Wonderland
by Tasha Adams

I've lurked here for a while, and this is my first
story. I'd love any feedback you can send me.  Write to
me at: syrinx42@yahoo.com

I know this title has been used before, but when you
read the story you'll understand why I couldn't name it
anything else.

Disclaimer: The characters in this story belong to Chris
Carter.
Rating: PG-13
Category: SA
Keywords: Alternate Universe
Spoilers: Brief references to episodes from Seasons 4-6,
and the movie. Larger ones for Two Fathers/One Son.
Summary: The invasion has come


****

"It's called Wonderland," they said.

Mulder and Scully just looked at each other and smiled.

****

They come, not as predicted, on a major holiday, but on
a weekday, in the middle of the afternoon.

It is too soon, this date is not the one that has been
arranged.

All too quickly, things become clear to those who know,
to the ones who are still alive. The aliens are coming,
and the rebels are close behind. There is battle in the
air.

****

"We've got something to tell you, Mulder," Frohike said.
"Something we think you and Scully ought to know about."

Outside it began to snow, and the wind whipped up the
last of the fallen leaves, scattering them every which
way.

There were only three more winters left for this planet,
but they did not know that then. No one knew it.

****

The bees come first, dark clouds of them shadowing the
horizons. People flee, on foot, by car, by any means
they can.  They try hiding, too, in small enclosed
places, but the bees always find them.  Within hours the
world is diseased and dying, this new black plague
spreads over the land with nothing to stop it, nothing
to halt its inevitable progress. Panic begins to set in,
but only in a few areas at first. The bees are
localized; it is not until the spaceships arrive that
the rest of the world catches up and realizes something
is dreadfully wrong.

The spacecraft come later, as dying people choke the
streets of the cities with their cars, following the
primitive instinct to die away from the home nest. They
seek escape, but there is nowhere to go, even if the
means had not been taken from most of them. Catatonia
claims them one by one, as the creatures inside them
begin to gestate.

One after another, cities are paralyzed, and the
inhabitants fall to looking skyward, at the
monstrosities blocking out the sunlight. Like the
advancing of the terminator line that divides day from
night, a preternatural twilight falls over the earth,
relentlessly moving onward, covering the entire globe.

Some time later on this fateful day, men with no faces
stride through the streets, bringing fire with them,
killing those in their paths. They take no chances, they
wait not to judge if you have been stung, if you have
been infected or not. If they see you, you are already
dead.

On the streets, battle is being waged, with humans in
the middle, on the no-man's land of the ground, between
the fire and the air.

And then for a moment, a lull falls. No one screams, no
fires race hungrily toward no victims, no one dies.
People draw a breath for their next scream, the men with
no faces pause to ensure the seamlessness of their skin,
and the humming of bees grows louder, enveloping the
smoky afternoon.

Light arcs from the sky, from a ship, and a cadre of
faceless men are destroyed. The pause is ended, the
battle continues.

****

Hand in hand they race across the streets, just another
panicked couple in a city on the brink of insanity.
Around them the wails of the dying are muffled; all
sounds are strangely muted by the presence of those
ships. The air has lost its clarity, and objects are
blurry, viewed through the ashy crinkliness of air that
rises from hot fire.

A woman falls at their feet, hands outstretched,
imploring for help, and they leap over her, ignoring her
pleas. They can not stop; to falter or stumble now is to
die.

Wonderland is waiting.

****

"I don't think anyone lives there now," Frohike said on
a cold winter's day in 1996, "but you never know."

"We expect a lot of them to fill up in December, 1999,"
Langly said.

Scully frowned slightly. "Why then?"

"Y2K," Byers replied simply, as if the problem were at
hand, rather than still three years away at this point.

Mulder and Scully exchanged a brief glance. Side trips
to Russia, to the Antarctic are still in the future;
dead daughters have not been thought of yet. Jeffrey
Spender is in the Academy, and the X-Files have always
been, and will always be, theirs and theirs alone.

Scully nodded, and managed not to roll her eyes.

"How did you hear about this place?" Mulder asked
curiously. "I mean, you usually hear about them being
out in the wilds of Montana, not suburban Washington,
D.C."

Frohike said, "We have our ways."

"A subterranean bunker," Scully said with a slight shake
of her head, yet laughter danced in her eyes. "Why am I
not surprised?"

****

They are nearing the end of their strength now, and the
couple's run becomes filled with desperation. If they do
not reach their target soon, they will die here on the
streets with everyone else. They no longer have breath
to encourage each other forward. There is only the
running, and their clasped hands.

What they are looking for is a door, a small gray door
in a small gray building. They may have passed it a
thousand times in their lifetime before; there is
nothing to call attention to this door.

Behind it lies the way to Wonderland.

****

"Why do you call it Wonderland?" Scully asked, with a
teasing note in her voice.  Langly and Byers exchanged
glances and let Frohike field that one.

"Easy," he said. "We needed a code name, some way of
getting the message out on an open phone line, without
giving away what we were doing. Byers likened it to
bolting down a rabbit hole, and from there we came up
with the White Rabbit, and Wonderland."

Mulder laughed. "Are you sure you weren't listening to
Grace Slick when you came up with that one?"

Frohike raised a gloved hand, the fingers poking through
ragged holes. "Don't be so quick to scoff, Mulder. You
might need Wonderland one day."

****

And then nothing. Until one Thursday afternoon, when a
knock at the office door brought Spender the elder, the
only Spender left alive nowadays. With a shaking hand he
lifted a cigarette and said, "They are coming, Agent
Mulder. Will you come with me and be saved?"

"What?" he asked.

"This is not how it was supposed to go. The war has
spread; it is coming here. The earth will be laid waste
as their battleground, and if you are to save yourself,
you will come with me now."

He did not stay for another moment, but pushed past the
old man, and out into the hall, running, already running
for his life.

"You can't save her, Agent Mulder!" the smoking man
cried, but there was no one to hear him.

****

Behind them the fire burns bright, licking at their
heels. Their clasped hands are slick with sweat and
fear. They have only to reach the door, the sanctuary it
provides. Despite their exhaustion, they run ever
onward, on the brink of destruction and insanity,
managing to stay just ahead of it all.

They turn a corner and now the building is in sight,
that small gray door in the side, perfectly nondescript
and with nothing to recommend it. Except behind it lies
a passageway, known only to those who comprehend what
lies at the end of that passage, where it comes out.

At the end, in a forest, are rabbit holes that are
man-made. Bolt-holes for those fleeing the world and the
horrors it brings.

And among these is Wonderland.

****

He found her in the hallway upstairs, frowning into a
report, walking on auto-pilot. When he ran up to her,
she looked up, startled. He grabbed her wrist and sent
the file and papers flying.

"Hey!" she cried.

"It's Wonderland," Mulder said frantically. "We have to
go."

Outside, the first of the screams could be heard. The
power went out in the building.

He didn't know if she remembered what Wonderland was,
but Scully's eyes went very wide and she ran with him,
and that was enough.

Before they left the building, he used Scully's cell
phone, called the three men who had once upon a time
joked about such a scenario.  Byers answered the phone.

"Wonderland," Mulder panted. "It's Wonderland and it's
now. Go!"

He threw the phone away from him as he ran, rather than
bother hanging it up.

****

The door draws closer and closer, and then they are
there.

Scully yanks it open, and a pale hand emerges, a gun
grasped in scrawny fingers. "You can't come in here!"

They push forward, heedless of the weapon, of the small
death it can bring; compared to the massacre outside, it
is insignificant.

"It's Wonderland," Mulder cries reflexively, not knowing
the word means nothing to the man at the door.  The pale
guard frowns, but does not give chase. It is his duty to
hold the door as long as he can, a suicidal task, but
one he has undertaken freely. He forgets about the man
and woman as soon as they are out of sight.

****

"If you can't get to the forest, they have an
underground system of tunnels," Byers said. "Right in
the heart of the city."

"The place is some nightclub, but really they're another
government watchdog group. They're so paranoid they make
us look sane," Frohike said.

"That's quite an accomplishment," Mulder said dryly. The
day when he would need these three men to help him
infiltrate a clinic in Pennsylvania was still three
months in the future. He could afford now to tease them.

The guys were not amused. "It's on E Street," Langly
said. "The club doesn't have a name. It's just this
small, gray brick building. The back door is the one you
want."

****

The building is a warren of darkly-lit hallways, all
leading downward, to a cellar, where the final door
stands. Through this portal lies the westward path, the
last leg of the journey to Wonderland.

In that cellar, Scully abruptly stops and cries out. "My
mother!" Grief contorts her fine features, the first of
what will be many times.

Above them, in the building itself, screams suddenly
rend the air. There is no time for her grief now. Mulder
takes her wrist and pulls her through the final door.

Smooth, rounded earthen walls surround them, and they
run with renewed vigor, terror lending speed to their
flight. They must get far enough ahead so the flames
cannot follow them. They must make it to Wonderland.

****

In the tunnel they overtake an older man who cannot run
anymore, who crouches, gasping, against the wall. They
pass the still-warm body of a young woman who has opted
out the coward's way; Mulder pauses only long enough to
take her pistol.

Behind them there are screams of terror and pain, and an
ever-growing sense of heat.  There is little to burn in
here, and yet the fire spreads rapidly, consuming
hungrily.

They cannot go far at this breakneck pace for long, and
finally their steps stumble, slow, and at last stop
altogether.  They stand under the earth and hold each
other against the ghastly red light that begins to glow
in the distance, growing brighter and hotter with each
passing second. Unable to look away from the horror,
they stand and await the fire, the death.

****

The red light dims in intensity, but it is some time
before they realize it. They continue to stand, to hold
each other, trembling minutely. Around them there are no
sounds, no people, nothing to indicate anyone has lived
through the holocaust.

The fires behind them begin to die out, and they move
forward again, into the dark. They say nothing--the
English language is horribly inadequate at times such as
this. They walk, their hands still clasped; there will
be no more running.

Above and behind them lies the ruins of the world they
called Earth. But ahead of them is a future, ahead of
them is Wonderland.

****

END

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will be gratefully responded to at Syrinx42@yahoo.com