The journey up the river to shelter was a slow one. The wild ride down the rapids knocked the wind out of Bo and Fox, and the day in general taxed them to their limits. Both men agreed that though they wanted to make a break for the Tennessee border, they were not in any shape to make the trek tonight. Mulder knew they couldn’t spend the evening near the river’s edge. Men were probably combing the banks. He wasn’t too thrilled about sleeping in the woods either. It was Bo who came up with the idea of hiking back up to the Beaudry’s house. The memory of the door under the bed still followed him, and a nagging hunch told him that safe haven could be found under the floorboards.

Bo took the lead and guided Mulder through the trees. Their excursion turned out to be a rather quiet one. The cars, helicopters, and roaming men had long since evacuated the place, and only the silence of the night remained. For Bo, the woods were a little too quiet. The regular sounds of frogs and crickets chirping in the night were absent. The occasional silhouette of a bat or owl that usually crossed the woodland paths did not appear at all. Everything was wrong. Even the insects were missing.

Mulder’s shoulder throbbed, and his shirt was wet with blood. He almost voiced a complaint about his wound but kept his mouth shut at the sight of his guide. The symptoms of a cold that bordered on pneumonia lingered over Bo. The young man shivered at the cold touch of a fever, and though the nosebleed stopped, cough and congestion took its place. He was in bad shape and getting worse with time. Mulder wondered if he would make it to the hiding place.

“So,” Bo said trying to get his mind off of how lousy he was feeling, “when’s the calvary coming?”

“Unfortunately, I’m it.” Mulder mumbled.

Bo stopped and gave Fox a you’ve got to be kidding look. Mulder shrugged.

“I’m on vacation. Nobody at work knows I’m here.”

“You mean we’re on our own?” Bo asked softly, and Mulder reluctantly nodded. The young farmer closed his eyes and rubbed them.

“Well,” he said trying to stifle his disappointment, “I guess the good news is it can’t get much worse.”

“One would hope,” Mulder replied. “How much farther?”

“Just around this bend.”

They rounded a corner, made their way passed a curtain of trees, and wandered into a clearing marking the border of the Beaudry’s farmland. The small wooden house stood alone in the meadow. The doors to the empty pig pen and chicken coop swayed in the breeze. Though a gunfight had just taken place that afternoon, the place looked like it was abandoned years ago.

The two men took a quick look around and made sure that the area was empty. They quickly walked across the clearing into the house. Bo saw that the soldiers trashed everything inside. He stepped over broken glass and furniture and led Mulder to the bedroom area. He pointed to the slim, metal handle on the floor beneath the bed.

“It’s here.”

Mulder went down on his haunches and pulled the handle. When he found out it was locked, he took the magnum out from his holster.

“Step back,” he said.

He fired a shot into the keyhole, and the metal shattered. He pushed the bed aside and pulled the door open. The action tripped a sensor, and the lights to the basement went on. Then, the sound of dogs barking drifted from the hole. Bo and Fox gave each other a confused look. A flight of stairs led to the bottom, and the two men walked down the narrow, winding case to a dirt floor where they were greeted with moonshine equipment and a kennel containing four battered looking coonhounds.

“Hey there!” Bo happily greeted the animals. He was elated to see a living creature. For a while, he thought he was the last Hazzard resident alive. The dogs were also happy to see the men. They wagged their tails, whimpered, and jumped up and down behind their cage. Bo walked over to them and petted their heads through the bars.

“I always knew the Beaudries were a bunch of losers. But this makes them even worse than pond scum.”

“What is it?” Mulder asked.

The young farmer fell into a coughing spell before he could answer. “The dogs,” he finally said. “You see how they’re scarred up? The Beaudry’s are trying to teach them how to fight animals in a ring.”

His voice trailed off. Worn out by the fever, he made his way to the corner and sat down. He cradled his head trying to stave off the dizziness that combined with his headache. Mulder walked over to him and laid his hand on his forehead.

“You’re burning up.”

“I’ll be all right,” Bo quietly assured him. “I just need to…It’s just a cold. It’ll blow over.”

Mulder stood up anxious with concern. He wasn’t totally sure before, but now, after watching the guy, he knew without a doubt that this was the plague he saw back in Atlanta. The questions flew. How did this guy contract the disease? Why were men chasing him without biohazard suits? Was he contagious?

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Bo Duke. And yours?”

“Fox Mulder.”

Bo forced a smile. “Please ta meet you, Fox. By the way, you wouldn’t happen to have any idea what the blazes is going on here, would ya?”

Fox sighed and wearily sat on the floor across from the farmer. “I have a partial explanation, but let’s start with you first. You tell me your story, and I’ll tell you mine.”

Bo took a deep breath and began.

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

“We have a very serious problem.”

Alex Krycek stood at the pulpit in front of the Hazzard church looking below at General Lewinski. Around the general, the paper pushers of the operation rushed around the building like fleas on steroids. Maps, records, and any information that anyone thought would help the current situation were dug up, copied, and spread. Lewinski rolled his cigar between his fingers as he paced up and down the hard floor. He was too nervous to smoke. He was too nervous to sit. He was almost too nervous to hear Alex out.

After the explosion, Krycek sent his men back to surrounding the boundaries of Hazzard. He beefed up security along the Tennessee and Chickasaw borders. He placed units along the bank of the river and told them to patrol the body of water from top to bottom. He prepared his helicopters for a massive search operation one hour before dawn. What started out as annoying detail work turned into a top priority crisis. With the appearance of Fox Mulder, the rules had changed. With Mulder came the FBI, with the FBI came other law enforcers, with law enforcers came politics, and with other politicians came powerful enemies. For the first time since this whole operation began, Krycek could see that his carefully woven plan was unraveling.

“Who is this runner?” he asked Lewinski. “How did our men miss him in the midnight sweep?”

Lewinski trudged to one of the nearby pews and threw himself in exasperation on the seat. “I don’t know. Private Ryan counted everyone. I myself personally accompanied the men! Maybe he’s not a Hazzard resident.”

“Impossible!” Krycek snapped. He was getting angry at the flagrant incompetence of the men. “You can’t be that stupid, General! That boy has been leading us by the nose all day long! He knew about the forest traps; he knew about the still; he knew exactly how to make our men look like a bunch of blundering idiots, and he did it all while sick with the plague!”

“We checked everything, Alex! We went through all the rooms in the houses. We checked the backyards, the cars, the outhouses even! Either he is an outsider or he was camping in the woods because the only way anyone in this unit could have missed him is if he spent the night on the roof of a barn! And that is highly unlikely!”

Krycek glared at the smart remark. “General, my rank still surpasses yours. I am still in command, and I can still dish out discipline as I see fit. You shoot your mouth off again, and I’ll have you tarred and feathered in front of your men!”

Lewinski scowled at Krycek but didn’t say a word. Hesitantly, he lowered his eyes acquiescing to the young commander’s authority, but he also bit into his cigar and lit it. Krycek ignored the disrespectful act. He stepped off the podium and paced.

“The way I see it,” Krycek softly remarked, “our rabbit is the wild card and our most immediate threat.”

Lewinski took a puff. “How do you figure?” he asked with drab curiosity still angry at Krycek’s outburst.

The young commander sat on the steps and stroked his chin staring blankly at the floor. “I know Fox Mulder,” he said with reminiscent disgust. “He’s a nagging pain in the rear when it comes to X-file investigations in the city, but he’s a fish out of water in the woods. His idea of roughing it is to go a week without STAR TREK and the Internet. If he were alone, our men would have had him by now. It is the rabbit who is helping him get past our soldiers undetected.”

He sighed and wearily rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know how Fox Mulder found out about this operation so quick. We’ve only been here for twenty-four hours! Mulder is good, but he’s not that fast! If the rabbit takes him passed the Hazzard border, you and I will be spending a lot of time in Congress.”

“You said the rabbit is sick,” Lewinski replied.

“But HOW sick? Symptoms of the plague differ from subject to subject. Sometimes it takes a week, and sometimes it takes a day for it to eat a man inside out. Our rabbit might still have legs. So, the million dollar question still is: who is the rabbit?”

“I know, sir!”

Private Ryan appeared from the back end of the church. The disheveled young man ran to Krycek with two files and a walkie-talkie gripped tightly in his hand. He saluted both Alex and Lewinski. The general could see by the look on the private’s face and by the crumpled uniform that he found something troubling. Krycek saluted back, and the soldier stood ill at ease.

“What is it?” Krycek asked getting up on his feet.

“Sir, I finished my face to face verification of the Hazzard population,” Ryan said swallowing hard. “Our rabbit is a native of Hazzard.”

He handed one of the manila folders over. Krycek took it and quickly flipped through a stack of papers carrying various pictures and police reports.

“He’s a bit of a troublemaker,” Ryan continued. “Has a huge police record of speeding and parking violations. His earlier record shows that he transported illegal liquor across county lines. He’s still serving probation for that particular offense. His name is Beauregard Duke, and he lives with an uncle and two other cousins on a farm.”

Krycek tossed the folder to Lewinski. The general grabbed it with both hands and quickly scanned through the information. Alex shook his head, “Nothing too interesting. Though we can use the family as bait.”

“But sir, he is not the one I’m worried about.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed. Ryan took a deep breath and went on. “The count I made of the Hazzard population was correct. This Duke guy was missing, but there was a woman in the Hazzard Hotel who checked in from out of town. We…I counted her as a native. She made the numbers equal out. I’m sorry, sir. The mistake is mine.”

Krycek cocked his head, “Who is this woman?”

Ryan handed over the second manila folder. Krycek flipped the front cover open, and Dana Scully’s picture flashed from the page. Alex’s face dropped. He didn’t say a word.  His eyes clouded over with blank shock. Lewinski saw his commander’s face, and he immediately knew something was very wrong. He quickly forgot his tiff with the man and pulled the cigar out of his mouth. He jumped from the pew and ran to Alex’s side looking over his shoulder at the picture of the girl in the folder.

“Who is she, Alex?”

Krycek slowly closed the folder, walked to the pew, and shakily sat down.

“Alex?”

“Private Ryan,” Krycek called in a tone that was barely audible.

The soldier stood at attention. “Yes, sir?”

In one quick motion, Krycek ripped his gun from the inside of his suit, aimed, and shot Ryan in the chest. Lewinski and the other roaming soldiers jumped at the sound of the gun blast. Ryan fell to the ground bleeding all over the slick floor. He was dead the second he hit the tiles.

 Lewinski and the men didn’t move. They didn’t even say a word. Alex turned his back to the dead body. He slowly holstered his gun oblivious to the dozen eyes staring at him in stunned, outright fear.

“General Lewinski!”

Lewinski swallowed hard. “Yes?” he asked hesitantly.

“Give me a secure line to the president. And Lewinski? Tell your men I don’t want anymore mistakes!”
  ************************************************************************

Fox Mulder spent his entire life searching for the truth. It was his obsession. Though many of his coworkers believed that he took his quest for truth too far, Mulder never changed his tactics in the face of their criticisms, and he passionately pursued every avenue that truth took him down. He did so because to Mulder, a life lived in the shadow of a lie was no life at all. So, when he told Bo what he knew, he laid out the truth as plain and as blunt as possible. He hid nothing even though tact might have called to omit certain details in order to spare the victim’s feelings.

He explained about THEM and gave a short history lesson on the various times that he and THEY locked horns. He explained about the Ebola breakout on the news, the conspiracy theories on the web, and then, gently, he described the disease he saw at the Atlanta center. He held nothing back. He talked about Bobby Darnell, the animals, and how local officials no longer had control over the crisis. When he was done, he ended his account with the statement that though he wasn’t a doctor, he believed that Bo, his family, Dana Scully, and everyone else in Hazzard were intentionally infected with the deadly virus and that the helicopters used the yellow dust which knocked Bo unconscious on the roof to spread the disease.

Bo did not say a word. He didn’t have to. Mulder stared into blue eyes that were pale with fear, and he knew that the young man sitting across from him was more terrified than he had ever been in his life. For a long time afterward, Bo simply stared at the ground lost in thought. Mulder let the silence linger on for an uncomfortable spell not sure what to say.

“I’m sorry,” Fox finally said softly.

The young farmer broke his gaze from the floor. He trembled slightly, this time not from fever. “Is there a cure?”

“I don’t know.”

Bo worriedly ran his fingers through his damp blonde hair. “How much time do I have?” he asked softly.

“Bo, I’m not a doctor. I…”

“Please?” the young farmer pleaded. “Don’t leave me up in the air like this. What’s your best guess?”

Fox shook his head. “All the animals at the center in Atlanta are dead.”

Bo clambered to his feet and paced. He suddenly felt claustrophobic in the windowless basement. The cellar reminded him of a tomb.

“My uncle is elderly,” he said shakily. Tears welled in his eyes, and he fought to keep them from dropping. “He’s not as healthy as he was when…he can’t take…and my cousins, Luke and Daisy…they’ve never been sick like…”

The farmer’s stomach churned as he thought about what the soldiers were doing to the people he loved and about what was going to happen to him. Mulder’s mind also swam with visions of Scully strapped to a bed with men dripping poison into her bloodstream. It was the cancer nightmare all over again. The agent looked at the floor and scribbled in the dirt.

“This is the third time my partner has been used as a biological guinea pig. I swore to myself I’d never let anyone hurt her that way again. Now I find out I’m too late…as always.” He shook his head. “I’m failing,” he whispered distantly to himself.

“This happened before!” Bo asked with disbelief. “They’ve done these things to people before!”

Mulder quietly nodded.

“How many times?”

“Many.”

“And these people are still walking around free!”

Mulder scratched his chin. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, it does more than just suck!” Bo paced angrily in front Fox. “We have to stop them! There must be someone you know who can call in the marines or the navy or somethin’!”
 
Mulder nodded. “Actually, if we can make a break into Tennessee, I can get on the phone to my boss.”

“And he’ll call in the marines?”

Fox shrugged. “Hopefully.”

“Hopefully! What do you mean hopefully? You’re the FBI!” Bo yelled.

“Don’t you understand?” Mulder asked in a tone filled with sympathy and disillusion. “They’re powerful people, Bo. I have been hunting THEM for years, but they have their fingers in high, powerful places. My hands and my partner’s hands are always tied. We are talking about major political influence! I have reason to believe our president is in collusion with this conspiracy!”

“The pres…” Bo felt his legs grow unsteady, and he sat down. He stared blankly at the floor. “These people just walked into town and took everyone! The young and the old! They took families and children! They took my family! And they pumped us full of poison to watch us die like lab rats in some stupid experiment!”

“There’s only so much me and my people can do,” Mulder responded in an almost helpless demeanor.

Bo’s eyes glazed over with confusion. “Why? Why are they doing this to us?”

Mulder shook his head. “Because they can,” he said softly.

The farmer stood up again and nervously paced while he quietly wrestled with his thoughts. Fox watched him from the floor, then suddenly jerked. “Bo…your nose.”

Bo wiped his upper lip and found the stain of fresh blood on his hand. He stared at it in silent apprehension.

“I’ll get some ice and a towel,” Mulder stated, and he went to his feet and jogged up the stairs.

Bo rubbed the fresh blood between his fingers then slowly walked to the dog pen and slid to the floor in the corner. The dogs whimpered and sniffed around him sensing that something was wrong. He petted them through the cage trying to calm them and himself. The blood was an omen, a sign of things to come. The night ahead was going to be a long one, and the young farmer wondered, really wondered, if he would live long enough to see the dawn.

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

President Bill Simpleton sat uneasily in the chair of the Oval Office. Outside the door, secret service men stood guard. Security roamed the outer borders of the lawn, and police cars patrolled the sleepy night streets. Security cameras scanned the hallway while computer professionals kept a vigilant eye on all surveillance technology. As always, people neurotically guarded the safety of the president. But still, even with all the money and men at his disposal, Simpleton never felt more vulnerable than he did right now.

The shapeshifter watched him from the back of the room. He still kept his middle aged man façade and looked as fresh as he did earlier that morning. Though it was after midnight, the alien showed no signs of weariness. Not a hair was out of place; not one wrinkle rested on his suit. Once again, Simpleton was alone with him in the room, and it was eerie.

The president smiled and joked trying desperately to relieve the tension in the air. The alien, however, was not amused. He never was. Simpleton undid his necktie suddenly feeling warm.

“I’m sorry I called you in so late,” he said. “The situation in Hazzard has become …complicated.”

The creature cocked its head. “How so?”

Simpleton uneasily sat upright in his chair. “There has been an accidental switch in product. Military people. You know how they are: all guns no brains.” He smiled at his attempt at lightheartedness, but the creature was not amused. The president nervously cleared his throat. “A young man, one of the farmers, escaped the midnight sweep, and a…um…tourist was mistakenly taken in his place. The escapee has been on the run all day. Our people have not been able to catch him.”

The alien frowned. “Who is this woman?”

“Federal agent Dana Scully.”

A curious, almost amusing look of recognition shined on the alien’s face. “Dana Scully! Will wonders never cease? Isn’t she the partner of…”

“Federal agent Fox Mulder,” Simpleton replied with a growl.

“The head of the X-files?”

“The same. He went to Georgia looking for his partner. He found the farmer instead, and the two are hiding in the Hazzard woods.”

The alien nodded in reflection. “Yes, I’ve heard of Mr. Mulder and Ms. Scully. They are like gum on shoe to the Secret Society. Their reputation for tenacity precedes them.” It stared at the president. “You fear them,” he said suddenly.

Simpleton jumped in his chair. He laughed trying to hide how deeply the sentence struck a cord. “No! Of course not!”

The alien cracked a cold grin. “You look afraid.”

“Don’t mistake caution of fear.” Simpleton replied sternly. The president lost his humor and was now struggling to keep civil. “I can get rid of Mulder any time I want, but to kill him and his partner outright would make them martyrs. The FBI would be all over me! I have enough scandals to deal with. The Monica Bareallski mess and the Chinese money laundering investigation…”

“It’s making you look like a fool,” the creature finished.

“You promised you would help me!” the president said through clenched teeth.

“And I will.”

The creature walked around the desk keeping one eye on the president and one on the window. Simpleton leaned back in his chair trying to regain his composure.

“I want Fox Mulder and Dana Scully,” the creature said bluntly. “And I want them alive. I will add them to the other test subjects from Hazzard.”

Simpleton sighed in exasperation. “The FBI will have my butt! Haven’t you heard what I said? You will make them martyrs, and the result will be a holy war!”

“The FBI will never know they’re gone! There are ways to cover up a kidnapping,” the creature said circling the desk like a vulture. “You’re in a box, Bill. You can’t commit anymore men or machines to Georgia because Congress and Ken Stupidstar are watching everything you do. You can’t get any supplies from the Secret Society because your scandals have put you on the front page of every newspaper in the world! If you get exposed, the Society could also get exposed. And the people you have down there who are trying to take care of damage control are all obviously too incompetent to handle the situation.”

“What do you want?” the president asked with disgusted resignation.

The creature smiled. “I want full control of the hunt. Tell your people to stand down. Tell them to keep their soldiers on the borders. I and my people will go to Hazzard and take over, and I want you to tag along.”

The president gave him a suspicious glare. “I have work to do here.”

“I know that, Bill. But I want you with me. We are partners, remember? We do this together.”

Bill didn’t reply.

“Come on, Mr. President,” the creature said smiling. “Don’t you trust me? I promise. You’ll be back in time for dinner.”

Simpleton reluctantly sighed. “Very well,” he mumbled.

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

When the disease inevitably grew to full strength, Mulder watched Bo deteriorate hour by hour. It was a sobering sight. He decided to stay under the floorboards for the night. Krycek could call for a sweep at any time, and for him and his new patient, staying hidden was their best defense. As for the rest, he decided to make the night pass as comfortably as possible for the young farmer.

By two in the morning, Bo’s fever raged. Mulder paced around the cellar going out of his mind. He had just let the dogs out of the house. They were in the way, and after he let them go, the pack happily lopped off into the woods ecstatic to be outside. He returned to the basement to find Bo sitting near the corner of the wall shivering and sweating. Bo didn’t know if he was hot or cold anymore. He reached into his back pocket for more pills but found it empty. The river must have pulled the cardboard boxes out of his back pocket.

“Oh man,” he whispered in disappointment.

“What is it?” Mulder asked.

“I…I lost the aspirin bottle.” Bo said shakily.

Mulder sighed, “Your fever?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me see if I can bring it down.”

Mulder jogged up the stairs and headed for the kitchen. He opened the freezer and found a bucket of ice. He dumped the cubes and wrapped them in towels that he found in a drawer. He brought them back to the cellar and laid his homemade icepacks on Bo’s forehead, chest, and stomach. The young man flinched at the uncomfortable cold. He was already shivering and having ice cubes placed on his stomach made his teeth chatter.

“Sorry,” Fox said, “but it’s for your own good.”

The farmer gave a weak smile, “Yes Dad,” he joked.

At three thirty in the morning, the cough that plagued Bo throughout the day grew violent. His spasms now lasted a good five to ten minutes. He curled up in a ball on the ground unable to sit upright.  His diaphragm ached from his heaving. A wicked headache pounded him into exhaustion, and he wanted more than anything to go to sleep and slip into blissful, painless unconsciousness. But, after dozing off for a just a few minutes, a spasm of coughs would hit and wake him right back up. Because this dizzying ride kept him wakeful and immobile, Bo had way too much time on his hands to think and worry. He worried desperately about his family. He also worried about Fox. The federal agent sat next to him sometimes dozing, sometimes watching. Mulder left his side only to get towels and water from the fridge. The young farmer wondered if his disease could be caught like a cold. The last thing he wanted to do was to transfer this bug to his friend.

By four thirty, Bo coughed up blood, and his nose bled frequently. Mulder looked on and was beside himself. He was frustrated with his own inactivity. He looked around to see if there was anything to doctor the guy with. He didn’t know what to do, and after a while, he resigned himself to the fact that there was really nothing he could do.

 Bo coughed up more blood, and Mulder jogged up the stairs. He grabbed a large stack of towels and a cold pitcher of water from the refrigerator. He went back to the basement and knelt by Bo’s side. He poured some cold water on the towel, and tried to place the compress on his patient’s head, but the farmer pushed his hand away.

“Fox, you need to get away from me,” Bo said weakly. He looked up at Mulder, and Fox could see dark circles under his fever glazed eyes. “I’m bleeding. You might catch what I’ve got. You’ll get sick.”

Fox shook his head. “If you’re contagious, I’ve already got what you have. You gave me mouth to mouth resuscitation at the riverbank, remember?”

A look of horror overshadowed Bo’s features. “Oh God, Fox! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

“Don’t be. You saved my life. Let’s not let imaginations run away with us. Okay? Let’s just concentrate on getting through the night.”

Bo closed his eyes and laid his head back on the ground, “At first, I was really upset...”

Mulder put the towel on his forehead. “What were you upset about?”

“I was upset that I wouldn’t get to see my family again. But then I started thinkin’, if you’re right, and we’re all sick like this, then what’s going on right now is best ‘cause I couldn’t bear to see my uncle and cousins suffer like this.”

Mulder didn’t answer. Suddenly, Bo gritted his teeth and clenched. His face contorted with pain, and he breathed hard and fast. He wrapped his arms around his abdomen as a sharp pain shot from the pit of his stomach to his back. Then, his body suddenly went limp and collapsed on the dirt floor. He was out cold. Fox quickly turned him on his back and checked his vitals. He was still breathing. The agent took the young man’s pulse on the side of his neck and felt it beat against his fingertips. He smiled with relief. The farmer was still alive. But for how long?

It was suddenly all too much for him. Everything that happened today, Scully, Krycek, the farmer, the disease, it was all crushing him. He looked around the dark, windowless cellar and felt an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia. He had to get out. He bolted for the stairs, flipped the door open, rushed out of the house and came to a quick stop in the night air. He breathed a sigh of relief. The cool wind against his face and the wide open space felt good but did not ease his mind. This perceived freedom was all an illusion, and he knew it. Mulder was in the middle of a trap, and he had no clue how to get out of this box.

He stared aimlessly into the night wishing that morning would come and that he would wake up to find that this was all a bad dream. In the middle of the darkness, on the edge of the moonlit lawn, Mulder’s mind recounted all the things that happened that day; then, his thoughts stopped at the image of Dana. THEY took her away from him again, and he couldn’t fight back. Maybe the young farmer was right. Maybe it was better this way. The shadow organization never showed mercy to their victims, and Mulder couldn’t bear to watch Scully suffer the way Bo Duke had.

And in this callous manipulation and maltreatment of human life, Mulder saw the trademark of the New World Order. The shadow organization wanted to build a one world government where the powerful tyrannically ruled over the weak; where human life was void of integrity and dignity; where people could be used up and thrown away all for the sake of science, technology, and convenience. Fox closed his eyes and imagined Scully’s face in his head. Tears rolled down his cheek at her picture, and he cried in anger and swore revenge.

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

Commander Sean Charvez had a hard time sleeping that night. He closed his eyes, tossed, turned, and even took a sleeping pill, but in the end, none of his insomnia remedies worked. His mind couldn’t stop thinking about everything that happened the day before, and he came to the conclusion that guilt was the culprit keeping him awake.

He felt bad about doing what he did. When the midnight sweep took place and everyone in Hazzard was dragged unconscious out of their homes and cars, Charvez had a hard time even watching the forced exodus. When they sent him after Beauregard Duke, he didn’t like the idea of going after a civilian. But then again, he was a soldier. His job was to obey orders whether he agreed with his superiors or not. But now, after all the things that happened today, the distaste he had for this whole conspiracy turned nauseating. Charvez wondered if his life, the lives of his men, and the lives of the people they took were worth the political games his commanders played. He was afraid to answer his own question. Sean Charvez was afraid of the truth.

When he accepted his mission, he did so out of desperation. He already served five years of a fifteen year term in a military prison. When General Lewinski came to him a month ago promising him freedom and rank if he agreed to join the black ops, he was hesitant. Too many times he had seen too many people die for the sake of greed and stupidity. Then, Lewinski reminded him of his wife and daughter. The general went on to rub salt in his wound by recalling everything Charvez had missed as a new father: his child’s first word, his child’s first step. Now, she was attending kindergarten. Were his honorable ideals worth ten more years in prison? Within the hour, Charvez signed on and agreed to serve under Alex Krycek.

The commander knew he had the raw end of the deal when he saw Hazzard evacuated. But when President Bill Simpleton and a strange, middle aged man appeared around three in the morning from a special plane, Sean Charvez realized that he had made a deal with the devil himself.

The motley crew was not many in number. There was the President and his four secret service bodyguards, the middle aged man who looked like a retarded door-to-door salesman, and five other people carrying long metal poles with hi tech sensors screwed on the bottom.

“Ain’t technology wonderful?” one of the paper pushing soldiers remarked to him.

“What do you mean?” Charvez asked.

“Them poles! New, black ops stuff. The buzz is those doohickies will find our runners by tomorrow morning.”

Charvez stood upright. “How?”

“Their kinda like dogs,” the soldier replied. “You see, you and I shed skin cells all the time. It’s just the way our bodies work. And that’s how dogs track you down. They sniff the skin that flakes off of you when you run. But, dogs can only do so much. If the residue gets too thin or if it gets washed away, dogs can’t track you no more. That machine their carrying, on the other hand, is a lot more sensitive than a dog’s nose. If there is any residue on the ground, ANY, it’ll find it. We’ll have our runners by dawn.”

And from that moment on, Charvez found it impossible to sleep. He thought about Bo Duke and about how he saved him from the quicksand. He thought about the people he took, simple salt of the earth people, and he wondered if the price he paid for his freedom was too high.

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

Life sucks when you’re at the bottom of the food chain. Alex Krycek understood this better than anyone else in the organization. Working in the Secret Society was like living in a jungle. People fought all the time for power and control. The strong swallowed the weak; the intelligent enslaved the dumb; predators hunted prey. Krycek had seen both sides of this reality. He crawled and clawed his way from being a prisoner to being an employee to being a leader in this powerful, secret world. And now, everything he worked so hard for was about to vanish in a matter of minutes.

A gut feeling told him that he was in trouble the second the White House plane touched down in front of the Hazzard church carrying the president and the extraterrestrial being. When the two VIPs disembarked, Krycek knew that his hunch was right. The guests’ faces broadcasted their intentions. The X-file scandal had hit home, and people were looking for someone to blame and crucify…him.

He lead his esteemed visitors to the back of the church and into a private room. Before he even had a chance to offer them anything to eat or drink, the shapeshifter demanded that he sit down and give an account of everything that happened. It was at that exact second that Alex Krycek lost control to everything.

“Mr. Krycek,” the extraterrestrial said, “when I came here, I was expecting at least an inventive excuse if not a valid one!”

Krycek squirmed uneasily in his seat. “This is just a small setback gentlemen. I assure you, I do have plans that will without doubt…”

“Shut up.”

The alien stood up and walked towards Krycek, and the young spy cringed at his approach.

“I’m taking over this operation. You are relieved and will be transferred this night onto transportation watch. You will ensure the safe delivery of the Hazzard test subjects to my ship.”

Alex stared at the creature, his eyes wide like dish plates. “What?” he asked almost inaudibly.

“You heard him,” Bill Simpleton replied.

“No!” Krycek jumped out of his seat. “You can’t do this! You can’t!”

“I can, and I am doing this, Mr. Krycek!” the creature snapped. “You failed and you’re through. Accept it.”

“NO!” Alex yelled angrily.

He rushed at the alien and grabbed him by the sleeve of his suit. “I can fix this! Give me more time! I know Fox Mulder! I know how he thinks! I can catch him and the hick if you just give me one more day!”

The shapeshifter’s hand shot out from his side and grabbed Alex by the throat. Krycek fell to the floor gagging for air. The creature squeezed mercilessly sending him to the brink of blacking out.

“Don’t ever approach me like that again!” the alien said slowly. Alex desperately clawed at his sleeve while voiceless lips pleaded for mercy. "It’s over, Alex! Accept it!”

He let go, and Krycek collapsed to the floor sucking wind and coughing. The creature turned back towards the president oblivious to Krycek’s convulsions.

“We start hunting at dawn.”

And with that, the two men turned, walked out the door and left Alex alone on the floor. Krycek stayed there a long time trembling violently, afraid to even stand up. It was all gone. The prestige, the power, a lifetime of work came and left like a puff of smoke on a windy day. He was once again the simple errand boy cringing in a dark alley hiding from enemies more powerful than him. And he would do what they wanted, for in the end, THEY were everywhere. They heard and saw everyone and everything. There were no more places to run away to, no more places to hide, and from experience, Alex knew that defiance was useless.
 
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It was the sound of scraping metal that woke him from his sleep, putting him on the edge of consciousness. When Fox Mulder heard the scratching metal sound again, he suddenly remembered where he was and almost jumped to the ceiling. He sat up from the old, beaten up couch in the living room and realized to his surprise that he dozed off. Stupid! Stupid thing to do! He heard movement in the kitchen and knew someone else was in the house with him.

He pulled his magnum from the inside of his jacket and rolled to the floor. He kept low to the ground and dodged behind various furniture pieces as he made his way to the source of the noise. He looked down the hallway and out the windows but didn’t see signs of troops. He rushed to a corner staying close to the carpet, peered around the wall into the kitchen and saw a man hovering over the stove.

“FBI! PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!”

Bo Duke jumped at the Mulder’s voice, dropped a spatula on the floor, and flung his hands into the air. Mulder lowered his gun.

“Bo?”

“Fox?”

The two men looked at each other in wild-eyed surprise. The four coon hounds lying on the floor next to him sensed his panic and trotted around him sniffing and barking. Bo pushed them gently away with his foot.

“Dang it, Fox! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

Mulder’s mouth hung open. “You’re…you’re…you’re alive!”

Bo smiled, “Last I looked.”

Mulder holstered his gun. “How do you feel?” he asked.

He could see that the young farmer was as pale as a sheet and a little unsteady in his movements. Bo picked up his spatula from the floor and shrugged. He faced the wood burning oven which had a blazing fire in its hearth and continued cooking breakfast on the frying pan.

“I’m still breathing. My heart’s still beatin’. I suppose that’s a good sign.”

“Do you have any pain?”

“No.”

Mulder grinned, “You might have beaten this thing!”

Bo shook his head. “…I don’t think so,” he said softly.

He snuffed out the fire and pulled the pan from the stove. Beside him stood a round, wooden kitchen table with dishware for two. He laid the food in the middle of empty dishes and glasses and threw some hot meat scraps to the dogs.

“I have no idea what’s going on with me,” he said apprehensively.

“What do you mean?” Mulder asked.

Bo took off his oven mitts and rolled his sleeve up. There, under the cloth, Mulder saw proof that the disease was still running its course. Black bumps that were the size of a quarter covered the young farmer’s fingers, wrist and arms. They were smooth in texture, and except for their black color, Fox swore that they kind of looked like chicken pox.

“What do you think it is?” Bo asked.

Mulder scratched his chin hesitant to answer the question. “Is it spreading?”

The farmer nodded and nervously pulled his sleeve back down. “Fox, I know you ain’t a doctor or any kind of health specialist, but I have to know. I have to. What do you think is happening?”

Mulder pulled up a chair from the kitchen table and wearily sat down. The dogs finished their scraps from the floor and crowded around the agent begging for more food from the table. Mulder patted their heads and gently pushed them away.

“Have you ever heard of Anthrax?” he finally asked.

Bo shook his head. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear this.

“Anthrax is a manmade disease. The military uses it for biological warfare. What makes it such a killer is its symptoms. If you catch it early enough and supply large doses of antibiotics, you’ll survive. But, people who get infected with the disease first think that they’ve got a common cold. They suffer from runny nose, fever, kind of like what you went through yesterday. Then, just when they think something is really wrong, they feel better. They figure that they’re shaking the cold off when in reality, the disease is proliferating, and then…”

“And then it comes back and kills them,” Bo finished with a distant tone.

Mulder glanced up at him and saw the look of exhaustion that came from a feeling of futility. “I’m not a doctor. I don’t know what you have, and I don’t know what this disease was engineered to do. I’m just guessing. You might have beaten this thing.”

Bo smiled and nodded even though he didn’t believe a word of the optimistic statement, and in reality, Fox didn’t believe it either. The farmer went back to tending the table and tried to distract himself from the flurry of doomsday thoughts that swam through his head. His hands trembled slightly as he worked betraying the apprehension that lay just below his calm exterior.

“Them dogs were lucky,” Bo said trying to change the somber mood.

Mulder nodded. “They were under the floorboards. I guess the yellow powder didn’t get to them.”

“Guess so,” Bo replied sitting down. “By the way, how’s your shoulder?”

“My what?”

“Your gunshot wound?”

“Oh,” Mulder rubbed his injury feeling the homemade bandage of towels and strings that he wrapped around it the night before. “It only hurts when I lift. The bullet didn’t go deep. Hey, you know what? I didn’t really see a bathroom anywhere in this house.”

Bo grinned. “There’s an outhouse in the back.”

“An outhouse!”

The farmer nodded, and Mulder cringed. He remembered the narrow, wooden shanty in the backyard, and his skin crawled as he thought about what the inside could look like.

“What about running water?” he asked, almost hesitant to hear the answer.

“There’s a well outside.”

“A well!” Mulder balked in disbelief. “What is this? I feel like I’m trapped in a DOC QUINN episode!”

“Please,” Bo said grimacing. “I can’t stand that show.”

He picked up the spatula ready to serve breakfast then hesitated. “Fox,” he asked softly, “what are we going to do about our friends and families?”

For a few seconds, Mulder didn’t respond. He didn’t have an answer, and he really didn’t know what to say. “I guess we have to stick to the original plan. We’ll wait for dusk, sneak across the border, and call for help. I don’t think there’s anything else we can do.”

Bo silently nodded. He turned his attention back to breakfast and scooped a large portion of his dish onto Fox’s plate. Mulder picked up his fork ready to dig in, but stopped at the sight of the strange looking food.

“What is this?”

“Pickled pigs feet,” Bo replied. “I cooked it just to make sure its edible. You always need to be careful with the Beaudry clan.”

Fox dropped his fork as his face winced with disgust.

“Hey, look. It’s the only thing here. It’s either this or dog food.”

“What’s the difference?”
 
Bo gave him a give me a break look, and Mulder pushed away from the table.

“Look, I mean no disrespect to the cook, but I can’t eat this. There’s gotta be something else.”

“There’s a McDonalds about twenty miles down the road across the Tennessee border,” Bo joked.

“Come on.”

“Fine. There’s a pond just little ways to the south. It’s usually a good catfish hole, but the woods ain’t a safe place to be wondering around in.”

Mulder stood up. “It’s not anymore safer in here. I saw some fishing gear in the cellar. Tell you what. I also saw a flare gun downstairs. If you run into trouble, shoot it off and run for the hills. I’ll see it, and we can meet...”

“At the fishing hole?” Bo asked.

“Yeah, at the fishing hole.”

Bo nodded. “Be home by dusk. And also, I didn’t get to tell ya last night, but thanks.”

“For what?”

“For watching over me when I was sick.”

Mulder shrugged, “I didn’t do much.”

Bo smiled. “You were there,” he said sincerely.

Mulder saw deep gratitude on the young farmer’s face, and he nodded quietly.

“You’re welcome,” he finally said. And with that, the lawman jogged out of the room.
 
 

Soon after Mulder left, Bo went to the couch in the living room. He held the flares which Fox retrieved from the cellar and for caution’s sake placed them under the leather cushions. Then, he sat down and laid his head back. He was both uptight and exhausted. The last time he felt this tired, he spent the day in the fields hand harvesting crop in the middle of a heat wave. With the thought of that, he glanced down at his hands and stared at the strange pox marks. The splotches were spreading fast. When he woke up at dawn, the black circles were only on his fingers. Now, they were up to his elbow. Where would they be by nightfall, and what other symptoms would follow it? He remembered the pain last night, pain so excruciating he passed out. No, you shouldn’t think about that. He shook his head chasing his thoughts away. He tried not to think about disease. In fact, he tried not to think at all.

Everything was happening so fast. Bo felt like he was walking through a dream ~ or rather ~ a nightmare. A little over a day ago, the young farmer was enjoying dinner with his family and waiting for a hot date. Now, he was in war with the Illuminati’s army, the United States government, and a disease that dealt him one surprise blow after another. He couldn’t even think about what surprises waited in store for him tomorrow, or even if there would be a tomorrow for him. No, don’t let your imagination run away with you. Just try not to think at all. He closed his eyes, and with great difficulty, blocked out the swirling thoughts in his head.

Then, without him even knowing it, he dozed off a few seconds later and fell into a deep sleep. He probably would have slept till nightfall had not someone shoved him in the shoulder.

He groggily opened his eyes expecting to see Mulder. Instead, he saw the barrel of a machine gun nudged against his face. Bo sprung upright at the sight. He coiled away from the weapon and was about to make a dash for the door when three men jumped on him and threw him to the floor. Bo looked around the room and saw close to a dozen soldiers standing around him with machine guns. He struggled to get to his feet, but more men tackled him pinning him to the ground. The farmer yelled and kicked, but his resistance only brought more soldiers crashing on him.

“Take it easy, Mr. Duke.”

Bo looked up and saw a strange looking middle aged man in a drab business suit staring down at him.

“You might as well relax,” he said calmly. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Chapter 5