder lets out his breathe with hers as well. He glances up from her arm to her shoulder then to her face. Her face grimacing in terrible agony, yet she still was able to muffle her own cries of pain. Her own strength of will as a person wouldn't even let her cry out to show her suffering. That's how much she was able to bear; he was never the only one left carrying the burden of what he did. Even with The X-Files, she was there with him - since the beginning.

And yet now, the end seemed so close. For him, and her.

And he was here letting her carry his burden just so he could remember the past for a moment, and then to forget it just like he would his present. Remembering the past for him, making this deal for him meant he would need to trade the present, her present. How could he have sunk so low to agree to this deal that he would forget she who helped him get here? How could he let her die to save his sister - to save himself?

He was such a coward.

\\\ Early that week, Thursday 9am ///

His back hurt like hell. He hadn't slept well all week. The paperwork Skinner had given him about his last case was piling up on his desk, and every time he filled out one report, it seemed like another one was waiting in place of it.

He hated paperwork.

"Damnit! I can't stand this sh…"

The door in front of him swung open and caught his breath as Mulder watched his partner breeze through in full attire. She was suited in one of his favorite outfits; it was the light-purple suit with the knee-length skirt. She rarely wore it, but when she did, he admired it so and always turned his head to give it a second glance.

"Hey! Morning, Mulder."

"Hey hey! How come you're so cheery today?" He replied, questioning her smile. He rarely saw that too, and when he did, it lit his heart afire.

"Well…" She smiled her beautiful smile.

"Yeah? Yeah…I'm waiting…" He teased.

"I spoke to Assistant Director Skinner this morning - "

"Oh no! Don't tell me he's hassling me alrea - "

"No, wait, Mulder! It's good news!"

"From Skinner?! You've got to be kidding me!"

"Well, it's not what you think. Skinner said that since he'll be out of town tomorrow, and for the rest of the week," Scully paused, giving Mulder a look, "he's giving you till Monday to turn those reports in." She finished and eyed him again.

"Ahhh! Damn, you mean I've been stressing out this morning all for nothin'?! He should've told me this himself! I've got 4 days to do this!" Mulder exclaimed excitedly, shoving the papers he was working on off his desk onto the floor.

"Mulder!" Scully shouted as she walked over to her partner's desk. "Monday does not count as a day to work on those!" then continued picking up the sheets of paperwork from the floor. She straightened them up and tapped them on the table gently until they were all neat and in a pile, and placed them on his desk.

"Thanks, Scully. I know, I know…I promise I'll do them before Monday. Sunday night good enough?" He joked and reached across the desk, slightly brushing Scully's hand as he picked up a file folder and started reading inside.

The day was just beginning and it seemed like it was going to be a great weekend to relax. Scully breathed a sigh of relief as she turned and walked out the door to get some coffee.

"Did you want some, Mulder?"

No reply. She stepped back, and poked her head from the door entrance and repeated herself, this time a bit louder.

"Mulder?" Her partner looked up. "Coffee?"

"Nah…" He shook his head and quickly returned to reading.

She returned with a hot cup of coffee and sat down. She took a small sip and looked up. Mulder was concentrated on reading, so much so he was furrowing his brows.

Something was up.

She waited a moment before she spoke.

"Something interesting, Mulder?"

"Mmhmmm, definitely got something here, Scully." He shifted in his seat and spun around so the file was readable from where his partner was sitting. "Take a look at this."

Scully scooted her chair over a couple inches, and leaned forward with her coffee in hand.

"What is it?" She inquired looking at several black and white photographs. Each photo had a blurred image of what resembled a human figure lying face down in a lake of blood. What was more disturbing was that all three photos of the three figures were all lying in similar positions.

"Three deaths, three different cities in three weeks."

"Are the three victims related?" Scully asked, getting a little uneasy anticipating the answer.

"No, completely unrelated people. No one at the scene of the crime, no evidence except blood that's not the victims. Everything else is perfectly clean."

"Blood? Whose blood? Another victim's or the…"

"Could be the blood of the suspect. No one's sure if it's a him or her, most likely a him from what I gather."

"What have you got so far, Mulder?"

"This guy - I mean suspect, has definitely got a taste for blood. Not a vampire, mind you," Mulder paused for a slight grin, "but loves the extraction of it - the process excites him, how it flows from the body and how it's so untainted and natural. Our suspect needs and wants this, this feeling of power and sexual lust for it."

"Why blood?"

"Blood because it's something we all have inside us. While each and every person is different in some way, and we are all removed from each other, blood is the…common denominator we all have and need in order to live.

"The extraction of blood leaves it's victims weak and in need. This attracts him, draws him into a world that he can understand. He lusts for it because he respects it, and wants to own it and have the power to do whatever he wishes."

He paused again, for a moment, flipped through the photographs then handing them to Scully. He touched her fingers as he pointed at the victim in the second photograph.

"Lucy Slader, 27, worked as a manager of a company in Texas called, um…yeah, 'AdvanTex, Incorporated.' They make some kind of chemical or substance for hospitals, for muscular dystrophy I think…"

"Why her? Did she discover something?" Scully said looking at the photograph. The lady was lying face down on a marble floor, probably at her workplace, large wounds appeared noticeably on her naked back. Her garment was sliced open, it looked like a surgery gone wrong.

"The local policed questioned her involvement in a recalled chemical couple months ago, but she was cleared of being involved in the handling of it. Her fellow employees all said she was a great boss, nice woman who had no enemies.

"Strange, how people like that are always the ones with the most." Mulder quipped as he noticed Scully's hesitation as he pointed to the third photograph. "This one, she's got a similar profile…Linda Bueaford works, worked for a pharmacy in her local town of Franklin, Kentucky. Evidently, she was a mother of two, no connections of the pharmacy she works at with AdvanTex."

Scully listened intently, figuring the details in her head and gazing deeply at the photographs in front of her. The image of Linda Bueaford was identical to the first image she saw, different people but the same deaths. She set down her coffee mug on the edge of Mulder's ebony desk and picked up the photograph for a closer look.

The body was face down, in blood that spread beneath like a runny faucet someone forgot to turn off. The woman's blouse was open in the back, not torn but sliced open with a clean cut. The woman's back was slashed, lines ran vertical and horizontally across in every which way. The cuts were not deep from what she could tell, they were not meant to kill, just to maim. The real wounds were not clear from the photograph. They were likely to be in the chest or abdomen area, most serial killers were drawn to slicing the most vulnerable area for the slowest and most painful death for their victims.

This was likely no different.

"Where are the bodies?" Her words broke the silence.

"Just what I wanted to hear! Both bodies are waiting, I already made an appointment for you to see them at 11 this morning." Mulder said as he stood up and grabbed his long coat and spun the chair around with his hand.

"Well…Thanks, Mulder, but where are you going?" Scully asked looking up, somewhat perturbed about her assigned schedule. The file folder and photographs were spread in a mess in her lap.

"I'm off to question the sheriff in Franklin, I booked you a flight to join me later." Mulder rushed around his desk, grabbing a variety of items and stuffing them in his pockets. "Call me when you finish, or I'll call you if something comes up."

"B-But wait! Mulder!" Scully yelled as her bullheaded partner slipped out the door, his tie flying in the air. "What about the third victim?"

"Ahh! I've got that saved for you later after you finish up here!" The words were barely audible as he jammed the elevator button, and dashed inside and disappeared.

"Great!" sighed her partner, again left to do the dirty work and without a caution in the wind about what she would expect during the autopsies.

Scully clutched the third photograph from the pile of papers, and stood up. The third body was difficult to distinguish from the rest of the debris in the photograph. The black and white colors didn't make it any easier either. She held the photo in different positions in the light, but still couldn't see the body clearly. Another sigh and she put the photograph back into the folder and stuffed it away in her briefcase.

She'd have plenty of time to figure out what she was seeing, or not seeing.

She had a long day ahead of her, and she hadn't even finished her coffee yet.

\\\ Thursday 5.33pm ///

The quiet surroundings in the morgue were getting to her. She had spent most of the morning, afternoon and evening doing the same thing in the same room for hours on end. Her feet hurt, her hands were aching, and her back was cramping up from standing humped over the autopsy table.

It wasn't so much the autopsies that bothered her, just the way they were performed. If one-day forensic pathology were performed lying down in a cushy bed with robots doing everything you vocalized, she would have it made! But so far, her ideas were just another cloud in the sky - far from reachable in the world.

Scully was finished for the day and ready to head home. She dreamt of her comfortable bed as she slipped the bloodied scrubs and gloves off and threw them into the metal trashcan. Then she walked over to the metal sink, turned on the metal faucet handle and grabbed the soap. She thoroughly washed her hands and dried them on a nearby towel.

A small grin emerged as she realized she was free to head home finally - get a hot meal, take a hot shower, and sleep for the rest of the week.

Scully hurried and cleaned up the rest of the room, and locked up as she grabbed her jacket and headed towards the garage. It was not so late in the day yet, she had plenty of time left for a relaxing bubble bath. Her car was one of the last few vehicles left in the parking lot. It was a Friday night, everyone seemed to be out having fun. She wanted that too.

\\\ Thursday 9.10pm ///

The phone was ringing repeatedly and loudly.

"Go away!" Scully managed to mutter. She was already relaxed in her bathtub, bubbles everywhere and listening to Barry Manilow's voice ease into her brain.

The phone still rang.

"Uggh!!!" a low grumble from her throat and then a splash of water from the tub lead up to the stereo in her living room. Scully was annoyed someone was pulling her away from her sanctuary  of comfort. She shut the CD player off and grabbed the nearby phone.

"Yeah? Scully residence."

"Hey hey!! Scully, it's Mulder! Where have you been? I've been trying to reach you all day and night!"

"Huh?! What? Oh no! Mulder, I'm so sorry, I completely forgot about you and that case! I don't know how I could've…I've been doing the autopsies for it!" Scully apologized sincerely. It did slip her mind. She didn't know how, but it did.

That wasn't like her.

"Hello? Scully?"

"Huh? Yeah, sorry again. Actually I'm at home, where are you?" She tidied up her hair and walked towards the bathroom, her bathrobe dragged behind her.

"I'm in my hotel. Alone. You were supposed to meet me here about an hour ago! I thought your flight was delayed or something. But you never made it, eh?!"

"No, I-I, let me get ready now and I'll meet you there around…How many hours is the flight?"

"I'll see you in about 5 hours, Scully. Don't forget the plane ticket!"

One last click of the phone, and he was gone. Again. Like usual.

"Well…enough relaxing. Time to get moving." Scully muttered to herself, drying her hair off and unplugging the bathtub. She watched the bubbles drain away with the water, spiraling down and away.

A part of her felt like her life was like that, spiraling down and away from her highest hopes and dreams. From what she wanted to be. Was this it? Part of the FBI's most dreaded division, down in the basement? Away from the rest of the agents?

Sometimes she just wanted it all to be normal. Normal? Or just less different.

The phone rang again.

It cleared her head of these probing thoughts.

The phone was still in her hand. She pressed the "TALK" button.

"Yeah?"

"Hey, Scully, it's me again. Just wanted to remind you to bring the autopsy reports, okay? I'll see ya' later."

Click.

"Reports, yeah…" she whispered to herself. She walked over to the kitchen table and grabbed her unopened briefcase and put it by the door.

She stopped for a moment. Staring at the brown leather case.

Then turned and prepared to pack.

\\\ Friday 7.30am ///

"Mulder?" a quiet voice from underneath the bedcovers asked.

"Yeah, sorry to wake you, Scully. I just needed to take another peek at those autopsy reports again. Actually, I'll need to take them with me, gotta' compare some notes with this guy I meet yesterday."

"Hmm? Yesterday? Who?" Scully sat up from the bed, half awake half asleep.

"A Doctor Zihang Cheng. He specializes in organic compounds at the local university." Mulder grabbed the reports next to his partner's laptop and flipped through them quickly.

"Hmm, do I know him? Think I've heard of him…" Scully threw the covers off and stood up slowly. She walked over to where Mulder stood and peered over his arm.

"What are you looking for?"

"Doctor Cheng is well-known for his recent discoveries of several types of organic compounds found in plants. You might've read his name in a medical magazine or something, Scully. Anyhow, remember we discussed something about a chemical substance last night that you found in the Bueaford body?" Mulder leans inward so Scully can see better.

"Yeah yeah…um, the substance is unknown. It contained some kind of organic protein compound I've never seen before. I'm not sure how it got there, I didn't find any kind of puncture wounds or needle marks."

"It's not natural in the body?"

"No, each of us has a natural protein base, but nothing with this much acidity. It could - "

"Be man-made?" Mulder quipped, cutting off Scully mid-sentence. He waited for a response.

"Well, I can't dispute that yet, but I highly doubt it. I haven't heard of any companies making any such organic proteins. I mean what would be the use…" She replied, ruffling her hair and yawning.

"That's what we're here to find out, Scully." Mulder  closed the file folder and tossed them onto the hotel table. "I'm off to meet Cheng in about 30 minutes."

"Wait, give me 5 minutes to get ready." Scully motioned to him before he headed out the door. She moved to the closet and grabbed some clothes and headed inside the bathroom.

"Yeah, okay." Mulder affirmed and stood at the door, rattling the keys in his pocket. He knew Scully had only about 4 hours of sleep since her flight landed at around 12.30am, and they sat up discussing the autopsy reports till 3 in the morning.

Her autopsy reports revealed what he expected. The two women were both brutally maimed from the neck down, on their chests, shoulders and back. The two women were both left for dead in close proximity to where they were attacked. They both had lost a tremendous amount of blood by the time they were dragged back from their attacker's hideout. There wasn't much blood at the scenes where the two bodies were found, only enough so that they would die there within a couple hours.

The autopsy reports also revealed that both women displayed similar, almost identical wounds on the chest, but different ones on the back. At first, Scully figured the cuts were careless, but concluded that each cut was precise, but not left in any kind of configuration.

The blood loss of both women also contributed to the depth of the case. The extraction of the blood was evident on the Slader body due to a large opening in her lower abdomen, where a surgical tube of some kind was inserted for the blood to drain out. A different blood type was also found in the woman's mouth that wasn't her own. Further examination established that she drank it because it was also found in her intestines. Scully had tested the found blood type to be AB negative, but could not trace it back to anyone.

The Bueaford body showed similar findings of drained blood, but this time the wound was not near the abdomen, but from two openings on the woman's arms. The veins in the woman's arms were large enough to insert two straws into. The woman was found blindfolded in an alley right outside the neighboring apartment, behind the trash canisters hanging from the fire-exit ladders by a cotton scarf. And with that, still no witnesses. The trash collector found the body there; it had been there a couple days already because it was infested with maggots and flies.

These images popped into his head, Mulder tried to shake them off.

"Ready!" Scully came out in a nice suit, the one she was always wearing now - the black and white one. "Are you okay? Got a headache or something?"

"Nah, just clearing my head. Come on, let's go." He opened the door and they both stepped out into the hotel parking lot. There was not as many cars around as there was yesterday, must've been a convention nearby that ended early.

"I'll drive." Mulder opened the driver side door and sat down. He adjusted the mirrors and keyed the car, the engine roared. "Did you want to stop for breakfast later?"

"Mulder, you know I've been thinking…" Scully pulled on the seat belt strap and fastened it closed, "if Lucy Slader drank the type AB blood, maybe the suspect's, how is that Linda Bueaford drank the type AB blood and Slader's? What would be the symbolism of the suspect's blood? Is the killer - "

"I'm guessing the first drink was meant as a sacrifice, the suspect gave his own blood and this is him starting the game. I'm sure somehow it's tied to the organic compound. The man we're looking for believes blood is untainted, pure and by drinking it we cleanse ourselves. Whatever he's looking to cleanse, he's applying it to his victims too. It's a demonstration not just to himself, but to us, the spectators.

"Our suspect sees his blood as pure, so he's using that as the cleansing solution, and maybe mixing in or adding the compiound does something else." Mulder continued to theorize.

"I checked out the blood samples of each of the victims, compared them and cross-analyzed them - both women did exude signs of having the organic compound. Do you think it's passing from the blood?"

"It's got to be. I don't see another way…" Mulder gripped the steering wheel tight and turned right in front of a white plastered building. "We're here."

\\\ University of Kentucky, BioMedical Laboratories building 8.00am ///

Both agents walked into the glass door entrance to be halted by two men dressed in security guard uniforms. A man dressed in a blue suit stepped from behind the lobby desk and motioned to the guards. The guards escorted both the agents over and stood close by as the man in blue began to speak.

"Welcome, you two must be from the Bureau. I can tell by your attire."

"Is it my tie?" Mulder joked softly to Scully.

"My name is Carl Oakland, I'm the security advisor for the bio-labs department. Please step this way and we'll just give you your visitor passes." The man in blue said as he grabbed two small cards from the nearby table and handed them to both agents.

"Thanks." Mulder clipped the pass onto the lapel of his jacket and introduced himself and Scully to Carl.

"How come there is so much security for an on-campus biomedical laboratory?" Scully asked as she clipped her pass to her jacket.

"Well, we run the third largest biomedical laboratory in the United States, and we get government funding to research many of the toxic waste material produced by nuclear power plants. Also we research the biological organisms found in the rainforest and underwater. The labs here are ten times more advanced then the typical labs; we have all the latest technologies and resources available to us." Carl led both agents past several halls and entered upon a small room with a metal walls on all four sides. "What we have here is beyond what many scientists in the field have discovered, or even imagined possible."

As he spoke, he stood in front of the metal wall with the closed door and punched a button on the wall. Both agents watched in amazement as a small protrusion that looked like binoculars, extended out from the wall and scanned Carl's eyes. Then it beeped and retracted back into the wall and the metal door opened up.

"Whoa, impressive." Mulder stepped to get a closer look at the 'binocular' before it disappeared.

"It's an iris biometric scanner, keeps the kids from entering into our more..interesting...research labs." Carl led the two agents into large room with all glass enclosures surrounding them and bright lights from the ceiling. "This is where I end our tour. Doctor Cheng should be out in a minute. Any questions let me know. I'll return to lead you both out. Pleasure to meet you, Agent Mulder...Agent Scully." he shook both the agent's hands before turnin to leave.

"Wait, Carl?" Scully followed the man in blue a couple steps behind him. "How many people have access to this part of the research laboratories?"

"Ah, I know of 10 people who have acces, me included. Out of that there are 5 professors, 3 students and 2 government employees. Those are just off the top of my head, the last time I was informed was several months ago. I don't have access to the list, something about securing that too! You'd have to check with one of the government heads." Carl shrugged and turned and walked back to the end of the hall, and stood there waiting.

"Nice guy, quite helpful." Scully said, now visually browsing the nealt organized laboratory.

"Yeah...we'll have to ask him more questions later." Mulder circled around the desks and looked over the papers and eyed a corner of what seemed like test tubes on a shelf. "Scully, I'm starting to feel oddly like a rat in here..."

"Well, I'd have hoped it would feel more homey than lab-ratish in here." A rough voice sounded out from behind a cabinet of drawers, and appeared an elderly Asian man dressed in a recognizable labcoat. "Hello, Agent Mulder."

"Dr. Cheng," Mulder shook the man's hand. "This is my partner, Agent Scully. Definitely a nice place you got here. Not quite my style though."

"I have all I need her to accomplish my work, and that satisfies me plenty. But yes, even I feel like a lab-rat around here sometimes."

"Dr. Cheng, what is it exactly that you do here?" Scully asked pointing to the visible liquids and test tubes.

"What I do is not what is considered appropriate by all ethical standards in the biomedical field of standards, but it is important enough to warrant my unorthodox methods." The doctor walks toward one of the cabinet drawers and opens it, then flips through a pile of folders and pulls one out. "Follow me."

Both agents follow the doctor behind the cabinet and down a hall into a locked room. The room is partially hidden in darkness and the cool air inside makes both the agents a bit nervous.

"What is this? Where are we?" the edge of Mulder's curious voice gets the better of him.

"This is what I'd call the subject acquisition room. Basically where we have our volunteer subjects perform various tasks to see if they qualify for our research and we -"

Scully interjects, "You mean human subjects?!" Now Scully's voice is sounding a bit critical.

"Yes, but they are all voluntary and not permanently harmed in any way, shape or form." Dr. Cheng replies acknowledging the agents' unsureness of the situation.

"What kind of tasks are you talking about here?"

"Well, that is classified information. I'm not cleared to answer that type of queston, Agent Scully."

"You mean to say the type of questions that are self-incriminating or the type of questions with answers you don't want us to know?"

"Well..both I guess. Agent Mulder, I told you before I am only helping you, cooperating with you if I am not under investigation." Dr. Cheng takes a step back, looking eye to eye at Agent Mulder. "I have shown you what no one else dares, or has seen here."

"Yes, I apologize for Agent Scully's forceful questioning. She's quite determined to know more about the operations here only because she's a scientist too. So she and I both want to find out
what that compound is so we can continue our investigation, Dr. Cheng." Mulder said, hoping the words he said were enough to smooth over the tense atmosphere between them. "We thank you for your time. We'll get in touch with you later."

"Okay, Agent Mulder," the doctor handed the file folder to him with some hesistation. "This is all the information I could find about the protein compound.

"Please now, I'll need to get back to work." The doctor called Carl over to show his guests out.

Back at the lobby, both agents handed back their temporary passes to Carl, who paused for a second as he noticed the file folder in Agent Mulder's hand.

"I hope Dr. Cheng was of help to your investigation."

"Yes, me too." Mulder said knowing that Carl saw the folder in his hand. "Scully. let's go." He placed the folder in his inner jacket and turned with his partner to exit the building.

Scully waited till they were in the car to speak.

"Mulder, what was that all about?" She asked while putting on her seat belt. She was angry at how Mulder embarassed her in front of the doctor.

"What, Scully?" He started the car engine without turning to look at his agitated partner.

"I mean back there, with Dr. Cheng. You pretty much undermined me by apologizing, no making excuses for me in my face! I don't appreciate that at all!"

"Scully! The man was taking a risk showing us as much as he did, and he was in a very dangerous position." Mulder turned to look at Scully, whose face was stern and serious. "Doctor Cheng is not our suspect, Scully. Rather he's on our side."

"Which side is that?" Scully questioned curiously.

"The right side. The good side...the search for the truth side." He glanced away from the road ahead long enough to catch a quick smile on his partner's face.

"Yeah, okay as long as he stays there." Scully brushed a strand of hair off her cheek and breathed a sigh of relief. Or tension.

"So you up for a late breakfast or rather, early lunch?" blurted Mulder cheerfully, easing his way into changing the subject.

"Sure, why not..." Scully looked at her watch, it was already half past 10 o' clock. Her stomach grumbled.

\\\ Building 12.44pm ///








[ SACRIFICIAL LAMB IN THE LION'S DEN // Part 1 of 1 ]