Spaceship 

Mulder woke to the feel of cold metal beneath his back. His face was tight and swollen, and he found it hard to focus. A green, misty aura loomed overhead. Somewhere close by, a steady dripping caught his attention. 

Directly next to him, an incubation pod was slowly melting, giving way to the rising temperature within. A scream escaped the pod. The alien trapped inside had sensed a victim within reach. Before long, it would break through the melting barrier. 

"Shit," Mulder cursed, realizing the seriousness of the situation. 

He staggered to his feet. Almost immediately, the high pitched sound pierced his temples. He grabbed his head, stumbled forward a couple of steps and was forced to his knees by a wave of nausea. Doubled over, his heart skipped a beat. The feel of a cold, hard stare from behind, brought him to glance over his shoulder. Barely an arm's length away, an alien towered over him. Mulder searched for an escape, but there wasn't one. The nearby pod continued to melt, the alien inside becoming even more agitated as it witnessed a rival. 

Mulder launched himself forward a half dozen steps before he fell back against a frozen pod. The alien matched his distance. Unable to keep up with his own breathing, Mulder's heart quickened. Neck muscles tightened and he shook involuntarily. At last, he was face-to-face with the very thing he'd sought most of his life, and now that very thing would take his life from him. 

How long would it wait before striking? Would death come quickly or in slow agony as Musgrave predicted? Does it matter? Either way, it's going to hurt like hell. 

The alien came within inches of his face, raising its elongated fingers towards his head where its hand came to rest. Mulder looked into its eyes, mesmerized. 

"Stop fighting," the alien's thoughts came to him. "Stop fighting and believe." 

"Fighting what? I don't understand!" he screamed. "Quit tossing me scraps!" 

The alien's head tilted. Mulder could have sworn he caught a hint of compassion in its eyes, but it said no more, explained nothing. He went to brush its hand away from his head, tired of the endless games, but realized he didn't have the strength. 

The top of his head grew warm, the pain giving way to a low methodical humming. There was no resisting the pull from the alien's eyes. Briefly, Mulder saw his own reflection in them, witnessing the glow from the seal on his chest as it radiated through his t-shirt. Finding it impossible to keep his eyes open, he let them close. 

When he opened them again, he lay on his side on the cold metal walkway. The alien was nearly out of sight, having moved away from him. As he watched it depart, he would have sworn it was not an alien at all, but a man. Without understanding, he resigned it was just another table-scrap for him to chew on. 

The thrashing alien several pods down stirred Mulder to action. With the pain in his head gone, he quickly rose to his feet and began putting as much distance as he could behind him, knowing that within a short time he would be the target of a natural born hunter. The alien's cry echoed through the maze of pods Mulder wound past. 

A renewed adrenaline rush surged through him and numbed the pain of Musgrave's beating. The sound of splintering ice behind him quickened his pace. One after another, the walkways all looked the same until finally, he looked to his left and saw what he'd hoped for - the central hub. 

This much he remembered from his first time inside the ship. Risky as it was, he slid over the lip of the tunnel and found the hand and footholds along the wall. If he fell, the drop wasn't enough to kill him - shatter some bones maybe, but it wouldn't kill him. That would be reserved for the alien. 

Traversing the wall, he held on in desperation, hands and feet slipping at various times but somehow, retaining control. When the drop was minimal, he pushed himself away from the wall and fell the remaining distance to ground level. 

Above him, the alien reached the edge of the passage. Not waiting to see if it would follow, Mulder sprinted towards the first level pods in a race for his life. He had a plan but was there enough time to accomplish it? Looking back over his shoulder, it was going to be close. The alien was descending the wall much faster than he'd hoped it could. 

Rounding a corner, he moved inward, passing five or six pods before squeezing his way around behind them. He jumped up in an attempt to grab onto the conduits that ran above at ceiling level. He failed the first few tries but became highly motivated when he sensed the alien had made landfall. Successful at last, he pulled himself up above the pods. Without hesitation, he slid onto the top edge of a pod and as calmly as he could, lowered himself into the frigid solution. 

It was slushy, taking him back to his youth and the time when he and Bucky Witherspoon trudged through the snow heading to Stonewall Pond to see if it was frozen enough for a game of ice hockey. The edge of the pond was solid. Cautiously, he and Bucky moved forward, hockey sticks in hand, the butt ends pounding the ice in front of them as they made their way out towards center. 

One step too far and young Fox Mulder's foot suddenly went through the ice. All at once, he was knee deep in slush and had sunk to his waist before Bucky was able to grab the curved end of Fox's wooden stick. Holding fast to the other end, Fox was terrified. Even now, he could visualize the Boston Bruin's logo on the side of the stick, complete with Bobby Orr's imprinted signature. 

Fortunately, Bucky was able to pull him out of the water where neither boy moved until the sound of cracking ice sent them into motion. When they safely reached shore, neither boy spoke. But the experience ended their short-lived dreams of playing for the Bruins. They left their hockey sticks at the edge of Stonewall Pond. 

Shivering in the icy solution, Mulder pictured everything just as it was that day so many years ago and the fear he thought he left on the shore of that pond, quickly resurfaced. Only when the alien rounded the corner, did Mulder exhale to force the air from his lungs, sending him completely under. He slipped behind the host body, sinking in the solution, his feet touching the platform below; his body hidden by the lifeless form in front of him. 

The alien slowly searched the area. It crept in front of the pod Mulder was in, its back to him. It turned and came around looking directly into the pod but not understanding or recognizing that two bodies occupied the small space. It moved like the hunter it was, stalking its prey. Finding none, it cautiously continued on its way. 

Using the shoulders of the host body, Mulder pushed himself up. His head was just about to break surface when he was stopped short. His jeans were caught on something, holding him in place. Almost out of breath, Mulder kicked his leg back and forth trying to loosen the material, but it held fast. For a split second, he revisited Stonewall Pond. 

With great difficulty trying to work around the body in front of him, he pushed it aside and crouched down, struggling against the cold and lack of oxygen. In the thick solution, his eyes burned, and he couldn't make out what his pant leg was snagged on. Panic seized him when he glanced to his right and came face-to-face with the growing alien inside its host. Sluggishly, it reached its hand through its host, brushing against Mulder's cheek. It was enough to launch him upwards. 

Breaking the slushy surface, he gasped for air. Struggling, he pulled himself out of the pod using the host body as a ladder to climb upwards. Before long, he lowered himself to the ground, shivering uncontrollably from the cold. His immediate desire was to sit and rest, but he knew if he did, he'd never get up again as hypothermia would overtake him. 

On his feet now, he searched the pods in the immediate area, hoping to find BJ and Sam. They were probably further up the line. He feared not finding them. While he desperately wanted to help them, he knew what he had to do - knew who he'd come here to rescue. The decision before him really was quite simple as he retraced his steps back to the central hub. 

Ocean Vista Drive - Cape Cod National Seashore, MA 

Byers stood at the grill and put the last burger on the plate, covering it with tin foil. Turning the propane tank to the off position, he walked up the stairs and into the RAT. 

"Come and get it," he said, setting the plate on the table that was littered with paper plates, napkins, hamburger buns and all the fixings. 

Langly was first to arrive, piling a little of everything on his burger, before moving back to the computer area. Frohike followed suit but was much more meticulous. He sat down at the table by the computers and was joined shortly thereafter by Byers. 

"Guys," Langly called out. "Look at this," he said while pointing to the computer screen where a map of the US was displayed. "It looks really familiar." 

"It should," Frohike said. "It's the United States." 

"Bite me," Langly remarked. 

Frohike shrugged his shoulders. Rummaging through a couple of drawers, Langly pulled out what he was looking for - a rolled up atlas. Sitting beside the others, he removed the rubber band and rolled the atlas in the opposite direction, flattening it out. 

"Where'd that come from?" Byers asked. 

"The drawer," Langly smarted off. 

"We know that, you idiot. He means originally?" Frohike said. 

"From that tanker truck our snoops broke into ." 

"And you're just now remembering it?" 

"Check this out," Langly said, opening to the first page. A map of the United States showed where each state had one area circled with red marker. 

"So..." Byers mumbled through a bite of his burger. 

"I think it's the same locations we've been pinning on the computer map." 

"Check the state pages. What's the last one we pinned on screen?" Frohike asked. 

Langly leaned back and glanced at the computer. He moved the mouse and a state image appeared. 

"Camp Keyes... Augusta, Maine." 

Frohike grabbed the atlas and turned the pages until he came upon Maine. 

"You bonehead," he rolled the atlas back up. "We've been sitting here going through the manifests you took pictures of, mapping each location, and they're right here in the damn atlas!" 

"My bad," Langly apologized, avoiding the atlas that Frohike swung at him. "Sorry. I forgot about it." 

"You'd forget your lizard if it wasn't attached," Frohike commented. 

"Would not." 

Byers grabbed the atlas and flattened it out on the table in front of him. 

"Each state has one town circled." 

"How much you wanna bet that each town has a military base where the tankers are going," Frohike said. "My guess is, it's just like Mulder described down in Texas only instead of the Jiffy Pop poppers, they're using tankers." 

"Jiffy Pop poppers?" Byers asked. "Did I miss something?" 

"Mulder said the units that housed the bees looked like giant Jiffy Pop poppers... large domes," Frohike informed him. "You put those up all over the country, someone's going to notice." 

"But it wouldn't be so obvious if it were just a tanker truck parked on site," Byers said, beginning to understand. 

"Exactly," Frohike agreed. "They're probably growing something in the vicinity that attracts the bees, so they'll pollinate the crops and stay in the area. The tankers contain the hives, so they return to them each night. As long as you keep the bee population in synch with the crop size so they don't look elsewhere, then the bees will hang around." 

"And when their ready to kick off the re-colonization, they do something to piss off a lot of bees, and instant aggression." 

"People on base get stung. They think nothing of it and go home carrying the virus. It won't take long before the entire population is infected," Byers confirmed. 

"Nice and neat with no real intervention on the aliens' part. The bees do all the work and nobody will ever suspect them. Gestation under normal circumstances is what, four days?" 

The door of the RAT opened to Skinner and Gibson. Gibson hesitated in the doorway, glancing back at the dunes across the road before closing the door behind him. 

"Where's Doggett and the kid?" Frohike asked. 

"They'll be along," Skinner answered. 

"Check this out," Byers said, sharing their theory with Skinner. 

Gibson ignored them, hesitating after he'd picked up a paper plate. He quickly dropped it and raced back out the door. 

"Here we go again," Langly said, but Skinner didn't wait around. He followed Gibson with the Gunmen close behind. 

"What is it, Gibson?" he asked. 

"There's someone out there," he pointed past the dunes towards the ocean where the faint sound of an engine came to life. "Someone's watching us." 

Skinner took the lead, gun in hand. He raced across the street and climbed to the top of the dunes, followed by the others. Running all out, a speedboat slap against the waves, as it angled off away from them, heading towards a ship on the distant horizon. 

"We've gotta go... and now!" Gibson demanded and started back down the dune. "They onto us." 

"Pack it up guys," Skinner ordered, following in Gibson's track. 

In less than twenty-five minutes, the place was cleaned up. The RAT pulled out onto Ocean Vista Drive and was heading towards town. After a short drive, Frohike pulled the vehicle into Ferguson's. 

Later that evening along Ocean Vista Drive, a large explosion shattered the night. Flames shot into the air, burning every tree and blade of grass within a quarter mile radius from where the RAT had been parked for the past several weeks. It took the fire department several hours to contain the blaze. 

In the early morning light, not even the No Trespassing sign remained.