TITLE: THE KILEMBE (1 of 5) AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE CLASSIFICATION: X RATING: R SPOILERS: The whole bloody series. SUMMARY: In the aftermath of "Requiem," a new cult has formed in Africa. Its leader is someone very close to Agent Scully. Send feedback to ottercrk@sover.net Website is located at http://members.dencity.com/hearne ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I owe my research to four books -- "Apocalypses" by Eugen Weber, "This House Has Fallen" by Karl Maier, "The Hero with an African Face" by Clyde W. Ford and "A History of Southern Africa" by J.D. Omer-Cooper. Any misrepresentations of African history, current affairs or culture is strictly the fault of this silly white man. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX PART ONE VISIONS AND VANISHINGS XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX The priest lit up a cigarette and addressed the only person in his church. "Life itself is only a vision; a dream." He exhaled a cloud of smoke which dissipated into the shadows. Darkness filled most of the church. A few candles provided light around the altar. Much brighter were the stained glass windows gleaming like phosphorus. "I myself have no existence; I am but a dream -- your dream, creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this, then you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the nothingness out of which you made me..." Designed into the glass windows were scenes from stories that the sole parishioner vaguely recognized. She saw dark tunnels full of filing cabinets, a metal container with a strange fetus inside, the reflection of a deformed person in an eye. "Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and all of its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction. Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane -- like all dreams." There was another image she could recognize in a faint way -- a woman standing on a beach with this giant metal disk jutting from the sand. "Your dream is of a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short." The priest looked down and brushed the ash off his white robe. "...who mouths justice and invented hell -- mouths mercy and invented hell -- mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell..." He looked up and pointed his cigarette at the woman in his church. "...who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether obtuseness..." He hurled the cigarette into a large golden cup placed on the altar. A tall flame burst from the cup, throwing off a shower of sparks that flew upwards like an ocean spray. The new light exposed the wall behind the priest. A cross taller than his body was hanging on the wall. "...invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!" On the cross was a man nailed through the wrists and hands. He had no face. This was all a dream. That's not to say it didn't happen. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Charles Scully was starting to prefer the disposal detail. A dead body was a far simpler problem than one still clinging to life. With death, it was a matter of a specified procedure. You had to find a space to stow this chunk of meat. There were a variety of places to use -- a morgue, a basement, a back storage room or the wide outdoors. Sometimes, a family picks up the body. Sometimes, you had to handle the whole funeral yourself. Dig a hole, dump the corpse, cover it up, say a prayer and you move on to the next one. Scully had overseen the burial of many bodies. In the shadow of the Iyangura Hospital were twenty-two mounds of dirt ranging in length. The oldest person in the graveyard was thirty-eight; the youngest was ten. All of the buried people had either come from families too poor to give them a burial or no one knew who their families were. Their eyes had been dazed and frightened when they had first arrived. They would lay down in a bed or the floor and stare at the people walking past them. In the beginning, they had this fierce, expectant look in the eyes; they seemed to anticipate being informed that none of this was real. It was as if even after all the stories, myths and legends they had heard about death, the actuality of their impeding demise was too unbelievable to accept. Then, as their bodies became weaker, defiance would empty from them like the tears from their eyes. In the final moments, they seemed to be counting their heartbeats, perhaps gifted with the exact knowledge of how many seconds were left to them. Watching this was what made it hard for Charles -- that and his own ineffectiveness. He could wash their sores, collect their stool samples, inject them with whatever drugs were available and hold their hands with plastic gloves. What he couldn't provide was more life. When he was working in the wards, he was nothing more than a ferryman guiding them to the other side of existence. Charles felt like a big weight had been attached to him that he would never shake free. He was no stranger to despair and weariness. Working for the Peace Corps had taken him to one forsaken geography after another -- migrant shantytowns on the Mexican-American border, ghettos in New York City, cities in Chechnya and Iraq assaulted by bombs. Not only had he seen how far a human can descend in physical terms but he had witnessed moral degradation as well. Dancing around the misery were polticians whose minds never went further than their bank accounts, warlords sacrificing others for some meaningless cause and the people who just wallowed in their indifference. He had given the benefit of his compassion to the sufferers and his rage to the callous. However, a month in Zimbabwe had taken him beyond either compassion or rage. He couldn't explain why this numbness had overtaken him here. Perhaps Iyangura Hospital just represented the end of the road for him -- a final straw laid across the back of his conscience. It could also be that the rooms of the dying could benumb any man. Whatever the reason, he found himself thinking more and more about the family he had left behind -- the wife and children whose touch he needed, the mother who seemed so far away, the older brother who had supported him and the sister who had come close to dying herself while Charles was in another country. In the past, he would have been philosophical and declare that the whole world was his family. Now he was wondering if he wished to be disowned. These kinds of thoughts had been flowing in his mind as he worked on the midnight shift at the AIDS ward. They were his final conscious thoughts before he fell asleep. He had adjusted his body to taking brief naps while on duty. If no difficulties needed addressing, he could literally fall asleep while standing up. This particular nap was taken in a chair located at one end of the ward. Another thing he had trained himself to do was awake for any suspicious noise. He had developed a sense for when a patient was in particularly sharp agony or when a rat decided to take a pre-death nibble on any of these future corpses. It didn't have to be a sound that woke him. Sometimes, silence itself could be ominous. This time, an awareness of the ward's quiet brought him out of slumber. Before waking up, he had been having a dream about his sister. She had been seated in a cave. A fire was burning in front of her. Sparks rose all the way up to the ceiling of rock. The heat made Charles want to back away but she remained still. She looked ahead of her with her back turned to her brother. Another figure was sitting on the other side of the fire. His identity was hidden by the flames. She stared at this other person with a intensity evident just from the stiffness of her neck. Charles wanted to ask what was happening but he suspected this event was beyond his comprehension. He remained an observer, waiting for his sister to make a move. Just as she stood up, his instinctual connection to the waking world twitched. He tore himself out of the dream, shook his head and focused his eyes to the light of the dim bulbs. Details became more apparent -- the rust on the beds' iron frames, the cracks in the tiled floor, the edges of wide plains visible through the windows. He searched for what had set off his mental alarm. Even though the problem was perfectly obvious, it took him more than a few seconds to notice it. Then, again, it wasn't the sort of thing he expected to see. Believing dragged itself behind seeing. When he did see it and accepted it, he leapt from his chair. He ran through the ward, beds flashing against his sight. They all told him the same improbable story. At the time of his nap, he had been the only one in the ward. The other members of the midnight shift were elsewhere, tending to some other duty or grabbing rest themselves. He now found himself wondering what he would say to them when they got back. He felt like a child does when his mother is coming to find out what made that crashing noise in the family den. "All gone, huh?" Charles spun around. He saw two faces. One belonged to a black man wearing a baseball cap. The second belonged to a buck-toothed, long-eared animal imprinted on the man's T-shirt. The animal was standing erect, munching on a carrot and giving Charles a casually snide look. The man himself was looking at the beds. His expression was curious, even a little uneasy. However, he looked nowhere near as panicked as Charles. "Where are they?" Charles yelled at this stranger because there was no else around. "There and back again, I imagine," the stranger commented as he lifted up the edge of one bed's thin blanket with a finger. Charles marched towards him. "You tell me what's going on or..." The stranger turned to Charles. While the look on his face couldn't exactly be called threatening and no weapons appeared to be hidden under his brown leather jacket, the look did advise caution. Even in his agitated state, Charles could feel the thin ice under his feet and halted. The stranger dropped the blanket. He began to saunter past Charles and the other empty beds, hands in the pockets of his jeans. His sneakers squeaked on the floor as he gave the room a casual examination. Charles noticed that his baseball cap was divided into four colors -- the bill was red with a red triangle behind it; a black triangle was on the left; on the right, yellow; the back part, white. "I don't know where they are," he said. "At least, I'm not entirely clear on the details." "But what happened?" Charles whispered. The stranger turned to Charles with a grin that resembled the cartoon character's. "Isn't it obvious? A miracle happened." Charles felt a hand on his shoulder. A second passed before he realized that it belonged to the stranger who was telling him, "I think it's time you saw your family again. Don't you?" With that, the stranger headed for the door. On the way there, he sang in a strong, pleasant voice. "I can feel it...coming in the air tonight...oh, Lord..." He stopped at the door and looked back at Charles. "You know, I don't care what anybody says. I *like* Phil Collins." Those were the last words he said to Charles. He then strode off. Charles heard the stranger's song fade away in the corridors of the hospital. The voice was covered by the silence like a stone in a river. He stood there, wondering at what point he was going to do anything. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX TITLE: THE KILEMBE (2 of 5) AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX PART TWO ORDINARY LOVE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX When it happened, no fireworks exploded. The clouds did not part for glorious sunlight; every choir of angels kept their mouths shut; not one portion of the earth moved an inch. This wasn't to say that it hadn't been pleasurable. It had been very much so. However, they had both anticipated it to be an event full of thunder and blood. All of that accumulated desire should have exploded in an orgasm unlike any other experienced in human history; at least, that was the shared fantasy lurking at the back of their heads. It wasn't like that at all. What a relief. In their most intense moments, they had come to see each other as a larger-than-life person. Their shared experiences would magnify their perceptions until the other individual became a person whom they could never reach. They saw great virues and great flaws. In her eyes, his intensity and faith was inspiring -- a reminder that some causes were worth risking everything. However, everything would often include her own needs. With his eyes focused always on an elusive goal, he would be blinded to the dangers gathered around him and herself. As for him, he saw in her everything he wanted to have in his own character -- courage, loyalty, intelligence, compassion. However, wrapped around those attributes was an iron casing of denial. She denied her own feelings, denied everything that could change her views, denied what went against her own prejudices. Those perceived flaws rendered them distant to each other. The other would be admirable but never attainable. They would use the other's virtues to improve themselves. They could even grow to love the holder of the virtues but only in an abstract way. Moments had passed when they might have loved each other as a human being and not as a standard. However, the moments went by and another workday began. Then one moment didn't go by. They grabbed onto it, almost casually -- almost as a joke. When clothes started to come off, she giggled and he grinned. It just seemed preposterous. After all the monsters they had encountered and all the times they had confronted death together and all the dark corners of their souls they had explored, they were now acting like a couple who had just met in a bar. Wasn't that impossible? When did they do anything with a light air? Their lives had trained them to expect grander themes to their actions. Sex had to have a scent of the godlike and the apocalyptic. Instead they discovered two people whom they had believed to have been lost. She found the silly side of her brooding partner. His corny jokes and laidback masculinity were pleasures that she had never fully tasted. The great crusader enjoyed spicy Mexican food, beer, Tom Petty and likable bad movies (as well as bad porno.) She had seen him haunted by the injustice of life. Now she was seeing him holding life like a rubber ball in his hand, playing with it and enjoying the game. He had forgotten things about her as well. He had seen her smile so infrequently that when it did happen, he was always struck by the way her raised lips made her look like a college freshman. It was something he wanted to see more often, just like he wanted to hear her likably geeky laugh. ("Huh-huh-huh!") He also noted that they had a similiar sense of laconic humor but she didn't come across as so alienated and smart-ass in her lighter moments. And, like him, she knew all the words to "Breakdown." This meant that their love did not have to be as heavy as the burdens under which they worked. It could be full of little quirks and private amusements. Nothing like the destiny of the world was involved; visions of armageddon and God's almighty power did not need to apply. They worked together and now they slept together. The arrangement was as wonderfully simple as that. They loved not as deities but as human beings. If you are familiar with the stories of gods in love, then you should know that happiness is far more likely between humans, especially humans who don't have the weight of an important quest laid across their shoulders. Unfortunately, these two particular humans had such a quest to confront. She felt the responsibilities as surely as she felt the man's absence and what was growing inside her womb. All three had to be confronted like life itself. With life, however, comes death. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Dana Scully looked at the corpse. A dead body in a morgue was a familiar sight to her eyes. Nor was she a stranger to the baffling ways in which a person might expire. However, this dead body was the most surreal thing she had ever seen. "Maybe we should drive a stake through his heart," Walter Skinner commented. The same thought had crossed her mind. As grey and withered this dead man looked, she still couldn't accept the reality of his demise. If anybody could have schemed his way out of the natural end for all living things, he would have found the necessary trick. Yet here he was -- pale, cold, inert and still smelling of tobacco. "How did you find him?" she asked. "I got a little tip," Skinner said in a dry voice. "Undoubtedly from the same man who killed him and sent this note to me." Without looking at her, Skinner reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She hesitated for a slight moment before taking the note and reading it. "To Whom It May Concern -- "Whatever there was between us is gone. The man whose quest you have been following has been taken. The man who has manipulated everyone is dead. "It may interest you to know that I didn't kill him. Yes, I pushed him down the stairs but I would never have been in the position to do so if it hadn't been for the efforts of one woman. "C.B.G. Spender -- or whatever his name was -- had one weakness. He honestly believed that the future was his to control. He saw the whole world as his child and it was his choice whether it was to live or die. "This vanity extended itself to Mulder. As you might have figured out by now, Spender had a brief affair with Mulder's mother." Scully closed her eyes briefly before continuing to read. "My understanding is that it had become meaningless to Teena Mulder. What had initially led her to this affair is a mystery to me. Perhaps she was drawn to powerful men. Agent Scully could understand that, couldn't she?" Scully resisted an urge to spit on the paper. "However, it meant something to Spender. He had loved her. Or, to be more precise, he was in love with the person who was denied to him. Again, Agent Scully might...well, never mind. "The point is that he inflated the importance of this affair in his mind. Eventually, he convinced himself that he was Mulder's real father. Teena Mulder never confirmed or denied his suspicions -- a classic misinformation ploy. She knew that Mulder would be in less danger as long as she held out that possibility to Spender. "In the end, it became her trump card. When Mulder was being driven insane by the mutated portion of his brain, she confirmed Spender's suspicions; she pretended to believe the lie he told himself. She did this because it was the only way to save Mulder. The operation performed on Mulder and the transfer of genetic material to Spender would have only been carried out if the latter believed that they shared the same family DNA. However, since this wasn't the case... "Is there a moral to this little tale? Yes. Two morals, in fact. "Number one -- for all of the sentimental rhetoric about honesty and truth, lies can be just as effective at saving us, if not more so. That is to say, the lies we tell others as opposed to the lies we tell ourselves. "This brings me to my second moral -- survival is the only real ideology. Everything else we might desire revolves around this most primitive of instincts. Power, money, sex -- they all serve as insulation against the dangers of the world. "And this is going to become a most dangerous world, Agent Scully. Make no mistake about it. I am going to be making my own preparations for survival. Why don't you start doing the same? "While we're at it, why don't we make a promise to the other? You stay out of my way and I'll stay out of yours. A lot of work is ahead of me. I would rather not have to deal with you. I suspect that the same applies to your own situation. "So this is good-bye then. We've had an interesting history together. Now would be a good time to conclude it. "Yours, "Alex" Scully folded the note back up and held it in a hand dangling at her side. She seemed uncertain of whether to drop it on the cold white floor. "Did you read it?" she asked Skinner. "I did," he said. "It takes a little heat off me, I guess. But I would like to know what the son-of-a-bitch is planning." "He's probably doing just what he says. Planning for survival." Skinner looked at Scully's face. It was calm but there was a fragility to her calmness. He knew about the hard, sour emotions inside of her. "What do you plan to do?" he asked. "I was going to ask the same thing of you." Skinner took a breath, then said, "I'm not sure. I just told a review board of...what I saw in Oregon." "They were less than convinced, I imagine." The assistant director's lips tensed into a thin smile. "It gave me a taste of what Mulder had...what he has been going through all these years." "Maybe with..." Scully threw a slight wave to the corpse. "...this man dead, then the silence and denial will fall apart. Maybe you'll find people who will..." "No. This man spent a lifetime creating a structure designed to hide the truth. The architect may be gone but too many people in our government can't imagine a life outside of what he created. The liar is dead. Long live his lies." Scully nodded. "Not to say that I won't keep banging my head against the wall. At this point, I don't know what else to do. Which brings me back to my question of you." The female agent took her time before answering. "I'm going to my mother's" was what she finally said to Skinner. "Of course. You need a little time..." "I need a lot of time." "Right. And after that?" Scully turned to Skinner and the look in her eyes stung him. "Remember when I told you that we would find Mulder?" "Of course. I still believe that." Skinner paused, then said, "Do you?" "When I said that...I had just found out about...this." She touched a hand on her abdomen. "I was thinking -- if I could live in this world where this could happen, then couldn't we also..." Her voice trailed away for a few moments. When she spoke again, she said, "Where do we start looking? What leads do you follow? Who do we interrogate? What could we do even if we knew where to look?" "Are you saying you've already given up?" "I'm saying that maybe it rests now in God's hands. But Mulder once told me that God was indifferent...that all he does is watch the box scores. Maybe he was right." The silence of the two living people became as complete as the silence of the dead man. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Upon landing in the Lagos airport of Nigeria, travelers were almost instantly besieged by a raid for their "dash." Custom officials could be expected to find something about you -- your visa, the items in your carry-on bag, the amount of money you carried -- that would require a little "dash" to ensure passage through their channels. If they couldn't find something inconvenient about you as defined by the law, then they would make up a rule on the spot. If you managed to squeeze by them with most of your currency still in your pocket, then you had to run the gauntlet of civilian and military Africans surrounding the airport, all offering to carry your luggage or claiming to be taxi drivers or insisting that they had some service you needed. Opportunism and chicanery were manifiested at all levels of Nigerian society from the bribes being accepted by high officials to the tolls demanded at impromptu roadblocks. Underneath all this hustling was the desperation of a country that knew it could do better than this; that knew their country was wobbling under the burden of corruption and ethnic strife; that was aware all of their problems would exact a price bigger than the dash held in a tourist's pocket. Floating above this grim awareness, however, was a cheerful attitude as if all this con artistry was as charming as one of Sidney Greenstreet's cinematic rogues. Sometimes, it did have a certain charm. When a custom official grinned, the more experienced travelers would grin, too. A custom official's smile usually meant that somebody had just gotten cornered by the "rules" and would have to pay his way to freedom. If the cornered tourist started to yell and complain about his rights, the experienced traveler would giggle. What did the indignant fool think he could accomplish? One particular custom official was smiling as another two new arrivals to Nigeria stepped up to his inspection desk. These two, he thought, are ripe for the plucking. The male traveler had smooth, boyish features which gave him a look of naivete. The woman with him carried an air of stiff primness -- the kind of person who would thrash and rant if asked for "dash," not knowing that it would make things worse. Furthermore, their large articles of luggage had a secretive air about them. (The woman carried two. The man only carried one in his right arm. His left arm was stiff and unmoving.) The custom official was certain that he would find an item on their persons which would be profitable for himself. He had failed to notice the cold, firm looks in their eyes as he cheerfully asked how much money they had. "Plenty," the man said. "But you won't see a dime of it." The custom official's smile vanished. At first, he wasn't intimidated by the hard-ass attitude. He knew how to deal with the ones who tried to bully their way past him. "Nor will you hold onto anything we possess," the man told him. "And just why is that?" The man held up a piece of paper which the custom official read. After seeing the contents of the letter and who signed it, the official cleared his throat, stamped two visas and said, "Welcome to Nigeria." Alex Krycek put the letter back into his jacket, picked up his single piece of luggage and headed for the airport exit with the stride of a king. His assumption to the throne was a bit shaky, though. He hadn't been sure if the letter would guarantee him, his companion and their luggage easy access through the bureaucracy of Nigeria. An important and influential man had signed that letter but in the continually shifting landscape of Nigerian politics, the weight of that letter might have lightened. It had been one of the items culled from the ruins of an old conspiracy. The conspiracy had lost its direct authority but its files held the secrets of a hundred closets. Krycek had come to Nigeria bearing one of those secrets. However, no amount of poltical privilege and access can speed anyone through the tangled traffic of Lagos. Krycek had paid a taxi driver handsomely and the driver was doing everything shy of committing vehicular manslaughter to ferry his passengers through the streets. However, they didn't call traffic jams in Nigeria "go-slows" for nothing. Krycek and his companion was treated to a sluggish tour of the nation's capital. Lining up and spilling into the congested avenues was commerce of an unvarnished kind. There were no brightly lit stores and malls to provide shoppers with a regulated area of consumption. People simply found a spot to insert their table and displayed goods ranging from umbrellas to videos, from fruits to allegedly magic charms, from auto parts to books, from the handsomely made to the shoddily constructed. Some deals were conducted with loud voices, others done in the shadows. Jammed in the middle of this, the long line of yellow taxis and cheap cars would often look like products for sale. Children would get lost in the jumble of pedestrians squeezing through the congestion. Beggars would promise blessings for loose change. You could see women wearing Muslim veils or t-shirts bearing the faces of popular singers. Hanging over all of this was the smell of sweat and pipe exhaust mixed into the humid air. Underneath the tires and shoes, another crack was added to the road. It would have been a nerve-twisting experience for a new arrival straight out of America. However, Krycek had experienced far worse things that this traffic jam. The same could have been said for the woman sitting next to him. He looked at her. She was keeping a calm eye on the road ahead as the driver cursed and missed hitting another car by an inch. Krycek wondered about Marita Covarrubias and wondered why did he trust her now. Perhaps "trust" wasn't the right word. He could depend on her. After going through the hell of the conspiracy's experiments, she had made the same promise to herself that Krycek had made to himself. Never again. Never would they be hurt again. Never would they risk anything again. Never would they commit any action without complete assurance of their survival. That's why they were going to the mansion of Ibrahim Haruna. Events were proceeding to the point where survival was the highest goal you could obtain. The mansion was located at the edge of Lagos, far from the more chaotic flux of human affairs. The contrast between the inner city's noise and the mansion's silence was a bit startling. It was lulling as well. After Krycek and Covarrubias introduced themselves to the main guard, they were led to the "waiting room." They found a dozen people, half of them asleep. The others were reading a book, going over some papers or just staring at a wall. A secretary sat at a desk next to a thick, gilded pair of doors. It was hard to tell if he was genuinely busy or just trying to look busy. The guard said, "Wait here and Mr. Haruna will be..." Krycek walked right past him. The guard's eyes widened like the eyes of those awake. His hand fell upon the handle of his gun but Covarrubias froze him with a single disdainful look. A folded piece of paper was held in front of the secretary's astonished face. "Don't read this," Krycek said. "Give it to Haruna." The secretary looked at the guard who shrugged his reply. The secretary took the paper, left his desk and knocked on the door before entering the inner office. He was gone for twenty seconds. The two Americans stood in calmness despite the suspicious looks they were receiving. When the secretary emerged, he looked nervous yet impressed. "Mr. Haruna will see you now," he said. "Hello there," Ibrahim Haruna declared as the two Americans entered and the door was shut behind them (as well as locked.) He crossed towards them with his brown robe waving slightly over his legs and his sandals clapping on the floor. A smile was stretched over his face. This was not an uncommon sight. Haruna had a smile for everyone and it could make you feel like you were an insider on a private joke. However, the smile had an air of artificiality this time and his eyes were not missing a single movement his visitors made. He still shook their hands and invited them to rest on a soft couch. Krycek and Covarrubias did so but declined an offer of tea. "Now," Haruna said as he sat on a chair. "What scandalous tale are you trying to spread about me?" "Just a name," Covarrubias replied. "The name of a man who made a bomb. A bomb that killed a rival of yours." Haruna sighed and shook his head. "I don't know what rumors you have been hearing, but I assure you that -- despite our differences -- the death of Obi Musa was as mourned by myself as..." "We don't have time for this crap," Krycek said. Haruna stopped smiling. "We didn't come here to blackmail you. We just wanted to get your attention. And to make you an offer." Haruna rubbed a thumb across a finger. "All right. You have my attention. What's the offer?" "A chance to be one of the few human beings left alive in the next five years." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX TITLE: THE KILEMBE (3 of 5) AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX PART THREE YGDRASIL XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Twenty-two days after the discovery of the smoking man's body and twenty days after the first meeting between Krycek, Covarrubias and Haruna, Charles Scully had his strange experience in the AIDS ward of a Zimbabwe hospital. It took two days for him to decide to take the advice given by the strange man in the multi-colored cap. He got permission to leave from the Peace Corps and was back in the United States of America two days after that. On the night of that second day, he was on the doorstep of his mother's house. Margaret Scully greeted him as you might expect a mother to greet a son she hasn't seen in over a year. "Oh my goodness, Charles..." "Your baby boy has returned," he told her with a grin and embraced her. "It's been so long." "I know, Mom. I really know it." They held each other for many seconds before they pulled apart, still holding each other by the arms. "I don't want to look this in the mouth," she said. "but why are you here now?" "Well...I have to admit that it's not just to stop by and say hello..." "What is it?" Before Charles could answer, he heard a voice say, "Hey, sprout." Even though he was now as tall as the man who said it, hearing that name made him feel the same mixture of irritation and amusement as when he was eight years old. The confident grin on the face of Bill Scully, Jr. had a similar effect on him. "Hey, jerk," Charles replied to his older brother in an easy-going way. "Had I known you were here..." "You would have brought your ladder so you could look me in the eye." "Ah, I'm looking you in the eye right now, bro." Bill kept on grinning and shook hands with his brother. "I didn't know you were in town," Charles said. "Well, I am. So is Dana." "That I did know. It's why I came here in the first place. Her A.D. told me that she was taking a..." Bill's smile disappeared as he interrupted his brother. "You came here to see Dana?" "Uh, yeah. Is that somehow a problem?" "Oh, no," Margaret interjected, though she had stopped smiling as well. "Of course not." "You came all the way from Ehtiopia to see her?" Bill said as if his mother had said nothing. Charles' irritation was starting to win out. Somewhere around puberty, Bill had gotten this notion that being the oldest male child of his family meant being in command of his siblings' affairs. His presumptuousness had been accompanied by a fast tendency to suspect and judge others. Right now, he had gone into his 'problem-solver' mode. "It's Zimbabwe, not Ethiopia," Charles informed him. "And if I wanted to come all the way from Antarctica to see my sister, why shouldn't I do that?" Margaret gave Charles a quick squeeze on the arm and a look at Bill. "There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that we know you're busy and visiting your sister is not a thing you can casually plan." Charles pushed aside his annoyance and said, "No. No, it isn't. And I didn't come here for casual reasons. I came here because I need her help. While I was down in Africa, I...I encountered something very strange. And...well ...from what I understand, Dana has been working on..." "Oh, for God's sake, not this," Bill moaned. "You didn't let me finish." "I don't have to." That was enough for Charles. "You know, for once, it would be nice if you didn't jump all over a guy's ass without first..." "Stop it!" Margaret snapped, her voice shocking the two brothers with its anger. "Both of you, stop it! Dana doesn't need you two fighting like a pair of brats still in your diapers!" The way she spoke her daughter's name made Charles' skin turn cold. He was remembering the voice of Dana's A.D. (His name was Walter something.) There was something hidden in the man's voice when he was talking about Dana -- something pained and tense. "Mom, what's wrong with Dana?" She looked at him, unspoken words choked in her mouth. "Is she sick again?" Charles asked, feeling even colder. Bill turned away and leaned against a wall. "No," Margaret said. "Then what is it?" Margaret told him. That's when Charles realized just how long he had been gone. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX It was the fastest construction project anybody in Nigeria had ever seen. The actual purchase of the land occurred almost overnight. Necessary materials were being delivered to the site with a speed that mocked the country's "go-slows." The poorer inhabitants of the Niger Delta stared in disbelief as a steel framework rose up from the ground like a rocket. As the construction proceeded at a high pace, suspicions grew about its purpose. However, uncertainty was smothered under a heavy shower of dash. In fact, the people of the Niger Delta received better treatment from the sponsors of the project than they got from the oil companies who were sucking the Delta's natural resources like a child with a straw. Many from the local population received well-paying jobs on the project and tribal chieftains were granted generous boons. Even if the workers were forbidden to walk in certain areas of the site and it was unclear about who exactly was running the show, enough wealth was being spread to keep the underlings happy. Happiness was not being felt by the group running the project. Instead they felt anxiety. They pushed the project on, faster and faster. A great cataclysm was at hand. Wolves were howling, the seas were turning red, four horsemen were saddling up... Krycek was feeling the anxiety in a very strong way. This project was his idea and his responsibility, after all. One thing he didn't need was to hear two names. One of them was Dana Scully. The other belonged to an elderly German man who showed up at the construction site. Krycek had been supervising the installment of secret refrigeration units when he heard a throat clear. He turned and felt his stomach twist. "Hello, Alex." Krycek quickly dismissed the people with which he had been conferring. "What do you want?" he demanded to know. Conrad Strunghold waved a hand towards the stacks of iron girders and half-built walls. "To see this," he said in a casual voice. "It's an impressive undertaking." "It's a necessary one." "With some interesting backers. This Haruna fellow, for example. And that man from Switzerland..." "We have a lot of foreign capital coming in. The contributors wouldn't be too pleased to see you right now." "And why is that?" "Because they were as powerful and rich as anybody in the inner circle you once inhabited. Some were even richer. Yet you never invited them in and told them of your secrets." Strunghold stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down at the dirt under his shoes. "They were men of limited vision. They would have only concerned themselves with their own survival." "And you weren't concerned with yours?" "We were trying to insure the safety of the whole world. Besides, what makes you think this creation will protect you?" "Once it's completed, it will be the safest place anywhere." "Optimistic, aren't you? By the way, what do you call this place?" "Ygdrasil." Strunghold looked up at Krycek. "With your background, I assume you're familiar with Nordic legends." A humorless smile shaped itself on Strunghold's mouth. "I am. I take it you and Miss Covarrubias will be Lif and Lifthrasir?" "If necessary." Strunghold nodded, then turned to look at the girders. "I really don't approve of this." Krycek's stomach twisted a notch more. He was very tempted to pull out his gun and blow the German's head off. However, there was a good chance that he was in the vision of a high-powered scope. Of all the people to avoid the El Rico massacre, Krycek thought, it would have to be that smoking bastard and this Kraut. I should have killed Strunghold before I started this project. However, Strunghold had gone into hiding since El Rico and Krycek didn't have time to waste. "But there is very little I can do about it," Strunghold said. "And why should you want to do anything?" Krycek snapped. "Weren't you the one who said that no one man can fight the future?" "No. No one man can. And the future is approaching fast." "I know. Oregon, Florida, New South Wales, Odessa..." "And then there's The Kilembe." Krycek's face turned blank. "The what?" Strunghold gave Krycek another smile, genuinely amused this time. Without saying another word, he turned and left Krycek there at the site -- angry, confused and a little scared. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX She was tempted not to answer the knocking. She just wanted to stay in bed with her eyes closed and her body still. However, she opened her mouth and said, "Come in." The door creaked open. There was a brief moment of silence, then a voice asked, "Should I come back?" She sat up in bed as she opened her eyes. "Charles!" "Guess that's a no," he said with a smile. He entered the room to hug his sister. In their tight embrace, he could feel the swelling in her body. "You're here," she said as if she couldn't believe it. "Yeah. This is the closest thing the Scullys have had to a family reunion in years." She pulled away and looked up at him. "I'm sorry." "Why? You weren't the one out there in the middle of the Third World." She turned her eyes downward and her arms pulled back until just her fingers were touching him on a hand. "I suppose you've heard about me by now." "I've heard a lot of things. I'm having trouble believing them." "I'm still having trouble and it's been over three weeks since I got the news." Charles cleared his throat. "Uh...I hate to ask this...but...are you sure this is Mulder's child?" Scully gave her brother a slight smile and nodded. "Well, now, I really wish I had met him." "I wish you had, too." "Of course, I've been receiving conflicting reports over the years. Mom says that he is kind and caring. Bill says that he's a self-centered creep." "Mom is right,"Scully said. "And there were times that Bill was right, too. In the end, he was just...Mulder." "You said 'was.'" Scully turned her eyes away again. The bedsprings squeaked under Charles as he shifted his body and tried to speak. When he did speak, he said, "I have to be honest with you. I'm here right now because...I got this problem. Or a mystery. Or whatever the hell you want to call it." When Scully looked back at him, he saw a familiar expression in her eyes -- that sharp, analytical gaze which reminded Charles who was the smartest of the Scully children. He didn't know whether to feel relieved or worried. In any case, he told her what happened in Zimbabwe -- the disappearing AIDS patients, the man in the multicolored hat, all of it. She asked only a few questions, drawing out the details to complete the picture. After he was done, Scully took a breath as if she was about to perform a strenuous task. Then she said -- "Charles...did any of these patients claim to have had any...unusual experiences?" "What do you mean?" She looked straight at him but her hand was fidgeting with the blanket. "Did they ever report dreams of being taken away to a strange place? Did they make mention of an unusual object found in their bodies?" She pressed the back of her neck. "Right here, to be specific." "Uh...well, no. I never heard such a thing." "Ah." Scully looked embarrased now. "Why are you asking these questions?" Scully's shoulders slumped and she motioned to a desk in the corner of the room. Charles gave her a brief look, then went over to the desk. He found a stack of print-outs. Recently, his mother had acquired a computer for her house. Somebody had been e-mailing news items to that computer, addressing them to Scully. They all came from gunmen@aol.com. Charles scanned each of the e-mails briefly but a running theme was apparent in all of them. Mass disappearances were occurring all over the world --- from Oregon to Florida, from Australia to China. There was no rationale provided for the vanishings and no visible connections between the missing people. Charles slowly turned back to his sister. "What do you know about this?" Scully took a breath and said, "While it can't be verified about every single missing person, the majority of them had reported being abducted by aliens or having a similiar experience. Some had even shown signs of having had a medical procedure of unknown nature performed on them." Her brother looked at her. She seemed much further away than just the breadth of the room. He said, "But...this can't be verified about everyone." "No. In fact, one person did not claim an abduction experience. However, he did have other experiences which may have lead to his disappearance." "Who are you talking about?" The answer was there in her eyes. "Oh." Charles sat down on the edge of the desk, folded his arms across his chest and looked at a corner of the room. "Do you think it's possible...that they were taken by..." "I think it's very possible." Charles took awhile before he spoke again. "Dana, if you're saying this, then I have to credit it with some truth. But if it is true, then people have to know. You have to prove..." In a second, Scully's weary face brightened into a livid expression. She leapt off the bed and began pacing the room, not looking at her brother as if her words were being addressed to someone else. "Oh, for God's sake, Charles, what do you think I've been doing all these years? What do you think Mulder had been trying to do? It took me awhile to get to this point but I knew that the government was up to its eyeballs in shit..." "The government? What are you talking..." "No one wants to listen. They can't believe in anything outside of the lies or they have an interest in manufacturing those lies. Either way, no one notices that everything is going to hell around them..." "Dana..." "And I can't get them to think otherwise. I can try and try but nothing works. I can't keep the effort up. I don't have the strength. I don't have Mulder's passion..." "Yeah, you're sounding completely dispassionate now." Scully stopped pacing and turned to her brother. Her angry expression remained on her face for one more moment, then a weak smile appeared. "I'm sorry. I reailze you've come only for the third act. It must be difficult to understand everything." "Difficult, yes. But I still want to understand. And to help." He stood up and walked over to her. "What I saw in Zimbabwe...is this the same thing as what happened to these other people?" Scully took several breaths before saying, "I don't think so. My sources have been pretty good about investigating these mass abductions. If this one missed their attention, it must be because there wasn't one person in the Zimbabwe group who had an abduction experience. Besides, the man you described...he's a completely new element. I wouldn't know where to start with him." Her voice dropped down to almost a whisper. "Mulder would know." Charles resisted an urge to embrace her again. He could sense that she was trying to get her thoughts straightened out. This was new territory for her and the new thinking needed for survival was uncomfortable. It certainly was uncomfortable for him and -- like Scully said -- he had just gotten here. "There is a common thread among the people in Zimbabwe, of course," she finally said, her voice back to normal volume. "They were all AIDS patients. And perhaps...there is a connection to the other disappearances after all." "How so?" Scully gave him another weak smile. "I have a hunch." "Then you'll investigate it?" The smile left Scully's face. "I...I need to think about it." After that, there wasn't much left to say. Charles gave her a few more friendly words and he left her alone in the room. She sat down on the bed, wondering how she had become to feel so powerless. These feelings had started with the dream. It had come to her before the smoking man's body had been found. The grim words that the smoking man had said, the faceless man on the cross...they reminded her of just what she was facing. These were forces that transcended human endeavor and history, Mulder had said. This was the secret of Heaven itself. It was too much, too much. She was just an FBI agent -- a government employee, no more and no less. She could wrap her mind around alien colonization but she couldn't digest it. This kind of faith may have weighed down Mulder, but it also freed him to explore areas everyone else avoided. For her, it was just a weight. Then there's my child, she thought. God, those words..."my child." Our child, Mulder. Your child... And there was something else...another weight...an accusation from a shower of sparks... Just too much. She had spent the last few weeks at her mother's, allegedly to recuperate but now it felt more like hiding. She had received the information about the abductions, thanked the Lone Gunmen for it and said no more. They were all waiting for her next move. Skinner, Byers, Langly, Frohike...these men now followed her lead. However, they surely were doubtful now. Would Scully do anything? Or had she broken down, burned out, surrendered? I don't know, she thought. But...maybe not just yet. I need to find out. I told Skinner that I didn't know where to start. Africa sounds as good a place as any. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Bilikisu Kamula looked at her husband and wondered if he was going mad. No, she decided. He wasn't mad. He was just angry -- angry at his unemployment, angry at the sanitation company that had "let him go," angry at the smells in his house, angry at not being able to provide for his family, angry at the poverty that seemed to infect Angola like a cancer. The anger was clutched around his heart so tightly that he couldn't move. If he did move, his anger would release itself and those next to him might get harmed. That's why Bilikisu just sat and watched him. The baby squirming against her chest and the rocking chair under her body provided the only movement in the house. Bilikisu's husband was fixed in his chair, brooding in the tepid light of an old lamp. They could have stayed in that almost perfect tableu for the whole night. Or the wrong sound could have been made and the husband's anger could have been unleashed. Neither of these things happened because they heard the sound of a hundred feet. At first, they couldn't recognize the sound. It was too odd and surreal to their ears. Yet, as they continued to listen, the sound's origin became too obvious to ignore. They headed for a window, opened the shutters and looked out at the street passing by their house. Windows in other houses had also been opened. Through them, neighbors gawked at the spectacle outside. A crowd was walking through the city of Caungula. When the Kamula family saw them, they had reached eighty-four in size. The crowd gave no indication of where they were going but they had these strange blissful looks on their faces. Every one of them -- the men, the women, the elderly, the children, the ones wearing fine clothes, the ones wearing rags -- kept going on their invisible path as if it was the happiest task in the world. They did not look tired, not even the ones with thin, malnourished bodies. Wherever they were going, they would not stop until they got there. It was such a bizarre sight that Mr. Fela Kamula rushed out the front door and yelled out, "What are you people doing?" His voice was more awed than suspicious. A member of the crowd stopped and turned to him. Much to his surprise, the person was a white woman. She was dressed in a blue jumpsuit. The look on her face was a pure form of joy. Not only did she look happy but she seemed incapable of encountering sorrow again. "Come with us," she said to Fela. He took a step back. "What?" "Come with us," the woman repeated. "Just like that?" She nodded, still smiling. "You're insane." "No. Your world is the one that's insane. Ours is the one with peace and hope." Fela turned to his wife. She stood at the doorway with their boy in her arms. He found himself thinking about what he could give her and found it lacking. He looked at the white woman. "Who do you follow?" She cleared the space between them with a single step. One of her hands rose to his cheek. He resisted the urge to back away. As she touched him, she said, "We follow a god." And in her eyes... ...Fela saw him... ...kind and generous and hopeful... ...a creator of miracles... ...a guide to a new world... The Kamula family would not be the only ones from the city of Caungula to join this trek. As the crowd proceeded northwards, others would be approached to join and they would do so without looking back. Some joined without even being asked. The rest just watched, wondering what it could mean. One of the watchers knew exactly what it meant. He looked upon the crowd with himself seen only by the moon caressing his mutli-colored cap with soft light. He had the expression of a chess game spectator as he sang in a soft voice. "The sun was so hot, I thought I died...thought I died and went to hell...looking for the water from a deeper well..." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX TITLE: THE KILEMBE (4 of 5) AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX PART FOUR MWUETSI XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "Just what do you think you're doing here?" "What are *you* doing here?" He smiled and took a drag off his cigarette. "Just enjoying life, I guess." "That's interesting. The last time we met, you were quoting some of Mark Twain's more dour passages." "I was? Oh, yes, I was." The smoker spread out his hands in a melodramatic gesture. "'We live as we dream -- alone.'" "That's Joseph Conrad." "Hm. So it is." "Is that why you've come here? To impress me with your hotshot literary allusions?" "I'm here to tell you to give up on this quest of yours." "You've been saying that to me for a long time." "No, I used to say it to Mulder. He ignored me. Look where he is now." "I don't know where he is. I'm going to find out where." "What makes you think you can? For that matter, what makes you think you're even worthy of the task?" "...what?" "Who are you to involve yourself in grand affairs like this? Who are you to cast your judgment against those who remember the world when it was nothing more than rock and ice?" "I have a role to play in this. I'm sure of it." "Oh, come now. You think so highly of yourself? You think you have a part in this great drama? Let me tell you something -- you're not the Virgin Mary. You're not Joan of Arc, burning at the stake for your beliefs." The man smirked at her. "You're not even Gloria Steinem." "I know what's right and what's wrong." "Do you now?" He pressed a finger against her head with his thumb sticking up. "Bang," he said. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX A shower of sparks... XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "Hey, Scully. We're here." Scully came out of her sleep and the first thought in her head was "Damn." "Something wrong?" Charles asked her. She shook her head, then stood up to join the passengers departing the airplane. "Welcome to Lagos International Airport," the stewardess announced over the intercom in her mechanically cheerful voice. Scully had spent the previous three days investigating Charles' story with The Lone Gunmen. Along the way, they discovered another bizarre story -- the mass migration of African people from their homes and countries. The migration hadn't gotten the full attention of the media but it certainly got Scully's. After studying satellite pictures, the Lone Gunmen determined where the trekkers were headed. That's when Scully decide to contact a former acquaintance. She sent this e-mail -- "To Doctor Ngebe, Are you familiar with the unexplained migration towards Nigeria? Agent Scully" The e-mail sent back was equally succinct. "To Agent Scully, Come to Lagos. We have much to talk about. Doctor Ngebe." That's how Charles ended up going back to Africa with his pregnant sister. Skinner wanted to go with her but she insisted that he stay in D.C. "I need you to keep an eye on things from this end. Not to mention, cover my tail." "All right," he sighed. "But what do you expect to find in Nigeria?" She didn't know. As she stepped out of the plane and into the airport's crowded interior, she still didn't know. Charles had warned her about the tricks played by the custom officials. However, a flash of her FBI badge and a memo signed by a high official got her party through with no problems. "How did you make contact with the American ambassador?" Scully smiled. "I didn't." "Then where did that memo come from?" "I get by with a little help from my friends." Three friends, to be exact. They went on to make the standard long journey through the chaotic streets until they reached the Okigbo Hotel. A tall, pretty black woman was waiting for them in the lobby. "It has been awhile," Doctor Amina Ngebe said. "I know," Scully said. "This is my brother, Charles." Ngebe and Charles shook hands. Then they all took seats in the foyer branching off from the lobby. Human and vehicular traffic were scurrying by a window without pause. "Such a frantic country," Ngebe observed. "Then, again, a body always thrashes the most just before death." She cleared her throat and said, "So you wish to know about The Kilembe." "The who?" Scully said. "The people who are leaving their homes, walking across Africa...they are the new members of a group calling itself The Kilembe. Are you familiar with the term?" "Yes," Charles said. "It's a Bantu word. It means 'life tree.' The story goes that when a person is born, this tree appears. The growth of the tree mirrors the life of the person. If it withers, then that person is close to death." "Very good. Do you know who Mwuetsi is?" Charles searched his memory. "I know it means 'moon'..." He shook his head. "I can't remember." "Mwuetsi comes from a story told by the Wahungwe people. He was the first man in the world. The god Maori created him and gave him a home at the bottom of a lake." "Oh, yeah, that's right. Eventually, Mwuetsi wanted to live on the earth." "A decision he came to regret immediately," Ngebe said with a smile. "What does this have to do with The Kilembe?" Scully asked. "Their leader goes by the name Mwuetsi. What's interesting is that this group seems to be borrowing from a wide variety of African cultures. It's as if it's trying to create a new, unified culture. And Mwuetsi seems to be succeeding in this regard." "Have you seen Mwuetsi?" Ngebe shook her head. "No. Outside of The Kilembe, no one has. He seems to keep within a very closed inner circle." "What is The Kilembe's intentions?" Charles asked. Ngebe paused, then said, "That's unknown as well. I daresay that none of Mwuetsi's followers know what he wants. Nevertheless, they are intensely devoted to him." "Why's that?" "They say...he can work miracles. Through himself and his followers." Charles and Scully looked at each other, then back at Ngebe. "Like healing the sick?" Scully asked. Ngebe leaned forward. "Why do you ask?" she said. Scully told Ngebe about the disappearing AIDS patients in Zimbabwe. "Yes," the doctor said. "I've heard of such things." "Oh, Lord..." Charles said. "Excuse me...I gotta..." Charles got up and walked away. He stood in the middle of the lobby, a rock in the flow of tourists, businessmen, reporters and maids. "Have you told him about the circumstances of our previous encounter?" Ngebe asked. "Not...all of it," Scully answered. Ngebe nodded. "Acceptance is always the hardest part." No, Scully thought. It isn't. "Is there any information you have about this Mwuetsi?" she asked. "Any descriptions?" "Well, they say he's a white man." Ngebe looked embarrassed. "I'm afraid that increases my suspicions." "It's only natural. The last time a white man brought his cult to Africa..." "Oh, I think Mwuetsi's goals are far beyond those of a Jim Jones. I worry this might be the Second Coming of Cecil Rhodes. Or Nigeria's next Goldie Taubman." "Hm. Still, we know very little about this man." "Other than his group grows larger with each passing day." Scully looked in another direction. Ngebe could see that she needed to think and kept silent. While Scully thought, Ngebe looked at her and noticed a few things -- the flush in her cheeks, the small swelling in her stomach... "God!" Ngebe exclaimed. Scully tore her eyes back in Ngebe's direction. "What?" "You're pregnant. I should have noticed it right away, but..." She reached over and touched Scully's hand. "This...this is wonderful." Scully smiled. "It is," she said but her voice was not as happy as to be expected. That's when Ngebe noticed the other obvious thing. "Agent Scully...where is Mulder?" The smile faded away. Scully's head bent down and she held onto Ngebe's hand with a tight grip. Without saying anything, Ngebe held back just as hard. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "Religious hysteria is common in this nation," Ibrahim Haruna observed. "That is to be expected. In the United States of America, you have people desperately wanting the apocalypse to come and that country is the most prosperous in the world. Imagine the kind of fevers that can take over a country where unemployment and poverty is common." "I'm aware of this," Covarrubias said. "But this is more than just religious hysteria." Haruna waved his hand in dismissal. "It's nothing unique. In Nigeria, you have people who think they can make bullets stop in mid-air by waving white handkerchiefs." "And how do you know they can't?" Haruna's face turned blank. He leaned back in his chair and regarded the white woman carefully poised in front of his desk. He said, "Hm. Perhaps I should be more open-minded about such matters, shouldn't I? Especially after what you've convinced me of." "Yes. However, the mere existence of miracles needn't concern us. What should concern us is that The Kilembe's reach extends far beyond Nigeria." She opened a folder and spread its contents over Haruna's desk. The Nigerian millionaire looked over photos of large crowds walking across deserts, grassy plains and black highways. "How many people are you talking about here?" Haruna asked in an amazed voice. "We're talking thousands now. All of them are coming to Nigeria. They represent a wide range of African's religions and people. Furthermore..." Covarrubias shifted the photos until a few close-ups of individuals in the crowd could be seen. Haruna saw white people and Asians interspersed among the Africans --- all with the same vacant smile. "Who are these people?" he asked. "Abductees. Abductees who disappeared a few weeks ago and have now returned." "So...this has something to do with..." Haruna cleared his throat. "...colonization." "That's the only assumption we can make. Krycek and I have yet to discover the connection." Haruna held up one of the photos and studied it for a few moments. Then he said, "Now, from what you've told me, the murder of your...associates severed the union between the colonists and human collaboration." "That's correct." "Since the colonists had structured their plans around that union, we have to assume that they have created new plans." "Yes. But how this fits in with any new plan is unclear." Haruna dropped the photo onto the desk and said, "What's also unclear is what we should do about it." Covarrubias was silent as she gathered the photos back into the folder. Then she said, "We agreed that the emphasis of our plans should be on survival and that we should not attempt to disrupt colonization in any way." "We did agree. But I think that we should find out who the leader of The Kilembe is, at the very least." A tiny smile appeared on the woman's lips. "I agree. We're already gathering intelligence on that." Haruna smiled back. "Good. And once we pinpoint this leader...?" "Then we shall make a decision. And use any means necessary to implement it." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX When Scully walked up to Charles in the lobby, he said, "I'm sorry. It's just that...I'm trying to..." Scully made a motion to indicate that nothing was wrong. However, Charles knew something was wrong -- if not with him, then with his sister. She had that closed-off expression that she held up to others when emotions threatened her stability. He didn't care for it; didn't care for his sister withdrawing from him. On the other hand, attempting to bring her out of it would only cause resentment on her part. And she had to remain focused on her job. Which was what, exactly? "Ngebe knows where The Kilembe's headquarters are. Sort of. They seemed to have set up shop near the Gulf of Guinea. That's just outside of Lagos." "You want to talk with The Kilembe?" "I want to talk with Mwuetsi." "Uh...from what Ngebe said, that's not easy." "I'll get through to him." "Just like that?" "Maybe. Come on." "Wait a second. Just what do you hope to..." Scully stopped him with a look. "Come on," she said quietly. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX He had a name. The name had been given to him by his god. He loved his name, cherished it, identified himself proudly by it. Every once and awhile, though, he wondered if he ever had another name. For that to be true, there would have to had been life before The Arrival. Of course, there had been no such thing. He had been born in light, given a name and told of his purpose. Then he had been sent to Ntoto in order to fulfill his purpose. He did so with joy in his heart. Everyone he met was told by him of the glory of Mwuetsi. Through his body, Mwuetsi worked miracles and made believers of the doubtful. He always cherished the moment when a new convert *knew* that Mwuetsi was the one, *knew* that The Kilembe was the way, *knew* that a great day was approaching. Then why do I sense that something is missing? he thought. Why do I have this tiny hole in my heart when my life is so fulfilled? As always, he shrugged off these thoughts, only to have them return. His doubts struck him harder than usual when he saw the woman. The Kilembe was very loose in its organization. They followed Mwuetsi and that was all. However, shelter and food was still needed for the swelling number of disciples. When he met the woman, he was supervising the erection of more tents and the distribution of more food. It was an easy task since everyone in The Kilembe was as eager to help the cause as he was. While he tied a rope to a stake, a wind skimmed over the Gulf of Guinea and touched his shirtless skin. He stood up and sighed with the pleasure at the wind's coolness and the tent raised for new followers. Up and down the coastline, the line of tents was longer than a yacht. His pleasure lessened when he felt the concern of his fellow disciples. Even before he saw the worry on their faces, his heightened senses could detect their shift in mood. The men helping him on the tent were looking behind him at something. He turned and saw three people approaching him. One of them was a white man who stared at the population living on the coast with wide eyes. Another was a black woman who was watching the third person. That third person was a white woman. She was looking at him with no little shock. "Billy?" It took him a moment to realize that she was talking to him. Calling him by a different name. A name that seemed to pull something from a hidden corner of his mind... ...before it was shoved away. As he looked at the woman, anxiety grew inside of him. There had been no life before the Arrival, he told himself. No life before the light which created me. So why should this woman seem familiar to me? He was not ready to voice his anxiety, though. Other members of The Kilembe were watching him. As a Shaman, it was his responsibility to find out who these visitors were. So he said, "No. My name is Fam. May I help you?" XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "Shit" had been the first word out of Charles' mouth when he had seen the tents. As Doctor Ngebe drove them out of Lagos and towards the coast, he was expecting something big. Yet the actual sight of The Kilembe's nerve center startled him. The line of tents extended farther than could be seen, ranging in size from small to traveling circus width. At least a hundred people could be seen -- men carrying boxes, women washing clothes, children running around the tents. "What do they call this place?" he asked. "Kalunga," Ngebe answered. Charles knew African myth well enough not to have that reference explained. "Kalunga" came from the Kongo stories. It was the mid-point between this world and Mputu -- the land of the dead. He felt a strong urge to grab the steering wheel, turn the car around and get Scully back to the U.S.A. She wouldn't have stood for it, of course. However, the urge stayed with him and even grew as Ngebe parked her car at the edge of Kalunga. The people who saw the car stopped talking, cutting wood and even smiling. They didn't look angry, just disturbed. They had the appearance of children trying to hide their favorite toy. Charles knew how unruly children could get. Scully, however, just got out of the car, walked up to the nearest person and said, "I wish to talk with Mwuetsi." The boldness stunned everybody in earshot. At first, the members of The Kilembe looked at each other, wondering just what was the proper way to handle this. Then one of them said, "You cannot see Mwuetsi without his permission. You can see one of our Shamans instead." Scully considered this option, then said, "That will be fine." What's with her? Charles thought as they were lead to a Shaman. She's so sure of...something. So sure that this is the right direction. What does she know? For that matter, what's with me? Why do these people unnerve me? They don't seem belligerent. Maybe it's the simple look on their faces. Grown people shouldn't have that kind of look. He saw the same expression on everyone he passed in Kalunga. He also noticed that there were white and Asian faces scattered among their ranks. That's when he realized that The Kilembe's reach was going to extend far beyond Africa. Scully was undoubtedly making the same observations but she was keeping calm. She only showed surprise when they finally met the Shaman -- a young, dark-haired white man. Charles, on the other hand, wasn't entirely surprised when she called him by a name. Too, too long, he thought. I've been gone too long. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX When Billy Miles claimed to have a different name, Scully's instincts told her not to contradict him. Even though she knew the truth...even though the last time she had seen this man, he had been a police officer in Oregon...even though he was one of the abductees taken when Mulder vanished, she said, "My mistake." Billy (or Fam) smiled. It was a smile created for appearances. Scully could tell that hearing his real name had affected him. Again, however, this was not the time to unsettle him. Now was the time to gather information. And see if her worst suspicions were true. "No offense taken," Billy said. "How may I help you?" "I want to see Mwuetsi." Other members of The Kilembe gasped and whispered their amazement to each other. Billy managed to keep his smile intact and said, "If you want to see Mwuetsi, he will come to you." "I'm afraid that he hasn't. I still wish to speak with him." Billy entwined his hands behind his back, still smiling but wondering if stricter measures would be needed here. "Mwuetsi only speaks to believers," he informed her. Scully hesitated for a few moments, then said with enough firmness to surprise herself, "I am a believer." There was more gasping and whispering. Billy's smile finally left him and was replaced by a confused expression. "But you are not of The Kilembe." "No. But I'm still a believer." "That's impossible." "Ask Mwuetsi if it's impossible." A challenge had been thrown down. No true Kilembe member could accept this woman's ridiculous idea. Yet, if the Shaman Fam evicted these visitors from Kalunga, doubt would still linger in the trail of Scully's statement. What *would* be Mwuetsi's answer to this question? Could you be a believer in his doctrines and still not be a member of The Kilembe? "I...I will ask him." Billy took a breath. "Wait here." Billy left the three visitors in the midst of all those uncertain watchers. Charles leaned over to Scully and whispered, "Would you mind telling me just what the plan is?" She whispered back, "Would you be surprised to know that I'm making it up as I go along?" "No, not entirely." She gave him a thin smile. Charles shook his head. Scully then leaned over to Ngebe. "How I'm doing?" she asked. "Quite well, I think. One question, though -- are you a believer?" "Yes. In a way, I am." That was the end of their conversation. A few minutes later, Billy Miles returned. He walked with a stiff back and tense shoulders. Stopping before Scully, he said, "Mwuetsi says that it's impossible to not be one of The Kilembe and still be a believer." Then he paused before adding, "But he would like to meet anyone who would think so." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX This is it, Scully thought. This is where I get my answer. This is where I find out if my deepest fear is true. She was expecting it because her life had made her accustomed to the fantastic. She also knew deep in her heart that her brother's involvement was no coincidence. Looking over her life, there were too many intersecting lines to be seen without imagining a wider plan. As of that moment, those lines were intersecting off the Gulf of Guinea. And when she heard the sound of children laughing, it somehow made her dread grow. Her dread and her anticipation. Mwuetsi -- the leader of the Kilembe, a new god in the eyes of many -- was playing a game of soccer with five children. Their little field was located behind one of the larger tents. The children ran around him as his long legs kicked the ball. They seemed to find nothing incongruous about this god joining them in a game. Neither did Billy. Instead, the boys and girls screamed with delight as they tried to steal the ball away from his deft feet. Running shirtless and sweaty in the sun, Mwuetsi looked good. His body was as lean and muscular as it had ever been. A cheery smile emphasized both his face's sensual mouth and overgrown nose, creating a wonderful sum of the two parts. He was the healthiest Scully had ever seen him. He hadn't seen her yet. However, just as she saw him, he planted his foot firmly on the ball and told the children, "Leave me." Then he kicked it to one of the children. Without raising a single complaint, the children ran off with the ball. Mwuetsi turned, still not looking at her. Instead, he said to Billy, "You leave as well." Billy nodded and left without a sound. Scully and Mwuetsi were alone. Now, he was looking at her. She looked back at him. The scream was building inside of her even before he said anything. When he did speak, the unspoken scream felt big enough to shatter her body. "Hello," the man once called Fox Mulder said. "I am Mwuetsi. Just why do you want to see me?" XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX TITLE: THE KILEMBE (5 of 5) AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX PART FIVE SPARKS XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "Well? Is there anything you want to say to me?" Scully tried to force words out of herself -- words instead of curses or tears. "You obviously came a long way. You must have something to say." From her mouth came a few pants as if she had just climbed a mountain. Then she closed her mouth for a second, opened it and said, "Could we...go inside somewhere?" He looked at her with a brief expression of impatience, then shrugged. "If we must." He led her to his own tent. As they walked side-by-side, she looked at him and wondered if this was Fox Mulder after all. The resemblence was the same but the attitude didn't remind her of Mulder at all. The way he spoke was so formal despite the overtones of kindness. She heard no hints of irony, sarcasm or defensive snottiness. There was no indication that this man would ever doubt himself, either. I bet this man never watches porno films, Scully thought. Or even knows who Tom Petty is. Then who is he? Mulder's (or Mwuetsi's) private tent was small and sparsely furnished on the inside. A table, a cot, a chair and a kerosene lamp comprised the tent's inventory. Mulder sat behind the table, spread open his hands and said, "Can you speak now?" "I came here...because...I wanted to see if you were real." Mulder smiled. "Well, I am. Mwuetsi is very real. Are you?" "Excuse me?" "I would like to understand how a believer can exist outside of The Kilembe." Scully cleared her throat. "I believe that you can make miracles. I haven't seen any, but...I've learned to believe in things out of my vision's sight." "Interesting." Scully could now see herself grabbing this man by the neck, shaking him and yelling, "Where is Mulder?! What have you have done with him?!" Under Mwuetsi's polite manners, there was a haughtiness reminiscent of...the smoking man, for God's sake. She restrained herself but she couldn't keep the edginess out of her voice. "That doesn't mean I believe you to be a worthy leader." Mulder leaned back and pressed a finger against his cheek. "You don't think I am?" he said, amused. "I believe a leader would make his intentions known." "The Kilembe know my intentions." "But the rest of the world doesn't." "The world will know when they join The Kilembe." "Then the world will never know. No one will join a group without knowing its goals first." Mulder laughed. Scully cursed herself for her foolishness. "Well...a *few* people would," Mulder said. "But I suppose you lack faith." "I have faith. Just not in you." I can't believe this, Scully thought. This is what I've been waiting for and here I am, scorning the man I love. "Do you have faith in anything?" Mulder asked. "I'm a Christian. I have faith in God. I used to wear..." She touched herself on the neck, then looked at Mulder in silence. "Yes?" "I used to wear a crucifix here. But I gave it to a friend. He's gone now." "Well," Mulder said, still amused. "he must have been a dear friend for you to give him something so important." Scully took three steps forward. Watching for the smallest reaction from Mulder, she said, "Hasn't anybody ever done that for you? Given you something precious?" Mulder leaned forward and folded his hands in his lap. "Well...yes, actually. I have been blessed by the gods. Divinity has been given..." "I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about something small yet valuable...like a crucifix." Mulder's face turned puzzled. This woman was trying to imply something but what was it? "I still don't know what you mean," he told her. "Think about it." Mulder just stared at Scully for a moment. Then he blinked. Scully saw it -- the chink in his armor, the glimmer of memory in his mind's black well. He remembers, she thought. Not clearly but he *remembers*. "How did you come to be here?" Mulder shifted in his chair. "Why are you asking this?" "Why aren't you answering?" He tried to look her in the eye. "I...I came from Mputu. I was sent here to..." "And before Mputu?" "What?" "What was your life before Mputu?" "There was...don't be ridiculous, there was no life before then." "Are you sure?" She started to walk on slow, careful feet around the table. The leader of The Kilembe wanted to flee now. He didn't know why this short, red-haired woman was frightening him. He felt like a chained animal was in his head, growling and snapping its bonds. Yet he remained still in his chair, despite his expectations that a shattering event was about to occur. Maybe he wanted it to happen. "Couldn't there have been a life before this one?" she asked, her voice soft yet urgent. "Couldn't you have been an ordinary man?" He tried to speak but could only produce choked syllables. She was standing right next to him now. As he looked up at her hopeful blue eyes, he thought about how she beautiful she was. "Couldn't you have had friends instead of followers? Couldn't have there been someone closer to you than anyone else?" She lifted a hand. "Don't you remember.." She touched his cheek. "...me?" He closed his eyes. Though his body was still, an earthquake rumbled inside of him. Colors and sounds invaded his mind. He could make no sense of them. At first, fear kept him from looking into this chaos. The soft hand on his cheek gave him the courage to look. He reached in and pulled out a shower of sparks. Under this rain of sparks, he could see a man with cold eyes, smell a dozen burning candles and feel the metal grip of a gun. Then he heard a gun shoot but it wasn't the one in his hand. It was her gun. "Mul...?" Scully stared to say. Mulder stood up so quickly that Scully was almost knocked over. The motion startled her but not as much as the angry look in his eyes. Most of all, she was shocked by the words he spoke. "Get out." She remained still and looked at him with no understanding. "You dare try to profane me? You dare to judge me?" She shook her head, still not understanding. "I've seen your sin, woman. I've seen how you took vengeance into your hands." Now she understood. At first, she seemed ready to vomit. Instead, she just stood there and listened to Mulder's condemnation. "I don't know why you've come, but you bring no good here. Leave and take your evil with you." She was surprised by how easy it was to leave. She thought that her body would be heavy and unresponsive. Instead, she could barely feel her steps at all. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX After she had gone, Mwuetsi sat on the table's edge, brooding over the encounter with the red-haired woman. She had disturbed him for some unfathomable reason. It wasn't just the mark of sin he had detected on her. A suspicion of a deeper connection between them kept gnawing at him. However, as much as he sifted through his memories, he couldn't remember anything to confirm his suspicions. "Running down a dream..." The song came to his lips without warning. He mumbled the lyrics, finding the tune pleasant but unable to remember where he had heard it before. Nor could he understand why it came to him now. Then he realized that he wasn't the only person in the tent singing it. A deeper, more melodious voice had been singing in unity with him. It had taken him a few seconds to notice this person. He spun around to see a man wearing a cap of many colors. "You need to really work on your pitch," the man told him. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Charles had never seen a look on his sister's face like the one he saw when she returned from her meeting from Mwuetsi. She walked up to him and Ngebe like a sleepwalker and said, "Let's go." They both knew that there was no point in talking with her. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Mwuetsi examined the stranger, his multi-colored cap, the cartoon character on his shirt, his sneakers. "Have we met before?" he asked. "Possibly. I get around." The stranger tipped his hat. "The name's Eshu." Mwuetsi stood up, his eyes brightening. "But that's the name of..." "Yeah. I know. Kind of a coincidence, isn't it?" A smile expanded over the white man's face. He went towards the black man with open arms. "Brother..." he said. "Whoa, whoa," Eshu said, backing away and waving his arms. "Hold on there, sucker." Mwuetsi dropped his arms and disappointment rose on his features. "What is it?" "Don't be so presumptuous. We ain't brothers in no way imaginable." The white man looked hurt for a few moments. Then his smile returned and he wagged a finger at Eshu. "As always, you play the trickster," he said. "Oh, you think I'm joking?" "I know what I am and I know what you are. We are both marked by divinity. Can I not perform miracles? Am I not the leader of The Kilembe? Have I not come to bring the world into a new era?" Eshu gave Mwuetsi a good look while scratching his chin. "You know...maybe you are a god, after all." "Of course I am." "Only a god could be the kind of prick you're behaving like right now." Before Mwuetsi could respond, Eshu said, "You sure were mean to Scully." "What? Who?" "You know. The redhead." "But...I..." "Just sending her off like that. That was pretty rude." "Eshu," Mwuetsi said, his face now frowning. "that woman has committed a great wrong." "Probably. She has also committed many great rights. You know that, don't you?" Once again, the phantom of an elusive past floated through Mwuetsi's mind. He tried to grab onto it. For a second, he had a sensation of holding a woman as they both laid in bed, her red hair brushing against his cheek. Then the memory faded away, leaving him no less confused than before. He saw Eshu staring at him. You can remember, the black man's eyes said. It's just at the edge of your mind. Mwuetsi directed his irritation with himself at Eshu. "Why have you come here?" he snapped. For the first time, Eshu smiled. "What has it got in its pocketses?" he said in a peculiar, high-pitched tone. "Tell me why you're here or be gone!" The smile remained on Eshu's face. "I'll tell you three things. Would you like to hear them?" Mwuetsi reined in his anger. He folded his arms over his chest and said, "If I must." "Okey-dokey. Number one is a little history. Around the eighteen-fifties down in Southern Africa, a woman named Nonqause told the Xhosa people that they would receive a blessing from the gods if they sacrificed their cattle herds. The sun would rise in the west, new cattle would appear and good stuff would just plain ol' happen. Things were looking pretty hopeless back then, what with the Boers and all that shit. So a lot of the Xhosa did as Nonqause said. Welllll...eventually, they realize that no blessing has been given and they've just dumped their food supply. Mass starvation followed and the white settlers gained even more control." Eshu waited for a reaction from Mwuetsi. What the white man said in a quiet voice was "Am I supposed to infer something from that?" "You can infer anything or nothing. The second thing I want to tell you is a little myth. You're probably familiar with it. It's the story of Mwuetsi -- the original Mwuetsi." The white man nodded. "Of course, maybe it wasn't a myth. Maybe this is history, too. Of course, according to Joseph Campbell, myth still imparts truth because of its resonance with the collective human psyche. Then, again, Joseph Campbell was full of donkey turds." "Eshu..." "Anyway, Mwuetsi is all alone in the world. He starts bitching about this state of affairs and he is granted a woman. Massassi is her name." "I know this." "Then you know the story about the two of them living in a cave. Remember the fire that marked the border between their two sides? And how, one night, Mwuetsi took his ngona horn -- which is probably meant to symbolize his big, hairy penis -- and wet his finger with a drop of oil from the horn? Then he declared..." Eshu shook his fists at the sky and shouted out, "NDINI CHAAMBUKA MHIRI NE MHIRI!" He lowered his arms and said, "That means..." '"I am going to jump over the fire," the white man interpreted. "And he did. He touched Massassi with the finger and the next morning, she was pregnant." "Yep. She gave birth to trees and bushes. That must have freaked out the people in the delivery room. It would have been like...I don't know...babies born with monkey tails, hm?" Another memory flew across Mwuetsi's thoughts. He could see himself...the red-haired woman...sitting together on a couch...but it's not him, it's... This memory was no less elusive than the rest. He shook his head and fumed at Eshu. "If there's a reason for you being here, I fail to see it. Is there a reason at all?" "No, sir," Eshu said, adopting a British accent. "I was deliberately wasting your time." "Then maybe you should leave." The black man shrugged, tipped his cap again and headed for the tent flap. "Wait a minute. You said that there were three things." Eshu stopped. Without turning, he said, "Oh, you want to hear it now?" "Well..." "Do you really want to hear it?" "I...yes, I suppose so." "Really?" Mwuetsi sighed. "Yes. I do." Eshu turned. He was no longer smiling. Mwuetsi tensed his body as Eshu walked up to him. The black man stopped with the bill of his cap a few centimeters from Mwuetsi's forehead. He opened his mouth and said -- "Boom." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX A wide ring of space separated Mwuetsi's tent from the others. When the bomb went off, no members of The Kilembe were hurt. The blast's force knocked the nearest people to the ground and they could feel the fire's heat on their skin. Other than that, they were unaffected. What they felt in their hearts when they saw Mwuetsi's tent turn into a red ball of flames was far more painful. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Ngebe's car was a hundred feet away from Kalunga when the bomb exploded. Scully hadn't said a word since they had driven off. However, as Ngebe slammed on the brakes and looked back at the bright light in the middle of the Kilembe settlement, Scully said, "Go back." Charles said, "Scully, we can't..." "TURN THIS FUCKING CAR AROUND!" XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Skinner sat at his desk, feeling useless. Here in D.C., all he could do was tangle with a useless bureaucracy while Scully was out doing something. At least, he assumed it was something. His phone rang. "Yes?" he said into the receiver, his testiness evident. After listening, he said, "Who is calling?...Well...patch him through here." One of the lights on his phone flashed. He pressed the button next to it and said, "Hello?" "It's coming." The person speaking was a young boy. Skinner didn't recognize the voice immediately, but his spine stiffened when he did. "It's coming," the voice repeated. And it was. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX AUTHOR'S NOTES: As the host of a children's radio show said when he thought his mike was off, "That oughtta hold the little bastards tonight." If this held you, let me know that at ottercrk@sover.net The story will continue (if you want it to) in "Moon and Morning Star." The songs performed by Eshu were "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins, "Deeper Well" by Emmylou Harris and "Running Down a Dream" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I kinda like Collins, too.