"Smoke Without Fire" by Pellinor RATING: PG CLASSIFICATION: SH (Humour / Satire) SUMMARY: I have seen the future, and it is seriously scary.... DISCLAIMER: Er.... Does this really need one? No infringement or genuine insult intended, anyway. SPOILERS: Gethsemene, sort of. ***** I was raised on ghost stories. To the children of my home town that dark house on the hill was a place of terrors. Older children, their own tremors barely disguised, would use it to scare the little ones, and parents, sometimes, reduced to desperation by their recalcitrant offspring, would call upon it as a guarantee of good behaviour. "Be good, or the exes from up the hill will get you. You _know_ what they'll do to a naughty boy like you." _Know_. No, we didn't know, though we could guess - vying with each other to produce a tale more terrible than the last. "They're vampires. They lure men in and suck all their blood from their bodies until they _die_" - this last word always uttered in a hollow tone of awed relish. "They're zombies. They can't speak. They walk round all day with their hands stretched out, muttering words in a language no-one can understand." "They're robots. They only work when they are plugged unto machines." Such stories were meat and drink to me. I think I always knew that _I_ would be the one to discover the truth. Oh, but I was naive, then. How could I know that the truth was more terrible than any of our wildest imaginings? Knowledge is a burden indeed. ***** I was twelve when I came face to face with the exes for the first time, and even that was more than any one else had ever done. "Come on, Tom! The door's open!" It was a cold November, that winter of 2041, but not too cold for Tom and me. We were as dedicated as professionals, staking out the grounds of the dark house, as the slow days went by without sign of life. We had been on the point of giving up when we'd seen the open door. "No." Tom's voice had wavered with fear. "We can't just go in." But I was away, across the poorly tended grass, walking with the confidence that I knew always bluffed observers into thinking that you did, after all, have some legitimate business here. Tom's faltering steps followed me, but I didn't glance at him. I was entirely focused, desperately proud of my focus. Across the grass, through the door, look for watchers.... No-one. "This is enough." Tom's whisper was shaky. "This is spooky. We've seen it. Let's go back." But the other door held me - the door with the shiny brass handle, cared for, even loved - the only flash of colour in the drabness of the interior. I was on a roll. There was no holding me back. Quick as thought, my hand was on the door handle, turning it, and.... And something hit me, then, pausing me in my stride like a blow. It was the choking dark pall of silence, the very air still, heavy with some sadness. It was caught out of time, held by the stillness that you find in a church, when your very breath seems _loud_. It _was_ a church - a shrine. There were photographs everywhere, and all of the same man. Hundreds of them, even thousands. The floor was thick with scattered libations. And then came a sound - a whispering sound, trickling..... I still do not know how I had the strength to turn round, to face what I knew then was watching me. It was a woman - an old, old woman. Her face was like paper, her eyes small and blinking as if even daylight was alien to her. Her right hand reached out searchingly, seeking something I was ignorant of, then, though I understood all too well, later. In her left hand she held a pile of sunflower seeds, and it was these that had made the sound I had heard. She had been scattering them on the floor, solemnly, reverently. Tom whimpered. "Who are you?" Her voice was like straw. "Have you come with a message from... from Him?" They came in their twos and threes, then, forming up into an ever- thickening press around us. My heart was loud in my head and I clenched and unclenched my fists, my fingers slippery with fear. They had no fangs, but their eyes were.... _terrible_. "What do they want?" Tom found his voice, his whisper edged with terror. "How the Hell should I know?" I snapped. I was terrified, but anger helped me control that. The sound rose like a wave, surged, and then fell back again. It was the sound of two dozen voices saying the same word, their faces still so blank and expressionless. The word was... alien, foreign. At that moment I really wondered if they were not from this world at all, and I feared them more than I ever feared the faceless monsters of the stories. The word was..... roffle? ***** That should have been the end of it. We survived, and life went on. But.... God! They preyed on my mind, haunted me. It became an obsession with me, to see them again, to find out what had made them what they were. My opportunity came five years later. An assignment at school called "Consumerism and culture in the late 1990s: a dynamic equilibrium?" It took courage to knock on that door, took even more courage to speak to the shadow, the empty shell, that opened it. Sweat beaded on my forehead. "Could you tell me about what happened in the 1990s?" Suddenly awkward, I stumbled it out without preamble. What I meant, of course, was "Could you tell me about yourselves? What made you like this?" Somehow, I think they knew that - that it influenced their reply. The woman stared at me solemnly, then tilted her head onto one side and slowly smiled - a strange gesture I would see from all of them, later. "Come in, young man." Her voice was hoarse, barely there at all, as if she seldom spoke. "It is time for the truth to be known. They have suppressed it for too long. The truth is out there." There was a low moan, like the rushing of a distant wind across the plains. It was two dozen sighs. It was two dozen women sinking to the floor, prostrating themselves in an attitude of worship, of reverence. I know now that I should have turned, then, and fled - fled as if the very hounds of Hell were on my trail, and never returned. Ignorant, I was happy. ***** It was like a dam breaking. It was heart-breaking, overwhelming. For years, no-one had been interested, no-one had _cared_. They were like children, so giving with their confidences, so desperate to confide the truth that had eaten them up inside for so long. They _wrote_ it all, though. Verbally, they were all imprisoned behind their own little walls, scarcely able to say more than one word at the time. But when their fingers hit their strange old- fashioned computers, it was like the key that unlocked all their pain, all their eloquence. "How do I start?" I was over-whelmed at first, my head in my hands, fingers leafing through the pages they had sent me. Random phrases jumped out at me, intriguing yet ominous, too. "I lost my best friend in the candle war...." "....bodies ten deep in Vancouver harbour...." "....even more violent than Home...." This one made me pause. The capitalisation was odd, but the horror was all too evident. More violent than home...? A survivor of child abuse, recounting a horror that was worse even then the wildest childhood nightmares. And it got worse - an unremitting tale of tragedy, of betrayal. It is beyond my skill to recount what happened in those terrible days in September 1997. I think it is only right that those pathetic survivors of a long forgotten tragedy are allowed to speak in their own words. ***** "Gethsemene, it was called. The last episode of season four. As usual, Mulder died. As usual, we knew he would be alive for the start of the next season. End of story. Or not end of story, of course, for we never let it end with the credits. We filled in their holes. We _wrote_. He was faking his death. Scully was faking his death. They were faking his death. It was a clone. He would return as a ghost. She would die too and they would investigate controversial cases of the normal together in heaven. You know the sort of thing.... And we were happy. Until fifteen weeks into the summer hiatus, we were happy. Little did we know.... I remember what I was doing when the news broke. I was in a chat room, deep in discussion about what hairstyle Mulder would start season five with (a _far_ more important issue than any mere plot, of course). Then it happened. It.... It's so hard to say, but at the time it was so simple - so simple for them. Just a short statement, read so dispassionately: "An official statement from Fox released today revealed that David Duchovny is leaving the X-Files as of now. Agent Mulder is dead. Agent Scully's new partner will be played by....." It is too horrible. Too....." ***** "I lost my best friend in the candle war. She is dead now, of course, and I do not mourn her. I really thought that I knew her, but she still.... God! Control. I _can_ do this. I _can_. Deep breaths. I.... I don't know the smiley for that, but I _am_ doing it. We set up an action mailing list for it, of course. We debated it long and hard and decided unanimously that the best course of action was to hold a virtual candle-lit vigil. It would be everything to us - a show of solidarity, a mutual support group, a campaign. We had it all - a time, a place, a plan. We even had a rallying song. I think it crashed Fox's mailbox, sent ten thousand times over: "We will not watch it on our box. We will not watch without our Fox" And we had a candle, too. A beautiful candle. I designed it, using the same care and poetic imagery that I put in my stories - beautiful vignettes that the mere readers were too stupid to understand. A flourish of a percent sign for the handle. An elegant fifteenth century Venetian dollar sign encrusting the shiny candle stick. It was perfect - beautiful and perfectly formed. Mulder deserved nothing less. But there were philistines amongst us, and I still weep to think that my friend was one of them. "Forget quality," the cried, their smileys guttural and uncultured. I think they were the sort of people who wrote _humour_ stories - no poetry in their souls, just cheapness - going for the easy effect. "Forget quality. Give us quantity. Give us an i. That's all the candle we need." Blood was virtually shed. It tore us apart. I had thought we were a community, once." ***** "It was justifiable homicide - any fool could see that. Not the judge, though. _They_ had got to him, of course. I wonder how many others suffered like my friend, put away for life, even executed, for a "crime" that no right-minded person would blame them for. She killed her boyfriend - stabbed him to death with a pen. She was a newbie, of course. _I_ could have done it, and no-one would have known. You don't spend all that time watching "The X- Files" not to learn a little something about getting away with murder. Although, as I said, it was most definitely not murder. I think it probably counts as emotional abuse, what he did. He said something to her that was so terrible, so heretical, so.... so _shocking_..... "It's only a show" People like that have no right to live. ***** "I was a humour writer. I laughed at the situation. I was lucky to escape with my life. I never laugh now. I never even smile." ***** "I survived. Against all odds, I survived, and many like me. They'd scoffed, expected us to be the first to go. "Those shippers," they'd sneered. "They're so fluffy and spineless. It's all peace and love and romance for them. They can't handle reality. If Mulder dies they'll just collapse in a little pile of pink goo, weeping at the loss of their Scully's soul mate." But we survived. We were made of sterner stuff than anyone had ever imagined. It was a fight-back, of sorts. For days, there were no stories, as we reeled from the blow, planned our united campaign, faced the reality of our fractured one. But then, a week after Black Friday, came a story, a beacon in the darkness. '"Oh, Mulder!" Scully purred, her relief almost palpable. "I thought you were dead. I.... I....." She sighed. Her skirt fell to the floor in a ripple like spring water. "When I thought you were dead, I.... I realised that I.... I love you. We must never be parted again." She buried her full lips into his firm muscled chest, inhaling the manly smell of strawberries from his puppy dog hair, and....' I realise, young man, that you are only sixteen so I can't tell you what happened next, but it was.... it was wonderful. 350 k of wonderful. Until Scully woke up, of course, but that was only one line. My computer accidentally deleted that line anyway. I tried one too, posting it hesitantly. We were still so emotionally vulnerable, then. We had survived, but we would never be the same. 'Scully was awake in an instant, heart pounding in sudden fear. There was a _noise_. Someone was in her apartment. Slowly, oh so slowly, she reached for her gun, and.... "Scully?" Mulder stepped out of the shower. "Are you okay? I've got that oil off now. I'm all yours." "Mulder" Her face opened into a blinding smile. It was all a dream. The cancer. His death. Her new partner looking like.... being indescribable. He was just back from Russian, and he was naked, and he was _big_....' Some called it denial, but I can tell you something - denial felt _good_. " ***** "Do you know when season five is going to start? I've been waiting for ages? Why is my skin all wrinkled? I'm only 20, for God's sake. Have They been putting things in the water again?" ***** "We thought we were the strongest of all. We were wrong. We were the first to go. We were the Muldertorturers. "Why, I thought you'd be happy." My husband frowned, genuinely confused. "Aren't you always trying to kill him. Isn't this what you've always wanted." I was incoherent with grief, unable to answer. "You've shot him fifteen times, knifed him three times, stolen twenty five vital organs, drained fifty pints of blood from his body and make him cry in every paragraph." He was warming to his theme, counting off on his fingers and looking every inch the accountant he was. "Maybe I'm being slow, but it seems a pretty strong hint that you mean him no good." "You don't understand." Anger made me find my words. "He's not supposed to _die_. He's no fun when he's dead. He can't pout, or whimper, or do that cute little thing he does when he...." "I'm cute." My husband's lower lip trembled. "Don't you think I'm cute, or do you care more about Mulder than me?" "Yeah." I ran my eyes over his body, consideringly. "Yeah. You have.... potential." He smiled for _this_ long before his eyes darkened. He made odd little whimpers, edging along the couch. "The hamster's cute too," he squeaked, eyes desperate. It was a mistake. Never torture on the rebound. The trembling lip is just _not_ right, and real blood is somehow so.... so inauthentic. I was alone, then - inconsolable. Desperately, I emailed all the icons of the Muldertorture world, my fingers slipping on the red keyboard, crashing together and hurting. I didn't let this stop me. But they were all gone. All of them. "Failed mail. Recipient dead. Please try later." This message flashed up again and again, taunting me, torturing me. I think it was the guilt that killed them. We always thought we were so strong. We were big. We were bad. We were mean. We were tough. We were not afraid to splatter blood all over our stories. We were not afraid to tie Mulder down while we did unspeakable things to him. We were not afraid. But we were. Without Mulder, we were nothing, and nothing, we were forced to look at ourselves - to really look. If we were too weak to survive now, did it mean we were weak in other ways also? "Mulder reached for his gun as the five men came at him with their fists...." "Mulder reached for his phone and called for help as the five men...." "Mulder knew there was nothing he could so. He screamed in agony as the men wrestled him to the ground and...." Torturing a Mulder when you can control his every thought, his every action is..... is _cheating_. I think we all realised this in a sudden flash of agonising guilt. There was nothing to do but kill ourselves. We knew how. We had practised on Mulder often enough. It was the hamster that saved me. Truth is stranger than fiction." ***** "It was a plot, of course. They let it go a week before confessing. "It was a joke!" The spokesman was smiling, though there was a nervous tic next to his eye - or maybe that was just the screen flickering. The asylum had poor television reception. "It was a publicity stunt. Mulder isn't dead. Duchovny hasn't left. Season five will commence as planned." It didn't. It became a national scandal, and a national hobby. Thousands dead, their bodies ten deep in Vancouver harbour. For a few days, the networks showed us nothing else. Amateur camera men staked out tall buildings, and the lost and lonely sought out X-Philes, desperate to entrust messages to the other side. Public interest passed, of course. It was the compensation claims that ruined Fox, I believe. Season five was never made. Mulder remained dead." ***** I cried. Who can read this account and not cry? There's was a lost generation - a betrayed society. I..... I..... God! I can't speak. They are all dead now, of course, and I am an old man myself, but I still grieve for those blank faces, those empty shells of people whose words had once mad the power to bring laughter and tears, to _move_ people. They only wanted to lose themselves in their fiction, but it was a fiction that killed them - a cruel trick. They taught me so much, those pathetic tongue-tied survivors, but one thing remains above all. One final account, left to me in the will of the last of them to die.... "Trust no-one. We distrusted everything - Mulder had taught us that - but when it really mattered, we trusted, we believed. We believed the lie, and it destroyed us." ***** END FEEDBACK welcome, and will be replied to. Sorry for killing off ninety percent of the fanfic community, but no hard feelings, right?