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“I’m gonna call Skinner, Mulder.”
“Okay.”
“I’m sure he’s going to want to say a few words about this. Guys, give it a rest, huh?”
It’s 10:30pm on a Saturday night, and he’s just sat back down on his couch after grabbing another beer from the fridge when the phone rings. The caller ID only shows the number for the Hoover Building switchboard, but somehow he already knows who it is. (Who else would be calling him via the switchboard this late on a Saturday?) He lets it ring a couple more times while he takes a swig of his beer and steels himself for whatever nonsense is about to be dropped in his lap.
“Skinner.”
“Good evening, sir. I apologize for calling you at home so late.”
“What is it, Agent Scully?”
“Well, sir, as you’re aware, Agent Mulder and I are currently in Los Angeles. And, as it happens, the LA County Sheriff’s Department is also looking into the series of incidents we’re out here investigating.”
“Let me guess. Agent Mulder failed to properly liaise with the local LEOs, and now we’ve got an inter-agency pissing match on our hands?”
“No, that’s… that’s not it at all, actually.”
“He didn’t get himself arrested again, did he?”
“No, sir!”
“Well, get to the point, agent. I know you know what time it is here.”
“Sir, they’re filming an episode of COPS tonight. Here. With the LASD.”
He doesn’t know what he was expecting her to say, but it sure as hell wasn’t that. Inexplicably, he finds himself stifling a laugh; he turns it into a cough. Dear god, Mulder running his mouth about aliens and what-have-you on national TV… he should not be finding this funny at all, and yet…
“Assistant director? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” He clears his throat. “So am I to understand that because the LASD is working cooperatively with you on this investigation, their film crew shadows are now yours as well?”
“That’s correct, yes. And Agent Mulder… well, his working hypothesis for the case is, as you might guess, paranormal in nature, and–”
“Yes, Scully, I’ve met him.”
“Uh… right. So, they can’t use any of the footage they’ve already gathered unless we sign off on it. I assume you want us to refuse?”
Skinner pulls his glasses off and rubs his eyes. On the one hand, the probability of Mulder saying something that will make himself (and possibly also the Bureau as a whole) look foolish is incredibly high. On the other hand, Skinner’s got a friend in that industry; he knows that rather than waste the film, the show’s producers will insist on simply blurring his agents’ faces and garbling their voices instead, and he won’t be able to get around that without a big legal fight. And if they do that, it’ll just look like the Bureau’s hiding something, which will end up an even bigger PR mess on balance. Plus, he has no doubt that Scully will do her usual thing of tempering Mulder’s eccentricity and countering his more bizarre theories. And also, despite everything, Mulder is ultimately a good agent. It probably won’t be that bad.
Fuck it. Let them get filmed. If everything goes to shit and Mulder does something even more ridiculous than usual, they can always change their minds before the show goes to air.
“Nah. Cooperate with the film crew. Keep me posted if things totally go belly-up, but short of an emergency, I don’t need to hear from you again until tomorrow morning at the earliest. Are we clear on that?”
“Sir? A-are you sure that’s wise?”
“The FBI has nothing to hide, Agent Scully. That’ll be all.”
He hangs up the phone and shakes his head, then replaces his glasses and reaches for his beer. Those two are going to drive him to an early retirement, he has no doubt.
