He started toward Mulder and Mulder backed away, still breathing hard. "Where's Scully?"
The Well-Manicured Man stopped a few feet in front of him. He took in Mulder's shoes, the too-short trousers and ill-fitting jacket bor-rowed from Byers. After a moment he looked up and said, "I have answers for you."
"Is she alive?"
"Yes." The Well-Manicured Man hesitated, then said, "I'm quite prepared to tell you every-thing, though there isn't much you haven't already guessed."
Mulder's throat felt tight. "About the con-spiracy?"
"I think of it as an agreement," the other man said lightly. "A word your father liked to use."
Mulder took a step toward him. "I want to know where Scully is."
The Well-Manicured Man nodded. Mulder tensed as he reached into his jacket pocket, and removed a thin envelope of dark-green felt. The Well-Manicured Man weighed it in his palm, then said, "The location of Agent Scully. And the means to save her life. Please—"
He gestured toward the car, where the driver stood holding the back door open. Mulder hesitated, then stepped toward it. He moved past the Well-Manicured Man and slid into the seat. The older man got in after him and closed the door. He motioned at the driver, and the town car pulled away.
Mulder sat bolt upright, looking guardedly from the man beside him to the driver, who returned his gaze in the rearview mirror. Without a word, the Well-Manicured Man handed Mulder the small felt envelope.
"What is it?" Mulder asked.
"A weak vaccine against the virus Agent Scully has been infected with. It must be administered within ninety-six hours."
Mulder stared at him, then at the felt enve-lope in his hand. "You're lying."
"No." The Well-Manicured Man stared broodingly out the tinted window. "Though I have no way to prove otherwise. The virus is extraterrestrial. We know very little about it, except that it is the original inhabitant of this planet."
Mulder looked dubious. "A virus?'
"A simple, unstoppable life form. What is a virus, but a colonizing force that cannot be defeated?
Living in a cave underground, until it mutates. And attacks."
"This is what you've been trying to con-ceal?" Mulder no longer tried to keep the con-tempt from his voice. "A disease?"
"No!" exploded the Well-Manicured Man. "For god's sake, you've got it all backward—
"AIDS, the Ebola virus—on an evolution-ary scale, they are newborns. This virus walked the planet long before the dinosaurs."
Mulder scowled. "What do you mean, 'walked'?"
"Your aliens, Agent Mulder. Your little green men—they arrived here millions of years ago. Those that didn't leave have been lying dormant underground since the last Ice Age, in the form of an evolved pathogen. Just waiting to be reconstituted when the alien race returns to colonize the planet. And using us as hosts. Against this we have no defense. Nothing but a weak vaccine…"
He paused and stared pointedly at Mulder, who finally looked shaken. "Do you see why it was kept secret, Agent Mulder? Why even the best men—men like your father—could not let the truth be known?
Until Dallas, we believed the virus would simply control us. That mass infection would make us a slave race."
"That's why you bombed the building," said Mulder slowly. "The infected firemen… the boy…"
The Well-Manicured Man nodded grimly. "Imagine our surprise when they began to ges-tate. My group has been working cooperatively with the alien colonists, facilitating programs like the one you saw.
To gain access to the virus, in hope that we might secretly develop a cure."
"To save yourselves," broke in Mulder.
The Well-Manicured Man shrugged. "When war is futile, victory consists of merely staying alive.
Survival is the ultimate ideology." He hesitated, then gave Mulder a cool smile. "Your father wisely refused to believe this."
"My father sacrificed my sister!" cried Mulder angrily. "He let them take Samantha—"
"No." For a moment the Well-Manicured Man looked almost sorrowful. "Without a vac-cination, the only true survivors of the viral holocaust would be those immune to it: human/alien clones. He aUowed your sister to be abducted, to be taken to a cloning program. For one reason."
"So she'd survive," Mulder breathed in sud-den understanding. "As a genetic hybrid…"
The Well-Manicured Man nodded. "Your father chose hope over selfishness. Hope in the only future he had: his children. His hope for you, Agent Mulder, was that you would uncover the truth about the Project. That you would do everything you could to stop it—-
"That you would fight the future."
He fell silent. On the other side of the backseat, Mulder sat stunned, feeling as though all at once his destiny had been validated, or maybe simply justified. "Why are you telling me this?" he said at last.
The Well-Manicured Man stared at his hands for a long time before replying. "For the sake of my own children. Nothing more, noth-ing less. Once they learn what I've told you, my life will be over."
He raised his head, and Mulder looked up to see the driver staring back at them from the rearview mirror. At their notice he quickly brought his attention back to the road, and Mulder asked, "What happened to Dr. Kurtzweil?"
"His knowledge became too great for his indiscretion. As your father knew, some things need to be sacrificed to the future."
Mulder stared at the other man's impassive face and suddenly realized the truth of it.
"You—you murdered him," Mulder said in shocked disbelief. When the Well-Manicured Man said nothing, Mulder grabbed his door handle. "Let me out. Stop the car."
The Well-Manicured Man gestured at the front seat. "Driver…"
Slowly the limo pulled to a stop. Outside the street was empty, lit only by a single yellow crime light.
There were no houses, no people, only an abandoned gas station flanked by sev-eral rusting Dumpsters.
Mulder jimmied the handle. It was locked. He whirled to challenge his captor, and found himself looking down at a handgun resting carefully, almost casually, on the other man's leg. Its barrel was aimed directly at Mulder's chest.
"The men I work with will stop at nothing to clear the way for what they believe is their stake in the inevitable future," the Well-Manicured Man said as Mulder recoiled. "I was ordered to kill Dr.
Kurtzweil."
Mulder backed against the door as in one fluid motion the other man lifted the gun. "—as I was ordered to kill you." But before Mulder could cry out, the Well-Manicured Man whirled and shot the driver in the head.
Blood spattered the front windshield and Agent Mulder's jacket. He gasped, still trying to comprehend what had just happened, and stared horrified at the man holding the gun beside him. "Trust no one, Mr. Mulder," said the Well-Manicured Man matter-of-factly. Mulder looked at him, expecting to be next. But the Well-Manicured Man only opened the door and stepped from the town car. He stood in the desolate street and held the door open for Mulder, who was still frozen in his seat.
"Get out of the car, Agent Mulder."
"Why? The upholstery is already ruined."
"Get out."
Taking a deep breath, Mulder joined him on the asphalt. He looked down at the felt envelope in his hand. The Well-Manicured Man stared at him with an intensely somber look, still grasping the handgun.
"You have precious little time, Agent Mulder. What I've given you—the alien colonists don't know it exists… yet. You have in your hand the power to end the Project. To take what is most valuable from them."
"I need to know how—" Mulder cried.