Title: Kenneth
Author: Elf X
Type: Casefile…
Rating: PG-13; strong language
Spoilers: Folie a Deux
Synopsis: Mulder plays Christmas angel to a man
who’s become a stranger in his own not-so-
wonderful life.
Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully, and their cohorts are
not my property, but are the inspiration of Chris
Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox.
Bloomington, Illinois
Christmas Eve
6:42 p.m.
Kenneth sips his coffee, staring silently for the
thousandth time at the digital display at the
base of the Mr. Coffee on the kitchen counter.
Sean and “Brenda” have left quietly for school,
stealing anxious glances at him as they slip out
the door.
“OK,” Kris sings, grabbing her purse from the
table and shrugging into her jacket. She
experiments with a kiss; Ken submits, wanting to
please her, wanting to be pleased by the physical
intimacy. “Try to have a good day, Sweetie.”
“Mm, yeah,” Ken murmurs with a false and fleeting
smile. Kris regards him with worry and something
else, and nods. The door closes, and his
shoulders relax as he hears her Camry ease out of
the driveway.
Alone in the house, he feels momentarily normal.
Ken risks a glance out the backyard window. His
heart quickens as a small, rust-colored creature
scampers across the grass and up a red maple that
one day had appeared on the lawn.
It takes a moment for Ken to stop shaking and
finish his coffee.
**
Ken hopes to pass quickly by the cubicle which
happens to open onto the hallway, hopes “Brad”
has been called into a staff meeting, hopes Brad
has contracted this year’s superflu or has been
caught shtupping his secretary and has been
unceremoniously added to the unemployment rolls.
“Kenneth,” “Brad” calls out, wheeling around from
his PC. Ken freezes, fixes a smile on his face.
“See the Bulls last night?”
“Mm,” Ken shakes his head and moves on,
registering the look of — what, hurt or
contempt? — on his coworker’s face. Ken’s hand
instinctively burrows into his overcoat pocket,
caressing the cool, comforting steel…
From the field report of Special Agent Scully
Bloomington, Illinois
Christmas Eve
11:22 p.m.
The Scotch pine, strung with bold primary colors
and blazing whites, was perched on the roof of
the seven-story concrete and glass Farmstead
Insurance complex, on the building’s public face
— a misdemeanor breach of corporate protocol,
like ripped jeans on Casual Friday or a
graphically incorrect but good-natured e-mail
joke tacked to the coffee cubicle.
For Mulder and I, the tree was a beacon, guiding
the Bloomington P.D. Crowne Victoria down
Veteran’s Parkway and toward its grim
destination. Even a good four blocks away, I
could see Farmstead Insurance’ northern edifice
blush rhythmically with reds and blues, a sort of
perverted Christmas display signaling discord on
Earth and the ever-prevalent ill will of men.
“Shit detail for Christmas Eve, huh?” the BPD
captain empathized, his eyes locked on the
parkway as he wove tightly between the holiday
diners and last-second gift-grabbers. “Really
appreciate you letting us drag you all the way to
Hell and gone.”
The captain’s evocation of damnation on this
sacred night, in the midst of this crisis –
particularly given its lethal potential — caused
me to shudder. I tried to shake it off as
Scully’s perpetual preternatural itch. The
condition always emerged full-blown during the
holidays. All I’d faced, all I’d lost in every
familial, physical, and spiritual sense, came
home to roost each year, like a dark Yuletide
angel haunting my door. Mulder’s agnostic, off-
track faith in forces unseen saw him through the
season, but my nagging doubts about the existence
of anything but molecules and silence beyond this
earthly veil collided constantly with my Good
Catholic Girl angst, forcing an uneasy compromise
of blind, ritualistic faith.
“Not a big deal, probably would’ve just grabbed
some wassail and waffles at the D.C. Denny’s,”
Mulder said from the seat beside me. “What can
you tell me about Kenneth Ralston?”
The captain’s broad shoulders convulsed. “This’s
just a total blast from the blue, Agent. Ken
Ralston’s kind of mid-exec level at Farmstead –
big house with a three-car garage on the east
side of town, Peoria debutante wife, honor roll
kids, runs the company United Aid campaign every
year, that kinda thing. We’re in the local Lions
together, just pretty much know him to see him,
though.”
“Any idea what might’ve caused this kind of
uncharacteristic behavior?” I asked. “Any
personal or professional setback, tragedy in the
family?”
The cop shrugged. “Ralston had a major accident
in September – nearly drowned saving his kid out
at Lake Bloomington. He was under for, Jesus,
maybe 15 minutes before they got to him, and they
had to bring him back at St. Joseph’s.
Hypothermia, they were afraid he might have
suffered brain damage, but he seemed to pull
through just fine. At the time, I suppose.”
Though the unit’s heater was on full-blast, a
chill was spreading from deep within me. The
captain’s unconsciously religious references
sapped the warmth from me, fed my nearly
constant, seldom-spoken fear that Death, once,
Hell, twice or thrice cheated, was circling back
to claim my soul or that of a suitable
substitute.
“…but apparently, there must’ve been some kinda
brain damage or just, what do they call it with
the Viet vets? Post-traumatic syndrome? Cause his
work performance started going in the toilet, the
wife said he started acting distant. Shit, my old
lady says the same thing every NBA tournament.
Sorry, Agent Scully – no gender stereotypes
intended.”
I woke from my contemplations. “As they say,
stereotypes usually have a basis in truth. For
example, the stereotype of the successful
suburban breadwinner, the ideal family man, can
become a mask for hidden fears and insecurities.
A near-death experience can drastically alter a
person’s perceptions of their daily reality,
redefine their essential ethical and emotional
precepts.”
“Whoa,” the captain chuckled amiably. “Dumb cop,
remember?”
“She’s saying it can fuck you up something
awful,” Mulder provided.
“Now you’re talking my language. OK, folks; here
we are.”
**
Mulder accepted the wire and the microcam, but
refused both the ankle holster and the vest.
“Might as well wear a red cape and jab him with
sharp sticks, don’t you think?” he posed, making
permanent pals with the Peoria PD Tactical Unit
commander BPD had called in to deal with this
rare instance of white-collar mayhem.
“Guy asked specifically for you, huh?” the
commander asked drily, as if the very idea was
both absurd and offensive. “What makes you such a
big deal?”
Mulder smiled broadly – he was used to such jibes
from his “brothers” in law enforcement. “Must be
those commercials I’m running during Judging Amy,
I guess. Hey, I think we’ve got enough tape on
the mike here, Sergeant, unless you want to take
me to dinner and a Julia Roberts movie.”
I bit on my inner cheek. Making friends and
influencing people in the face of danger – that
in itself was ample evidence of Mulder’s faith in
something larger than human foible and the
acceptance of macho cohorts.
“I don’t like the camera,” I murmured, staring at
the small device, no larger than a lapel
microphone, being affixed to poke through one of
Mulder’s buttonholes.
“Digital, with infrared transmission, totally
wireless,” the captain said, as if I’d asked to
see the new 2001 Hondas. “Got it on a pilot
basis, some big Japanese company hopes to makes
some bucks with the metro cop shops.”
“I don’t like it. Ralston trips to the fact
Mulder’s taping him, he could go ballistic.”
“Evil bellybutton eye steal man’s soul,” Mulder
chanted ominously. He caught the look in my eye,
and grinned reassuringly. “Look, Scully; if
Ralston is that attentive, he might be a little
more interested in why I have about five pounds
of duct tape wrapped around my pale torso. I
think the camera’s a moot point. Besides, if you
can track Ralston’s reactions and assess the
risks up there, maybe there’s less chance Lance
here” – he nodded at the tactical commander –
“will blast a few holes in either Ralston or me.”
“Ordinance costs too much to waste on a fed,” the
commander stated. “And the name’s not Lance. It’s
Captain Slaughter.”
Mulder’s brows rose. “Charlie Babbitt made a
joke,” he muttered in a perfect Dustin Hoffman.
The tactical commander sighed. “Button up and
haul ass, Rain Man.”
**
The picture was sharp, if somewhat grainy, and
the camera angle, from navel level, was
disorienting. The view of the elevator button
panel was abruptly interrupted as Mulder panned
to the commander, who just looked blankly ahead.
“Lance is wearing the latest in tactical law
enforcement gear, from Kevlar Klein,” my partner
observed with a faintly British accent. “From the
fashionably rakish Sig nine millimeter to the
reinforced Green Beret boots and accessorized
Mace canister, Lance is ready for a night of
hostage negotiation or the hotdog line at a
Detroit hockey game. This ensemble says no to
wadcutter bullets with a capital ‘N.'”
“Think Ralston’s going to need more protection
than you,” the commander responded.
**
Kenneth Ralston had struck at about 4:45, as the
end-of-the-day crowd was thinning out but his own
departmental team continued to toil on a tightly-
deadlined project. He had two semi-automatic
pistols and far more backup ammunition than
appeared warranted to subdue a 56-year-old
supervisor, two fellow mouse-pushers, and an
administrative assistant barely out of community
college. Within an hour, after Ralston had made
his unusual and very specific singular demand, it
was obvious his judgment regarding weaponry had
been sound.
The tactical commander hung back at the elevator,
covering Mulder’s back as he approached the
departmental suite where Ralston had set up shop.
As I leaned forward at my makeshift monitoring
station in a board conference room, I heard the
hollow ringing of Mulder rapping on the glass
suite door.
A disheveled face appeared as the door swung
partially open. Ralston was fairly young, early
30s, slightly receding hairline fringed with an
obviously expensive cut. The digital microcam
captured only grays, but I could make out a dark
Polo pony against Ralston’s light sports shirt.
What had pushed this man from his likely world of
sports and investments and cookouts into a dark
universe of reprisal and burgeoning violence? As
a physician, I had only my experience to help me
hazard any psychological theory, but I could see
even though the digital grain the stress that
tugged at Ralston’s eyes and mouth and placed
Mulder in a volatile, perhaps deadly, situation.
“Two extra larges, half sausage, half Canadian
bacon, and an order of wings?” I heard Mulder
ask. The Bloomington P.D. captain rustled behind
me.
The man blinked. “You have to be Mulder, right?
Thanks for coming, man; get in here, please. I
don’t trust Dudley Doright at the elevator.”
“Ah, he’s OK, just watched a little too much NYPD
Blue, maybe,” my partner said as he slipped into
the office suite. Mulder trained his buttonhole
cam immediately on the four hostages on the floor
near the receptionist’s desk. Their wrists were
bound before them, and their fear transcended the
depersonalization of computer imagery. I heard
Ralston lock the suite door with a sharp snick.
“Guess you never heard of 1-800-COLLECT?” Mulder
inquired as Ralston gestured him to a chair.
Ralston slumped into a chair facing Mulder,
pistol gripped tightly in his right hand. “Man,
I’m sorry, I really am. I know this is a shitty
way to do this, but I’ve got no options anymore.”
“Everybody in good shape, I trust?”
Ralston glanced back at the quartet on the floor.
“Oh, sure, yeah. I don’t want to hurt any of
these people, I really don’t.”
I frowned as I stared at the computer monitor. It
had been a curiously phrased remark. “These
people,” who according to Ralston’s personnel
file, had worked with him over the past five
years. A coworker had told the captain Ralston
and his colleagues had shared a close
camaraderie, at least until recently.
I thought of a case a few years back, a similar
desk jockey hostage-taker, convinced his
supervisor was some form of monster who was
draining the life from his fellow wage-earners. A
rather transparent delusion, giving literal
meaning to our essential feelings about
authority. Except Mulder had shared the man’s
suspicions, nearly losing his badge and life in
the process, and Skinner generously wrote the
case off as a folie a deux – a delusion shared by
two.
What had flavored Ralston’s delusion?
“Hey,” Mulder greeted the hostages. “I’m Special
Agent Fox Mulder, and we’re going to see if we
can’t resolve this as quickly as possible, OK? So
what are your names?” I applauded the gesture:
Mulder not only was reassuring the frightened
knot of captives, he was reminding Ralston of
their humanity. I wondered again at Mulder’s
ability to keep his own humanity in the face of
the cosmic truths and colossal doubts he tilted
daily at.
Ralston calmly allowed the hostages to respond to
Mulder’s roll, tensing visibly as a small but
muscular and well-groomed man – one of the two
fellow drones – stammered out his name, Brad
Scheffler. Mulder settled back into his chair, as
if preparing for a 60 Minutes interview.
“So, they tell me you’re not quite yourself these
days,” he said casually.
“Shit,” the captain murmured behind me. He and I
both knew it wasn’t good negotiating strategy to
immediately question the hostage-taker’s mental
state or sanity.
“Exactly,” Ralston responded happily, surprising
us all.
**
There’s a famous psychological case study – a
young boy so emotionally detached from those
around him, so alienated from the joys and
feelings of others, that he had come to believe
he was a robot. Dissociation was a not uncommon
response to the pain and emptiness of feeling
untethered from the mass of humanity. My – a
psychotherapist had explained it to me once: When
we cannot adapt or fit in, we tend to erase
ourselves through passive surrender, others
though dismissal or negligence, or, in too many
of the cases Mulder and I have investigated,
both, bottling our pain inside until it explodes
in resentment and agony and irreparable damage.
Ken Ralston’s story was a magnum opus of
dissociation.
“I realized something was seriously fucked up a
few days after the accident, after they put me in
a private room at St. Joe’s,” he told Mulder.
“I’m not like a news junkie or anything, but the
soap operas and the trash talk shows were driving
me out of my tree, so I started watching CNN. So
anyway, they’re doing some newsbriefs, talking
about President Bush’s trip to China or
something, and they show the president getting
off the plane. And it’s not him.”
“What?” the captain muttered rhetorically.
“It’s not him?” Mulder probed.
“It’s not Jeb Bush.”
“Jeb Bush is the president?” Mulder asked it
without a trace of irony or ridicule.
“Except he’s not anymore,” Ralston said, reliving
what must have been the world-shaking impact of
his “discovery.” “And that wasn’t all. Like I
said, I’m not a current events guy, but there
were all kinds of screwy things going on. Anwar
Sadat wasn’t the president of Egypt any more, and
there was no mention of the Bosnian peace accord.
It was all that was on CNN for weeks before it
happened.
“I tried to write it off to some colossal case of
post-traumatic disorientation, maybe even some
brain damage – I was underwater for a godawful
long time. When I got home, things seemed better,
at first. Yeah, the furniture seemed a little
different in places, the kids were a little
rowdier than I had remembered. But, hell, what
happened to us was kinda rattling, you know. But
then, a few weeks later, Kris – my wife – and I
got in bed, and she started, well, you know. She
wanted to make love.”
“And you couldn’t,” Fox said sympathetically.
Impotence wouldn’t have been an unusual response
in the aftermath of Ralston’s accident.
As if he had read my mind, Ralston sighed. “Kris
was very understanding about it, said it would
take a while after what had happened to get back
to, well, to normal. But the thing is… Fuck.”
“Hey, take your time.”
“The thing is, there isn’t any normal,” Ralston
said, through his teeth, “I haven’t been able to
get it up for more than a year. You could ask my
doctor, but he says nothing was wrong before the
accident. So I’m wondering what the fuck’s the
matter with everybody, maybe with me. Sean, my
eight-year-old, suddenly is great at math and
sucks at reading, the opposite of what it was
before. And Brynda, my girl, is now Brenda, and
the goddamned birth certificate in our fire safe
says so, even though I picked the fucking name
myself.”
I felt a growing sense of apprehension. Ralston’s
carefully civilized conversation was
deteriorating into erratic cursing. Contain the
chaos, I willed Mulder.
“And when you came back to the office here,” my
partner concluded, “These people were waiting,
including him.”
I tried to determine who “him” was, but one of
the hostages beat me to the punch.
“Kenny, man, it’s me,” Brad Scheffler wailed. “We
went to fucking high school together!”
My chair squeaked back as I gripped its arms and
the captain leapt to his feet. Ralston had
knocked his chair over and trained his automatic
on Scheffler. The supervisor squeezed his eyes
shut as the administrative assistant whimpered.
“Brad,” Mulder asked, politely. “Give us a few
minutes here. I want to hear Ken’s version right
now, OK?”
The courteous banality of Mulder’s response
seemed to defuse the situation, but the tactical
commander appeared in my peripheral vision. “He’s
losing it, you can hear that. I think we need to
start devising come alternate responses.”
I wheeled around. “I disagree. Agent Mulder’s a
behavioral scientist – his methods are a
little…unorthodox…but he has control of the
situation.”
The commander planted his left cheek on the
table’s edge. The monitor jiggled. “I know about
Mulder. And you. I know who you both are, and
what. It raises serious questions about whether
you should even be sitting here.”
“Can we stay on task here?” I snapped. He seemed
unfazed by the ice in my voice, but he rose and
moved temporarily away. The commander hadn’t been
the first to do his homework, nor had he been the
first to register his disapproval about Mulder
and I’s place in the Bureau.
“Does he?” the Bloomington captain asked with no
discernable emotion. “Have control?”
“Yes.”
He nodded and looked back to the monitor.
“So I walk in, and here’s this guy I’ve never
seen in my life sitting in the next office,”
Ralston continued. “I introduce myself, and he
just looks at me like I’m fuckin’ insane. Asks
how I’m feeling, asks about Kris and the kids. I
ask about Ted, where he went to. I hadn’t heard
anything about Ted getting fired or quitting or
anything. Brad here just keeps looking at me,
which I’ve gotten incredibly tired of getting
from people, so I just shut my mouth and get back
to work.
“But there are things, you know? My Windows isn’t
working quite the same – the keyboard commands
are slightly different, and I damn near delete a
major report the first week back trying to print
it. The company claim procedures are a little
wacky, though I admit they seem to work better,
and the paperwork is just slightly out-of-whack.
That’s the thing, man: Most of the changes are
just little things, like somebody went with ALT-F
for the Word File menu instead of the Format
menu, or the Coffee Butler is now Mr. Coffee, and
there’s no such fucking thing as a Coffee Butler
machine, and everybody looks at you like you
ought to be committed for even suggesting there
is.”
Mulder leaned forward, with the effect of zooming
in on Ralston’s face. “So it’s as if the world
you’re living in now has been revised – like the
choices people have made were different, but not
drastically.”
“Like a parallel universe,” Ralston sighed.
“Somehow I came back from the dead to a world
where Bill Gates decided to make the Save key a
Delete key and Ted is off somewhere, probably
playing on the PGA tour like he always wanted
to.”
“But no Woodrow Wilson dimes, huh?”
“Woodrow Wilson –?”
“Story by Jack Finney about a man who finds
himself in a parallel world where Wilson’s on the
dime instead of Roosevelt. Nothing like that,
huh?”
Ralston was silent for a second, and I wondered
if Mulder had pressed some hidden and deadly
button within the displaced corporate family man.
But Ralston slumped back in his chair, his eyes
haunted.
“Just one thing,” he said.
**
“Um, Agent Scully,” the captain coughed. “This is
Kris Ralston, Mr. Ralston’s wife?”
My irritation at being drawn from the monitor
dissipated immediately. “Mrs. Ralston.”
She was blonde and trim and as wholesomely
Midwestern as a Wisconsin extra hand-picked by
Steven Spielberg to play a farm-raised suburban
housewife. “Are you people going to get him out
of this alive?” Kris Ralston asked tremulously.
“He’s not a violent man; he never was. There’s no
need to hurt him, because I know he won’t hurt
those people.”
“Mrs. Ralston, my partner is a trained expert in
psychological behavior, and I can assure you his
one and only objective is to bring your husband
and his coworkers out of that office, alive and
well.”
Kris virtually collapsed into a chair. “It was
all so good before we almost lost him. Now, it’s
like he’s…”
“A different person?”
“That’s what he seems to think, isn’t it? Except
he’s not different; we all are.”
**
“I was really thinking about seeing a shrink –
the hospital had recommended it, and Kris
supported the idea. Then, one morning, I was
having a bagel. A round bagel.” Ralston chuckled
bitterly at the notion. “I look out the window,
and there it is, sitting on the fence. Like
seeing a dodo or a tyrannosaurus eating out of
your bird feeder. I don’t know how I avoided
seeing them before.”
“What?” Mulder asked.
“It was a squirrel. A red one. Just sitting there
as if nothing was wrong.”
“And that was unusual because?”
“Because they’re all fucking dead, every single
red fucking squirrel in North America, or the
world, for that matter. I remember when I was a
kid, when that disease hit all of them. You’d
find them lying on the ground, even falling out
of trees. They blamed it on some new strain of
rabies or avian influenza or something. But
here’s one sitting in my backyard, like he just
came out of a fucking 25-year hibernation. I
start yelling for everybody to come see. The kids
are like bug-eyed at Daddy waving his arms like a
bloody lunatic, and Kris… Kris is just…standing
there crying, man. And that’s how I knew it
wasn’t me, Agent Mulder. Because of the
squirrels.
“So I started doing some research on the
Internet, which wasn’t easy because it seemed
like every word I keyed in brought up some porno
site, which isn’t how it is…well, you know.”
“Yeah, I know, it’s awful.” Mulder coughed.
“I checked the Library of Congress, history
sites, the White House home page, old ’60s sitcom
fan pages, anything that might help me understand
and, I guess, ‘pass’ for whatever normal is in
this world.”
“Did Gilligan get off the island in your world?”
Mulder inquired.
Ralston then laughed, a release of tension and
dread that made me relax as well. Kris was biting
her lip, her eyes welling.
“Yeah, matter of fact,” Ralston replied, showing
me a glimpse of the nine-to-fiver who’d seemingly
been left at the bottom of a lake somewhere.
“They get back to the mainland, hate how much
things have changed in the five years they were
gone, and move back to start their own society.
With a resort hotel, of course.”
A thought had been formulating in my mind, one
spiked with too many pre-med psych courses and,
possibly, too many years basking in the
brainwaves of Fox Mulder. I took a breath, and
turned to Kris. “Mrs. Ralston, what happened?
Right before the accident? What changed?”
**
“I think it started in 1945,” Ralston said.
“That’s where the differences start, where things
start to peel off.”
“Peel off?”
“Things start to develop differently than I
remember them. Joe McCarthy has those horrible
Communist witch hunts here; he got caught with a
young boy in my world before things really got
going. Nixon almost beat Kennedy in my world. The
Watts Riots never happened where I came from.
Disco never happened in my world.”
“Yow, can I go?”
“And, of course, there’s the squirrels. Nothing
changed before 1945, that I could find, that is.
Then I found your theories. I was visiting a lot
of the paranormal discussion forums on the Web,
and I came across your theories about time,
parallel planes of existence. It didn’t take long
to track the messages to you, through some of the
others.
“You said you thought it was possible that there
might be several, maybe infinite timestreams that
split off into different probabilities, and that
maybe cosmic calamities or events could cause
disruptions in existing streams.”
Mulder grinned. “Shoulda stuck to the Britney
Spears chatroom, just knew it. Look, Mr. Ralston,
Ken, that was just my wildass speculation, a
little Einstein, a little Stephen Hawking, a
little Sliders, probably. The good Fox episodes,
not the sucky Sci-Fi Channel ones.”
“What does 1945 mean to you?” Ralston probed
abruptly.
Mulder was silent for a second. “The end of World
War II? The A-bomb…”
“August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay drops the first
bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Some 130,000 people
killed, injured, or missing, and 177,000 made
homeless. Three days later, we drop the second
one on Nagasaki. A third of the city’s wasted,
and another 66,000 people are killed or injured.
OK – so what if by splitting the atom, they did
something else, something more, um, more cosmic?”
More silence. “Well, scientists suppose a
relationship between matter, energy, and time,
and they’ve found subatomic particles with some
pretty strange properties that defy physical law
as we know it. You’re saying that when we split
the atom on that massive a scale, we might have
started some other kind of subatomic chain
reaction? Two timestreams ‘peeled off’ from each
other? Only one problem I can see: The bombs
dropped on Japan weren’t the first atomic blasts,
and, of course, Earth isn’t the center of the
universe. Major natural nuclear events must
happen every day somewhere in the universe. By
your theory, alternate timestreams would be
splitting off all over the place.”
“How do we know I’m not just the first guy to
cross over between timestreams?” Ralston
demanded. “Or how do we know other people
haven’t? Look at all the psychos and lost souls
out there. These people on the street who
could’ve just dropped out of nowhere. Maybe I’m
just the first one who knows what happened to
him. What? That’s funny?”
Kris and I straightened at the new note of
tension in Ralston’s voice. Mulder’s
unpredictable responses could short-circuit the
violence in a room or, in the wrong circles,
bring on a minor shitstorm.
“No, it isn’t what you said,” Mulder mused. “You
ever see It’s a Wonderful Life?”
Ralston leaned back, struck dumb by my partner’s
non sequitur. Then he grinned. “Jesus, haven’t
seen that one in years. I love it at the end
where Jimmy Stewart comes running into the house
hugging everybody, even though he thinks they’re
about to haul his ass off to prison.”
“Jimmy Stew–?” Kris murmured curiously. I held
up a hand.
“It’s a wonderful movie,” Mulder agreed. “I
always thought it was one of the most underrated
sci-fi flicks of the ’40s.”
“Sci-fi?”
“Sure. The whole concept of alternate realities –
the chain reaction of interpersonal and cosmic
changes resulting from George Bailey’s sudden
non-existence. A Christmas Carol explores some of
the same territory, in some ways in an even more
philosophical –”
“Uh, Agent, pardon me, but what the fuck does
this have to do with anything?”
“Well, look around. Here we are on Christmas Eve;
you got pulled out of the water to find yourself
in this strange new world where everything’s
turned out different than you remember. I’ve been
summoned to make sure you don’t take yourself out
along with these folks.”
Ralston shook his head and smirked. “What, that
makes you Clarence the Angel or something?”
“Teacher says, ‘Every time a witness sings,
another agent gets his wings,'” Mulder recited.
“Hey, you called me, right? Pretend you’ve been
touched by an angel for a second, and cut me a
little slack. You got your folks’ phone number
handy?”
Ralston leaned forward, the gun still tightly in
his grip. “There’s just my mom now. Why do you
need her number? I can tell you anything you want
to know. She’s been through enough — don’t bug
her, man.”
“From what you’ve been saying, she’s not your
mother, anyway.”
“She’s my mother, just in another, Jesus, life?
Even if she wasn’t, I wouldn’t dump this on her.”
“Listen, Ken,” Mulder said placidly. “I want to
help you, but more than that, I’m here to make
sure nothing happens to these people. Way the
media is, if your family hasn’t called your
mother, the Action News Team has filled her in.
At the risk of being tactless, you’ve made this
omelette; what eggs are broken are broken. Can I
have the number, please, Ken? Trust me.”
Ralston sighed and rose, backing to his desk.
“Let me check the Rolodex. For my own mom’s
number. Jesus.” He rifled through the cards,
glancing frequently at Mulder. My partner didn’t
budge, thank God.
Finally, Ralston reluctantly handed him a
relatively new card. Mulder propped it on his
knee and punched out a number.
“By the way, Ken, when did your dad die?” he
asked before hitting the send button.
“Here, you mean? About a year ago, hit his head
in the tub. In my timestream, he’s been gone
since I was about 12.”
I nearly jumped a yard when the phone rang at my
elbow.
**
“Mrs. Ralston?” Mulder inquired. I remained
silent – I’d learned long ago to ride his rhythms
and just trust his odd instincts. “This is
Special Agent Fox Mulder with the Federal Bureau
of Investigation. I’m with your son right now…No,
ma’am; he’s just fine, Mrs. Ralston. Nobody’s
been hurt, and he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. If
you could answer just a few questions for me,
maybe we can resolve this real soon. Yes, it’s
very important. Thanks.
“First off, how did Ken and his dad get along?
It’s crucial that you’re absolutely straight with
me.”
“Mulder, I was talking to Kris Ralston, the wife?
What she told me may cast some light on the
situation.” I filled him in as quickly as his
unrelated question allowed.
“That’s interesting. They do a lot of things
together? Oh, like fishing, baseball, hunting?
Ah, really. What kind? Uh huh. And when did they
start doing that?”
“I’m sure you realize this isn’t an X-File,
Mulder. I think Ralston’s a victim of a
dissociative fugue, except where a person in a
fugue state normally forgets his personal
identity or wanders away to establish a whole new
identity somewhere else, Ralston has dissociated
his environment rather than himself. Here’s the
kicker: Dissociative fugue usually occurs after
serious psychological stress of some kind, such
as the death of a family member, the loss of a
job, or a failed relationship.”
“That’s very illuminating, Mrs. Ralston. One last
question, if I may. Is Ken a movie buff? I mean,
does he follow movies, actors. No? Hmm. OK. Yes,
ma’am; I will certainly tell him that. Yes, I
believe I can. Just try to relax, Mrs. Ralston.”
“Mulder, you have to be careful here. If you just
tell him–”
With a click at my end and a beep from the
monitor, he was gone. “Damn it, Mulder,” I cried
out. Whatever game he was playing, I was now
‘out.’
“He won’t want to hear that,” the tactical
commander said blankly. “If your ‘partner’ tells
him he’s a Section 8, it could push him over.
Especially if he gives him any details.”
“Mulder’s a behavioral scientist,” I said through
my teeth. “He knows what buttons to push and when
to push them.”
“Gotta man in a window across the courtyard with
infrared and a long-range rifle in case the wrong
button gets pushed. Thought you ought to know
that.” The commander sauntered away.
I glanced back at the Bloomington captain. He
sighed deeply and shrugged. Under the
circumstances, it was probably as strong a vote
of confidence as Mulder could get.
Then I made some connections I supposed Mulder
wanted me to make. I turned to the anxious woman
beside me.
“Mrs. Ralston, is your husband a movie buff?”
**
“What do you do here, Ken, specifically?” Mulder
asked.
“We all work in death claims – investigations,
mostly,” Ralston answered slowly.
“Pretty shitty work, I’d guess. Buffy slips some
rat poison in Aunt Sarah’s chamomile tea. Marge
shoves Earl down the trailer steps, then tries to
cash in on the big lotto. Joe puts a bullet
through his brain, not realizing he’s canceling
his family’s ticket with the insurance company.”
Ralston’s gun hand elevated an inch or so.
“What’s your point?”
“My point is, you’re a trained insurance
investigator who witnesses the dank side of
humanity and the darkest grief imaginable on a
daily basis. When your – or his dad, if you wish
– died in what I have to believe is a rather
unusual household accident, I have to think that
would rouse an investigator’s suspicions. It
would mine. What do you think the other Ken
Ralston might’ve found out?”
“I don’t know,” Ralston responded, tersely.
“OK. Now, do you recall how your dad died, when
you were 12?”
“Heart attack, plain and simple, no question. It
devastated us – he was a wonderful guy.”
Mulder was silent for a second. “You know, it’s,
well, just, strange.”
“What?”
“Your mother, his mother, whatever, said you and
your father had your issues. Like a lot of guys
who were raised in a rural environment in the
’50s, she said your dad was very concerned about
raising you according to his own very specific
definition of a real man. Her words, not mine. It
seems that when Alternate Ken turned 13, his dad
initiated him into the grand Central Illinois
tradition of squirrel hunting. According to his
mother, he didn’t much take to it. Ken’s dad
practically had to force him to go.”
Ralston sat rigidly, staring at Mulder.
“And now you tell me you come from a world where
the squirrel has been wiped from the face of the
Earth. Bear with me, Ken. You tell me you live in
a world where McCarthy never hunted Communists,
never killed the careers and souls of hundreds of
men and women. Where Anwar Sadat was never
assassinated right at the height of hopes for a
Middle East peace treaty. Where the war in Bosnia
was about to come to an end after centuries of
civil strife. Where Gilligan, Skipper, and the
rest found their way back to society, found it
wanting, and chose to return to their island
Eden. And your Dad died of natural causes before
you would even have turned 13.”
Ralston looked tightly at Mulder. “So you think
I’m a mental case, too?”
“I’m stating another possible scientific
explanation for your situation. See, I don’t know
if you realize it, but in addition to being
versed in the paranormal, I’m also a behavioral
scientist. You’ve given me one possible rationale
for what’s happened to you, within the context of
physical science. I view psychology as merely the
laws of physics as regard the human mind. Mental
stimuli, emotional trauma, and guilt influence
our actions just as physical forces affect matter
and energy. You want me to go on?”
Ralston breathed deeply. “All right. Just in
English, please.”
“First, I want to ask you to release these
people.”
Ralston laughed harshly. “You’re shitting me,
right? You do think I’m whacko, don’t you?”
“Labeling you as whacko makes as much sense as
labeling a quark or a tachyon as an aberrant
personality. No, I have a very specific reason for
wanting these people out of here, so we can talk
candidly. Look, you still got Clarence the Angel
here as a hostage.”
“Good man,” the captain murmured behind my
shoulder. I was reserving judgment; I didn’t like
Mulder going mano-a-mano with an emotionally
distraught, armed, delusional man.
“This works, I’ll eat my baton,” the tactical
commander said tactlessly.
“I’ll supply the salt,” I offered, my eyes
riveted on the monitor.
“There’s something wrong with this,” Ralston
hesitated, rubbing his temples.
“I have no desire, nor hopefully do any of the
officers downstairs, to see my brains decorating
these tastefully appointed walls,” my partner
assured him. “Nobody’s going to pull a Steven
Seagal just because it’s me instead of four
taxpayers.”
“Pull a who?”
“Wow, that must be a wonderful universe you come
from. What do you say, Ken? You called me; you
trust me. Trust me for a few minutes longer. A
few more minutes won’t really matter either way,
will they, Ken?”
I felt a pang at the intimate nature of Mulder’s
last comment. Something was going to happen we
hadn’t planned for, and Mulder was the only one
who knew what it was.
“Sure, let ’em go, sure,” Ralston finally
announced, wearily.
“Thanks. Let me call down, let ’em know they’re
coming, OK? After I send these guys down the
hallway – that way, you know there aren’t any
tricks, no cops waiting outside the door.”
“Sure.”
“Shit, he’s giving away the goddamned game!” the
tactical commander shouted. “I can’t possibly get
anybody into position before he releases those
hostages.”
“I believe that’s the new game plan,” I
suggested. “Everybody comes out alive.”
The commander planted a hand a foot from my elbow
and leaned dangerously close to my left ear. “I
don’t know how many NYPD Blues you’ve seen,
Agent, but that’s my game plan, too. I just have
a lot more moves and a lot more experience on the
field.”
“I don’t see any point to this,” the captain
snapped. “The man’s done what he’s done, and at
least he getting the hostages out of the firing
line. As for the rest, I’d suggest we do what I’d
be doing at St. Mary’s Christmas Eve Mass right
now, if this day hadn’t gotten so totally fucked
up.”
This bit of theological counsel, coming from such
an incongruous source, knocked the fight out of
the tactical commander, and transported me
momentarily to a place I’d repressed, of candles
and icons and rosaries, of the basso-profundo
rumbling of my rough military man father reciting
Latin phrases I had no doubt he understood
perfectly, of freshly scrubbed good Catholic
girls with simple and unsullied faith.
“…and lead us not into temptation…” The hairs on
the back of my neck bristled at the whispered
invocation. I looked to my side, where Kris
Ralston sat, head inclined, eyes squeezed shut,
lips moving softly. The captain looked up at the
tactical commander, who nodded curtly and walked
away.
Mulder and Ralston were done untying the
hostages, who they now herded to the suite door.
Mulder’s micro-cam swept the hallway outside,
then panned back to the group. “Move as fast as
you can to the elevators, and go to the cafeteria
floor. OK?”
The hostages nodded numbly and allowed themselves
to be ushered into the hall. Ralston’s supervisor
had to help one of the traumatized desk jockeys
along, but they finally disappeared into the
elevator car, and I heard Mulder exhale.
“I think we’re alone now,” he told Ralston, who
frowned at the joke. “They don’t know that one in
your universe, do they? You must be hell on
karaoke night. Let’s call downstairs now, OK?”
“OK,” Ralston said in a new voice, one I didn’t
like.
My phone rang a few seconds later. “Hostages are
on the way down – don’t let Lance exercise
extreme prejudice on ’em,” Mulder advised.
“Mulder,” I said, my voice dry and high. “I don’t
know what you have in mind, but make damned sure
you know what the hell you’re doing. If you get
yourself killed, I’ll dog you into Eternity.”
“If this is going to turn into a personal call,
I’m afraid we’ll have to terminate the
discussion. You know company policy.” The line
went dead.
**
“Under my theory, this started about a year ago,
when Eugene Ralston died in a household accident.
Ken Ralston worked in death claims; it was only
natural he’d be curious. Maybe he picked up on
some bad vibes or an off-tone. Maybe he found out
his mother had a role in his father’s death;
maybe he found out his father had been drinking;
maybe there was a fight. Whatever happened, it
hit Ken hard, all the more so because he’d never
gotten along with his father.”
“Look, don’t patronize me,” Ralston said.
“OK. Bad blood plus death frequently breeds
guilt, and it isn’t unreasonable to assume a
daily litany of death and deceit at the office
added to the stress. But I believe things came to
a head just before your accident at the lake.”
“Before?”
“I don’t know how it happened, but you found out
about your wife.”
“Mulder,” I barely uttered, my heart beginning to
pound in my ears. Ralston raised his weapon, his
eyes locked on Mulder’s.
“What about Kris?”
“Think about it, Ken: If indeed Brad Scheffler’s
been working in this office with you for more
than five years, why would he be the only person
to vanish from your world when you came back from
the dead? The man your wife’s been having an
affair with over the past several months.”
“God,” the captain murmured. “Glad he got
Scheffler outta there.” Kris’ face was buried in
her hands as she wept silently.
“That’s a bit much to ask of even cosmic
coincidence, isn’t it, Ken? Couldn’t it be the
final blow to your emotionally fragile state,
combined with your brush with mortality, your
second chance, as it were, could’ve spurred you
to mentally erase Scheffler from existence?”
Ralston leveled his gun, his face locked in
knotted muscles.
“You got a shot?” the tactical commander demanded
urgently into his radio, I assumed to the
infrared sniper across the courtyard.
“Roger,” the radio crackled. I sat mute before
the monitor; I knew I should try to delay the
execution order, but I couldn’t speak or move.
The gun wavered, then moved swiftly to Ken
Ralston’s temple.
“Fucking shit,” the commander murmured.
“Ken,” Mulder said with a maddening serenity. “I
thought I just explained to you why that won’t
get you anywhere. That is why you asked me to
come here, right?”
Ken Ralston’s electronic image began to shake,
and even through the microcam’s relatively low-
resolution transmission, I could see his irises
disappear in a sea of welling tears.
I jumped as Ralston dropped his weapon with a
clatter, and remembered again to breathe as
Mulder engulfed him in his arms…
**
My partner came through the cafeteria door a few
minutes later, his arm around Ralston’s shoulder.
The Bloomington captain accepted the man gently,
then handed him off to Kris Ralston. As Ralston
collapsed into his wife’s embrace, she began to
sob, out of relief, remorse, release, I don’t
know.
The Peoria tactical commander clamped a hand on
Mulder’s shoulder and turned him around. “You
must use a powerful antiperspirant, ‘Lance.'”
Mulder grinned. “Merry Christmas, General.”
I moved quickly around the desk.
“Hey, Scully, hope you saved some eggnog for me–
”
And that’s when I slapped him, as hard as I
possibly could.
**
“Your face feel any better?” I asked timidly as
Mulder and I hurtled through the stratosphere
somewhere over the Eastern Corn Belt or the
Appalachians. The Peoria tactical commander,
whose name in fact was Ted, threw us both a curve
by volunteering his weekend flying skills to get
us back to D.C. and Christmas dinner. Under the
circumstances, the combined influence of the
Bloomington and Peoria P.D.s and Farmstead
Insurance were enough to get us early morning
clearance out of Bloomington Airport.
Mulder waggled his jaw. “You hit like a girl.
Then again, I take pain like a 5-year-old.”
“You frightened me. You took an unnecessary
chance, and charged headlong into what could have
been a tragic outcome. I could have…” I looked
out into the black sky.
“Look,” Mulder said calmly. “I had to slap
Ralston, shock him into accepting what I was
telling him. That’s why I got Scheffler out of
the office. If I was going to get Ralston out of
there alive, I had to convince him his condition
was psychological, not physical.
“Don’t you see where this was going? Why do you
think Ralston asked for me? He could have e-
mailed me, called me, and the odds were his story
would have intrigued me enough to meet with him.
So why force this dramatic scene? Was I going to
get him out of this hostage situation clean? Too
late for that. Did he honestly believe I’d have
the answer to his dilemma, that I could teleport
him back home? Of course not. The only possible
reason for Ralston to summon me was to confirm
his worst suspicions. I’m the FBI’s loose cannon,
the guy who values the truth over the
consequences, who’ll buy into anything — except
of course Ben Affleck’s acting ability. And once
I’d confirmed his theory, Ralston felt he could
take the step he had determined was necessary to
return to his ‘world.'”
I looked at Mulder, dimly lit in the tiny
passenger compartment. “To go back the way he
came in.”
“Exactly. The only solution Ralston could reason
out was to leave this existence and take the
chance of passing through the same wormhole or
corridor or rift he’d entered through. I don’t
believe Ken Ralston would have taken my life back
there, but I think he was willing to take his own
life on the off-chance he could return home.”
“So the realization that he was profoundly
delusional actually saved his life.”
Mulder breathed. “The Big Lie for the greater
good. I guess I’ve learned well. Call it my
Christmas gift to Ralston and his family. I’ll
testify as to his emotional state; maybe he’ll
get a light sentence for treatment. Every day,
some headshrinker plants a false memory in some
willing patient’s skull — maybe a misguidedly
talented therapist can persuade Ralston that this
is his home, that Kris and the kids are his
reality. God help him and me.”
“Mulder, you don’t really believe Ralston’s story
is true, do you? Parallel universes? Alternate
realities?”
My partner leaned back in his seat. “Who’s to
say, Scully? In our world, Joe McCarthy throws
’50s America into a state of Cold War panic,
helping form young Eugene Ralston into a macho
role model intent on making his son a ‘real’ man.
Maybe a real man who can’t emotionally connect
with his wife, who then takes up with Brad
Scheffler. In another, McCarthy is disgraced and
Eugene dies young, leaving his son to grow up in
a kinder, gentler world where Nixon’s darker
nature doesn’t emerge and he almost wins against
Kennedy. In their world, Jeb Bush gets interested
in politics rather than banking; in ours, Laura
Bush becomes our first woman president. And in
the world our Ken Ralston dropped in from, Brad
Scheffler shows an aptitude for Renaissance
literature instead of actuarial tables.”
I smiled at the idea of Jeb Bush in the White
House instead of his far-brighter sister-in-law.
Might as well have the president’s goofy, tongue-
tangled husband, George, in the Oval Office.
“If there are parallel realities, maybe we’re not
talking about dinosaurs evolving into the master
species instead of humans, or the U.S. becoming a
monarchy ruled by France. Maybe the differences
for the most part would be incremental — a
different path taken here, a different roll of
the dice there.”
“My God, if that were true, what happens to our
basic spiritual beliefs, to our concept of a
higher power guiding the universe?”
Mulder shrugged. “Why are our concepts of science
and religion and psychology and faith so rigid
and mutually exclusive? From a theological view,
humanity is tested every day. Racial attitudes,
tolerance, charity — maybe these are that higher
power’s way of putting us through the rat’s maze.
Maybe there are a hundred, a thousand, a million
test groups out there, all vying to become some
sort of golden people. In a universe of black
holes, quasars, and Paris Hilton, why is that an
impossible notion?”
It was just like Mulder, deconstructing the
entire Judeo-Christian precept while arguing for
the existence of God. “You presented such a
compelling case for dissociative delusion,” I
pointed out. “What could possibly make you prefer
such a fantastic alternative?”
Mulder smiled. “Did you ask Kris Ralston if her
husband was a film buff?”
“As a matter of fact, he is not.”
“All right, then. Do you remember Jimmy Stewart?”
“A little before my time, Mulder. He was a
promising young actor back in the ’30s and ’40s,
right?”
“Who, like many Hollywood stars of his era,
enlisted to serve his country during WWII. In the
final days of the war, following the bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Stewart, a U.S. Army Air
Force pilot, experienced engine failure and
crashed into the Pacific Ocean. You ever seen
It’s a Wonderful Life?”
“Gary Cooper, Donna Reed? It’s a classic. They
used to show it, what, 200,000 times every
Christmas. Now the network promotes the shit out
of it. Who hasn’t seen –?” I stopped. “But Ken
Ralston said…”
“That Jimmy Stewart starred in It’s a Wonderful
Life, which Frank Capra’s Liberty Films produced
after Stewart died. And that’s the kicker. Maybe
Ken Ralston might’ve had his head in a cave and
not seen one of the cinema’s greatest Christmas
stories, next to Lethal Weapon, of course. But
it’s a little-known fact that Stewart originally
was the studio’s prime pick to play George Bailey
in It’s a Wonderful Life, before his tragic
death. That isn’t general knowledge. Where would
Ralston have gotten such a piece of information,
even to help formulate another piece of his
fantasy?
“I believe that in Ken Ralston’s alternate world,
Jimmy Stewart survived the war to portray George
Bailey. But had I backed up Ralston’s theory,
where would he go from there? Stranded in a
strange world among strangers who were near
approximations of those he loved? Even in our own
world, there’s often little keeping even the
sanest person anchored in place.”
I took Mulder’s hand, feeling him stroke the gold
band on my left hand, the one he’d given me a
year after I’d joined the X-Files.
“Well, one other good thing came out of this,” I
suggested. “I think Ted up there has changed his
view of married agents, even if Assistant
Director Doggett hasn’t. The whole time you were
with Ralston, he kept grumbling about knowing
‘what we are,’ and questioning my ability to back
you up. Now, he’s chauffeuring us back to
Washington.”
Mulder winced. “Which reminds me, Scully: You
were supposed to bring the dessert for Christmas
dinner, weren’t you? You know Samantha loves your
French silk pie.”
“I can rustle up something from the side of the
Gello Pudding box,” I assured him. “Mr. Spender
can have a pack of Morleys for dessert. I know
he’s your parents’ oldest friend, but I wish he’d
find another family to scrounge Christmas dinner
from or get on the patch or something.”
Mulder just smiled and squeezed my hand. Below, I
could see the lights of Washington’s Charlton
Heston Airport.
“Merry Christmas, Fox,” I murmured.
“Merry Christmas, Melissa,” he responded before
dozing off.
END