DARK SUNSET by Mort

Book One: Part One

"Australia is gone," Mulder mumbled quietly.

"What?" Scully asked absently, too engrossed in the report she was reading to truly register Mulder's near whisper.

"Australia," Mulder repeated, his voice a little louder but still so flat and emotionless that it belied his words. "It's gone."

Scully looked up from her desk, pausing to push a loose strand of red hair back behind her right ear, and narrowed her eyes in annoyance.

"Look, Mulder. I've already told you it wasn't me. *I* didn't put that copy of 'Mars Attacks' on your chair. I certainly didn't put that poster up in the canteen.  I also know you're upset that Skinner refused your request to investigate the news reports. What I don't understand is why you're taking it out on me. Making juvenile jokes at my expense won't make you feel any better."

Instead of replying, Mulder merely raised his eyes from the computer screen to meet hers and she swallowed nervously. Mulder was taking the joke too far. His hazel eyes were glassy with apparent shock, in a face that had drained of all color.

Mulder's lips worked silently for a moment and then an explosion of sound emerged as a flood of words tripped over each other in their rush to escape his mouth.

"Gone. Poof. Vanished. Some kind of nuke, maybe. It hasn't been blown up as much as disintegrated. The whole continent has simply disappeared."

For a moment, Scully waited for the inevitable grin to appear on his face as he called out 'April Fool' or some similar nonsense. She'd kill him, she decided, then she'd laugh maybe and then everything would be alright again.

Then, as the seconds ticked past, and she continued to stare into Mulder's shocked, haunted face, Scully finally had to accept that maybe *nothing* would ever be alright again. 

She dragged herself to her feet and crossed the room so slowly that it was as though she traversed the length of a ballpark, rather than the few feet that separated normality from nightmare. There, in front of her eyes, she saw the newsflash that announced the complete destruction of the Australian continent.

"It's a hoax," she said without conviction. "Someone's just playing a cruel joke on you, Mulder. Log out and I'll log back in with my password instead and we'll check Reuters."

She didn't wait for permission, she simply leant over Mulder's shoulder and punched at his keyboard with shaking fingers.

"Fuck," Mulder said, as Scully finally opened the Reuters site and a fresh news item rolled down in front of their eyes.

"Japan?" Scully read aloud in disbelief. "Japan has gone? Why dammit? Why are they doing it? Are they going to kill us all?"

Mulder refrained nobly from pointing out that until that moment Scully had been convinced that the whole invasion fleet was an elaborate television hoax. She hadn't been alone in her doubts. Despite the detailed and graphic pictures that had filled the television channels the night before, most of the daily newspapers had decried the whole thing as a hoax or irresponsible publicity stunt. 

Mulder had a horrible feeling that it was that very refusal by the general public to take the situation seriously that had caused the aliens to escalate their actions from threats to immediate genocide.

"It's just their way of getting our attention, Scully. They have proven that they can kill us. Now they will tell the rest of us to surrender."

"We won't. The President won't ever agree to surrender," Scully stated firmly, although her blue eyes were dark with shock as her long-held beliefs of what was true and what was fantasy collapsed around her like faded leaves in autumn.

"He just has," AD Skinner told them, walking into the basement with a shell-shocked look on his face. "He held out when Australia and Japan went, but when South America was destroyed he offered our complete surrender."

"South America?" Scully gasped.

"I guess the net hasn't caught up with *that* one," Mulder muttered, his face carefully blank.

"Well, it seems you were right yet again, Agent Mulder," Skinner growled, glaring at Mulder as though the invasion was somehow his responsibility. "I guess there's a lot of people who'll be standing in line to apologize to you."

"Forgive me if I don't cheer over the possibility, Sir," Mulder replied bitterly, unable to stop a flash of fresh hurt registering in his already wounded eyes. 

Skinner shrugged apologetically. He knew that snapping at Mulder was just a case of chopping the messenger's head off because the news was bad. Hell, if people *had* listened to Mulder instead of dismissing him as crazy, they wouldn't have all been caught with their pants down.

On the other hand, no amount of preparation would have armored them against the destructive technology of the Albrecx. It was obvious that they were completely out-gunned and out of their league. Before the first Mothership had even entered orbit, the Albrecx had sent an advanced party to release a virus that had wiped the computer hardware controlling the defense systems of every country with nuclear capability.

Then they had sent a message demanding complete unconditional surrender directly to every television screen in the world, even those which were turned off at the time. Unfortunately, unlike the mass panic when the first radio transmission of "War of the Worlds" had been broadcast, the public had completely disregarded the Aliens' message as being no more than a bizarre publicity stunt. Instead of ringing their congressmen in panic, people had jammed switchboards complaining to the cable and television companies that their regular programs had been interrupted.

Skinner himself had only been advised of the state of national emergency two hours previously. For the first hour he'd received a constant flow of telephone and video calls telling him to hold tight and await for instructions regarding the intended deployment of his men. In the last hour, Skinner had received notification that all air traffic had now been grounded by an invisible but impenetrable energy barrier. All communication had been lost with all navy vessels, including nuclear submarines, and the satellite communication systems orbiting the earth were being systematically destroyed. He was told that it wouldn't be long before all long-range communication was impossible.  Then, ten minutes ago, he'd been told that they had surrendered.

"Why are you down here, Sir?" Scully asked.

"I - um - wanted to tell you this personally. As one of the stipulations of accepting our unconditional surrender, the aliens, the Albrecx, have ordered that all military bases, laboratories and government buildings are sealed. All government workers will be assessed for their usefulness to the Albrecx during their occupancy. It appears they believe that only the most advanced humans are working in positions of authority and they expect our co-operation with their takeover."

"Well that just reduces my confidence in their supposedly superior intelligence," Mulder snorted.

"They appear to have a strict military hierarchy and a rigid caste structure. They assume, I suppose, that we operate a similar system," Skinner explained. "They have given us no indication that they intend further bloodshed," he added, although he didn't look any more comfortable than Mulder and Scully at the prospect of being 'assessed' by the Aliens.

"What kind of usefulness?" Scully asked suspiciously.

"The aliens claim that humans aren't native to this planet. They're saying that we were originally 'planted' on this planet by them for later retrieval and so, by default, we are their property. They apparently had no intention of returning to Earth this quickly, but because of the interference of other aliens, the ones Mulder called the Grays, they have been forced to come here and 'harvest' us sooner than they expected."

"Was 'harvest' their exact word?" Mulder asked quietly, a feeling of new dread causing his stomach to knot and twist with anxiety.

"Yes," Skinner said, carefully keeping his expression neutral.

"Oh shit," Mulder hissed.

"Exactly," Skinner agreed.

"What?" Scully asked angrily, understanding she was missing some salient point. "What's going on? What aren't you saying?"

"It's the word, Scully. Harvest. It implies bad things," Mulder explained. Then, seeing her eyes widen with fear in a face that was still desperately trying to look calm, he gave a self-depreciating smile. "Hey, don't listen to me. I'm paranoid, remember? Maybe it's just a translation thing."

Scully gave a tentative smile but it didn't reach her eyes. In all the years that she'd worked with Mulder, despite his unfortunate and often embarrassing insistence on believing the impossible, she'd never once found his gut instincts about a situation to be wrong. Now, when the arrival of the Aliens had finally vindicated Mulder's belief in their existence, she had to accept that his instinct about *them* was probably equally valid.

Yet it was equally obvious that both Mulder and Skinner were trying to protect her from knowing the worst. Usually the knowledge that she was being treated as though she were too delicate for the truth made her erupt into fury. This time, as the foundations of all her beliefs crumbled in the face of the Alien's arrival, she was prepared to let it slide until she found her bearings again. What did their arrival mean for her faith? How could the doctrines of her religious beliefs bear the scrutiny of the Alien claim that humans had been 'planted' on this planet?

The painstakingly woven tapestry of her combined scientific knowledge and her so unscientific faith was unraveling in the face of the Alien's arrival, and Scully teetered on the edge of a dark precipice of the unfamiliar emotion of doubt.

"Do you know what they look like yet, Sir?" Mulder asked suddenly, as though he could see Scully's mental floundering and wanted to throw her a lifeline.

Yes, Scully told herself, facts. I need to concentrate on facts now. Nothing else matters, and she forced herself to release the mental threads of her own disintegrating soul and grasp instead onto the more substantial reality of the Albrecx.

Skinner swallowed heavily as he forced himself to remember his first sight of the invaders on the video tape sent over from the White House. He attempted to answer clinically, knowing that both Mulder and Scully wanted facts not a description of his instinctive feeling of terror.

"They are bipedal, their faces are almost human, at least to the extent that their expressions appear similar to ours. It's impossible to judge their height on a television screen but they *appear* to be unusually tall. The most significant difference is that they have three long tentacles that reach almost to their feet. Two that grow from the side of their waists like extra arms and one thicker one that seems to be attached to their abdomen. It's centrally situated and resembles an Elephant's trunk. Our scientists believe it is either some form of reproductive organ or perhaps an extra mouth."

"So do we know what they want yet?" Mulder asked.

"Not really. They have assured the President that they have little or no interest in the majority of the population at this stage. The implication is that they intend to govern from their ships without ever landing on the surface. If that's true, it makes sense that they are looking for people to act as intermediaries. Hence the assessment of government personnel like ourselves."

"It's possible that their physiology can't adapt to this environment," Scully suggested carefully. "They may be unable to survive on the surface. That would explain their decision to appoint human trustees for the general population."

Mulder's face twisted. He was pretty damned sure that the more likely explanation was that the aliens just wanted to round up all the possible future trouble makers and eliminate them. Without any authority figures, the rest of the population would quickly descend into panicked anarchy and would then be easily subdued. He opened his mouth to say so, but Skinner caught his eye and gave a tiny shake of his head.

Mulder snapped his mouth shut abruptly, while a cold shiver of true dread passed through his body. He was so used to Skinner simply barking out brutal facts with apparent carelessness of the sensibilities of lesser mortals that the AD's atypical reticence rang a new strident alarm in Mulder's head. His keen mind grasped the fact, slotted it impeccably within the framework of his mind and he reached an unpalatable conclusion: Skinner obviously knew something he wasn't telling them, something really bad, and was here to ensure that they went quietly to whatever fate awaited them. 

/But why?/ 

No sooner had he asked himself the question than Mulder knew the answer. Because they had no choice. They were FBI Special Agents. They had sworn to protect and defend the civilian population, even if doing so cost them their own lives. 

"Yeah," Mulder murmured to Scully. "That's obviously what's going on. We're being summoned to swear a new oath of loyalty or something."

Above her head, Skinner's sad brown eyes met his in gratitude for sparing Scully the terror of knowing she was probably only minutes away from walking to her death. Mulder hoped that the aliens would be similarly merciful and just disintegrate them all, or something similarly painless, before they even knew they were about to die.

"All male employees are to go to the canteen, all female to the basement car park. The Albrecx say they have devices that can scan the building. Anyone hiding or attempting to escape will be 'put down' without warning. The announcement has already been made to the rest of the staff. Under the circumstances, I wanted to tell both of you myself," Skinner told them

"I'm not letting Scully go down there alone," Mulder protested. It was one thing to imagine dying together. It was a completely different thing to let Scully face the aliens on her own.

Then again, maybe they weren't going to be killed after all. Why bother separating them if they were all simply expendable? He still didn't like the idea of splitting up though.

"Any male in the car park will be put down, Mulder," Skinner replied. "The orders are specific and the aliens seem to have a military inflexibility to the idea of anyone breaking or even 'bending' orders. If you go with Scully, they'll kill you. If you try to hide or run, they'll kill you. They won't hesitate any more than they hesitated to destroy three entire continents. They've got the ability to remove America from the map, and they've proven that they are willing to do it. For the sake of the people of this country, we have to co-operate with the Albrecx. All we can do is obey their orders and pray to god that they are more benevolent than they appear."

"And if they aren't?" Mulder challenged.

"Then we need to survive long enough to fight them. None of us can do any good if we're dead, Mulder."

"So you want us to just do as we are told?" Scully asked sadly, reaching out to squeeze Mulder's hand comfortingly.

"For now. It's all any of us can do," Skinner advised.

"You know more than you told us," Mulder accused Skinner, as they began to ascend the staircase. He spoke mainly to create enough noise to drown the faint tap of Scully's descending footsteps. He thought that if he listened to them for just a moment longer, he'd be unable to prevent himself from turning and charging after her. She was his partner, dammit. She was Scully. And in that moment, the fate of the rest of the world seemed almost insignificant in comparison with the life of one tiny spitfire redhead.

As though he could sense Mulder's inner turmoil, Skinner grasped his arm in a gesture that was both comforting and restraining.

"All I know is that the aliens intend to take certain people on board their Motherships. We only have a rough idea of their criteria for choosing and there's no suggestion that anyone who is chosen will be returned again."

"What about those who aren't chosen? Will they be 'put down?"

"We don't know," Skinner admitted reluctantly.

"You don't know much, do you,  Sir?" Mulder snarled sarcastically.

Skinner didn't bother to reply. It was difficult enough to find himself in the unusual position of being helpless, without admitting that terrible impotence to Mulder. He was meekly following orders that would probably lead not only to his own death but to that of every Agent under his charge. Their trust, their obedience to his orders, was driving the nails of damnation into his soul. They were all sworn to serve and protect. But what of him? What of his duty to serve and protect the men and women under his control? All he knew was that he had no choice. Disobedience to the Albrecx would bring swift and fatal retribution. Obedience might buy them all a little time.

Or maybe, like blind cattle, he was simply leading them straight into the abattoir.

They were in the corridor outside the canteen, already hearing the babble of nervous voices inside, before Mulder spoke again.

"Why did you come and get me personally?"

"I'm your supervisor," Skinner replied. "Besides, I wanted to take the opportunity to apologize for never believing in you before."

Mulder nodded, Skinner's tone of apology sounded genuine, but Mulder was still convinced that Skinner was lying. His discomfort with Mulder's question was evident in both the taut tension of his shoulders and his carefully averted eyes.

"Yes, you're our Supervisor, but then again we're just two relatively insignificant members of your team, and let's face it, we've never been particularly close, have we? So what's the real reason?" Mulder asked softly.

Skinner bristled with offence, then deflated a little as his conscience won over his orders not to tell. It was a little late for subterfuge, and for all he knew, the people who had given him those orders were already dead.

"I was sent to collect you, Mulder, because the Albrecx asked for you specifically by your name," Skinner said quietly.

Before Mulder could absorb his words, Skinner opened the canteen door and swept them both inside.

The room was crowded, not only with Agents but with the hundreds of civilian staff who worked behind the scenes at the Hoover Building, from mailboys to specialist consultants. There were men of all ages and colors, wearing anything from formal suits to casual sweaters and jeans. The only uniform feature among them was the terrified look in their eyes.

"Is everyone here?"  Skinner asked the room in general.  

It was Deputy Director Kersh who stepped forward to reply, hiding his own fear behind a bombastic air of self-importance.

"Yes, you're the last. Now we're just waiting for those bastards to make their move."

"What do you mean they asked for me by name," Mulder demanded, tugging on Skinner's sleeve for attention.

Again, it was Kersh who answered the question, his face twisted into a bitter smile.

"It seems your friends, the Grays, have talked about you, Agent Mulder. They named you as one of the main reasons their own invasion plans were thwarted. So it seems we have you to thank for the arrival of the Albrecx. How does that feel Mulder? To know you're personally responsible for the billions of lives that have already been wiped out today?"

Mulder was too shocked at the accusation to even answer. He just froze in disbelief. His mouth gaped open in horror as he was rendered untypically speechless by the cruel accusation. Skinner's reaction was equally untypical, but far more dramatic. He punched Kersh in the face.

"You're an asshole, Kersh," he pronounced. Then he looked up at the other gathered men. "Anyone who believes him is an asshole too. Agent Mulder has spent years trying to warn us that this day would come and all we did was mock him for it. He's not to blame for the invasion. If it hadn't been for him it would simply have happened sooner because the Albrecx would have still arrived to prevent the Grays from invading."

"So why have they asked for him by name?" Agent Pat O'Reilly challenged.

Skinner stiffened as he stared O'Reilly down. O'Reilly had come to the FBI after starting his career as a Chicago cop. He was a big, blustering red-haired man of Irish descent who was happier facing problems with his fists than his brain and his consequent lack of promotion in the bureau had left him belligerent and envious of Agents like Mulder.

"Maybe they are assessing for intelligence," Skinner growled, "in which case he wins hands down over the rest of us, doesn't he, O'Reilly? Since he's the only one of us who even guessed that aliens really existed."

Before O'Reilly thought of a reply, the air around them began to shimmer with a pale, blue light and the room filled with a collective groan of fear.

Mulder shuffled uncomfortably as his whole body began to tingle unpleasantly. The sensation was like a thousand ants crawling over his flesh, then it intensified. The tingle became a sting and then a burn. He found himself scratching frantically at his arms and chest, and all around him he could see the other men clawing at their own clothing.

Then the air thickened around them and  one by one, people began to disappear. There was a stampede of panic towards the door, but the blue light responded by aiming itself at the fleeing people and devouring them. 

Only Mulder and Skinner remained in place. Their eyes locking together as they seemed to share an unspoken pact to die with dignity

Without even thinking about what he was doing, let alone why, Skinner moved closer to Mulder, offering what little comfort his presence might offer.

"Here goes," Mulder quipped bravely.

Skinner smiled back tightly, and then the room blurred around him. There was an almost chest crushing pressure against his lungs, his stomach lurched as though he were on a fairground ride, and he had the sickening sensation of falling down a long, endless tunnel.

When he finally hit the ground, retching miserably as his stomach emptied itself, his first thought was amazement that he was alive, swiftly followed by dread of what would happen next. His survival, and the change in his surroundings, convinced him that rather than the blue light being an extermination device, it had been some form of molecular transporter. It seemed that they had all simply been beamed up to the alien mothership. It was like something out of Star Trek, except Skinner was damned certain Captain Kirk never ended up naked and puking his guts out.

He was too busy vomiting to waste any time feeling embarrassed about his nakedness, particularly since all his fellow-workers were in a similar state of undress.
Either deliberately or as a side-effect of the transport device, only their bodies had been transported. Their clothes and weapon were either still in the canteen or had been disintegrated during the transport. 

He shivered with fear. His nakedness made him feel more vulnerable than the loss of his weapon, but his only real concern was the fact that he'd also lost his glasses.

All around him, people were kneeling or lying in misery, the room was filled with the sound of retching and the sweet sickly smell of vomit. Some of the men had lost control of their bowels too, judging from the additional stench that was making Skinner's now empty stomach try to heave once more.

"Definite shades of Auschwitz," Mulder mumbled into his ear.

"What?" Skinner asked, controlling his gag reflex with obvious effort. His blurred vision could make out the younger man's pale, equally naked body but he was struggling to focus on Mulder's face.

"Gas chambers," Mulder clarified. 

"I can't see," Skinner pointed out reasonably. "I seem to have misplaced my glasses."

Mulder gave a tiny bark of laughter at Skinner's bland comment. The sound echoed uncomfortably through the dozens of shivering men as it sparked a reaction of nervous hysteria.

"We're in a large metallic room, maybe twenty meters by forty. The floor has a series of grates and the ceiling seems to be fitted with a huge sprinkler system," Mulder explained.

"Perhaps it's a huge shower," Skinner suggested.

"Yeah, that's what they thought at Auschwitz too," Mulder replied darkly.

"Help me to my feet?" Skinner asked, still too disorientated to risk rising alone.

"Sure," Mulder replied, reaching for his hand and hauling him to his feet.

They both stood uncertainly for a few moments, Mulder scanning the seemly seamless walls for an exit and Skinner simply trying to see the walls at all. Skinner opened his mouth to ask for further details of the room, only for his ears to fill with a deafening hiss. Before he had a chance to identify the sound, a high-pressure wave of icy water poured from the ceiling, knocking him back down to his knees and pinning him there.

He could hear people spluttering and choking as the relentless curtain of water beat down without pause or respite. Even keeping his face turned towards the floor, it was almost impossible to breathe without swallowing the near frozen water.

His lungs were groaning in protest and he began to believe he would drown. Then, just as he was beginning to black out, the water was abruptly switched off. Skinner gasped with relief, his tortured lungs dragging desperately for oxygen. He was almost blue with cold now but at least the terrible stench of sickness had left the room so his stomach finally stopped attempting to escape through his mouth.

"Guess it *is* just a shower, after all," Mulder muttered through chattering teeth. 

Skinner just grunted. He was too busy shivering with shock and cold. A small voice in the back of his head was telling him he should get up, check the others were all right, give some kind of pep talk, look for a way out maybe. He just couldn't force himself to move, though. His limbs felt weak and uncoordinated, his head ached from the earlier oxygen deprivation and although his nausea had seemingly passed, any attempt to move threatened to bring it back again.

It was instinct alone that forced him to at least drag himself the few inches to Mulder's side so that their cold flesh touched and eventually he could feel a little warmth generating between them. Without conscious thought, or any sense of expected embarrassment, they huddled closer together and dozed.

"Okay, we're cold, naked and soon we'll be starving to death, but at least we're clean," Mulder observed, a couple of hours later, when their shared body heat had finally begun to revive him a little. "Either the Albrecx are using this as some kind of decontamination procedure or it's a psychological game. Have you noticed that none of us have even tried to find a way out? Maybe this lethargy is a side effect of the transport. I mean, I've been cold and scared before, but I've never just lain and suffered in silence."

"Silence?" Skinner chuckled tiredly. "You don't ever stop talking." He shifted his position slightly so that Mulder's body warmth now seeped into his left side. All around them, the other men were huddled together in a similar fashion.

Mulder was right, Skinner realized. Nobody had even tried to rise. Despite the embarrassment of their nakedness, everyone had simply snuggled into someone else's body for warmth and tried to sleep. He began to wonder whether they had been drugged somehow. Cold and fear alone couldn't account for this lethargy. They should have been charged with adrenaline, not apathy.

"Do you think they're doing this to the women too?" Mulder asked suddenly.

"Who knows," Skinner admitted sadly, "but at least we're separated. Think how embarrassing it would be if we were all here together. I don't think I'd ever be able to look Scully in the face again."

"I don't know, Sir," Mulder replied thoughtfully. "For an old guy you're really buff and if you don't mind me mentioning it, you're really hung too." 

Then he colored as he realized that complimenting a male boss on the size of his dick wasn't the best career move. He was glad Skinner had lost his glasses and couldn't see the state of semi-arousal that Skinner's body hug was creating.

It wasn't that he was turned on, Mulder told himself fiercely, although he'd never been particularly fussy about the sex of his occasional bed partners. It was just the heat and clean musky smell of Skinner's body against his own. Not to mention the comfort of those strong arms wrapped protectively around him. It had been a long time since he had felt so comforted merely by the touch of another.

If the situation wasn't so terrifying, Mulder could almost imagine turning in Skinner's arms and snuggling suggestively into that embrace. Then again, if the situation wasn't so scary and cold, he understood that Skinner would hardly be hugging him anyway.

Skinner flushed with a combination of embarrassment and pride. He *was* pretty toned and he'd done enough locker-room comparison to know he was *hung* too. It was weird to have another man actually say it to him though. 

Skinner felt Mulder stiffen, as though his own comment had embarrassed him, and so he pulled the younger man closer and squeezed him gently, letting him know that it was okay, that the situation was so bizarre that they should simply take what comfort they could from each other before the aliens arrived.

Not that the aliens were in any hurry, Skinner realized bitterly. Although there was no way of accurately judging time in that cold, sealed metallic room, at least two hours had already passed since their 'shower'.

It was several more hours before the Albrecx finally came to collect them. By that time, although they were stiff, cold and miserable, the peculiar apathy had finally worn off. People were starting to complain loudly about the indignity of their captivity, most had detached themselves from each other and were instead huddled in individual balls of misery and the atmosphere of the room was tense and angry.

When one of the previously seamless walls shimmered with a blue light and then revealed a doorway, the room began to hum with mutters of combined fear and excitement. Then the doorway itself shimmered, gaping open like a mouth to allow a dozen of the aliens to enter the room.

Their first sight of the Albrecx was enough to still them to silence once more. The aliens were huge. Although only a dozen Albrecx entered the room, their presence managed to completely dominate and overwhelm the far larger group of captives.

The aliens were almost eight foot tall, yet densely muscled. They moved into the room with a speed and grace that was so at odds with their sheer bulk that it suggested to Mulder that the Albrecx were used to a far heavier gravity than Earth's.

Despite their size, they were so human in most aspects of their appearance that it merely made the presence of their tentacles seem more bizarre, Mulder decided, trying to remain objective in an attempt to control his instinctive terror. As Skinner had described, the central tentacle was thicker than a man's arm, was of uniform width down its length, and it ended in what appeared to be a wide-gaping mouth. The side tentacles were equally thick at the aliens' waists but they tapered along their length until they were little thicker than a thumb at their points.

The skin of the middle tentacle was relatively smooth and the whole organ had the disconcerting look of a giant penis. The side tentacles, by contrast, were thickly ridged and the skin had a coarse texture like bark.

Although the tentacles were obviously prehensile, given the way they undulated around the Albrecx's legs, they didn't seem to have any obvious purpose since the aliens were using their arms to hold their weapons.

Mulder had to stifle a nervous giggle at the realization that the Albrecx were all armed with some form of gun that would have looked at home in any B-movie sci-fi flick. He had a horrible feeling that these "ray-guns" were the real thing though, so he was careful to keep his demeanor humble and non-threatening. He decided that the sheer size of the aliens alone demanded a little respect, let alone their weapons. Besides, since they obviously held all the cards, the logical response was to co-operate with them until he could get a handle on their true objective. The first rule of dealing with dangerous people was to try and convince them that you were both harmless and on their side. He had to assume that the same rule applied to aliens.

Kersh, however, didn't seem impressed with the Albrecx at all. He surged to his feet, a look of outrage on his face, and marched up to the aliens, his spine stiff and his whole body quivering with indignation.

"I am Deputy Director Kersh of the FBI, and I demand to know what your intentions are. I'm cold, I ache, I'm tired and I'm hungry. I want my clothes and I want to know what's going on. We were told you wanted to choose suitable candidates to help you govern. Well, let me tell you that if you want our co-operation, you'd damned well better start treating us with more respect," he said belligerently.

"You are in pain?" one of the Albrecx asked, his English surprisingly flawless yet at the same time inhumanly strange due to the rumbling depth of his gravely voice.

"Yes, you bastard," Kersh snarled back.

The Albrecx looked down thoughtfully and then, without even a flicker of emotion crossing his face, he raised his weapon, pointed it at Kersh and fired.

A deep blue flame erupted from the weapon and engulfed the Deputy Director. Mulder watched in frozen disbelief as Kersh gave a high-pitched scream and began a jiggering dance of agony as the blue flames ripped through his body like wildfire.  Kersh's skin  began to blacken and smoke, filling the room with a sickening stench of roasting flesh, and then his skin literally began to peel away. 

Mulder gagged and collapsed to his knees, retching as Kersh's skin began to slowly slide down his body like melting candlewax. The dying man howled in animalistic torment and although it took mere seconds before his charred husk collapsed lifelessly to the floor, Kersh's screams seemed to echo throughout the room long after he had died.

The Albrecx stepped disinterestedly over Kersh's corpse and stared mockingly at his audience of stunned and sickened humans.

"Is anyone else in pain?" he asked.

Other than the occasional choking sound of dry-retching, the room was silent.

"Good. Listen now and understand. There are billions of beasts just like yourselves on the planet below. We require the survival of less than one percent of your population. If you are found suitable, you have the chance now to be among that chosen group. If not you will be put down as flawed useless beasts. The choice is yours and we do not care which choice you make. You are all infinitely replaceable. Understand that and you may survive."

His words were met with a horrified silence and he paused to allow the impact of both his words and his emotionless slaughter of Kersh sink in. His black eyes raked the shivering men and his mouth twisted in a cold smile as he saw the beasts' eyes all widen in terrified understanding. When he was certain that they were all sufficiently subdued by fear, he raised his right tentacle and pointed it towards the left side of the room.

"You will all line up with your backs against this wall, arms at your sides, legs apart,  while our veterinarian examines you for suitability."

"A *vet*?" Skinner muttered.

"I think the term's deliberate. Just in case we still have any doubts about our status here," Mulder whispered back.

"Suitability for what, Sir?" a kneeling Agent asked politely, careful to keep his voice soft and respectful.

Mulder snapped his head in the speaker's direction. Agent Reinhold had dared to ask the question on the tip of his own frozen tongue. Despite his long-held belief in Aliens, Mulder wasn't finding it any easier to deal with the current situation than any of the other men in the room. Reinhold's bravery impressed him and made him feel a little ashamed of himself.

Unfortunately the Albrecx wasn't similarly impressed, despite Reinhold's humble tone. He fired his weapon in a wide arc that not only incinerated Reinhold, but the two men kneeling at his sides.

Then, as though the interruption hadn't happened, the Albrecx continued to address the survivors.

"If the Vet taps you on the shoulder, you are to move to the opposite wall." 

"I guess this is where the assessment starts," Mulder murmured quietly, although Skinner could hear an edge of hysteria in Mulder's voice. "They're separating the wheat from the chaff, maybe."

"But what's their definition of wheat? And which wall's the good wall?" Skinner replied, unsurprised to hear the same wavering terror tingeing his own words.

Mulder just shrugged helplessly. He had no more idea of the aliens criteria of 'suitability'' than Skinner did. 

There was little noise as the humans all rose to their feet and walked to the wall under the aliens' watchful eyes. Most of the men kept their eyes to the floor, ashamed of how frightened they were feeling, of how impossible it felt to defy the aliens when it was so patently obvious that they were considered completely dispensable.

Perhaps deliberately, it was another hour or so before a new Albrecx arrived in the room. By that time, Mulder could feel his knees threatening to give way as the icy cold of the metal walls bit mercilessly into his naked back. His body was now shivering constantly in a desperate effort to cope with the chill and his genitals were so shrunken in fear that it was almost impossible not to try to cover their vulnerability with his hands. 

He had no intention of doing so though, since four of his fellow captives had already discovered that any movement would bring swift punishment. Three had simply moved their arms from their sides, just as Mulder was itching to do, and the fourth had fainted. All had been immediately incinerated by the alien guards.

When the new alien arrived, it was immediately obvious that he was of a different caste from the guards. His clothing was silken rather than leather, he was adorned with jewelry and instead of weapons, this Albrecx had a collection of less obviously dangerous implements dangling between his tentacles. 

He walked slowly up and down the line several times, his dark eyes narrowed in obvious thought. Then he withdrew an instrument from his belt and walked down the line again, this time running a painless beam over each man.

At the end of each examination, he either simply moved wordlessly to the next captive or tapped the current man on the shoulder with the instrument. By the time he had traversed the group, over half of them had been sent to the opposite wall. Skinner was one of his selections and as he crossed over to the other side of the room, he realized with a sinking feeling that his line consisted primarily of men over the age of forty.

The vet continued to poke and prod thoughtfully at the humans in the original line. His examinations were now becoming more thorough. The first time he paused to handle someone's genitals, the man objected loudly at the indignity. After he was dragged out of the line and vaporized, the remaining men suffered the rude handling in silence.

Several more men were eliminated from the line until only twenty-three of the original sixty-seven remained against the wall. To Skinner's relief, despite his blurred vision, he could see that Mulder had remained one of the chosen. He had no idea what that meant, but he was beginning to be damned certain it was better than being on his side of the room.

The Albrecx Vet turned to the alien who seemed to be in charge of the guards and had a long conversation in their own language. From the frequent glances of the guards in his direction, Skinner was positive that the Vet was discussing the fate of the people on his side of the room.

It was impossible to tell whether that fate was good or bad, yet since the Albrecx guard didn't seem particularly happy with the orders he was being given, Skinner dared to hope that he wasn't simply going to be 'put-down' after all, since he couldn't imagine the guard having a problem with *that* order.

Then the Vet issued a terse command and four of the guards joined Mulder's line and led the twenty-three "chosen" men in a single file out of the room.

Even with his blurred vision, Skinner saw Mulder's head turn desperately to look at him as he was marched out. Skinner tried to give Mulder a brave smile, although his gut told him that one way or the other, he was never going to see Agent Mulder again.


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