"Circle"
By Viridian5
12/28/00

RATING: R.
SPOILERS: "Requiem."
SUMMARY: It’s time to clean house in the Consortium.
ARCHIVAL/DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, as long as you ask me first.
FEEDBACK: can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com.
DISCLAIMERS: All things X-Files belong to Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions, and 20th Century Fox. No infringement intended. Suing me would be a waste of time.
NOTE: Part of the Circle challenge, with my quote coming from the Spike.

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"Circle"
By Viridian5
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"Once you reach downstairs
They take special care of you
You cannot believe what you see
You know guns to stop time
Laid out in a line
445’s to Uzi-3’s..."
--"Freddy’s Store"
by Jim Carroll and Paul Sanchez
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Bored, I rearranged the guns displayed on the tabletop again, but I could see that our guest was waking up. The boss wanted things just so, and who was I to argue with the person paying me? Alex had been very specific, so I just had to follow orders. I sat on the table next to the weapons and swung my feet a bit, still in character, just as I still wore the "sweet, innocent young thing" outfit, still damp from waiting out in the rain next to my supposedly broken-down car hours ago. Let our guest wonder what his options were.

Looking at the old man tied to the chair, you’d never think he’d done all the things he’d done, but I knew how facades of harmlessness worked. It’d be dangerous to underestimate him for even a second.

As soon as he came to, I started my spiel. "Back with us, I see. No, don’t try to talk. You’d be amazed how much damage a wet wool scarf can do as a garrote. But I guess you know that right now for yourself, huh? Don’t worry about me. My leather gloves protected my hands while I was strangling the breath from you. It took a lot of control not to go all the way with you.

"You look so disappointed. Yeah, I was bait. I’m actually 27, and I don’t dress so demure and babydoll sweet unless I have to for an assignment. Skirts and pumps usually make it harder for me to do what I do for a living. I’m a wheelman and assassin most times.

"On behalf of short, young women everywhere, I’d like to extend a hearty fuck you. I’m sure they were ever so relieved that you never raped them before you killed them. Though you refrained from that simply from fear that they wouldn’t reach heaven if you soiled them, and that would violate the whole point of why you were engaged in your fucked-up little extracurricular exercise."

I pressed a few buttons on my beeper. The boss would be coming down soon. "Did you really think the rest of the Consortium wouldn’t find out about your hobby?" I continued. "These people make it a point to know everything they can about everybody. Though they do have their blind spots.

"Did any of you ever wonder why your lackeys are so incompetent? It’s because the freelancer community knows that everyone the Consortium hires has the life expectancy of a fruit fly. Killing everyone involved with the situation afterward seems to be your MO. Wasteful. As mercenaries, dying stupidly for someone else’s cause doesn’t rate very high on our to-do lists. Yeah, we know about your little conspiracy the same way we know your patterns. It’s our business to know these things. So only the stupid freelancers hire on with you, and there you go. I’d suggest you tell the rest of your people about it, but you’re not getting out of here alive, so there’s no point.

"Ah. I see you have a question. Yeah, even despite that, I am working for a member of the Consortium right now. He’s a bit different from the rest of you, though. He’s cleaning house, so he hired me to help take out the trash. You’re one of the first, so you won’t have to be lonely in your corner of hell for long. I’m not usually sentimental, but he started me on my career path, and I figured I’d enjoy taking a sick fuck like you out."

The guy kept it cool, or at least tried to. Pride. But I could see the disbelief in his eyes slowly turn to fear as he realized that he might finally face the consequences for his actions. He mouthed a name: "Alex Krycek." I nodded.

This old man and the others had been the Consortium for decades, doing all kinds of sick shit while telling themselves they were doing it to save the world. And saving the world wouldn’t be worth it if you couldn’t take advantage of the opportunities to kill and profit. It was hard work being a savior.

Killing and profiting were all in a day’s work to me, but their hypocrisy pissed me off.

It’d be interesting to see what Alex’s Consortium would be like. Maybe no better. Maybe his would even be worse.

But he was the one paying me.

"You’re probably wondering why I’m talking you up like this. Well, he did say he wanted me to torture you first." He never saw my hand come up or the small gun I held in it. My shot left him with a neat third eye in his forehead. Much cleaner and faster than anything he’d done to all those young women or to anyone who’d gotten in the Consortium’s way.

He and his car would end up in a burnt, smashed wreck at the bottom of a cliff. By the time I was done, forensics wouldn’t reveal anything other than a drunk driving death, though the others would know. Consortium members rarely died in true accidents.

Some sentimental part of me wished I could include some evidence in his car that would reveal what he was, at least as far as his hobby went, but that wasn’t part of the deal. Those deaths would have to remain mysteries.

The elevator pinged as the door opened, revealing my current boss. Alex Krycek surveyed the scene coldly, missing nothing. He dressed well now in beautifully tailored clothing, and he gave the impression of something that had been beaten into a new, harder shape.

I kept my gun ready in case he chose to continue the Consortium’s tradition. You never knew. He hadn’t realized who I was, and even if he had he might kill me anyway. Just because he’d made such a difference in my life didn’t mean that he’d remember a cashier who once combat drove him and Mulder out of a bad situation, no matter that he’d given me a big cash prize for my troubles.

If I hadn’t been such a professional or if I’d been less perceptive, I might have asked him earlier how Mulder was doing. I got the feeling that I wouldn’t like the answer.

Alex nodded at me, then backed away and closed the elevator door, having taken no more than one step into the room. He touched nothing and said nothing. Plausible deniability. And he hadn’t killed me, which could either mean he had a better appreciation for future resources or just that he wanted me to finish the job.

All part of the life. I could have kept on being a secretary, not that I had any more guarantees of stability in that job. I’d rather be an uninsured temporary worker as what I am now than in office support. Less frustration, much more money.

Though I still made a living getting my hands dirty and directing things so my bosses wouldn’t have to.

NOTE: She's referring to events in my slash story "Behind the Wheel" when she mentions a past association with Krycek.