NEW: Ask About the Weather, by Rachel Howard

Rating: PG
Classification: V
Spoilers: None, really -- a brief homage to The Unnatural that doesn't 
spoil anything
Feedback: Any/all, to snowrider5@aol.com
Archive: Gossamer/Ephemeral okay, others please ask first, then link to my
website: http://members.aol.com/xfileluv/RachelMain.htm
Summary: Post-colonization, MS.
Author's Note: I'm not bailing on "Above Rubies", this was just something
unrelated that I had in my head.
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be, not making any money off this.
______

They played the last game of the last World Series in Chicago, the town where
Harry Carey brought them to their feet, where the White Sox went down in
infamy. It was August, and the temperature at Comiskey couldn't have been much
above freezing.

Wilensky cried a little the first time one of the players went down on a patch
of ice. He only recognized a couple of them -- Eric Young, wearing a Rockies
jersey, not that it mattered; and the catcher for the other team was a big-shot
hitter for the Marlins whose name he couldn't remember. Whoever had gotten the
lone camera down there from one of the ruined news stations was also narrating
hoarsely, interrupting himself once in a while with a deep cough. 

"Gennaro tries to steal second -- he slides..." -- then a pause, while it
became clear that it was not a slide -- "he's not gonna make it, he's out." The
third baseman stood, shivering, staring up into the midday sun while the runner
got back to his feet.

They made it to the seventh inning stretch before the pitcher went down for
good, seizing hard. The camera angle wasn't good enough to read the expression
on his face, but when an outfielder carried the sick man off the field,
Wilenski could see that the man had pissed himself. The outfielder sobbed,
shoulders heaving. 

Maybe it was nothing more than American bravado, Wilenski thought, a final
fuck-you to the Visitors -- the real Visitors, the ones who had brought the
Home team down for good. They wouldn't get it -- the Visitors couldn't
understand recreation of any kind. Any activity that didn't deal directly with
survival was useless, and therefore prohibited. 

Their mouths were too narrow to laugh, or even smile.

He rubbed his hands together in the chilly air, wondered if anyone would notice
if he moved his space heater back here. Technically, he was supposed to be
close to the front window at all times, watching for unauthorized traffic,
unless a patrol came in.  There was a little sensor laid across the highway
that was supposed to beep when someone crossed it, but it got quirky when the
snow was deep. 

It was as good as any job got these days: guard duty at a highway outpost just
south of the remains of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The guard station had been a
Howard Johnson's, complete with a lounge area. Most days, the television showed
nothing but static. 

Guess they missed at least one satellite, Wilenski thought. Otherwise, he
wouldn't have been able to watch the game. 

It was snowing again. 

They loved the cold. Needed it to gestate their hideous larva.

"You should have asked them about the weather, Dad, " he said out loud, the
empty chairs in the lounge listening. "Before you cut the deal."

Some deal. 

Yes, he had a good job -- no oversight at all except for periodic checks by his
supervisor, a former colonel who had known his father for decades. And
Albuquerque was still relatively warm, the weather climbing into the thirties
some days. But it got lonely out here, with no company except for the
occasional visiting patrol. 

The television still showed Comiskey. It was snowing there, too. The players
had all left the field. The scoreboard read Home, 8, Visitors, 11. 

Wilenski sighed, pushed his bulk out of the captain's chair at the end of the
lounge, went to stare moodily out the plate glass window that faced I-25.

Something black fluttered past the window. 

He started, felt frantically along the laminated counter for the rifle he'd
been issued. No one had radioed him to let him know about an incoming patrol --
the black thing had looked like a piece of cloth. Maybe it was just trash,
picked up by the wind.

Wilenski pulled on his parka and stumbled outside.

Outside, everything was swirling white, snow as fine as sand whipping into his
face in a fierce wind. 

"Trash," he said, trying to convince himself. 

Then something hit him in the back of the head and he lost consciousness.

When he came to, he was sitting on the floor of the lounge, propped up against
the bar. The sick pain in the back of his head announced itself the moment he
tried to move. He went to touch it, and found that his wrists were cuffed. The
clanking informed him that he'd been handcuffed to something solid, probably
the side of bar.

There was movement behind him, but he couldn't see anyone. 

He moved his lips, but his mouth was bone dry.

He heard footsteps again, and this time there were feet. They were wearing
heavy hiking boots, he saw, but they were small. The feet walked right up to
him. With an effort, he raised his head enough to focus on the person attached
to them.

It was a human woman (looked like a human woman, he warned himself), with a
lean face and intense blue eyes. In one hand, she held a gun -- in the other
she was carrying a weapon of a class that had been strictly forbidden.

The penalty for possession of that particular weapon was death, no questions
asked. It looked like a long, thin icepick.  

She was studying him. She lifted the hand with the icepick and his esophagus
convulsed briefly, his dry mouth trying to swallow -- but she was only pushing
back the hood of her parka. Her hair, red, cut ragged and short, spilled around
her face.

"Where's your food?" Her voice was gravelly, like she hadn't spoken in a while.
She cleared her throat self-consciously while Wilenski tried to find the spit
to answer her. Hearing her do it made him feel a little better, so that he was
finally able to croak, "Fridge behind the bar."

She walked out of his line of vision and he heard her open the door of the
little refrigerator, take some things out and put them down on the bar. After a
few minutes he smelled a burnt, hot odor that let him know she had found his
hot plate, then the meaty aroma of ravioli in red sauce. His dinner. Well, not
anymore.

Wilenski found, to his surprise, that he was not particularly scared, nor was
he very angry that she was eating his carefully hoarded stash of cheese and
beef ravioli. He had not spoken to another person in the flesh for weeks, and
she didn't appear to be planning on killing him any time soon.

The television had been spitting static since he came to, but he didn't notice
until it went dead.

The red-haired woman reappeared, holding something. His fear immediately
resurfaced. His energy pack.

"What's this?" He looked up at her -- she gestured at him with the pack. He
tried to think of a lie, and could not. After a minute, she shook her head,
said, "Never mind. I know what it is. If you had enough clout to get one of
these, what the hell are you doing all the way out here?"

He stared back at her defiantly. This truth was also unacceptable; the colonel
had given him the little pack after his father died, saying it would hold up
better than the standard issue generators. Not until he had made the mistake of
asking his supervisor for a spare adaptor did he learn how rare the damn things
were -- and how coveted. 

He had lost it once, to an aggressive patrol captain who confiscated the
device, blustering, only to send it back weeks later. The colonel's influence,
again, Wilenski thought. Since then he had been careful to keep it out of
sight. The same patrol captain had come through just a few weeks ago, hustling
a few miserable prisoners in front of him like a badge of superiority. 

Wilenski had done his job -- heated food for the patrolers and prisoners,
watched the prisoners eat and sleep while the patrol rested -- and he and the
captain had not exchanged one word. One of the prisoners had fresh welts on his
face, as though he had been hit hard. Wilenski was willing to bet it had been
the captain.

The woman said, "Where's your generator?"

"Under the counter by the window."

She nodded, then crossed the room, out of his sight, and he heard her pick
something up. She crossed back toward the bar with a backpack in her hands; it
looked heavy. She had holstered her handgun, the parka flapping against her
sides, revealing glimpses of the holster with the grip of the gun exposed.
Wilenski wondered where she had put his rifle.

A burst of static came from his radio.

Instantly, she was leaning over him, unlocking the cuffs from the bar. 

"You're going to answer when they get through. You're going to reply all clear.
If you don't, I'm going to kill you instantly. Do you understand?" He felt her
hair sweep across his face as she turned the key in the lock; it smelled sweet,
like grass and apples. 

She had the handgun in her right hand, and she stood back while he scrambled to
his feet, the welt on the back of his head throbbing. The room tilted briefly,
and then he got his bearings. 

"Wilenski, come in, Wilenski come in. Over."

He hurried over to the radio, with the woman right behind him. He cleared his
throat. "Wilenski here. Over."

The radio squawked again, then he heard his supervisor ask, "Stebbins here. All
clear? Over."

"All clear. Sir. Over."

"Patrol 78, Captain Dellums in charge, should be in about oh-seven-hundred
tomorrow. Over."

"Yes, sir. Over."

"Munitions authorization charlie-echo-seven. Over."

He heard the woman shift behind him. "Yes sir. Over."

"Stebbins over and out." The static died into a thin hiss.

"Well, how about that," she murmured. After a long moment he turned around. The
woman nodded at him slightly. "Hands out." She put the cuffs back on him. "Show
me the munitions storeroom."

He walked her down the long, cold hall to what had been the HoJo's manager's
office. She walked lightly; even wearing the heavy boots, her footsteps were
nearly inaudible next to his heavy tread. He wanted to look at her, but he had
not heard her holster her weapon.

The office had steel cases against the wall; filled with ordinary stuff,
mostly, but she made a low humming noise in her throat when he opened them. She
had him stand against the wall, hands up, while she browsed, quickly selecting
some boxes of ammunition. Then she stroked her palm gently along the grip of a
nice semi-automatic.

"Don't," he pleaded. "They'll miss that one."

She turned and gave him a hard look. "And what, they dock your pay?"

Very funny, lady. "They'll know you were here."

She raised one delicately arched eyebrow at him. "I'm supposed to believe that
you weren't going to tell them?"

"I wasn't," he replied, honestly.

She gave him a long, hard look and he fought the urge to shuffle his feet like
a teenager under her scrutiny.

"Why?"

He opened his mouth but nothing came out. He closed it, licked his lips.
Wilenski thought of his father, loyal to the Project until the end. When
pneumonia swept through the Atlanta installation, where his father had been
second in command, there had been some screw-up -- no doctor on the base, not
enough penicillen on hand. They had miscalculated, failed to protect enough
doctors from the ravenous larvae when they vaccinated the chosen few.

What came out was, "They played the last game of the Series today. In Chicago.
It looked real cold." And then, to his shame, he began to cry - sharp braying
sobs, his gut heaving up and down. He heard the voice of a long-dead playground
bully. Fat boys look stupid when they cry; sing-song, with a lisp.

She didn't reholster her gun, but she did let her gaze wander around the room,
taking in the old pinups and memoranda never filed, while he pulled himself
together. As his sobs tapered off, she put the ammo in her pack and left the
semi-automatic behind. When she said, "Travel rations?", it sounded like a
request instead of an order.

He led her farther down the hall, to the food locker. She wrinkled her nose at
the MRE's, but took a stack, plus some cans that made her pack bulge. Now he
studied her openly -- she was too thin, but pretty in a way that made him think
of diamonds.

When she was done, she said, "Thanks. Now show me your list."

He blurted, "You're with them, aren't you? You're one of the rebels."

Fine lines creased her forehead. "I'm not with anybody." She paused, then
added, "The list, please, Wilenski." 

She followed him back to the front counter. The TV was showing static again -
she must have hooked up his generator when she took the energy pack.

"The list" was the way everyone referred to it -- the manifest of test subjects
and workers moved from location to location. It arrived with each patrol, which
meant that updates were irregular, but Wilenski took some shallow comfort in
scanning the names and photographs. They were the scarcest commodity left --
humans who were not protected by any affiliation to the Syndicate, nor by
virtue of their former profession, who were still alive and available for
breeding. 

They were the unlucky ones; alive, for now. 

The manifest was long, a thick stack of photos and physical characteristics.
Wilenski watched his guest page through it carefully, stopping at individual
pictures. Then she stopped dead.

He watched the color drain from her face as she stared down at the photograph.
When she raised her eyes to his, the pupils were black and wide.

"Have you seen him?" she whispered.

He looked down to where one small, ragged fingernail was pressing into the
page. A thin-faced man, with dark hair. His code was alpha-nine, which meant he
was highly valuable for some biological reason. He started to say no, and then
realized that the thin-faced man was the prisoner with the welts.

Without thinking about the consequences, he said, "Yes. He was just here a
couple of weeks ago."

The woman's face was alive with excitement. "With a patrol?"

Wilenski nodded. 

"Going where?"

This time he did hesitate. An executable offense, a voice inside his head said,
quietly. Revealing the location of a Listed subject to any unauthorized
personnel. 

A riff of music played in his head. Take me out to the ballgame. Take me out to
the crowd.

Buy me some peanuts and crackerjack. I don't care if I never go back.

Never go back.

"They went north," he told her. "I don't know their long-term destination. We
only get told about the next checkpoint -- in case they get into trouble, you
know, so we can track them. The next one for them was..." he reached over and
grabbed the dog-eared manifest, ran his fingers down the column -- "yeah, I
thought so, Santa Fe. But I was talking to the captain's assistant, and he did
say they had to check in at Denver, though. Before they came back. But that's a
major installation." He looked doubtfully at her. She wasn't very big. 

"Thank you, Wilenski," she said. Her blue, blue eyes were glistening. 

He wanted to ask about the man, but instead he said, "Do you know how to find
them? The rebels?"

She smiled, the first real smile he had seen on her face. "I'm told that you
don't. They find you."

He nodded, feeling stupid.

She holstered her weapon and reached one small hand toward him. He stared down
at it for a long minute before he realized that she was offering to shake hands
with him. "Dana Scully."

Reaching out, he shook it. "Paul Wilenski." He gathered up his courage and
asked, "What was his name? The subject who came through here with the patrol?"

She looked down at the photograph in her hand and said, "Mulder. His name is
Mulder." She looked out at the swirling snow. The light had given out
completely. "I need to go."

"The patrol won't be here until morning," he said, not wanting her to leave.
Dana Scully, he repeated inside his head. "You've got time."

She was looking at the photo again. "No, I don't."

Once her parka and pack were on, she looked less fragile, more like a soldier,
properly outfitted this time. She looked at the snow outside and shook her
head. "Do you know how they did it? The weather?"

"No," he confessed. Even his father had not known. Unsure if it was really a
question, he asked, "Do you?"

She shook her head no. "I ask everyone I meet. Sometimes at gunpoint. No one
seems to know." She looked back at him, and smiled again. He returned the
smile. "Goodbye, Wilenski."

"'Bye, Scully."

And then she was gone, a black figure disappearing into a cloud of swirling
white, cutting through the storm like a blade. He saw her turn north, and then
she was out of sight.

"I'm sorry, Dad," Wilenski said out loud. "I'm sorry." But he looked up, into
the unforgiving sky outside, and felt light, lighter, lightest.

END