As she and Mulder had guessed, there was outright evidence that the man - a computer technician and fencing trainer, Bud informed them – had indeed been the alien clone they were expecting to find.  Sunday evening, John had allowed them to examine the office carefully; but it wasn’t until the next morning that Scully obtained samples while Mulder went back over the scene and read the report that Bud brought for them.

She and Mulder did not speak much in the presence of the hovering Mr. White, who seemed more troubled about the laptop than the loss of one of their employees.  He stood in the taped off doorway and watched them with apprehension, tension radiating from him. 

“Fencing, you say?”  Mulder finally asked as he stood looking at the sprays of green along one wall, a slash in the soft matrix of the gypsum sheetrock telling a loud story of the man’s struggle with his attacker.  “He knew how to handle knives, then?”

“Knives, swords.  Was a well-known, well-liked teacher.”

“Were there any other employees that knew how to use one?”  Mulder asked; an obvious question, but it had to be asked.

“A few,” Bud replied and the glower on his face deepened.

“May we speak with them tomorrow?”

“I can call them in tomorrow, yeah,” Bud replied.  “Except for one.  She’s out of the country.”

“Oh?  Why?”

“She was sent on assignment before this occurred,” was Bud’s short, clipped response.

“What’s her name?”

“Rachel.  Rachel Keirs.”

“When will she be back?”

Bud shrugged, his eyes never leaving Mulder’s face.  He was practically defiant and they could see he knew that would be suspicious. 

“Perhaps we could speak to her by phone, just for the record?”  Scully asked, and the look on Bud’s face was so mingled with conflicting emotions, she could not help but offer him a sympathetic smile.  Indeed, she was finding it hard not to offer him as many glances and smiles as she could.  If he wasn’t a clone, and he wasn’t the actor, who was he that he was so convinced that he was a character out of a well-known movie?  This man, who was not a clone, was not the actor himself, was not an impersonator, was as handsome in full-bodied presence as he had been on screen, and Scully was finding it difficult to keep from finding ways to make eye contact.  She liked the 50s style buzz cut, liked the rough edges he displayed in unguarded moments.  There was strength beneath the slightly worn jacket and she was definitely responding in ways that had nothing to do with maintaining a professional demeanor.

Bud always seemed to soften when she spoke to him; one could see the roughness warring with that as he considered what refusing them might mean, what agreeing to it might entail. 

“That can be taken care of after everything else,” he said, reluctantly.  “Do you have any idea why Tom would have green blood instead of red and how someone might have decided to relieve him of it?”

Scully now found herself looking over at her partner and got the sense that Mulder was doing his utmost best to hide away a look of…jealousy?  She had stepped over to stand in front of Bud as he leaned against the doorframe as he acted as point-man for the crime scene...and she stepped back and opened the conversational circle to include Mulder, realizing that she had closed that space as if to speak to Bud privately. 

“No,” Bud said to Mulder, simply, shaking his head.  “That’s what we’re hoping you’ll tell us.”

Mulder nodded knowingly and Scully wondered if he would actually indulge Bud with their own particular fears and concerns. 

“What about the file cabinets?” the FBI agent asked, pointing to the far corner where a tall metal chest of drawers stood with every drawer wide open.  They had not just been rifled through, but torn asunder, with papers pulled out in bunches, scattered out on the floor.  One drawer was missing a large segment of files.  At the moment, she couldn’t imagine what sort of files a fencing trainer would have that would warrant theft, but Bud had said Tom worked as a computer tech as well....

“They were like that when the first person on the scene reported it,” Bud said and Scully saw the muscles in his jaw move as though he were clenching back an untold amount of anger and fear.  “Whoever did that must have been after something they couldn’t find in the laptop.”

“And how did you know that it had been transmitting information?”  Mulder asked, pointing to the destroyed laptop.

Bud shifted uncomfortably.  “I’m not a computer person,” he said, as if embarrassed. “I know how to use them, but I couldn’t tell you why or how they work.  Terry had gone through the trouble of checking with the network techs and they reported to him that they had picked up something…a signal of some sort.  That’s all I know.”

“Is it salvageable, Mulder?”  Scully asked.  “I’m sure that Mr. Thorne would be concerned about losing company information to outsiders…”

“We think that’s exactly what happened.  In fact, we’re almost positive,” came a new voice and they turned to find that Terry had arrived.

“So we’re not just looking at a murder, we’re looking at espionage?”  Scully could hear the eagerness rise in her partner’s voice, felt it herself.  Mulder was right.  There were leads here they must follow, leads that had ties to the nanobots in Walter Skinner, leads that led to clones infiltrating various organizations, leads that somehow tied up these ‘anamolies’ with their case in ways that they couldn’t even imagine. 

Terry exchanged glances with Bud, then fixed them with an expression of uncertainty and self-deprecating amusement. 

“Have you retrieved all that you needed?”  Terry asked. 

Mulder looked at her, and she nodded.  Pictures had been taken, reports had been filed.  Barring that someone showed up claiming to be related to Tom Exton, this incident would be tied up neatly as the local police department’s own X file; more than likely, never to be addressed again.  It was easier to deal with inexplicable things that way.  This Scully and Mulder knew all too well.  She didn’t need to do the tests, but she asked to use their lab anyway.

“I hope you find our lab to your liking, Ms. Scully,” he told her.  “And I think, perhaps, when you’ve done all you needed here,” he added, “we might meet once more in my office.  Tomorrow, perhaps?  There are some matters that I think might help whatever it is you’re looking for.   Say…three o’clock?  Good.  See you then.”

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

The waning afternoon was turning the trees around the lake into a Maxfield Parrish landscape when Deidre left the confines of her office and wandered out onto the greensward surrounding the crystal monolith known as Emerald City.  Clear skies had reigned most of the day and she had found herself sitting and staring out her window despite her best efforts to concentrate on tasks.  She gave up when she realized she was beginning to wallow in self-pity, feeling glum about everything in general.  Within moments of abandoning her office as well and walking out through the front doors and across the lawn to a bench at the edge of the lake, the parking lot had cleared of cars and all that remained of occupants was a small gaggle of geese flitting across the surface of the water.  Their feathers also took on a bright luminence in the setting sun, a gold cast in the waning slant of rays.  All was peaceful and it felt good to get away from the smell of carpet and steel and the sound of muffled voices and air conditioning.  She had left a message on Terry’s voice mail telling him where she’d be.

“May I join you?”

She turned to find that Terry had indeed followed her outside.  He didn’t look as rumpled as he had been looking the last couple of days, was shaved and tidied up.  He sat down next to her and she caught the drift of his cologne, which made her wish she were in far less public circumstances.

“I heard from Rachel again,” he said as a preliminary of getting certain subjects out of the way. 

She slipped her arm under his and brought his hand to rest on top of her lap.  How would he react if she said she’d like to forget other people for a bit and just sit and look at how the sun gave his dark blonde hair a halo…or that she’d like to drag him off behind some shrubs and…? 

“She’s run across someone who can help her get into the castle,” he added.  The castle being the one where Mikol supposedly kept his laboratory, his secret hideout in the midst of an ancient European city of Hromada. 

“So soon?  Is that…strange, or what?”  Deidre asked, frowning.  “I hope its not someone who plans to lead her around by the nose?”

“It didn’t sound like it.  It was literally by accident, Rachel said.  The woman noticed her wearing the brooch you gave her and commented on it, and while Rachel didn’t give her any details about her reasons for going to Hromada, it came out that the woman actually claims to work for Grovensky Construction.  Rachel could have wandered Hromada for days and not come up with a better introduction.”

Deidre laughed.

“I told her that was my lucky brooch.  Good!  I’m so glad.  Maybe she can find out what condition Cort’s in.”

“And I told her about Tom.”

“Oh, dear.  How’d she take it?”

“She was shocked of course.  A bit upset.  I believe they were good friends.  But I also told her that he may be the reason why Mikol has Cort and she didn’t waste much more time crying over him.”

“I don’t blame her.”

Terry nodded, his eyes turned to look outward at the lake, to watch a small gaggle of ducklings follow the mother around, peeping and protesting the adult duck’s speed.

“The FBI agents have been hard at work, too,” he added.  “Bud’s nervous as hell, but I’m beginning to think it was fortuitous that they showed up.”

“Oh, really?”

“I have this feeling our problems with the mole are tied up somehow with them, but they are being just as cagey about their suspicions as we are.”

“Except that Mulder thinks you’re all a bunch of clones and Scully doesn’t strike me as someone who is easily swayed by appearances,” Deidre said. “Much less lies about what we’re trying to do in the first place.”

Terry gave her an appreciative grin.

“Which is why I want to sit down with them and give them a chance to discuss things with us.  Tom was a spy.  They’re looking for something to do with a national case, that much I determined.  If our computer techs can track the transmission, it might be of benefit for all concerned.”

“You’re not going to tell them about the retrievals and all, are you?”  Deidre asked, horrified.

“I hope I don’t have to.”

“What about Sid?  Any headway on Sid?”  Deidre felt her muscles tense.  The one problem that needed attention the most was the one problem they had relegated to the bottom of the list.

“Still the same.”  Anger and resolve hardened Terry’s features.  “Bud and I will be working on it tomorrow.”

The both fell off from talking then, the quiet of their surroundings creeping in to soothe them away from the head-pounding crush of their problems.  The sun’s rays were growing steadily a deeper gold, and a flock of ducks wafted in to settle on the lake as though they were gently falling into pillows.  Deidre stared at Terry’s profile, wishing he would stay still for an hour, or several, so she could study every line. 

One stray ray bent and illuminated the lines of his nose and mouth and Deidre couldn’t help herself.  She reached up a finger and traced the line, leaning in to smile upwards at him as he turned to her and closed his eyes, enjoying the touch.

Her hand fell to her lap and he grabbed it up to press his mouth to the inside of her wrist.

“Its good to be out here with you,” he said at last, eyes still closed.  He had turned to face her, his legs stretched out before him in such a way as to cross with hers and press himself closer.  “I thought I’d not see anything more than the four walls of my office for weeks, with all that we have to do to…”

“Shhhh!  Let’s forget it all, right now,” Deidre whispered back. 

He opened his eyes then and Deidre flinched; not just because of his expression, which was nothing but adoration, but because the color of his eyes was so pure.  The cold spot that had been building in her all day dissolved like sugar in hot water. 

“We talked of spending more time together when we got back,” he said, sounding a bit distracted.  She noticed he was watching her mouth, head tilting somewhat as he readied to kiss her.  “We haven’t had time to breathe, much less plan anything.”

“Its not your fault,” she told him, wishing he would go ahead and do so, instead of hovering.  “You’re here with me now and things are just fine,” she said, and tilted her chin slightly, almost feeling the touch of his lips.

His response was to take her mouth with his and they kissed for long moments, his arm going around her and pulling her into the curve of his body, until her head rested on his shoulder and she was bedded in his embrace. 

When he lifted his head, she whispered “no!” not wanting him to stop.  He didn’t return to kissing her, but his face was so close to hers, she could feel the fine stubble of his shadowy beard brush her skin, and the breath between them was warm and heavy with desire.  She opened her eyes and the two of them spent more long moments holding each others gaze. 

“Do you know where I’d like to go?”  He suddenly said, pulling away somewhat, a wide grin making him appear younger. 

“Where?”

He opened his mouth to answer, then pulled back, the eagerness deflating somewhat.

“Its juvenile,” he replied with slight chagrin. 

“No, tell me!”

“Well, its too late now…by the time we got there, it’ll be dark…”

“Where, Terry?”  Deidre insisted.

“Well, there’s this promontory over looking the country and I thought it might be good for the two of us to…ah, to…”

Deidre cleared her throat, unable to keep a wide grin from possessing her own face.

“You want to go to where?”

He gave her a look and color spread across his cheeks. 

“I had thought to take a picnic up there and…”

“Uh-huh.”  Deidre nodded, her voice speaking volumes.  She wondered if the heat in her own cheeks was flashing neon words like “make out” and “steamed windows.”

“We can think about it…” he said, with a shrug.

Deidre slipped out of his arms and stood up.

“Don’t want to think.  Let’s go.  Now.”

He followed her across the wide green lawn, one hand in his pocket to make sure he had brought along his keys, Deidre practically sprinting towards the convertible parked in Terry’s assigned parking spot.  They drove to the grocers and raced through the deli, selecting cold meats, cheeses, grapes, a couple of bottles of wine and two glasses, and various other items that struck their fancy, packed the bags into the back trunk (she noted there were a couple of blankets tucked away, as well as a couple of lanterns) and as the sun’s orange disk began approach the low ridge of hills, he pulled out onto the highway and sent the engine into a thrumming purr as they raced toward their destination.

The road wound up into rolling hills on the edge of the city, skirting scenic ridges that gave them a view of the purpling horizon.   They stopped at a gate that interrupted a pathway rambling through an open field and up the slope of a far hill.  Fortunately, the dirt was compacted enough so they did not have to put the top up to keep the dust out.  The heat of the day was beginning to rise from the land and they could see Venus popping brightly out from the thin tatters of a cloud. 

“We’ll be just in time to see the sunset,” Terry told her, happily.

“So how did you know about this place?”  She wanted to know, but as the words flew out of her mouth, she cringed because Terry’s responding expression was a bit of a shadow, as if he had hoped she would not ask, but had a ready answer in case she did.

“Um…well, its not important, really,” he began.  They had stopped finally at the edge of a hill where the land fell away and gave them a soft panorama of blues and rusts and dark greens, punctuated with the light or two of a street lamp or house.

“Oh, okay,” she replied, acutely aware of his awkwardness.  Ask an unwanted question, get an unwanted answer…

“No, really, its not bad.  I mean, nothing happened.  Nothing good at any rate…” Terry stammered and then began laughing softly.  “I don’t have any sentimental memories of the place, is what I meant to say,” he amended.  ‘I’m the only one who’s ever come out here…in a while, at any rate.”

“Are you hoping to change that?”  She asked after a few moments, a pang of adoration for his earnestness filling her heart.

The look he shared with her was clear.

“Yes.  I would like it very much if you would spend some time with me here,” he agreed.  “Just you and I.”

He then told her of meeting a farmer who had taken a liking to him, but being close to the end of his life, had asked Terry to patrol the homestead and make sure that the high school kids didn’t break in to go to a spot on his land that was infamously known as a romantic lookout.  There had been too many upsetting incidences and too much disrespect shown to the old man, and Terry had been happy to oblige, finding that the tradeoff was getting the place to himself.

When they had spread out the blanket, lit the lanterns, hung them in nearby branches, and settled their wine on a nearby rock, they both sat and faced out toward the rolling hills.  Dusk floated like a promise in the valleys while the sun’s light turned the sky amethyst.  Lights in the city burned steadily like a cluster of stars that had drifted apart from the outstretched expanse of sky and settled comfortably in the valley, as if the cluster decided that here was the best spot for celestial repose.  The lanterns cast a warm yellow glow and while they occasionally had to banish a wayward bug, the night itself was warm and musical.  The cicadas had calmed down, but there was an underlying buzz, since night-life had completely different sounds as part of the environment.  They ate their food, drank their wine, fell into easy conversation, as though Sid and NanoCorp and all the looming disasters of their unique existence had never been a part of their past.

“When I was first brought out,” Terry said at one point, “when I first became a part of the real world, I pretty much had to fend my way through a lot of things that I didn’t quite understand. ”  He and she now lay three-quarters in recline, he on one elbow she on the other so that they faced each other.   “Nothing like what Cort has had to go through, or even Maximus.  I was only about ten years or so…maybe less, behind the times.   Events like 9-11 shocked me, of course, along with everyone else, but technically speaking, there should have been little in the way of me slipping into things at NanoCorp without a blip.  Only thing was, I did feel incredibly lost.  I didn’t understand why Sid did what he did, or even how he accomplished such a thing as the warp.  I couldn’t accept everything he told me about why he brought me out.  All he ever admitted to was that he wanted to see if he could.  Which, of course, infuriated me.  He took great delight in trying to ‘negotiate’ for more information, but I needed identity where none had been before.  It didn’t take me long to realize I was going to have to make things up on my own.  Whether I hated him or not, whether I did anything or not, the fact remained was that I was undoubtedly and irrevocably removed from what I had known and that it was up to me to decide what was going to happen to me next.”

“There was Dino…” Deidre began, remembering Terry’s ally.  It had not occurred to her to ask before, but for all of the insistence that the only characters pulled out of the movie were derived from one source, Dino’s presence in the actual world was a sudden conundrum. 

“That was my fault, I’m afraid,” Terry winced.   “I pulled him out, much to Sid’s fury.  I needed someone familiar, someone I knew I could trust, and I wasn’t about to look Sid in the face and say that he was something that I had any correlation with…but Im getting ahead of myself,” Terry cut himself short, half amusement, half regret flashing across his face.  “Long story short, I was rather a nasty person to be around for awhile, at least as far as Sid was concerned.  I tried to give as good as I got with him.  There were tests, there were trial runs, there were….” He stopped himself, and Deidre could tell he was getting agitated reliving the first part of his life outside his movie.  She realized what he was telling her and thought about how Rachel had been there for Cort, how she had tried to do something to open his mind to the possibility of the ‘outside’ – and how Terry had not done much to dissuade her of the effort. 

Yes, she was seeing much tonight.

“Anyway, I ‘escaped the compound’ as it were, as often as I could, and I’m ashamed to say I became something of a prowler.  Not too much, mind you!  I wasn’t so incautious as to be reckless.  But I didn’t much care for connections.  I’d meet a lady, we’d have a few drinks, I always made it clear what I wanted…” he sighed, and she could see he was wondering if he should go on.

“I’ve had periods like that myself, Terry,” she offered.  “You have this hole that you’ve just got to fill, but it seems as though something out there knows it and runs away at every move.  Nothing satisfies.”

Terry nodded, looking grateful that she could at least imagine his frame of mind at the time. 

“And, of course, I couldn’t say exactly who I was,” he went on.  “I became adept at explaining away my similarities. I was the Man Who Looked Like Him, but the minute someone, and it was very rare, the minute it looked as if they might be wondering more complicated scenarios, I found a way to make myself scarce.  That was my existence for some time after he pulled me out.” 

‘He’ meaning Sid.

Silence fell for a few minutes as he took another drink and Deidre nibbled on some more grapes.  The wine was beginning to make her muscles feel like they need horizontal repose, rather than vertical, but Terry was on a roll now and her heart was mightier than her muscles.  She would sit and listen to him well into dawn if he wanted to open to her now.

“That was when I met this farmer.  He’s still alive and I think his children might end up selling the land, more’s the pity.  But they like that someone is helping them keep up this area.  I used to come out here when I was at my lowest and just sit for hours, watching things.”  Terry’s voice drifted as though he were doing just that.  “I can’t tell you how much I hated the world then, hated my life.  I remember how I felt when I was in my movie, but that was nothing compared to being out here and not having any reason to it at all.  By all means I should fit, Sid would say.  I am, after all a contemporary.  Why couldn’t I just be grateful?”

They shifted now to where they both lay on their backs looking up at the deepening sky, lined up against each other.  Even though the planetary bodies had made their appearance, few stars could be seen as a haze drifted in and covered the skies with gray voile.  Some stars were lucky to pierce through, but voile turned into mackerel and the night seemed like it was multilayered.

“So what changed it?”  Deidre asked.

“I’m not sure.  Being out here, probably.  And…other things.  Realizing that although I didn’t like being what I was, what I was doing wasn’t much better.”  He drew a deep breath and expelled it as one long sigh.  “I pulled Bud and John and that’s when our plans began formulating…”

“Yes, I meant to corner you about that,” Deidre said, turning to him.  His arm automatically pulled her to him in an embrace.  “You spoke of plans, and then clammed up.  Will I be in on it?  Does Rachel know about it?  What do you guys have up your sleeves, Terrence Thorne?”

He was silent a moment and then turned his head so she could see his eyes, now an unfathomable, indeterminate color in the lamplight.

“We plan to take NanoCorp away from Sid, lock, stock, and barrel.”

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