From netnews.upenn.edu!msuinfo!agate!uclink.berkeley.edu!madge Fri Nov 18 12:57:11 1994
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From: madge@uclink.berkeley.edu (Peggy Mei-Ling Li)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: GRIEF- new story by Paul!
Date: 17 Nov 1994 19:46:11 GMT
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	GRIEF
	By. Paul Wartenberg

	(this story was written during "3" and before "One Breath")


	The knocking at my apartment door began late at night, loud and 
consistent, certainly waking my neighbors as well as myself.  I fell out 
of bed (pain is the easiest way to wake up) and stumbled to answer, 
shouting back at whomever was rapping loudly at my chamber door.
	I was startled to see who it was through the peephole.  His 
blank, expressionless face was even spookier than I had ever seen it.
	I opened the door and Fox Mulder, special agent of the FBI and 
occasional partygoer at the Lone Gunmen's annual "Guess That Defense 
Budget," silently strolled into the room.  He had three-day-old stubble 
across his chin, his eyes circled and bleary, his hair more wasted than a 
Superfund site.
	"Hi," he mumbled.  He quickly collapsed onto the sofa, sitting 
upright but almost asleep.
	"Mulder?" I asked.  Normally, he avoided personal contact with 
us, preferring to meet us professionally; we agreed, in the possibility 
he might either (A)turn out to be an attempt by the Futilely Bumbling 
Idiots to infiltrate our elite commando corps or (B)move in with one of 
us.  We feared (B).
	He sat silently for a minute, then said, "They got Scully."
	Dana Scully was his partner, a real by-the-book agent who, for 
some strange reason, looked really sexy in plain clothes.  They had 
teamed up to take on some backlogged cases that had involved the strange 
and unusual, what Mulder called "X-Files."  That was why they stopped by 
from time to time to pick our collective brains.
	Mulder slowly told a tale about an escaped ex-FBI nutcase 
convinced aliens were after him, who somehow abducted Scully and took her 
to the Appalachians to be picked up by somebody.  It first sounded like 
ETs did the dirty deed, but Mulder soon mentioned a fellow agent who was 
responsible for the psycho's death and who eventually disappeared 
himself, leading Mulder to believe a man who smokes particular brands of 
cigarettes planned the whole thing.
	"That doesn't explain why."
	Mulder shrugged.  "He doesn't want the X-Files reopened.  There's 
a secret in there, among all that paperwork, like a huge jigsaw puzzle.  
Fit the pieces together and a picture emerges.  I've only seen some of 
the pieces but they don't make any sense yet.  If we had kept working, 
the other parts would have been found."
	"Why her?"
	"I don't know.  Maybe...everyone knows how obsessed I am with 
this.  If I go, others will aks questions.  Scully's abduction still 
looks like she's been taken and killed by a psycho.  Case closed."
	Mulder sighed.  "I haven't slept in two days."
	"Worried they'll come after you next?"
	"No.  I'm...having nightmares.  About my sister, Sam.  The weird 
thing is, there's no consistency anymore, how I remembered what happened 
seems to keep changing in my own head."  He drooped.  "Like I'm forgetting."
	"Coffee?" I stood and went for the kitchen.
	"Make it hot, damned hot," Mulder almost smirked about that one.  
We both knew the FBI agent responsible for that saying, and I had a 
sudden image of that pronounced chin and eager attitude.
	"Friends," Mulder muttered.  "They come and go, don't they?"
	I worked on the coffee.  "Maybe that's what keeping you up.  
Scully's disappearance.  It's not your sister, it's her you're worried 
about."
	"Maybe."
	When I returned to the living room with two cups, Mulder was 
staring out the sliding glass door to the patio.  We were four stories up 
from the ground and two stories above the parking garage next to the 
building.  He was intently staring at something below.
	"That car is running on idle," he said.  "Exhaust is coming from 
the tailpipe.  None of the car lights are on.  Someone's watching.  
Better yet, I've seen that car before."
	"When?"
	"When my car blew up last night."
	"WHAT?" I nearly dropped the cups of coffee.  "Your car?  And I 
thought you said they weren't after you."
	"It's not them," Mulder replied.  "It's a case I'm working on."
	I lifted my arms to whatever angels were listening.  "You're 
working a case, and the people you're after are after you instead?  
Greeaatttt."  I grabbed Mulder and pushed him toward the doorway out.  
"Next time, take your work home where it's supposed to go."
	I quickly opened the door and quickly closed it again, slamming 
it into the face of a rather large and menacing human killing machine 
carrying a semi-automatic.

	PART II: in which Mulder decides to admit his obsession with 
comic books.


From madge@uclink.berkeley.edu Tue Nov 22 21:56:02 MST 1994
Article: 1507 of alt.tv.x-files.creative
Path: udel!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!uclink.berkeley.edu!madge
From: madge@uclink.berkeley.edu (Peggy Mei-Ling Li)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: GRIEF part II, Paul's story!
Date: 22 Nov 1994 21:35:45 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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>From  z004799b@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us Tue Nov 22 13:13:41 1994
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 1994 14:55:52 -0500 (EST)
From: Paul Wartenberg <z004799b@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us>
To: madge@uclink.berkeley.edu
Subject: griefpt.2



	If you liked Grief Part I, you'll despise Part II (or is it I'm 
having a bad week...)

	"Grief"
	PART II

	by. Paul Wartenberg
	thanks. Peggy Mei-Ling Li


	Mulder stood impassively as I dove for the floor.  The large 
human kicked the door open and aimed his semi toward Mulder.
	Mulder suddenly reacted, reaching out at the man and twisting his 
arms and his aim.  The weapon fired and ripped through my furniture.  It 
was okay;  I needed to reupholster most of the chairs anyway.
	Mulder shoved the large man through the doorway, where I heard 
more gun shots and then a confusing chorus of voices.  I slowly rose from 
the floor and tip-toed to the hallway, and saw the large man sitting 
against the wall, unconscious and bleeding from a bullet wound.
	"Police!" shouted someone.  I turned and saw two women in 
uniforms storming up one of the stairwells.  "Get out of the way, sir!"
	"Where's Mulder?" I asked.
	"After the second suspect.  Please return to your room!" one of 
the women waved her gun toward my door.
	My next-door neighbor came running out of her apartment.  "What 
the blue blazes is going on here?" shouted Mrs. Janssen.
	"I'm throwing a surprise birthday party for myself," I answered.
	"I'M not surprised!" she yelled as she stormed back into her 
apartment.  I shook my head, and against the policewomen's protests, I 
went to the stairwell at the other end of the hall after Mulder.
	I heard additional shots from the roof, and I sped up the 
stairwell just in time to see Mulder wrestle a gun away from a 
well-dressed, short blond gentleman.  They staggered away from each 
other, taking deep breaths, before Mulder raised the gun and said, 
"You're under arrest, sir.  Hands behind your head."
	The man complied, but spoke, "You know the rules.  You'll want me 
to talk about this, why we're after you.  But you know no matter what 
I'll just deny everything."
	A dark shadow crossed Mulder's face.  "What did you say?"
	"Deny everything," he said.  "It's our credo."
	Mulder stepped toward him, with an anger in his eyes I had never 
seen before.  "Who are you?  Who do you work for?"
	The blond slowly stepped backward, toward the rim of the roof 
overlooking the garage.  I ran toward that part of the roof to keep him 
>from  the edge.  He glanced at me and stopped about five feet from the 
edge.  "You really want to know?" he asked.
	"You're not helping yourself with this crap," Mulder fumed.  
"I...WANT...HIS...NAME."
	The blond nearly laughed.  "I'm not sure he was ever born with 
one."  He then jumped at me, knocking us both over the roof's edge.
	I grabbed at the railing, gripping it with both hands.  I heard 
the man fall, not with a scream but with a wooshing sound.  I also heard 
a car screech in reverse and suddenly rev forward.  Mulder soon came to 
the railing and yanked me up by my wrists.  We both gasped for air, then 
turned back to look down to the twisted body of the blond man below.
	"Mulder," I gasped.  "You have GOT to tell me what the hell is 
going on around here."

	Mulder had spent one minute finding out no one kept an eye on the 
wounded hitman, giving him a chance to swallow some object that forced 
himself to choke to death.  Mulder then spent another minute finding out 
the police backup he requested before he got to my apartment that evening 
did not arrive with a full complement; the two policewomen were the only 
ones to show, with the others simply disappearing.  The third minute was 
spent with Mulder getting his ass chewed out over the phone by his 
superiors.  The fourth minute went toward drinking some now-cold coffee.
	Finally, he told me what was going on.
	"I'm assigned to a detail investigating bizarre kidnappings and
going-ons in a few companies involved with government operations.  The
thing is, workers disappear and then re-appear with no memory of events,
and within the companies themselves there are bizarre orders,
counterorders and general confusion.  The FBI assumed there might be some
attempt to interfere with the government through these private companies."
	"Were the companies involved in any major projects or agendas?"
	"No.  The companies are in no way involved with any of the 
government departments that work on...sensitive operations.  Defense, 
CIA, FBI, Justice, Treasury...none of them deal with any of those 
corporations."
	"Then what do they do?"
	"They mostly provide telecommunications and computer technology 
for most of the libraries, archives, and research divisions.  One access 
company provide communication link-ups via the nets, including Internet.  
The only possible threat is that sensitive documents might be transferred 
between terminals, but honestly all `national security' materials never 
go those routes, they're handled with a lot more discretion than that."
	"Well, couldn't some of these companies figure out encryption 
codes, figure out ways of hacking into communication lines that tend to 
be more secured than other nets?"
	"That hasn't been determined.  I would think whoever is kidnapping
people would find it easier to just hire some hackers, or would have 
their own staff to break codes and enter secured channels.  Also, the only 
thing anybody would find out from one of these companies is what 
grade of Windows they use in the Smithsonian.  That's not much use in 
breaking security."
	"Huh.  That is weird."
	"The weird thing is that when the FBI began investigating, agents 
started disappearing and others suffered memory lapses.  One agent had a 
nervous breakdown.  Apparently, whatever happened to the private 
companies was now happening to the FBI."
	"Which is where you come in."
	"I requested the assignment."
	"What?"
	"I have reason to believe whoever is behind this operation has 
the means and the motives for acting against both private companies and a 
major branch of the government.  Remember what that guy said?  Deny 
Everything.  I've heard that before from...someone who knows how these 
people operate.  I'm hoping to expose a shadowy part of the government 
itself that could very well be acting against the country's best 
interests in order to promote their own."
	"They kinda sound like the same group of people involved with 
Scully's disappearance."
	Mulder didn't answer.
	One of the policewomen came over with a notebook.  "Agent Mulder, 
we found this on Pink's body."
	"Pink?" I asked Mulder.
	"That's the hitman's nom de plume," he replied.  "His real name 
is Pasquele Oscar Lindensen."
	He took the notebook.  "It's an address book," he said, quickly 
flipping the pages.  He suddenly stopped and stared at one page.  I 
glanced over his shoulder to see what was up, and found his thumb 
covering over a name in the K's.
	"What is it?"
	Mulder lifted his thumb.  "Krychek," was all he said.

	PART III
	In which an army of mutant rabbits attack the Pentagon.



-----------------------------------------------------
Paul Wartenberg                          \\ //
z004799b@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us        X    FILES
				         // \\
-----Top 10 Cases Mulder Won't Take------------------
10.	Whatever happened to Brisco County, Jr.
9.	The disappearance of Tom Foley
8.	Why such a stupid movie as "Stargate" did so well
7.	Boxers or briefs?
6.	Preventing the assassination of Barney
5.	Why is "Bridges of Madison County" still on the bestsellers list
4.	Figuring out the last episode of the "Prisoner"
3.	Scully's thin, she's fat, she's thin...what's with her?
2.	Why he's not wearing a concrete overcoat
1.	Anything that real FBI agents do on an average workday!!!







From netnews.upenn.edu!msunews!agate!uclink.berkeley.edu!madge Wed Dec  7 12:14:02 1994
Path: netnews.upenn.edu!msunews!agate!uclink.berkeley.edu!madge
From: madge@uclink.berkeley.edu (Peggy Mei-Ling Li)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: GRIEF - Paul's story!
Date: 6 Dec 1994 18:38:41 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 165
Message-ID: <3c2b3h$skv@agate.berkeley.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: uclink.berkeley.edu
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]


From z004799b@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us Tue Dec  6 07:16:30 1994
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 08:47:38 -0500 (EST)
From: Paul Wartenberg <z004799b@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us>
To: Peggy Mei-Ling Li <madge@uclink.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Hi Paul!



-----------------------------------------------------
Paul Wartenberg                          \\ //
z004799b@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us        X    FILES
				         // \\
-----Top 10 Cases Mulder Won't Take------------------
10.	Whatever happened to Brisco County, Jr.
9.	The disappearance of Tom Foley
8.	Why such a stupid movie as "Stargate" did so well
7.	Boxers or briefs?
6.	Preventing the assassination of Barney
5.	Why is "Bridges of Madison County" still on the bestsellers list
4.	Figuring out the last episode of the "Prisoner"
3.	Scully's thin, she's fat, she's thin...what's with her?
2.	Why he's not wearing a concrete overcoat
1.	Anything that real FBI agents do on an average workday!!!


On Tue, 29 Nov 1994, Peggy Mei-Ling Li wrote:

> Paul,
> 
> Got both parts of your story and I liiike them. :)  When do we get more!  
> More!  
> 
> Happy Holidays to you and yours as well. 
> 
> Best
> Peggy
> 

Sorry for the delay.  The mainframe's hard to access from home.


	GRIEF, Part III

	by. Paul Wartenberg
	thanks. Peggy Mei-Ling Li

	He sat in the back seat of my Caravan, turned to stare out at the 
passing buildings and road signs.  He barely moved and said nothing.  
Once or twice his head rolled forward as though he wanted to sleep, but 
he would suddenly sit upright again.
	We were driving to an address out in Maryland, near Lanham.  
According to the address book, in was Krychek's actual residence.  This 
bothered me.  Mulder had explained to me how Krychek was able to convince 
people he was FBI, which certainly suggested someone had used connections 
to create a cover.  Mulder also mentioned that Krychek was responsible 
for Duane Barry's death and the disappearance of a skytram operator.  
That suggested someone trained for wetwork.
	What really bothered me was how someone as sneaky and dangerous 
as that would give his address to a thug whose destiny was either a 
coroner's table or a ten-by-ten jail cell.
	I played a Matthew Sweet song on the tapedeck:  "And it took me 
years to figure out/ that there was nothing I could give to you/ years to 
figure out/ that there was nothing you would take from me/ and how can I 
describe the way/ you slowly put my hope away/ and all of the time/ I 
thought I knew you..."
	"Nice song," said Mulder, draping himself over the front 
passenger seat.
	"We're getting there," I replied.  "Shouldn't you at least try to
get some sleep?"
	He shook his head.  I kept driving and we made the neighborhood 
at about 2:20 in the morning.  For some reason the street lights were 
off.  Only one house on this street had its front porch light on, but 
other than that we were going into a very dark, forboding place.
	"Stay alert," Mulder whispered as he got out of the minivan.
	We slowly walked up the empty driveway.  The only sign anyone had 
been here was the freshly mowed lawn.  The curtains were drawn; there was 
nothing on the front porch.
	I grabbed Mulder by his right arm.  "Mulder, think for a second."
	"What?"
	"If you were Krychek..."
	"I wouldn't devalue myself that low."
	"Listen!" I hissed.  "Krychek's been covering his tracks and that 
guy with the cigarettes has probably been helping out.  Now if these guys 
are involved in messing with the minds of a bunch of computer hacks and 
interfering with a federal investigation, they're not about to slip up by 
letting a thug carry around any kind of paperwork."
	Mulder never stopped gazing at the house.  "A set-up?"
	"Someone's obviously pushing your buttons.  They've given you 
Krychek's name to make sure you come here."
	Mulder waved his right hand toward the garage.  "Let's go that way."
	We circled around the building to a side door to the garage.  The 
door windows were taped over with newspapers.  "There's no curtains 
here.  Somebody doesn't want people to see what's in the garage," Mulder 
whispered.
	"Okay," he asked me.  "How would you booby-trap a house?"
	"Well, I'd use explosives.  Nothing that would stand out, try to 
make it look as accidental as possible.  Natural gas pipeline rupture 
would be a beaut.  Would take out the whole block."
	"Where would you set up the trap?"
	"All doors and windows will be wired."
	"They covered these windows.  That means there's something in the 
garage we're not supposed to see."
	"The explosive device might be in there.  Probably a container of 
gasoline or chemicals that could take out the whole house."
	"Okay.  So how would you go in?"
	"Through the roof," I said.
	"An...interesting suggestion at best."
	I went back to the Caravan and drove it backwards up the driveway 
until the rear bumpers practically touched the garage door.  I crawled to 
the back seats where, underneath, I kept a bag of equipment:  
screwdrivers, a hand-held shovel, climbing gear I used once to scale a 
building to secure a laser-attuned listening device, and additional stuff 
I collected over the years.  I tossed the bag onto the minivan and 
climbed up.  From there I could hop up onto the house.  Mulder followed, 
carrying the bag with him.
	We picked a spot on the far side of the roof to start digging.  
With the screwdrivers and hammers, we pulled away at the tar roofing 
shingles until we got to the wood underneath.  I used the shovel to chop 
away at the wood, with Mulder using the hammer to slam a hole into it.
	We succeeded in punching a hole into the attic.  I was worried 
for a moment that whoever owned the house also set up a vacuum in the 
building to encourage a sudden rush of fire when an atmosphere entered, 
but there was no sudden intake or release through the hole.  Mulder 
climbed in first and I followed in with the bag.
	I tossed a flashlight from the bag to Mulder.  We could see there 
wasn't much in the attic, and we quickly found the attic door.  Mulder 
gently lifted it up and peered into the house itself.  "I can't see 
anything," he said.
	"Can you smell anything?"
	"No.  At least there's no noxious fumes."  Mulder slid himself 
through the opening, holding himself up on the edges of the attic door 
until he could jump down into the house.  He landed and rolled, gimply 
standing after a minute of lying on the floor.
	"Ouch," he whispered as he waved the flashlight about, searching 
the house.  I followed him down.
	We were in a hallway going from the family room to the bedrooms.  
The bedroom doors were gone, taken off their hinges.  We walked to the 
family room and kitchen area, which was practically devoid of furniture 
or other signs of life.  A refrigerator was gently humming in the 
background.  The light and plug sockets were all covered.
	Mulder waved toward the garage, and we silently walked to that 
part of the house.  With the doors gone, we quickly got there and saw it 
was empty, save for a large metal container.  Wires were hooked between 
the container and switches built onto the garage doors.  The switches 
were interconnected like locks, so that any motion would push the switch 
out of position and open the lock.
	Mulder reached over his head, feeling wires that were running out 
of the garage to the rest of the house.  "Good call," he said.
	"I do try."
	It took the rest of the night to try and disarm the explosive.  
We simply ended up deactivating the whole thing from the single point on 
the container.  It was a pretty stressful night and I'm really not in 
the mood right now to repeat the...personal insults and revelations 
Mulder and I shared during those tense bomb-defusing moments.  Suffice to 
say, Mulder will never be allowed to drive my car, house-sit my 
apartment, use my shower stall, or download a video game into my 
computer, ever.

	PART IV
	In which Deep Throat returns to tell Mulder he's actually his father.
 




