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He’d asked her not to say a word of it to anyone, not Bud, not John, not Rachel if she called, until they were able to at least sit down together that evening and catch the two men up and get acquainted with what Bud and John surmised from the scene of the crime.  He couldn’t confirm it until he spoke with Bud, but it looked as if the mole to Mikol that they had been wondering about had met his maker, and it had yet to be determined just how much he had filched from NanoCorp itself before doom showed up.  It all lay upon the broken laptop computer at the scene of the crime and considering how John was clamping down on every move they made with a lockdown of the entire Emerald City campus, it would be some time before they knew for sure.  Until then, he and Deidre would have to make due with what was there at Emerald City on a Sunday afternoon. 

So she had slipped off to the second floor where a small individual office had been set up for her as a private work station, right next to Rachel’s now darkened space, where she had been encouraged to bring in her books and files and papers and other material she thought pertinent to the job of researcher.  A window took up three-quarters of the wall next to the doorway, covered by venetian blinds, and the back wall was entirely glass looking out on the center courtyard of the complex.  The other two walls, in her short time with NanoCorp, had been covered with old ragged maps of Kenya and the Middle East.  There was also a Maasai spear propped up in the corner, a couple of masks from the Congo stuck in the crowded bookcase, piles of books next to a couple of office arm chairs, pieces of clothing she and Rachel had decided not to take, and a tall torchier lamp next to a sleek computer desk.  A small refrigerator sat in another corner, with a couple cans of soda water and a frozen dinner still remaining inside from the day before they left to enter ‘Gladiator.’

Deidre locked the door behind her, making sure the blinds were as tightly closed off as she could make them, more than a little freaked by the incident in the gym, and pulled out one of the sodas, choosing to slide to the floor and lean against the wall…and letting the pent up feelings unleash.

She was not noisy when she cried.  She had learned not to make so much as a sniffle in the presence of her older brothers when they conveniently forgot for their own purposes that she was just a girl.  Being a tomboy suited them best when an adventure called for someone of her slight build and quickness; being a girl, especially a hurt girl, suited them to dismiss her when they did not feel like dealing with her…and any hint of a tear would give them that kind of excuse.  So she had learned to find ways to leave them of her own choosing when it felt like she could not bear holding it all in any longer.  Even though she knew no one else lurked in the rooms surrounding her office and the hole that Rachel left by not being next door did little to assuage her that she could have all the floor she wanted in vocalizing her feelings.  Instead, she gasped as tears fell, stuffing low moans so that they came out in a fresh trickle of saltwater, holding her hands to her head as she propped her elbows on bent knees, trying very hard not to give any auditory hint that she was sitting in the dimly lit room, crying her eyes out.

It wasn’t as though she was afraid to cry in front of Terry.  There had been private tears shed late last night as they lay in bed, and that, only one or two, ones that were more about the desire to strengthen the tenuous bond that had been forming than any outside concern, which he had done much to dry away with tenderness and attention.  Somehow, though, the murder, Sid’s ugliness and deception, the absence of Rachel, worry about Cort, fear of the loss of Harkin, another message from Wilder, (more contrite this time,) and Terry’s grim face...somehow it had all begun to fall in on her.  Even though she had been trying to shove it away; even though her head kept arguing with the lump inside her.  Somehow, at one point, she realized that if she did not leave the office then and there, if she broke down right there in Terry’s office, he’d drop everything to comfort her once more, forgetting everything but her, and she knew they did not have a minute to spare in trying to crack upon the impenetrable shell Sid created for himself and Maximus.  So she huddled in the one place in which she knew she could retreat.

When it finally felt like she could breathe normally again without causing a monsoon, Deidre wiped her face with one of the scarves next to her and drank some of the cold soda.  Sweet syrup counteracted the salt quite nicely, gave her the energy she needed to get back to her feet and stare around at her office; that strength wibbled a little as she remembered how merrily she and Rachel had gone through her things when she first brought them in, chattering away while Cort looked on in amusement from one of the chairs. 

She was a stalwart agnostic when it came to matters of the spirit, but for the moment she found that a fervent prayer for Rachel’s safety, Cort’s recovery, Terry’s need for resolution, was the only thing that kept her from deciding to crawl under her desk and not come out until Judgment Day. 

Her eyes fell on the phone on her desk.  She really needed to call Wilder back.  He really did sound subdued in his message; but Wilder was the more emotional of her two brothers, the oldest child, and less inclined to dismiss her.   He’d always seemed to know her reaction to things and understand…which made his rebuke of her silence even more upsetting.  But when it really came right down to it, she wasn’t entirely certain she could do what he had commanded she do: and that was to drop what she was doing and go to Germany with him.  She also wasn’t entirely certain as to how she was going to explain that to her brother.

“Wilder?”  She flinched when the receiver picked up.  The phone still felt foreign after a month of no such technology.

“Oh, thank God, Deeder, its you!  I was on the verge of walking out on the phone,” her brother replied.

“You…you sound frustrated,” Deidre ventured cautiously. 

“The press!  The damn press has been hounding us all morning!  A bunch of land sharks looking for a drop of blood to put in their rag!”  Wilder steamed.  “I don’t know who’s idea it was to tell them that Harkin was wounded, but Ive had nothing but phone calls and paparazzi-wannabes hovering around like flies.  How are you?  I take it you got my message?”

“I got that you were trying to give me an update on Harkin, but you didn’t say much,” Deidre said, sliding back down to her original position propped up against the wall.  She had no desire to sit in the chair at her desk: she had developed a hate-hate relationship with the thing from the first day.  “How is he?”

“Okay…here’s what’s going on…he’s been upgraded from critical to stable and is resting, although one nurse told me he made a pass at her…”

“Harkin did?”  Deidre yelped in surprise.  Harkin, the Silent Type, whose version of communicating was often an amiable grunt, sometimes with inflection, sometimes not. “What’d he do…waggle his eyebrows at her?”

“No…asked her out.  She sounded like she didn’t think he was serious, but I told her about him, so she might be having second thoughts.  You know, that boy owes me now!  Anyway, I think its safe to say he’s recuperating.  That’s the good news…”

Deidre groaned. 

“Bad news is they are now looking at transferring him back home.”

“But that’s good…!” 

“Deeder, he’s a Marine.  You know how he feels.  He’s trying to talk them into sending him back.”

“I know, I know.  I’m just being selfish.  I miss our little family.”

“Even Aunt Ginny?  She’s been asking about you.  Keeps forgetting you’ve been away,” Wilder hedged, a slight tone telling Deidre he was still nursing confusion over her reasons why.

Deidre took a deep breath.  The moment of reckoning.

“Wilder…Wilder, are you sitting down?  This may take a few…” she began.

“This has to do with that Aussie, doesn’t it?  You’re not really holed up with him in a Peruvian hotel somewhere, are you?”  Wilder asked.  “Sorry…just joking...maybe.”

“No!”  Deidre found herself laughing, remembering the baffled message Wilder had left on her answering machine.  “And yes.  To the part that it has to do with the Aussie, I mean.  His name is Terry Thorne and he’s…,” oh dear, was she really going to have to say it? “He’s kind of…sort of…my employer.”

It was Wilder’s turn to groan.

“Hell’s bells, Deidre, didn’t you learn the first time?”

“It’s not like that…and David was a professor!  And that was after I graduated!”

“I’m not gonna try and re-cross burnt bridges…” Wilder proclaimed.

“No, you’re not,” Deidre agreed emphatically.  “Now listen, Wilder, ‘cause you want me to catch you up and I’ve got a lot to tell you and you’re going to have to understand there are lot of things in flux right now.”

“I’m all ears, princess,” Wilder told her, using a childhood epithet.

Deidre glared momentarily at the receiver of her phone.  She had always adored Wilder, but he also drove her crazy, knowing exactly what buttons to push.

“I was in Peru,” she conceded, “a few months back.  I was doing a personal favor for one of my archaeological professors…no, not David!  Wilder, I think you like the smell of burning sulfur…shut up…and Terry and I…well, we ran into each other.”  The truth was more along the lines that she ran into a thorn bush and Terry inadvertently stumbled upon her, much to their regret…or so it had seemed at the time; but she wasn’t in the mood for that much detail.  “And…we hit it off…and he told me who he worked for and that they were looking for someone with my experience and education, so I came to NanoCorp to work in their research department.”

“Uhm-hmm,” Wilder’s tone was rife with suspicion.  “And he’s someone you just happen to be dating, as well.”

Deidre pulled in another breath, this time to quell the surge of frustration and annoyance; but there was no getting around that little factoid.  “Yes.  And with a few minor bumps, we’re doing quite well.”

A slight pause.

“Bumps?  As in – ‘wife and kid’ bumps?”

“No!  Never ever something like that!”  She found she was gripping the receiver to the point where her knuckles turned white.  Tears threatened to spill out again.  “Shame on you!  You know me better than that!”  She added, wishing he was in the room so she could strangle him.

“I’m sorry!  I’m sorry…I was looking for a cheap shot.  Guess I’m a bit jealous that someone other than your family has your attention again,” Wilder replied, grudgingly.

“Wilder, you’re so unfair,” Deidre said, managing to blink away the moisture.  “This is why I got so angry and hung up on you yesterday.  You talk to me as if you cannot possibly fathom that I might have my own life, my own career to follow, while you and Harkin go off into the blue and do heroic things like…”

“Like get blown up in Baghdad?  Deeder, now you’re being unfair.”

“So let’s stop this argument and let me finish explaining myself.”

“He’s someone who treats you well, then?”  Wilder asked after a few moments of silence,  blessedly taking the strong hint in her voice to heart.

“Very well.  He…,” Deidre hesitated, because her next thought was one that had flitted through her mind more than once…several times, “he kind of reminds me of you.  Well, of Harkin, too.  Both of you, actually.  A combination.  Does that make sense?”

“Girl, you need help!”  Wilder burst into laughter.  Deidre laughed with him, but could not help wondering if it was true.  The bump she referred to was the characteristic wall that Terry seemed to have around him at all times, a wall that he had willingly lowered for her; she recognized it, though, because it was similar to the wall that Wilder had when he spoke of their parents.  Harkin had only been a baby when their father left and a terrible fire consumed their home, as well as their unconscious mother.  Deidre had vague memories of a night of bright orange and pain and fear, but she was never sure if the details were ones filled in by Wilder later or if her memory of it was sharper than she wanted to admit.  Harkin’s wall was more inclined to his easy-going personality, but Wilder always had a certain…edge to him, an edge that was a component of Terry’s wall that made her heart hurt in more ways than one, especially knowing why it was there in the first place.

Oh God, the last thing I need is a psychological analysis of why I’m in love with someone.

“Anyway,” she went on, to regain control the thread of confession she had begun unraveling.  “The company he manages is NanoCorp and you would not believe how incredible this place is!  The whole building its in is nicknamed ‘Emerald City’ and the people here are amazing…”

She spent the next half hour telling her brother in fragments about meeting Rachel and other co-workers (leaving off of course the fact that a handful of them looked very much alike each other), finding it easier to explain the retrieval aspect of her job description than she had anticipated, as Wilder automatically assumed it had to do with archaeology. 

“So, you’ve been gone for a whole month then…completely out of touch with the modern world, and reality, all because they want to retrieve something?”  Wilder summed up.  “Do the words ‘cell phone’ mean anything?”

“I told you, Wilder.  Where we were, cell phones would not have helped,” Deidre replied. 

Please don’t ask any more questions!

There were several seconds of silence, a long pause that seemed like Wilder might have just set the phone down and walked away after all, but just when Deidre was thinking she would have to hang up and dial back, Wilder sighed and spoke again.

“Well, I’m just glad its not as drastic as I thought,” he admitted.  “You know, Harkin and I don’t think twice about the kind of stuff we do, but when it comes to you going off into the wild…I’m sorry, little sister, we’re just too damn protective.  It would kill Aunt Ginny if something happened to you.”

“I know, Wilder, I know,” Deidre replied, softly, now wishing he was there so she could hug him, suppressing a laugh at his obvious deflection of who it was that would suffer the most.  “Is she there?  Can I speak to her now?”

“Nah…off to have luncheon with the Red Hat League…you know that sort of thing old ladies do.  All primped up in her hat and gloves.  Bought one just for you, too!”  Amusement filled up his voice once more.  “Bright cherry red, dontcha love it?”

“She’s not gonna give up making me a debutante until the day she dies,” Deidre replied. 

“Wouldn’t that be something?  Alabama’s oldest failed debutante…”

“Bite your tongue!”

She made more phone calls after hanging up with Wilder – one to John to request that some way be found to bring food in from the outside while the lockdown was in place, else she would start raiding the commissary; another to Terry.  Despite her best wheedling and teasing, he would not take her advice on stepping away for a few minutes, insisting that he would when the time was right.  She wasn’t sure what he had planned when it was patently clear that Sid had skunked them all and good, but she could tell that Terry was brewing something. 

A thought passed through her mind as she checked her email box (she wished she had not, so high was the number of emails): she pulled up work she had been playing around with as an aside to her work for the retrieval, a kind of do-it-herself project since so much of the needed resource was readily available in a place like NanoCorp.  It had become something of a private joke between her and Terry about the Garmin GPS she had condescendingly shown him in the dripping cave in the side of the mountain in Peru - the whole situation of her presence there to geo-cache whilst he searched the rainforest for missing people – shared musings and laughs over how the coordinates had some how crossed their paths.  Banter had turned into a semi-serious pursuit of jumpstarting the next step in geographical information systems, and with a few reminders on old emails she had kept in her inbox, she was revisiting previously discarded ideas in no time.

The underlying frustration that had stuck with her and Terry the most while in the movie was not having the ability to track their own movement or others.  She itched to find out what it was that Sid developed, but that may have to be something she would find out on her own.  Until then, all she had on her plate was more than enough to keep her scrambling for solutions.   And there was no time for further speculation indeed, because when she looked up to refresh her eyes, she saw the time on the clock telling her it was ten after five.

As if on cue, John called to let her know he had done as she had requested and she could meet him up in Terry’s office.  Shutting down the computer into sleep mode, she grabbed her keys and left.

Silence ruled the office of Terry Thorne, Co-CEO and Mission Team Leader, in the several minutes it took for Bud, John, Scully, and Mulder to find places to sit.  Deidre entered last, eyes slightly wide with dread, and she made her way to sit on a cleared space on the credenza next to his desk while Terry returned to his own office chair and fell back into it with no small degree of resignation.

“It appears we have a number of questions on our plates, ladies and gentlemen,” he began, his voice taking the same tone as it usually had when reporting to Lusk: brisk, concise, without emotion.  “All of them centered on a Tom Exton, former employer of NanoCorp Subsidiaries, former trainer and technical operator, and murder victim.  I will be frank with you, Mr. Mulder, Ms. Scully – I am baffled as to why the Federal Bureau of Investigation would be interested in a case like this, something I am sure that Mr. White has already…”

“Excuse me a moment,” Mulder broke in, his body perched on the edge of the couch, unwilling to sit back and absorb what Terry was pitching as the truth.  “I think since we have two new people in this room, we should at least become better acquainted.”  He let his gaze rest on Deidre.  “We’ve met him,” he indicated Bud, “but not him,” indicating John as well.  “And I take it you’re the main man?”

“Terry Thorne, acting CEO of NanoCorp.”

“Acting?  So, then, you’re not the boss?”

“I am, for this purpose right now,” Terry said brusquely, “and all that pertains to you.”

Mulder grimaced appreciatively and then turned give Deidre an inquiring look.

Terry glanced up at her, wondering how she would respond.  She was definitely uncomfortable, but not as antagonized as he expected. 

“My name is Deidre Montgomery,” she replied.  “I work as research assistant for various projects in NanoCorp.  I’m also an archaeologist…or was, when I had a contract.  Who are you?”

“Dana Scully and Fox Mulder,” Dana replied, once again taking the lead in presenting a less confrontational face for their team.  “We had word of particulars of the murder that took place here and thought there might be something we could…” she glanced at her partner, her blue eyes speaking volumes, “some way of determining our assistance.” 

“I put in no such order for the Feds to come,” John rumbled, somewhat defensively, and in turning, they saw he was speaking more to Terry and Bud.  When John saw that Mulder was looking pointedly at him, he added, “John Biebe, chief of Security.  Trust me, we believed this to be a local matter.  Is Tom someone that the FBI has been watching?”

“We cannot determine that until we speak with you,” Mulder replied.

“Very well,” Terry interceded with a sigh.  “Where do we begin, then?  There are a number of things that have criss-crossed each other, some…determining factor,” his turn to give a pointed look, “some particular, if Ms. Scully will pardon my use of that word, that has brought us together, perhaps interlocking, perhaps not.  Suffice it to say, Mr. Mulder, there will be a certain amount of information that you will just have to accept as inaccessible and separate from your own.”