Krycek, I By Amber Kelsall (EnglshYew@aol.com) I am a survivor. Not by chance, but stemmed from necessity. Something out there is bigger than me, so it hunts me like the rat I am. At least, that's the thought that gets me through every day, into the weeks and months that are spent much like tonight. And suddenly I find myself here on the steps of this decrepit motel in a city where night is never forgiving, with Thai take out in my hand. Even though I go through the motions of eating, I never taste it anymore. I need the energies of my senses elsewhere. I look back at my box of take out and am awash with cold regrets. The women around me are obviously selling themselves, probably even selling themselves short. They don't know what to make of me. I'm obviously here, so I can't be worth a damn, but I dress nice and keep to myself so I might be worthy of them should they manage to strike out tonight. For a moment I almost think it might be worth it, but I decide against it and take more Thai noodles into my mouth. I don't expect you to understand the delicacies of my situation right away. Hell, most of the time I don't even know myself. But tonight, the moon is hanging over me telling me to repent, to confess. So of course I'm going to have to explain how I got here, why I'm writing this. You have to understand, if not for your own sake, at least for mine. Legacies are important, and now I have one to leave to this world. Just like my father, I have a legacy. Mine might not be as grand as his was, but it is mine, and I take a slight comfort in that. There is very little comfort for me right now. I was born on a cold military base in Iowa, the first son of a poor Russian migrant couple. They had come over in hopes of escaping the grim realities of life on Russian soil, only to find that the toil here was the same as there with different currency. My mother's name was Rosilne, the daughter of textile workers from Moscow. She worked hard and you could tell just by looking at her. She would clean neighbor's houses for extra money once or twice a week while my father did his duties on the base. My father was a different sort of man. His name was Nickolai, a fighter pilot that defected to the United States with a plateful of promises that were never served. He worked hard with the determination of loyalty to his new country and I remember his stylings. He was a cold man, burly and rough. But the minute he saw an airplane, he became a different man. I always tried to understand that. Instead, I found myself making delicate model planes of the most intricate nature only to destroy them in the end. A metaphor for my father, I'm sure. I used to follow him to his offices on the days that school was canceled, trying to be like him, to know him. We are always taught to know our enemies. Today I am my own enemy, unaware of the battle plans. If I knew myself I most likely would never had ended up here tonight, alone like the desolate beaches that are not sought by resort developers. Was it Emerson that said that every man is an island? Sometimes I think he was talking about me, but he was before my time. I am Alexandre Andrejev Krycek, and this is my time. Hours later, I'm lying on the bed in my room, soaking in the cloudy film of the past. I have the tape recorder going just to the left side of my head and I wonder if anyone can hear me talking to myself. If they can, I'm sure they think I've gone overboard. It doesn't matter anyway, but it makes me release a tiny, bitter laugh. This is how I always wait for my next assignment. The darkness of a room, invaded only by the flashing of the cheap hotel signs and the ever present buzzes and hums from the filaments that form the words. I have stripped down the bed to nothing but a fitted sheet and me. I can't stand to try to center with a pillow on my head, so that's on the floor too. I think about the floor for a moment, and realize that there's stains on it, from what I can't be sure. I'm sure there's blood in there somewhere, though. There's always blood somewhere. I turn and settle onto my back and spread my arms out, making sure that the fake one points down to the floor. I never thought I would get anal retentive about anything, but I have to have my arm pointing down when I am not in action. Maybe it's become a superstition by now. The coolness of the sheets feels good through the white undershirt I wear. The whiteness of the arm startles me every now and then. No wonder I have taken to wearing only long sleeved black clothes lately. Yes, I know thinking about these things seems a little pretentious or stupid, but they are thoughts none the less. I have to laugh at that, you understand. You must have thought that I would be writing down all my sins in this, Mulder. Confessing to all the things I have grown ashamed of. I know what you think I have done, but I have to tell you now that you are terribly wrong. I've done so much more and I don't regret a damn bit of it. I've seen your high and mighty routine every time I manage to have the unfortunate pleasure of running into you. But things are different now, Mulder. Let me tell you how. I used to be a good kid. You know, I got good grades, I dressed nice, I learned my ABC's and how to interact with girls in high school. Nothing in my past would have pointed here, which is odd in a way. But I never considered myself to be a person who had to stick to one schedule my whole life either. So now I have to tell you about Kareena. She was what society would call my high school sweetheart. She was much more than that. We had known each other since we were kids. Both of our fathers were in the same military branch, and if we got lucky, he would get transferred with my dad. There were a few years of seperation, but we always managed to stay in touch. She called me Alexi...she's the only one I ever let call me by a pet name. I didn't even let my mother have a nick name for me. And don't think of it like your situation of having everyone call you Mulder instead of Fox. I've been around, I know everyone and their brother calls you Fox. Only Scully, Skinner and I really have the respect for your wishes to call you Mulder. All though I'm starting to wonder whether you've earned my respect or you got it by default. Getting back to Kareena, she was my anchor in this life. If you search the whole world over and try to seek the perfect mate, you couldn't find anyone better than her. I don't really believe in soul mates and crap like that, but she was really damn close to that description. She kept me in check. First and foremost, she was my best friend. We did everything and learned together, and we gained perspectives on life. We were the only ones that we could count on. Hey, you and Scully aren't the only ones who are partners here, buddy. I didn't even have to join the Bureau to find mine, either. I got lucky that way. Well God, I'm stalling. How the hell can I start this story? What can I tell you about her that will make you understand this situation? Maybe I just have to start with the telephone call I got from the hospital that night. Somehow I feel like I should tell you the intimate history that she and I had, but I don't think you could even begin to understand it. You're naive in a lot of ways, you know. So we'll start with the phone call. The hospital called me at two in the morning. I had gotten an apartment off of the base that my father served on while I was attending college in North Carolina. She was supposed to move in with me that weekend. We knew marriage at 21 seemed sort of stupid, but we were there, we were willing. It was an intimate knowledge, a feeling of rightness. So you can see how pained it made me to have to rush into that emergency room and see her lying there with sores all over her face. Those were sores she didn't have less than three hours before. The plastic was thick, the workers wore their Hazard suits and she was getting no human contact. When she saw me, her face lit up. She had always believed in white knights and fairy tales and I knew she was thinking that if anyone could save her it was me. That's a hard position to be in, you know. I started crying because it pained her to smile. She cried out in pain as she smiled at me. That seems to be a running theme in my life, the irony. I'm the rat everyone loves to hate. Well, that suits me just fine. I wasn't put on this earth to please everyone. I saw the nurses and doctors working on her, the sores were on more of her body than just her face. Her hands, those hands that held me once...her arms...I couldn't bear to think on it anymore. I turned as she closed her eyes and I tried to find someone who could tell me something. I stopped a nurse and told her who I was. She told me that they had been waiting for me. You see, her mother died when she was younger, and her father had just gone down in a training exercise less than a year prior to this scene in the hospital. I was the one that would have to make the decisions if she couldn't. The thought of that frightened me a little. I've never been what you would call a good leader. The nurse began telling me that Kareena had been brought in carrying a biological contagion. I know, it sounds stupid and familiar. It wasn't then. The nurse said that the police said she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were about forty others with the same affliction at other area hospitals. I looked at Kareena in shock as the nurse said, "There's no known cure. We've never seen anything this bad." I wondered if Kareena knew. I wondered if she sensed what was happening to her. I turned back to the nurse, it felt like an eternity just to turn away from Kareena's pale, sore-ridden face. "How long? How long does she have?" The nurse shook her head. "We don't know yet. Maybe a week." All I could think was fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I might have even let the word slip out of my mouth. Kareena was always telling me to stop swearing. It fit here, though. I don't think that she would have minded too much. "Can I see her?" The nurse shook her head again. "Not for a few hours. We have to get you a suit and the doctors are still running their tests. We can page you anywhere in this hospital when we're ready. Maybe you should go get some coffee or something." I took the nurses advice with a heavy heart. I got some badly made coffee and sat outside the emergency ward that had been sectioned off with hazard signs and plastic sheets taped to the floors and the cracks in the doors. I must have followed the yellow and black pattern with my eyes a million times before he approached me. I heard the clicks of his heels on the cold tiled floor, and saw his shoes before I smelled him. He reeked of cigarettes and his face was old. Not that I thought he was over 60, but he had a look of old knowledge to him. He must have seen a lot in his days. The hallways was empty but for us two. He stopped in front of me, paused for a moment, sizing me up. "It's quite unfortunate what happened to your girlfriend tonight." I looked at him in surprise and anger. What did this guy know about it? "Do you want to save her?" He asked, pulling a package of Morley cigarettes from his suit jacket. "*I* can save her." "You know what this is?" I asked him. I was digging myself in deep already, and I hadn't even scratched the surface. "How? How can I save her?" "You're an excellent officer, Mr. Krycek. You speak Irish Gaelic and Russian fluently. We need you." He lit his cigarette then and there. This was before hospitals made it illegal to smoke in them. That makes me realize just how many changes I have seen in this world in my short time here. I knew that he was referring to the service that I put in the reserves for the last three years. I had wanted to be in the marines as long as I could remember. It was different from my father's role in the military. Even now I am still trying to find out exactly what he did when he flew those planes he loved so dearly. I had excelled with languages and just took up Irish with Kareena so that we could talk to each other without anyone knowing what we were saying. It was our secret code. "What can I offer you?" I asked solemnly. I wanted so desperately to believe that this unknown man could save the other half of my soul. "You can help me save my daughter." He said taking a long drag off of his cigarette. I made a deal to meet him in New York the next day. He gave me a plane ticket and some cash for a cab ride from the airport. As I watched him leave, the nurse paged me. I ran in to tell Kareena the good news. When I got there, she had slipped into a coma. The suit was bulky and had taken too long to get on. I was frustrated with this situation. If she hadn't been in that stupid 7-11 none of this would ever have happened. But there she was; there I was. I leaned down to her ear, hoping that she could hear me through the suit's speaking device. "I'm going to save you. Never doubt that. I promise. I promise forever." When I got to New York the next morning I went to a hotel bar on 42nd street and got a drink. As I was taking the third gulp of my orange juice, The Cancer Man walked up to me. He was making light, telling jokes that only fell flat on their backs like so much dead fish. I asked him what his intentions were but instead of an answer, we went upstairs and met a group of men that I came to know as the Consortium. I guess you could call them a special interest group. They were men from many different countries, older men that smoked cigars. I didn't ask questions. They gave me the keys to a car parked in the hotel garage and a gun. An FBI issued glock to be precise. It felt good in my hands. They told me that I was to pick up a package in lower Manhattan and then I was to take it into the mountains to a very specific place and follow the instructions that would be waiting for me there. I didn't say a word, but put the gun into the inside of my leather jacket and smoothed my hair back. Cancer Man walked me out. Once we were in the corridor to the parking garage he handed me a photograph. It was a young woman with a big smile in a graduation photo. She was standing next to Cancer Man in the photo, just as I was now. "Your daughter?" I asked cautiously. "She's the package." He spoke solemnly this time. "I provided a kit in the back of the car that will help you save her life. They want you to take her to those mountains, shoot her, and burn her body. I want you to take her to this address." I took a piece of paper from him, a Morley wrapper, and glanced at the address written in a fairly sloppy hand. "Take the kit and burn the elements within. They will never know the difference. I'm the one who checks up on it anyway." He took out a cigarette as we entered the parking garage. "Once I receive word that you have done this for me, your girlfriend will be cured. I'd try to keep her safe, though. That's up to you." He turned on his heel and left as I made my way toward the car. I drove to the designated house in lower Manhattan, and quickly a woman was shoved into the passenger seat of the car and I was ordered to take off. I didn't argue, I just drove. The silence in the car was deafening. I tried talking to the woman, telling her I was here to save her and not kill her. She said nothing. I thought she was probably smarter than I was. I don't talk so much anymore. We drove toward the mountains and when we reached the cabin, I took the kit out of the trunk of the car, fired a few shots at the ground and burned the pile I had created. I think that the bones had actually been real, and that chilled me a little, but the fire gave me an adrenaline rush like nothing else I had experienced before. I told the woman to get down in the back seat and I covered her with blankets that had also been placed in the trunk. That way, if anyone saw her come in with me, they wouldn't see her come out. I'm sure that someone in the area had already called to report the gunshots. I took her to the address on the Morley wrapper and the gothed-out girl inside the old warehouse set up a new identity for my passenger. The goth-girl then called a number on her telephone and sent my passenger away with a man she obviously trusted. She turned to me after confirming that everything had gone as planned, then pulled a gun. "You don't know what you've gotten yourself into, do you?" "What the hell?" I could feel my military training kick in. Survive. Just survive. "He said he'd save your girlfriend, he never said anything about you." She told me. "You've seen too much already. I have to kill you." As she made her way from behind her desk, it was just my luck that she didn't judge the distance well. Her upper thigh hit the jagged corner and ripped the velvet of her pants, drawing blood. When she looked down, I went for the glock in my pocket and ran. She tried to fire at me, but missed twice. When I fired back, I did not miss. I saw the hole the bullet had made in her wrist as she dropped her gun and screamed in pain. I didn't stop to check up on her again. I ran as fast and as far as I could until I realized that I had been running for hours and didn't know where I was anymore. I tried to find a pay phone among the slums that I had taken refuge in to call the hospital and check on Kareena. Even then I was still thinking of her. I plunked the change into the phone as fast as I could and was almost crying when I asked about her. The nurse said she wasn't any better. In fact, she had gotten worse. She went on to say that a new doctor had come onto the case just a few moments earlier and she'd try to keep me posted. I hung up the phone wondering if the doctor was the cure, or if I had been duped. I went through my pockets to check the plane tickets and realized that even from the beginning I hadn't been smart enough to see that I had only been handed a one way ticket. I swore then too. I hailed a cab and hoped the cash I had on me would be enough to get to the airport. Just my luck, it was. I raced to get the next flight back to North Carolina. The hours I had to wait were eternities, but finally I made my way back to the hospital and Kareena. When I got there, the plastic was still up, the suits still on. But Kareena was awake, the sores on her face looking as if they were healing just as quickly as they had shown up. Her skin wasn't as pale and she smiled at me. I smiled back and rushed to get into a suit to see her again. She recovered, but I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that what I had just done in New York was far from over. And I was right. So if you want me to turn around and say that I regret everything that I have had to do since I met you, and even before, you're looking at the wrong fucking man. I saved two lives that day, both are now underground in protective custody of someone or something. I saved Kareena, and more importantly to you, I know that your sister is alive. The woman I was supposed to kill? Well Mulder, that was your sister, Samantha. Guess you can't hate me for everything, huh? ============================== To Be Continued....