Scully was having lunch with Tom Colton, an old friend from the F.B.I.
training academy, who worked for the Violent Crimes Section. He wastelling her about a strange case: three murders over the last six weeksvictims varying in age, gender and race, and no known connections toeach other. The only thing in common was the lack of entry.
"One victim," Colton said, "was a college girl. She was killed in her roomand when she was found, the windows wore locked and the door waschained from the inside. The last incident was two days ago in a highsecurityoffice building. It was evening and everybody had gone home. Theguy parked in the garage and took the elevator to the fifteenth floor. No oneelse came into the building. The guy never came out.""Could they be suicides?" asked Scully.
Colton shook his head and handed Scully a photograph. "All the victims'
livers have been removed - without tools.""This sounds like an X-file," said Scully. An "X-file" was what the F.B.I.
called a case that involved strange happenings and unexplained phenomena.
"Well, I don't know about that but I'd like you to look at the case historiesand see the crime scene."When Scully went to Usher's office, Mulder was already there. The officewas a mess and blood was splattered everywhere.
"Morning," Mulder said to Scully.
Fox Mulder looked incredibly young for an agent with so muchexperience. He was a tall, thin man who wore his hair unusually long for anF.B.I. agent. Scully thought there was something a little deceptive aboutMulder's appearance. He appeared so innocent, almost boyish, until youlooked into his clear hazel eyes. That was when you realised that FoxMulder had seen more than most people. And it had cost him.
Mulder was concentrating on something shining on the carpet: herecognised some tiny metal filings .
Using tweezers , Mulder lifted a filing and thought for a second, thenlooked up. High above on the wall was the metal grille that covered theoffice's air vent.
He stood up and went to his forensic kit. He took the fingerprintpowder, tape and brush. Then he began to powder the area surrounding thevent.
A long, thin print was emerging, bit by bit. It had some of the qualities ofa human fingerprint, but it was certainly not human.
Mulder was sure that he'd seen those prints before.
Some time later, in the basement of F.B.I. headquarters, Scully focusedher attention on some slides that Mulder was showing her. There were sixand each of them showed an elongated fingerprint. The prints were toolong and thin to be human.
Mulder pointed to one of the slides. "This is the print I took yesterdayfrom Usher's office," he said. "All the others are from the X-files.""How many murders are we talking about?" Scully asked.
"Eleven, counting Usher," Mulder replied.
"Ten murders before him. All in the Baltimore area. No point of entrancein any of them. Each victim was murdered the same way. These prints arefrom five of those other ten crime scenes.""Ten other murders?" Scully still couldn't believe it.
Then Mulder pointed to three of the slides. "These three prints were liftedin 1963, and these two were taken in 1933."Scully's eyes widened . "You're saying the same murderer was fit' workthirty years ago and sixty years ago?""And ninety," Mulder said. "Unfortunately, we don't have prints for thatone. Fingerprinting wasn't too common in 1903. And police records weren'tvery complete. But there was at least one similar murder at that time.""Of course," Scully said sarcastically . She thought, If you leave it toMulder, he'll come up with an absolutely unbelievable case history.
Mulder ignored her tone and added: "Five murders, every thirty years.
Thatmeans he's got two more to go this year."Scully stood up and turned away from her partner.
There must be a more rational explanation, she told herself. She was ascientist, a doctor. There was no way she could believe I his.
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