The woman seemed to doubt it.
“Mulder,” Scully said as they walked purposefully toward the elevator bank, “if we get caught…”
He didn’t answer.
After a check over his shoulder, he took her elbow and ducked around the corner.
The corridor was empty, and only half the lights embedded in the ceiling’s acoustic tiles were lit.
Whispers from the front, echoing softly.
He found the right key on the second try, and held his breath until the door opened onto an empty car. Once in, he inserted the key again and sent them down.
Scully said nothing; she had been on this road with him too many times before. The obligatory warning had been given — if we’re caught; now she would be focused.
He wouldn’t disturb that; it was too valuable.
He only hoped the major was still too angry to think straight, and realize what was going on.
NINETEEN
The corridor was short, and the air not quite stale. No ceiling lights here — just a hooded bulb at the far end, and one at the entrance. The floor, like the walls, was unpainted concrete. “Like a bunker,” Scully whispered. In and out was the order of the day. They hurried to the first door, and Mulder turned the knob. It was unlocked and, when he looked in, empty. A desk, metal shelves on the wall, a small, open safe on the floor beside the desk, and a blackboard.
Nevertheless, they searched, checking drawers and corners. Tonero had said that Tymons was already gone, but Mulder doubted it was to the relocation point. By the looks of it — the papers and pads left behind in the desk, the handful of books on the shelves — this room had been emptied in a hurry.
“I smell gunpowder,” Scully said, returning to the corridor. “And smoke.” She wrinkled her nose. “Something else. I’m not sure.”
The middle door was unlocked as well, and open a few inches. Mulder pushed it with his foot and stood back, shaking his head.
“Jesus.”
What was once on the single shelf was now on the floor, smashed and scattered, some of it scorched or charred. He counted the hulks of at least three monitors and a pair of keyboards; he counted at least a half-dozen bullet holes in the wall beneath what looked to be a one-way window.
Without speaking, they sifted through the wreckage, not knowing exactly what they were looking for, knowing only that they’d know when they saw it. Then Scully rocked back on her heels.
“Mulder.”
He joined her, dusting his hands on his coat, and saw the blood. Lots of it, dry, and buried beneath plastic and blank sheets of paper.
“Not a gunshot wound, I think,” she said.
“Goblin.”
“I don’t know. It’s been here a while, though.” She poked at a large stain with a forefinger. “But not that long. We’re not talking about days.”
He guessed that the room on the right had been Tymons’ office, and Tymons’ alone. It didn’t have the feel of being shared with someone, like Rosemary Elkhart. This one had been the Project’s heart and control center. From here… he stood at the shelf and looked into the next room.
“Oh, boy,” he said. “Scully.”
She looked, and her eyes widened.
Mulder checked his watch. “Time, Scully. Not much left.”
The last room was a shambles as well, but it was the walls that fascinated him — one cream, one sand, one green, one black.
His fingers began to snap unconsciously.
This was it.
This was where the goblin was tested. One wall, one color.
Scully wasn’t sure. “So what did they do, Mulder? Line him up against the wall and wait? They could have done that with a sheet on a bed.”
Mulder looked at her sharply, and looked around the room again. His lips moved as if he were talking to himself before they parted in a satisfied grin. “Training,” he decided, and stood against the cream wall, unable to disguise the excitement in his voice. “Scully, it’s a training room.” He pointed. “Bed, desk, CD case there in the corner. Somebody lived here — no, somebody stayed here temporarily, maybe overnight, maybe for several days at a time.” He spread his arms along the wall. “Somebody who—”
Scully whirled on him. “Don’t say it, Mulder! I’m having a hard enough time as it is. Do not make it more complicated than it has to be.”
“But it’s not, Scully,” he insisted, pacing now, rubbing at his chin, his cheeks, pushing a hand back through his hair. “This is where the goblin learned how to change.” He turned in a slow circle. “Learned how to will the change, Scully, not wait for the change to happen.” He took a step toward her, and was stopped by her frown. “You said it yourself, right? He can’t carry every contingency around on his back. It’s impossible. Even for the most basic circumstances, it would be, for him, a dangerous hindrance.”
He looked to the door.
“A trained killer needs as few obstacles as possible. He needs a smooth way in, a smooth way out. No stops along the way for adjustments to a costume. No ripples. The quicker, the better.”
He looked around again, closer now, searching for something, anything personal, that would give him a hint to the room’s sometime occupant. But there was nothing left, and there was nothing left of the time he had hoped they would have.
On the way back to the elevator, Scully ducked into the control room and came out folding several pieces of paper she tucked into her shoulder bag. Blood samples. Not, Mulder thought, that they really needed them.
He knew who the blood belonged to.
On the way through the lobby, Mulder dropped the keys onto the absent receptionist’s desk, then followed Scully outside, anxious to get back to town.
The light rain had grown heavier, the air darker for it.
Another squad of soldiers marched by, absolutely silent.
“Mulder,” Scully said, “in case you haven’t noticed, we don’t have a ride.”
It hadn’t occurred to him, and he didn’t think it mattered.
“And we don’t have an umbrella, either.”
She slapped him lightly on the arm and returned inside to use the phone.
He didn’t follow.
He watched the rain.
A human chameleon, he thought, slipping his hands into his pockets. An effective assassin, who could theoretically slip through the tightest of cordons.
In, and out.
No ripples.
Or, more frighteningly, a small army of them, living shadows slipping through the night.
No ripples.
Only death left behind.
It wasn’t a perfect disguise. It probably wasn’t effective in broad daylight, and the goblin — he couldn’t stop thinking of it that way—
wouldn’t be able to stay in the same room for very long. Even Scully had eventually spotted the moth.
Nevertheless… living shadows.
He shifted from foot to foot impatiently.
No question about it, Major Tonero was the project’s shepherd. He knew all of it, which meant he probably knew that Tymons was dead. Killed by the goblin? If so, was the goblin under the man’s direction?
But why kill the head of such a project?
Too easy — Rosemary Elkhart was second-in-command. There was no reason to believe she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, take over if she had to. And the best way to ensure that would be to make herself indispensable to those who were in charge. He pictured her in the major’s chair, and suddenly realized that was what had bothered him earlier. She was in his chair. She was comfortable using it. She had used it before.
“Well,” he whispered. “Well, well.”
“Stop thinking, Mulder, and move it,” Scully told him. She snapped open a large black umbrella, took his arm, and hustled down to the sidewalk.