"The Rest Is Silence," XF, gen PG
Also available at the AO3. Disclaimers: Don't own the X-Files, not really enough OCs in here to count either. Might be meta as much as fic. Written years ago for the X-Files Red Shirts (Minor characters or Original Characters) Lyric Wheel. I just hadn't realized it's actually done.
The Rest Is Silence
We’re the small ones, the hidden ones, the silent minions who sit unnoticed as the powerful and the power-hungry go by. Their mistake.
If a voice is never heard, does the speaker still exist? Do we still serve who only sit and route messages across switchboards, through email, into mail drops, or in careful hand-offs in crowded streets and squares? And do these fucking bastards think we’re no more intelligent, or observant, than the machines that dance to our commands? They sold us out to the aliens. They can talk all they like about ‘survival of the race’ and ‘even if only a few should live…’ but what it means is ‘they’ll let us live if we pay them, and screw you, Charlie.’
We didn’t lose children to the invaders - that’s not the blessing it should be, though. It means we don’t matter to the aliens. No surprise. The Consortium doesn’t care about us either. We’re interchangeable tools to them, pieces to be used to breaking, then replaced with another faceless, nameless tech or scientist or secretary. We’ve watched them do it, time and again, and pretended not to see the deaths for fear that we’d be next if we noticed too visibly.
But they route their reports on us through us. The surveillance on the little people is handled by the medium people, typed into computers set up and maintained and linked by the front-line techs. The reports are filed by the secretaries. The meetings to discuss the surveillance and assess the risks are set up, or postponed, or the agendas changed, by the unknown, nameless assistant ‘who’s always been with us.’
You can imagine how many of us they find.
<><><><><><><>
Tonight, I’m awake. Staring out the windows, wondering how much longer I can do this, and how much longer I can get away with this. Two different things, those. I don’t know how much longer I can send in my reports, answer the questions and tie the data together. I know too much about what they’re doing with that data. I can’t swallow much more of my own complicity in this.
If I’m careless though, I won’t have to. I’ll swallow a bullet, perhaps. I don’t want to die; I just don’t see any other ways out right now.
How does he do it? The silent man who moves through the labs and the board rooms equally unimpressed. The green-eyed assassin who impressed even us by always having one more mask, one more ace to pull out of his sleeve somehow. When there’s no answer, he finds one anyway. When there’s reason, he finds that. He uses Mulder as a stalking horse, or a knife balanced to his hand and specifications. Mulder to find all the things that no one should be able to spot; Krycek following behind sometime later to control it, use it, or destroy it….
Krycek is good. Too good.
Fortunately, everyone blames Mulder for that.
I wonder if Alex Krycek ever wonders where his information comes from? Surely he’s too smart not to wonder about packets left in hotel rooms, or emails from addresses that don’t exist that give him URLs he should never be able to find. But he's also smart enough to check his data... and not to look for his sources. If he did, we might vanish -- or have to fall silent.
Please. Let him win. Let this be over soon.
Preferably, before someone asks the right questions.
~ ~ ~ finis ~ ~ ~
The Silent Man (03:48)
- John Petrucci
A question well served,
'Is silence like a fever?'
'A voice never heard?' - *
'Or a message with no receiver?'
Pray they won't ask
Behind the stained glass
There's always one more mask
Has man been a victim
of his woman, of his father?
if he elects not to bother,
will he suffocate their faith?
Desperate to fall
Behind the Great Wall
That separates us all
When there is reason
Tonight I'm Awake
when there's no answer
Arrive the Silent Man
If there is balance
tonight He's Awake
If they have to suffer
There lies the Silent Man
Sin without deceivers
A God with no believers
I could sail by
on the Winds of Silence
And maybe they won't notice
But this time I think
It'd be better if I swim
When there is reason
Tonight I'm Awake
When there's no answer
Arrive the Silent Man
If there is balance
Tonight he's Awake
But if they have to suffer
There lies the Silent Man
Original post on Dreamwidth | Leave a comment on DW | Read
comments on DW
The Rest Is Silence
We’re the small ones, the hidden ones, the silent minions who sit unnoticed as the powerful and the power-hungry go by. Their mistake.
If a voice is never heard, does the speaker still exist? Do we still serve who only sit and route messages across switchboards, through email, into mail drops, or in careful hand-offs in crowded streets and squares? And do these fucking bastards think we’re no more intelligent, or observant, than the machines that dance to our commands? They sold us out to the aliens. They can talk all they like about ‘survival of the race’ and ‘even if only a few should live…’ but what it means is ‘they’ll let us live if we pay them, and screw you, Charlie.’
We didn’t lose children to the invaders - that’s not the blessing it should be, though. It means we don’t matter to the aliens. No surprise. The Consortium doesn’t care about us either. We’re interchangeable tools to them, pieces to be used to breaking, then replaced with another faceless, nameless tech or scientist or secretary. We’ve watched them do it, time and again, and pretended not to see the deaths for fear that we’d be next if we noticed too visibly.
But they route their reports on us through us. The surveillance on the little people is handled by the medium people, typed into computers set up and maintained and linked by the front-line techs. The reports are filed by the secretaries. The meetings to discuss the surveillance and assess the risks are set up, or postponed, or the agendas changed, by the unknown, nameless assistant ‘who’s always been with us.’
You can imagine how many of us they find.
<><><><><><><>
Tonight, I’m awake. Staring out the windows, wondering how much longer I can do this, and how much longer I can get away with this. Two different things, those. I don’t know how much longer I can send in my reports, answer the questions and tie the data together. I know too much about what they’re doing with that data. I can’t swallow much more of my own complicity in this.
If I’m careless though, I won’t have to. I’ll swallow a bullet, perhaps. I don’t want to die; I just don’t see any other ways out right now.
How does he do it? The silent man who moves through the labs and the board rooms equally unimpressed. The green-eyed assassin who impressed even us by always having one more mask, one more ace to pull out of his sleeve somehow. When there’s no answer, he finds one anyway. When there’s reason, he finds that. He uses Mulder as a stalking horse, or a knife balanced to his hand and specifications. Mulder to find all the things that no one should be able to spot; Krycek following behind sometime later to control it, use it, or destroy it….
Krycek is good. Too good.
Fortunately, everyone blames Mulder for that.
I wonder if Alex Krycek ever wonders where his information comes from? Surely he’s too smart not to wonder about packets left in hotel rooms, or emails from addresses that don’t exist that give him URLs he should never be able to find. But he's also smart enough to check his data... and not to look for his sources. If he did, we might vanish -- or have to fall silent.
Please. Let him win. Let this be over soon.
Preferably, before someone asks the right questions.
~ ~ ~ finis ~ ~ ~
The Silent Man (03:48)
- John Petrucci
A question well served,
'Is silence like a fever?'
'A voice never heard?' - *
'Or a message with no receiver?'
Pray they won't ask
Behind the stained glass
There's always one more mask
Has man been a victim
of his woman, of his father?
if he elects not to bother,
will he suffocate their faith?
Desperate to fall
Behind the Great Wall
That separates us all
When there is reason
Tonight I'm Awake
when there's no answer
Arrive the Silent Man
If there is balance
tonight He's Awake
If they have to suffer
There lies the Silent Man
Sin without deceivers
A God with no believers
I could sail by
on the Winds of Silence
And maybe they won't notice
But this time I think
It'd be better if I swim
When there is reason
Tonight I'm Awake
When there's no answer
Arrive the Silent Man
If there is balance
Tonight he's Awake
But if they have to suffer
There lies the Silent Man
Original post on Dreamwidth | Leave a comment on DW | Read
comments on DW