Title: Think About The Future Author: Kristina Corey-Cecilia Quintana Rating: PG Disclaimer: Don't own Them, you know. Summary: Spender reflects about the past in the future. Notes: This is way in the future, and a lot of things have happened to the world. Post Colonization. This was an attempt to kill some Writer's Block as well. I think I'm having too much fun with Jeff Spender. This is the future, and like the past, it is uncertain in her way. She moves like a ghost, challenging everything that changes. Because she watches, and sometimes she plays, but she is always there, a ghost of my days. I'm a little older now. A little more alone. Now that I am alone, I only watch what it is that the world has become. I've earned a place in line, I'm not a number, but I have a name. A name that they curse to the gods here and back again. I listen to the people that I hold prisoner. The same names still rise above a whisper and I don't want to shatter their morale. Because it is mine as well. They whisper about the two of the rebels, making both of them the heroes that they are. Sometimes I walk alone near the fences and watch the children play. Most of the children in this work camp have never known life before Them. They all should be in clean moderate houses with their parents, on little league teams and playing soccer. Sometimes I remind myself that I never had those things, so why should they? They tell the stories to each other like their parents have told them. They run around in packs each assigning names to one another pretending to fight our captors, Them. The battle that they know nothing about. The people I keep are the lucky ones. They don't fight on the lines, they make the weapons against those that keep the fight alive. No one comes here with free will, but after some time, it grows on them. We keep them clean and they are fed. Things are better here than in other places, I know. I let the children live. I know of other camps that kill them. Not these children. Those are the only things I give them, and I am still resented. Because I am on the outside and they are within. Because I am with Them and not against them. I can do whatever I want, to the people and do with them as I please, as long as the machines are running everyday. I don't. Once in a great while, I bring some over from another camp, to remind the ones that I have how lucky they are. Not to be owned by Them. Once, even though no one knows it, she was here. They had gotten too close. A mission that failed and she was in Their hands. I bid for her, all though she does not know it, and took her in. I know that They don't care what I do, and I'm sure that they know that I don't support Them. I don't cause any trouble and they leave me alone. I also don't think that they knew who they had on their hands. Her hair was shot with gray, but I knew her eyes. Those eyes that could damn a man. She was determined to succeed, and I know I wanted her to. To end Their reign on Earth. When she was healthy, she escaped. I let her. Because maybe someday she'll bring an end to this before my time runs out. Her and Mulder, and the fight against Them. Maybe then, God will have mercy on my soul. I close my eyes and let sleep claim me, on this day in the year of our lord, two thousand and eighteen.