Cave of the Lighted House, The by Dreamerlea

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The Cave of the Lighted House by Dreamerlea

From: Dreamerlea <[email protected]>

Date: 21 Apr 1998 00:49:35 GMT

Subject: NEW Cave of the Lighted House (1/1)

Title: The Cave of the Lighted House

Author: Dreamerlea <[email protected]>

Classification: X

Rating: R for disturbing content

Summary: An investigation of the disappearance of an American geologist in Mexico and the complications thereof.

Timeline: Early-season five, with a slightly less battle-scarred M&S

Spoilers: “Memento Mori”

Archiving: Please archive to Gossamer. Anywhere else, please write so I can come and visit. =)

Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully and any incidentally mentioned characters or situations pertaining to the X-Files belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and 20th Century Fox, as well as David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.

Further Disclaimer: The following is a work of fiction, though special thanks (and numerous apologies) are due to Charles Petit, whose article on Cueva de Villa Luz provided the idea for this story. (U.S. News and World Report, 2/9/98). Special apologies are also due to the scientists working at the sight, the people of Tapijulapa, and the field of Geology in general for my shameless adaptation of science and culture for the purposes of fiction.

Author’s Note: All right, I’m finally putting my money where my mouth is. After months of reading and talking about everyone else’s efforts, this is my first fanfic. I’d adore hearing what all those who have gone before me thought of it.

Virtual fudge <g> for Dawson, whose conversations on international affairs caused me much grief in the making of this story. I hope this bribe is enough to make him read it, despite the small bit of fudging I had to do.

Dedication: This monstrosity is dedicated to the somnivociferous Meg, who no longer likes angst and speaks Urdu (so that she can understand it when cabbies, instead of taking us to 42nd and Park, abandon us in the caverns of the dead), and also the extremely patient St. Rachel of the Snow, an incredible writer, beta-extraordinaire, and all around cool chica.

Feedback: Yes please! I delight in all manners of response (including constructive criticism) at [email protected].

******

Chapter 1 – The Walls are Alive

The walls seemed to glow with milky luminescence as reflected in the lanterns placed about the cave. It was a hot day outside, in the burning sun of the Yucatan, but within the cavern the weather was cool, and incredibly humid. Viscous strands of goo ran down the side of the cave, off the walls and stalactites of brown rock. The air was acrid, burning, and the rock pulsed with slender-legged spiders skittering about in the slime. It was a scene out of a horror film for anyone other than the two scientists that were even now up to their knees in milky water. To them it was a miracle, a testament to the perseverance of any life that could survive in such an extreme environment. Dr. Carrie Honeywell, kneeling on a dry outcrop of rock against the western wall, turned to her partner.

“How you doing, Ben?” she asked, her voice tinny through her gas mask. “Almost done?”

“For now,” Ben answered, smiling as he looked at Carrie. “I’m going to want to come back tomorrow and get some more samples from this area, though.” He stood up, and leaned against the rock wall to retie one boot. “Right now though, all I want is a shower and to take my favorite girl out for dinner.”

“Sounds good to me,” Carrie answered, wiping one gloved hand across her brow, right above her goggles. The cavern echoed her words, combining them with the rush of the milky stream, and the ever present sucking and slogging of the microbial veil. “I swear, this stuff is such a pain to get off.”

“But oh, what it does to your skin, ‘Honey’,” he said lightly, walking over to the first of the lanterns placed in the caverns. “The bar in town?” he asked, placing his specimen jars in a canvas bag.

“As if there is a choice?” Carrie asked, leaning over towards the rock. “Hey Ben, take a look at this.” Her voice could hardly be heard over the sudden rushing of the stream.

“What?” he asked as he put out one of the lanterns and placed it in the canvas bag.

“Right here, Ben, it’s…” Carrie paused as she dug at the acidic slime. “It’s deeper here. Ben, I think I found a hollow…”

“I’ll be right there,” her partner answered, straightening. “I just want to get the last lantern. We are going back, right, Carrie?” he asked, a pleading note entering his voice. “The mucus will be here tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Carrie replied, but her voice had already taken on the “Shut-up-I’m-focused” tone that Ben recognized so well from their eight-month relationship. Carrie was more than happy to accept his attentions, but as long as it was on her own terms, her own time. Nothing like being second to snot, man, Ben told himself as he reached for the last lantern, hung on a rocky outcrop on one side of the cavern.

Carrie screamed, and Ben dropped the lantern as he whirled around to face his partner. She had somehow slipped forward into the muck, and couldn’t get the leverage to pull herself out. She was in past her elbows, and seemed to have done a face plant into the veil…

Into a rock wall? Ben wondered. Apparently the “hollow” was deeper than she had thought. He slipped down the rock face to the streambed between him and Carrie.

“Ben! Help! I can’t – I can’t get out!” she seemed to be pushing at the mucus, trying to extract herself, and somehow getting pulled deeper.

“Coming, Carrie!” he called, splashing across the stream. He was almost to the opposite shore when he saw her head get pulled into the goo. “What the hell!” he cried.

Carrie screamed again, a high-pitched wail that reverberated along the walls of the cavern. Ben slipped towards her in the slime, trying desperately to gain his footing in the stream. Carrie thrashed around in the goo, now only her legs showing, now an arm reaching desperately towards him.

“Carrie!” he cried when he reached her, sprawling wetly across the rocks, grabbing wildly at her flailing legs, reaching for her arms.

A muffled cry. Perhaps Carrie screamed his name at that moment, when her arm finally slipped from his grasp and he was left on the rock, alone. He pressed his fingers into the rock and felt the hard limestone underneath the thin veneer of mucus. The hollow had disappeared, and Ben sat back on the stone, staring numbly at his slime-covered hand and listening as the last of Carrie’s screams faded into the cavern walls.

The car wouldn’t stay cool, no matter how high he turned the air-conditioner. Mental note: never rent a black car south of the border, Mulder thought as he navigated the car along the deteriorating highway. He had cracked the windows early in a desperate attempt to stay cool, but it brought too much dust into the car, and so he had to give up even that small degree of comfort. His suit was in dire straits. The jacket was okay, laid neatly across the back seat, but the dress shirt was a disaster. He had unbuttoned the top few buttons and rolled up his sleeves, but he could feel it, sticky with sweat on his back and under his arms. His pants were wrinkled from the journey as well.

Scully didn’t look as if she was doing well either, he thought, looking towards his partner, who was reading the paper in the passenger seat. She had pulled her hair up, but a few tendrils had escaped from the tiny ponytail and snaked down her neck in wet strands. Scully, too, had removed her suit jacket and her silk blouse was clinging to her body, outlining the cut of her bra.

Mulder decided not to mention it, and let his eyes trail further. She must be really uncomfortable in those pantyhose, he thought. I would have taken them off by now, if I were her.

Scully shifted in her seat, re-crossing her legs, and Mulder turned his eyes back to the road, mentally chastising himself for his indiscretion. “Almost there,” he said lightly and Scully murmured a response, her eyes still buried in the paper.

“And I don’t really mind that whatever place we find to stay in isn’t likely to have hot water,” he tried.

“Mmmm-hmmm,” Scully said. “What are you so engrossed in, anyway?”

“News, Mulder. Things do happen that have nothing to do with government conspiracies, you know.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked jovially as he steered the car around a large pothole. “Like what?”

“Like an earthquake in Afghanistan,” Scully said, showing him the article.

“Hmmm, there is an X-file on -”

“I’m sure,” Scully said, dismissing him and shaking out her paper to fold it. “How long until we get to -”

“Tapijulapa?” Mulder finished. “About half an hour.”

“Do we need any -”

“No, we have half a tank left.”

Scully ran her fingers across her damp forehead. Her glistening forehead, Mulder thought, the old saying springing to mind. Scully toyed with the controls on the dashboard. “Is the air -”

“Yes.” His voice was short, and he realized too late how he must sound. He hadn’t let her finish her last few sentences, and why? Heat rises, he thought.

Scully was quiet for a moment, looking out the window over the highlands. Earlier, at least, they had the relief of a breeze off the Gulf of Mexico. But the heat had become confining and heavy as they had traveled south, inland. The land was covered in coarse grass, singed brown by the sun, and there were no other cars on the road. “So let me have it, Mulder,” she said.

“What?”

“What’s your ‘theory’ on this one? There must be some reason you went through all this to get us here.”

“Hey, the agents at the Embassy asked for our help, not the other way around.”

“Mulder, they asked for consultation! A couple of phone calls, not a trip into this oven. A trip, I might add, that the Mexican government is none too happy about.”

“We’re here though.”

“Barely,” Scully mumbled under her breath. “And I really feel uncomfortable about this.”

Of course you do, Mulder thought. It’s five hundred degrees out. “Listen, the disappearance of an American citizen working for the U.S. government in Mexico is bound to raise some eyebrows. Especially when it’s as odd as this. And, as far as I’m concerned, I’m thankful to whatever power saw fit to make this case available to us at all.”

“What exactly is it that you hope to find?”

“Scully, aren’t you curious about this at all? When we first got the call, there was no way we were getting into Mexico. Diplomacy and national sovereignty and all -”

“And you suggested to me that we sneak in as tourists? Yes Mulder, I recall that quite well,” Scully said.

He chose to ignore her sarcasm. “And then suddenly all avenues were clear! We were told to head down right away. Doesn’t that amaze you in the least? What is so important about research on cave formation that the U.S. would find it expedient to send in some of their own?”

“Can’t say,” Scully said. “Right now the only thing going through my head is what Skinner said to us right before we left.”

“What?”

“He said, ‘Keep your asses in line on this one,’” she said, still looking out the window. “I think the sooner we find that there’s nothing to see and get back where we belong, the better. I’m not sure we should be here, and Skinner’s definitely against it -”

“Which might mean that there’s more to this than meets the eye.”

” – But if you’re not bothered in the least, well then sure, no problem,” Scully continued.

“Scully, if we get there, and you can tell me that there’s nothing out of the ordinary going on, I’ll be as happy as you are to get back to the basement.”

Scully made a sound very like a snort.

“Well, what do you think is going on? Tell me if you found anything in the file that seemed a little out of line.”

She looked at him. “I think that there were some odd things in the file, Mulder, but nothing that constituted the trouble it took to get down here. It’s just an interesting yet innocuous case that the Mexicans and Embassy agents are quite capable of handling on their own.”

“What exactly do you find ‘interesting yet innocuous?”

“The history of the cave and its supposed ‘spiritual properties’. How the researchers have been having trouble in town since they canceled the locals’ festival.”

“Festival, Scully? Sounded more like a fertility rite to me,” he commented dryly.

“And the new theories on cave formation the scientists were forming,” Scully went on without missing a beat. “They think these new microbes they found may be responsible.”

“They are responsible for something,” Mulder muttered. “Especially when you consider that Carrie Honeywell was collecting specimens of said microbes when she disappeared. But,” he began, with a wave of his hand, “I want to hear your theory on this one.”

Scully sighed, and looked at her partner directly. “I have any number of theories, Mulder, and none of them constitute an X-file,” Scully said.

“Not even when you take Ben Silliman’s story into account?” he asked, testing the waters.

“The testimony of an obviously distraught man after a few hours in such an extreme environment?”

“He said the rock ate her, Scully.”

Scully shook her head slightly, watching the land move past the car window. “And that’s what you think happened, Mulder? You think we have a killer cave on our hands?”

“Something attacked that scientist in the cave.”

“Something?” she asked him skeptically. “Mulder, you’re going to put the reputation of the Bureau on the line for ‘something’? We’re in a country that doesn’t want us here, investigating some vague notion of an X-file. Do you care to expound on this ‘something’?”

“You think Silliman didn’t see anything?”

“I think it’s possible that he saw what he wanted to.”

“Do you think he did it?”

“I think we’ll know more when we arrive and actually start investigating,” Scully said. “But for right now, we have local discontent regarding the research, and possible sinkholes. Not killer caves.”

“We’ll see,” was Mulder’s reply.

***

The biological station was just on the other side of the village of Tapijulapa. It was a low, beige building with a flat green roof and a large front porch made of cement. A dirt driveway circled in front of the building, and a few pick-up trucks were parked in front of the building. There were a few plastic rocking chairs on the front porch, but they were unoccupied at the moment. The black car crunched up the driveway and parked in front of the porch steps. Scully stepped on to the porch, shifting uncomfortably in her suit jacket. Her eyes scanned the area, taking in the small square windows in the front of the building, covered in shadowy screens that effectively hid the interior from Scully’s eyes. In front of the door lay a pile of black rubber boots, coated with a layer of light-colored mud. Mulder joined her on the porch looking hot and rumpled in his newly donned suit jacket, and together they walked towards the door.

Mulder paused before the boots, lifting one with the toe of his shoe and glancing at Scully. She nodded and knocked on the door. A moment later, a man appeared behind the screen and looked at the two agents with cold apprehension. He was not a large man, but well built, most likely from years of climbing about in caves, with curly brown hair cut close to his head and light brown eyes that flickered back and forth nervously beneath his wire-rimmed glasses.

“Dr. Benjamin Silliman?” Mulder asked.

“Yes,” the man said carefully.

“Special Agent Mulder, with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. This is my partner, Agent Scully. We’ve been called in to assist with the investigation on the disappearance of Carrie Honeywell. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”

Silliman peered at Mulder’s identification, and Scully could almost see the questions forming in his eyes. The ones she wished she had an answer for herself. Like, what the hell were they doing here? “Yeah,” he said finally. “Come in.” He pushed open the screen door, and the two agents stepped inside.

The interior of the station was only slightly cooler than it was outside, the result of a few large ceiling fans that moved the air in slow, lazy circles. Silliman wore a faded red shirt with the sleeves pushed up past his elbows and a pair of dirt stained pants. He led the agents through the entranceway and past a few laboratory tables covered in jars and petri dishes. Mulder glanced through several of the doorways they passed and caught a glimpse of a sleeping area with mesh-covered bunk beds and a small kitchen with an ancient gas stove.

“Is there anyone else here right now?” Scully asked the man.

“No,” he said quietly, opening a door towards the back of the building. “Two of the researchers are back at Villa Luz, and the ranger is in the village this afternoon.”

They entered a cluttered office. Paper work was scattered all over the tiny desk, anchored down against the breeze caused by the small fan in the corner with rough rocks. Silliman moved behind the desk and indicated that the two agents should sit down in the folding chairs in front. Scully did so, noticing a bottle half full of Jack Daniels and a glass next to a framed photograph on a file cabinet next to the desk.

Silliman sat down and took off his glasses, squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing the bridge of his nose. When he looked up again, Scully could make out the heavy, dark bags under his eyes. He had deep shadows of beard stubble on his face too, and Scully noted how rumpled his clothes were. She leaned forward.

“Dr. Silliman, you were the only one in the Cueva de Villa Luz with Carrie Honeywell when she disappeared, correct?” Scully asked.

“Yes,” Silliman answered wearily, leaning back in his chair. “We were finishing up for afternoon. I was taking down the lanterns when – when it happened.”

“And what was Dr. Honeywell doing?”

“Taking specimens. Carrie – Dr. Honeywell had just found a hollow that we think might have been formed by the microbes we’re studying. She was taking a specimen of the snotites -”

“The what?” Scully asked incredulously.

Silliman looked up. He had been staring at the surface of the desk while he spoke, but now he locked his eyes with Scully’s. “Snotites. They are the long strings of microbial veil hanging down the cave wall. It’s what we call them. Like stalactites.”

“I see,” Scully said nodding.

Silliman looked down again. “She said she had to get one more sample. I was packing up, trying to hurry her along. By the time I turned around, it was too late. Too late to save her.”

“Can you tell us what you saw?” Mulder cut in.

“Why?” Silliman snapped suddenly, glaring at Mulder. “You have everything in the report there. You’ve read it already; you’ve dismissed it already. I’m not an idiot, Agent—”

“Agent Mulder.”

“—Agent Mulder. I don’t know what else you people want to hear from me. I told you what I saw, and I’m not lying, and I’m not changing my story. I told the police, then I told the people from the Embassy, then I told those guys the government sent down. I have no idea what you all are doing here, but the story is not going to be different for you. I know what you people do to try and get people to change their stories, but I told you the truth. I know what I saw.”

“We are not dismissing what you claim you saw Dr. Silliman,” Scully said coolly, before Mulder could jump in to support their witness. “We know these past few days must have been very difficult for you. We just have a few questions about your story.”

Silliman was eyeing the two agents with distrust. “Am I under suspicion?”

“Not at the moment, Dr. Silliman.” It was a dangerous question, and an even more risky answer. After all, Scully mused as she waited for the scientist to speak, he was the only one there when Honeywell disappeared. What could be easier than a bit of foul play, hide the body in the cave, and come out with a bogus horror story?

And the search teams had been unable to locate Carrie Honeywell’s body. There were miles of cave underground, and who knew them better than Silliman? She shivered involuntarily.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” Silliman said at last, his voice cold. After all, we were alone.”

“Do you always work in single pairs, Dr. Silliman?” Mulder asked. Scully fought the urge to cast a glance his way. Did he suspect Silliman? The man seemed obviously disturbed by his partner’s disappearance, and yet, if he was that worried, why wasn’t he out there looking for her? That wasn’t fair of her, she reminded herself. Not everyone is Mulder.

The man shrugged. “It varies. Do you?”

Scully and Mulder glanced at each other.

Silliman nodded. “And if one of you disappears, is the other blamed for it?”

Only when he blames himself, Scully thought.

We are required to account for the other person’s whereabouts, Scully thought, and was about to speak when Silliman began to talk again.

“I reached for her, but she slipped out of my grasp,” Silliman said at last, quietly.

Mulder and Scully were quiet, knowing he was ready to speak.

“If I hadn’t been in such a hurry to leave, if I hadn’t been so far away from her,” he said, choking slightly on the words. He turned and picked up the framed picture on the filing cabinet. He handed it to Scully. It showed four researchers standing at the cave’s entrance, up to their knees in a stream of milky-white water.

“This was taken on our first day. Carrie’s the one on the end, closest to me.”

She was young, with dirty-blond hair in a long ponytail, and a smile that belonged on billboards. The rest of her face was solemn though, even prim, with steady brown eyes under dark, serious brows.

“Pretty,” Scully remarked.

“She was beautiful,” Silliman insisted, reaching for the photo.

“Why is the water white, Dr. Silliman?” Scully asked as she handed it back. “It is the underground stream that runs through the cave,” he explained. For now, the man seemed resigned to answering their questions. “It turns white because of calcium deposits inside the cave. Actually, the fish that live in the water are a big part of the Mayan festival.”

“Really?” Mulder asked.

“Yes. They say the fish have been influenced by the powerful spirits that live in the cave. The locals collect them and eat them at the festival. They say it promotes fertility,” Silliman said wearily.

“And does it?” Mulder asked.

Silliman fixed him with a glare. “I’m a scientist, Agent Mulder, not a superstitious shaman. I think the very fact that I’m not one for wild stories would make my testimony more credible. I wouldn’t be predisposed to believe what happened to Carrie in the cave, either, but I saw it with my own eyes. I don’t know exactly how or why it happened, but Carrie Honeywell was sucked into that wall.”

He stopped speaking and looked at his lap. Mulder was quiet, and Scully opened her folder. Silliman seemed to honestly believe his story. But why the inconsistencies in his account? He had just told them that the cave had sucked Honeywell inside, but then… “Dr. Silliman,” she said, confused, “you told police earlier that Dr. Honeywell was stuck in the -” she checked the file, “microbial veil on the cave wall?”

“Yes. She somehow slipped and was in past her elbows when I turned around.”

“And you testified that later you touched the spot where she was and the veil was less than half an inch thick.”

“That was an estimate,” Silliman said quickly. “But, yes, it wasn’t thick enough for… for that. For her to be sucked in.”

“Sucked, Dr. Silliman?”

“She couldn’t get out, and she also seemed to be sinking farther in. I thought at first she had slipped into the hollow that she had found, and couldn’t get enough leverage to get out, but, it wasn’t… it was like she was being pulled in.”

“Like quicksand?” Mulder asked.

“Quicksand is a myth, Agent Mulder,” Silliman said. “If you stay still, there is no way you can sink. Carrie was pulled into the wall. I couldn’t grab her, or hold her.” He fell silent, and his eyes glistened.

Scully closed the folder. No clarification from that quarter, that much was obvious. “How long had you been working together, Dr. Silliman?”

“A year now. Six months in Mexico,” he said, wiping quickly at his eyes. “But we were together every day. He traced the picture frame with his finger. “It seems like much longer. She was brilliant, brilliant. Her work, this work, was everything to her, and it -”

He broke off. “I’m sorry. It’s just that – Well, Carrie and I, we had been… we had been dating for eight months now. This is really hard.”

“Excuse me,” Scully said. “You keep referring to Carrie Honeywell in the past tense. She’s been missing for four days. How can you be sure she’s dead?”

If Silliman had killed Honeywell, it would also be natural for him to use the past tense to describe her. After all, he would know if she were dead. But if he had killed her, he could have come up with a much simpler story. And there was also the question of motive. There was none. Still, Scully thought, his mind could have created the wild story of the cave to make up for what really happened, especially if it was something he felt massive guilt for. Silliman may have killed Honeywell, and made up the cave story in a fit of denial.

“Even if she did escape from the wall, Agent Scully, if she is still in the cave, she would be dead by now.”

“Why?”

“The air in there is extremely toxic and acidic.” He said slowly. “We are not permitted to stay in for more than eight hours at a time, even with gas masks. The filters need to be changed every ten hours, and Carrie had already been using hers for eight.” Silliman’s voice started to crack. “She would have become dizzy, fainting and maybe hallucinating, then sick, vomiting. After a while, it would be— it would be nothing but blood until her lungs ruptured. After about six hours without protection in any part of the inner cave, she would asphyxiate and die.”

Scully’s eyes widened, and she had a sudden horrible thought: I hope the wall ate her.

***

Chapter 2 – Light and Darkness

The afterglow of the sunset painted the clear sky a glorious mix of red and indigo. Scully however, was far from enjoying the view. She stood on the cement porch of the station, her arms folded over her chest, stubbornly refusing to turn around. He stood behind her, obstinate as ever. They had argued, earlier, still in their constricted, sweaty suits, and not even the onset of the evening was successful in cooling the tempers that had been raised. Silliman had excused himself from the interview after he pronounced that death sentence on his partner, and the agents hadn’t felt there was anything further to learn from him. Mulder had offered to go into the village to try to find sleeping arrangements for the evening, and Scully stayed behind to talk to the rest of the researchers. It had been a mistake, as usual. Two of the returning scientists were merely students, who had little more to offer Scully than that there was still no progress in the search for Carrie Honeywell, and a strong odor of acid, mud, and guano from their trip to the cave. What a lovely place it must be, Scully thought, gagging on the smell of the students’ clothes. They did, however, mention that Silliman and Honeywell’s relationship had been very strained of late, and neither student gave much credit to Silliman’s story of the attack.

The third man, a Biologist from the University of Mexico, had slightly more to say on the subject of Ben Silliman. Noel Rivera was a young man, like the other researchers at the station, and looked like nothing more than a Hispanic version of Mulder’s lone Gunman friend Langly — thin and gangly, with long, stringy brown hair, quite sweaty from an afternoon in the hot sun. Noel had a few choice words about his colleague. “He was crazy in love with her. Loco,” Rivera said. “Carrie, was beautiful, brilliant, and she liked Benjamin just fine. But he wanted so much more. They fought about it all the time. And when they fought, it was huge. It was hard not to notice. They were a very, um, vocal couple. And then the fights moved to work. Carrie, she headed the research, you see, and Benjamin couldn’t deal with it. She told him that if things didn’t change, and soon, that she would take him off the project. That caused one of their biggest fights yet, just last week. Agent Scully, I don’t want to give you a wrong idea. Anything that happened, I don’t think Benjamin – meant to. If he was angry… well, I think something might…” Noel trailed off.

Scully had heard enough. Mulder returned soon after with bad news. “No place to stay, Scully,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll talk to Silliman. Looks like we might have to bed down here for the night.”

“Not on your life,” Scully answered him. “Come on, Scully,” Mulder began, “We’ve stayed in worse. At least his place has electricity, and you saw those mosquito nets. No bugs are going to come after you in the dark.”

“But a murderer might,” Scully returned.

“What?”

“Can’t you see what is going on?” Scully asked. “I talked to the researchers. They all agree. Benjamin Silliman is responsible for the disappearance of Carrie Honeywell.”

“You have proof?”

“No, but, as you would say, I have a hunch. And I don’t want to risk it. There is motive enough to spare, an opportunity like no other, an impossible story as an excuse -”

“One so impossible that you can’t help but believe it!” Mulder said angrily. “Come off it, Mulder,” Scully said, her own voice rising. “What is more likely, that a jealous lover who’d been having both professional and personal problems with Honeywell attacked her in the cave, or that she was eaten by a wall?”

There was no answer from her partner.

“I have three people here who will tell you exactly what sort of man Silliman is.”

“So we can’t believe him because he’s been having trouble with his girlfriend?” Mulder asked, a hard edge entering his voice. “That’s a good reason to discredit a man.”

“They have heard them having huge confrontations, they have -”

“Oh no, Scully!” Mulder said mockingly. “Not huge confrontations! You’re right — he must have killed her,” he went on, stepping even closer to her, so that Scully was forced to tilt her head up and meet his eyes. He lowered his voice, whispering harshly, “If that’s the truth, I can’t imagine how many of our colleagues think I am out to kill you.” He stepped back. “Or vice versa,” he added, slightly calmer.

She turned and walked off the porch and onto the driveway.

“I’ll go and ask Silliman if we can spend the night,” he said.

And now she stood on the porch, waiting for him to speak, to continue the conversation that was far from finished.

“I’m not staying here. We’ll go and camp in the cars. We’ve done it before. We’ll drive to another town. There has to be a pub somewhere that will put us up for the night.”

“Scully,” Mulder said, “What is your problem? You can’t think we’re in any danger here.”

“The last thing a murderer needs is to be investigated, and the last thing investigators need is to be in a vulnerable position in front of him. We’ll be asleep, he’ll be in the next room -”

“So he’s guilty, is that it?”

“Mulder!” she said, exasperated. “I’m saying it’s a possibility, and a risk that’s not worth taking.”

“And we aren’t to trust him or his story at all?”

“It doesn’t make sense, Mulder,” Scully said, crossing her arms over her chest. “He couldn’t give us one rational explanation as to why the veil could be deep enough to swallow a human being one minute, an barely cover his fingertips the next!”

“Still, it is worth looking into. And I’m still curious about why we’re here at all. Who are these ‘government people’ that Silliman was talking about? They are the ones who made him as closed off as he is now. I want to know who he’s talked to, and what’s going on. I want to now what exactly happened to Honeywell. I think that first thing tomorrow morning, we need to go get a look at the caves ourselves.”

“They have special teams for that,” Scully said. “We know nothing about that environment, and couldn’t possibly be of help. We should be conducting this investigation with at least a semblance of rationality, not simply accepting the wild premise for its own sake and definitely not flying into dangerous situations for which we have neither the preparation or even the motive to enter. Of course, rationality has never been your strong suit.”

“If it had, we’d probably both be dead by now,” Mulder had snapped back, then instantly regretted it. Scully’s mouth dropped open.

“I suppose I should be grateful,” she said after a moment.

“Scully, that’s not what I meant.”

“I think you must have.”

He said nothing, just stood, looking out beyond her at the sunset on the hills. “Scully -” he began quietly.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Let’s just go on with the case. The fact that we are investigating what might turn out to be a murder and the suspect knows where we sleep, that doesn’t make the slightest difference.”

“If we could have slept anywhere else-” said Mulder, turning to her.

“It’s not about that.”

“What?” he asked, surprised.

Scully shook her head slightly. “It’s just…I don’t understand why you are so quick to decide he’s innocent.”

He let out a quick breath. “And I don’t understand why you are so quick to decide he is guilty.”

Scully bit her lip and closed her eyes. She opened them a moment later and looked up at her partner. “I understand,” she said simply. “It’s always the same, isn’t it, Mulder? Your sympathy. Your life played out in a thousand variations through everyone we come in contact with.”

“That’s not it at all.”

“Isn’t it?” she asked, and he opened his mouth as if to speak, but stopped. The last of the orange light faded into the hills, and Scully could not see the eyes of her partner in the dusky purple light. He faced her, but seemed to stare beyond her, not knowing what to say.

Scully was in the same position. Which words would suffice to heal this particular breach? She had a decision to make, and, all considered, it wasn’t a particularly difficult one after all.

She stepped back from the railing. “I guess I should get to bed then.” She turned to head into the station. “That is, if we are going to get a look at those caves tomorrow.”

Mulder’s face relaxed, almost smiling, and he followed her inside.

“You okay with this?” Mulder asked, bending over Scully as she sat on the lower bunk, tying her borrowed boots.

“Fine,” she answered without looking up. “Why?”

“It’s just,” he paused. “About yesterday…”

“Mulder,” she began warningly.

“No,” he stopped her. “I wanted to say, Thanks… for trusting me.”

Scully pulled the last lace tight and stood up. “Let’s go,” she said.

In retrospect, Scully could see that there was nothing to it but to explore the cave themselves. As Mulder had once said to her, long ago, that’s why they put the “I” in F.B.I. Spelunking though? They weren’t prepared, even less than they had been in other extreme environments. And despite her decision, she wasn’t happy with the prospect of Silliman leading such novices around. Before she left the room she went back into her bag to get her gun. Just to be safe, she told herself. She looked at it and shook her head. Skinner had told them to keep in line and she was already carrying around a gun.

The ride over was fairly uncomfortable. Scully was squished on the front seat of the pickup truck between an eager Mulder and a stormy Silliman. She said little, and kept her ears open for anything further that might either implicate or exonerate the young scientist. But he only talked about the project.

“The current hypothesis is that there is microscopic life as far down as five kilometers in the earth,” Silliman was saying.

“How is that possible?” Scully said, finally moved to speak.

“There is more life, Agent Scully, beneath the surface than on it,” Silliman said, looking at her. “If all the life beneath the surface was hauled up, it would form a uniform layer about five feet thick.”

Mulder whistled through his teeth. “And we are just now learning about all this?”

“It’s still just a theory,” Silliman said. “Like all science, we can’t prove anything. But there is a good basis of evidence that it is correct. I’m mainly interested in this for its biodiversity aspects. There are so many different kinds of microbes that -”

The truck hit a pothole in the road and Scully was jounced against Silliman, her gun hitting him in the hip. He looked down at her strangely.

“-suggest that they represent dozens of kingdoms of life,” he went on, a slightly stilted tone in his speech. “They are as varied in their own ways as algae is from an ape.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and stared straight ahead, his eyes cold.

Mulder sensed the change. “And Carrie Honeywell was studying diversity as well?”

“Carrie was less the ecologist, more into Geology. She was studying cave formation. One theory is that all caves were formed partly by these threads of microbes. Traces of such organisms have been found in older caves, suggesting that there are many other caves formed like this one. We’re just lucky to be able to have found one that still has them.”

“What’s it like inside?” Mulder asked.

Silliman had apparently loosened up again. “Like no place on earth,” he said. “You feel like it’s another planet.”

“My kind of place,” said Mulder, earning a glare from his partner.

***

The truck pulled up around a hill, revealing a large stony outcrop on the far side. A stream ran from the cave, cutting a path through the stone for about thirty yards. “Here we are,” Silliman said, pulling the truck to a stop. “We’ll have to wade from here.”

Scully climbed out of the truck after Mulder and looked at the stream. It was milky white in color and ran from the cave mouth about three feet above the surface of the water. Mulder would have to duck. She turned and took the hard hat Silliman was holding out to her without meeting his face. She didn’t want to know what he thought of her, or her gun.

They walked towards the stream. Silliman turned towards the agents. “Ready?” he asked. Mulder nodded and Scully looked down at the opaque water glistening in the sunlight. She noticed movement in the stream, a dark fin.

“Are those the fish, Dr. Silliman?” she asked him, pointing.

“Yes,” he answered wearily. Mulder peered into the water. “The fish the natives use in their -” “Yep,” Silliman cut him off. “Those fish have been the cause of more problems.”

“Why was the festival canceled?”

“Not canceled,” Ben said, in the tone of a bureaucrat, “relocated. The whole crew camps for two days right outside the cave, collecting fish, sending people into the cave for ceremonies. It would be very disruptive to our research to have people tromping through, destroying our samples and messing up our calculations. We offered to set aside certain areas for them to… whatever, but the group refused. And, since we have government grants, we get to decide how the cave is used. It’s probably best now, anyway,” he said more quietly, “what with everything that’s happened. All the townspeople have been told expressly to keep away from the cave. They are not allowed near it for any purpose, until we can insure its safety.”

Great, Scully thought. That’s where we’re headed.

The trio stepped into the stream, and started wading towards the mouth of the cave. At first the water was only knee deep for Scully and lapped at he others’ calves, but as they approached the cave mouth, it began to get deeper. It was frightfully cold, a result of flowing through the underground darkness, and Scully gasped as it seeped inside her boots.

“What gives it the white color, again?” Mulder asked Silliman as they reached the cave mouth.

“Calcium,” he answered. He dipped a hand into the water, which had now reached the hem of his khaki shorts, and rubbed his wet fingers together, showing the chalky residue left behind.

“Limestone,” Scully said, trying to avoid getting her torso wet.

Silliman nodded and they kept moving, the bright sunlight fading as they moved into the cave. “I advise you to turn your lights on now,” Silliman said as they turned a corner in the rock. “And remember, don’t look directly at each other, or you’ll blind each other.”

The water at their feet began to get shallower, and they reached a sort of subterranean bank of the stream, a curved protrusion of rock. They stepped out of the stream, their eyes still adjusting to the complete darkness. Mulder tried to shake some of the water out of his boots, but Silliman laughed and told him not to bother. “The water further in is even colder,” he said forebodingly. “And it’s waist deep.”

Scully looked out over the walls and ceiling of the cave, about ten feet above her head, and watched a ripple of movement along the ceiling. Silliman must have noticed her sharp intake of breath, for his beam of light rose to meet hers.

“I wouldn’t rouse them now, Agent Scully,” he said. “They get real messy when they wake up.”

“And all you need is a scalpful of guano, Scully,” Mulder said teasingly. Scully remembered just in time not to turn directly toward him.

“Okay,” Silliman said. “I’m taking you guys in real slow, so just listen to my orders and pay attention to what is going on around you. Smell that?” he asked them.

Scully sniffed the air. It was acrid, and she wrinkled her nose as the smell irritated it.

“Acid fumes,” Silliman said. “We’re putting on our masks now.”

Once the masks were firmly in place over their nose and mouths, Silliman spoke again, his voice slightly muffled. “There are some fresh air pockets in the cave, but I’d feel better if we just kept these on all the time, okay?”

The agents nodded in assent, and Silliman started to walk deeper into the cave. The ground sloped sharply beneath their feet, and Scully found herself slipping down the side of rocks that were twice her height.

After one particularly precarious jump, Mulder took her arm as if to steady her balance. “You okay, Scully?” he asked, his voice hollow-sounding from behind the breathing mask.

“Fine,” she said, shaking his hand off. It was an odd interaction, not meeting his eyes, Scully thought. It detracted somehow, from their usual means of communication.

They waded through another pool of milky water, this one even more cold.

“Where is the origin of this stream?” she asked Silliman, clenching her teeth slightly so they wouldn’t chatter.

“It’s an underground source that bubbles up in several places in the cave to make these pools and the streams above,” he answered.

Scully looked down into the milky water. The light running over the disturbed surface made it look almost like white satin, shiny, silky – but then she caught the glimmer of dark fins. The water was teeming with the odd fish.

“Are there fish in all the subterranean pools?” Mulder asked, his eyes as wide as Scully’s.

“Yes,” Silliman said. He stopped for a moment and peered down intently, quickly darting his hand into the water. Scully shook her head in amazement. He caught a fish with his bare hands. It was small, no more than six inches long, and very white. Only the very tips of the fins were dark. “The species is particular to this cave,” Silliman said, holding the slightly wriggling fish out to the agents. “The eyes are especially adapted for low light levels, and there seem to be different breeds that prefer the deeper cave to the ones we saw at the mouth.” He threw the fish back in the water. “The Mayans think that the deep-level fish are truly magical, and carry the most potent power of the cave-spirits.

“Good eating?” Mulder asked.

Silliman shrugged, his the light from his hat playing over the tall stone formations at the far end of the cavern. There the ceiling sloped down very near the surface of the water. “Not really. You can eat them, and they devour buckets of them at the festival, for religious purposes, but I think they taste kind of chalky. It’s not something you’d eat unless you had a particular reason.”

Like being the only food you have? Scully wondered, thinking of Carrie Honeywell. Of course, Carrie would have asphyxiated in the cave long before she would have starved.

They reached the low place. “This is kind of tight,” Silliman said, ducking under. “But it’s only like this for about fifteen yards.” He went under the rock. Scully took a deep breath and followed. The water instantly got deeper, chilling her entire waist. She found it hard to look ahead from her bent over position, and simply followed in Silliman’s wake, hoping that she didn’t run into a wall.

Once the ceiling got higher, Scully found herself on the edge of a slight precipice. The acid smell was much stronger here. They stepped towards another bank-like protrusion of rock, where Scully could see several lanterns, ropes, and other caving gear. “This is the main cavern where we do our research. You’ll see as soon as I have these lanterns set up,” he said as he began picking up some of the climbing gear. He checked to see that all the lanterns had good batteries, and then handed one to each of the agents. Scully was glad of the alternate light source. It was hard to remember to turn her head and not her eyes when using the headlamp.

They walked towards the edge of the rock and held the lanterns up, illuminating the entire cavern. It looks like marble, Scully thought as her eyes grew wide. “Incredible,” Mulder whispered next to her.

The cavern was not large, nor particularly tall, but was covered with life of all kinds. The microbial veil, the so-called snotites, dripped down from the wall, forming crystalline growths all along the rock, practically to the surface of the pool below. Small spiders skittered among the strands of goo, in and out of tiny holes in the rock.

Silliman began to walk towards a small ladder that led down into the pool, and the two agents followed. At the bottom Scully flinched as she landed waist-deep in the freezing water. As they waded to the far end of the pool, lanterns held high, Scully noticed that their steps were stirring up black stuff into the milky water. At the same time, her feet began to sink into something at the bottom of the pool, and she winced as the water ran over her chest.

“Sulphur mud,” Silliman said, pointing to the black substance. “It’s about a foot deep at the bottom of this pool, and on top lie several inches of the microbes.”

“Living slime,” Mulder said, passing Scully. The trio emerged on the other side of the pool, and Scully began to wring out her shirt. Mulder stood above her, watching her struggles with amusement barely concealed on his face. Silliman led them around the corner of one of the rocks, to a tall, narrow chamber with a small stream trickling through to the outer pool.

“This is the place,” he said quietly. The agents spread out, observing the strands of snotites along the wall. “Where?” Scully asked finally. Silliman pointed and she walked over to the western wall. The light from the lantern played over the smooth wall, making it seem almost solid. She touched the goo lightly with her fingers. It felt like dish detergent, but the acid smell accosted her nose. It was only about half an inch deep, and the rock wall behind was quite substantial. Mulder joined her in feeling the wall behind the shallow microbial veil. Scully pushed aside the veil, using her hand as a dam to stop the flow from above, sure enough, slick brown rock met her eyes in several places.

Silliman stood silently behind them during this, watching wearily. “You won’t find anything,” he said in monotone, a deep sadness and frustration evident in his voice. “we’ve looked all over this wall for a hollow, for anything.” He paused looking down. “Nothing.”

“But you have found some… hollows? Elsewhere?” Mulder asked as Scully folded her arms across her damp shirt, trying to keep from shivering.

“Yes, actually. I can show them to you. They’re about five minutes from here,” Silliman said, pointing deeper into the cave. “It’s a little harder to get to, though. The water’s pretty deep and you have to pick your way around even deeper mud holes.” He stared pointedly at Scully.

Scully, even though indignant at his hint, felt her resolve falter. She was freezing already, and was afraid that “deeper water” meant swimming.

“I’ll go with you,” Mulder said quickly. “Dr. Scully will look around the actual site.” He glanced at her quickly.

“Do you really think it’s safe to separate?” Scully asked, not letting herself off that easily.

Mulder approached her, turning off his headlamp. “Fine, Scully,” he said, taking her by the shoulder and turning off her own lamp so he could look at her face. “Just don’t get too near the wall, ‘kay?” he said, smirking.

Silliman was all of a sudden very busy tying one end of the rope he had brought around a rock.

“You don’t want to swim,” Mulder said quietly. “Just let it go. He knows you’re a tough cookie, gun packin’—”

“And you, Mulder? What do you think?”

He smiled. “You’re the toughest cookie I know,” he said, with an intensity that surprised her. She nodded, and he looked away, turning his light back on.

“We’ll be back in fifteen minutes,” Silliman said, and the two walked off. Mulder turned, once, before he was out of sight, but Scully could not see his face, shadowed as it was beneath the headlamp.

And then the sounds of their splashes faded, and Scully was left in silence, except for the dripping of the microbial veil.

She sat down on the rock, shivering freely now that there was no one present to see her. “Tough cookie, my ass,” she said, mostly to hear the sound of her own voice. “That was a cop-out, plain and simple.”

But she was surprisingly tired from their hike. It’s the cold, she told herself. But Mulder… she could still see his face from last night, closed and distrustful. She had put him off today, afraid of the lingering emotions from their argument. He had caught her off guard, just now, managing, as usual, to make a simple statement burn itself into her mind like a brand. Linger, like the pressure of his hands on her shoulders as he faced her in the darkness.

The water ran around her, echoing back and forth along the wall of the cave. Scully looked ahead of her, towards the western wall. There were more of those brown spiders, running lightly across the surface of the goo. Silliman had said that all of the life forms down here, though similar to surface organisms, had a very different lifestyle in this extreme environment.

They probably don’t build webs, Scully thought, rising and walking towards the wall, rubbing her shoulders briskly to stay warm. I wonder if they feed off the microbes. The water ran; the veil dripped thickly into the stream as Scully splashed across it, her feet numb to the cold that pooled around her toes. The wall looked different without the light of her lantern, which she’d left across the stream. Somehow more textured, more liquid. There seemed to be more spiders now, running over the sucking mucus on hair-thin legs, darting in and out of the hollows… Scully followed the path of one with her finger, silently praying that it didn’t bite. The water ran loudly over her feet, the veil sloshed steadily down the rock face. Her fingers pressed into the veil, past the tips, past the knuckles. There is a hollow, she thought as her entire hand slipped into the thick veil of microbes. I wonder how we didn’t feel it before?

The mucus dripped over her wrists now, steadily encroaching on her forearm as Scully tried to ascertain the size of the hollow. Suddenly she heard a crash behind her as the cavern was plunged into near darkness. Scully jumped and turned her head. The lantern, which had been balanced on the rock bank across the stream, had slid on the slippery stone and fallen over. She began to pull her arm out of the veil to retrieve the lantern.

And found she was stuck.

Her breath caught in her throat, and she began to push against the wall in vain. She looked down between her trapped arms to find that the veil had somehow crept over her shoes, firmly entrapping her legs as well. Oh my God…

Stop struggling, Scully’s rational mind said. The more you thrash about, the more entangled you get, like a fly in a web. Pull softly. She tugged gently on her arm. Nothing.

Run said Scully’s instincts, and she began to move in earnest against the sucking of the mucus, as it slipped up past her elbows, bringing her face dangerously close to the wall, her nose mere inches away from the microbes. The acrid odor assailed her nostrils, more potent now than ever. The stream roared in her ears and the dripping of the veil got ever louder. “Mulder!” Had she really screamed? Scully was surprised at herself. She would never live this down if she was stuck in some kind of microbial vacuum. But still the veil dripped loud and relentless around her.

She began to thrash wildly, throwing the weight of her body away from the wall in order to free herself. “Mulder!” she screamed, and “Dr. Silliman!” She knocked her hard-hat from her head, and the lamp went off as it hit the floor.

Blackness, in which the insistent drip, drip, drip of the slime seemed louder and even more sinister than before.

Oh my God…

The veil had reached her shoulders now, and was pressing against the length of her torso. The acid burned her nose and eyes. Just don’t lose your breathing mask now, Scully. The wall seemed to melt around her, the rock floor seemed liquid beneath her feet. All she could feel was the eternal, inexorable rush of the stream and the pulsing drip of the slime…

“Scully!” the name seemed to come from far away, though the arm around her waist was quite firm, solid in this world of matter without form. Light interplayed with shadows, milky white. She was being pulled through water, cold and deep as darkness, and over harsh, sharp rocks, no harsher though, than the sudden sunlight which burned her eyes as the acid had. “Scully?”

They were standing, soaked, safe in the mouth of the cave, before her eyes lost the glazed look and she seemed to actually notice the presence of the two men. How had she gotten out of the cave? How had she gotten out of the wall? How much of the work had been done by the two soaked, dirty, slime-covered men standing before her? She lifted her hand to her face and pulled down the breathing mask.

“Hey,” she said quietly.

Mulder shook his head, his voice attempting seriousness, but breaking at the hint of the smile she offered the men. “I told you not to go near the wall.”

***

Chapter 3 – Curandereo

No apology was needed, and none was given. No explanation was needed, and none was given. He was content to look upon the scratched, dirty face of his partner, safe in the shadowed sunlight of the cave – bewildered, disoriented, scared and perhaps hurt – but ultimately safe.

He reached up and pulled off his own breathing mask, catching the eye of Silliman, whose face was hard to read. The look in his eyes, however, was familiar to Mulder. He pitied this scientist, who had failed his own partner in this trial. The man’s expression was one of relief, mixed with sorrow and a bitterness towards himself that might never fade.

Scully’s cries had been faint, but Mulder heard, almost as if he was waiting for them. They had reached the wall to find her not quite enveloped by the veil, but covered and apparently senseless to the danger surrounding her. She had remained that way while Mulder pulled her from the wall and dragged her out of the cavern. She stumbled through the rest of the passageways like someone drunk, needing much support and guidance from Mulder, whose one thought was escape from the darkness. And now, she simply stood knee deep in the water, oblivious to everything that had happened in the last few minutes.

There were questions in her eyes, but Scully would never lay her pride aside and ask. She seemed still to be trying to shake off her stupor, and Mulder was damned if he was going to hurry things. They stood for a minute in the entrance, getting their bearings and adjusting their eyes to the bright sunlight. Silliman took account of the lost equipment.

Then they heard the voices outside the cave.

“What the hell!” Silliman exclaimed and waded into the light. Mulder and Scully followed, curious as the scientist.

A group of people waded in the banks of the stream near the cave mouth, catching fish.

“Hello, Ben,” one said coldly. He looked beyond him to the two agents. “Agent Scully, good to see you.”

Mulder looked as his partner questioningly. “Hello Mr. Rivera,” she answered, her voice slightly strained.

“What are you doing here, Rivera?”

“Getting fish for the ceremony you weren’t quite able to cancel, Ben,” Noel answered coolly, as a few of his companions stopped what they were doing and watched the exchange. Two came close to Noel, standing behind him like guards. “We are outside of the cave and you have no jurisdiction over us here.” He smiled at the two agents. “Who is that guy?” Mulder asked Scully.

“One of the scientists. He was the one who told me about Silliman.”

Mulder nodded.

Scully leaned towards him. “I wonder if Ben knows that he is telling everyone that he killed his girlfriend?”

Mulder looked towards her in mock surprise. “Are you saying that I’m not the only one who senses a bit of hostility around here?”

“Buenos Dias, agents,” Noel said to them. “Find anything interesting in there?” He was staring past Silliman, actively dismissing the scientist. He eyed Scully. “Apparently, you had a little action.” He grinned. “Dr. Silliman attack you, too?”

Silliman leapt at him, and the two went under the water, thrashing wildly. Mulder rushed forward to try and tear them apart, and they rose from the water, still clawing at each other.

“Stop!” Mulder yelled. “Get off of him!” he continued, not sure to whom he spoke. Some of the other fish-gatherers were pulling Noel away. Ben stood, livid, on the banks of the stream, blood dripping down his nose, water running down his arms and over his clenched fists.

“Don’t you dare!” he hissed.

Noel cursed at him in some language – not Spanish, Scully noted with interest – and allowed himself to be led away by the fish-gatherers. She looked at Mulder, who gestured that she should go on, back to the truck. He approached Silliman cautiously.

“Are you taking me into custody?” he asked weakly.

“Only if you are going to pose a danger to yourself or others.”

Ben looked at Mulder, his eyes burning with unshed tears of rage. “Apparently I already did.”

Mulder stood, waiting. Eventually, Ben went on. “After today… I know you believe me, man, but even after this, she doesn’t.” He nodded his head towards Scully. “Even after what happened to her. She won’t even remember. She was out of it. The cave did that to her, too.”

“You don’t know what Agent Scully thinks,” Mulder said.

Silliman shook his head with a bitter laugh. “Sorry. I know she’s your partner and – whatever, but if she’s been talking to Rivera, she’ll never believe a word out of my mouth.” He turned and began to walk towards the truck.

“Dr. Silliman -”

“It doesn’t matter anyway.” Ben turned towards the cave mouth. “She’s gone.” He walked back to the truck, leaving Mulder alone on the banks of the stream.

He stood there for a moment, looking back at the cave. There was something inside, he was sure, that was the key to the whole thing. But there was nothing he could do now. He wasn’t going in alone, and he definitely wasn’t taking Scully with him again. Finally, with a sigh of frustration, Mulder whirled about and headed up the bank to the truck. Now was not the time.

She slept. All afternoon. Side-effects of the bad air in the cave, Silliman told Mulder, allaying some of his worries. It was four o’clock by the time Mulder had to make a choice. He could either wake her, or go on with the investigation alone, and face her wrath at being “ditched” again. Best to wake her, he decided.

He found her raring to go, energized, downright glowing. “We need to hunt down Noel Rivera,” she told him flat out. “That man obviously has some things he hasn’t told us yet.”

Mulder couldn’t help but smile at the small form, still tucked under the sheets of the bottom bunk. “So you’ve dismissed Silliman?”

“Not quite. I just wonder if my first suspicions weren’t more correct. Obviously there’s a lot of tension regarding this whole festival thing. If they needed a way to distract the scientists from canceling it, they might have kidnapped one of their main opponents. If Noel sympathizes with them, he may have led us towards suspicion of the Ben for that very purpose. It gets all their enemies out of the way.” Scully got out of bed as she spoke and put on her shoes.

Mulder marveled at her energy. He had also taken a nap after their ordeal in the cave, and had woken up as weary as ever. But Scully looked ready to run a marathon. Scully the Amazon, he thought with a smirk, ready to hunt down the offending criminals, wherever they might lurk.

Scully ran a hand through her rumpled hair then seemed to decide it wasn’t worth the effort of fixing. “Carrie Honeywell may be very much alive and simply tucked away in the village somewhere. I think if we find Noel and the festival, we might find Honeywell.”

“And the cave?” he couldn’t help but ask as he trailed her out of the station and into the yellow light of late afternoon.

She looked at him pointedly before opening the driver’s side door of their rented car. “I reserve my opinion about the nature of the microbial veil until I have further evidence of any malicious intent on its part.” Her eyes were full of impish humor, and Mulder found he had nothing to say. “Let’s just find Rivera,” she continued. “Keys.” She held her hand across the hood of the car.

What could he do? He handed the keys to his partner and climbed in the passenger seat. Apparently, he was going to be there for a while.

Noel Rivera was not a difficult person to find. Most of the townspeople not only knew him, they loved him. He had been quite instrumental in the battle for the festival, fighting every inch of the way for the rights of the native Mayans in the village.

In the end they were led to the site of the festival itself – a field at the edge of the town. There were perhaps forty people there, picnicking on brightly colored blankets and relaxing in the late afternoon sun. Small children ran about bare-footed in the grass, playing. Scully and Mulder parked the car at the edge of the field and walked towards the party.

“Doesn’t seem the place for nefarious kidnappers, huh?” Mulder asked Scully.

“We’ll see,” Scully answered smoothly, side-stepping a children’s soccer game and heading towards the center of the field, where there was a large pile of wood and several giant metal tubs. Noel stood by the tubs with some of the fish gatherers from that morning, holding a close conference. He wore jeans and woven sandals, but no shirt. A bandage covering a raw spot on his cheek and a few bruises on his chest were the only evidence of the fight in the morning. One of his companions noticed them as they approached and jabbed at Noel. He looked up.

“Agent Scully!” he said cheerfully. “Pleasure to see you again.” He turned to Mulder. “Good afternoon, senor. I don’t think we were properly introduced this morning.”

“Fox Mulder,” the agent answered, taking Rivera’s proffered hand. “We would like to ask you a few questions about this morning.”

“Of course,” Noel said agreeably. “And then perhaps you’d like to stay for the festival? Most of the town will be here tonight, and so you’ll be limited if you want dinner. Unless of course you are eating at the station?”

The question was loaded, Mulder realized. “We’d love to,” Scully said. “I, for one, am very curious about this festival I’ve heard so much about.” She smiled at Noel, who returned it whole-heartedly.

“Good,” he said. He turned to the fish gatherers and said something in the strange language, then looked at the agents. Why don’t we move away from the families?” he said.

Mulder could feel several eyes on them as they walked towards the edge of the field. This would definitely be an interesting night. There was no love lost on these people regarding either the scientists or the investigation.

At the edge of the field, Noel turned to the agents and began speaking. “First I must apologize for my behavior this morning. Benjamin and I have been on bad terms for quite a while, for many reasons, one of which I told Agent Scully yesterday afternoon. I am sure you realize exactly where I stand regarding their attempts to stop a tradition of my people.”

“That is exactly what we are here to ask you, Mr. Rivera,” Scully said. “We understand that it was only the disappearance of Carrie Honeywell that is allowing the festival to go on at all, because it stalled the process through which the researchers were trying to stop it.”

“That tragedy made it unnecessary for the people of the village to continue the fight to keep their traditions alive, yes, Agent Scully.”

Mulder and Scully cast quick glances at each other. “What exactly is this ceremony about, Dr. Rivera?” Scully asked.

Noel smiled broadly. “Ah. There, Miss Scully, is the problem. Most of our magic was stolen from us many, many generations ago, when the Spaniard first came to this land. What we do now is mostly remembered, or made up, or borrowed from other people to fill in. Of course, the biggest change is that we now worship Christ as well as our own spirits. The ceremony tonight is false in history, but not in authority, and not in feeling.”

The agents nodded.

“Do you think your people could have had anything to do with Honeywell’s disappearance?”

Noel’s eyes widened. “That idea would never occur to any of them. Agent Scully, these are peaceful people who have never been subjected to such bureaucratic examples of…” he trailed off. “If any connection between Carrie’s disappearance and the ceremony was made by the townspeople at all, it would be that she had brought in on herself.”

Now it was Scully’s turn to be surprised. She raised her eyebrow. “How is that, Mr. Rivera?”

“By trying to cancel the ceremony, she was showing disrespect towards the spirits in the cave. I tell you both, the majority of Benjamin’s supporters are right here in this field. They believe his story, that the cave ate Carrie. They believe her fate is a punishment from the gods.”

Mulder opened his mouth to speak, but Noel interrupted. “Are you hungry? I am sure that dinner is ready by now.” He turned and walked back into the field.

“Well,” Mulder said. “That was certainly interesting.”

“Especially because he doesn’t believe it himself,” Scully answered.

“A man after your own heart, eh, Scully?”

***

Dinner was corn tortillas filled with meat, and yucca, eggs and fruit. It was dusk before the ceremony geared up to start. Most of the villagers were on the field by now, sitting quietly in blankets and plastic lawn chairs. A few of the older people had approached the center, near the bonfire, and circled around the tub. The older children were lighting the bonfire with torches made of cornhusks. Scully and Mulder sat quietly on a blanket near the center, watching the ceremony with interest as the night darkened around them. Noel approached them, walking with a woman who at first glance, appeared quite young, but must have been in her late forties at least. Her hair was jet black and her figure and carriage were full of the beauty of youth, but there were laugh lines about her young, bright eyes, and her hands were thin and aged.

“This is Ramona, a Curandereo,” Noel said when he reached the agents. “A healer. She will be leading the ceremony tonight.”

“Hello,” Scully said standing up quickly. The Curandereo was only as tall as she was, and looked delicate enough to break in two. Ramona reached out a hand and touched Scully’s belly. “Why are you here?” she asked softly.

Scully backed away from the woman’s touch. “We are looking for Dr. Honeywell, the scientist who disappeared in the cave.”

Ramona turned her head to the side and looked at Noel for clarification. He translated Scully’s words, and the Curandereo smiled and shook her head.

“No,” she said, looking steadily at Scully. “That woman does not need to be here. She does not need the cave.” Her hand strayed back to Scully’s sweater. “You come here though, tonight, and not to the cave? Why?”

“We are looking for answers,” Mulder said, trying to get near Scully.

Ramona didn’t seem to hear him, and kept staring at the younger woman. Scully nodded softly. “Answers,” she echoed weakly.

Ramona nodded. “What answer?” She pressed again, and her eyes widened for a moment, then took on their serene, happy quality again.

“I – I don’t know,” Scully said.

“You want to be healed. But the truth you look for is not here. It is in the cave.”

“Stop,” Scully said, shaking her head. “We are only here to see if this ceremony has anything to do with the disappearance of Dr. Honeywell. Nothing more.”

Noel translated Scully’s words again. Then turned to them and related Ramona’s answer. “It is because of her that you came here. But it is also because of you coming here that she disappeared. It was so you could be here in the cave. It is like the sweater you wear. Each loop of the thread makes the next one possible, but the first loop too would disappear if the second were to fall apart. Before, when you left the cave, it wasn’t time. Perhaps later it will be time.”

Scully backed away into Mulder. “Please leave me alone.”

Ramona said something more, then, with a smile at Scully, turned and walked towards the group near the fire.

“What did she say?” Mulder asked coldly.

Noel shrugged. “Don’t let her scare you. She speaks in riddles most of the time so no one knows what she is saying, and it sounds more like truth. She says you think you are empty, and so you might be. She says that all your life is beneath the surface. She says it will take the cave to bring it out.”

Then he too turned and walked away, leaving Mulder and Scully alone on the blanket.

“Don’t say a word, Mulder,” Scully said. “She’s just a superstitious shaman, trying to advertise her magic. It doesn’t matter. I’m fine.”

“You sure about that Scully?”

“Forget about it.” They sat down again on the blanket, watching the fire.

The elders turned away from the tub, hands joined, and began chanting in the strange language. “A Mayan dialect?” Scully whispered.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Mulder whispered back.

One by one, several couples approached the tubs. Mulder recognized the fish gatherers from the morning. The men reached into the tub and pulled out several of the white fish from the cave. They wriggled in their hands, as the men handed them to their wives. “You see they are with child?” Noel asked, drawing close to Scully on the blanket. She nodded. “They are the ones already blessed by the cave spirits.”

The women held the fish high over their heads and formed a circle around the fire like spokes in a wheel. Or rays in the sun, Mulder thought, as he watched the women waver and sway like the flame itself, their stretched forms silhouetted against the orange light of the fire. They began to bounce along with the chanting elders, gaining a sort of momentum in their rhythm, building to something huge.

Then, abruptly, they stopped, arching their bodies back from the fire so their faces and bellies tipped towards the night sky. They let out a cry, as if in pain. Then, each sprung forward, flinging the fish into the fire. The animals disappeared inside, still wriggling, and Mulder felt a chill run down his spine. The villagers shouted, and the couples moved away from the fires in pairs, chanting in unison.

“What are they saying?” Mulder asked, leaning across Scully to look at Noel.

He was quiet for a moment. “They say: With this birth… Spirits of cave, do you hear? Blessed… I am sorry, this does not translate… Blessed are those who have reverence for she who bore them. We alone implore you. Make us quick. We, alone, implore.” He smiled, as if in apology. “It does not translate. They are very old words.”

Mulder nodded, thoughtful, as Noel got up and quietly slipped back into the group of villagers. Did these people come out of tradition, or did they honestly believe that the ceremony would make them fertile? He looked around at the families amassed around the fire. Our need to carry on is great, he thought in wonder. So great so that the natives would turn a cave into a fertility god. Although, Mulder thought, if there was anything that would more personify such a thing than that cave…

At least this was natural, he thought, at least these people pray for their miracles and take nature as a symbol of the wonder of creation. Life can become so sterile. His hands clenched into tight fists as the images swam before his eyes. Redheaded clones, rows of cabinets, each with their tiny vials – life tucked away, made unnatural by unnatural means. And Scully in the center of it, trapped now, barred from this miracle which was being performed and celebrated before her very eyes.

He looked at her, but her face was a mask. What could she be thinking of all this? Scully stared straight ahead, oblivious to his notice, her eyes intent on the fire, which flared oddly with the pitch of the chanting. He watched her for a moment, searching her face for some break, but it was mask-like as always. Her eyes shone in the light, but that might be the effects of the fire.

“Mmmmmm, Scully,” he said lightly. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Scully murmured an absentminded response.

“Marshmallows.”

A nearby couple hushed him, and Mulder leaned back to watch the ceremony. She hadn’t smiled, pathetic as it was.

Many women came to stand at the tubs, picking out fish and roasting them in the flames. All throughout, the chanting continued, louder and louder, as more of the people joined in the ceremony. The air grew heavy with the sound, full now, as the villagers still on the blankets joined in.

Scully looked at Mulder, her eyes wide and nervous. “Mulder, have you been watching the fire?”

“Thought I’d leave that part up to you,” he said, but turned his eyes to the flame. “Odd,” he said finally. “The flames rise as they chant. What do you make of it?”

She shrugged and shook her head, her eyes narrow. “Bellows, perhaps, on the opposite side of the fire, where we can’t see? It wouldn’t take much. Just a blast of air in the right spot -”

“Not much of a ceremony for the people working it though,” Mulder said. “And it seems a lot of trouble for such a small effect.” So she was avoiding the ceremony by watching the fire?

“But if it’s a tradition -” Scully began, then stopped abruptly at the movement to their right.

Someone was driving a pick-up truck to the center of the field. People yelled and scattered in the path of the oncoming vehicle, which crushed picnic blankets and lawn chairs in its wake. About fifteen yards from the fire, the truck stopped and Ben Silliman stumbled out, wet, bleeding, and covered in the microbial veil. Mulder and Scully rose from the blankets, ready for whatever happened. “Stop!” Silliman yelled, stumbling towards the people near the fire. “Stop right now!” He ran at them, waving his arms, and a few, frightened, stepped away. Mulder nodded at Scully and began circling around to the other side of Silliman.

The chanting continued, though lower and slightly distracted by the commotion. Mulder stepped forward and took Silliman firmly by the arm. “Ben, you’re going to have to leave now.”

Ben shook him off. “No!” he screamed and Mulder began to suspect he was drunk, though the odor of cave acid on him was so great however, that he couldn’t smell any alcohol. Ben waved his arms threateningly at the villagers.

“They have to stop. They have to stop right now! It’s hurting her.”

“What’s hurting her, Ben?” Mulder asked gently.

“It,” Ben said miserably, his words sounding more like sobs as he gestured haphazardly at the field, his eyes downcast and brimming with tears. “This! It! The ceremony. The cave is! The cave…” he looked up, his eyes wild and unseeing. “I have to get back to the cave!”

He turned and began to run, but Mulder was too fast for him. He tackled the smaller man and pinned his arms behind his back. The villagers watched, engrossed in this spectacle rather than the ceremony. Mulder looked up at the many pairs of eyes focused on him and his captive.

“Sorry for the disturbance folks,” he said casually, not caring whether they understood or not. He led Silliman back towards their car. He looked at his partner. “Can you get the truck?”

Scully nodded, then turned for a last look at the ceremony. It had been interesting, watching all these women battle to fulfill their right and purpose as mothers. Perhaps I should be one of them after all, she thought, letting her gaze wander over the hopeful villagers in the field. For the most part, they had returned to their business – all except one. Noel Rivera stood straight and still, staring at the retreating figures with cold, dark eyes.

Scully opened her eyes and gasped at the ribbon of pain encircling her skull. She tried to reach a hand to her head and realized she could not. She was in front seat of the pickup, her hands tied behind her back with a T-shirt. The car was empty. She wriggled her hands out of the poor bindings and stepped out onto the dirt of the stream bank, right outside of the Cueva de Villa Luz. She looked towards the cave mouth in time to see a shadowy figure disappear inside.

“Stop! FBI!” she shouted, reaching for her gun in vain. It was gone, and, in a moment, so was the man. Another figure lay prostrate on the bank. She ran over and found Mulder, groggy, with large bruises on his face.

“Sorry, ‘bout that Scully,” he mumbled. “He came at me from nowhere. Must have been a wrestler or something.” He fell over after that oh-so enlightening statement.

Then she remembered. Maneuvering the truck out of the circle of people had been more difficult than she had imagined, and by the time she arrived at the edge of the field, Mulder had already put Silliman in the back of the car. Or so she had thought, until she felt the quick pain at her temple and woke up in the pickup truck.

“It’s okay, Mulder. But he’s disappeared into the cave.”

Mulder mumbled something incoherent and let his head loll back.

“What?” she asked, as she finished her cursory exam of him. He wasn’t really hurt, just a little stunned. And she had to find Silliman. If Mulder wasn’t going to get his ass out of the mud she would go in herself.

“I said,” Mulder started, pushing himself up on one hand, “He won’t get far. The cave will stop him.”

She rolled her eyes. “There must be more flashlights and breathing masks in the truck.”

That got him up. “No you don’t, Scully. There is no way -” he paused as he heaved himself to his feet and followed her to the truck. “-that I’m letting you go in there -”

“By myself?” she said, turning. “Nope.” She threw him a hardhat. “I completely agree.”

They put on the headlamps and breathing masks and waded through the stream to the cave mouth. In the darkness the water shone ghostly white. The small splashes of the two agents were the only sound in the cavern. They waded swiftly through the passageways in silence, each knowing where Silliman would be found. Finally they reached the main cavern. There were no lanterns on the rock bank near the ladder. “He must have hidden them,” Mulder said to her.

“So we continue?” she asked, her voice small and hollow behind the mask.

“Only a little farther,” Mulder said. “It’s not worth it. But we should at least see if he’s in the little cavern.”

They rode in trucks to the cave, piled in the back with torches from the fire. Silent, stony, despite the chants which grew louder and louder in the night as they neared the Cueva de Villa Luz. The Curandereo chanted over the fish, softly, rocking back and forth as the spirits whispered on the wind…

There was the sound of rock hitting rock, and suddenly the air was full of brown wings.

“Down, Scully!” Mulder cried amidst the flapping of leathery wings. They crouched in the water, so soaked now that it didn’t matter, as the bats brushed against Scully’s face and squeaked over her head. Then, as quickly as they had surrounded her, they were gone. Scully grabbed for her hardhat, which floated in the water next to her, and turned on the headlamp. The light flickered once, then burned steadily. Close call, she thought.

Scully cast the light around the large cavern. It played tricks with the pool, making the waves look like pale flames…

A woman approached the fire. It was Ramona, the Curandereo. She wore a necklace of bone and her hair was wet with the white water of the cave. Her hands were smeared with ashes, the ashes of last year’s flames. She took up a fish, roasted in the embers…

“Mulder!” Scully shouted over the roar of the water and the loud rush of mucus down the walls of the cave. Was the water getting higher? Impossible. She searched for the entrance to the small cavern, and the light flickered, once, twice…

They stood in a circle, their torches held high. The orange light flickered with the rhythm of the chant as the smaller, inner circle formed. The young women stood with their fish outside the stream…

Scully finally found the entrance to the small cavern, but her light was failing. She had to find Mulder, or she too would be trapped in the cave. She shuddered and the water dripped down her arms. “Mulder!” she shouted into the encroaching darkness.

Nothing.

Nothing but the roar and rush of the stream and the sloshing and sucking of the mucus on the western wall.

The light flickered, once, twice…

“Mulder?” she asked again, trying to hear something, anything, other than the stream and the snotites. The light flickered, once, twice…

“Scully…” There! She whirled around, looking for the source of the voice. The light ran wildly over the cave walls, weak, yellow…

There. On the western wall. A mucus-covered hand reached out towards her. The smell of acid assailed her nose.

“Scully!” he managed though choking on the microbes. She rushed forward. He was entirely covered, just a ghostly outline of his face and his arms were showing through the slime.

“Mulder!” she screamed, grabbing his arm. “Hold on!” The light flickered on his face, outlining the shadows and details of his expression, the wide eyes and open mouth, the lump at his neck that showed where his breathing mask had slipped.

He was slippery, and she leaned back, trying to get leverage to yank him out of the wall. But he was sinking even farther in. She could not hold him, she could not hold him…

This offering for the spirit of the cave, Ramona chanted in the old language, holding the fish aloft. As it swims in her dark waters, may it do in us.

The light flickered, once, twice…

“Scully, please…” Mulder whispered in a voice of infinite sadness. Scully lost his arm and went flying backwards, falling hard on her back to the floor of the cave.

The light flickered, once, twice…

…and went out.

“Mulder!” she screamed in the blackness. She stood and crawled to the western wall, feeling for his arm, for anything. Her fingers ran over the hideous slime, went right through. Touched the stone.

***

Chapter 4 – Beneath the Surface

She touched the stone. Touched—stone! Fixed, slick under her palm from the slime, stinging the cuts on her fingers, cold in the utter, utter blackness which surrounded her and seeped into her bones. Stone, where, seconds earlier had been the warm hand of her partner. Her eyes grew wide in the darkness, her mouth fell open, and still she did not breathe. The roar of the stream and the sloshing of the veil seemed very distant in her ears now, like an echo of a sound long past. And over the dull roar she could hear another sound, one that seemed to match her wild heartbeat and make the blood rush around her head. It was the chanting of the people, echoing around the walls of the cavern and vibrating in the depths of the veil which was very much alive.

Scully’s chest began to hurt, though whether it was from pain or lack of breath, she did not know. The ground seemed to spin under her feet, rolling and swelling, as if she had been long on the ocean.

“Mulder,” she whispered, her hands running through the slime, slowly at first, then more fervently as her chest began to burn and her eyes sting with the smell of the acid. The blackness swam before her and she realized, too late, that her breathing mask no longer hung around her neck. Silliman’s words, mixed with the rhythm of the chanting and the endless swish of the veil, echoed in her mind. She would have become dizzy, then sick, vomiting blood until her lungs ruptured. “Mulder!” she screamed, her own voice sounding distant and hollow in the liquid blackness.

The old woman held the fish aloft, and the chanting rose to an even higher pitch. With her hands, she broke it open, tasting the sweet, chalky meat inside.

The acid veil ran over Scully’s arms, but, if she noticed, she did not care. She had no way out of the cave, no path with which to guide her. She had lost her partner, she had lost him— All there was in this hole of blackness was the wall with its layer of mucus. The rest was emptiness and cold death. After two hours in the cave without any kind of protection, she would asphyxiate and die. Scully clung to the wall, letting the slime envelope her, allowing herself to be covered with the only tangible left.

She swallowed the fish, and waited for the chant cycle to finish, waited for the right rhythm, the right peak, when the flames were at their strongest and the spirit of the cave could hear—

Her eyes burned and the wall melted, the rock beneath her feet dissolved like darkness into day and Scully closed her eyes against the burning. It’s like no place on earth. She tried to breathe and tasted the slime, acid burning her gums and tongue, microbes invading her sinuses. She sank, waiting.

The old woman threw back her head and screamed an entreaty into the dark. And, in the cave, a shallow stream of whitish water trickled over a headlamp in an empty cavern.

She floated, she sank, she was suspended in a warm sea of mellow whiteness that didn’t burn and didn’t stick. Somehow, she could see. The veil was lit in a soft illusory light with no source and no focus. Like the light of dim embers, like the light of a dying flame. But there was no fire. She sank, mellow in the soft sea of the veil.

There is more life beneath the surface then there ever was on it, Benjamin Silliman had told her. More life beneath the surface. The bitterness she had felt poised at the back of her mind all night struck at last. And now, all my life is buried like this veil in this cave. I have no existence anymore, beyond this paltry surface.

No chance of immortality.

The veil ran over her body, enfolding her over and over in waves of life.

She would have wept if she had the potential to do so, if she had a body that could yet feel moved when confronted with its limitations. Dear God, she sobbed within herself. The skein of slime began deep in the earth, seeped slowly upwards through the crevices of stone, and finally appeared as a veil on the wall of a cave. Deep in the earth there was a strange and wonderful life. It managed to survive against impossible odds and under impossible circumstances. But Scully, subjected to her own impossible circumstance, failed to survive. What did she live for now? This endless quest for truth, for answers? This endless quest for revenge? What good did it do, in the end? Without the power of succession, in the eyes of Nature, she was not really alive.

She opened her eyes and found herself lying, desolate, on the floor of a vast cavern. The walls curved up to an invisible apex, and the whole space was lit by that same mellow, unfocused light. She tried to pull herself up into a sitting position, and groaned at the effort it took. Scully looked down at her useless body, soft, blurry, like the thoughts running through her head. I’m hallucinating, the rational remnants of her mind acknowledged. This whole scene was quite simple to explain. The acid fumes must have overpowered her, and she drifted, unconscious in the cave. And, if she didn’t wake up soon, she would die from lack of air. Her fright and panic at this dangerous situation was mild however, and she was content to lie in the soft sea at the floor of the cavern. She breathed in tentatively, and found the air to be much less acrid than she had expected. Still, Ben’s warning about the cave-sickness remained in her otherwise muddled head. She had to get out of there, and soon. She had to get out. She had to. Scully lay back on the freezing floor and closed her eyes.

And then she saw him. Lying a few feet away, curled up in a ball on the floor, he was a discontinuity in the smoothness of the cave floor, an irregularity in the perfect flow of microbes and stone.

Mulder. Alive. There, before her. She pushed herself up, knowing now that she must stay conscious, if only to get to him. She fought the sleepiness that lay on her like a heavy mantle and crawled towards him. He needed to escape this place. They needed to get out together.

“Mulder!” she cried, but the words were muffled and syrupy in her mouth.

Still he heard her, and opened glassy, unfocused eyes. “Scully,” he said, just as slowly, and Scully caught her breath as she realized how close she had been to losing him. There were no words when they reached one another, but they ran their numb hands over the other’s face and body, as if to prove that there was at least something real, something solid, in this insubstantial cavern of liquid light.

Mulder was solid, real, alive, and Scully clung to him with the scraps of strength she retained. The softness and sleepiness threatened to overtake her and she slipped down, resting her head against the comparative roughness of his leg.

“Scu—” he whispered, and she woke again. He had been in the veil longer than she, and was even more exhausted. If they were going to get out at all, it would be up to her.

Scully pulled herself up along his body until she straddled his waist. “Mulder, get up!” she cried against his ear. She took his head in her hands and shook him. “Mulder, please!” Lay down, Dana, just lay down and go to sleep.

“Mulder!” she sobbed, holding his face close to hers. “Mulder please!” she murmured softly against his lips, as oblivion hovered close. “Mulder—”

He awoke, and is lips were on hers, murmuring her name in soft tones of adoration. Their arms went around each other and they clung, helpless, against the tide of the veil and the soft light in the cavern. She could feel the heat of his body as it seeped through the frigid wetness of his shirt. She longed to feel the full blast of that heat, pulsing and alive, against her, and tore at his shirt. Mulder did the same, lifting her sweater over her head until they were pressed together again, skin to skin.

Mulder leaned into her, his body warm and solid, his arms holding her close, his mouth moving on hers, and his heart beating a rhythm that she could hardly match. Somewhere, deep within her, Scully felt herself wake up. This is what it is to be real, this is alive. She was part of something again, something real, something true and exquisite.

Urgent now, she pulled at the rest of his clothes, needing to feel his warmth, needing to feel his very being to prove to herself that she, too, was alive. Their hands were clumsy in their urgency, yanking on the wet remains of their clothing.

She pulled back, away from his face, and looked deep into his earth-colored eyes. Desire burned there, and so did spirit; the wild, quixotic spirit that would draw her to him for eternity.

Mulder paused, staring back at her as he realized what they were doing. He held her loosely, one hand around her waist, steadying her on his lap, one around her shoulders, his fingers interwoven with the red tangles, his palm pressed against the small scar at the base of her neck, the intrusive lump that had caused them both so much pain. The emptiness hovered, waiting for them to let go of one another, waiting for them to give up on their awareness. It was the same as always – the darkness constantly pulling for a chance to catch them apart, to divide one from the other, and destroy the only point in their life that could be called Truth.

He knew he could never leave her again.

Their movements became slow and measured once more, choreographed to a dance that was older than time. His body moved along hers, and she lay back on the ground, holding him close. Mulder moved his fingers through the damp strands of her hair and cupped her face in his hands. The alien bump on her neck seemed to dissolve beneath his fingertips and she was just Scully before him, staring at him with enigma and devotion burning blue in her eyes.

“Mulder,” she whispered through the haze that threatened to devour them both. He was rough and smooth at once, and his kisses burned and eased the fire that raged in her. He pushed against her, crying her name in primitive tones that made her ache and sob meaningless words into his ear. And then he was inside her, and she ground her teeth against his shoulder, and bit at the tender flesh there, just above the scar that she herself had made. They held one another, shuddering violently, not from cold and not from fear, but from the realization of a solidarity unending. And a warm darkness settled over them both, peaceful and welcoming as the arms of a lover.

Far above, a drumbeat stopped. “It is done,” said Ramona in the old language, and collapsed in a heap on the ashes.

***

She awoke in a blackness so complete she could not tell that her eyes were open at all. There was nothing in the world except for the damp stone floor beneath her and deep regular breaths coming from her immediate left. She turned towards the sound, reaching her hand out. Mulder. She pushed herself up on her elbow, and lifted one hand to her hair, and then across her drenched sweater. The scent of acid assailed her nose and she groaned as the memories came charging back. Mulder lying unconscious on the banks if a stream while she pointed her weapon at a shadow; dancers, black figures against the flame; white fish circling about in dark water; bats caressing her face with leathery wings; she had followed him into the cave, and then she had gotten trapped in the wall, right? Her head pounded and she realized this clearly: she needed to wake Mulder up and get the hell out of the cave, before it was too late.

“Mulder,” she said, turning him and shaking him. She grabbed the hard hat off his head and turned the headlamp into his eyes. “Mulder, get up right now.”

He stirred and groaned. “What?” he asked opening his eyes slightly and scowling at her.

“We have to get out of here,” she said and looked up, trying to figure out exactly where “here” was. She peered into the darkness that was hardly dispelled by the dying light of the headlamp and gasped. “Mulder. Get. Up. Now,” she said and pulled him to a sitting position. “Look, over there!”

Two bodies lay on the damp stone floor of the cave, entwined with each other. Scully shook her head quickly, trying to clear it of the heavy fog which clouded her thoughts, which presented her with many disturbing images. She hurried towards the bodies. One was Benjamin Silliman, the other—

“Honeywell,” she whispered, and the girl’s eyelids fluttered. She was alive then, too. “Mulder!” Scully yelled back towards her partner. He finally seemed to shake off his stupor came to join her by the scientists. Scully went on with her examination of the woman. Honeywell was cold, true, but her breathing and heart rate were completely normal. Incredible, Scully thought. “Dr. Honeywell?” she whispered to the woman? She turned to Silliman? “Dr. Silliman?”

They opened their eyes and blinked at her. “What’s going on,” Silliman asked, sitting up and glaring at Scully.

“We appear to be somewhere in the Cueva de Villa Luz.” Scully glanced at her watch, but the quartz was cracked. “I don’t know how long we have been here, but it is obvious.”

Silliman had stood and wandered away why Scully was talking, oblivious to his surroundings and to the fact that Honeywell had been right beside him the whole time.

“Dr. Honeywell?” she asked the still partially unconscious woman. “Can you hear me?” The woman’s eyelids fluttered and Scully decided to keep trying to talk her awake.

“My name is Dana Scully, and I am an agent of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. My partner and I were sent here to investigate -”

“Your murder,” Silliman said coldly, stopping a few feet away. Mulder tensed beside Scully. She touched his hand, and he stepped back.

“Her disappearance,” he spat out. “But we were kidnapped and detained by Dr. Silliman here, and forced -”

“I had to get back here!”

“You knocked out two federal agents!”

“Who are most certainly working here illegally!”

Mulder shouted and attacked Silliman. Scully turned too late to see the two men wrestling in darkness on the floor of the cave.

“Stop!” she screamed rushing over. What the hell were they thinking? Couldn’t they see how much danger?

“Ben,” came a small voice from behind her. “What’s going on?” Silliman and Mulder both stopped instantly and stared at the person standing behind Scully.

“Carrie!” Silliman exclaimed and rushed over. “Thank God you’re all right! It wasn’t a dream.”

Scully moved aside just in time, and stood, shocked, as Silliman embraced his partner. She looked at Mulder, who was spitting blood from a rather nasty cut on his lip.

“Ben, please,” Honeywell said finally. “I just want to know what-”

“Dr. Honeywell, you have been missing and presumed dead in this cave for almost six days.”

Honeywell said nothing. Scully could not read her face in the darkness, but could guess easily enough what her expression was. Shock. “But, that’s not possible,” she said slowly. “I was working in the cave a few hours -” she stopped, closing her eyes and extending her hand as if to steady herself. “And then I was with Ben— I dreamed… I was with Ben -” she turned away from the agents and vomited onto the floor of the cave.

She would faint, and hallucinate. Then she would get sick, vomiting— “We have to get out of here, now!” Scully said, and Mulder nodded, helping a distraught Silliman support Honeywell. “I don’t know why she hasn’t been… strongly affected by the bad air in the cave,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Maybe she happened into a fresh air pocket, but we need to get her out of here and to a hospital as soon as we can.” There was a deeper shadow on one of the walls, and the four people hurried towards it. It was a crack in the wall. Mulder looked at Silliman questioningly.

“Well?” he asked.

“It looks like the only entrance to the room,” he said quietly. “And if we got in this way, this has to be the way out, somehow.”

The phrase was turning into an achingly familiar refrain. Get out, get out— Scully’s head spun and she wondered how long she had left until she succumbed to the cave as well. You’ve already fainted from the dizzyness, she reminded herself. And as for the hallucinations—

“But it’s going to be extremely difficult,” the scientist went on, his voice trembling slightly. “I don’t recognize this cavern, wherever we are, it’s no place I’ve ever been. I have no idea how we got here.”

“The slime -” Mulder began. “Could it have… deposited us here? Like it did with her?”

“Then this crack might be our only chance,” Scully said. “We need to hurry, whatever we decide.”

Silliman let Mulder hold Honeywell for a moment while he reached into his pocket. “I have a compass, but I don’t know how much help it will be. I don’t know what depth this is, and we may find ourselves in a dead end.”

Mulder and Scully looked at each other, barely breathing in the long silence that followed his words. Mulder’s features were masked, but Scully wouldn’t let go of his gaze until she could see the answer in his eyes. It was their only chance.”

“Go ahead, Ben,” Mulder said, still looking at Scully. He turned to the young scientist. “If you get us out of here—” he broke off as Honeywell began to convulse in his arms.

“I’ll take her,” Scully said, taking off the hardhat and handing it to Silliman. He clutched his partner firmly, trying to still her shaking body. “Please, I’m a doctor. You just get us out of the cave.” A lot of good that’s going to do, Scully thought. What can I do to help her here?

It was a difficult climb through the fissures of the cave, especially carrying the body of Carrie Honeywell. They had probably only gone about fifty feet up through the steep incline when Mulder stopped them. “Wait, I -” he stammered, then turned and threw up behind him. Scully set Honeywell down carefully and leaned over him. “Okay?” she asked, and she could almost make out his nod. Mulder took a minute to compose himself, then turned and began to climb back up to Silliman and Honeywell, slipping on the rocks and coughing heavily. “Mulder?” she asked from behind him, her hand on his back as if to steady his steps. “I don’t want to be carrying you out of here, do you hear me?”

He grunted a reply, and Scully knew that it was taking every ounce of strength in him to stay upright.

They kept moving, Silliman ahead, finding the easiest paths upwards through the rock, and Scully and Mulder behind, carrying Honeywell between them. Five minutes later, they stopped dead. Ben turned around to face them, and his face was ashen in the half-light. “Rock wall, folks.”

Scully almost dropped Honeywell in shock. She had been supporting most of her weight for the last few minutes, and it was obvious Mulder wasn’t going to last much longer. “What do you mean?” she asked, and was surprised at how small her voice sounded in the darkness.

“He means there is no way out,” Mulder said softly, laying a hand on Scully’s shoulder. Was it him shaking like that, Scully wondered, then clenched her teeth quickly as she noticed they were chattering. “That can’t be,” she said. “We must have missed an exit, somewhere—”

“Scully!” Mulder said, silencing her. “Listen, Silliman, what if you left us here, and went on. You could move much more quickly without all of us, and you could send back down here-”

“No!” Scully cried, taken aback by the vehemence in her own voice. “Mulder, you’re sick, she’s fading fast, I’m not going to last too much longer myself. If we don’t get out of here now-”

Mulder turned to her. “This isn’t about Silliman again, is it? Listen, I don’t think he’s going to just leave us down here.”

“No, Mulder, you don’t understand,” she said, and looked up to Silliman. “It will be too late.”

“She’s right,” Silliman said suddenly. “Carrie needs help. Now. It can’t wait. We’ll head back down together.”

Down again? Scully felt a hard knot of fear in the pit of her stomach. Combined with the dizziness, she knew it wouldn’t be long before she got as sick as her partner. “Mulder, I can’t go back down there again, I can’t,” she said, shaking. She put her hand against the rock wall and slid down to the floor, which seemed to tilt and whirl beneath her. It was too much, too much—

“I need to rest for a second. I need— to breathe.” The acid was smothering her. There was no air, just the acid fumes that were saturating every part of her being.

“Scully?” she heard Mulder asking quietly. She looked up and he was kneeling beside her, holding her shoulders and whispering into her hair. God, they were stuck in this pit of darkness forever.

“Scully?” he asked again. “I think you found another crack. Right here.” He took her hand and covered it in his, showing her the hollow near her shoulder

It was tiny, hardly thirty inches in diameter. “You think this leads somewhere?” she asked.

“It’s worth a try, isn’t it, Agent Scully?” Ben asked, kneeling beside her as well. “I’m more experienced in this, so I’ll go. If it’s a dead end, I’ll have an easier time scooting out than you.”

Scully took a deep breath and stood up. Ben entered the crack, feet first. For a few moments, the glow of the headlamp shone out of the crack like some kind of horror movie. Then, it faded, and Mulder and Scully were left in darkness.

Scully checked Honeywell again, who, though breathing raggedly, was in no immediate danger.

“And you, Mulder?” she asked.

“I’m okay,” he said steadily in the darkness. Scully accepted this, wondering what his expression must be. “How are you?”

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Silliman knocked me out last night, but I don’t think I have any serious injuries from that. I’m not going to last longer here, though. I’ve already fainted, had the hallucinations -” she stopped speaking again as her teeth began to chatter violently.

“Hey, hey,” Mulder said, pulling her towards him and holding her close. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Scully turned and buried her head in his shoulder, wondering again at the strange things which kept wandering through her mind. Sinking in the slime, awakening in a cavern full of light, Mulder—

“Agent Mulder!” came an echoed shout. They both turned and peered into the tunnel. “It’s not going to work, Agent Mulder,” Silliman’s voice called back to them. It’s going downhill, and there’s some water. I’m afraid that if I go much farther, I’ll never be able to squeeze out.” “Come back then, Silliman,” Mulder called into the tunnel. “We’ll find another way.”

There was a pause, and then, “Wait, wait! There’s an opening!” Scully stopped breathing, not daring to hope that he might have found a way out.

“Oh my God,” Silliman cried. “Come on guys, I made it. Come on!”

Scully couldn’t see her partner’s face, but knew he must be smiling as he gripped her arm fiercely.

“What about Honeywell?” Scully asked.

In the end they positioned her half on top of Scully with her jacket wrapped around them both as a makeshift harness. Mulder went behind them to make sure that Scully didn’t smack the scientist into any jutting pieces of rock. Still, it was slow going sliding through the cramped space on their bellies.

Finally, they found themselves in the small cavern, where the whole problem started. Silliman pulled Scully out, and then picked up Honeywell, who stirred awkwardly and tried to stand up, only to collapse again to the damp stone of the cave floor. Silliman insisted on carrying her this time.

Scully walked over to the streambed and retrieved her hardhat and breathing mask. Even the poor, stale, filtered air was heavenly to Scully and she breathed in deeply, turning to the western wall. The veil had dried up in the night, leaving behind damp stone with just a few traces of the slime. Incredible, Scully thought, touching the stone once more. I almost lost my life, my partner, and now— she shook her head. Just get out of the cave, Dana, she told herself. Think later.

Mulder was leaning against the western wall, panting. “You okay, Mulder?” she asked him, her eyes narrowing in concern.

He nodded weakly, then started convulsing and fell forward. She stepped in front of him, trying in vain to support his weight.

“Ben! Help me!” she cried and Silliman rushed over. “Let’s go,” she said quickly, and Silliman nodded, the beam of light bobbing on his head.

They moved quickly through the remaining caverns, Scully supporting Mulder as he stumbled along and Silliman carrying Honeywell. The dizziness was lessening, and Scully practically ran into the entrance cavern. The light was grey still, but burned her eyes with its comparative brightness after a night spent in the cave.

Silliman shifted his partner in his arms and eyed the agents again with a mixture of relief and apprehension. “Will you guys wait to take me so I can see that Carrie’s okay?” Mulder turned to Silliman and spoke, his voice, more gravelly than ever. “I don’t know what you are talking about, Silliman,” he said simply and let Scully lead him through the chalky water to the cave mouth. “Scully, I just thought -”

“Don’t explain, Mulder,” she said softly, thrilling at the feel of the dawn breeze on her face. She squinted up into the overcast sky, and smiled at the light.

“Look,” Mulder whispered hoarsely.

The villagers were all along the banks of the river, relaxing on blankets and eating the cold leftovers of last night’s feast. One large patch of ground was burnt black and covered with the ashes of a recent bonfire. Mulder and Scully walked towards the group of people near the fire’s remains. They looked up at the agents’ approach, eyeing them with that same dark suspicion, all except for two. On the center blanket sat Noel Rivera with the Curandereo, Ramona.

“Hello,” Scully said coldly to the two on the blanket. Noel moved to support Ramona, pushing her up into a sitting position. The Curandereo mumbled something.

“She is very tired from her ordeal last night. But she will speak to you, if you wish,” Noel said.

“I do wish,” Scully answered, and leaned over the woman. “I want to know why you moved outside the cave.”

“Who was going to stop us?” Noel answered before Ramona had the chance. “The ceremony is no good without the cave.”

“Says who, Rivera?” Mulder asked.

“Did you send your people into the cave last night?” Scully asked the Curandereo. “The dangers in that cave are obvious, and you were told to keep people out of there at all costs. And yet you moved the ceremony to the banks as soon as we left!”

“Scully -” Mulder began.

“No!” she said vehemently. “I heard them, chanting, right after— right after you were gone, Mulder. They were here, and I want to know who else might be trapped in that cave. Now, did you send anyone in?”

“No,” Ramona said in her halting speech. “There was no reason. You were there.”

Scully felt Mulder tense beside her, but she could not look up and meet his eyes. The images of last night curled in her mind again like rings of smoke, elusive and ephemeral. Falling into the wall, caverns of light, Mulder— She shook her head. The cave air was playing havoc with her mind.

“I-”

The Curandereo cut her off. “It is called Villa Luz, this cave. You know what that means?”

“Yes,” Scully said calmly.

“The spirits are of this cave and they turn it into a place of light for the people.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Mulder asked harshly, still leaning on Scully.

The Curandereo smiled softly, almost sadly, as she looked past the agents and into the cave itself. She beckoned to Scully, who crouched before her to hear her whispers. Ramona reached out and touched Scully’s cheek with a finger. “The Lighted House is not dark and empty, though it may appear so from time to time. It is full of life, and your scientist friends can tell you that themselves. It just needs to be brought to the surface.”

Scully and Mulder paused for a moment, looking down into the face of the healer. Scully closed her eyes, and if the riddle meant anything to her, she did not say. Then they turned and walked away from the groups of villagers, back to the pickup. Honeywell had woken up, and Silliman was busy trying to make sure that she was okay. He had placed her on a pile of canvas in the bed of the pickup and was trying to arrange things so she would be more comfortable for the short trip back to the station.

“Where’s the nearest hospital?” Scully asked wearily, when they reached the truck.

“About an hour away. But I’m fine,” said Honeywell, half-unconscious, in a voice that would have made Mulder smile if he hadn’t been standing with his arm around Scully. “I think not. You are most definitely suffering from exposure and you have been trapped in an extreme environment without food or water for almost a week. It’s a miracle that you survived at all.”

“Is it though?” Mulder asked. “Could she have been in some kind of state of hibernation? She definitely hasn’t been breathing in that air for a week. And she seems in much better shape than anyone should be who’s been through what she has.”

“What are you saying, Agent Mulder, that she was put in some sort of enchanted sleep by the cave?”

To be woken up by her prince? Scully thought against her will.

“How would you describe what happened to us, Dr. Silliman? To all of us?”

The scientist shook his head. “I don’t know. I just—” he stopped, and the agents understood. It didn’t matter to him, Carrie was back, and there was no case after all. They left the two scientists alone, and walked back to the front of the truck.

Scully opened the driver’s side door and collapsed onto the seat. Mulder stood over her, shaking his head and whistling softly.

“Scully, if you care at all for your mental health, don’t look in the mirror.”

She turned and looked. She was covered in scratches and mud, and the slime from the cave had caked in her hair and covered her sweater. She groaned, then turned back to Mulder.

In the light of day, he looked even worse than she had expected. His face was also covered in bruises and scratches, and his eyes were ringed with dark circles. He had a huge lump on his forehead, but whether it was from his ordeal in the cave or last night’s now-unmentionable incident with Silliman, she couldn’t tell. Blood from several wounds had stained large patches of his shirt dark brown.

“God, Mulder,” she said. “You are really hurt. Let me take a look. You’re bleeding.”

“You just notice it on me because my shirt is white,” he said, struggling to find a voice for his words.

“Was white -” she said, unbuttoning it, and easing it off his shoulders. The action made her stop mid-sentence, before she slowly continued her examination. He had several cuts and bruises on his torso, but most of the wounds were superficial and weren’t in need of much more than a good cleaning and wrapping. He’d be sore for several days though.

“Scully,” he said, a pleading note entering his voice. “The cave, the veil, it, does something to you.”

She nodded, slightly preoccupied by the large cut on his side.

“And everything is really fuzzy. Do you feel that way?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she said, moving up to look at his left shoulder.

“But what that woman was saying, about the Lighted House…” he trailed off.

Scully stopped breathing, and stared at his shoulder. She reached for the small, oblong marks above his bullet scar with trembling fingers. “Yes?” she whispered, her voice catching as she tried to supress the images welling up inside her.

“I seem to think… a cavern filled with light, but not from a lantern -”

“Mulder,” she said, looking down, at the dirt, at her hands pressed tightly together, at anything but his face and the tiny cuts on his shoulder. “I – do you remember anything at all about last night?”

Silence. Though she stood less than six inches from him, she couldn’t hear him breathing.

“No.” He paused again, as if waiting for her to speak. “Do you?”

She looked up then, deep into the eyes that were as bottomless as the earth itself. “No.”

Another long silence. The villagers were slowly gathering their belongings and leaving the banks of the stream. Ben Silliman had settled himself in the back of the pickup with Honeywell, and all they needed to do was get in the truck and drive home.

The sky was turning rosy, and the mist over the stream was lifting. It was going to be another scorching day, Scully could tell. She could already see the brown rock of the Villa Luz, reflected over and over in the milky white water. And beyond that, towards the east, she could make out the silver-grey of the highlands, grassy land stretching all the way out to the sea.

She looked again at Mulder, saw in his face and body the exhaustion caused by the previous night. There was no case anymore, they both knew, and nothing to keep them there. Carrie Honeywell was alive, and both agents knew that she would be safe in the hands of Benjamin Silliman. “Should we talk to the villagers?”

Mulder tipped his head down towards her and spoke softly. “To what end, Scully?”

She closed her eyes, and for a second she wished she could just sleep there, on the banks of the stream, safe in Mulder’s arms. Like her cave dream.

“Another case without answers, eh, Mulder?”

“What answers are you missing?” he asked again, in that same soft, lilting voice that was threatening to put her to sleep. Her hands still rested on his shoulders and now he put his arms around her, probably as much for support as anything else.

Point taken, Scully thought. She looked away, over his shoulder, beyond him, towards the Cave of the Lighted House. “So we just ride off into the sunset?” she asked with a funny little laugh.

“No,” he said gently, still holding her close. “Into the dawn.”

THE END

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