Work Text:
Stumbling. Blind - my eyes are burning, dry, unable to open.
Stumbling, but supported, led, by someone.
Scully.
Thank God...
I am me again. Just me, and only me.
There is no one else in here with me.
A luxury to be all alone in one's mind - how amazing.
A voice - "Here's the car, Mulder - I'll get the door."
I reach out and feel a car door - she guides me around it and eases me into the seat.
Sitting. What a concept.
I feel her hands on me. Examining, checking for damage. Not much - on the outside.
Thank God she can't see inside my head right now. Time enough for that later.
After I learn to speak English again instead of machine code.
But there are things I remember - things I must assimilate, before I go back to the world. Back to the blessedly separate world of unvirtual reality.
I must remember I have two arms and two legs. They are there - they are real.
I must remember I am Fox William Mulder, human being, beloved of Dana Katherine Scully, agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, enemy of the Consortium, sane, rational man.
That will do for identity for now - it's what's important.
There are other crucial things that must be assimilated. Things that I gathered from the nets while inside. Multi-tasking is so easy for a human, so hard for a computer. It may have thought I never left that hospital room - it may not have. It doesn't matter. I wander so easily - it could not keep up with me for more than a few nanoseconds.
I have wandered. Far and wide, as they used to say. I remember all of it - much will have to be scrapped, simply because I do not want to remember it. There is only so much room in my head, and I will keep with me only that which I need.
There are so many things on the Information Superhighway. So many exit ramps, entrance ramps. Front doors, back doors, firewalls.
Conspiracies.
The game has been going on for a long time. My father, my mother, my sister, myself were all a part of it, if not a completely willing part. Many others were involved. Again, not necessarily willingly. But these plotters and planners have succumbed to the electronic age like the rest of us. They use silicon and fiber optics to work their projects and schemes, believing in their security like the rest of us.
Frohicke, Byers, and Langley would kill for what I know now. So would many others - some I know, some I do not. It matters not. They will never know - I left no traces, no fingerprints, no evidence of my visit
But anything one machine can do, another machine can know, given time, resources, and volition.
They will never know. Until it's too late. I know where they live. I have the key to their house of glass.
And I am not afraid to throw stones.