Title: If She Lives (1/1)
Author: RocketMan
lebontrager@harding.edu

Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully, CancerMan and the Consortium belong to CC,
1013, and Fox. No infringement is intended.

Summary: It's not what you think. No death, just a little meeting.

If She Lives

The smoke hung over the room like demons at a satanic ceremony, choking
the men there with its oppression. 
Yet, the man took another long drag on the white rolled up paper between
his lips and blew it out through his mouth.
It was the signal and he regarded the man before him with eyes that are
found on monsters in children's books. Yellow and bloodshot, with
fatigue and grittiness ringing them darkly.
"Have you reached any discernable turning point since we last spoke, Mr.
Collins?" Cancer Man inhaled the smoke of the room and put his own out,
stubbing it as he might stub out a life.
"Uh....no sir. You realize the organism is quite complicated and beyond
anything our-"
"Mr. Collins. Would it help to know this was a matter of life and
death?"
The man shook his head in regret, the dinghy white of his coat a silent
testimony to the number of times he had been at one of their meetings.
"Sir, I already know she'll die from this cancer, but it-"
"No, Mr. Collins. I mean life or death for your family."
The man's gravel voice mocked the seriousness of such a threat and
Collins found himself shaking in rage and fear.
"Then, *sir*" He spoke with as much contempt as he could muster. "You
had better let me have that equipment I requested months ago. And
anything else I need. Or else you won't get that cure!"
His flaming eyes stared into the smoking man's cold depths and his anger
was extinguished in a hiss and smoke.
Cancer Man motioned for a lackey to do everything Collins requested and
they left.
Cancer Man sat down in the cool leather of the chairs situated around
the cherry wood table.
The Fat Mna looked up from where he had been studying some reports,
seemingly completely oblivious to the conversation going on around him.
"What is your position on this affair?" he said in his slightly
phlegmatic voice.
"This is an opportunity, nothing more."
"Yes, but if we do not provide her with the cure, that is of no concern
for this Project."
"I realize that. But we can own them. Mulder, Skinner. All of the
X-Files."
The smoking man knew that uncontrolled emotional outbursts of the
Collins variety would get him nowhere.
"Yes, and if she dies, he dies too." The Fat Man calmly looked to him.
"Skinner is left."
"He is a problem. Quite the wild card in the whole deck, eh?"
"Yes. A wild card. But this allows us to nuetralize him effectively."
"Can we not do that in an easier way?"
Cancer Man looked through the smoke cloud to the man and shook his head.
Fat Man knew of something.
"Yes, we could. If you want a rebellion."
The Fat Man nodded and then shifted around in his chair until his great
mass of a body was settled. "Your interest would not be personal, would
it?"
Cancer Man's eyes glowed with something resembling either fear or
disdain. "No, it is not personal. It is an opportunity. If we find her
cure, we can own them."
"We do own them."
"Not Skinner. If we don't produce something very soon, he'll be
formidable."
"Yes, I am aware of that. I ma not questioning your actions. Only your
motivations."
"Then question them no more. I am still in this for the same reasons as
before."
"Yes, the Project."
Cacner Man eased back into his chair, the only outward sign that the Fat
Man's interrogation had riled him.
"Do we know how she got it?" Fat Man asked.
"No. We only found her. It allowed for some experimentation, nothing
more. Where this all came from . . . it could be a combination of our
interferences and another, outside force. The force that took her in the
first place."
"It maters, though." His statement was more of a question rather than a
knowledge.
"It matters. If she lives, we can find out, make her remember the things
before us. If hse lives, we can do that, we'll own them."
"And if she dies, as it seems likely now, then we have enough agents in
other places to continue their part of the Project." The Well Manicured
Man nodded his head at the words to confirm the exsistence of more of
their 'creations.'
"If she lives, however," Cancer Man said softly, "We will have a mighty
force."
The Fat Man eyed him with slothness that belied the quickness of his
mind and his wrath.
"Yes. If she lives."

end
adios
RocketMan