Fic: The X-Files: "Into the Dark" Chapter One.
Title: Into The Dark.
Rating: R.
Disclaimer: I don't own The X-Files, nor the characters.
Summary: A case Mulder worked on in the past comes back into his life when a serial killer escapes. As Mulder brings Scully onto the case with him, things go wrong... very wrong. Rated R for MATURE content, including triggering materials.
“Morning, Scully,” Mulder greeted her as she stepped into the basement office.
“Good morning, Mulder,” she returned with a smile.
“Case file’s on your desk,” he said and gave a nod toward it. He was standing at the filing cabinet, sifting through the files, looking for something that didn’t seem to be there.
“What have we got?” Scully asked.
She picked up the case file and flipped it open. Mulder stopped his search and leaned against the filing cabinet, eyes on her.
“Jake Cohen,” he told her. “Thirty eight. Convicted of nine murders and serving six life sentences consecutively.”
Scully’s eyebrows drew together as she skimmed the police report. “How does this involve us?”
“Didn’t catch the news this morning, Scully?” Mulder asked her.
“No.” She looked up at him. “My alarm didn’t go off, so I didn’t have time. Why?”
“He escaped from prison sometime between last night and this morning,” Mulder informed her.
“How?”
She looked down at the mug shot included in the file. Jake Cohen’s dark hair was unruly and his eyes were wide and dark.
“That’s the mystery.” Mulder approached her. “No one knows.”
“What do you mean?” Scully brought her gaze back to him.
“Cohen was in his cell at night, but the next morning, he wasn’t there.” Mulder sat against his desk.
“So, it had to be an inside job,” Scully concluded.
“That’s what they’re thinking, except no one knows how he could have gotten out even if it was an inside job,” Mulder replied. “The security cameras picked up nothing, the guards were accounted for all night. It appears as if he just... disappeared.”
Scully closed the chart, eyes locked with his. “And you think this is an X-File?”
“Could be,” he answered her. “We’re going to check out the prison cell and talk to the guards.”
“Okay then.” Scully nodded. “Let’s go.”
Mulder stepped into the jail cell first. He breathed out in a quiet sigh, not seeing anything that immediately indicated this was an X-File. But he knew who he was dealing with, which meant the means of escape could have been under strange circumstances.
It wasn’t that Jake Cohen appeared to have any special abilities, but he seemed to be able to keep himself from being caught. It took months to finally put him under arrest and even that had been tricky.
Scully observed Mulder’s careful consideration of the room. She didn’t see anything peculiar or out of place. She was certain one of the guards helped Cohen to escape. It was the only plausible explanation.
“Well?” she asked.
“Everything’s in perfect order,” Mulder said and faced her. “A little too perfect.”
“What do you mean?” Her eyebrows drew together.
“The bed’s made.” Mulder stepped to the side, so she could get a better view of it. “There were rounds at midnight.”
“So?” she replied. “If he was planning to escape, he wouldn’t have gone to bed.”
“If he was planning to escape, he would’ve wanted to appear as if he had gone to bed,” Mulder told her.
“Or maybe he didn’t care,” she pointed out.
“It just doesn’t seem right.” Mulder took another look at the cell. “Even if he was waiting, he would have at least sat down. There’s no indication this bed had been touched.”
“I don’t know why that’s so important,” Scully honestly confessed to him.
“Yeah,” Mulder agreed quickly. “Let’s go.”
Mulder moved past her and stepped out of the jail cell. He waited, allowing Scully to walk down the cell block first. He came up beside her, blocking her from the men in the cells on the left.
“In any case, we need to figure out what his next step is,” Scully said. “He’s obviously dangerous.”
“Yeah,” Mulder responded, distracted with his own thoughts.
They stopped at the door and waited for the buzzer to sound. Once it had, Scully opened the door and stepped to the other side where a guard was stationed. He gave them a tight smile as they headed for the main entrance.
“Mulder, are you okay?” Scully asked, noticing how quiet he had become and how distant he seemed.
“I’m fine, Scully.”
Mulder forced a smile on his face, but she wasn’t convinced. She let it go for now, not wanting to press it when they still had work to do.
They walked down the white metal staircase at the end of the hall and stepped onto the main floor. The doors leading outside were in front of them, but Mulder led Scully to the left where the security office was located.
“One quick stop,” Mulder told her.
“Where?” she asked.
“Security office.”
Mulder stopped at the door with ‘Security Office’ printed on it in bold black letters. The guard that brought them into the prison was on the other side of the door. He stood upon seeing them and buzzed them in.
Scully entered first and Mulder followed her in. He approached the desk since Scully wasn’t quite sure what they were doing here.
“Agent Mulder,” the security guard greeted him. “Is there something you need?”
“Actually, yes,” Mulder answered. “Have you looked through all the footage from last night?”
“Yes, it’s all been reviewed,” he responded.
“What about during the day?” Mulder asked.
“He was here during the day,” the guard said.
“But did you look to see if there was any suspicious activity?” Mulder replied.
“We don’t have that kind of time to look through hours of footage to maybe see five minutes of him,” the guard explained, “but if you want to, you’re welcome to the tapes.”
“Yes.” Mulder nodded. “Thank you.”
The guard gave a nod in return. “I’ll have someone bring them up.”
Scully was staring down at the case file. She glanced over at Mulder, but his eyes were focused on the road as he drove them to the motel. She looked back down at the file.
“Mulder?”
“Yeah?”
“Who was the arresting officer in Jake Cohen’s case?” Scully brought her gaze back to him.
He looked over at her. “What does that matter?”
“Well, you seem to know a lot about this man,” she said.
Mulder kept his eyes on the road and remained quiet for a long moment.
“I led the investigation. I was the one who took him in.”
“Why didn’t you say something before?” she asked.
“It wasn’t worth mentioning,” he answered.
“Why not?”
“I was just lucky we even caught the guy,” Mulder explained. “It took months. He would vanish. Sometimes right before our eyes. We set up cameras in his apartment and we were about to go in and get him. He walked out of frame in one camera, but didn’t appear again on any of the others. When we went in, he was gone. There was no way he could have left his apartment without us seeing.”
“Then how did he get out?” she replied, confused.
“We never figured it out,” he told her. “We ended up getting a lucky break when two feds saw him at a mall, probably hunting his next victim. We staked out the place and got him.”
Scully closed the case file. “You got inside his head before, where do you think he’s going now?”
“I don’t know.”
His words were dismissive and he kept his focus on the road. Scully’s eyebrows drew together as she watched him. He was trying to let on that this case meant nothing personal to him, but she could see through that.
Instead of pressing him further on the matter, she kept quiet and looked out her own window.
Scully knocked on his motel room door. After a minute, the door opened. Mulder gave her a smile and stepped back, allowing her room to enter.
“Come in,” he said. “I have something for you to look at.”
Mulder closed the door and led the way over to the television. The tape was paused on a scene from the cafeteria. Scully planted her hands on her hips as Mulder hit play.
“Here’s Cohen entering the cafeteria.” Mulder pointed Jake Cohen out on the screen. “But he doesn’t eat.”
“Maybe he was nervous about escaping,” Scully offered an explanation.
“He doesn’t do anything,” Mulder went on. “He sits down, right there, in the back, for the entire lunch, then gets up and leaves. No talking, no moving, nothing.”
“And?” She cocked an eyebrow.
“Maybe it wasn’t him.” Mulder paused the tape. “Maybe it was someone... or something else.”
“What are you getting at, Mulder?” she asked.
“When we were sitting on his apartment, he wouldn’t do anything, but sit or stand,” Mulder explained, locking eyes with her. “He didn’t eat, he didn’t use the bathroom, he didn’t watch television, or answer the phone.”
“And you think that... what?” she replied, a little confused. “It’s a hoax?”
“Or that he’s projecting himself,” Mulder said.
“Projecting himself,” Scully repeated doubtfully, a frown planting itself on her face.
“He’s physically in another place,” Mulder presented his theory. “He has the focus, the energy, to project himself, his image, somewhere else. A sort of astral projection.”
She was at a loss for words for a moment as she stared at him. Scully shook her head.
“You can’t be serious.”
“He could have escaped days before his projection vanished.” Mulder walked toward the bed and picked up his jacket. “I need to get the security tapes from the past week.”
“Mulder, shouldn’t we be figuring out who helped Cohen escape so we can try to find him?” Scully suggested as she approached him.
“We’ll get that answer in the tapes.” He zipped his jacket and headed for the door.
“You’ll be wasting your time,” she responded. “It’s impossible. You’ll be watching days worth of footage for nothing.”
“If you don’t want a part in it, that’s fine, Scully.” Mulder opened the door.
“Wait,” she said. “I’m going with you.”
Scully went after him and closed the door behind herself.
Mulder and Scully found themselves in the basement of the prison with the night security guard, Joseph Watson. He was bald, buff, and seemed quite irritated with his job.
Watson flicked on the light to the storage room and stepped in. Mulder and Scully followed him in to see rows of shelves lined with boxes.
“What is it you want again?” Watson asked.
“The security tapes from the past week,” Mulder answered him.
“Why?” Watson grunted and led them down a row.
“I believe we can find out who helped him escape by looking at his interactions,” Mulder said.
“You’re not like other cops, are you?”
Watson eyed Mulder up a moment, then glanced at Scully, before pulling a box from the shelf above his head. He dropped the box into Mulder’s arms.
Mulder was surprised by the weight, but managed not to drop it. Watson pulled another box down, but didn’t hand it over to Scully. He carried it as he brought them back to the door.
“These have the whole last week?” Mulder asked, following behind him.
“Yes.”
Scully glanced over at Mulder and followed him out of the room.
“Say we don’t find what you’re looking for, Mulder.” Scully looked to her partner, the passing street lamp illuminating him for a moment. “What then?”
“We’ll find something.” His hands were tight on the steering wheel.
“And if we don’t?” she asked. “You know him, who he was. Do you know what he could want? Where he would go?”
“His mother’s,” Mulder answered. “But the cops are all over there. Besides, if he escaped before last night, he could have already been to his mother’s and left.”
“Wouldn’t you think someone would have noticed if he wasn’t talking or eating?” Scully said. “Or that someone would have noticed a man running around in prison clothes?”
“Not if he had help.”
His tone told her this conversation was over with.
Scully still couldn’t understand what it was, exactly, that was upsetting Mulder. He had trouble with this case the first time around, but she didn’t know why this particular case was so important to him.
When they arrived at the motel, Mulder parked and got out before Scully even got her seat belt off. He was standing at the open trunk when she stepped out of the car.
“I got this box,” Mulder told her. “You can have the other.”
He headed toward his room carrying one of the boxes. Scully went to the trunk and took the other one out. She had trouble closing the trunk, but after she managed to get it shut, she went towards her room.
Mulder was opening his door, box of tapes at his feet, as she reached her room.
“Mulder, what am I supposed to be looking for?” she asked.
“If he’s interacting with others and eating,” Mulder answered and picked his box back up. “That means he didn’t escape. When he becomes an emotionless drone, that’s when you’ll know he’s not there.”
She frowned, thinking this wasn’t going to help them at all. “Mulder...”
“Please, Scully.” His eyes locked with hers. “Trust me.”
“Fine,” she gave in. “I’ll call if I find something you’d be interested in.”
Once Scully accessed her own room, she began the tedious task of going through the video tapes. She was already tired and the work was boring. It was hard enough to pick Cohen out of the other inmates, but she also had to pay attention to see if he seemed “there.”
Her tapes were from the beginning of the week and she assumed she would find nothing of interest. Although, she noted the same guard paid particular attention to Cohen, but other than that, there was nothing strange.
Scully was trying not to drift into sleep as she fast forwarded through footage. She was almost about to take a break when she saw it. Jake Cohen was zoned out and silent. Scully paused the tape and picked up her cell phone. He answered after one ring.
“Mulder, it’s me. I think I got something.”
“I figured you would,” he responded. “My tapes included a Jake just as zoned out as the tapes from the night before. I was seeing if anyone noticed. I’ll be right over.”
Scully hung up her cell phone and tossed it to her bed. She went to the door and opened it, waiting for Mulder. His motel room door opened and he came into her room.
“I was hoping I would get more insight into his ability from watching my tapes, but I don’t think I’m any closer to understanding it,” Mulder told her as he walked toward her television. “What have you got?”
“Cohen went into that trance like state four days ago,” she said and hit the play button.
“That’s not good,” he commented.
They watched the tape together in fast motion, Mulder’s eyes fixed on Cohen. Scully leaned closer to the television as well, seeing someone familiar.
“That guard.” She pointed.
“What about him?” Mulder asked and froze the tape.
“He talked to Cohen in the other tapes,” Scully informed him. “Quite frequently, but never for very long. Now, it’s almost like he’s overlooking him, pretending he’s not there.”
“Could you tell what they were talking about before?” Mulder asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “It was always brief. Usually one sided. I thought they were just snide remarks, but this guard could be the one who got him out.”
“Looks like we’re heading back to the prison,” Mulder told her and turned off the tape.
Rating: R.
Disclaimer: I don't own The X-Files, nor the characters.
Summary: A case Mulder worked on in the past comes back into his life when a serial killer escapes. As Mulder brings Scully onto the case with him, things go wrong... very wrong. Rated R for MATURE content, including triggering materials.
“Morning, Scully,” Mulder greeted her as she stepped into the basement office.
“Good morning, Mulder,” she returned with a smile.
“Case file’s on your desk,” he said and gave a nod toward it. He was standing at the filing cabinet, sifting through the files, looking for something that didn’t seem to be there.
“What have we got?” Scully asked.
She picked up the case file and flipped it open. Mulder stopped his search and leaned against the filing cabinet, eyes on her.
“Jake Cohen,” he told her. “Thirty eight. Convicted of nine murders and serving six life sentences consecutively.”
Scully’s eyebrows drew together as she skimmed the police report. “How does this involve us?”
“Didn’t catch the news this morning, Scully?” Mulder asked her.
“No.” She looked up at him. “My alarm didn’t go off, so I didn’t have time. Why?”
“He escaped from prison sometime between last night and this morning,” Mulder informed her.
“How?”
She looked down at the mug shot included in the file. Jake Cohen’s dark hair was unruly and his eyes were wide and dark.
“That’s the mystery.” Mulder approached her. “No one knows.”
“What do you mean?” Scully brought her gaze back to him.
“Cohen was in his cell at night, but the next morning, he wasn’t there.” Mulder sat against his desk.
“So, it had to be an inside job,” Scully concluded.
“That’s what they’re thinking, except no one knows how he could have gotten out even if it was an inside job,” Mulder replied. “The security cameras picked up nothing, the guards were accounted for all night. It appears as if he just... disappeared.”
Scully closed the chart, eyes locked with his. “And you think this is an X-File?”
“Could be,” he answered her. “We’re going to check out the prison cell and talk to the guards.”
“Okay then.” Scully nodded. “Let’s go.”
Mulder stepped into the jail cell first. He breathed out in a quiet sigh, not seeing anything that immediately indicated this was an X-File. But he knew who he was dealing with, which meant the means of escape could have been under strange circumstances.
It wasn’t that Jake Cohen appeared to have any special abilities, but he seemed to be able to keep himself from being caught. It took months to finally put him under arrest and even that had been tricky.
Scully observed Mulder’s careful consideration of the room. She didn’t see anything peculiar or out of place. She was certain one of the guards helped Cohen to escape. It was the only plausible explanation.
“Well?” she asked.
“Everything’s in perfect order,” Mulder said and faced her. “A little too perfect.”
“What do you mean?” Her eyebrows drew together.
“The bed’s made.” Mulder stepped to the side, so she could get a better view of it. “There were rounds at midnight.”
“So?” she replied. “If he was planning to escape, he wouldn’t have gone to bed.”
“If he was planning to escape, he would’ve wanted to appear as if he had gone to bed,” Mulder told her.
“Or maybe he didn’t care,” she pointed out.
“It just doesn’t seem right.” Mulder took another look at the cell. “Even if he was waiting, he would have at least sat down. There’s no indication this bed had been touched.”
“I don’t know why that’s so important,” Scully honestly confessed to him.
“Yeah,” Mulder agreed quickly. “Let’s go.”
Mulder moved past her and stepped out of the jail cell. He waited, allowing Scully to walk down the cell block first. He came up beside her, blocking her from the men in the cells on the left.
“In any case, we need to figure out what his next step is,” Scully said. “He’s obviously dangerous.”
“Yeah,” Mulder responded, distracted with his own thoughts.
They stopped at the door and waited for the buzzer to sound. Once it had, Scully opened the door and stepped to the other side where a guard was stationed. He gave them a tight smile as they headed for the main entrance.
“Mulder, are you okay?” Scully asked, noticing how quiet he had become and how distant he seemed.
“I’m fine, Scully.”
Mulder forced a smile on his face, but she wasn’t convinced. She let it go for now, not wanting to press it when they still had work to do.
They walked down the white metal staircase at the end of the hall and stepped onto the main floor. The doors leading outside were in front of them, but Mulder led Scully to the left where the security office was located.
“One quick stop,” Mulder told her.
“Where?” she asked.
“Security office.”
Mulder stopped at the door with ‘Security Office’ printed on it in bold black letters. The guard that brought them into the prison was on the other side of the door. He stood upon seeing them and buzzed them in.
Scully entered first and Mulder followed her in. He approached the desk since Scully wasn’t quite sure what they were doing here.
“Agent Mulder,” the security guard greeted him. “Is there something you need?”
“Actually, yes,” Mulder answered. “Have you looked through all the footage from last night?”
“Yes, it’s all been reviewed,” he responded.
“What about during the day?” Mulder asked.
“He was here during the day,” the guard said.
“But did you look to see if there was any suspicious activity?” Mulder replied.
“We don’t have that kind of time to look through hours of footage to maybe see five minutes of him,” the guard explained, “but if you want to, you’re welcome to the tapes.”
“Yes.” Mulder nodded. “Thank you.”
The guard gave a nod in return. “I’ll have someone bring them up.”
Scully was staring down at the case file. She glanced over at Mulder, but his eyes were focused on the road as he drove them to the motel. She looked back down at the file.
“Mulder?”
“Yeah?”
“Who was the arresting officer in Jake Cohen’s case?” Scully brought her gaze back to him.
He looked over at her. “What does that matter?”
“Well, you seem to know a lot about this man,” she said.
Mulder kept his eyes on the road and remained quiet for a long moment.
“I led the investigation. I was the one who took him in.”
“Why didn’t you say something before?” she asked.
“It wasn’t worth mentioning,” he answered.
“Why not?”
“I was just lucky we even caught the guy,” Mulder explained. “It took months. He would vanish. Sometimes right before our eyes. We set up cameras in his apartment and we were about to go in and get him. He walked out of frame in one camera, but didn’t appear again on any of the others. When we went in, he was gone. There was no way he could have left his apartment without us seeing.”
“Then how did he get out?” she replied, confused.
“We never figured it out,” he told her. “We ended up getting a lucky break when two feds saw him at a mall, probably hunting his next victim. We staked out the place and got him.”
Scully closed the case file. “You got inside his head before, where do you think he’s going now?”
“I don’t know.”
His words were dismissive and he kept his focus on the road. Scully’s eyebrows drew together as she watched him. He was trying to let on that this case meant nothing personal to him, but she could see through that.
Instead of pressing him further on the matter, she kept quiet and looked out her own window.
Scully knocked on his motel room door. After a minute, the door opened. Mulder gave her a smile and stepped back, allowing her room to enter.
“Come in,” he said. “I have something for you to look at.”
Mulder closed the door and led the way over to the television. The tape was paused on a scene from the cafeteria. Scully planted her hands on her hips as Mulder hit play.
“Here’s Cohen entering the cafeteria.” Mulder pointed Jake Cohen out on the screen. “But he doesn’t eat.”
“Maybe he was nervous about escaping,” Scully offered an explanation.
“He doesn’t do anything,” Mulder went on. “He sits down, right there, in the back, for the entire lunch, then gets up and leaves. No talking, no moving, nothing.”
“And?” She cocked an eyebrow.
“Maybe it wasn’t him.” Mulder paused the tape. “Maybe it was someone... or something else.”
“What are you getting at, Mulder?” she asked.
“When we were sitting on his apartment, he wouldn’t do anything, but sit or stand,” Mulder explained, locking eyes with her. “He didn’t eat, he didn’t use the bathroom, he didn’t watch television, or answer the phone.”
“And you think that... what?” she replied, a little confused. “It’s a hoax?”
“Or that he’s projecting himself,” Mulder said.
“Projecting himself,” Scully repeated doubtfully, a frown planting itself on her face.
“He’s physically in another place,” Mulder presented his theory. “He has the focus, the energy, to project himself, his image, somewhere else. A sort of astral projection.”
She was at a loss for words for a moment as she stared at him. Scully shook her head.
“You can’t be serious.”
“He could have escaped days before his projection vanished.” Mulder walked toward the bed and picked up his jacket. “I need to get the security tapes from the past week.”
“Mulder, shouldn’t we be figuring out who helped Cohen escape so we can try to find him?” Scully suggested as she approached him.
“We’ll get that answer in the tapes.” He zipped his jacket and headed for the door.
“You’ll be wasting your time,” she responded. “It’s impossible. You’ll be watching days worth of footage for nothing.”
“If you don’t want a part in it, that’s fine, Scully.” Mulder opened the door.
“Wait,” she said. “I’m going with you.”
Scully went after him and closed the door behind herself.
Mulder and Scully found themselves in the basement of the prison with the night security guard, Joseph Watson. He was bald, buff, and seemed quite irritated with his job.
Watson flicked on the light to the storage room and stepped in. Mulder and Scully followed him in to see rows of shelves lined with boxes.
“What is it you want again?” Watson asked.
“The security tapes from the past week,” Mulder answered him.
“Why?” Watson grunted and led them down a row.
“I believe we can find out who helped him escape by looking at his interactions,” Mulder said.
“You’re not like other cops, are you?”
Watson eyed Mulder up a moment, then glanced at Scully, before pulling a box from the shelf above his head. He dropped the box into Mulder’s arms.
Mulder was surprised by the weight, but managed not to drop it. Watson pulled another box down, but didn’t hand it over to Scully. He carried it as he brought them back to the door.
“These have the whole last week?” Mulder asked, following behind him.
“Yes.”
Scully glanced over at Mulder and followed him out of the room.
“Say we don’t find what you’re looking for, Mulder.” Scully looked to her partner, the passing street lamp illuminating him for a moment. “What then?”
“We’ll find something.” His hands were tight on the steering wheel.
“And if we don’t?” she asked. “You know him, who he was. Do you know what he could want? Where he would go?”
“His mother’s,” Mulder answered. “But the cops are all over there. Besides, if he escaped before last night, he could have already been to his mother’s and left.”
“Wouldn’t you think someone would have noticed if he wasn’t talking or eating?” Scully said. “Or that someone would have noticed a man running around in prison clothes?”
“Not if he had help.”
His tone told her this conversation was over with.
Scully still couldn’t understand what it was, exactly, that was upsetting Mulder. He had trouble with this case the first time around, but she didn’t know why this particular case was so important to him.
When they arrived at the motel, Mulder parked and got out before Scully even got her seat belt off. He was standing at the open trunk when she stepped out of the car.
“I got this box,” Mulder told her. “You can have the other.”
He headed toward his room carrying one of the boxes. Scully went to the trunk and took the other one out. She had trouble closing the trunk, but after she managed to get it shut, she went towards her room.
Mulder was opening his door, box of tapes at his feet, as she reached her room.
“Mulder, what am I supposed to be looking for?” she asked.
“If he’s interacting with others and eating,” Mulder answered and picked his box back up. “That means he didn’t escape. When he becomes an emotionless drone, that’s when you’ll know he’s not there.”
She frowned, thinking this wasn’t going to help them at all. “Mulder...”
“Please, Scully.” His eyes locked with hers. “Trust me.”
“Fine,” she gave in. “I’ll call if I find something you’d be interested in.”
Once Scully accessed her own room, she began the tedious task of going through the video tapes. She was already tired and the work was boring. It was hard enough to pick Cohen out of the other inmates, but she also had to pay attention to see if he seemed “there.”
Her tapes were from the beginning of the week and she assumed she would find nothing of interest. Although, she noted the same guard paid particular attention to Cohen, but other than that, there was nothing strange.
Scully was trying not to drift into sleep as she fast forwarded through footage. She was almost about to take a break when she saw it. Jake Cohen was zoned out and silent. Scully paused the tape and picked up her cell phone. He answered after one ring.
“Mulder, it’s me. I think I got something.”
“I figured you would,” he responded. “My tapes included a Jake just as zoned out as the tapes from the night before. I was seeing if anyone noticed. I’ll be right over.”
Scully hung up her cell phone and tossed it to her bed. She went to the door and opened it, waiting for Mulder. His motel room door opened and he came into her room.
“I was hoping I would get more insight into his ability from watching my tapes, but I don’t think I’m any closer to understanding it,” Mulder told her as he walked toward her television. “What have you got?”
“Cohen went into that trance like state four days ago,” she said and hit the play button.
“That’s not good,” he commented.
They watched the tape together in fast motion, Mulder’s eyes fixed on Cohen. Scully leaned closer to the television as well, seeing someone familiar.
“That guard.” She pointed.
“What about him?” Mulder asked and froze the tape.
“He talked to Cohen in the other tapes,” Scully informed him. “Quite frequently, but never for very long. Now, it’s almost like he’s overlooking him, pretending he’s not there.”
“Could you tell what they were talking about before?” Mulder asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “It was always brief. Usually one sided. I thought they were just snide remarks, but this guard could be the one who got him out.”
“Looks like we’re heading back to the prison,” Mulder told her and turned off the tape.