Devil's Advocate (The X-Files: Origins #2)(46)



“You’re troubled by the thought of someone bending close to look into your life through the windows of your soul,” said Sunlight mildly. “It’s a common reaction, but it gets easier to accept over time. Think of it like this: if you were born into an underground society and never knew about the sun, imagine how much you would fear and distrust it upon first seeing this big, burning ball of superheated gases dominating the sky. But over time you will come to realize that its light makes all things grow, and that it warms your face, and it chases back shadows, and without it even your underground civilization would never have come into existence. The larger world is like that when we each first encounter it. Why? Because those who don’t believe in it, or don’t trust it, or don’t understand it are the ones who teach us about the world. About their limited perception of the world, that is. They think everything that makes up the world can be weighed, measured, metered, quantified, and touched.” He smiled at her, his gray eyes fixed on hers. “But we both know the world is so much bigger than that, don’t we?”

Dana picked up her cup, took an experimental micro-sip, and nodded. “I guess we do.”

A moment later Corinda came around the partition and slid in beside Sunlight. “We have so much to talk about,” she said. “In fact, tell me why the words ‘autopsy report’ keep popping into my mind.”





CHAPTER 42

The Observation Room 6:00 P.M.

Danny unlocked the observation room and reached for the light switch, then jumped and clawed for his pistol when he saw a figure standing silhouetted in front of the wall of screens.

God, was it him? Was it the monster? Was it the angel come to kill him, too?

These thoughts slashed like razors through the technician’s mind. Gerlach had shown him Polaroids of the horrors the madman had committed. The pictures were bad enough, and he never wanted to meet the killer in person. Never.

“Freeze right there!” he roared, forcing anger into his voice to overcome the fear. He held his pistol in both hands, the barrel nowhere near as steady as he wanted it to be. “Hands on your head. Do it now or I will put you down.”

The figure did not raise his hands. Instead he spoke.

“Put the gun down before I take it away and feed it to you.”

Danny’s heart jumped into a different gear.

“Gerlach…?”

The red-haired agent reached into his pocket for his packet of gum. He munched a stick and folded the silver foil very slowly and deliberately. “I won’t ask you again, kid. I don’t like people pointing guns at me.”

Gerlach was not even looking at him.

Danny lowered his weapon, but his fear diminished only slightly. Agent Gerlach was not the same kind of monster as the angel, but he was far from a normal human being. Gerlach was a product of the Montauk Project on an air base on Long Island. The overall project was run by the air force, but there were supposed to be all kinds of black budget departments buried beneath mountains of red tape, disinformation, and veils of secrecy. The scuttlebutt among the agents of the Syndicate was that Gerlach was one of several dozen men who had been taken from orphanages at age ten and then raised by scientists and a brutal cadre of trainers.

Physical torture was only part of the overall process of weeding out the weak–often fatally–and turning the strongest survivors into a kind of super soldier. Some of what went on at Montauk had leaked into the global conspiracy theory networks, which of course distorted the truth. But not as much as people outside the Syndicate might think. That Gerlach was a cold-blooded and efficient killer was obvious to anyone who knew him for more than five minutes. What was less obvious was that he seemed to know things he couldn’t know. Stuff that wasn’t in any surveillance report.

The angel had come from the Montauk Project, too, Danny knew. So there was that. As far as Danny could figure, on the other hand, only one in twenty of the children who went through Montauk lived to reach their teens. Fewer still were alive now as adults. And those who were—both teens and adults—were monsters. None similar to one another, but not one of them normal by any standard.

“You’re thinking bad thoughts,” said Gerlach from across the room.

Danny jumped and yelped. “W-what…?”

Agent Gerlach turned, and in the weak blue-white light from the TV screens, he looked like a ghoul. Like one of those flesh-eating dead things from the movies. What were they calling them now? Zombies? Sure. That fit.

“We have a long night ahead of us, kid,” said Gerlach. “Maybe you ought to go wash your face, take a leak, maybe try some deep breathing to get yourself calmed down. Put that gun away. You won’t need it. He’s not here.”

Danny looked down at the revolver that hung loosely in his hand. He eased the hammer down, engaged the safety, and slid it back into the shoulder holster.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know anyone was down here. I thought the door was locked.”

Gerlach chewed for a moment. “It was.”

Danny shook his head. “Sometimes I think you do this stuff to live up to the rumors.”

“What rumors?”

“The rumors about us. I mean, you do know what they’re calling us these days?”

“Who?”

Danny went over to the coffeemaker and began brewing a fresh pot. “You know, the idiots who write those conspiracy theory books? The ones on the lecture circuit?” He flicked the collar of his suit jacket. “They’re calling us the men in black. How about that?”

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