Work Text:
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
REPORT OF INVESTIGATION
Case #: X-73284-A (Addendum)
Ref: Daryl Mootz, Holman Hardt
Date: March 2, 1999
Agent of Record: Special Agent Dana Scully
To: Assistant Director Walter S. Skinner
Assigned Field Investigators: None.
Case Status: Open.
Five months following the above-referenced case, I entered Agent Mulder's and my shared office* to find the workspace occupied by a large map, with dozens of destinations encircled in red ink. While I initially surmised that Agent Mulder was attempting to locate ten square miles of backwoods swamp that we had not yet scoured on behalf of the Bureau, he explained that the figures actually represented data compiled from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He then revealed that his interest in Daryl Mootz - nicknamed "the Rain King" by his followers in Kansas - was part of a larger inquiry. Our case files have taken us from arid Arizona summers to vivid Vermont autumns, through many different climate zones and seasons, yet Agent Mulder has identified a disturbing trend shadowing all of our work.
To summarize his extensive data succinctly: it appears to have rained on us more or less continuously since 1993. The rainfall is constant and torrential, and it appears whenever we open a new case file and wherever we travel after, whether we remain indoors or outdoors, whether locked into paranoid standoffs or driving through monster-infested forests. The chance of precipitation through the continental United States on any given day is, at most, 15%, according to compiled statistics for the entire country over the last decade. The chance of rain during any given X-File investigation, however, approaches 100%.
While I had not hitherto noticed this unusual circumstance, the pattern becomes quite clear when illumined by Agent Mulder's usual investigatory thoroughness. (I believe it was not immediately apparent because our early cases centered upon areas of frequent precipitation; our first paired assignment, for example, took place in the Pacific Northwest.) Agent Mulder recounted many instances of watching rain streak dramatically down rental-car windshields, of walking to interviews and crime scenes with a sodden newspaper held ineffectually over his head†, and of seeing lightning shine through the masking tape on his windows, during the rare moments he was actually at home (as opposed to lying in a hospital bed, confronting homicidal electronic devices, or being cocooned by glowing beetles). I can corroborate these memories - which were all relayed through simple conversation, rather than retrieved through hypnosis, trepanning, hallucination, shamanic journey, past-life regression, or foot-detox bath - and can add my own recollections, of many shoulder pads and fresh dye jobs ruined by unexpected downpours.
As yet we do not have a proposed solution to this persistent problem, so I have opened an addendum to the Mootz file in case the weather patterns we observed in Kansas have some relevance here. I can only speculate that there may be some individual in the FBI who possesses similar powers to those we witnessed in Holman Hardt. Agent Mulder suggests that one particular man could be a prime suspect, should cigarette smoking ever be determined to have a causal relationship with rainfall.
I am filing this report before we depart for North Carolina on our next case, and to summarize the above, sir: we are soggy, and we are tired. This document serves as both a formal summary of a currently unexplained phenomenon, and a request to have our next investigation take place in the Atacama Desert. Even if there's nothing there to investigate.
FOOTNOTES:
* As per requisition number 087243.0.113, parts A, B, F, and J, please note that a second desk has been "on backorder" since early 1994. While I do not share the same conspiracy-minded perspective as my partner, the right front corner of Agent Mulder's desk is developing a rather embarrassing groove, and frankly, sir, I did not attend six years of medical school to perch on my fellow agent's workspace like some deferential gargoyle I would respectfully request that the Property Office source a new supplier for office furniture.
† When asked why he does not don a raincoat, given his awareness of this metereological phenomenon, Agent Mulder replied: "Because then they'd know that I figured it out." When pressed about "it," Agent Mulder explained that he was presently compiling a six-hundred-and-fifty-seven slide presentation to illustrate the conspiracy at work.
ADDENDUM—SPECIAL AGENT DANA SCULLY:
The above document was returned to Agent Mulder's desk less than 24 hours after submission. It was stamped in red ink with the word "DENIED," and a pristine new umbrella with a prominent FBI logo lay atop the report. Agent Mulder immediately tossed the umbrella into his trash bin, then added a copy of The Washington Post to his packed suitcase.
The above-described phenomenon has continued without cease; please see updated evidence below in the form of an attached photograph. This image represents current deteriorating weather conditions in Boone, North Carolina, despite numerous news sources reporting the chance of rain as 5%.
