Title: Sam Lloyd Chapter 5/? Author: drovar Fandom: Spenderfic Rating: PG, Genfic Status: WIP Archive: Not until the entire story is finished, thanks. E-mail: drovar@mediaone.net Website: The Ferretcage http://parkers-place.net/ferretcage/ Notes: Special thanks to Lopsided Weevil and Shael for encouragement and thoughtful comments. Any mistakes remain solely mine of course. If you'd like to read the other chapters in this story you can find them at the links below. All the chapters are fairly short, and may be rewritten when the story is finally completed. http://parkers-place.net/ferretcage/fiction/Lloyd.txt http://parkers-place.net/ferretcage/fiction/Lloyd2.txt http://parkers-place.net/ferretcage/fiction/Lloyd3.txt http://parkers-place.net/ferretcage/fiction/Lloyd4.txt Deputy Bill Sherman is a character portrayed by Chris Owens in the Millennium episode "Monster." You can find some stills from this episode at The FerretCage http://parkers-place.net/ferretcage/gallery8.htm Disclaimers: These characters belong to FOX and 1013. This work is not for profit and is not a challenge to the rights of the copyright owners. Summary: A third player joins the group and there are ominous rumblings from a smoke filled room. Plus, there's a bit of Krycek, and Spender begins keeping a journal. [Journal Entry 001 6/21/98] It's been 40 hours since Sam Lloyd walked into my life. Actually it was more like a rhino charge through my carefully ordered existence than a walk. The old realities of my life are gone, and I don't think I'll ever have them back. Right now I'd like nothing more than stretching out on my couch with a hot cup of coffee (black two sugars, thank you very much) and the half-finished Mickey Spillane I left sitting on my nightstand. Sadly, that isn't going to happen either. Mundane pleasures like that have vanished from my life these past couple of days. Things are different now, and always will be, and not just for me. I don't see myself ever going back to the FBI, not knowing what I know now, and with not knowing who or even what I (or we) really are. Lloyd's left his life behind as well, though for him it's less of a loss, maybe even a relief from a life spent beneath an oppressive shadow -- that's something else we share. Sam has a vague memory of the man I describe, my father; the man who's darkness covers my life. Its something from his childhood, an uncle or family friend he says, and the smoke, he remembers the cigarette smoke. I'm not sure what it means that he appears in Sam's memories. Was he watching us? All of us? A hundred sad and emotionally distant little boys who knew they were missing something in their lives, but with no idea what it was. What did it mean that I was the one closest to him, at least until he abandoned my Mother and me? Did it mean anything at all? Did he leave his wife and son destitute and alone to chase after some other irresistible task? Or was it all just a game? I'm beginning to wonder if the X-Files weren't just busy work for him, and by extension, a fruitless, meaningless endeavor for me, what I thought was a career. I'm a big enough man to admit when I'm wrong. And I certainly missed the mark with Mulder, Scully and the X-Files. Mulder was right, I was wrong, that's the simplest way I can say it. But yet, Mulder wasn't completely right either. The conspiracy extends far further and has far deeper implications that he even suspects. Sam and I are proof of that. I don't begin to comprehend all of it myself. However, I'm certain the man who claims to be my father is at the root of it all I've got to wrap this up; we're nearly there. I'm almost afraid of what we'll find. Will it confirm my fears or refute my theories? I can't say, but we'll know soon enough. More later. Jeffrey Spender [End Journal Entry 001] "This is the place?" Sam Lloyd asked. He arched his eyebrows in question. He didn't attempt to hide the doubt in his voice. Jeffrey Spender looked up from his laptop and stared at Lloyd. Seeing his double up close still rattled him sometimes. He found himself glancing at Lloyd at odd moments trying to catch some miniscule difference between them; a nuance that told him they weren't the same person; he never found one. Mostly he found Lloyd glancing back at him at that same moment. "Yes, this is it." Spender paused to recheck address yet again. "132 Andover Ave. The only one in town." The old sedan's window protested and snagged as Lloyd rolled it down to get a better look at the ramshackle house. "You're sure the Lone Gunmen didn't 'geek' the data, just for grins?" Spender leaned forward and looked at the house again. The small dirty-yellow bungalow sat huddled on a weed-choked lot at the end of a narrow dismal street. Even for this low-rent area the house was a mess. The paint had given up its struggle years ago and was flaking off in large patches littering the ankle high grass. Gutters and downspouts canted out from the house at odd angles threatening to dump slurry of dank water and leafy muck on any unsuspecting passerby. "No, I don't think so," Spender replied, looking at the house again. "Well . . . probably not." "This guy has a wife and kid, a boy right?" Lloyd asked. Spender studied the laptop screen again for a moment. "Deputy William H. Sherman, also known as Bill and Billy. Wife of eight years Jeanette; son Bill Jr., also known as Buddy." "Somehow," Lloyd said without looking back, "I don't think they're a happy little family anymore. * * * Langly was the first to emerge, carefully extricating himself and his bags from the storm sewer. He was followed by an equally disheveled Frohike and mortified Byers. In moments they were standing near a picnic area deep in one of DC's metro parks. It was still early and thankfully the remote campground was deserted. With a disgusted sigh Frohike dropped his bags and threw himself down on the grass under the shade of a large elm tree. Byers and Langly began rummaging frantically through their bags and pulling out various electronic components. In a few minutes they had an array of esoteric equipment rigged together and humming. "God, you guys stink," Frohike said flatly as he stretched out and shielded his eyes with his arm. Byers looked up, and wiped the sleeve of his soiled suit-coat across his forehead, succeeding only in smearing more grime across his face. He drew in a breath to yell when Langly interrupted. "Got it!" A jumpy, blurred exterior shot of the Lonegunmen's warehouse hideout appeared amidst a rain of static on a small LCD screen in Langly's hands. Byers cursed quietly and adjusted several controls on the equipment. The imaged skewed then steadied, revealing a seemingly deserted street. A row of icons sat on the bottom of the screen. Langly touched one and the scene switched to the interior of the Lonegunmen's building. Black dressed consortium thugs filled the large central room. Disassembled computers sat scattered about the room and a pile of extracted hard drives covered the center of one table. "Busy little drones," Langly said. He tapped the stylus on another icon and the screen filled with a pulsating series of red and blue lines that converged in a complex device at the center of the screen. Langly tapped the diagram in the middle of the screen. "Armed and ready gentlemen," he said. He grinned as he watched Frohike crawl over to join them. 'Hicke was never one to miss a show of any kind, even if it wasn't porn. "I still say patching into the Iridium satellite network was a bad idea." Langly started to retort when he felt Byers hand on his shoulder. "Just do it," he ordered. Langly grinned and tapped the screen again. "Fire in the hole," he said in a voice just above a wicked whisper. The small screen switched back the interior view. The consortium scavengers were still busily unraveling the layers of security the LGM kept on their equipment. As the three men watched, carefully hidden relays tripped plunging the room into an uneasy darkness. Langly tapped another icon. "Adding IR filter." The screen revealed a multi-colored glow representing the heat from the bodies of the consortium thugs milling about in confusion. One un-cautious goon moved too quickly and ran into *something* in the darkness. He tottered for a moment, flailing wildly before crashing to the ground. "Wish we could hear this," Frohike muttered. "Terrified screams are terrified screams," Byers said laughing. Langly tapped the last icon and a red light erupted in the darkness filling the room with a ruddy glow. Previously dead monitors sprang to sudden life. The screens showed the stark image of a deep red mushroom cloud expanding to fill the view with a bright white number 5 superimposed over each cloud. The looters froze in their tracks as the number dropped rapidly from 5 to 4 then to 3. Panicked consortium goons scrambled for the exits, leaving their once precious haul in scattered piles behind them. One desperate burly thug managed to knock down several of his compatriots and tumble out the door as the counter hit zero. "Boom," the LGM yelled in unison and laughed. There was a sudden burst of static and the screen went blank. "Think we got it all?" Byers asked as he began to disassemble the electronics spread out over the ground. "Oh yeah," Frohike snorted, "There's not a living magnetic bit within fifty yards, it's all gone." The threesome worked in silence for the few minutes it took to repack their gear. As they stood and headed away from the picnic area and deeper into the park, Frohike stopped, adjusted his packs with a grunt, and spoke to the two men walking ahead. "What do you suppose it all means, Spender, Lloyd, all the rest?" He heard Langly mumble something that might have been "Rat droids on the loose." Byers' reply was lost amidst sounds of thrashing brush as the men disappeared into the woods. * * * They were sitting close together wreathed in a pale of once-breathed smoke, closer than Alex liked, closer then his lungs and irritated eyes could stand. "Things with the 'special project' aren't going as well as we'd hoped," he said as he suppressed his urge to cough. "Alex, the situation is..." the old man paused, as if to underscore his own importance, "is being handled." Krycek breathed, suppressing another cough, and concentrating on his next words. He had to be careful -- dancing with the devil could get you burned. He didn't want to be the next unlucky bastard one to bleed out his life in some forsaken spot of the world, and that's if he was lucky. "You've let this go on too long." The smoker exhaled sharply but almost silently. That had pushed him hard. Alex watched him take another short puff on his cigarette, and then cough slightly. He was dying; Alex could almost smell the rot wafting out of the smoker's black lungs, tiny bits of cancer carried on the smoke that created them. Alex forced away the image of tiny packets of death filling the air and concentrated on what the smoking man was saying. "This is an important and delicate operation Alex. Plans are in place to deal with the situation, and it will be dealt with soon. The weapon will be in our possession shortly." The man took another long drag on his cigarette seeming to relish the death it brought him. "And Alex," He said after a hissing exhale. Krycek forced himself to breath slow, forcing down his panic. "Yes?" he answered once he was sure of his composure. "Then Alex." The smoker paused again taking another drag and exhaling softly. "Then we'll deal with the person who," another pause, another puff, "created this situation." Alex watched the burning ember on the end of the smoker's cigarette, watched it without speaking as it glowed hot then dim. * * * Once Lloyd had made quick work of the lock on the side door, and slipped his tools back into their pouch, he and Spender stepped into the kitchen of the small house. "Where did you learn to do that?" Spender asked as they closed the door behind them. "Boy scouts," Lloyd replied with a grin, "Right after my knotting and camping badges." The room was dark, and musty, unwashed dishes lay piled in the sink. Containers of carryout Chinese competed for counter space with beer cans, bottles and pizza boxes. The kitchen garbage can overflowed with more of the same and there was the faint but persistent buzzing of flies over everything. "You sure this guy is one of us?" Lloyd said as he picked up an empty bottle of Finnish vodka, the ripples along its thin neck glistening in the faint daylight. Spender shrugged and moved cautiously toward the open archway leading to the living room. He paused long enough to inspect the front of the refrigerator. Finger-painted school artwork and hand written recipes on faded index cards framed a large family photograph. His own face smiled back, the same chin, the same nose, even the eyes. "Windows to the soul," he heard Lloyd whisper from his side. Spender nodded silently and trailed his fingers over the familiar face with the same brown eyes. Two men, three, maybe uncounted more, suppose they did share the same soul? What if they weren't individuals at all? Spender fought back the image of hundreds of duplicates of himself, marching in lock step, linked in some unknown way, unstoppable. And at the apex of them all, holding them in speechless, thoughtless thrall was the man who claimed to be his father. Pulling himself away from the photo Spender continued toward the living room. He stopped at the small dinette table long enough to sift through the pile of unread newspapers, and unopened mail. "I don't know," Spender said answering Lloyd's earlier question. "Maybe he didn't inherit the tidy gene." A short hallway led off the kitchen to a flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs Spender could see a bathroom and what were probably bedrooms, maybe a den. Downstairs he assumed led to the laundry and a family room. Just ahead to his right was the small foyer leading to the front door. Light filtered feebly through the frosted glass on either side of the door giving the foyer a dull yellow glow. It was enough illumination to reveal a sheriff's jacket hanging on a coat tree. A dark brown deputy's hat sat perched atop the tree, its wide brim casting a shadow in the dull light nearly concealing the holster that hung from the lower arm. "It's empty," Lloyd said from behind him. Spender knew without asking that they were both considering the same thing. Sherman was somewhere in the house, likely drunk, belligerent, and armed, ready to shoot himself, or someone else. They weren't long in finding him. The familiar metallic click of a gun snapped on Spender's nerves like whipcord. The two men turned slowly to the right. Their own face, clouded with bewilderment, stared back at them with tired reddened eyes. Bill Sherman, clad only in gray boxers held a gun out, pointing it waveringly at first Spender then at Lloyd. Spender felt a sudden an unexpected panic setting in. He'd been holding out the hope that somehow he and Lloyd really were twins separated at birth. That the duplicates really didn't exist, that they were some sort of data fluke or something. Seeing Sherman in the flesh, killed that hope, killed it dead. The duplicates were real, and so were all the things that implied. "Now Bill, we can talk this through," Spender said. His voice was flat, non-aggressive. "This isn't as crazy as it seems. Put the gun down and we can help you." Spender had never been much of a drinker, they. . he, didn't hold his liquor well. He was a sloppy drunk, so was Sherman, no surprise there, sloppy and more than a bit paranoid. Spender clinched his hands nervously. Did he look like this when he'd had a few too many? Sherman had a vacant, hollowed out look, as if he we're in some distant place viewing an unreal world. Detached, that was the word for it. Sherman seemed to consider his words for a moment. They could see the play of emotions across his face, disorientation, confusion, as if was looking in some strange distorted mirror, and didn't like what he was seeing. It was a dangerous combination for a drunken man with a gun. "You're with them," Sherman said. His voice was thick and slurred, slowed by the alcohol in his system. Though the anger and disgust behind his words was clear enough. "No Bill, we're friends, just here to help," Lloyd said. He took a short step forward before Spender motioned him back. "You took my wife," Sherman said as he turned to face Lloyd. "You took my son." They could see Sherman's fingers tightening around the trigger. "You took my job and my life, but you're not taking me." Spender and Lloyd lunged down and forward as Sherman pulled the trigger, sending a bullet into the kitchen wall behind them. If it was just luck, good timing or something deeper they were never certain. Spender tackled Sherman low while Lloyd went for the gun. Sherman cursed and struggled wildly as the two men wrestled him to the ground, tumbling into the living room amongst a scatter of beer cans and bottles. Lloyd pulled the gun from Sherman's hand, put the safety on and tossed in onto the nearby couch. He turned back just in time to catch Sherman's fist on his chin. Lloyd's head rocked back, but he lunged again and trapped Sherman's arm once more. "How are you feeling Jeff?" Lloyd asked after wiping a small trickle of blood from his chin " . . . .kind of strange?" Lloyd asked Spender as they fought to keep the thrashing man under control. "Weird," Spender replied. He grabbed Sherman's right arm at the wrist and pinned it beneath his knee. "It's like I'm half-drunk myself," he continued. "You?" "The same, aside from the busted lip," Lloyd said. "I think we're getting it from Billy here. I felt it the minute we walked in, like I was disoriented for a second." Spender nodded, he'd felt the same thing and had passed it off as fatigue. It seemed just barely possible, given what they had already experienced, that the three of them shared more than just genes, and were connected at some unknown physical level. "Don't call me that." Sherman protested from the floor beneath them. His voice was stronger, clearer, but still heavily tinged with the effects of the alcohol. "And get the hell off me, whoever the hell you are. And how the hell did I get to be sober?" "I think maybe that's us too. It's like all three of us and metabolizing the booze in his system." Lloyd said, looking from Sherman to Spender, and back. "Some sort of healing factor?" Spender asked. Lloyd shrugged. "Something like that, some sort of connection from being so close. We felt it when there were just two of us, maybe it gets stronger the more of us there are." Spender could see that Sherman was following the discussion with surprisingly clear eyes. Much of the redness was gone, the shakiness had settled -- he looked sober and alert. "Jesus, you guys are real." Sherman said. "Real enough, and living thanks to your rotten aim," Spender said. "But if you guys are real," Sherman began to sit up and realized that his arms were still solidly pinned. "Then the other guys are real, too." Spender and Lloyd looked at each other, then down at Sherman. They released his arms and pulled him to his feet in one synchronized motion. Sherman began to rub his arms, wincing a little when Spender and Lloyd spoke in unison. "What . . . other guys?" The soft click of a car door being carefully closed caused all three men to turn toward the living room window at the front of the house. "Bad guys," Sherman whispered as a shadow passed by the living room drapes. "Very bad guys." [End Chapter 5]