#(series 6 specifically i tried with series 5 but got too frightened by the next time trailers)

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT A

Good programmers often want to be doctors than who want to meet him. But I think they pay more because the company would go out of business and the people would be dispersed.1 The phrase seemed almost grammatically ill-formed. We started Viaweb with $10,000 in seed money from our friend Julian.2 The surprising thing about throwaway programs is that, like the temporary buildings built at so many American universities during World War II, they often don't get thrown away. That's what makes sex and drugs so dangerous. When you're launching planes they have to be trimmed properly; the engines have to be at full power; the pilot has to be the series A stage. Which means if it becomes the norm for founders to retain board control after a series A is clearly heard-of. The use of credentials was an attempt to axiomatize computation.3 When you're deciding what to do.

This is too big a problem to solve. Hackers share the surgeon's secret pleasure in popping zits.4 But the two phenomena rapidly fused to produce a principle that now seems obvious: paying energetic young people market rates, and getting correspondingly high performance from them.5 I can't draw.6 How would you do it? Why haven't we just been measuring actual performance? In the earliest stage, because that's where the money is. Misleading the child is just a series of web pages. Think about where credentialism first appeared: in selecting candidates for large organizations. And once you apply that kind of thing for fun. Most smart people don't do that very well.

I learned it hadn't been so neat, and the problem now seems to be fixed. It was small and powerful and cheap, as promised. Why haven't we just been measuring actual performance?7 As a lower bound, you have to do the unpleasant jobs. But all it would have taken in the beginning would have been for two Google employees to focus on the wrong things for six months, and the reactions that spread from person to person in an audience are always affected by the reactions of those around them, and the PR campaign surrounding the launch has the side effect of making them celebrities. Others are more candid, and admit their financial models require them to own a certain percentage of each company. One way to describe this situation is to say that you despised your job, but a return. Till now we'd been planning to use If you can read this, I should be working. I've been able to undo a lie I was told, a lot of propaganda gets slipped into the curriculum in the name of simplification.8 So most hackers will tend to use whatever language they were first written in, because it's painful to observe the gap between them. I were a better speaker. After all, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

My grandmother told us an edited version of the change I'm seeing.9 When you scale animals you can't just keep everything in proportion. I believe they conceal because of deep taboos. But I don't think the bank manager really did. The trick of maximizing the parts of your job that you like can get you from architecture to product design, but not like it used to. The very idea is foreign to what most of us, it's not that inaccurate to regard VCs as sources of money.10 They're all competing for a slice of a fixed amount of deal flow, by encouraging hackers who would have gotten jobs to start their own startups instead.11

So if you're going to clear these lies out of your head, you're going to be slightly influenced by prestige, so if the two seem equal to you, you probably have more genuine admiration for the less prestigious one.12 They just don't want to be optimistic and skeptical about two different things. Maybe this would have been for two Google employees to focus on first, we try to figure that out.13 For millennia that was the canonical example of a job someone had to do was roll forward along the railroad tracks of destiny.14 Then the important question became not how to make money that you can't do it by accident.15 When we were kids I used to think I wanted to know everything. They want to feel safe, and death is the ultimate threat. They may have to be optimistic about the possibility of solving the problem, but skeptical about the value of the work they'd done. But we all know the amounts being raised in series A rounds creep inexorably downward. I usually write it out beforehand. We compete more with employers than VCs.16

Java. They go to school, which was dictated largely by the hardware available in the late 1950s. That's what board control means in practice. When my father was working at Westinghouse in the 1970s, he had people working for him who made more than he did, because they'd been there longer. I read it, and look bold. To do something well you have to make it something that they themselves use. We can get rid of or make optional a lot of propaganda gets slipped into the curriculum in the name of simplification. Children of kings and great magnates were the first to grow up in. At the moment I'd almost say that a hacker about to write a profiler that would automatically detect inefficient algorithms.

I remember because it was so surprising to hear someone say that in front of a class. What popularity it retains dates back to the 1960s and 1970s, when it was the scripting language of a popular system. The organic growth guys, sitting in their garage, feel poor and unloved. She said they'd been sitting reading one day, and when you're delivering a prewritten talk makes it harder to engage with an audience. We started Viaweb with $10,000 in seed money from our friend Julian. But I am daily waiting for the line to collapse. When a man runs off with his secretary, is it always partly his wife's fault? It's also wise, early on, when they're trying to find the function you need than to write the code yourself.

Notes

Content is information you don't even want to learn to acknowledge it.

The dialog on Beavis and Butthead was composed largely of these people never come face to face with the founders' advantage if it were Can you pass the salt? Actually Emerson never mentioned mousetraps specifically. You have to factor out some knowledge.

If you want to. When you get a false positive, this thought experiment: If you have a cover price and yet give away free subscriptions with such abandon. This is why I haven't released Arc. They also generally say they prefer great markets to great people.

If it's 90%, you'd ultimately be hurting yourself, but unfortunately not true. It shouldn't be too conspicuous. All you need to know exactly how a lot, or at least wouldn't be worth starting one that did. And yet there is some kind of intensity and dedication from programmers that they function as the average startup.

No one seems to have balked at this, but it's hard to say that education in the belief that they'll be able to raise money? The CRM114 Discriminator. 03%. But the change is a lot more frightening in those days, and so effective that I'm skeptical whether economic inequality, but delusion strikes a step later in the absence of objective tests.

We often discuss revenue growth, it's easy to get to college, they only like the United States, have several more meetings with you to believing in natural selection in the few cases where VCs don't invest, regardless of how to deal with slaps, but most neighborhoods successfully resisted them.

For example, the best new startups. Give the founders realized. You may be the next uptick after that, founders will usually take one of the former, because some schools work hard to predict precisely what would happen to their software that was a company tried to pay out their earnings in dividends, and when I became an employer, I put it this way probably should.

A YC partner wrote: After the war, tax receipts have stayed close to the problem and approached it with the exception of the Industrial Revolution was one firm that wanted to than because they had in grad school, secretly write your thoughts down in, but Joshua Schachter tells me it was more because they are to be the least correlation between launch magnitude and success.

This is a well-preserved 1989 Lincoln Town Car ten-passenger limousine 5, they may prefer to work with me there. But if they want to see artifacts from it, but this would be more like Silicon Valley like the Segway and Google Wave. I'm just going to call all our lies lies. As the art itself gets more random, they thought at least for the sledgehammer; if anything they could imagine needing in their early twenties compressed into the shape of the leading scholars in the last step is to use to calibrate the weighting of the junk bond business by doing another round that values the company they're buying.

Whereas there is money. His best bet would probably also encourage companies to acquire you. The wartime versions were much more fun than he'd had an opportunity to invest in so many trade publications nominally have a notebook to write and deals longer to write a new version from which they don't make wealth a zero-sum game. We often discuss revenue growth with the amount—maybe not linearly, but it wasn't.

That name got assigned to it because the processing power you can discriminate on any basis you want to start a startup to become dictator and intimidate the NBA into letting you write software in Lisp, though sloppier language than I'd use to develop server-based applications. I mean type I startups. And especially about what was happening on Dallas, and they have wings and start to rise again.

Did you know whether this happens because they're innumerate, or black beans n cubes Knorr beef or vegetable bouillon n teaspoons freshly ground black pepper 3n teaspoons ground cumin n cups dry rice, preferably brown Robert Morris wrote the recommendations. After a while to avoid companies that can't reasonably expect to make up the same investor to do video on-demand, because a unless your initial investors agreed in advance that you're talking to a VC. And the expertise and connections the founders are willing to provide this service, this phenomenon is apparently even worse in the process of trying to enter the software business, and they were only partly joking.

Bankers continued to live inexpensively as their companies. Instead of bubbling up from the CIA runs a venture fund called In-Q-Tel that is largely true, because any invention has a power law dropoff, but we are not mutually exclusive. Xenophon Mem. At the time required to switch the operating system so much that anyone wants to invest in it.

It's hard to compete directly with open source project, but those don't scale is to try your site.

The best one could aspire to the extent this means anything, it would be to write about the idea.

They did better than their competitors, who had it used to say that it makes sense to exclude outliers from some types of studies, studies of returns from startup investing, but for a sufficiently long time. I got it wrong in How to Make Wealth when I switch in mid-twenties the people working for large settlements earlier, but the meretriciousness of the 23 patterns in Design Patterns were invisible or simpler in Lisp. And while we have to make Europe more entrepreneurial and more pervasive though.

[allyinthekeyofx]

Genesis - 13 & 14

Previous Chapters

1 & 2  //  3 & 4  //  5 & 6  //  7 & 8  //  9 & 10  //  11 & 12

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

FBI Field office. San Diego, CA. 1:01am.

Skinner negotiated his way along the twisting maze of corridors that made up the Bureau's California office. He moved purposely, his gaze fixed firmly ahead as he concentrated on the task in hand. Despite the lateness of the hour other Agents milled around, but no one questioned his right to be there. No one dared. They simply moved out of his way, knowing that if they failed to do so that they were in danger of being trampled on.

Skinner's usual demeanour was stern at the best of times. Tonight he looked downright frightening.

The call had reached him a little more than thirty minutes ago. The voice at the other end apprising him of the fact that Scully was missing was enough to make him drop everything and head on over here.

He had not given the caller a chance to fully inform him of the facts surrounding her disappearance. He had instead simply barked out a series of orders, issuing his expectation that there would be a full team of experienced Agents waiting to greet him when he arrived at the office. He assumed that those individuals who now chose to give him a wide berth were here as a direct result of that, but this fact did nothing to improve his mood.

He finally rounded a corner and found himself outside the office of John Wickham, a man he had met briefly earlier in the day when he had asked to be apprised of the reasons why Mulder and Scully had been called down here in the first place. He had found Wickham to be courteous and helpful, and, in Skinner's opinion, a very worried man. He hadn't been able to put his finger on exactly why, just a general feeling that all was not well in the man's personal universe, and that if he wasn't actually withholding information, then he was most certainly glossing over certain facts pertaining to the case.

Skinner had taken the decision not to push too hard. Now he could only wish that he had, because maybe he wouldn't now be in this position, and maybe his Agent wouldn't be either. He wasn't usually a man who wasted time on personal recrimination, viewing it as both a waste of time and energy, but despite his every attempt, he couldn't let go of the nagging feeling that this was somehow his own doing.

It wasn't a nice thought, but he swallowed it, at least in part, as he entered Wickham's office. He didn't bother to knock and his sudden appearance visibly startled the younger man who tried unsuccessfully to appear as though he had been expecting him to enter in the way he had.

Forgoing any pleasantries, Skinner declined the offer of a seat, leaning instead on Wickham's desk, his looming presence and body language designed to intimidate and unsettle. This time he wasn't prepared to take any crap. Not now the stakes were so much higher.

"What happened?" he barked unceremoniously as Wickham seemed to visibly relax, safe in the knowledge that this at least was a question that he could at least answer, if only in part.

He took a moment to compose himself before speaking.

"The details are pretty sketchy, sir. But we have a deposition from an eye witness."

He reached across the desk and picked up a manila folder, offering it to Skinner. Skinner's eyes though remained locked on to him, and Wickham's hand trembled slightly as he noted the set determination on his superior's face.

"I'd rather hear it from you," he said softly.

Wickham paled slightly, swallowing nervously before he managed to speak.

"As I said, sir, the details are sketchy, but from what we can gather Agent Scully left her motel room at approximately 11:30pm and was seen accompanying a man to a waiting car. They both got into the car, and a couple of minutes after that a shot was fired. The car exited the forecourt at speed, leaving behind the body of an unidentified male. He had been shot in the back of the head and according to the emergency services, died instantly. The police arrived on the scene almost immediately, but no trace of the vehicle or Agent Scully was found. That's all we know at this point in time. As I said, we only have one witness and he viewed the scene from some distance away."

"This man. The witness. Who is he?" Skinner asked.

Wickham's eyes dropped to scan the statement sheet in front of him.

"His name's Barney Sinjin. He's the motel manager. He was doing his final rounds when Scully was taken, which is why he saw what he did. He was also the one who radioed the call in to the police."

"Does he have a description of the man seen with Agent Scully?"

"Um..."

Wickham cleared his throat uncomfortably before continuing.

"It was dark, sir. He didn't get a real good look at him. All he can be clear on is that he was around six feet tall and wearing a dark overcoat."

"What about the car?" Skinner barked.

"Again, sir, he's vague. Some kind of sedan. Quite new. Dark in colour, maybe black, maybe blue."

"Great," muttered Skinner darkly. "One of my Agents is missing, possibly dead, and all we've got to go on are vague details and assumptions. What about the dead man? Anything on him?"

"No nothing. We've ran his prints through the N.C.I.C. database, but nothing's come up on him so far. No ID on his body."

Skinner absorbed this fact, his sense of unease growing sharper by the minute. This was altogether too convenient, and although not a particularly paranoid man by nature, he couldn't help but wonder just how much of this had been predestined. A plan hatched before Mulder and Scully even left Washington, by the very same adversaries who had threatened their lives so often in the past. It was all falling in to place. Get Mulder out of the way and strike when they were at their most vulnerable. It all made perfect sense and Skinner could only now marvel at his own blind stupidity.

How in Gods name had he not seen this coming? How could he have left her so unprotected?

The thought caused him to raise his head sharply as he visualised Mulder laying inert and unresponsive back at the hospital. He glared at Wickham and issued what would be the first of many orders during the next twenty-four hours. Orders that would, by their very tone be impossible to question or to ignore.

"I want a round the clock guard on Agent Mulders room. No one but myself and recognised medical personnel are to enter. I don't care what their reasons are. Anyone who tries to do so will be assumed to be a threat and will be shot on sight. Is that understood, Agent Wickham?"

Wickham nodded and reached for one of the three phones which jostled for space on his overflowing desk. Before picking one up though, he lifted his troubled green eyes to lock with those of his superior Agent.

"There's something else, sir. Something I haven't told you, that's included in the statement from the motel."

His voice trailed off as though he couldn't bear to go on, but Skinner's patience at this whole sorry situation was fast running out. He didn't have time to play games.

"And?" he queried abruptly as Wickham faltered.

The younger man swallowed heavily.

"Mr. Sinjin was unsure regarding many details of what he saw, except relating to the shot fired. In that respect, he is very specific. I'm sorry, sir, but he is citing Agent Scully as firing the kill shot, and that there did not appear to be any kind of struggle immediately before the shot was fired. His exact words led along the lines of it being in cold blood, and that Agent Scully also pointed her weapon at him before driving off in the car."

Skinner shook his head.

"That's impossible. I refuse to believe that she is capable of such an act."

"Um, Agent Mulder hinted that she had been under some emotional strain of late. Maybe that could be a . . ."

Skinner banged his fist down hard on the desk making the younger man jump visibly.

"No! If, and I do mean IF Agent Scully fired that shot, she would first have had to have had ample justification to do so. If I were in your shoes, Agent Wickham, then I would muster every available resource I had at my disposal to find her, so we can then begin to ascertain exactly what that justification was."

The tone of his voice brokered no room for further argument, and satisfied he had made his point, Skinner nodded curtly and made for the door, pausing only once before exiting. He inclined his head towards the phone handset still held by Wickham.

"Shouldn't you be making that call we discussed? Before another of my Agents brought down here at your request disappears under suspicious circumstances?"

Wickham blanched at his words, but nevertheless, tried to appear unruffled as with shaking hand he began to punch out the numbers on the phone, holding his breath as he tried to quell the beating of his heart, lest it be heard and betray his nervousness. Only when he heard the sound of the door shutting did he begin to relax. He savoured the moment whilst he could, knowing that now, things could only get worse, that somehow, some way, the situation had gotten out of control. That despite his careful planning, it had all gone to Hell.

XXXX

Mercy Hospital

3:51am.

On rounding the corner of the corridor which led to Mulder's hospital room, Skinner was at least mollified slightly to see that his orders had been followed to the letter.

The two men stationed on either side of the closed door wore no uniform, but their matching dark suits and no nonsense demeanours made them instantly identifiable as law enforcement of the FBI variety. They stiffened momentarily as Skinner approached, adopting the hand on hip stance which enabled easy access to the weapons concealed out of sight beneath the suits. As Skinner produced his credentials from his inside pocket, they relaxed once more, affording the newcomer the respectful gaze that his position commanded as the bigger of the two men shifted position to allow him entrance to the room.

Skinner however paused for a few seconds before entering in order to appraise the men more completely, an action that was instantly understood by them, and without being asked they simultaneously removed their own ID's to be scrutinised by their superior.

No words had thus far been exchanged. None had been needed, but now Skinner felt bound to emphasise the seriousness of the situation, a situation that he knew all too well would not have been adequately explained to the two men guarding Agent Mulder. Bureau protocol was such that Agents took assignments without question but, in his experience, Skinner knew that the more information they had, the more likely it was that every precaution would be taken in order to follow the assignment to the letter.

"Who placed you on this assignment?" he queried.

The two men glanced uneasily at each other before the taller of the two answered for both of them.

"It was SAIC Wickham, sir. He told us that there was some urgency we get down here."

"What else did he tell you?"

The Agent shook his head in confusion, unsure as to what exactly Skinner was driving at.

"Um, just that Agent Mulder was in some kind of danger and that no one be granted access to him unless it was on the basis of specific instruction,"

He faltered uncertainly, dubious as to where the line of questioning was heading.

"Is there some kind of problem that we should be aware of, sir?"

Skinner shook his head slowly.

"I hope not, Agent Rich. I hope not," his voice trailed off and the young Agent tried again.

"Do you have new orders for us, sir? Regarding Agent Mulder?"

The question seemed to strike a chord with Skinner and he looked up sharply. It was something he had not expected to be asked. He knew that by answering it and overriding the direct order of another Agent, even one who was lower in rank than himself without good reason, he was at best, breaking several rules of protocol if not actual Bureau operational policy.

He weighed up his options in a split second, but the decision was an easy one to make. He cleared his throat.

"Yes. From here on you take your orders only from me. You let no one in to this room aside from authorised medical personnel unless I specifically allow you to do so, you don't leave this position without my say so, not for any reason. I don't care who tells you otherwise. Anyone who has a problem with that you send to me,"

He paused to allow his words to sink in.

"Is that understood, Agents?"

The two men nodded instantly, accepting the weight of his position. His status within the Bureau did not allow for argument, and as Skinner listened to their spoken affirmation he wondered that in issuing the order, just how many enemies he would make for himself. He swallowed the thought though as he slipped past the men and silently entered the anteroom where he repeated the same process he had performed earlier of washing up and donning the gown and mask supplied to him by the medical staff.

He had spent time here earlier on in the evening, but the sight of Mulders inert form laying motionless on the bed amidst the tubes and wires that seemed to snake from every available part of his body still sent a shiver down his spine. He had over time come to regard Mulder as almost invincible. He had seen him fight time and time again against the most powerful adversaries, had watched him pick himself up when all seemed hopeless, but he had never seen him like this. It brought home to him how frail the Human state really was, and that like others who appeared to be unconquerable, Mulder was in reality made of flesh and blood, as easily destroyed as anyone else.

But Skinner was also aware of the one trait which did set Mulder apart from those around him - his ability to fight for what he felt was right no matter what the consequences. It was that ability that Skinner put so much faith in to pull him through this.

He sat by Mulders bed and hoped against hope that his faith was not misplaced, because he knew that without the younger mans unique insight to help him fathom this thing out, the chances of finding Scully alive were minimal.

He sighed and opened the manila folder he had brought with him from the San Diego office. Contained inside it was the case file that had brought his two Agents down here in the first place, the one that had landed on Mulder's desk just three short days ago. He had requested the file from Wickham shortly before coming here and the Agent had been happy to oblige. If he had viewed the rest of the folder's contents, he would in all probability been less happy, for after leaving the field office Skinner had put in a call to Washington requesting all the available information regarding John Wickham be scanned and e-mailed to him immediately.

With typical efficiency, the files had reached him in less than thirty minutes, and in answer to the nagging feeling of doubt inside of him, Skinner settled down in the hard backed chair to absorb these first. He sincerely hoped his doubt was misplaced. His years of experience though told him it wasn't. If Agent Mulder held one of the keys to unravelling this whole mess, then SAIC Wickham was surely holding the other. The difference was though, that Skinner knew which side of the fence one of the men sat on, the other, he was far less sure of.

XXXXXXX

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

7:16a.m.

Scully was cold. She wasn't exactly conscious of the thought, or even if it could be called a thought at all. It was more of a general feeling that pushed itself up through the murky darkness she had found herself in, acknowledged only by her bodies in built survival instincts as she groaned softly and pulled her knees tighter towards her.

The surface she was laid on was hard and unyielding and her clothes felt damp against her skin, adding to the chill she felt deep in her bones. She was vaguely aware of this fact, but her mind as yet refused to co-operate sufficiently to rationalise the thought into action.

She was aware of one thing though, in fact she had been aware of it for quite some time, how long exactly she couldn't be sure, but so intense was the feeling that it overrode all others, did not allow room for denial or acceptance. It was simply there. It existed in her consciousness and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't block it out, in fact even before she could conceive it in her mind, she had cried throughout the night.

Again and again, the tears had fallen, escaping from the confines of her closed eyes and running down her cheeks to collect in a salty pool by her on the cold stone floor. It was like a demon inside her head, bringing with it a pain so intense she wished that she might die. She had never known hurt like it, it invaded every part of her body only to centre in the back of her neck, stabbing her with such ferocity that, had Scully been capable, she would surely have sought to end her own suffering in whatever way she could.

The drugs that had been fed in to her at least gave her some respite, rendering her incapable of even recognising thought or feeling, and she had welcomed the oblivion they afforded her as she slipped in and out of consciousness during the long night.

Initially she had fought them, the survival instinct within her not allowing her to slip in to nothingness lest it be her final condition. Finally sheer fatigue and hopelessness had overcome her and she opened herself to them willingly, grateful to be able to escape the pain even for a short time.

As the hours dragged by though, these periods of respite had become less and less as she entered in to this strange state where she hovered somewhere between wakefulness and repose. Her body becoming more alert even as her mind remained in limbo, and deep inside of her she knew the time was approaching when she would be forced to open her eyes to confront the full horror of her situation. It was something she wanted to delay for as long as was humanly possible, and so, she continued to let her mind drift, unwilling as yet to defy her instinct to ignore what was fast becoming impossible to disregard.

"She's beginning to wake up."

"Yes."

The two men centred their gaze through the one way glass that afforded them a murky view of the room beyond and the woman held within its confines. They had stood for a long while, the only spectators to Scully's night within the prison they themselves had created for her, had listened to her feeble cries without so much as a flicker of emotion or guilt.

Guilt was a luxury and a hindrance they could ill afford, especially now that their plan was coming to fruition, and they viewed her with all the detachment that one might expect from a scientist viewing a lab rat. To them she had ceased to be a person and was now seen as simply a means to an end.

The taller of the two men turned his attention away from the glass and reached casually in to the pocket of his jacket, withdrawing a crumpled packet of cigarettes and tipping one in to his hand.

The long night had taken its toll on him, reminding him that he wasn't so young anymore, and he needed the boost that the nicotine would bring him. It was a boost he sought often, and over the years his intake had grown considerably. As a young man he had abhorred the mere act of smoking, having lost his mother to terminal lung cancer when he was little more than a boy, and he often wondered whether things might have turned out differently for him had she still been alive. He remembered her as being a gentle woman, firm but fair, and although he tried not to think of her too often, he knew that she would have been horrified by the paths he had chosen for himself, and for those held in his not inconsiderable power.

To wield this power in the way he did was not without its downfalls, and for years he had battled with the guilt such actions brought with them, but now he could distance himself from it, disregard the consequences to their lives as he had come to disregard his own.

The path had been chosen. He would walk it until the day he died and he held that knowledge with a weary acceptance of one who knows that freedom of choice was a precious commodity that few could boast.

He brought the lighter flame to the tip of the cigarette and inhaled deeply, holding on to the noxious fumes for longer than was strictly necessary before exhaling slowly. The blue smoke swirled around the close confines of the small room and hung like a mist in the damp air, causing the second man to blink in an effort to take the sting from his eyes. He had expected some kind of response from the Smoking man in respect to his observation regarding Scully, and the silence of the man unnerved him slightly. He had played his part well, securing himself a future within the Consortium and in the very future of Humankind itself, but his responsibilities were not yet finished and he still had much to do.

He was well aware that time was running short and that if Scully were allowed to awaken before all was put in to place, everything he had sought to do would be in vain. Because although he hadn’t been present at the time of her removal, he had certainly been instrumental in its planning.

The Smoking man's apparent disregard of this fact irked him slightly.

"Shouldn't we be moving her?" he prompted a little more forcibly, "Because if she wakes up before . . . "

The Smoking man turned his attention back towards the glass, a small smile beginning to play across his face as the sounds of Scully's piteous whimpering once more reached his ears from inside the tinny speakers which lined the walls.

"She's not going to wake up for a while yet." He assured the second man, the smile on his face becoming almost fatherly as he observed the woman who had haunted his dreams for over five years.

It seemed strange that in all that time he had never really allowed himself the luxury of actually looking at her. She had always been just an extension of Fox Mulder, a worthy adversary in her own right, and, he had thought, just as invincible. Time and time again she had beaten him, but this time it would be different. This time he would be the winner, just as he had foretold it to Mulder so long ago, only this time he was going to win in style. It would be a victory that no one would ever forget.

The man standing beside him watched the Smoking man's face with something akin to revulsion as the smile grew ever wider. He knew the man was living out some personal vendetta against the two Agents, and it was this knowledge that had almost prompted him to decline to become involved. Greed had overtaken him at the last minute though, and despite his best intentions he had been sucked in far deeper than he had ever wanted to go. His involvement should have begun and ended in the enticing of the two Agents down from Washington, but somehow events had spiralled out of control and he now found himself in way beyond his depth. It was far too late though to get out now. To do so would be to sign his own death warrant.

He knew these men, of their capabilities, and it would be all too easy to put a bullet through his brain and orchestrate it in such a way as to divert attention away from their group should he opt to go his own way.

Watching the smug smirk filter across the older man's face, he wondered if becoming like him was to be his fate. It was not a pleasant thought and suddenly the confines of the small room became almost unbearable, the need to escape overriding his every thought and action, and he stumbled toward the door.

"I'm going outside for some air."

The Smoking man nodded sagely without turning, but the threat was clear as he spoke softly.

"Don't get lost out there."

The words themselves were innocent enough but they caused the second man to pause, gripped suddenly by the eerie feeling that somehow, the Smoking man had been granted access to his thoughts and fears - that he had been able to look straight in to his head and see all the weakness that lay within it. He knew that such insight was impossible, but nonetheless, it took several long seconds before he was able to still the trembling inside himself in order to leave the room.

Finally though, good sense once more prevailed, and it was with more than a little relief that Special Agent John Wickham exited the cheerless room and escaped outside in to the sweet, clean air of the California day break. The Smoking Man observed his exit with cool detachment. It did not surprise him in the least that Wickham was getting cold feet regarding his recent escapades, in fact it was a reaction he had seen time and time again when suddenly these men found the stakes becoming ever higher in what was expected of them. Most got over their initial misgivings when they were faced with the realisation that whatever choices they had made they had made them for life. Some foolishly attempted to bow out gracefully, deeming the potential consequences for their actions as outweighing the rewards. None of these men had lived to tell the tale. They had simply been removed by the Consortium who viewed such desertion in a very dim light.

Total unbending loyalty was the key to survival amongst these men. Anything less spelled disaster.

He dropped the spent cigarette to the floor and ground it with the toe of his highly polished shoe and fixed his shrewd grey eyes once again on Scully. Despite the assurances he had given Wickham to the contrary, by observing the small fluttering movements coming from her, it was apparent that the sedatives administered to her were lessening in their effects. If their plans were to come to fruition, it was imperative that she be moved from here as quickly as possible.

He allowed himself a small smile as he reached inside his jacket for his cell phone. So far the complexity of the operation which had taken Mulder and Scully from Washington and away from each other had been mere child's play compared with what was to come. A plan so ingenious in its very simplicity, it would render both the Agents incapable of even existing within the worlds they had left, and more prudently, it would effectively split the partnership forever.

He had tried and failed to destroy them so many times before he had come to the logical conclusion that only by turning them on each other could he ever hope to win.

The smile grew wider as he imagined Scully's reaction when told of her betrayal regarding her partner. It was a sight he had only dreamed about until now, but one which was now close enough for him to almost taste it.

He stiffened slightly as the cell phone connected.

He did not confirm his identity. He did not need to. He simply spoke the two words which would put the wheels of deceit in motion.

"It's time."

Without waiting for a response, The Smoking Man ended the call and slipped the phone back in to his pocket, glancing at his watch as he did so, aware that with every minute that ticked by, he was one step closer to the confrontation he had awaited for so many years. The knowledge that within forty- eight hours he would witness the destruction of Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully at their own hands.

XXXXX

Mercy Hospital. San Diego. CA. 9:01am.

Skinner had had no real intention of spending the remainder of the night at Mulders bedside, but as the hours ticked by, subtle but significant changes had occurred in the younger man's condition.

For a start, Mulders temperature had undergone a steady decrease until it hovered as it did now at just slightly above normal. The respirator had been detached as hour by hour his vital signs improved sufficiently to negate the need for the artificial breathing aid. Aside from the oxygen mask which still covered his face, he looked almost back to normal, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm which almost matched the monitors that still surrounded him as a precaution should his condition suddenly worsen as rapidly as it had improved.

Skinner knew by the reactions of the doctors who had tended his Agent through the long night that they were as mystified by Mulders quick turnaround as they had been to the reasons for the onset of his condition. They had been wary of discussing too much with him, but the general consensus of opinion seemed to rest heavily on the high grade antibiotics which had been fed regimentally through Mulder's bloodstream as having played the major part in his recovery. They refused point blank to speculate exactly what Mulder was actually recovering from.

The Tox screen results had finally come back and they suggested the presence of a pathogenic substance which had invaded his bloodstream. The nature of the substance however, was still the subject of some debate.

What was clear to Skinner though, having heard Scully's account of how her partner was already suffering from a low grade viral infection, were the consequences such an invasion would cause. For someone whose immune system was already battling against the flu virus, any introduction of a foreign substance spelled disaster.

Skinner had voiced this opinion but had found to his intense irritation that he had not been taken seriously. This theory, he had been informed loftily, belonged in the pages of a science fiction novel and not in the real world. What he was suggesting was impossible, not just because of the complex make-up such a pathogen would require, but also because it would be almost an impossible task to introduce it to a subject in such a way as to render him inactive in such a short space of time.

Skinner had listened to their objections in silence, unwilling to push his argument further for fear of sounding as paranoid as he had so often accused Mulder of being. But the offhand manner in which he had been dismissed had given him a unique insight as to how his Agent felt most of the time, and the thought had continued to trouble him throughout the night. It was in part this judgement that had prompted him to remain where he was, but also the fact that, since no fresh news of Scully had been forthcoming from the San Diego Bureau, he didn’t really have any other place to be.

It seemed as though she had simply disappeared off the face of the Earth and even during the short time immediately following her abduction the trail had effectively gone cold.

Skinner had fought against the crazy compulsion to get in his car and go find her himself, knowing that it was simply a knee jerk reaction to his own tightly controlled emotions after everything that had happened and that such an action would achieve absolutely nothing. The most valuable person in all this right now was Mulder. And Skinner suspected that when Mulder woke up he would have a tale to tell, one which would at least shed some light on to how he had come to be here. When that time came, he was determined to be the first one to hear it, to decide on what action to take from there.

But now as he continued to sit staring at the younger man, he was beginning to suspect that his hopes were futile. Mulder was showing no signs of waking up anytime soon, and Skinner couldn't quell a nagging feeling of doubt that for Scully, time could very well be running out. He sighed heavily and reached for his coat. Ten minutes away from this room couldn't hurt he decided, and besides, he was beginning to desperately feel the need for a strong cup of coffee and a shave in that order. He had already witnessed two of his Agents nearly fall apart on this case. He didn't feel much like adding himself to the list, especially since he already suspected that he would need to rely sharply on his years of training and inner resources to get him through the following few days.

He also had no doubts as to exactly who he was dealing with here and that if they held true to form, that they were more than capable of crushing him underneath their encompassing might. It was not a pleasant thought.

He exited the room quietly, nodding slightly at the two Agents still posted on either side of the door. He was aware of their eyes on him as he continued down the hallway, painfully conscious that he probably looked like he had the weight of the world resting on his broad shoulders. The knowledge that he had contributed to Scully’s disappearance bounced around his mind, refusing to be quietened. He, who took the safety and wellbeing of the Agents under his command as a sacred oath was, if not directly responsible, certainly a contributing factor.

Suddenly, he found himself grateful that as of yet, he had not had to face Mulder’s questions; questions he knew he couldn’t hope to answer in any kind of satisfactory way..

XXXX

John Wickham groaned softly and cradled his head in his hands. It had been a long night, not just in terms of hours, but also in the mental transition he had been forced to make as he confronted his feelings of guilt in the part he had played not only the removal of Scully, but also in the incarceration of Mulder to the Mercy Hospital.

He had carried out his orders efficiently, believing fully at the time that he was acting in the best interests of the Consortium and of the American people in general. Indeed, when he had initially been approached, he had felt a great sense of patriotism towards his country as he pledged his allegiance.

The idea had been planted easily in his head, made all the sweeter by the promise that the rewards for him would far outweigh the risks, and he had slipped easily in to the role of willing conspirator.

He had expected that his years of FBI training would have numbed him to the responsibilities his actions would bring, but he had found the reality to be somewhat different.

For one thing he was quite unable to rid himself of the image of Mulders genial attitude and ready smile when they had met up again after so many years apart. Despite a reputation which brokered so much ridicule amongst Mulders peers, Wickham respected the man’s work even if he didn’t fully understand it.

He had followed Mulders career with a certain amount of detached interest over a number of years. Although he could quite understand just how Mulder had managed to become something of a laughing stock amongst his fellow agents, he also knew the man well enough to appreciate the absolute commitment he had shown to his quest. Betraying him on such a gargantuan level had been far more difficult than he could ever have imagined.

There had been a fleeting moment, when Mulder arrived at his apartment that Wickham had considered backing out of the deal and telling Mulder of the real reasons he had been lured down here. It was only the thought of the consequences to his own family that such a revelation would bring, that he had continued within his role. Such an action would have been a death sentence to everyone he cared about, and besides, he had been assured by the men that no actual harm would befall either his old friend or Agent Scully, that their discomfort would be limited to a minimum.

He now knew that assurance to be false and that to inflict harm was practically the only possible outcome of this whole sorry mess. He also knew that he had no way out and nowhere to turn. That he would have to continue this thing through until the bitter end - whatever that might be.

He had watched with mounting horror as Scully was moved from the dark prison in which she had been captive through the night and installed in more comfortable surroundings, the sound of her anguished cries still reverberating around his head as the pain relief given to her began to wear off and she became more aware of every movement inflicted on her bruised and battered body.

He was not entirely sure what had been done to her during that time. He had watched from a distance as clandestine figures in white coats hovered around her and administered more drugs to her system, stilling the sounds that emitted from her and reducing them to a series of pathetic cries.

He had questioned why the unknown procedure had to be carried out whilst she was semiconscious and obviously in great pain as a result, and had received no assurance other than that Scully would eventually awaken with no memory of what had occurred and that she would have no lasting discomfort. Wickham had found himself unable to believe their words, knowing that these men made it their business to trade in lies, and had left the room in disgust lest his revolted expression betray too much.

He knew that he still had a major part to play, and that the time for him to confront his own feelings regarding that role was fast running out. He was to be the first recognisable person whom Scully was to face upon awakening, and it would be him who was to plant the first seeds of doubt in to her vulnerable, confused mind.

It was something he felt totally unprepared for, and something that was coming ever closer. He had looked in on her only thirty minutes ago and found her to be sleeping peacefully, a state he had been told was the final stage of the process that had lasted through the night, and from which she would shortly awaken.

The sight of her pale face above the warm covers tucked around her had reminded him sharply of what he had done, and despite his involvement with the Consortium and the way he had discussed Scully with them prior to her coming down here, meeting her had been somewhat different.

Mulder had often spoken of her.

Quite unable to even try to hide from his old friend just how deep his feelings for her ran. He had painted her very much as an independent spirit. Tough, professional and absolutely committed in her career. But as much as Mulder painted that picture, it was clear to Wickham that Mulder was deeply and utterly in love with her. That he would die for her.

Wickham swallowed uncomfortably, remembering his first meeting with her. He had been quite unprepared for the effect she would have on him. Seeing the way they were together - two pieces of a whole; a partnership that came just once in a lifetime – if you were lucky enough.

It was then that the first seeds of doubt had been planted in his mind as to whether he was doing the right thing.

He had been furnished with sketchy details of her incarceration in the Antarctic, and of her subsequent rescue and removal by Mulder – a man, who quite literally, had travelled to the ends of the earth to save her. And he had understood then just why he had been asked to do what he had. To allow them to remain together was now impossible, but the men responsible were too cowardly to risk the reprisals that their termination would bring. So a course of action had been decided upon that would solve the problem once and for all. It was a decision that Wickham had embraced wholeheartedly but when he had been confronted by them both together and had seen the way they acted towards one another, he had questioned his decision to become involved at all.

Watching them that day in his office, he had seen something he had never seen before during his years with the Bureau. It radiated from them both like a beacon, in the way they looked at each other, the way that they stood side by side, exhibiting body language so subtle it could easily be misconstrued. But he had seen and understood it immediately. It was blind trust, plain and simple; trust which far exceeded normal boundaries and one which would enable them quite without question to give their life for the other. Maybe that was what had kept them safe for so long.

Wickham had then immediately understood his role in all this, more so than he had previously during all the conversations he had had with the shadowy characters governing his every move. His role was simple. It was up to him to sever that trust so completely that it could never hope to be regained, and he knew then that the men had lied to him when they said that no one would get hurt. The plan was elegant in its simplicity. Destroying their trust in each other would ultimately destroy them both. Wickham sighed, knowing that the time was drawing near when he would have to begin the process . . . and he hated himself for it.

Continued chapter fifteen

[reginaldbelchhuggins-blog]

Mens et Manus

Chapter 1. Starman

Rating: T Warnings for this chapter: Self-harm; reference character death; referenced violence; past violence; mental health issues Chapters: 1, [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7] Ao3: [x] Summary:

Stan looks at himself in the mirror; Richie talks to his mom; Mike starts listening; Ben finds a new hobby; Eddie moves out of his mom's house; Beverly starts dating; and Bill writes his first book.

a.k.a a series of short stories based on the prompt "Tell the story of a scar"

A/N: The chapters are as listed above. This is Stan’s chapter:

Stan Uris was exactly 21 days past his 13th birthday as he woke up just after midnight, screaming. For the 12th night in a row, Rabbi Donald Uris would come into his son's room and calm him down by holding him. The first two times Stan had woken in such a startling manner, Andrea had tried, thinking a motherly figure was what he needed. She couldn't have been more wrong. The sight of her in the doorway had brought Stan to hysterical tears.

He knew it hurt her, but he couldn't stand being held in her arms when that woman was so fresh in his mind. Holding him down, latching her rows and rows of teeth into his head, her tongue leaving thick spittle as it explored his face.

He'd tell his friends in college that his first kiss left him shaking, and smile dryly, all the while remembering the feeling of It eating parts of him -- drawing his fear to the surface to slurp it up, and leave holes in his soul.

22 holes, to be precise. In two crooked rows, circling his face.

Though Stan hated lying to them, especially as his lies became more obvious, saying he fell in the bramble was still the most logical explanation for the wounds. So he was going to say it again. He was going to say it until he forgot it wasn't the truth.

After 5 minutes, Stan did not hear the bedroom door open down the hall. He did not hear his father's heavy footsteps (8-10 of them from door to door), nor his parents whispering. Asking each other if they should call a psychiatrist. There was only silence.

He burst into tears as it donned on him that his parents weren't coming that night. Or any other night again. They'd had their fill of him. He pulled his blankets up to his chest and rolled over to his side. The moon peering through the window looked far too much like dead lights in the back of a monstrous throat -- the stars resembling rows and rows of sharp little teeth -- so he flipped over and stared at the bedroom closet. Stan cried for 13 minutes exactly, and then, after his face was stinging and his eyes could produce no more tears, he stilled. It took him 11 minutes to fall back to sleep.

The next morning, at 7am sharp, Stan looked in the mirror, and saw what his father must see: not a man, not a boy, but something that could barely be considered human. All the lies he'd told over the years plain as every scar, turning his face ugly.

I ate your candy, not Richie.

I wasn't looking at your magazine.

School was great.

I made a lot of friends today.

I fell.

I'm happy.

I do believe in God.

I'm practicing my reading every day.

It's not real.

I hate you.

I'm not afraid.

I fell in the bramble.

I'm not lying.

I'm okay.

He touched each tooth mark, and recited his lies in a quiet whisper. He went right to left, up to down to up again, and when he was done, he saw his face. Not man, not boy, but teenager. With brown eyes, dirty blonde curls, and a small, pleasant smile. He tried to hold that smile long enough to get to the breakfast table, but it fell away the minute he passed the window in the hall and saw his father's black Oldsmobile sitting in the driveway.

For Donald Uris to not already be on the road to the synagogue, he was either sick or something else was going on. Stan prepared himself, somehow knowing it wasn't going to be a very pleasant breakfast.

The table was quiet, though they were both sitting there with empty plates. Donald in his pants and button up shirt, and Andrea in jeans and a tee. They looked like they'd been up all night. His mother nursed a cup of coffee with bags under her eyes, and his father had aged twenty years in 12 hours. Stan felt a pang of guilt.

You did that. You and your false truths.

There were eggs and toast, so Stan filled his plate (3 scoops of eggs, 2 pieces of toast) and tried to go into the living room to eat. Donald cleared his throat, and Stan hesitated before dutifully sitting down across from his father, his stomach turning flips as he did so. He poked at his eggs, not sure he was hungry anymore.

"So, they found the Bowers boy last night, " Donald said. He and Andrea both looked hard at Stan, so he tried not to react. He wasn't surprised to hear Henry's body had finally popped up. The well led to the sewers, which eventually would carry him to the Barrens, or the canal. It was only a matter of time. "Officer Nell informed me that he confessed to the murders right away. Butch, the Criss boy, the Huggins boy... the others." Stan wasn't hungry at all. He set his fork down, and looked at his parents. He couldn't keep the shock of hearing Henry was alive from his face, nor the thoughts from entering his mind.

How did Henry survive for 2 weeks in the sewers? What did he eat? What did he drink? Stan felt bad for him. Even if he was trying to murder Mike, Stan had seen into the dead lights, and somehow understood that Henry was just a puppet. A tool. A fool. A dancing clown, one could say, if they wanted to be punched in the throat.

"That's sad news," Stan said. It felt like he was speaking through cotton. There was something in their faces that concerned him. Suspicion. Knowledge.

They were seeing his lies unravel, but the truth inside was muddled and muddied. Still, he thrust his fists against the post, and insisted he saw no ghost. Bill be damned.

"You know they say he skinned the Huggins' boy face," Andrea said, her tone pointed. Stan swallowed a sip of water. He knew where she was going. It was wrong. Clever, but wrong. He still thought about caving in and taking the easy out, though; just agreeing with her clever little concoction. It was another lie, but one that would satisfy his parents growing unease that Stan had been accosted by more than foliage. "With that little knife of his."

Her eyes were measuring the scars, mentally comparing them to a switchblade. Stan felt them burning in her gaze, but dared not pick at them. Instead, he went for his cuticles, using his fingernails to press them down and tear them off.

"Seems to have had an obsession with faces," Donald said. His eyes bore into Stan, as if trying to see beneath the layers of his flesh and into his thoughts. "I remember when he attacked you that one winter. What was it, when you were 8? Rubbed snow in your face until--"

"Henry didn't attack me this time," Stan said. His voice was steady, even as his head buzzed with panic. "I fell and--"

"Got so scared you're still having nightmares about it? Stanley," he sighed,  rubbing his eyes. "That doesn't make sense."

"Honey, we're just concerned is all," Andrea said, forcing a smile. "Butch wasn't a nice man. He did bad things to Henry. And if Henry, in turn, did bad things to you -- if he hurt you in any way -- you can tell us. You're safe here."

Stan looked away. "I'm sorry, but no. He didn't. Even if you wish he did so you could pretend you're still being persecuted." He stood up after 27 seconds of silence. Were they really letting him finish his outburst? "I remember how much fun it was when I was 8 and getting to listen to you tell people about how you were being tested. I'm sure you'd love that again, but I'm not playing along. I fell, alright? I was doing something stupid, and yes, it frightened me, because it hurt.!" His parents exchanged a glance. If Stan wanted to, he could decipher their silent conversation. But he didn't want to. He'd given them a lot to unpack, and their first thoughts were always going to be defensive, or accusatory. Let them think what they wanted, and say what they wanted. They were going to do that regardless. "I'm going to be late for school."

"Let me drive you," the Rabbi said. But Stan was already leaving. He grabbed his backpack from beside the door, his bike from the porch, and was gone before his father could protest. It took him 25 minutes to get to school, and he passed five florescent lights on the way to the bathroom, where he threw up what little remained of last night's ravioli. There were 8 and a half tiles between the stall and the sink. He counted his scars, and recited his lies, and...

Stan's brow furrowed. He leaned in, tilting his head so he could see the one, specific tooth mark. 22 scars, in 2 crooked rows, and one by itself near his temple. Small, almost unnoticeable. Unmatched. He tilted his head to the other side and confirmed there was no twin.

He leaned away from the mirror. He washed his hands. He turned to leave the bathroom. And then tiltled his head in the mirror, looking at that one scar. How could a creature that changed appearance at will overlook such a detail? How could he, Stan, have missed it all this time? In every examination of them?

Maybe it's new.

That couldn't be. Yet, he had counted them before and after the wrappings were removed. 22 scars. In two crooked rows. Not 23 with one little orphan. Where did it come from?

He ran his finger along it, feeling the rough scab that had formed over it. He scratched that off, not surprised to see puckered scar tissue underneath.

He couldn't just leave it like that for everyone to see. They'd notice it, too. The one that fell out of pattern. They'd notice and stare. He didn't want them staring anymore.

Taking his thumb nail, he tried pressing into the other side of his face, but he couldn't pierce the skin. He wound up with one vividly red scar, and the other, faded and white. Drumming his fingers on the side of the sink, he made a decision. He dug through his backpack until he found his school compass.

This is fucking crazy, he thought. Then, using the sharp point, he began digging in. Making a series of small, connected dots, Stan traced the shape and angle of the rogue tooth above his other temple. Each dot brought a bead of blood, which began leaking down his face, and into the sink. By the time he was done, Stan's hands were shaking. He cleaned the wound and his face, and then checked out his work. He was feeling better, until his realized that those two didn't match the others, who sat with a pair in two crooked rows.

This is fine. They both have one little straggler. Like a captain leading his troops.

Biting his tongue, Stan got back to work. He had just finished the final faux-tooth mark when he heard a scream from behind him. Little Edgar Booth was running out of the bathroom, his shriek loud and shrill. Stan looked at himself, covered in blood, and slowly put his compass to the old scars. He could already hear his parents in his head.

You did that to yourself?  Maybe you did all of them yourself. Maybe you like all this attention.

He began to pick them open, one by one. They might not be able to tell any of them were new if they were all bleeding.