Response to #36 [Alias/The X Files]
Title: The Majestic Option
Crossover: Alias/The X Files
Notes: Blame the muse for getting it on the friggin' day of the deadline. :P But the idea was too delicious to resist. Setting somewhere post S4 finale for Alias, waay-post S8 for The X Files. Oh, and I seek pardon for the heavy cryptic talk. But it's hard to imagine those two talking any other way. Also, sorry if it feels rushed...but this is sunday morning. :P Oh yeah, and a 500 exact word count!
They met quietly, in absolute secrecy, because so few of them were left. The location was scouted weeks in advance, forward teams kept waiting in the wings. Their contingency plans were simple: if compromised, proceed with extreme sanction. Leave nothing alive, leave no remains, nothing worth salvage. No flesh, no bone, only ashes and dust. They could not afford to leave their marks behind for the Colonists to follow.
It was dark and dusty and cold where they met, under the shadows of a nuclear apocalypse that had never come to pass. The abandoned silo loomed over their heads, cavernous and hollow. Outside, there were three containment rings of security detachments, waiting and watching; the thing that lay buried underground was just as dangerous, if not more so, than any opponents who could attack in this the silent night.
“Tell me, then” the first man said, the elder, as they descended the depths, step by step by step, flanked forward and back by black-clad shapes that almost seemed human. He looked old enough to be timeless. Or, perhaps, ancient. His hair was white, his bearing straight, his suit flawless, and his hands well manicured. His voice was clear, and only the hollows of his eyes gave away his desperation. “Tell me: can they save us?”
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” the second replied, a smoker, leaving wisps of grey with each breath. “To save us, they need to believe - absolutely - in what we know. How ironic is it, you think, that their prophet turned out to be our salvation?”
“I did not come here for empty words,” the elder gestured at the darkness around them. “Not here, of all places.”
“No, not here,” The smoker smiled, a quiet, serpentine smile. “I’ve made arrangements here for them to see some of our secrets. The black cancer, the hybrids, the soldiers; they will believe. They’ll have to.”
“You are certain of your facts?”
“As certain as I can be. The Sovodga incident proves the theories Majestic discarded years ago.” The smoker glances at the old man; his expression might be scorn, or condescension, or both. “A smaller scale version of the Mueller device could have been used for testing the vaccines. More nondescript than fields of corn, wouldn’t you say?”
“Do not remind me of my mistakes,” the old man says quickly, eyes flickering, “You have made too many yourself to have that honour.”
“There’s no one left to needle,” the smoker shrugs. “Majestic is limping on broken legs; Purity Control is dead; our friends in Moscow have been infiltrated too thoroughly to ever be trusted again. Project Redlight is out of our hands, and Garnet reports to the Colonists now.”
“Bleak prospects,” the old man assents. The smoker says nothing.
“We need fresh blood,” the old man says later. “but we need this knowledge more than fresh blood. Show me, then, what you would show Bristow and Sloane and Derevko.”
The smoker nods, and they keep descending into the depths, into the dark.
Crossover: Alias/The X Files
Notes: Blame the muse for getting it on the friggin' day of the deadline. :P But the idea was too delicious to resist. Setting somewhere post S4 finale for Alias, waay-post S8 for The X Files. Oh, and I seek pardon for the heavy cryptic talk. But it's hard to imagine those two talking any other way. Also, sorry if it feels rushed...but this is sunday morning. :P Oh yeah, and a 500 exact word count!
They met quietly, in absolute secrecy, because so few of them were left. The location was scouted weeks in advance, forward teams kept waiting in the wings. Their contingency plans were simple: if compromised, proceed with extreme sanction. Leave nothing alive, leave no remains, nothing worth salvage. No flesh, no bone, only ashes and dust. They could not afford to leave their marks behind for the Colonists to follow.
It was dark and dusty and cold where they met, under the shadows of a nuclear apocalypse that had never come to pass. The abandoned silo loomed over their heads, cavernous and hollow. Outside, there were three containment rings of security detachments, waiting and watching; the thing that lay buried underground was just as dangerous, if not more so, than any opponents who could attack in this the silent night.
“Tell me, then” the first man said, the elder, as they descended the depths, step by step by step, flanked forward and back by black-clad shapes that almost seemed human. He looked old enough to be timeless. Or, perhaps, ancient. His hair was white, his bearing straight, his suit flawless, and his hands well manicured. His voice was clear, and only the hollows of his eyes gave away his desperation. “Tell me: can they save us?”
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” the second replied, a smoker, leaving wisps of grey with each breath. “To save us, they need to believe - absolutely - in what we know. How ironic is it, you think, that their prophet turned out to be our salvation?”
“I did not come here for empty words,” the elder gestured at the darkness around them. “Not here, of all places.”
“No, not here,” The smoker smiled, a quiet, serpentine smile. “I’ve made arrangements here for them to see some of our secrets. The black cancer, the hybrids, the soldiers; they will believe. They’ll have to.”
“You are certain of your facts?”
“As certain as I can be. The Sovodga incident proves the theories Majestic discarded years ago.” The smoker glances at the old man; his expression might be scorn, or condescension, or both. “A smaller scale version of the Mueller device could have been used for testing the vaccines. More nondescript than fields of corn, wouldn’t you say?”
“Do not remind me of my mistakes,” the old man says quickly, eyes flickering, “You have made too many yourself to have that honour.”
“There’s no one left to needle,” the smoker shrugs. “Majestic is limping on broken legs; Purity Control is dead; our friends in Moscow have been infiltrated too thoroughly to ever be trusted again. Project Redlight is out of our hands, and Garnet reports to the Colonists now.”
“Bleak prospects,” the old man assents. The smoker says nothing.
“We need fresh blood,” the old man says later. “but we need this knowledge more than fresh blood. Show me, then, what you would show Bristow and Sloane and Derevko.”
The smoker nods, and they keep descending into the depths, into the dark.