From: ssteiner@sbcglobal.net   
      
   RUBICON   
   sasteiner@att.net   
      
      
   There was no doubt about it; I was a mess.   
      
   I'd been shot in the face by a man bent on revenge, richly deserved on my   
   part, although when I had awakened from the coma, I remembered nothing of   
   the events that had led up to that singular occasion.   
      
   Strughold had me stashed away in a private hospital for a couple of years.   
   When I awoke, I didn't know that I was finally free; I didn't know about the   
   shackles that had held me for so long.  That freedom was only an illusion-I   
   would never be free.  But, I'm getting ahead of the story.   
      
   It was a difficult period for me. Though I didn't remember it at the time,   
   the Oilien that I'd carried around for so long as a consequence of my   
   confinement in the silo had kept me alive, but there was only so much it   
   could do-I was effectively disabled by the 9mm lobotomy.  I needed help. I   
   was a blank man, with little past, and an uncertain future.   
      
   Out of a gratitude I couldn't comprehend, Strughold gave me a name and some   
   money, then I was given into the care of the V.A. hospital where I lived for   
   several years: learning language, to eat, to dress myself.   It was very   
   strange.  I could remember vague, ancient pieces of my former life, but   
   there were years missing, shut away or gone completely. I didn't know that   
   Al Kent was an alias--a sham--for a very long time.   
      
      
   When I was a little kid, my parents had a colleague with a house on a lake,   
   and we were invited once; as immigrants vacation was a new and exciting   
   concept for them.  In retrospect, their friend's cabin was probably a bit   
   shabby and plain, but to my child-eyes it was like a palace.  We were free   
   to do what ever we wanted, and the party lasted a week.  It was a fantasy.   
   My parents were completely different people while we were there; they   
   loosened up and had fun; I distinctly recall my father actually playing with   
   me in the lake, teaching me to swim.   
      
   That was about the clearest memory I had, so that's where I went when I was   
   declared compos mentis, or at least reasonably able to care for myself.  I   
   bought a bus ticket to Clinton, Missouri and hung out at a motel for a   
   couple of weeks, until I got a good deal for a cheap place on the lake to   
   pick up where I had left off, with the mistaken idea that I could relive   
   those idyllic moments.   
      
   There I stayed.  I've spent years putting myself together, but it's still an   
   unfinished project.  When I wasn't raging against the walls and bashing   
   holes in them as I drank, I was patching the sheet rock and reading while I   
   was stoned. It's a simple life, really.  The dawn over the lake would give   
   me a feeling of hope, renewal and peace that felt wrong somehow, but I   
   couldn't put my finger on why it both consoled and chilled me.   
      
   My cabin was part of a small cluster of similar homes on the lake, and I was   
   the only one who lived there year round. The neighbors had no reason to   
   think I wasn't who I said I was-an amputee soldier on disability, prone to   
   PTSD rage, but an otherwise quiet man.  They accepted me, and took it upon   
   themselves to aid and befriend me.   
      
   For a long time, that's all I was, before I had a little epiphany.   
      
   You see, the neighbors knew there was no library nearby and they would bring   
   me a hodgepodge of books to read, and so, inevitably the day would come when   
   I was given one of Mulder's books.  There was a picture on the jacket, and   
   it just blew me away!  I knew I knew him, and I had to figure out why. It   
   was in that research that I started to regain some sense of my former   
   identity, and how it related to Mulder.   
      
   Now, I could write Mulder's biography, and it would be more accurate than   
   the overleaf on that book cover.  My part in that story is problematical.   
      
   I called in one last favor from Strughold and got a story and a name.   
   Jeffrey Spender was the link that led me to most of my intelligence.  Mulder   
   's half brother was a sobbing wreck of a man who had no problem spilling his   
   guts to anyone that would listen, even via email to a stranger.  The trail   
   of discovery was vastly treacherous and finding out that I wasn't Al Kent,   
   Gulf War veteran, was hard to swallow.  The Consortium was scattered to the   
   winds, his father and my nemesis/mentor was reported truly dead and gone.  I   
   'd led a life in the shadows, well hidden and most of those who could   
   provide testimony had disappeared or died.   
      
   The information that I teased from Jeff, and the details that I tracked   
   down, left me more confused than I had been for ages. It sickened me to read   
   the dossier I was building--finally coming to know what I had wrought, in   
   the clear light of day.   
      
   I had a severe feeling of disassociation; it was another person who'd lived   
   that life. Part of me can't see being that person; other times I'm more like   
   him than I care to admit.  But the big picture was getting clearer, despite   
   the huge, gaping holes.   
      
   It wasn't until about a year ago that I finally found William.  The secret   
   adoption to the Van De Kamp's was the easiest part of my reconstruction,   
   actually.  Turned out that while Jeff's little antidote might have stopped   
   the physical manifestations, it didn't stop the mental ones.  There had been   
   some recent trouble, the boy had gone missing for a few days and after that,   
   the behavior problems started; the official diagnosis began as bi-polarity   
   with conduct disorder and ADD/ADHD complicating treatment, before it was   
   finally elevated to schizophrenia.   
      
   But I didn't find him in Wyoming, he'd already bugged out. Took the money he   
   'd saved up from chores on the farm and left, and no one had been able to   
   locate him. It had only been two weeks since his disappearance when I   
   tracked down the Vandekamps.   
      
   Well, I had run into a brick wall on that front, and I'd have to wait for   
   John Law to find William or for him to return home of his own accord.  I   
   decided that a little road trip, a pilgrimage of sorts, was in order.  I   
   wanted to see the place where Scully had given birth to the one who should   
   have never been born; the child I had nearly died for.   
      
   I took a couple of days to make the drive, it was May in the South and   
   already hot, and the A/C in my old Taurus didn't work.  I drove in the early   
   hours of the day, and stopped at a motel to hang out in when it got too hot.   
   It was interesting to me; this was the first time I had ventured out thus,   
   alone and on the road.  It felt very natural, not at all scary-it occurred   
   to me that I had done this a lot in that other life.   
      
   When I was just outside the Georgia border, I passed a hitchhiker.  I saw   
   him as I drove past, a young man who was dusty and weary looking.   I was a   
   mile past him when I decided to give him a lift.  Maybe it was my old love   
   for living dangerously reasserting itself.  I turned around and went back   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)