TITLE:  The Final Stand
AUTHOR:  Ashley
SUMMARY:  If William is humanity's last hope against alien invasion,
how does an 11-year old kid prevent an invasion when grownups have
tried for half a decade and failed? And what are Mulder and Scully up
to while in hiding? 
KEYWORDS: All of William and Invasion storyline wrapped up 
DISCLAIMER: If these characters belonged to me, they would
have lived happily ever after! But since they are not, no infringement
intended. It would be pointless to sue me anyway, I'm broke.
ARCHIVE:  Gossamer, Ephemeral, anywhere, just let me know first and
keep my name on it
FEEDBACK: Please let me know what you think! Email: AshXF@aol.com
RATING:  PG
SPOILERS:  None unless you don't know what the X-Files is.


The Final Stand Pt. 1

The desert sun was unmerciful as it baked the desert below. Ten year
old William Mulder (II) wiped the sweat from his forehead as he
continued down the sidewalk of his neighborhood in Roswell, New
Mexico. He had lived here for three years now with his parents, Dana
Scully and Fox Mulder, and although he had been raised on a small
midwestern farm in an even smaller midwestern town up until the age of
seven, he regarded the desert city and the sprawling neighborhood as
his home.

William had been given up for adoption by his parents when he was nine
months old, due the the fact that they were both being hunted by
unknown forces and couldn't protect him. In the nine months between
his birth and adoption, he had been attacked twice and kidnapped once,
and it looked like there would be no end to it in the future. With his
father in hiding and his mother at a loss, she had made the heart
wrenching decision to send him away, and he had gone to
live with Bob and Nancy Van de Kamp on a small farm in small town in
the middle of nowhere.

For seven years he had believed them to be his natural parents, even
though he had never called them Mom or Dad and looked nothing like
them. After discovering his adoption, he soon found himself in a chain
of events which led him to discover his real parents and thier
friends, John Doggett and Monica Reyes. However, his search had also
led to the murders of Bob and Nancy and a frantic flight from Midville
with Doggett and Reyes to Washington D.C. There, he had met his
grandmother Maggie Scully and had finally been reunited with his
birth parents. They had brought him to Roswell, a safe haven from
those who were looking for them, and he had lived here ever since.

A small dust devil went dancing across his path as a breeze kicked up
the sand and dirt, but offered little relief from the heat. William
was amazed to find how he had adjusted to living in the desert after a
lifetime of living in the midwest. It never snowed here, although it
did in the mountains nearby, and it was very dry. But the culture
fascinated him. He had been out to visit some friends at the local
Native American reservations several times, and he had an
extensive collection of Zuni animal carvings. Soon he would be leaving
to go on a three day long vision quest at a nearby reservation and he
was excited about it, not to mention honored to be allowed to
participate.

In all outward appearances, William looked like a regular kid, if a
bit tall for ten years old. He had his mother's red hair and blue
eyes, but his father's facial features and photographic memory. But
what couldn't be seen were William's other features. He could almost
hear people's thoughts, could sense others around him, could, on some
occasions, move objects with his mind, and sometimes could even see
events happening in other places. He was exceptionally brilliant,
testing with an IQ of 180. His adoptive parents had suspected, but
had never really known just how different he really was. 

His parents knew, though. They had never really explained everything
entirely to him, but he got the impression that several events
concerning his parents before his birth had contributed to his
strangeness. But they loved him, he never doubted that. And his father
had promised to explain everything to him soon.

He was almost home. It had been a long day at school and he was
anxious to get home. He began to skip and whistle, walking past the
new houses of the neighborhood. They were small, but nice homes with
very little yard space. Instead of trees, mostly shrubbery and a small
cactus here and there made up the flower beds. Suddenly he felt a
prickle on the back of his neck as the hairs rose. Although he could
see or hear nothing, he froze and looked around. Suddenly a white van
came whipping around the corner behind him. It screeched
to a stop beside him and the door opened. Two masked men jumped out,
but William was already running.

He ran between the two nearest houses as the two men chased after him
and the van sped off down the street. He ducked under a hedge row and
into the next yard. He didn't look back but he knew the two men hadn't
slowed down. He felt rather than saw them split up and he was prepared
as he rounded the corner of another house. Sure enough, there was one
of the masked men waiting for him, but William was ready for him.
Using his forward momentum, he ran up and planted a swift jump side
kick into the man's chest, barreling him over to the ground. 

William rolled over, jumped to his feet and kept running. He rounded
the hedges onto the sidewalk but the second man was waiting and the
van pulled to a stop beside them. He grabbed William and wrestled him
to the waiting van as the boy wriggled furiously trying to escape.
Reaching down to his belt, he pulled free the special weapon given to
him by his parents' friend, John Doggett. It looked like a small
cellular phone, which in fact it was, but in true James Bond
fashion, it also housed several small weapons, one of which was a stun
gun device. He activated it with a button, pressed it to the man's arm
and pushed the fire button.

The man instantly dropped him and fell to the ground. William scooted
away up the driveway of the nearest house and ducked into hiding
behind the air conditioning unit and a wheelbarrow. He stayed there,
panting hard, trying to regulate his breathing so he wouldn't be found
out. He heard the first man and the van's driver looking through the
bushes for him. He waited silently, barely breathing, with the phone
gun still in his hand, ready to go. He waited for a half hour, but it
seemed like an eternity. Was it safe to come out? He had
heard the van drive away but it was probably a ploy. His mother would
be wondering where he was, but he wasn't going to come out until he
knew it was over.

Then, he heard a voice calling to him.

"OK, Wil, I quit. Come out now, you win!" One of the masked men, the
one William had knocked over with a kick, had come into the backyard
where he was hiding. He took off his mask, revealing the sweaty but
grinning face of William's father, Fox Mulder.

With a grin, William stood up and Mulder laughed. He came over and
ruffled his son's hair.

"Not bad, kid, not bad at all. Although next time I'd refrain from
actually stunning someone during a practice run, poor Gibson's still
seeing stars."

William flinched a little. He hadn't meant to actually stun anyone,
but you never knew. He followed his father to the van where the
driver, Doug Eagleman and the second attacker, 24 year old Gibson
Praise, were waiting. Gibson was looking green and his friend, Doug
was fanning him.

'Nice move squirt....' William heard inside his head. Gibson was
telepathic and William was one of few people who could actually hear
and respond to him.

He smiled sheepishly and thought back, 'Sorry, man. I didn't mean
to.'

Gibson sighed and smiled. He shook his head and said, "Do you want us
to drop you off?"

Mulder shook his head, "No, thanks guys. It's only two blocks, we can
walk it. And I know you two wanted to go down to the reservation
tonight, so go on ahead."

As Doug and Gibson waved goodbye, Mulder and William started walking
back towards their house on the edge of the neighborhood.

William looked over his and his father's clothes and shook his head.
"Mom's gonna be mad."

Mulder smiled softly. "She doesn't like the way we're training you,
but she of all people knows how important it is. We don't have time to
play around, it's already 2012. This December is it, and I know you've
been training ever since we've had you, but we still don't know fr
sure what to expect."

William felt a small shiver as his father mentioned the impending
date. December 22, 2012, the date on the Mayan calendar that signaled
the destruction of the universe, the date the aliens would come to
invade the Earth. When William had first heard the story, he wondered
if his parents and the others who had settled in this neighborhood
weren't a little off their rockers. But as he had been told more and
more, he came to realize that nobody was playing games. The entire
town of Roswell, New Mexico was built on a large deposit of
magnetite. The aliens themselves were affected in such a way that,
while it wasn't fatal, staying in the area caused an illness in them
similar to radiation sickness in humans. But there were other beings
as well, human-alien hybrids known as "Super Soldiers" that could not
be killed in any way, not by bullets or even being crushed into
hamburger. The only thing that WOULD kill them was magnetite. It
pulled them apart and reduced them to a pile of powdered
metal. Using this information, several scientists who had moved to
Roswell in a growing community of secret specialists,  had developed a
type of dart gun that fired darts of concentrated magnetite. One of
the weapons on William's cellular phone, besides a stun gun, was a
magnetite dart. However, it was only a single shot.

The people of this task force had been working for a decade to develop
weapons against the coming invaders, the dart guns being one.The group
included not just the residents of thier neighborhood in Roswell, but
a network of carefully placed people around the world. After arriving
and setting up a haven in Roswell, safe from the supersoldiers who
could not come near the magnetite thier homes were built on, former
FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully along with several others who
also knew of the impending invasion, had begun to work on a plan to
stop the planned invasion. All over the world, individuals who
were part of their group worked in secret alongside thier regular jobs
to do thier part, developing weapons, vaccines and battle plans to
fight an unknown superior force from another world. Dana Scully had
been working as well, using her degree in medicine and a teaching
position at the local university to develop and reverse engineer the
vaccine Mulder had used on her in Antarctica. It was the only known
defense against the virus that turned human beings into
biological incubators for new alien life forms. It had been Mulder who
had named the group Aegis, after the mythological Zeus' sheild. But it
had been suggested by a group of local teenagers who played a
roleplaying game called Conspiracy X, and Mulder had found it funny
how the kids never knew how close thier game came to the truth.

In the meantime, Mulder and Scully had been trying to raise their son
in the best way they could. They wanted him to have as normal a life
as possible, and to never be afraid, but they didn't want him to be
clueless. They made sure he trained in martial arts and learned all
that he could about how to defend himself. They told him as much as
they could about their operation and the plan going on to stop the
invasion.  But aside from all of that, they still had a
little boy who had lost people he had considered parents in a terrible
way. Like his father, he was very good at blaming himself for things
that were ultimately beyond his control, and both of them had talked
to him at length, even talked to some counselors to make sure he was
handling everything alright.

William looked up at his dad. "Dad, am I going to be able to go with
you and Mom this summer?"

"Sure, you do every year. Don't you want to see your friend Josh
again?" asked Mulder.

Since coming to live with his birth parents, William had stayed in
contact via email with his friend from Midville, Joshua. Every summer
since then, they had made trips to visit Josh and his family, the Van
de Kamp's graves, then on to Washington D.C. to visit the Scully
family. William loved his grandmother and Uncle Charlie, but Uncle
Bill was always a little short with him. And he knew that Uncle Bill
detested his dad. They also made a point of visiting Mr.
Skinner, and Agents Doggett and Reyes, as well as Jimmy and Yves, two
remaining members of a group who called themselves the Lone Gunmen.
The other three of that group, Byers, Langley and Frohike, had been
friends of his parents for years and had died "in the line of duty" as
his mother had said. They visited thier graves in Arlington Cemetary
every summer too, while Mulder would tell William all the crazy
stories the three guys had gotten into.

"Well," said William, "This is it, this is the year."

"That's right," replied Mulder, "And if there was ever a time to see
everybody, this is it. Plus you have a birthday coming up in a few
weeks, right? Mom says we can have any kind of party you want, a real
big one for all your friends. She says you already picked one out?"

William nodded. He heard what his father didn't say. That this might
be the last year they were all alive, so live it up now. He and his
mother had planned to rent out the local Skate Galaxy and have the
blacklight lit skating rink/maze/laser tag facility all to themselves.
William had planned on inviting his entire Little League team and
everyone from karate. He didn't have many friends from school since he
was in the eigth grade and most of his classmates were four years
older than him with entirely different interests. He wished
Josh could come though.

They walked into thier house and paused in the kitchen. Dana Scully
was on the phone, apparently chewing someone out.

"No Richard! You SAID you would have those MagGun proposals sent to
the Pentagon by this past Monday, it's Friday." she said in
exhasperation. She paused and listened, then continued irritated. "OK
then, fine. When Al comes to invade us all, maybe we'll just send up a
radio transmission asking, 'Sorry boys, our Mags aren't going to be
ready for another two weeks, could you come back then?' Think that'll
work?"

Mulder snorted back a laugh and she turned around, and her mouth
dropped at the sight of her son and his father covered in desert sand
tracking into her kitchen. Suddenly her attention shifted back to the
phone. "OK, OK, fine then. Just do it fast, will you?" She hung up
then turned her stern gaze on the two men in her life. They both
grinned identical sheepish grins. She knew it wouldn't do to laugh
right now, she didn't wwant either of them to think she
approved of what she knew they had been doing, but it WAS a funny
sight.

Mulder said almost apologetically, "Umm, Dana, we're um, just going to
go, er clean up, OK?" He hurried out of the kitchen and William
scooted after him after blowing a kiss to his mother. Once they were
out of sight she allowed herself to smile. She knew it was important
for William to be on alert and be trained, she just wished it didn't
have to be so rough. She wished he were still a baby, but in other
ways she was glad he wasn't. While other mothers were worried about
kidnappers, pedophiles and speeding cars, she worried about
super soldiers, UFO's and government agents coming after her kid.

While sitting around the dinner table that night, Scully clued Mulder
in on the latest developments on the homefront. They had worked in
secret until the past year when finally bringing in the military and
the President, with a little help from thier friends still in the FBI
and Congress. It hadn't been easy, especially since you never knew who
to trust, and who could be an alien in disguise. They had relied on
Gibson Praise as a sort of human lie detector to tell if anyone in the
room was an alien or not human in any other way. William
had been learning to do it himself, although his abilities were
different from Gibson's. William had been injected with a form of
magnetite as an infant by his half-uncle Jeffery Spender, who lived
next door with Gibson. He had never been told why, although his
parents didn't seem to mind Uncle Jeff being around, but he sensed his
mother had a bit of animosity towards his uncle. But they needed every
man they could get, even one who had been as weakened and
disfigured as Jeff Spender had been by the experimentation done on him
by the government.

Scully told them that thier contact at the weapons processing factory
had been late on delivering the magnetite gun proposal to the generals
in thier group at the Pentagon. On top of all that, there were some
holdups at the CDC in getting the vaccine out. England had already
begun innoculating thier citizens and most other countries had plans
in place, thanks to the group members already working in those
countries.

"Relax, Scully," said Mulder, "It'll all get going in the next two
weeks like planned. When announcing the need for millions of Americans
to be vaccinated with a new vaccine against an unknown disease, it has
to be done carefully to prevent panic. Besides, no one's going to know
what the truth is, they're coming up with some story about Anthrax or
something."

Scully nodded, "The Aegis group wants to know about the meeting,
people have been calling nonstop."

Mulder sighed. Although he had not asked for the position, he was
considered one of the group leaders, since he had founded the
beginnings of the network during his time in hiding in New Mexico when
William was a baby. He had been reluctant to take on the role though,
since he had a mental image of his father and the men he had worked
with in a similar situation, running the Syndicate in the shadows of
an alien invasion. 

"We'll shoot for July 4th, everyone will be off from work and we can
make it into a sort of neighborhood barbecue or something, we'll avoid
suspicion that way. And it'll give everyone time to get down here." He
picked at his salad slowly.

Scully turned to William. "What about you? Still on for your birthday
party?" she asked with a grin.

He smiled back. "Sure am, and the vision quest too. Who knows, maybe
the spirits will send some huge sign of how we're supposed to win the
invasion." His parents both smiled somewhat sadly.

Later that night, William tossed and turned in his bed. Sleep was
coming more and more difficultly as the months faded away to the
inevitable. He didn't let his parents know he was sleeping badly,
since he didn't want them to worry even more about him, but lately
he'd lie down around 9:30 and stare at the ceiling until 1AM. And when
he DID sleep, his dreams were filled with images of Bob and
Nancy lying dead in different places on the farm, of his family being
frozen in alien pods, of UFO's zooming through the sky spitting fire
like in War of the Worlds. It was getting to the point to where he was
starting to see flashes of daydreams during the day. Once he thought
he saw a UFO overhead, although UFO's couldn't fly over Roswell
without crashing due to the magnetite. Another time he thought he saw
a gray alien in the bushes. He hoped he wasn't losing it so
soon to the time when he might be needed.

Sighing, he got up out of bed and went down the hall towards the
kitchen for some water. He didn't turn on any lights, since both of
his parents were light sleepers. But as he came into the den, he saw
that his father was still up anyway watching television. Fox Mulder
had been an insomniac for years. Mulder looked up and saw his son
standing in the doorway. He grinned and patted the sofa next to him.
William went over and crawled up beside his dad. Mulder
pulled a blanket over both of them and settled back down.

"Can't sleep?" he asked.

William shook his head. Mulder pressed on, "You're worried about
something? You don't have to do the vision quest, you know. Or is it
something else?"

William thought for a minute, then asked, "Dad, are we going to win?"
He had never asked this question right out, knowing his parents were
working as hard as they could to ensure the war would be won, but what
did they really think?

Mulder, for one, didn't quite know how to answer. " I really don't
know son," he said with caution, then decided to continue, "but if you
want absolute honesty, well, the chances aren't good."

"Then we're all going to die anway?" asked William. Mulder smiled.

"Probably not. There are 8 billion people on the planet, even with
the gestating virus, there will always be pockets of people who will
be isolated and will escape it. Plus we have the vaccine and we've
been innoculating people for years, so quite a few will be immune to
it. To the best of our knowledge, Al doesn't know about the vaccine
yet, and thanks to the friends we made at the CDC, the vaccine has
been mass-produced for three years now and shipped out with regular
vaccines given to babies when they're born. As for the older ones,
doctors who are part of Aegis have released announcements saying
previous booster shots were found to be ineffective, to come in and
get the "new improved" one, doctors are giving them during anual
checkups, and all of us here in Roswell and the whole family have had
them. So we're betting the virus thing won't work as well as they'd
hoped. 

Now don't get me wrong, it'll still get alot of people if it's
released. We just can't vaccinate everyone, there's no time. But we
estimated about half the world's population has it by now, and some of
our Aegis crew have been burning those cornfields mom and me showed
you two years ago in Texas and all over the world. Some of our more,
um, enthusiatic crew even blew up some of those huge bee hives with
home made napalm. Managed to get the attention of the local
news."

Mulder paused and sighed. William thought for a minute, then asked, "I
read about all the terrorist stuff at the turn of the century, and
listen to what you and Mom tell me about the Syndicate an Aegis. What
makes us different from those guys? I mean, we operate in small goups
loosely connected to each other, we have ties in the government. We're
going to end up fighting a huge....."

"DON'T compare us to them, William," Mulder said sternly, "Aegis is
NOT like any of those organizations. The Syndicate was only trying to
buy time to save thier own asses while keeping thier unlimited power
over the masses, and the terrorists, well, they didn't care who got
killed, civillians, kids. We're trying to ensure our species will
survive whatever's coming. We're trying to save lives here. Yes we
operate in some of the same ways, groups loosely connected through our
network, all trying for the same goal, but we're not trying to kill
anyone or control anyone, we're trying to keep the planet for
ourselves, which, frankly I think we have a right to. I mean,
apparently they WERE here before us, from what I was told. But they
didn't oringate here, they came to colonize it but it was too cold. So
they left or lay dormant in ice. But when they came back, suddenly
here we were and they don't feel like sharing. Neither do I actually.
Who are they to come and commit genocide? What right do they have to
the planet? None at all. It's ours. 

And you know, I'm not about being heartless. If some catastrophe
destroyed thier world and they needed somewhere to live, and above
all, were more gracious about sharing the planet, I could see letting
them colonize in a few places. If they were at all willing to coexist
and respect our right to live, I wouldn't have a problem with sharing
the planet. But thier constant lies and backstabbing to the Syndicate,
the virus, all of it shows they don't really want to work with us at
all, they just want us to help them kill ourselves."

William snuggled closer to his father and listened. His parents had
told him of past events they had dealt with while working ont he
X-Files, and it was alot to remember. But he had never heard his
father's true feelings about the matter. William knew both of his
parents had suffered terribly to fight the lies and horror they had
found within the cases of the X-Files. Within a space of five years,
his mother's father and both of his father's parents had died or
been murdered. His aunt Melissa had been shot and killed, mistaken for
her sister. His aunt Samantha, for whom his father had searched for 25
years was found to have been eventually killed after years of
experimentation by the Syndicate. His half sister Emily had been
created as a human answer to the super soldiers, without his mother's
knowledge, and she had eventually died from her abnormal blood
condition. The three orignial Lone Gunmen had been killed preventing a
deadly virus escaping, his half uncle Jeff Spender had been
shot by his own father, the Cigarette Smoking Man (William's genetic
grandfather), and when he didn't die, he was left to be experimented
on, leaving him horribly burned and disfigured. Gibson had been forced
into hiding at the age of twelve because of his mental abilites, after
his parents had been found dead.

Both Mulder and Scully had been abducted for several months, only to
be returned nearly dead. His mother had battled a brutal cancer. And
his own birth, which should have been a joyous miracle, was
overshadowed by the supersoldiers hunting for him, for Mulder's forced
flight underground, attacks and kidnappings which eventually led to
William's adoption to Bob and Nancy Van de Kamp. All these families,
all these lives, destroyed, all because of greedy evil men and
unfeeling creatures from God knows where who couldn't stay off
someone else's planet. The whole thing sucked. And for what? To fight
a losing battle?

"Dad?" William asked slowly. "What if we fail?"

Mulder pulled his son close. "Well, at least we will have tried."

The Final Stand Pt. 2

Dana Scully was having a rare happy day. For today at least, they were
going to forget about the whole mess of alien invasion and Aegis and
whatever. It was William's 11th birthday and since she and Mulder had
missed the first seven years and birthdays of thier son's life, they
were going to make up for it. They had taken over the local Skate
Galaxy so the kids could have unlimted access to the skating rink, the
maze, obstical course, and William's favorite, Laser Tag. He had
already played it three times. And Mulder was thoroughly
enjoying his role as Dad-big kid. Scully had had to fish him out of
the balls pit twice to come help with the cake and ice cream. He had
been through the laser tag twice with William already, reminding Dana
of the time they were caught in the video game at FPS years ago.

After singing happy Birthday, opening presents and plenty of cake and
ice cream, William coaxed his mother into joining them in the skating
rink. She hadn't been on skates in 30 years and felt like a turtle on
wheels, but Mulder came up and, with a wink, took her hand and hauled
her around twice before she laughed and headed for the side. William
was having one of the best brithdays of his life. Earlier that day,
Agents Doggett and Reyes had shown up as a surprise. They were on
thier way back from a case in California and had decided
to swing by New Mexico for William's birthday. (and some cake no
doubt) They had given him a new Virtual Reality Game System game, the
newest one out by Nintendo. Monica had been helping his mother herd
the kids, and Doggett had been switching between the video games and
talking to Mulder. 

After several exciting hours, William convinced both of his parents,
the two agents and the rest of his friends from karate and Little
League to go for one final Lasr Tag game. Everyone agreed and they
headed in. William always felt like an android or something wearing
the cyber vest with light sensors and running around with the light
gun. The object of the game was for the two teams to blast the other
team's four light stations, hidden in rooms and pockets in
the maze. William half wondered if he wouldn't be doing something
similar but for real in the near future.

As the buzzer sounded, the two groups headed into the blacklight
illuminated maze. William watched with awe as his mother expertly
ducked behind a corner. His parents were on his team but Doggett and
Reyes were on the other one to make it more fair. William climbed up
the ramp leading to the upper level and grinned as he watched his
father and Doggett below in a laser shootout. Both men never noticed
William's karate friend, Kyle come up and shoot them both,
even though Mulder was on his team. Both men laughed. William set off
to find the light stations. As he ran into a light station, he blasted
the sensor in the roof and it set off the strobe light indicating he
had destroyed the station. But as the stobing light flashed in his
eyes, suddenly his mind leapt, and he saw an image of a triangular
craft in the sky, strobing lights shining down on him. But as quickly
as it had come, the vision vanished. William stood for a second,
wonering what had happened. Then he shook his head hard and set
off to find another station.

A he rounded several more corners and fought off other team members,
he felt a funny sensation creep into his head. He turned quickly and
stiffled a scream. Right behind him was a gray alien!

'No, no it can't be. It's not real, it's a hallucination...too much
cake, too much sugar, that has to be it!' he thought. He raised his
gun, forgetting it was only a laser gun that shot harmless light. Then
he remembered and felt his belt for his phone gun. It wasn't there. He
remembered, he hadn't brought it. He backed away and blinked hard.
Suddenly the alien was gone. He looked around rapidly. People were
running everywhere, still playing. Derek Sanchez shot him
twice but William never noticed. Derek asked if he was OK, but William
didn't hear. He ran away blindly through the maze, as if trying to
outrun an invisable pursuer. He ran around a corner and saw his
mother. She looked up and froze. Dana registered the look of pure
panic on her son's face and sprinted over to him.

"Wil, what's wrong? What happened?" she asked as she pulled him into a
hug. Safe now in his mother's arms, he burst into tears, not caring if
any of his friends saw him. Alarmed now, Scully asked again what
happened.

"Al...I saw, I thought I saw....Al," he said between sobs, using the
Aegis codeword for alien.

A look of fear came into Dana's eyes as well as resolve. She looked up
and made a move as if to go somewhere, but just then the lights came
back on and the sounds of the other team cheering filled the room.
They had one by one light station. William didn't care, but he dried
up his tears right away, lest anyone thought he was crying because his
team lost. Mulder and Reyes came sprinting over with smiles, but
stopped when they saw William. 

"What's going on?" Mulder asked as Doggett joined them. 

Scully pulled them closer and whispered, "He thought he saw a grey,
back in there somewhere." William nodded confirming.

"OK, get everyone out of here, " said Doggett. He, Reyes and Mulder
turned and went back into the maze. Scully took William's hand and led
him out with the other kids. It was the final game and everyone
started packing up to leave for home. William dutifully said goodbye
to his friends, forced smiles and laughter, and finally, when the last
one had left, went to his mother who held him protectivly close. His
father came out followed by the agents, saying they had not been able
to find anything at all. William insisted he had seen a grey,
but no one knew what to think. They gathered up everything and headed
for home, and the drive back was somber.

Once they got home, the four adults listened again to William's
recount of seeing an alien in the laser tag arena. But no trace had
been found. Plus there didn't seem to have been anyone else who had
seen it.

"I thought they couldn't come into Roswell in the first place because
of the magnetite," said Monica Reyes.

"No they can, they just can't fly over it," Mulder countered. "The
supersoldiers can't come in the town, they'd be pulled apart, but
aliens and humans can. Usually a bullet will take care of an alien
though."

Scully pulled William closer to her and he could feel his mother's
uneasiness and wished he hadn't said anything in the first place. He
was beginning to doubt his sanity and wondered if he should mention
having seen flashes before of aliens on the street.

"Well, aside from all this, we have other problems," said John
Doggett somberly. "Seems our friends in what's left of the Syndicate
know for sure about us now. Jim and Yves sent us an intercepted
downloaded letter detailing certain operations, and you and Dana, so
they know for sure you're alive now. Good thing you were officially
pardoned from that Knowle Rohrer thing, Mulder, or the military'd be
knocking on your door right now."

"Also, if you're ready for more good news," sighed Monica, "Seems the
aliens know about Aegis too. We don't know if they know about the
vaccine, but they do know there's a reisistance movement organizing.
We think  they don't know about you guys or that it's centered here in
Roswell, but they might soon enough. They might step up the
timetable."

"You said the aliens know, do you mean the grays?" asked Mulder.

"Well yeah, who else?" asked John.

"Well," said Mulder, "We know there are actually several different
races, but we aren't sure if they're all connected to the greys, or if
they're at war. We heard something earlier about a war, but it wasn't
confirmed."

"You mean like Jeremiah Smith?" William asked. He had met the
shapeshifting healer alien two years ago, and he had looked perfectly
human to William, although Gibson had pointed out the different
feeling of the man versus a normal human.

"Yes, but we're not sure if the Jeremiah and Gregor race are a race
unto themselves or creation of the greys who are rebelling." said
Dana. "We know the Jeremiahs kow about us, they're part of the Aegis
group. Half of what we've been able to do is with their help."

"This just keeps getting better and better....." John sighed.

Doggett and Reyes stayed for dinner, then a little while afterwards
talking to Mulder and Scully. They left for Washington D.C. after
wishing William a happy birthday again. They'd be seeing each other
again in a few weeks.(William hoped)

As his mom tucked him in, she mentioned that they were thinking of
cancelling William's vision quest at the reservation.

"No! Mom please! I might not get another chance and I was glad to be
asked. Don't make me back out." he pleaded. 

"I just don't think it's safe, William. Out there in the open, no
defenses, plus I'm not sure I like it anyway. No food for three days?
That can be dangerous for an eleven year old kid."

"You decide to bring this up now?" he pouted, "Why not just say no a
month ago? And Dad said it was OK"

"Watch yourself, Mister..." she warned somewhat jokingly but sternly.
She sighed. She knew he wanted badly to go, but if he was seeing
aliens.... And she knew Eric Hosteen, the grandson of Albert Hosteen,
would be there watching him. The person on the vision quest was rarely
left entirely alone these days. There was usually someone nearby in
case of emergency, and the Hosteen family had been a tremendous help
to herself and Mulder through the years. Without Albert's help, before
his death years ago, Mulder would be dead today. Eric had
even chosen to be beaten badly by the Cigarette Smoking Man rather
than give up Mulder's location at the time.

"Let me think about it some more, OK? And I'm coming along if you DO
go." she said.

"Mom, it's supposed to be me alone in great Mother Nature. It won't
work if you're there." he said.

"I'm not leaving you by yourself, even with Eric there. And I'll stay
out of sight, but I want to be there. No discussion. Either I go or
you don't." she said firmly.

William nodded, knowing that since she had made up her mind, either go
along with her or don't go at all. She kissed him good night and gave
him a big hug.

"Thanks for the party, Mom. It was great," he said.

She smiled and pulled him closer, "I'm glad, sweetie. G'night."

She tucked him in, then left turning off the light. William lay back,
steeling himself for another few hours of staring at the ceiling.

The sound of his parents' voices came drifting in. He heard his name
being mentioned and slowly got up and crept to the hallway to listen.
His mother was talking.

"You know, Mulder, if ten years ago someone had told me about what I'd
be doing these days, I would have laughed. And that's AFTER having
been on the X-Files for several years. Who would have thought that
we'd be on the front lines fighting off an alien invasion while trying
to raise a kid?" She sounded almost downbeat.

"I know, Dana, but what else can we do, roll over and let them kill us
all? Why make it easy? Besides, my gut is telling me there IS a way to
win, I really think it can be done. I just wish the world didn't have
to be disrupted to do it." said Mulder.

"You know, when I look at the news and see all the reports of
diferent countries at war, people killing each other over land less
than the size of Maryland, corruption in corporations, it just makes
me want to yell at all of them, 'Hey don't you know you only have
seven months left to live? There's a huge, superior race of beings who
want this planet and they could give a damn about your religion, your
money, whatever. They only want the planet and us off of it. Stop
fighting each other and help us fight THEM!' It's all so stupid and
pointless, fighting each other when we'll need every person we can
get." she paused for a minute.

Mulder knew something was on her mind, so he waited. Finally she said,
"Mulder, what about what happened today? What's going on with
William?"

"What ISN'T going on with him?" he said. "Dana, regardless of what he
appears to be, he isn't your average child, you know that. I don't
think he saw a real grey, but maybe a premonition or vision of one.
With his mental abilities, and we don't even know the extent of them,
it could have been anything. Remember what everyone said about him
when he was born? Even those kooks up in Canada, the cult. William was
destined to turn the tide of the invasion, that whoever's
side he was on would win. That's why the supersoldiers wanted me dead,
probably you too. If we raised him, as we have mostly, he'd side with
us. If they raised him, he'd side with them. I wish I knew what his
part is in all of this, if only to protect him. Whatever he is in the
big picture, he's our little boy and I love him."

Dana said, "I can't believe he's so important to this somehow. I mean,
the Syndicate has been working with Al on colonization for over fify
years. You and I weren't born then, and yet now everything depends on
a child niether one of us even expected to have. I just don't see how
that came about so suddenly, or how all the plans they made centered
on one little boy no one could garuntee would even be born."

"I don't think it did, actually," said Mulder. "Things changed after
our little fiasco in Antarctica.  With the destruction of the
Syndicate and the ship taking off, that turned the tide. Before, the
aliens were going to "colonize", told the Syndicate they would simply
turn humans into a slave race using the black oil. In exchange for
making the preparations for them, the aliens would grant the Syndicate
and thier families amnesty. But lo and behold, the virus
actually turns people into human incubators for the aliens, which
would kill us all and repopulate the Earth with greys. With the
Syndicate dead and the project dying, all bets were off. Now we know
for sure they don't plan on coexisting, they're coming to kill.
Before, the bounty hunter aliens were sent to police the project.
These days, the job seems to be to clean up. They figured out the
Syndicate was working against them, hopefully not about the
vaccine, but the Jeremiahs, Gregors, and.....Samanthas.....were the
Syndicate's attempts to creat a human/alien hybrid who would survive
the plague.

Aparently that didn't go over well with the greys, they sent the
bounty hunter to get rid of them. And Emily.."Mulder paused, not sure
if he should continue, but did, "I think she was an attempt to make
our own super soldier. With that experiment a failure and the
Syndicate dead, all the aliens had to do to ensure the remnants of the
project were carried out was to send in the super soldiers,
human replacements who could not be killed by our weapons. So now here
we are, on the verge of invasion, with only Aegis, a loosely connected
group of resistance cells, the only barrier between humanity and
annhilation."

"But what about William?" Dana pressed.

Mulder continued, "I really think William's the anomaly no one counted
on. Scully....Dana," he seemed to be struggling with his words, not
sure how to say what was on his mind. "You know how it was, how you
thought you couldn't have children, and after what they did to you,
you shouldn't have been able to. The in vitro didn't work, even after
four times, then one night we, um...well you know."

Scully laughed softly, "Yeah I know."

Mulder went on, "And we weren't even TRYING to have a kid then, that
was for us, and after eight years long overdue, in my opinion. But lo
and behold, what happens? It's almost as if whatever God is up there
was just waiting for that one time, after all, the artifical stuff
didn't work. And the night he was born, Dana I swear I saw that light
in the sky leading me to you. It wasn't a UFO, it wasn't a satellite.
It's like, one small miracle after another.  And then when we had to
give him up......only to have him amlost literally drop
back into our lives, old enough to understand what had happened but
still young enough to give us time to raise him...it's all seemed to
work out where William is concerned. Now I'm not going to tell you
that our son is the next Jesus Christ or something, far from that. But
I know he's special, he shouldn't have been able to even be here but
he is. It's almost like, no matter what the archeologist down in the
cell in south Africa say about what was written on the UFO you found
in the sand, about how they think our whole conception of God was
what they aliens led us to believe, I think William is proof that
there really IS a God and we're being watched over."

"I hope you're right, Mulder. I really do. Because if not, we're all
in for a world of trouble." Dana replied.

William slowly closed his door and went back to bed.

The Final Stand pt3

William never knew what kind of persuasion his father employed on his
mother to get her to allow him to go to the vision quest after all,
but he suspected that she was planning on hanging around nearby
anyway, only keeping it a secret from him. Eric Hosteen had offered to
delay the whole thing, but there wouldn't be time later, they were
leaving on thier anual summer pilgrimage to see family and deal with
Aegis business. The only change was that they would set up in
Eric's backyard instead of the wilderness, but since he had a huge
open stretch of land, William didn't mind too much.

He helped Eric set up the tent and the stones set in a circle around
it. Then Eric came to him and handed him a canteen.

"There's some broth in there and another bottle of water inside the
tent, so you're all set. Remember, no cheating. If you have snacks,
turn 'em over now, bud." said Eric.

William turned his pockets inside out with a smile.

Eric laughed and said "OK, well, there's a small two way radio in the
tent, I'll be up at the house and if you need anything just call.
We're still within the boundaries of the safe zone, so you shouldn't
have any problems, but if you do, I know you have your phone gun, but
call right away. I'll be watching you but you won't see me, any sign
that you're getting sick or something I'm pulling you out, got it?"

William nodded, hoping it wouldn't come to that.

"I don't want to have to tell your mother if anything does happen,
like snakebites. Incidently, keep an eye out for rattlers, not common
on my land but not impossible either. Now remember, try to stay in a
clam state of mind. If the spirits have a message for you, and I have
a feeling they do, they'll come. Just let them come."

"How will I know if it's a message or if I'm just tripping out? And
what if I don't recognize it?" asked William.

"You will know." said Eric. "Plus, if you miss it they usually try
again until you get it."

Eric turned to leave and called over his shoulder, "Remember, don't
step out of the boundary stones until I come get you."

"Wait, Eric!" called William, "What about when I have to go to the
bathroom?"

Eric grinned widely and tossed a roll of toilet paper to William. "See
that bush over there?" he pointed, "I dug a hole behind it. That's
rapidly dissolving toilet paper, be sure to bury it good. See you in
three days!"

Eric turned nd started to walk away when William called after him,
"Just how rapidly are we talking about? Am I going to have to play
beat the clock in the bushes?" Eric snorted but didn't turn around.

William shook his head and went about settling in for three days of
soul searching. He arranged his sleeping bag, canteens and rapidly
dissolving toilet paper in a neat order in the tent, made sure the
flashlight and radio worked, then walked the entire perimeter to
explore, which wasn't very far. The only thing in the circle besides
his tent was the infamous bush. He turned a circle and observed the
landscape around him. Flat. A cactus here and there. Tumbleweeds. And
God it was hot. Eric had set him up in what passed for shade
near a stand of some cacti, but the house as the top of the rise about
a hundred yards away looked quite shadier.

He sat down and waited for the expected visit from the spirits. By
late afternoon that same day, William had discovered something about
himself alright. He discovered that, despite his unusual differences,
he definately had the attention span of a normal eleven year old. With
no books, video games, and especially no music, he hadn't realized
just what true boredom was. He half wondered if he'd die of boredom
instead of the elements.

When night fell, he found out something else about himself, that he
was still a child that really, REALLY wanted his mom and dad when it
was cold and dark and god alone knew what was creeping around outside
your tent. He wasn't allowed to make a fire, and had only the big
lantern and a flashlight to push back the darkness. He knew Eric (and
robably his mother) must be nearby and that was some comfort, but
since he could barely see anything part of his mind kept
telling him that he really WAS alone out in the middle of the desert.
As much as he tried, he couldn't keep images of supersoldiers and
aliens and government bad guys sneaking up to his tent and nabbing him
while he slept. Although he had his hand on his phone gun, and he knew
the SS couldn't come onto this land, it still made for a restless,
sleepless night. He had suffered with bouts of insomnia before, but
nothing like this. He doubted he slet more than an hour or
two that first night.

By the time the dawn rolled around, the vision quest was looking less
and less like a wonderful adventure and more like the trial that it
was. He was hungry, having finished off the broth and water the night
before, and he was releived to see Eric had left a new bottle of broth
and canteen of water by the tent. But it didn't do much for him. And
using the hole as a toilet was grossing him out, but he couldn't avoid
it. Finally he told himself to suck it up, he knew his parents had
been through worse, to stop being a baby. He thought about
practicing his karate moves to keep busy, but decided to wait until
later when the sun wouldn't be baking him alive.

Instead he slowly paced the perimeter of the circle. Without outside
stimulus for his mind, he found himself thinking more than he ever had
in his life. He thought about everything he knew about the upcoming
invasion, as well as his parents' conversation that night. He thought
about Bob and Nancy and Midveille and Josh. he thought about his
extended family, about the planet, about the impossible task ahead of
them. It was enough to make a grownup's head hurt, nevermind a kid's.

Why him? Why all of this? How the hell was HE, a kid, supposed to be
the deciding factor between two waring species for control of a
planet? It sounded like a bad scifi movie. It sounded like his
favorite book, Ender's Game. He stopped pacing and thought for a
second. Like the boy in that book, the fate of humanity had rested on
him, a child, over a coming alien invasion. And yet that
boy, who wanted nothing more than to simply be a child, to be loved by
his family and left alone, had basically been forced into his role and
tricked into doing the job that was required of him. And when all was
said and done, the boy was nearly shattered. Was that to be his own
fate?

William sat down on the ground and thought about the Bible school
classes he had gone to in Midville. He absentmindedly hummed "Michael
Row Your Boat Ashore", which had been Nancy's favorite song. He
realized he was about the same age Jesus had been when he learned he
was God's son. William wondered for a second what that would be like,
to be a kid his age and suddenly have it revealed to you that your
father wasn't your father, the creator of the universe was, and that
this would mean a life of hardship, a horrifying death,
ect. ect. That must have really shook Him up. William doubted he would
take such news himself without his head exploding. It was too much,
too big a responsibility, especially for a child. He didn't want this
role that was pre-ordained for him. He doubted he was anything like
Jesus, but it was a huge situation all the same. Jesus had eventually
taken up his role at the age of thirty, and William wanted another
eighteen years to himself to work it all out. But time was up. He had
only six months.

The way he saw it, there was this big bully of a race that simply
wanted to come in and take thier planet with total disregard to thier
race and thier civilization. It reminded him of the stories of the
European conquerors and the Native Americans. The Europeans had the
bigger firepower and technolog and therefore considered it thier right
to invade and overthrow the rich cultures of the people already here.
And due to thier arrogance, untold amounts of data in math, science
and astronomy were lost when the Indians' writings and books
were destroyed by the conquerors. But they survived anyway, although
somewhat diminished. How different would the world be today if the
Europeans had not won, had been driven out? The United States probably
wouldn't be here.

But then there was the example of Hitler invading most of Europe. That
wasn't a good thing at all, millions of people died all because one
dicator thought he had the right to rule the world. So what then? What
was the right thing to do? Restless again, he got up to resume his
pacing.

That night was no better than the first, except pure exhaustion was
starting to catch up with him. He was running out of things to think
about, was sick of pacing the circle, and had figured that the spirits
didn't want to talk to him anyway. He was ready to go home, but he was
no quitter and was determined to stay the whole time. He only had 24
more hours to go. The third day was the worst. He was beyond hunger,
even with the daily supply of broth and water. He knew he was feeling
some dehydration, and he felt weak. He knew he should call
Eric over the radio but kept putting it off, hoping to hold out just a
few more hours. He had barely slept in three days and was starting to
feel like he was dreaming even though he was sure he was awake. It was
around late afternoon on the third day that his eyes started playing
tricks on him. Eric had told him to expect it, it meant the spirits
were coming, but it was still unnerving.

For a second he was sure he saw his father standing by a cactus, but
when he blinked it was gone. He thought he heard his grandmother's
voice once, and another time he thought he heard running water. The
landscape seemed strange somehow, as if the edges weren't clearly
defined and the colors dull. He could feel himself dozing and drifting
in and out, hearing flashes of memory, of his life in Midville,
various songs from "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" and "Shout
to the Lord," to his parents' favorite song, "Joy to the World". He
found himself humming the part "Jeremiah was a bullfrog..." over and
over, thoughtlessly.

"That's a funny song..." came a child's voice to his right.

William about jumped out of his skin! He turned, suddenly alert, to
the sound of the voice and gaped in amazement as a little girl came
out from behind a cactus. Her blonde hair was whispy and she looked to
be about four years old, but William knew her right away. Her blue
eyes were the same as his, her smile just like his mother's. He was
looking at his long dead sister Emily. But that wasn't possible was
it? His father had said something about seeing ghosts before,
something his mother seemed to be prone to despite her skeptic's
approach. Was this real or was he tripping out? Was this his sign or
was he sleeping and dreaming?

The little girl smiled at his and held out her hand. "Come on,
brother. There's not much time. There's alot for you to see."

William shook his head. "I'm not going anywhere, I can't leave the
circle."

Emily said, "What circle?"

William turned to point to the stones, then stared in shock. They had
dissapeared, along with the tent and Eric's house. What the HELL was
going on? He looked at her in confusion. She smiled again. William
felt uneasiness coming over him, although he didn't feel any danger on
his mental radar. She obviously was the sign he was supposed to look
out for, but he didn't want to go wandering off iinto the desert as
out of it as he was. He stood up and looked down at her. She took his
hand. and pointed behind him.

He turned to look, expecting to see a SS or something, but felt the
shock of his life when he realized he was no longer in the desert, he
was floating in outer space!! Panic swelled up in him and he fought
back a scream, but then he heard his sister's voice in his ear.

"Don't be afraid, Wil. It's just a vision, like a movie."

He settled down a little, finding he could breathe, and felt a little
better, realizing that this was just like a VR game or something. They
seemed to be floating over what looked like the Earth, but the
continents were strange. The landmasses were still drifting, Africa
had not joined Europe and the North and South American continents were
not connected. William watched fascinated as what looked like a
spacecraft came into orbit around the primordial Earth. It
was strange, alien, even stranger than the pictures of the alien
spacecraft his parents knew of. Then William knew he was looking at a
totally different race, never seen before, maybe not even by the
greys.

"Watch close," said Emily as the craft fired shot after shot of some
kind of matter into the atmosphere and oceans of the Earth as it
rotated on it's axis. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the craft sped
away into the deep darkness.

"What was that all about?" William asked. Emily didn't answer, but
pointed again and William saw that the perspective had changed, they
were now on the land watching evolution as if on a fast forward. The
masses that the craft had fired into the ocean were changing, DNA
combining, cells forming.

William watched as single celled organisms started to form, joining to
become multicellular. Ther seemed to be something wrong with the DNA,
parts of it seemed to be dissolving. What were once six base pairs now
only had four survive. But the four based pair organisms seemed more
heartier, stronger, than the thier six base pair relatives, who
quickly died out. Ocean creatures formed, fish came out of the water
and breathed with primative lungs. William watched the rise of the
reptiles, the dinosaurs, as they existed on a planet made mostly of
swamp. Mammals suddenly made an appearance, but were small and
weak and lived in hiding.

Then William saw something shocking. The race of the most intelligent
of the dinosaurs, the velociraptors, started evolving even more,
devoloping advanced brains. They started using sticks and stones as
tools, started evolving slowly into an almost primate physiology. They
were destined to become the superior species on the planet. But that
wasn't right, was it? William soon got his answer.

Another craft appeared in the heavens, different from the first one.
William knew it was the greys. He watched as landing parties and small
craft in the air analyzed the air, soil, and lifeforms. Then, William
watched in horror as they greys, without so much as a backward glace,
used what looked like some kind of gravity control to manuver a huge
asteroid onto a collision course with Earth. He felt himself cry out
in disgust and fear, as the asteroid crashed into the Yucatan, sending
up fire and earth into the sky. He watched as the sun was
blocked out and the cold blooded reptiles started dying. The
herbivores went first, when the plants died, soon followed by the
carnivores who had nothing left to hunt and eat. The semi-sentient
descendants of the velociraptors and thier emerging culture were
utterly destroyed. The Earth sunk into a nuclear winter, and fallout
from the asteroid began to settle. Glaciers formed over the
land masses and the Earth became uninhabitable for the greys. It was
too cold.

The ones who were exploring settled into a dormant state of the black
oil deep beneath the surface of the Earth, and the grey's spacecraft
flew off into space. Then the mammals began to rise, the age of the
reptiles having been abruptly destroyed. The DNA which had survived
from the first ship began to reassert itself and primates began to
form. Millenia passed and primitive anscestors of humans began to
form, the species that was known as australopithicus. They were
basically advanced knuckle draggers. They were at the same stage of
development as the raptors had been when once again the greys
came and found the Earth teeming with life.

William turned to Emily. "Why am I watching this? I didn't know about
the raptor civilization, but the rest of this I learned in school."

"Watch," she said, "What you are witnessing will be the only thing
that can save us." 

William was even more confused but if his sister had come with some
message of how to win the upcoming invasion, he would watch and
remember. Were the greys planning on using another asteroid? History
said no, but maybe that's what they were planning in the future
invasion. But not this time, as William watched.

The greys came down and began to study the primative men. Then, as
William watched in disbelief, the greys began to cross thier DNA with
the primatives. Strange new offspring were born, with the physical
attributes of the austrilopithicus, but witht he intelligence of the
greys. The species homo had arrived. Homo habilis walked around,
superior to its parent species, but the greys only produced a few of
them. William fought back anger as he saw the race had been created as
a sort of slave race, being made to dig in quarries for
metals such as gold and silver and other resources. Basically, the
ancestor of modern man was created much as he mule was.

William felt a sense of anger and pride build up. How dare they! They
had no right! But his anger faded into a grin as the greys realized
thier mistake. The new species evolved quickly, much faster than ever
before. What once took several thousands of years was done in only a
hundred. They jumped from homo habilis to homo erectus, then to homo
neadertal with a sub branch of what would become homo sapiens. The
greys kept experimenting, creating new species, trying to get it under
control. The Earth was a mining colony to them, but was fast
developing into a permenant colony as they had always intended. The
early humans saw the aliens as gods, thier ships were firey chariots
in the sky. 

But one race of humans seemed different. It was a species very similar
to modern man, in fact WIlliam couldn't seen any difference, except
that this race had absolutely no psychic ability. While the average
homo sapiens had a certain degree of access to other planes, this
species didn't, but they had far more advanced logical brains. Two
great empires rose up from these people, and William recognized them
as Atlantis in the Atlantic, on the early landmass that
was Cuba, and the one known as Lemuria or Mu on another landmass in
the Pacific.

The greys were alarmed. Thier mule race had risen much faster than
they ever had, they had to be controlled and quickly before they
challenged thier masters. Mu and Atlantis already were developing
aircraft and other vehicles, and had harnessed electricity and sola
energy. Abandoning all experiments and mining, the greys once again
intervened in Earth history, using a strange looking device to focus
the sun's rays on the polar ice caps. They melted rapidly, in only a
week, huge chunks of iceberg breaking off and raising the
ocean level by several hundred feet in only hours. William knew he was
watching the Great Flood of the Bible. This certainly explaiined why
nearly every culture all over the world had a Flood Myth.

William watched, helpless again, as the beautiful civilizations of
Atlantis and Mu were destroyed and humanity plunged into another era
of darkness, technology forgotten, other races destroyed and
forgotten. But the Earth was still not quite inhabitable with all the
water and unusable land mass. So once again the greys left. Over the
next few centuries scout ships returned to check up on things and it
seemed that the human race just didn't want to roll over and die.
They proliferated and rose again in another great civilization.
Finally they arrived in the present era, as scout ships returned to
observe the new civilization.

They greys now realized they couldn't depend on a natural disaster to
claim the planet, they had to wipe out the entire sentient species. In
order to do that, they had to be more covert, in the form of the
virus. But they had to ensure that humanity didn't unite against them,
or the ruse would be useless. By this time humand had devloped nuclear
weaopns and if they used them against the greys, the Earth would end
up useless to any race. Slowly and carefully, they infiltrated the
societies, influencing leaders, mostly through religions,
making sure they were misinterpreted and used as excuses for war and
genocide. Religion and emotions intrigued the greys. They were purely
a human trait. Emotions could be used to divide the huans, but they
could also be used to unite them. The bonds between related humans
were astonishing, even a little frightening. But it was religion that
got the most attention. The humans claimed the one true creator had
talked to them. They tried to verify this, copying down the hnumans'
religious texts on thier ships and computers for study.

William saw the greys' dillema. IF religion truly meant that a higher
power was talking to thier mule race, it changed the whole concept of
taking the planet and destroying them. But the greys convinced
themselves that it was nothing and moved forward with plans to retake
the planet.

"Disgusting isn't it?" said a man behind him. William turned and saw
his grandfather William Mulder, whom he had been named for, standing
behind him. At this point, William was not surprised in the least.

"Hello, Grandpa," he said.

The man smiled, "It's good to hear you say that. But I wish we could
have met under better circumstances."

He came up to William and put a hand on his shoulder. The visions of
the Earth's history faded awy into darkness and he stood there with
his grandfather. He could see vague shapes of people standing in the
distance, and he recognized some of them as his aunts Melissa and
Samantha, his grandfather Bill Scully Sr., and the three Lone Gunemen,
surrounded by several others.

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked his grandfather.

Bill Mulder looked down at his son's son. "It was my hope that my son,
your father, would fight the coming future, and he has, with your
mother's help. But there are places even they can't go. The situation
has changed with the death of the Plan and the Syndicate. Now, a new
route must be taken, one only you can travel. Do you remember the
first ship you saw that fired the DNA into Earth's oceans?"

William nodded and his grandfather continued, "They were a race that
has long since dissapeared, a race no one has ever lain eyes on. They
are known by many names, but they are the life givers, the gardeners
of the galaxy. They traveled from system to system, dropping thier DNA
into planets, hoping life would form. On many different worlds,
species so different from each other you could not believe they had
common ancestory emerged. But one thing they all had in common
remained."

"Thier DNA?" asked William.

"Yes." Bill Mulder continued, "Thier DNA, a six base pair DNA, this
distingushed them from other life forms. They may look different but
all offspring of that original race are bipedal homonids, with two
eyes and a mouth, and above all, psychic, telelkenetic and telepathic
abilities."

"But humans only have four base pairs, and we can't do all that
stuff." countered William.

Bill Mulder smiled a pained sort of grimace, "We could if they had
left us the hell alone. You saw how the raptors were developing.
Another few millenia and they would be a reptillian race capable of
all of that. Yes, they would have only had a four base pair DNA, but
for some reason on this world, the four base pair worked better for
life than the six. This is the reason the greys wiped them out. You
see, in the greater more connected society of the species who are
known decendants of the seeders, they only recognize sentient, or
worthwhile life, as those who are six base paired life forms, because
this is proof that they too are offspring of the seeding race.
Therefore, since the raptor race only had four base pairs, it was
decided that they were not worthwhile life and were open for
destruction so the greys could colonize thier planet. And the
same mentality goes for us, humans are only a four base pair
lifeform."

"But that's crazy!" stormed William. "Look at us! We have spaceships
of our own, we've walked on the moon. We have vehicles and a
civilization, everything! How can they say w're not sentient or
worthwhile to live? Who are they to make that call? They KNOW we're an
advanced civilization, we're around even after they tried over and
over to wipe us out. And if we're so useless and expendable, why
experiment with us in the first place?"

"Because," said Bill Mulder, "As you say, they know damn well what
they're doing. But they can explain it away on the four base DNA
bullshit.' It's ok because they're not one of us, we have six, they
have four.' But they experimented with us for that very reason. You
saw how the Atlanteans and Mu people had no psychic ability? Well, the
reason for that is entirely the greys. You see, humans could do all
the things the greys can do, telekenisis, telepathy, all of that, and
more even. We can connect with the true higher power and heavenly
realms, we can concieve of angels and other unseen beings
beyond anything they can do. The only reason it remains a vestigial
talent, is due to the flow of blood to the human brain. We use only
ten percent of our brains, for everything, from body functions to
thinking. The other ninety percent is the phsychic ability, but it's
not active because the brain doesn't recive enough blood flow and
nutrients to sustain the energy it needs. It's like having a 100 watt
bulb but only enough electricty to put out 30 watts. They altered our
physiology such that we couldn't take in enough food or air to
do all of that, at least now now anyway.

If we were to evolve more, probably. But right now, half the food we
eat and air we breathe goes to power that ten percent. We'd be eating
all day and on oxygen just to stay alive if we used all of our brains.
But you, Wil, you're different."

William shook, not sure he wanted to hear this. His grandfather
continued, "Like your friend Gibson Praise and a few other people on
the planet, you brains are activated in certain areas that normally
aren't. But you are far above them all. You have access to all of your
brain's functions, but on a normal human metabolism. What this means
is, you can use your abiltes, but not all at once. If you decide to
use telekinisis, for example, you would use up so much energy that you
probably wouldn't be able to move for a while afterwards,
and you'd be so hungry you could eat a whale. And it would depend on
how hard you use the ability. Moving a small object probably wouldn't
hurt too much, but moving a truck could knock you out cold."

William took it all in. It made sense, why his unique talent came out
at a time when he was excited or using alot of energy. But while all
of this was very intriguing, it didn't help him know how to stop the
invasion. What was the point in showing him all of this? The only
thing he seemed to have learned was that the greys considered them to
be more worthless than pond scum beause they were short a few DNA base
pairs, and that they wanted the Earth for themselves, had wanted it
for years, and had demonstrated a revolting lack of concern for
life on several occasions, by slamming a meteor the size of Arkansas
down to kill the dinosaurs, and melting the polar ice caps to kill the
humans. None had been entirely successful in that there were still
reptiles and humans, but it had succeeded in wiping out the current
civilization. So how they hell was that supposed to help them win this
time?

If the aliens had that kind of technology back then, how far had it
advanced since then? They had super soldiers running around in
strategic places, a virus ready to be unleashed and if that didn't
work, they could always try the asteroid thing again. What did
humanity have? A space shuttle? What a laugh, it was like trying to
fly a hot air balloon at an F-16 and hope you hit it. Humans
have guns but that would require getting through Al's protecive
technology to use it. Scully had wondered initially if using a virus
of their own might work, as in War of the Worlds, but how to
administer it was another story. It was known from abductees that
there were always decontamination devices all over the alien ships.

William looked up and asked, "How is any of this supposed to help me?
Help us? Knowing all this stuff only makes me see what we're really up
against, ruthless and unfeeling THINGS who could give a damn about our
protests and claims to the planet. They don't care, and we can't beat
them with technology. We're out of options. Yeah the Mag guns might
work, but even Dad says it a 50/50 chance,"

Bill Mulder sighed, and said "Son, don't you get it? Don't you see? Of
course humanity can't stop them. Oh we can give them a good fight,
maybe even hurt them bad enough to where they'll back off for a few
generations, then come back. But for the past few million years they
invested in this planet, for reasons even I don't know. A bunch of
upstart rebells aren't going to make them give up now, and no psychic
kid is going to either. It's not your job to stope THEM, William, but
to summon the ones who CAN."

William's head spun. Summon? What was he, a wizard? No way. And summon
who? Or what? 

"Summon? Summon what?" he asked. "Who the hell could stop them? The
clones and hybrids?"

"No, Wil," said Bill Mulder, "The ones they answer to. Didn't you hear
me say there was a society in the galaxy? The greys aren't the only
race besides us descended from the orignial race, there are others,
many others. And they all live by one code, to leave in peace with
thier brother races. What the greys have done is against thier law.
They've tampered with and altered a race left by the founders, they've
attempted genocide on several occasions, this is not allowed by the
society's law, because they so revere the founder race. To
disturb what the founders had set in motion is the closet thing to a
sacrilege beings without emotions can reach. Because if one race will
treat it's brother race in that manner, nothing would stop that race
from conquering another. It's thier way of maintaining order and
lessening warfare."

"But you said they all share a common 6 base DNA, how could we prove
that we're thier brother race if we only have 4? They may agree with
the greys, that we're expendable animals to be used and discarded. We
could end up with several races coming to do us in instead of one."
protested William.

"Son, when you've got nothing you've got nothing to lose. If you don't
call for help, you WILL be conquered. Humanity can't fight them off
alone." said Bill.

"So how do I call for help?" asked William.

"Just call, with your heart and mind, see if you can't reach them."
Bill replied.

"And what's to keep the greys from intercepting it?" asked William.

"I don't know." Bill replied reluctantly, "But it seems that telepathy
only works if you WANT someone to hear it. What Gibson can do is
unique because he can hear thoughts that are not intended for him to
hear.This could be because the average person does not know how to
direct thier thoughts. But think about when you talk to him
telepathically. You only hear each other when you want to.
 Either that or just pray they aren't listening. Remember, they think
it's an anomaly for a human to be able to talk this way anyway, much
less to send out that kind of signal. But they know it's possible.
Just remember what I told you about what happens when you expend that
kind of energy on a mental task. Remember what it might do to you.
This is your job, William. This is why you're here, because you are
the only human on the planet, even beyond Gibson who could talk the
way the rest of the founder's races can. That's why you're
special, that's why God sent you to the parents He did."

William was thunderstruck! "God sent me?"

Suddenly a woman appeared to his right, and he recognized his mother's
sister, his aunt Melissa. "That's right, baby." She smiled at him.
"The one thing the greys never understood, the one thing they won't
let themselves comprehend. For all that they revere the founding race,
they won't let themselves think about who created the founders, or who
inspired the founders to set off across the galaxy seeding other
worlds. They never stopped to ask why humans have the one
advantage they don't, we live in a world of spirit and emotions, not
logic and material. We recognize the existance of the soul, at least
most humans do. We have access to the plane of the spirit, the
afterlife, and energy. Our race, for all that it's been tampered with,
has also been guided by another force, the same force who sent down
its own wisdom when our creators had abandoned us, the same great
being who gave us the guides that led us to a civilization that
grew faster than any in the galaxy. You see, for all that religion has
been twisted and used for personal gain of various humans through
history, in it's pure form, it tells the only truth. That above the
greys, above all life, is one unmovable being who created everything.
And it doesn't matter which religion you want to look at, they all say
the same thing.

Forget the rules of the Christian church, or the laws of Judaism, or
the beliefs of Islam, even Buddhism. The base of every religion says
the same thing, just in different words. And that is, there is
something greater than ourselves and we are related to it. And that's
who sent you, Wil. You're the one human who is not a part of all this
manipulative mess. You were born to two people who love each other the
same way this being loves all that its created, and they love you.
Through thier example, you'll find the strength to save all
of humanity. I know that doesn't make sense now, but it will."

His aunt gave him a hug and faded back into the distance. His
grandfather smiled and hugged him as well. "Good luck, boy. Just
remember, you're not alone." Then he, too, faded away.

"Time to go, brother," said the small voice behind him. He turned and
saw Emily holding out her hand. He took it and she led him towars the
darkness, which turned into the blackness of space again, the stars
shining like diamonds.

"Go on," she urged, "Call them."

Not knowing exactly what to do or say, William called out, "Hello?
Anyone out there?"

Emily giggled. William sighed a little annoyed, then closed his eyes,
reaching down with ever ounce of will he could muster. He MUST do
this, or they were all dead. 

"Hello? HELL-OOOO!!!! Can anyone hear me?????" he mentally yelled,
praying none of the greys were listening.

'Please, God if you're up there don't let the greys hear.' he asked.
The he resumed calling, "Please, anyone, anyone at all.....can you
hear me? We need help! Someone please help us!" He thought about his
family, his parents, his friends, his world, all dying a slow horrible
death and called again, getting desperate. His grandfather was right
about the energy expendature, he felt himself growing weak.

Suddenly, unbelievably, came a response! It was strange, an alien
mind, but not unkindly, more confused than anything. "Greetings....we
hear you. But who are you? We do not recognize your race mind."

William prayed for the right words, "Please I am called a human. We
are a race that is offspring to the seeders, the founders who spread
life through the galaxy. We're under attack by another race. They will
come to destroy us. They have tried before and succeeded in destroying
another seeder offspring race on our planet. Now they want to destroy
us. I was told this was against the law."

Now the alien mind sounded really confused, "Surely you must be
mistaken. We know of no race called 'human.' And what you are accusing
is very serious indeed, if accurate. Why do we not hear more of your
people at your location?"

William felt himself strining to the breaking pint to keep the
connection, and he didn't have time for a lengthy debate. "We are
still an evolving people. This attacking race has altered us to thier
own purpose, as slaves. But when we grew on our own they sought to
destroy us and take the planet for themselves. We would have the
ability to talk to you if we had not been alterend and limited. I
don't know why I can speak to you, but I can and I'm speaking for my
people. We are a child race still growing but being forced back into
childhood. We haven't got the technology yet to stop them. They are a
much older race than we are. Will you help us? Can you help us? Even
if you can't, know that this race is breaking one of your most sacred
laws. If they do this to us, they could do it to someone else, maybe
you. Isn't it worth even checking out?"

"Agreed." came the reply, "But we still must verify that your race
has a......." The voice faded out and William felt himself falling.
Suddenly he was lying on his back, floating, and Emily stood above
him. 

She smiled at him and bent down and kissed him on the cheek. William
felt a warm glow fill his heart, the same one he had felt when he
hugged his mother for the first time. He smiled sleepily up at his
sister, then faded away into deep slumber.

The Final Stand pt. 4


The first thing William became aware of was the steady beeping sound.
Then he became aware that he was cold. The next thing he felt was a
headache that would make a migraine feel like a paper cut. He groaned
in agony and whimpered. Instantly, he felt his mother's arms around
him and felt her rocking him slowly.

"It's OK, Wil, it's OK. I'm here now.." she whispered.

Slowly he opened his eyes. Everything was a blur and out of focus but
he could see he wasn't outside anymore. He was in a hospital and the
beeping was from the monitors. He felt someone else move in bside them
and heard his father's voice.

"Hey buddy, welcome back. You gave us a hell of a scare. Scared Eric
too, he found you out cold on the ground."

Scully sounded a bit more miffed. "I knew it, I knew it was a bad
idea." She hugged him closer.

"How long was I out?" asked William.

"Almost a day," said his mother. "William, what happened?"

He slowly lay back and smiled at his parents before drifting back off
into sleep. "I called 9-1-1."

Mulder and Scully looked at each other, puzzled. William ended up
staying in the hospital for an extra day for obsevation, then, the
doctors satisfied he was on the mend, was sent home.

In the days that followed, William begun to understand the meaning of
the term "mother-smothered." Dana Scully had been very upset by what
had happened and had to convince herself that her son was really ok.
That involved confining him to bed for the next few days drinking a
gallon of water a day. Mulder had been frightened too, but was more
convinced that William was not going to die from his ordeal. After
arriving back home, and to pass the time, William wrote down
everything he could remember about his experiences and gave them to
his parents to read. They had held off from questioning him for the
most part, but as they read the notes, the questions came pouring out.

Scully seemed to think that it was all a dehydration induced
hallucination, but Mulder, who had himself been through the Navajo
ritual of the Blessing Way, was all too familiar with such
experiences. And the information was intriguing. If it was correct, it
meant that they were all either in deeper trouble than they
thought, or maybe there was a ray of hope for the human race after
all.

On the third day, William was on his computer talking with Josh via
video conferencing. He hadn't given his friend the details of his
vision quest, opting instead to simply tell him that VR games had
nothing on the ancient ceremony. Scully popped in once to gather up
some laundry and to admonish both boys not to try anything like the
vision quest without adults around. After assuring Josh that they
would be visiting later that summer, William signed off
and went out to enjoy the first day outside since his mother sprang
him from his imprisonment.

He walked out into the backyard and saw his mother swinging in the
hammock. He walked over and crawled up next to her.

"Where's Dad?" he asked.

"Finishing up that intersession psychology class he was teaching at
the college. He'll be home later this afternoon." She paused a second,
then said, "We want you to come to the Aegis meeting tonight, you
might need to tell them what you saw."

William was momentarily stunned. Him? An eleven year old kid speak to
all those grownups about his vision? He knew about the meeting, of
course. It would be the first time since its inception that all the
leaders of Aegis would be together in the same room, hell the same
town, for any period of time. They had planned to disuss the final
preparations before the invasion in six months. It would be the last
time they would all see each other alive, probably. Agents
Doggett and Reyes were coming along with Director Skinner, from the
FBI. Lone Gunmen Jimmy and Yves had arrived last night with what
information they had. Several others from various clusters were
arriving either by car or plane all throughout the day. William hadn't
even expected to be there himself, figuring he was going to be left at
a friend's house or with a babysitter. Tomorrow was the fourth of July
and they had been planning a BBQ and fireworks, possibly the
last party or festive time they would ever have as a group. He had
been planning on going to the picnic, but not the actual meeting.

Not knowing what to say, he simply nodded and snuggled close to his
mother. The day was beautiful for a summer day, not too hot and
breezy. They were under the shade of the arbor and could see the
clouds passing by. William relaxed, enjoying the day and wondered if
he would ever have a normal life. It was as normal as his parents
could make it, sending him to Pecos Elelmentary School,
involving him in activities, giving him birthday parties and vacations
to Disney World. But there was always the unspoken invasion
overshadowing it all. Like the way he had to carry his phone weapon
everywhere and be on the lookout not just for strangers following him
but UFO's in the sky. It was in the way that his father always set up
portable motion detectors in the hotel rooms they stayed in, as well
as his grandmother's house. It was the fact that Roswell was
the only place his parents felt safe enough to let him go outside by
himself, which he was never allowed to do at his grandmother's house
or anywhere else also reminded them of the inevitable future.

They stayed outside for a long time, just looking at the clouds, both
wondering about what was to come. Scully knew her son was scared, but
she admired the way he handled himself, never giving in to panic. She
knew it must be a terrible strain on him, and she knew it wasn't fair
that he should have to live like this. She alsmost wished he had never
started searching for her, never started the chain of events that had
alerted those dark forces to his whereabouts, killed his adoptive
parents, and destroyed the safe haven she had made for him.
But she was so glad she had him back now. She knew, as she had perhaps
always known, that no place was really safe, not even Roswell. After
all was said and done, she was his mother and he belonged with her and
Mulder. She felt terrible guilt and sadness for the Van de Kamps and
hoped God would forgive her for putting them in this situation that
had ended thier lives. And speaking of God, where was he right now?
She remembered a vague dream she and Mulder and William
had all had on the night they had brought him home to Roswell, of all
three of them on a beach. The Van de Kamps had been there, and there
had been a voice and a glowing cross in a fog. She had wondered if it
had been a sign from God or wishful thinking. She supposed they were
all about to find out.

**************************************

Later that night, Mulder, Scully and William walked into the giant
meeting hall of the local church that they had rented for the night
for the meeting. William, bowing to his mother's wishes, had put on
his nice shirt and shorts, and his parents had put on thier work
suits. Several people were gaurding the doors and surrounding area,
and William could see the telltale bulge of both MagGuns and regular
guns beneath thier coats. But other than that, it looked
for all the world like a simple large meeting, with chairs set up and
a podium in the front, as well as a table heaped with sandwiches,
punch, fruit and cheeses and cookies. After giving a plaintive look to
his father, William scooted off for the table with Mulder calling
after him not to go too far.

It seemed like all of Aegis was here as well as thier families.
William waved to several children he recognized from his neighborhood
who were the sons and daughters of scientists, government officials,
military personel and other assorted professions, all whose parents
had come to Roswell for the express purpose of joining the underground
resistance against the invasion. Like him, these children had been
raised on the knowledge of the future and he felt a certain
familiarity with them. Gibson Praise came in with his friend Doug
Eagleman, followed by Eric Hosteen and his father, Albert Hosteen's
son. He spotted Reyes and Doggett and Skinner talking to his parents
up front and Jimmy and Yves nearby. He scooped up some more sandwiches
on a plate and grabbed a cup of punch, and turned to go to his
parents. Suddenly he bumped into someone, nearly spilling his drink.He
looked up and felt his mouth drop open.

It was Jeremiah Smith, or one of them anyway. He knew them to be
clones, half alien and half human hybrids created by the Syndicate who
had rebelled against them and were fighting with the resistance now.
William had seen one of them before (or was it this one?) but, knowing
what he now knew, he openly stared. This man was part alien. He could
sense it in the man's thought processes, as Gibson could. Also, he
knew, the man could change physical appearances. He didn't sense any
bad feelings from the man, but was still uneasy with the alien
presence. The man only smiled, excused himself and walked on. William
shook himself and went to sit down next to his parents.

What followed in the next two hours ranged from attnetion gripping
interest to coma-inducing boredom. Several people got up to speak
about the progress of thier particular field in the resistance
movemnt, which would be carried back to the indavidual cells and
clusters of people who had not come to the meeting. A group from the
Center for Disease Control reported that 2/3 of America had
been vaccinated with the vaccine with more every day, that similar
reports from other countries insured that over half of the human
population would survive the virus holocaust. However, they reported,
it was likely that with the death of the Syndicate and the destruction
of the bee fields, the virus would likely be airborne now, as well as
inserted into food and water sources and, thought he vaccine worked on
all forms of the virus, to be on the lookout. A man in a
military uniform reported that several groups within the military had
placed various troops in strategic locations and armed them with the
new MagGuns adpated for tanks and ships. He said that while the
average serviceman didn't know much about the upcoming threat, they
had been told to be on alert for December and any time before that. It
seemed though, that the higher levels of the military were still
operating until vestigial Syndicate orders, and so the bulk of the
resistance in the military were enlisted men, who would do most of
the fighting.

Skinner, Doggett and Reyes spoke about the government itself, and
those they had formed contacts with in Congress and the CIA who could
be trusted. They had extensive information from former Syndicate
sources stating that the aliens knew about Aegis, probably even the
weapons, and were possibly stepping up the timetable, meaning that the
invasion could come at any time, maybe even later than December, just
to throw us off. It wasn't clear if they knew about the
vaccine, though Reyes figured they didn't, otherwise it would be more
likely that they would postpone the invasion until a new virus could
be developed. Jimmy and Yves spoke about the warnings and preparations
they had been putting out on the internet the past decade, avoiding
detection from the government as best they could, warning people about
the upcoming invasion. Groups such as MUFON and NICAP had been sending
out the word, preparing people, anyone who would listen, about what
was coming.

Finally, Mulder and Scully got up to speak about alternatives, and
that was hiding. Scully had been in contact with several groups in
northern Canada, South America and Africa who had built hiding
facilities in the jungles and underground caves where people were
stocking up on everything from food to books and recordings of
everything they could save on the human civilization. It was a sort of
Noah's Ark and was considered a final ditch effort at saving
anyone who  could carry on the present civilization after the
invasion. William was beginning to think that they had forgotten about
wanting him to speak and was just beginning to relax when Mulder
announced that his son would speak about his vision during a vision
quest.

William felt his face turn red as Mulder spoke, "My son is a very
special person. From the moment he was concieved it became apparent
that he was important in the entire business in a way we didn't
understand. We had people telling us he was a miracle, others telling
us to terminate Scully's pregancy, to not let this baby be born. When
he was born, several SS arrived, even though Dana had been hidden. We
knew they were there to take him away from us, but when he was born,
for reasons we still don't fully understand, they left him
alone and left the scene. From that day, it seemed everyone and thier
grandfather wanted him. Members of a strange UFO cult in Canada
kidnapped him, saying that the SS were angels and he was thier leader
who would bring God's kingdom to Earth. This was a quite a
misinterpretation on thier parts about the SS, but it didn't change
the fact that William was important to the Super Soldiers. From what
we heard, whoever raised William would be the ones whose
victory in the upcoming battle would be ensured. This is why I was
marked. The SS figured that if I raised my son to my own values, he
would fight against them. If they took him, he would end up fighting
on thier side. My brother Jeffery decided to end this debate by
hampering William's gifts with a magnetite injection, but this didn't
work as well as he had hoped.

So we did the only thing we could do to keep him safe. Dana arranged
for him to be adopted by an annonymous couple and raised in secret.
This fell apart three years ago following the murders of these people
and William came to be with us again. From an early age, William has
demonstrated amazing abilites, some of which many of you are familiar
with. However, just last week he underwent a special test of the local
Native American tribe, and he saw something  I'd like for him to share
with you."

Mulder beckoned to his son, and, face still on fire, William slowly
went to the podium. He stood on a box to reach the microphone and was
relieved when his parents stayed up there with him. He looked out into
the sea of faces and felt his knees knocking together. Scully put a
hand on his sholulder and whispered, "Don't be afraid, Wil. Just tell
them as best you can."

Gulping, William pulled out the papers he had written for his parents
describing what he saw. In as much detail as he could his wavering
voice described seeing the birth and evolution of all life on Earth
and the creation of modern man from an already evloving species. He
descibed what he had been told by his grandfather Bill Mulder about
other species all arising from one founding species, and that to
tamper with or make war on a brother species was considered against
the law of the galaxy, that it had been ignored in thier
case becuase humans and all life on Earth had only four DNA base pairs
while offspring species of the founders had six. William stressed,
though, that he had been told that life on Earth was also from the
founding species and therefore what had been done to them was wrong,
although it should seem obvious. He also told them abolut sending out
a distress call as best he could and having made contact with some
unknown entity. Coming to a close, William stepped back behind his
mother who leaned into the microphone.

"People," she said, "Niether I nor Mulder can confirm or deny any of
this, but I believe my son. I can't say for sure how much of this I
can accept, and I do not suggest we should change any of our plans,
but I'd like to know how all of you think this might fit into the
whole operation."

Mulder then spoke up, "Also, taking into account that yet another
entity is involved or knows about what's going on, we have no way of
confirming that they'll be any help. Hell, they may agree with the
greys and decide we need to be eradicated. Or they may do nothing at
all. But if they decide to help us, we just might have a real fighting
chance."

William slipped back to his chair as questions broke out and everyone
started speaking at once. William glanced over his shoulder at
Jeremiah Smith, whose expression had not changbed a bit. Then, he
turned and stared at William and winked.

*******************************************

Though the mood of the meeting had ended on a grim note, the family of
three had decided to go ahead with thier anual trip to visit freinds
and family. William was glad to be going to see everybody, but nervous
about leaving the safety of the magnetite zone. he had a bad feeling
that unseen forces were just waiting to pounce like a fox waiting for 
rabbit to come out of its hole in the ground. He knew his parents felt
the same way, but it didn't stop them from flying out of Santa Fe a
week later headed for Des Moines.

William always enjoyed visiting Midville. For the first six years of
his life he had grown up in the small town knowing everybody and,
though Josh's family had really been the only ones he had been close
to, he missed the familiarity of the small town. The first summer he
had visited with his birth parents, they had gone out to the farm
where he had lived with Bob and Nancy Van de Kamp. He had wanted to
see it and so had his mother. But once in sight of it, William
felt a desolate feeling come over him and had wanted to leave. The
farm now belonged to another family and it was someone else's home. He
always left roses on the graves of his adoptive parents and they
managed to squeeze in going to his old church at least once a visit.
But it was visiting with Josh that William really looked forward to.
The boys had remained friends, even with a four year age gap and
several hundred miles between them. Thank God for the internet. Josh's
parents and sister had been equally as glad to see him and
meet his birth parents.

During this year's visit, William had been told not to mention
antyhing to anyone about the upcoming war. There was nothing any of
them could do about it and it was better if they just didn't know, to
let them live out the rest of the few months in peace. What's more, it
was likely that Midville wouldn't be a high priority area in the
invasion anyway, so it was likely everyne would survive the intial
wave of attacks. After that, if the humans were going to win
it would depend on how well the intial attack was diverted anyway.
William found it hard to keep quiet, especially with Josh asking him
every five minutes what was up. William just contented himself with
spending as much time as possible with his friend. After all, even if
Midville survived the invasion, there was no garuntee William himself
would.

It's a strange realization for a child to come to, contemplating his
own immenent death. After all, what eleven year old lived his life as
if he only had five months left? Maybe one with terminal cancer.
William had been surprised with himself at how calmly he was taking
it. The only thing he hoped for was that it wouldn't hurt too much
when his time finally came. He wouldn't allow himself to wonder if he
would survive. he hoped he would, but steeled himself for the worse as
his parents seemed to be doing. They only spent three days in Midville
and William walked to the cemetary with his mother the last
afternoon. She laid a white rose on the Van de Kamps' graves, and
whispered, "Thank you both, for everything."

With a brief hug to William, she turned and walked a few steps away to
give him some time to himself. William looked down at the headstone
marking the graves, remembering three years ago standing here with
Doggett and Reyes. A super soldier had come to get him and he shivered
in memory. He remembered his dream of the beach, with Bob and Nancy
dressed in radiant white smiling at him as they vanished into a
brilliant white fog. He remembered the booming voice and
the glowing cross. The voice had said they were not alone, they were
being protected. Was it true? He had been raised to believe in God,
but did he really?

Had it been God or another force that had spoken to him during his
vision quest? And if there was a God, would He help them? He had
prayed for help as he knew his parents and many other had, but so far
they had not gotten an answer. The aliens were still coming. He closed
his eyes trying to quiet the turmoil of his mind, when he felt the
wind blow his hair. The sun peeked out from behind a cloud nd shone
right down onto his head. As he opened his eyes, he was suddenly
ware of how beautiful a day it was, and how pretty the churchyard was.
Trees, swayed in the wind, a cool breeze swept thorugh the town, the
sun was shining in the most clear blue sky he had ever seen. He let
his mind wander back to Sunday school at this same church, and the
stories they had learned through the songs they had sung. He
remembered the stories telling about how humans were favored best of
all creation, even over the angels, how they had been given
paradise and this beautiful planet. They certainly hadn't done a good
job of showing any gratitude for it, maybe they deserved to loose it?
What would it look like when the grey's got a hold of it?

No, he told himself. It's ours.

He looked into the distance and saw a storm cloud far off. It was
casting a rainbow across the distant sky. Suddenly he remembered the
stoy of Noah, and how the rainbow was the promise that humanity would
never be destroyed again. Was this a sign? A sign form God? He felt
that it was and felt a weight lift from his chest. He smiled.

Looking down at Bob and Nancy's graves, he whispered, "No more. No
more of this. No one else is going to die, no more families are going
to be torn apart. I'm ending this. I promise you."

He turned and wlked back to his mother.

************************************************

Leaving Midville was always hard and waving goodbye to Josh made
William certain he would never seem him or the town again. He didn't
even try to fight back the tears as they drove away. Mulder tried to
lighten the mood by getting them to sing along to old Ray Stevens
goofball songs. William never thought he'd see the day where he and
his parents were singing along to "Osama Yo Mama".....

"Osama, Yo Mama didn't raise you right
When you were young she must've wrapped your turban too tight
She shoulda kept you home on those Arabian nights....."

They sang along to "Ahab the Arab" and "Sitting up with the Dead"
amongst others. By the time they were on the third verse of
"Mississippi Squirrel Revival" William was feeling a little better.


The Final Stand pt. 5

They always enjoyed visiting Washington D.C.  This was where William
had lived with his parents before going to live with Bob and Nancy and
there was alot of history for his family in this city. William enjoyed
looking at the monuments and museums, the federal offices and the
historic sections. This was where his godparents, Agents Doggett and
Reyes and Mr. Skinner lived, as well as Jimmy and Yves, the last two
Lone Gunmen. But most of all, this was where his Grandma
Maggie lived. She was always so happy to see them, especially William,
and always made a big fuss over them when they visited. Scully was
especially glad to see her mother and this year, her brothers Charlie
and Bill,Jr. would be there with thier families for a sort of family
reunion. Even though William was the youngest of the children, he
always enjoyed being with his cousins. He could whip Matty in VR
Nintendo Mutant Monkeys and CyberMario Bros. any day. He
liked his uncle Charlie alot, who didn't seem to mind much about his
parents and thier pasts and was always ready with a joke or cool story
from the Navy to tell. Dana Scully had decided to let her younger
brother in on Aegis three years earlier and Charlie was a key role in
the Navy for them.

But it was Bill Jr. that William rather disliked. Even though the man
was his uncle, and William liked his aunt and cousins alot, he didn't
need special psychic talents to see that Bill Jr. was extremely
annoyed with his sister Dana for the choices she had made in her life.
And he didn't even bother to hide his disdain and hatred of Fox
Mulder. It made William fighting mad to overhear his uncle berating
his mother for joining the FBI, giving up being a doctor,
getting involved with Mulder, having his bastard son, getting thier
sister Melissa killed, it went on and on. Last year William had
stormed into the kitchen howling in fury at his uncle, using language
he wasn't accustomed to using, and letting his uncle know in no
uncertain terms that he would not hear his mother spoken to that way.
Dana had swooped down, and taken her son upstairs, grateful to escape
her brother. William couldn't understand why his parents put up with
it, but his father had explained that while they were guests in Maggie
Scully's house, they would treat her son with respect. William
had countered that he never showed them respect, but Mulder had
assured his son that Bill Jr. got plenty of heat from Maggie when
nobody was around for the way he treated his sister and her family.

Charlie Scully also was known to tell his brother to shut up once or
twice. But for the most part, the family enjoyed being together. The
kids got along well enough, although once Matthew had taken his
father's tauntings and called William "a bastard kid whose parents
couldn't even do the decent thing and get married." William never
quite knew what had happened next but Matthew had suddenly found
himself sitting on the roof of the shed, mouth hanging open in
shock. Mulder and Bill Jr. had had to get an extending ladder to get
him down and Dana had given her son a stern lecture about losing his
temper and letting the telekenisis explode. But aside form these small
mishaps, the family gathering were usually quiet.

They spent this visit touring the city, meeting with Aegis members,
visiting family graves and being with friends. William knew his
parents missed the city and wished they could live here permanently
again, but it wasn't safe and the longer they were away from Roswell,
the more danger there was. They couldn't stay in one place too long
and there were still some indaviduals who were looking for them.

On the last night of their stay, William walked out onto the back
porch and saw his mother and grandmother sitting on the back swing. 

"Is it realy that bad, Dana?" Maggie was asking.

"Yeah, mom, it is," she answered. "It's better if EVERYBODY is in
Roswell this Christmas. Skinner, John, Monica, everyone's going to
come. Naturally Charlie's coming, but I didn't tell Bill why. I just
said it's me and Mulder's turn to do Christmas at our house. He
grumbled something about Christmas in the desert. Mom, you have to
make him come."

"I will, I will, but Dana...are we, I mean...are we going to...is it
really...?" his grandmother struggled.

"Yes mom." Dana said firmly "I don't know what the outcome will be but
I do know this city is a primary target."

Maggie nodded glumly. Dana turned and saw William. "Are you packed
Wil?" she asked. He nodded. She smiled softly, "Then you better get
some sleep. We head to Europe tomorrow." William went over and hugged
his mother and grandmother, then went inside. 

As he passed the den, he heard his uncles and father talking in
hushed, but strained tones. His cousins were huddled next to the door
listening. William scooted down on the floor to listen. His uncle Bill
was talking.

"I just don't understand why you haven't married her, Mulder."

Fox Mulder's reply was clipped but slow, like a teacher explaining to
a child, "You think I haven't asked her? Repeatedly. She said yes, for
your information, but there's just too much going on right now.
There's  no way we could pull off the kind of wedding she wants, and
deserves, with all that's going on right now. Besides, I don't see
where it's any of your business. And frankly, Bill, I'm getting real
sick of your insults over and over. Jesus Christ man, don't
you ever get tired of harping on the same subject?"

"No more than you do," Bill replied coldly. "Aliens and shit,
invasion, conspiracies. You think I'm going to let my sister marry a
freak like you? Then she goes and has your kid, like some high school
girl....."

William was shaking in anger and was about to storm in when he heard
his father reply with a tone he had never heard before, deadly calm,
"You leave William out of this, Bill. He's just a child, he is NOT to
blame for anything. And neither I nor your sister regret a single
thing. We love him."

"Yeah? Then why did she dump him?" Bill said matter-of-factly.

Charlie spoke up now, "Bill, you know damn well why, and it had
nothing to do with wanting him or not wanting him. He was in danger.
They've put alot of people behind bars and they have friends who are a
little pissed about that. William was in danger, hell man he was
kidnapped, attacked several times. If your kids were in danger and you
couldn't keep them safe, what would you do?"

Bill said, "Might have been different if he hadn't run out on her."

Mulder was expressing a herculean effort to control his rage and said,
"You know I didn't 'run out' on her. I had multiple death threats, it
was either hide or die. It's still not safe. But whatever you say, it
won't change anything. I love Dana. She knows it, and I know she loves
me. We have a son whom we both love and that will never change.
Married or not, I'm the father of your nephew, so get over it, you're
stuck with me. And you're willing to let your pride and anger get you
and your family killed. So Dana didn't follow the life you and your
father had hoped she would. So you don't understand what we
do and what we've been fighting for over a decade. Fine. But don't
berate either of us. And for God's sake, listen."

Charlie spoke up then, "He's right Bill. I've been a part of this for
three years now. We're all in danger and it would be just stupid not
to go where it's safe. Forget about the 'who's married and who isn't'
crap. Forget about the past, man. This is no joke."

Suddnely the door opened and all the children tumbled into the room.
Mulder was looking down in pained amusement. Without a word, they
scattered and William ran upstairs behind his cousins. He wondered if
his uncle Bill would come to Roswell in December. It was one of the
few safe places, but he didn't believe in aliens. Well, he woudl soon
enough but it would be too late. William curled up in his sleeping
bag, but was still awake when his parents came in the room
later. Everyone was troubled, he knew, but they had done all they
could.

He felt safe with his parents in the room, but somewhere, in the back
of his mind, he wondered how safe they really were. Were they being
watched? If so by who? He felt a prickle on the back of his neck and
his hand closed tighter around his phone gun under his pillow. Sleep
was a long time coming.

******************************************************

For the next few weeks, William and his parents travelled all over the
world, from London to Paris, to South Africa to Bejing and Sydney,
Australia, meeting up with various Aegis groups, making sure
everything was in place. Everyone was as alert as could be expected,
and after six weeks of solid travelling, they headed back to America.
They had been forced to postpone the excursion to Area 51 to meet with
Morris Fletcher, a governement worker within the compound who
knew Mulder and Scully. 

There had been a message that there were problems, so they had left
for the world trip with plans to stop by Nevada on the way home to
Roswell. Mulder and Scully were interested in knowing how prepared
Area 51 would be with the Aurora II planes. Area 51 was still in
control of vestigial Syndicate powers, but Morris Fletcher had joined
Aegis a few years back and was thier principal contact on the base.
William had the distinct impression that his parents weren't too fond
of Morris. As for himself, he had never met the man, though he
had seen a picture on one of the X-Files his parents had copied.

They arrived in Rachel, Nevada, and checked into the motel. They would
drive out to Groom Lake later that night, probably along with several
other UFO watchers in town. In the meantime though, they stopped in
for a burger at the famous Little Ale E Inn diner. As they ate, Mulder
told William the stories of Area 51, from the Roswell crash to the
reverse engineering of captured alien spacecraft, resulting in the
Aurora and Aurora II spyplanes. As night fell, they returned to the
motel and Scully made sure William had a sweatshirt on under his
jacket, and they headed out to the lookout hill. One could no longer
see the base itself aftet the government annexed the surrounding hills
to keep trespassers away, but on a good night, an observer could still
see the strange lights in the sky of the experimental aircraft. Mulder
bypasssed the road leading up to the popular public hangout and
continued on off the road to another hill some ways away from the
gathered crowd. 

They got out of the car to wait for Morris. William crawled up onto
the still-warm hood of the car with his father. Scully preferred to
keep an eye open for any approaching vehicles. It was a beautiful
night and William could never remember being so awestruck at the veiw.
The sun had just set and several rays of pink, gold, purple and orange
still streaked the distant horizon. The desert was slowly turning from
gold to blue as the shadows of the hills elongated. The stars were
clear jewels and a cool breeze with a chill swept over the area. It
was beautiful beyond words. 

A few minutes later some lights appeared in the sky, manuvering over
the dry lake bed beyond the hills. William was fascinated as his
father pointed out rhe new Aurora II planes, reverse engineered from
downed UFO's, and probably humanity's only real defense against attack
from the air. The only problem, Mulder explained, was that human
reflexes were rarely sufficient to operate at such high speeds and
maybe only a handful of pilots could handle the craft. Mulder went on
to tell William of the second case he and Scully had ever
investigated concerning a vanished pilot who had resurfaced with his
memory wiped after having a breakdown from flying the strange
aircraft.

It seemed like hours passed before Scully called out that she could
see a car approaching. Mulder told William to get into the car and get
down. His heart racing, William ducked down into the back seat with
his hand on his weapon. He saw that both of his parents had drawn
thier guns as well but were holding them down out of view. A white
Jeep Cherokee came swinging into view and up the hill. Both Mulder and
Scully stood tensed and ready. The door opened and a heavyset man with
curly blond hair stepped out. He stared at the two former
agents in front of him, then broke out into a grin.

 "Hey, Scully. Looking lovely as ever. Still havedn't ditched this
loser huh?" he said somewhat sarcastically.

William felt his eyes narrow and wondered how mad his parents would be
if he nudged the guy with his mind and sent him sliding down the hill.
But to his suprise, he father grinned. (his mother rolled her eyes)
Mulder said to the man, "Fletcher, still as personable as ever I see.
So what's new?"

William lowered the window a little and peeked about the door to see
what was going on. The man called Morris Fletcher was talking quickly
and his father was listening while his mother kept a look out for
company.

"Basically, the whole sky's getting lively," Fletcher was saying. "The
number of unidentified craft seems to be increasing, not all of them
ours of course. Don't seem to be doing anything except buzzing around
checking things out. No landings or even any increase in contact
reports. It's simply that there are more of them. Where we'd see one
or two before, we'll see three now. Alot of sightings over our nuclear
stores and military bases. And they don't seem to be avoiding any of
the major cities anymore, though they don't stay around. It's
like they don't care who sees them anymore."

"They probably don't," said Mulder. "And why not, they figure they've
already got the planet anyway, it's just a matter of time. How's
everything here, is everyone battle ready?"

"More or less. They're ready to go at a moment's notice. It's going to
be a real interesting Christmas this year." said Morris, for the first
time his jaunty demeanor dropping. Mulder went on to ask him about
whether or not he and his family were coming to Roswell. They seemed
to be moving off into boring subjects and, without anything to do,
William stretched out in the back seat and gazed up at the stars
throught he back window. He didn't know when he fell asleep, but his
next concsious thought was that the car was moving and his
prents were back int he front seat talking.

"If he's right, it looks like they're invading sooner than December.
I'm going to call mom and tell her to round up everybody and come down
now." his mother was saying. She pulled out her cell phone and began
dialing.

"You're probably right." said his father. "When your done with that,
get on the line and alert Aegis. We need to go to battle ready now."
William sat up, suddenly wide awake.

"Is this it, Dad?" he asked with a tremor in his voice.

"I don't know, son." Mulder replied. "I hope not. We're not entirely
ready yet. The main stuff is in place but the details..."

He broke off as Scully cut him off. "Mulder, I can't get a signal."

"We're probably too far out, wait until we get back to Rachel, you can
call from the motel." he said, keeping his eyes on the deserted desert
road. Suddenly William felt something he had only felt once before.
The back of his neck prickled and his heart went cold, his very
entrails turning to ice water. Without warning his breathing sped up
as his mind flashed back to three years ago, when he stood in the
field by the farm, next to Bob's lifeless body, knowing both Bob and
Nancy were dead and evil creatures responsible for it were
in the house looking for him. He remembered his frantic flight from
the farm, hiding out, the darkess of that night...

Danger. Evil and danger were nearby!

Scully heard him and swung around. "Wil? Wil what's wrong?"

He could barely speak, "Mom, Dad, look out!"

Suddenly, a blinding light flashed from above engulfing the car.
William cried out and tried to duck down behind the seat. As he did,
his eyes looked out of the back window and, to his horror, he saw a
UFO right above them. This was no Aurora plane, no human hands had
made this vehicle. And he knew, without being told, that they were
there for him. Scully reached behind the seat trying to
grab a hold of him but suddenly everything stopped.

Time ceased to exist, there was only stillness and the light. William
felt himself paralyzed, unable to move. He tried to call to his
parents but he couldn't move his jaw. The only thing that seemed to
work were his eyelids. He became aware of someone outside the car,
which had rolled to a stop. There were many of them, short and
indistinct.

No! No! Go away! his mind screamed. He lashed out with angry thoughts
and, to his surprise, he saw one of them stumble backwards. He got the
impression the being was surprised. Suddenly everything went black and
he knew no more.

*******************************************


Final Stand pt6


William had no idea how long he was unconsious, since time seemed to
have stopped. He wasn't even too sure if he was lying down, upright or
upside down. He became aware of himself slowly, as if waking from a
deep sleep. He felt a strange pressure on his back and realized he was
lying down on what felt like a metal table, but it had a strange give
to it, a little like rubber, though it was cold like metal and smooth.
He was still wearing his clothes, though his shoes and jacket had been
removed for some reason. He tried to move a hand to his face, and it
was then that he realized he couldn't move, that he was
totally paralyzed.

Suddenly he remembered why and struggled to sit up. He couldn't. He
opened his eyes, which seemed to be working, and figured that all of
his voluntary muscles were immobilized, though he could breathe
without difficulty. He could barely see, the room was dark. The air
felt wrong, somehow, almost artificial, as if it had been recycled
repeatedly and had no odor or taste. He could hear or feel
the faint hum of machinery but not like any machinery he had ever
heard before, the pitch was all wrong too. He became aware of
whisperings around him and he became afraid. Where was he? And for
God's sake where were his parents? He tried to call for them but
nothing came out. He forced himself to relax and reached out with his
mind. He could feel them, both of them, not far away but
there were barriers, as if they were in another room. But he could
also feel others, a strange alien presence.

Suddenly the lights came on, blinding him. He squeezed his eyes shut
then cracked them open, afraid of what he would see. Sure enough, a
being came into view.

Oh God in heaven, it was horrible! It was horrible! The black eyes
were like pools of tar, bottomless, they didn't even reflect the
light. The nose was two holes and the mouth a slit, like a gill
instead of an orifice. He couldn't see any ears and the thing was
hairless, with sickly skin that was more white than grey, like a
blighted plant.

William would have screamed if he could, but he was frozen, his entire
body locked up. Instead, he let out a mental scream, and apparently
the being heard it because it stumbled backwards. It showed no
expression on its face, but William could feel that it was surprised.
It hadn't seemed to be expecting to hear a human mind. Another being
then came into view and William could hear the two communicating.

It is the one. This is it. said being number one.

It is but an offspring, a juevenile. It cannot be as dangerous as they
say. The parents seemed to have caused more trouble then this one.
replied being number two.

Did you not hear it? countered number one. You heard it scream. You
heard its words when we came to collect it. It can speak as we do. It
is unholy proof, it must be destroyed immediatly.

Destroyed? HIM?? William felt his blood run even colder than it had
been. He knew they meant to kill him. And what about his Mom and Dad?

'What the hell are you THINGS talking about?' William raged at them.

The two greys turned around and regarded him. The second one spoke,
'We are merely discussing about what an interesting specimen you are.
Do not be afraid, we mean you no harm.'

William noticed right away that somehow the communication was
different. When they spoke directly to him it was as if he didn't have
to use his own abilities to hear them, but when they spoke to each
other, it seemed to be on a different channel of mental frequency,
though he could hear it all the same. Then he had an idea. His father
had often told him of abductees who said the alien communicated
telepathically, even though many of them were not telepathic
humans. If his grandfather was right, then the human brain was fully
capable of mental abilities such as telepathy and telekenisis, but
only the limited blood flow kept it dormant. The aliens seemed to
activate that part of the brain so they could speak to humans, but
deactivated it when they wanted to speak amongst themselves. It was
like speaking to the enemy on one channel of a walkie talkie, but to
thier friends on another channel. They didn't seem to realize that
William could hear all channels, because, he realized, no human
before him ever could. He wondered if Gibson could.

But there was something else. The creatures had lied to him. He knew
damn well they were plotting to kill him, then turned around and told
him something else. They didn't want him to be trouble. How much
trouble could he be, he wondered?

'You liar,' he replied coldly, 'I heard you, you want to kill me!'

Now the creatures seemed alarmed. 

It heard us! said number two, but that is not possible! These
creatures cannot speak as we do, it was ensured that they could not.

Now do you understand? said number one, do you realize what could
happen if this were reported?

But, it is such an amazing discovery, a speaking adama, it should be
studied. said number two.

Are you a fool? number one asked stiffly, as long as it lives it is
proof of the experiment, and this one speaks. There are some who might
not care about the DNA base pairs, if it speaks it will be thought of
as sentient. We will be held accountable for this.

'You're already in trouble, buttmunch' said William in anger.
'Sentient? Where I come from you're sentient if you're self aware and
can reason. You know damn well we are a sentient race. You screwed
around with my race, and that's against the law. That's why you want
us all dead, isn't it. If someone else finds out about you boys
playing with our genetics, there'll be hell to pay, right? What right
do you have to decide who deserves to live and who doesn't?
You have no business here!'

We most certainly do, adama juevenile, said number one rather smugly,
You are not members of the sentient race, your DNA proves that. I
don't expect you to understand of course. And this planet does belong
to us, your race is only here due to our graces. We have decided you
are pests, and we will exterminate you as we see fit. You have no
rights, you are an inferior species, you were created as such. Now be
silent.

William had never felt such rage and anger as he now felt. He had been
raised to believe in Christian morals of forgiveness and patience and
trust in God. But now, as the being's arrogant and cold proclaimation
sounded in his ears, the only thing he knew was hate and anger at this
creature. He could not see that they were superior in soul, if they
even had one, only in technology. Take away the technology and humans
were far more superior. If he weren't paralyzed, he knew that one
strike from his fist, even a child such as he, could and would
be fatal to these things.

Scenes flashed through William's mind, Bob and Nancy at the kitchen
table on the farm, Bob lying dead in the field, Nancy on the kitchen
floor, his mother and father's years of turmoil and hardships trying
to fight the future, his sister Emily, his aunts Melissa and Samantha,
his grandfather and grandma Tina, and how many others, all dead
because of these things? How many more? A mental roar rose up from his
guts and burst forth in a blast of mental force. The first being was
hurled by an unseen force straight into the wall. It crumpled
on the floor and William knew it was dead.

Without knowing why, he immediatly regretted it. He had just killed
another living creature! And one with a mind and intelligence. Even
though these beings were plotting the demise of his own people,
William felt instant remorse. He hadn't meant to kill the creature,
even if it deserved it. It was like hitting a dog with a car. But he
tried to force it down. These beings didn't see him in the same light.
To him, he was just a talking dog or cat. Maybe not even that.
The second being was startled and alarmed.

A red light flashed and pain shot through William. He screamed in
agony and the light released him.

'Mom, Dad, where are you? Help me..' he called out.

The second being was furious, You killed him you brutal beast! He was
right, you will be destroyed, and your parents along with you.

'You're the brutal beast,' William mentally panted, out of breath,
'You paralyze me and my parents and trap us here, tell me you're going
to destroy me and everything I love because you think it's ok to do it
as long as the species in question doesn't have six based DNA, but you
KNOW we're a sentient race, what's more we're faster learners than
you. You screwed with us and you know you weren't supposed to. We're
proof and you're going to destroy us to cover your own ass, if you
have one. And you're cowards. I can't fight you back, but
if you didn't restain me, I'd easily beat you..'

Of course you're stronger, and of course you're restrained. It would
be foolish not to restrain you. You were all bred for strength, your
race was needed in the mines. Enough talk...the being made a move
towards something William couldn't see.

'We are not your slaves! That planet's ours! YOU LEFT US THERE! You
left us! So we made it on our own and we did well. It's not yours
anymore, it never was, it belonged to the raptor race first, then to
the Atleanteans, now to us. You never belonged here!' William raged.

How could you know a history your race has never witnessed? All was
erased.  The being stopped, confused.

'I saw it, I saw it all,' said William.

Not possible, it was not recorded. You race had not even existed and
they were never told. You could not have seen it. the being said.

'I could see into the past,' said William, 'Many humans can do this if
they know how. Time is only a dimension, it can be pierced and looked
at.'

Now the being was terribly alarmed! You lie, this is not possible. No
being can do this with the mind alone. Special equipment is needed.
How could you have knowledge of things you cannot possibly
understand?

'You are so sure we're just dumb animals, aren't you,' William said
sarcastically, 'What if you're wrong? But you know that don't you? You
knew how strong we could be, that's why you limited our brains, right?
So we COULDN'T talk and tell your secrets. So we COULDN'T see other
dimensions. So we COULDN'T use our minds as I just did and fight
back?'

ENOUGH! said the alien, sounding frightened, maybe for the first time
since encountering a human. You are an abomination, and will be
destroyed at once, and your parents so they may never procreate
another like you!

The alien moved again towards whatever he had been moving too and
William steeled himself, sure that this was it, he was about to die.
He realized he wasn't all that scared. Mostly he was sad. There was so
much he wanted to do. For some ungodly reason, he regretted never
learning to play music. Why this was coming up now was beyond him, but
he remembered watching the bands at the county fairs back in Midville,
playing drums, banjos, dulcimers, harmonicas and violins. He had
always loved music, and he wondered if humans were the only
ones who made music. No, whales do, and dolphins. Was music only an
Earthly thing? Would there be any future genereations or species who
would hear thier music? If they all died, only the Voyager spacecraft,
floating somewhere beyond the solar system, sould carry any remains of
human music and whale music. What instrument would he have learned?
The violin? The piano? The bagpipes? Yeah, bagpipes. His mother would
never have let him, he thought with a smile.

'Well,' he thought sadly, 'At least I took one of them with me. God
help everyone else on Earth. I hope they give them a good hell of a
fight.' And he relaxed back, waiting for the first shot of pain or
darkness that would signify his death.

It never came. Suddenly a strobe light went off and some sound started
ringing. The being stopped and looked around startled. Then it rushed
towards William, intending to kill him, when the door in the far wll
opened and another being came in, followed by several other beings.

William stared. This was no grey alien! It was a little taller than an
average human, and looked more human than the greys. It's skin was
like human skin, with a pale sort of color, but seemed to have a
greenish cast to it, as if it's blood was green. William would have
laughed at the irony of bad Hollywood B movies being right about any
alien having green blood if he hadn't been so scared, or paralyzed.
The new creatures also had amazing eyes, not black like
the greys, but not entierly like humans either. William remembered one
of his dad's movies, Dune, where the people had blue glowing eyes with
blue where the whites should have been. These creatures had eyes like
that only they were green, with very large pupils, no irises. Thier
faces were more like human faces, but without any real defined
features, almost like people in old Disney cartoons. They were dressed
in iridescent skinsuits and they didn't seem to be in a good mood.

Cease at once, said the lead being, with yet a different mind
frequency than the greys, but William could hear it.

What business have you here? You have boarded us without provocation.
This is a research vessel, you will answer to the Council for this!
the grey alien said with pompous indignation.

Keep your lies to yourself, we are hear to place every one of you
under arrest. said the green-eyed being to the grey. We are
investigating what looks like a gross violation of the species
contamintation law. You are to desist at once and release
this....whatever this is, into our custody.

William wasn't sure this new creture would do any better by him in the
long run, since he was no doubt in for a barrage of experimentation,
but for now, it didn't seem to want to kill him as the greys did. And
he had to find his parents. Maybe they would let him.

'Please Sir," said William, 'Please help me, he was about to kill me!
He says I'm proof of species tampering, My race calls themselves
human. I called for help, they mean to destroy us all.'

The green-eyed being whirled around, and William could see surprise
registered on it's face in expression, similar to humans. They all
turned to face him and William could sense panic in the grey.

It speaks! said the green-eyed being, You were perfoming
experimentation on a speaking being!? This is revolting! How dare you?
What is this creature?

BE SILENT! yelled the grey to William, and turned to the green-eyed
being, Of course, we do no such thing! This species does not speak at
all. This one is merely an anomoly. It is being studied as a
scientific specimen and will be released...

'YOU LIAR!' yelled William, 'The only reason my species doen't 'speak'
as you do is because you engineered our brains so we CAN'T. But we
could. And I can, and I'm not the only one. Several others can. I have
a friend who can. But we can speak to each other using sounds, and we
are not animals! We've developed vehicles and spacecraft that have
taken us to our moon! You're here to wipe us all out! You were about
to destroy me!'

IT LIES! yelled the grey.

SILENCE! said the green-eyed being, annoyed. It is not for me to
decide, it is for the Council. And I must say, this creature certainly
seems to be the object of what it says it is, or is that death serum
you hold meant for another creature?

William noticed that the grey was holding an object he didn't
recognize. It seemed embarrassed at having forgotten it held it.

Either way, my orders are to place you under arrest. A distress call
was recieved by an unknown species in the vicintiy of this solar
system saying its race was under attack and about to be anhilated. It
certainly looks that way. Now release this creature! Green-Eyes seemed
to have reached then end of its patience.

Sighing, the grey pushed a button and William felt himself regain
control of his muscles. Some other Green-Eyes took the grey out of the
room.

It called back to the Green-Eyes, Beware! It is dangerous and so are
it's kind. You would do well to restrain it!

The Green-Eyes ignored the grey as they led it away. The lead
Green-Eyes came up to William as he sat up, but stayed well out of
reach.

"Please, Sir,' said William. "I am only a juevenile of my species. My
parents are here somewhere, I can sense them. Please can I go to
them?'

William saw something that looked like compassion flicker in the
creature's eyes, before it answered In a moment. Are you the one who
sent the call?

'Yes, I am. Am I in trouble?' asked William.

We shall see. Come, if there are more of your kind on this craft we
shall locate them. The being turned and walked off. William jumped
down from the table and followed.

******************************************************

Fox Mulder was furious. He couldn't move, he couldn't talk. And worse,
he had absolutely no idea where his son was. He could hear Scully
breathing not far away, and he knew what her breathing sounded like.
But they seemed to be the ony ones in the room. He knew she was awake
and they were able to slowly communicate by snorting morse code. She
didn't know where William was either and she was scared to death.

Why in God's name did he drag his family around out in the open? Why
hadn't he left them in Roswell where it was safe and gone alone?
Because he knew Scully never would have stayed behind. She always
hated it when he took off without her and she hated his "I was just
trying to protect you" explanations even worse.

Scully was at a loss. Flashes of her previous abductions came back,
even though those had been humans. This was worse. And where was her
baby, her son? What were they doing to him? Why wasn't he with them?
She had lost Emily, and she had been forced to give up William, she
was damned if she was going to lose him to these monsters. Mulder,
likewise was thinking much the same thing. He had lost his entire
family to these things, he was not going to loose his kid or
Scully. He'd give a kidney or something just for the chance to get to
these monsters and do to them like they planned to do to all of
humanity.

Suddenly the lights fickered, then began to strobe in a sort of alarm.
What the hell was happeneing? Where was everybody? Were they about to
die? Mulder strained to reach out to Scully but he just couldn't move.
He wished he could at least touch her. It wasn't fair. He wanted to
talk to her, to tell her how much he loved her, how he had loved her
from the moment she had walked into his office nearly twenty years
ago. God damn! Had it been that long ago? It didn't seem so. He
realized how much they had done, how much they had lived in those
years that followed. Was it all about to end right now? Had he ever
really told her what he felt for her and thier son? He felt a tear
fall from his eye and he closed them, not wanting to see what happened
next.

Sure enough, he heard a door open. Against his better judgement, he
opened his eyes. If he had had control of his jaw, he was sure it
would have been on the floor. A group of beings came in, but they
weren't greys! They looked more like humans, but with a weird greenish
cast to thier skin and Dune-eyes that were green instead of blue. He
thought he heard Scully wimper and he fought to turn his head. Were
they hurting her?

One of the creatures came and stood beside him, looking at him
pointedly. It seemed confused, like it was trying to talk to him but
couldn't get through. Another one came up and looked pointedly at him.
Mulder wished he could do something other than blink. This seemed to
go on forever until finally, one of the beings did something and
suddenly Mulder could move. He jumped up off the table and backed away
from the beings. They backed away quickly as well, pointing strange
objects at him.

"Mulder!" he heard Scully call, She ran over to him and he pulled her
into a tight hug, relieved that she seemed to be ok. He could feel her
shaking. The beings looked on with interest, they didn't seem to
understand what was going on.

Mulder looked at the nearest one and asked, "Where's our son? Our
child, where is he?"

The beings seemed a little taken aback by the noises the two humans
were making. They backed away, but the one in the lead came forward.
He seemed to realize that the two species communicated differently, so
they had to be cautious. He could tell the two humans were frightened
and angry. According to reports coming in from the rest of the craft,
he figured they had a right to be. Hed didn't know what the strange
creatures' noises meant, but he figued they were asking about thier
offspring which has been found in another part of the craft. Perhaps
the best thing to do would be to gather all of the strange
creatures together, it might calm them.

The Green-Eyes began leaving one by one.

"Wait a minute!," yelled Scully, "Where's our son? Tell us where he
is!"

"I don't think they can, Scully." said Mulder. "They don't seem to
have the greys' ability co talk with us."

Fianlly only the leader was left, he turned to walk out, then looked
over his shoulder. He seemed to want them to follow him.

"I think we better follow him." said Mulder.

"I don't know, what if they're leading us to be executed?" replied
Scully.

"Well, we can't find Wil in here. And if they're going to kill us they
will.  Let's go and keep a lookout for him, I don't know how we'll get
out of this but in here we're sitting ducks." Mulder shrugged.

Scully nodded and they followed the Green-Eyes out of the room.

As they followed the being, Scully couldn't help but notice the
strange design of the alien craft they were in. She kept expecting to
wake up and find they had been watching some scifi movie and this was
all a dream. But she knew it wasn't. What she wouldn't give to examine
the strange metal of the walls and the technology! The scientist in
her was thrilled. Then the mother instinct was yelling loud and clear
for her son. As they rounded a corner, they saw another
group of Green-Eyes, and with them was William!

Forgetting about any weapons these things had, she flew forward
towards him, Mulder right behind her.

"Mom! Dad!" William yelped in joy and ran to his parents. Scully
scooped him up and held him tight. Mulder threw his arms around both
of them. All three of them were crying, relieved to see the others
alive. Mulder took his son into his own arms as Scully checked him
out.

"Are you OK? Did they hurt you?" she asked.

"No, Mom, I'm fine really. I've been talking to them. The ones with
the green eyes are here to arrest the greys for species tampering. I
don't know what they want to do with us but all I know is right now
they don't want to kill us." said William.

"You can talk to them?" asked Mulder.

William nodded and explained what had happened. Scully shivered as she
listened to him talk about killing a grey with his mind and nearly
seconds away from being killed himself. What were the odds of that
happening? Would these new green-eyed aliens help them keep the greys
from wiping them out? Mostly it seemed to her that they were only
interested in the fact that the greys might have broken a law, not so
much about the humans themselves.

William turned to look at one of the leaders and they stared at each
other for a while. Then William turned back to them.

"I told him you two can't talk the way I can. He seems confused by the
whole thing. He wants us to follow him to his craft, this one's being
confiscated or something. They want us to testify what we know about
what's been done to our race." William paused, then said, "I don't
think he was giving us a choice."

"Ask him what they plan to do with us when they're finished." said
Mulder.

William turned and regarded the Green-Eyes again for a while, then
told his parents, "I convinced him to send us back to Earth. I don't
know how they're going to do it. He says they have absolutely no
knowledge of us or our civilization, so they don't want to just fly
down and drop us off. He says there's rules, kinda like the Prime
Directive on Star Trek. You know, not messing with a developing
primative culture. He seems shocked that we don't have anything better
than the space shuttle. They have to rely on the greys'
information on us for now and he says the greys are being silent."

"So basically we don't know WHEN they're going to send us home," said
Scully.

"Well, at least he's going to, he said we wouldn't be killed." said
William.

"Yeah," mumbled Mulder, "Unless the greys convince him otherwise.
There's no garuntee they won't decide the greys have every right to do
with us as they like."

William and Scully didn't answer him. The Green-Eyes turned and they
followed him. They wondered amongst themselves how they were going to
transfer craft. These creatures and the greys seemed to be oxygen
breathing and had the same tolerance to atmospheric pressure, so
pressumably they had ways of trasferring without anyone getting
killed, but they were still nervous.

Finally, they came to what looked like a regular wall. A few of the
Green-Eyes walked up to it, then walked right though. 

"Cool!" said William.

"I don't know about that." said Scully. "We don't know it's safe for
us."

The lead Green-Eyes stared at William, who then turned and said, "He
says it's safe. He says to go."

Sighing, Mulder took his son's hand, then Scully's. Gritting his
teeth, hoping he wasn't getting them all killed, he stepped through
the wall. There was a wonderful feeling, like nerve stimulating
tingles all over them, and a rainbow of light danced in front of thier
eyes. Suddenly it was over and they were on the other side.

They were definately in a new craft. Everything was tinted green in
this place, the floors and the wall. Like the other craft, the air was
stale, recycled and this craft was colder. The lights were beautiful,
however, seemingly white, but with a strange halo of rainbow around
them. Also, it felt as if the gravity were not quite right, as if a
good jump off the goround would send one stright through the ceiling.

Mulder had once tried out the "Moonwalk" machine at NASA and it felt
like that, like walking on the moon but with not as much bounce.
Walking seemed to be as normal as before, if a little unsteady. The
Green-Eyes leader led them down the hall, and, as they passed a
window, William let out an audible yelp of disbelief.

"Dad! Look!" he pointed.

Mulder and Scully froze in awe. Outside of the window was the
blackness of space and the Earth spinning on its axis. The image was
too clear, to perfect to be a video or even a very high resolution
picture. William wanted to reach out and touch the window but Scully
frantically pulled him back, reminding him that they had gone through
a wall by touching it. They watched as North America spun into veiw,
and Mulder looked for Nevada, and Area 51, wondering if the car
was still down there somewhere. He could see New Mexcio and roughly
where their house was. It was amazing!

The Green-Eyes let them look, seemingly amused by thier reaction.
Finally, they tore themselves away and followed the alien down the
hall. He led them to a room and motioned them inside. He loked at
William for a long moment, then turned to leave, the door closing
behind them.

William turned back to his parents and said, "He says we'll stay here
for the time being, until he makes some, I guess phone calls or
something. He says they're looking through the greys' database to see
what we eat, since they can't seem order up a pizza up here." His
parents smiled forcefully, but didn't laugh.

"Did he say how long?" asked Scully. William shook his head.

Sighing, they looked around. There seemed to be furniture in the room
but unlike andy they had ever seen before. There were some strange
protrusions from the wall that seemed to be like bean bag chairs, that
were big enough to lie down in or sit up in. Beyond that, the room was
quite bare. Scully cautiously examined one of the bean bag things,
then sat on it.

"Hmm, these are kind of comfortable." she said.

Mulder and William sat down on the other ones.

'Well, now what?" asked William.

**********************************************************

The next few hours were very interesting, for both the family of three
humans and the aliens whose craft they were on. It seemed that they
had managed to get some information from the greys and were able to
adapt the room for the humans. The first thing they needed was a
bathroom. After communicting this to a Green-Eyes who periodically
checked in on them, William tried not to blush as he described to the
alien what they needed and why. Then food became a problem.
 Translating for his mother, who relied on her doctor skills and
knowledge, he told the aliens the basics of human nutrition and what
they managed to synthesize had all the calories and vitamins they
needed, but looked suspiciously like cold snot. William chose to
announce this description right as his mother put some in her mouth.
She gagged  and barely swallowed it, then informed her son that if
they ever got out of this it wouldn't matter, because he was grounded
for life for saying that.

William tried not to taste it as he forced himself to swallow it all
in three gulps, like his father. They passed the time playing word
games, telling stories, even singing songs, but the boredom was hard
to manage. Eventually some of the Green-Eyes came in to question them.
William translated for his parents and between the three of them,
managed to describe the course of human history with the greys. The
Green-Eyes made it clear that they were not scientists or researchers
interested in the evolution of a new species, that thier job was to
investigate possible wrongdoing on the greys' part. They, like
the greys, were an offspring race of the founding aliens who had
spread thier DNA throught he galaxy, and like the greys, believed that
all worthwhile life came only from that race.

Since the founders had been a six based DNA race, it was assumed that
all thier offspring races would also have six base pairs. The fact
that the humans had four seemed to be proof enough that the humans
were not even considered worthwhile, despite William's insitance that
humans were descendants of the founders, he had seen it in his vision.
 The Green-Eyes accpeted that some mutations could have led to a four
base pair from six on Earth, but they did not accept William's
explanation of visions from the past. It was incredible,
but it seemed that no species of the known founders' offspring had the
ability to see into the past or future. However, they were intrigued
by William's abilities and had him perform several strange tests, like
having him control the direction of several floating, glowing balls.
He listened to speaking images of several strange looking beings and
repeated what they said back to the Green-Eyes. With his parents
watching anxiously, one being examined him with a clear rod with a
light on the tip, touching it to various muscle groups and places on
his head and on his tongue. But mostly they questioned him about
what they knew of the greys.

William was complaining to his parents when they were alone about the
absurdity of the whole situation. "It's crazy. Can't they SEE that we
are a sentient race, with a developing culture and a right to live on
our own planet? We have spacecraft of our own! OK, so it doesn't go
beyond the moon, but so what, it's a start. They had to start
somewhere didn't they? Just because we have four based DNA, not six,
they say we're nothing more than parameciums!"

"I think it's paramecia, isn't it Scully?" quipped Mulder.

Scully rolled her eyes, "Well think of it like this, think of how
during the days of slavery black people weren't considered human
because of the color of thier skin. During the holocaust Jews weren't
considered human because of thier religion and race. Native Americans
were called savage barbarians because they didn't have the same
clothes and housing and weapons as the white settlers. It's called
'descrimination' and there's never any reason behind it. When
you're born and raised believing something, even if it's ludicrous,
it's hard to change, even with reason."

The door slid open then and they jumped to thier feet as the leader
Green-Eyes came in and told William that the Council of races had
enough evidence to try the greys on species tampering. William and his
parents were to speak for the human race at the trial. His parents
were stunned and Mulder made it clear they couldn't go too far. By the
time they got home over hundreds of years would have passed on Earth.
The Green-Eyes assured him they would not have to go anywhere, their
testimony would take place on the craft and be broadcast to the
waiting Council. William shivered as he clutched his mother, never
once dreaming he would have to be a spokesman for the entire human
race at the age of eleven.

For her part, neither had Dana Scully. She hugged him close, wanting
to spare him from all this, but it ws either testify or let everything
they love be destroyed. And somehow she doubted it would be anything
like a court back home. Reluctantly, they followed the leader down
several winding halls to a strange room with a circle in the middle.
He instructed them to step in the middle and they did, Mulder leading.
William stood between his parents and held thier hands. 

Suddenly, what appeared to be a shimmering curtain surrounded them.
When it cleared, all three were awestruck at finding themselves in
another room entirely! The small room had vanished and they now stood
on the floor of a huge hall with several balcony type structures, each
containing a strange looking creature. William recognized a few of
them from the tests he had taken and he wondered how the hell they had
gotten here. There was a shimmer here and there and he heard his
father speak up.

"It's not really here, it's like a hologram or a VR game. We're still
in the room on the ship, it's like VR phone conferencing." William
turned and saw his father had stuck a hand through the circle edge and
it vanished as if being thrust through a curtain. He saw his mother
visably relax, for a moment. Then he saw next to them in another
circle, three greys looking at them. A voice began to boom and William
translated for his parents who could not hear it.

"Representatives of the race of Elohim. You have been brought before
the Council to answer to the charges of your race having violated the
fourth mandate of the galactic code. That is, 'All sentient and
honorable species, being the progeny of the venerable Founders, the
noble ones who brought life to all the galaxy, shall be equal in the
eyes of thier bretheren, subject to no opression by thier bretheren,
subject to no experimentation, nor species altering by their
bretheren, shall lay claim to no other planet occupied by
thier bretheren without express consent witnessed by this Council, and
that all species of the Founders shall be left in peace, thier
civilization untouched. Likewise, no bretheren species shall influence
or interfere with the development of a primative bretheren species.'
Race of the Elohim, there have been charges that you have repeatedly
journeyed to the third planet of the qui'yon sector, 4th divesion,
second cluster, where a race of primative life forms had evolved, and
that you have altered thier civilization, altered thier
bodies, and then attempted to destroy the entire species by genocide,
not once but three times, that you have succeeded in destroying a
primative reptilian race on this planet, destroyed a previous
civilization, and now threaten to destroy the present civilization to
destroy evidence of your tampering and so that you might claim the
mineral rich planet. How do you answer?"

The tallest grey answered, Honorable bretheren, we are not guilty of
these charges.

William clenched his fists to shout back but Mulder clamped a hand on
his shoulder. William understood, shouting out of turn could not be
good for thier case. He forced himself to stay silent. The voice was
continuing.

"The Council will now hear the explination of the Elohim in this
matter."

The tallest grey alien stepped forward again and began to speak.

Esteemed bretheren and  fellow races of the Founders, we, the Elohim,
are well aware of the Galactic law and honor it as you do.  It is not
within us to cause harm to a fellow species of the Founders. However,
there is no law concerning the expansion of colonization to ensure the
health and well-being of one's own race. We, like several of you, are
too, colonists. For several units now, we have searched local star
systems for planets that may be of some use to us for raw materials
and colonization. Upon arriving at the third planet of the sector
in question, we saw that it was ripe with the materials we needed, and
yes, it did support life. However, let me say right now, this life is
NOT life created by the Founders! Analysis of the DNA showed only four
DNA base pairs in all  life on this planet. My esteemed bretheren, it
is well known that the Founders themselves had six DNA base pairs, as
do all of thier offspring. These lifeforms were vicious creatures,
with no mind and limited intelligence, who existed only to eat. While
we tried several methods of deterring these lifeforms from attacking
our settlements, nothing worked and we did eventually plan to colonize
the planet.

After much debate, we decided to leave the planet and return at a
later time to see if conditions had improved Several units later we
again sought out the planet and saw that the reptiles had perished,
but that a new species had arisen, a species that walked upright as we
do, but again were only a four base pair species and had very limited
intelligence, if any, and no culture or tools at all. They were pack
hunters, eating raw meat, and using no tools, they wee not sentient.
However, we were relunctant to leave again, to we set about early
colonization. We concluded that the species on the planet was not a
Founder offspring race, but could still be useful in mining
operations. 

We crossed the  creature with some of our own DNA to give it some
intelligence and other traits, but no more. It made a very good work
animal, diging in the mines and clearing land for our establishments.
However, many in our group wondered on the purity of our race. There
were several arguments, from many factions. Some argued that the
species we had created evolved to quickly, that soon they would be
capable of civilization of thier own, that they would rise
up and destroy us. Others argued they should never have been created
in the first place, that to cross a Founder species with a random
species was an abomination, others felt sympathy for them and stated
they should be left on the planet to thier own devices. In the end, we
decided that they should never had been created, that the best course
of action was to end the horrific experiment and cleanse the planet.
We directed high powered rays at the polar caps, flooding the planet
and destroying the species, or so we thought. Again we left and
returned several units later to discover the creatures we had named
the adama had not perished, but had multiplied and now covered the
entire planet.

Naturally colonization would have to be put on hold, so we contacted
several of the leaders of the race and began negotiating plans to
colonize with the permission of the adama. However, they betrayed us!
It became known to us that several attempts to further cross our race
with thiers were under way. This further experimentaion and gene
crossing was thier fault!  Not only that, we became aware of a global
plot to destroy our race on sight and destroy any colonies we might
set up in peace, led by the three adama you see standing
before you! Yes, bretheren, these three conspired in the death of the
leaders we had come to agreements with, then proceeded to take over
control and plan for war against us, a peaceful colonizing force.

We had planned on studying the race we had created, to see if the
influence of DNA from a Founder race could bring order and staility to
savages, who seem to gow at an exponential rate. They already have
primative space vehicles. How soon before they devlop star drives and
then make war on all of us? Let me repeat, these creatures are not
offspring of the Founders, thier DNA proves it. They are a vicious,
bloodthirsty race with limited intelligence and none of the
abilites we possess, such as the ability to speak as we do. They make
war on each other over bits of land and foolish beliefs in imaginary
forces that cannot be seen or tested to prove existence. Only in this
jeuvenile you see before you is there an anomoly, the ability to speak
as we do. We had been studying the creature when we were beset upon
and arrested.

My bretheren, perhaps we, the Elohim, are guilty of irresponsibility
with concern to innappropriate tampering of  a random species, and
perhaps the decision to exterminate them in the past was faulty, but
there is no doubt now. They are dangerous and an abomination. They
should not exist, and we should not have created them. They are not
offspring of the Founders, so they are not a sentient race recognized
by this Council. Our race will accpet whatever fine is decided for our
misconduct with a random species, however, you must see that
they must be exterminated. But even if this council does not agree
with extermination, know that we do not exterminate on a whim either.
They are a danger to not only our race, but to all of you. And as the
third planet is within the teritory of the Elohim, it is our right to
colonize the plantes we own as we see fit. I am finished.

The grey alien stepped back and a buzz went up around the hall. Mulder
was furious at the arrogance of the creature, assuming it was ok to
destroy and entire species of lifeforms based on the nature of it's
DNA. But what was worse, the war he had fought all his life against
these creatures would not be over with him, now it was up to his son,
still a child, to fix it. He and Scully would help him as much as they
could, but it would depend on how well William could communicate and
reason with these aliens so different from them. He stepped forward
and hugged his son. Scully stepped forward and gave William
a quick kiss. William closed his eyes and thought of the dream on the
beach. Despite what the greys said, he knew God wasn't imaginary, and
he hoped He would help now. He crossed himself as he had seen his
mother do, then, steeling himself, stepped forward and lifted his chin
to the aliens who would decide all of thier fates.

Final Stand pt.7


William Charles Mulder had never been so scared in his entire life,
and that included the time he had fled from the super soldiers on a
slow minibike from the farm where his adoptive parents had been killed
and ended up hiding out in the dark. He knew deep down that this was
why he had been born, this was why he had been sent. It all came down
to now, and he prayed for the right words. These creatures thought
nothing more of him than a talking animal, like a talking monkey or
something. He tried to put himself into their place and speak
as best he could.

"Hello," he started. (God that sounded lame) "My name is William and I
am, what the greys, um, Elohim, call an 'adama'. My race calls itself
'humans', although we recognized thier name for us in our early
writings. We called the first human 'Adam'. First of all, I want to
clarify some inaccuracies in the gr-Elohim's story. First of all, what
your brothers forgot to mention about the reptilian race was that
they, the Elohim, are responisble for thier demise. Yes
it's true. They manuvered an asteroid into a collision course with the
planet and it crashed, destroying all animal and plant life on the
planet, including the devloping reptilian species. This was senseless
destruction of a defenseless lifeform that was developing its own
civilization. Later, when they returned, they found another species,
ones we call mammals, beginning to evolve. Yes, they were little more
than animals, but they were devloping the use of very primative tools,
despite what th Elohim have said.

Then, the Elohim decided they wanted a slave race, so they decided,
without persmission, to alter this primative species, genetically
limiting it so that if this species or its decedants MIGHT have
developed the ability to communicate as I do, it was now severed and
limited. Let me remind all of you, that you now only have the word of
the Elohim as to whether or not any life on Earth was or was not
decendant from your Founders. By thier own admission, they
tampered with a primative species, so now we'll never know for sure
what they might have been if they had been left alone. You don't know
what we were before the tampering, they never asked for your opinion
or sent any samples to you to be tested, they acted on thier own. Very
convenient, I think. But aside from all of that, when the hybrid race
they created started thinking for itself, forming its own
civilizations, the Elohim panicked.

They wanted a subservient mule that never questioned and used its
brute strength to do heavy labor. Imagine thier surprise when they
began to think for themselves. Two great civilizations rose from that
species, who were called Mu and Atlantis. They developed rapidly, and
within a space of a few thousand of our years, they had developed
vehicles that used solar energy, aircraft, weaponry and knowledge.
They were a threat to the Elohim who wanted the planet for themselves,
so the Elohim destroyed them in a cataclysmic flood that wiped
out all but a few pockets of people who manages to live on and develop
on thier own, evolving with the work of a few rebel Elohim who
continued to experiment on thier slave adama race.

Let me stop here and point out that the actions of the Elohim up to
this point are not those of a 'civilized' race. It doesn't matter,
ultimately, WHERE life came from. Think about the millions of star
systems that exist, of only a fw percent of those that have planets,
and only a few of those can sustain life, then only a few of those
lifeforms will rise in a civilization, it's amazing any of us are here
at all, even with the Founders.  Life is sacred, it should
be protected and fostered, not wiped out for any reason, least of all
how many DNA base pairs it has. That's a very bad excuse for
exterminating an entire species and several other species along with
it, not once but twice. And now they want to do it again. Right now,
they're planning on releasing a killer virus that will destroy all
humans in a horrible way, by having a new Elohim gestate inside the
human as a biological incubator. They have sent entities we
call Super Soldiers to infiltrate our society and prepare for the day
they invade, killing anyone who gets in thier way. And they complain
when some of us fight back. It's called species survival, did they
expect us to roll over and die for them?

Imagine, if you will, that some other race from another galaxy, comes
exploring and finds all of you, and decides you're expendable and
meant to be wiped out, because you only have six DNA base pairs and
not eight, and they only recognize life that has eight base pairs.
Does it make you any less worthy, any less sentient, just because
you're different? Is your civilization worth less because you wouldn't
have the same DNA as those invaders? Are humans any less
worthy? And don't be so sure we're worthless lifeforms, unable to
learn or speak. You never know if sometime in the future you may need
us. There was a story on my planet about explorers from one continent
who came to colonize another and found a race of people already living
there. They considered the natives to be savage brutes, uncivilized
and worthy of oppression, because they dressed in animal furs and
lived in mud homes and didn't have as advanced weaponry and didn't
believe the same things as the settlers. However, the settlers had no
idea how to make food grow in this new land and would have died
without the help of those very savages they thought were inferior.

Everybody, think for a moment. Is it right for the strong to oppress
and exterminate the weak? If that were the case, many of you would not
be sitting here because you would have been conquered. If everyone
went off and did whatever they wanted to whoever was different, there
would choas and war. The actions of the Elohim only show what they
really think of your laws, and that they would do this to one of the
Founder races, as long as it was never discovered that the species
they destroyed was really one of the Founders.

Everybody, that's what I'm here to tell you now. Humans and all life
on my planet ARE offspring of the Founders.  because of the type of
sun we have, six based DNA was unable to survive on our world until it
mutated into a four base. We are at the far end of the galaxy, we were
some of the last ones to be seeded. If the Founders were here, they'd
verify this. And I know this because my race has one of several
abilities, and that is the ability to peirce the wall of time and see
into the past and future. I know you think this cannot be
done, but my race can. Several indaviduals have had the ability, and
the reason none of our mental abilites are apparent is because, in
normal humans, they are dormant and vestigial.

The Elohim realized early on in thier experiment that early adama
humans could not only speak as they do, but had other abilities they
didn't have, like the ability to move objects with the mind, to see
through time, to manipulate energy, and many others. This frightened
them, so they ensured the human brain would be so limited, even a few
anomolies like myself could never use the full range they were born
with. Human beings only use ten percent of thier brain,
the other ninety percent does not recieve enough blood flow or
nourishment to function at full capacity. And so, the average human
only has glimpses of the future in hunches, brief moments of telepathy
by finishing each others' sentences, and so on. This is not the fault
of our DNA, but tampering by the Elohim, and it's wrong. And how do I
know all of this? Because I looked back in time and saw it for myself.
I know you think this is impossible but it is not, and what's more, I
could do it again, with some work.

Everyone, I am not here to challenge what you believe or what you hold
true, or your laws. But when your laws threaten the lives of a race,
please stop and think. If you allow the Elohim to go unchecked, they
will return to my planet and destroy an entire race of lifeforms. To
say that we are not sentient is absurd and you all know it. If I were
not entient and you could not believe it, you would not have me in
front of you now arguing with reason. Whether you believe we are your
brother species or not doesn't really matter in the end,
you have to decide what is more important, life, in all forms, or your
belief that only six based DNA lifeforms have the right to live. And
remember, think of how you would feel if some eight based pair
lifeform said your civilization was worthless because you only have
six. What if someone told you that everything you worked so hard to
build will be destroyed to make way for a more worthy life form that
had more DNA than you?

Humans are, yes, a kind of volitile race, I'll admit. We feel very
strong connections with our family groups and our tribal groups, and
if one member is threatened, then the whole family feels it. It is how
we have survived in the past, working together to build. It sometimes
gets out of control, but I think reason always wins in the end. We
have many colorful civilizations on my planet, music, stories,
costumes and so much more. It shouldn't be exterminated
just so the Elohim can take the planet. They already have several
others they own, why can't they go somewhere else? Give us a chance,
won't you? I don't care if they are punished or not, but make them
leave us alone. And maybe someday, way into the future, humans will
either be accepted in this Council as the Founder offspring we really
are, or maybe just friends if nothing more. You may think we're
animals or abominations, but we're here, and we have as much
right to live as anyone in this room."

William stepped back exhausted. Scully reached forward and grabbed
him. Mulder picked him up and held him. Both he and Scully had helped
him through his long speech, inserting a point here and there, but
alot of it had been his own words, spoken from his own heart, and
Mulder had never been so proud of his son as he was now. The family of
three held each other as the buzz went up around the room.

The Green-Eyes leader then got up and reported about what his race had
found on the greys' ship, information that had been collected
depicting the experiments on humans, and how they had been the ones
who had received William's distress call. Finally, the greys, who were
called the Elohim, stood up to make thier final arguments, which were
basically rote from thier first ones. William heard his father whisper
to his mother that if this were Earth, the argument that
"they were just stupid animals" wouldn't get very far. Scully reminded
him that this was NOT Earth, in case he had forgotten.

Finally, the voice spoke, "This Council has heard the claims made in
all parties and will deliberate on the next course of action. The
Elohim are hereby confined to thier sector until final descisions are
in, the adama, humans, will be given to the Rilans until further
notice."

A buzzer sounded and the Green-Eyes leader came to them, saying they
would return to thier quarters now. So the Green-Eyes were called
Rilans. The great hall blinked away and they once again stood in the
room with the circle on the floor. They followed the Rilan back to
thier rooms and sat in the chairs in silence.

*********************************************************

Dana Scully had been wondering just how long they had actually been
gone from Earth and how much longer it would be for the Council to
come to some sort of decision. And what would become of them? Would
they be sent back to Earth or kept as lab rats or specimens for some
weird zoo? And who knew how time was measured around here?  Maybe by
the time any decision was reached, William would be seventy years
old. Mulder had been pacing the room, examining every corner, every
detail, as Scully and William dozed, snuggled up on a chair. If this
went badly, he had to start thinking about possible escape plans, if
any.

The door opened and Scully and William jumped up. A Green-Eyes Rilan
had come to get them for the final verdict. Trembling, William
followed his parents as they went down the hall to the hologram room.
They stepped into the circle and the Council hall appeared in front of
them again. The Elohim representatives were standing in thier circle,
and the hall was silent. Scully grasped Mulder's fingers and reached
for her son. William took both of thier hands and they stood, lifting
thier chins to face the crowd of alien beings who would decide
thier fate.

The voice boomed, "Representatives of the Elohim, representatives of
the humans, this Council has considered your case carefully. The laws
of the Council of beings of the Founders has its laws in place for the
purpose of ensuring order and peace between interrelated species. It
has never had to apply to creatures whose origins could not be
confirmed as Founder-related. Our laws prohibit species tampering, but
only in the case of species who are confirmed Founder-bred. However,
the Founders themselves cherished life enough to ensure its growth in
many diverse forms all over the galaxy, enough to leave
thier unknown homeworld and travel for eons spreading their DNA
wherever they could. It has been made clear that pehaps this council
will never know the true origins of life on the planet known as Earth,
for it has all been tampered with, and this leaves us in a very
difficult position.

Do we honor our own laws which only include the Founder species that
are known, or do we take the chance for an unknown species based on
values the Founders themselves must have cherished? The Elohim have
carefully pointed out that since Founder-origin cannot be confirmed in
the case of humans, there is no way of proving our law against species
tampering applies in this case.."

William felt his heart sinking. Scully bit back a shudder of dismay
and Mulder felt his fist clenching in anger. But the voice continued.

"However, the juevenile human has made several interesting points. If
this Council was to condone this type of behavior against any species,
it would not be long before our laws would be meaningless. We must set
an example for our laws, regarding all life, for many of us can see
that, Founder-origins or not, This species known as human is in fact
sentient with a thriving civilization, and it deserves to grow, or
perish, by its own devices, as we all do. Furthermore, the Elohim's
own admittance to planning and executing three times the destruction
of not just the human civilization of this planet, but also an
unkown reptilian race and a now extent pre-human advanced race, shows
thier gross disregard for all life, whether they be brethern species
or random. It is a criminal act to commit mass genocide, and
furthermore indicates that the Elohim are in fact hiding the knowledge
that they knew full well that the primitive race the encountered on
this planet WERE descendants of the Founders, with or without DNA
evidence.

It has been discovered, through examination of these humans and of
data collected from the Elohim themselves, that the huma race has been
forcably tampered with to prevent them from reaching thier true
Founder race potential, and this is inexcusable.

It is the decision of this Council that the race of Elohim is to
depart at once from the appointed sector and that agents of this
Council be dispatched at once to remove and dispose of all alien
presence on the planet, regarding the ones known as Super Soldier and
all evidence of the virus to be used against the humans. The Elohim
will cooperate fully or face even further punishment than
they will now recieve. The sector containing the planet known as Earth
is now confiscated and within the jurisdiction of this Council, until
such time as when the humans either advance to thier full potential
and join this Council, or end up exterminating themselves, as it has
been known to happen to other races.

The species at this time is still much too primative and will be kept
under close observation. As for the Elohim, for thier crimes against
life, most likely life seeded b the Founders, they are relived from
the last four sectors of thier territory and forbidden to enter human
space ever again. They will relinquish thier seat in the science
committee and trade with the Tidaxians is hereby forfeit in matters of
gleamstone trading for a period of twelve units. The Rilans will
return these three humans to thier homeworld immediatly."

The Elohim representatives were furious! Surely you cannot be serious!
Such a strong punishment for minor tampering of  creatures not even of
this council! And to prohibit trade for gleamstones? This will cut our
space travels by half without  the ability to run half our ships!

"My bretheren Elohim, do you not see?" continued the voice, "it is
that attutidue that has gotten you into trouble. The true measure of a
race is how it treats its inferiors, and you have treated your own
creation with nothing more that the worse contempt possible. One more
misstep and you will no longer sit on this Council, be grateful your
race has not been rejected from this assembly entirely. Now be silent.
This Council stands at rest."

William stepped forward and bowed, followed by Mulder and Scully.

"Thank you," he called. Mulder and Scully waved as the room once
again dissolved in front of them.

*************************************************

They didn't return to thier holding room, but rather followed a Rilan
down yet another winding hall. They came to a wall and the Rilan
indicated that they should step through. Mulder turned tot he Rilan
and asked, "Is it over then? Will they leave us alone?" William
translated.

Yes, replied the Rilan, As we speak special clean up crews have been
sent to your world to remove all of the Elohim's projects and presence
there. They are confined to teritory several light years from your
world and the few parsecs surrounding your solar system have been
siezed by the Council. You will be left in peace, for now.

'Will we see any of you again?' asked William.

He thought he saw the being smile, if only in its green eyes, as it
said, Perhaps someday the Council will call your race forward. You
have much to learn and grow beyond your primative ways, but you seem
to learn much faster than anyone has ever seen before. If you manage
not to destroy yourselves, when you are ready, the Council will make
contact with your race. It has still yet to be determined if you truly
are a Founder-bred race or not, but even if you aren't,
you will be left alone. Unless of course you become a threat.

William nodded and bowed tot he creature, and it bowed back. Mulder
took William's hand and Scully's, and together they stepped through
the wall, feeling the pleasant tingle and seeing the rainbows of
colors dance.

Suddenly, they landed on the ground as if they had jumped from above
about ten feet. William rolled head over heels coming to a stop next
to Scully, who had managed to twist her ankle when she landed. Mulder
sat up groaning, holding his side. They looked around and saw they
were in a desert somewhere. William looked up in time to see a craft
in the distance speeding away up into the stars. He grinned.

"Is everybody OK?" asked Mulder, pulling Scully to her feet and
supporting her weight from her injured ankle.

"Yeah I think so," she said as William got to his feet and dusted the
sand off.

"Mom, Dad, is it really over?" he asked.

"I guess we'll find out, son," said Mulder. "Come on, we have to get
your mom to a hospital or something, she might have broken her
ankle."

"I'm fine, Mulder," she said.

William and his father rolled thier eyes, and they started walking
down the hill until they reached a road. Making a descision, they
started walking. After what seemed like hours, they rounded a bend and
saw, to thier surprise, thier car on the side of the road. It was
still dark, but it seemed as if sunrise was near, because in the
growing light, they could see it was in fact thier rental
car. It was bizarre, it looked like it had simply been parked on the
side of the road. For how long? How long had they been gone?

The keys were still in the ignition and they climbed in with relief.
Mulder started the car and they drove coming into the town of Rachel,
Nevada, right as the sun came up. But even more surprising, the local
radio station announced that it was only the next morning. And as his
mother's favorite Celine Dion song came on, William couldn't help but
notice how appropriate it was.

"Where there was dark now there's light
where there was pain now there's joy
where there was weakness, I found my strength
all in the eyes of a boy"

That could be him, William realized.

"...I see a light in the sky
oh, it's almost blinding me
I can't believe I've been touched by an angel with love
let the rain come down and wash away my tears
let it fill my soul and drown my fears

let it shatter the wall, for a new sun
A new day, has come....."

William would have laughed at how ironic it was.

".....I see a light in your eyes,
all in the eyes of a boy...."


***************************************************************

Decmber 25, 2012

The entire Scully family plus a few additions were having the best
Christmas of thier life, especially following a week long of hiding
out in bomb shelters all throughout the neighborhood, waiting for the
invasion they had planned for for over a decade.

But it never came. True to thier word, the Council had waylaid the
Elohim's plan to take Earth and had removed the supersoldiers and all
traces of the greys from the planet. For several weeks, there were
reports of UFO's and dissapearances of high level officials, but it
had settled. On the actual date of December 22, 2012, the Scully
family had congregted in Roswell, New Mexico where it was supposed to
be somewhat safe. But the invasion never came. Bill Jr had been
merciless in his torment of Scully and Mulder, but they just laughed,
releived that Bill's ranting was all they had to fight. William would
probably have recurring nightmares all his life, and no one in the
world would ever know the battle they had fought to save the human
race. 

Word had trickled down the grapevine of Aegis, of course, and most
people now accepted the story of the Council, since the invasion had
not come, but several others were remaining vigilant, sure that the
invasion was only postponed.

But for the family who had fought it all, they finally were able to
rest, although Mulder doubted they would ever really believe it was
all over for good. William had emailed Josh but had decided not to
tell him anything. His parents hd been right, Josh didn't need the
added worry of something that might not even happen anymore. Instead,
William talked about baseball and the new Nintendo VR game due out for
Christmas.

This year, they celebrated Chirstmas like never before. Maggie Scully
had made her best dressing, Tara and Bill Jr. had done the turkey,
Charlie and his wife Stephanie had done the pies, and Scully and
Mulder had done pretty much everything else. John Doggett and Monica
Reyes and Walter Skinner had come down to join them, as well as Jimmy
and Yves. Gibson was spending Christmas with his friend Doug, but
Jeffery Spender came from next door at his brother, Mulder's,
request. He had been especially happy to hear of the diverted alien
invasion, since it meant that all of his father's treachery, including
his own disfigurement, had all been dealt with justly.

William spent the entire time challenging his cousins to rematches on
video games and enjoying being a kid for the first time in a long
time. As the family gathered around the table for Christmas dinner,
William got the best present he had ever recieved when his father
stood up.

"Everyone, I guess now is a good time to say this," he said looking
down at Scully. "I've asked Dana about sixteen times to marry me, and
on the seventeenth try, she said yes. We're going to be married this
spring."

William jumped up and cheered and jumped into his father's arms.
Maggie had jumped up and grabbed Dana in a hug. Everyone at the table
was either cheering, applauding or hugging someone. Except for Bill
Jr., who remained in his seat scowling until Tara kicked him hard in
the shins and he clapped. From that moment on, the holiday got better
and better.

Later that night, William, who was sharing a room with his cousins and
having trouble sleeping since Matthew snored, slowly crept down the
hall to his parents' room and crawled into bed with them. Both were
awake instantly, but settled down when they saw it was William.

"Have a good Christmas?" asked Mulder.W illiam nodded and snuggled
down next to his mother. She looked at Mulder with a smile.

"Should we tell him now?" she asked.

"Well, I guess we'll have to now that you've said something," quipped
Mulder.

"Tell me what?" asked William.

"Well," said Dana slowly, "You're going to be a big brother."

William sat straight up. "What?? You're gonna have another baby?"

"Hey buddy, say it a little louder, maybe your Uncle Bill down the
hall will hear you," said Mulder quietly."And yes, your mom's going to
have a baby. We didn't think she could, but then we didn't think she
could have you." Mulder ruffled his son's hair.

"That's why we're getting married in March. It's due in August," said
Dana.

William settled back down, thinking to himself, 'Wow, Uncle Bill's
gonna be pissed. This'll be great! I hope it's another boy, I can
teach him to play baseball, and me and dad can take him to Indian
guides. That's going to be one lucky kid.'

With a smile, he settled back down drifting into sleep, where he
dreamed of his sister Emily running along the beach, of grey aliens in
little jail cells, and a sunrise over a beautiful mountain landscape,
and he and his parents and a little baby walking along the beach,
following Emily's footsteps in the sand.

THE END.