[Voice]

[most_unwanted]

[There's a quiet crunching sound before Mulder speaks up, sounding thoughtful.]

Show of metaphorical hands. Or antennae, whichever you're partial to: Who here has been kidnapped for a special one-on-one date with our captors? I'd like to arrange an off-journal meeting to speak about your personal experiences if anyone happens to have some free time. It shouldn't take long, just a few minutes. I'll be hanging around the shops in town most of the day, I've got some... supplies I've been meaning to find. [Still looking for a basketball, woe and alas.] We can always head elsewhere from there, though.

I understand that it's a sensitive topic for most people, and it's all right if you'd rather not talk about it. Or if you'd rather be anonymous, just slip a note under my door detailing anything you can remember about the experience itself. Anything at all, before, during, after. Your answers will be kept in confidence. I'm in Community Building 7, Floor 2, Room 10.

Comments

[i_speak_softly]

The alternate-life experiments... sometimes they leave people with memories of their other selves. Sometimes a lot of memories.

[ufo-fanboy.livejournal.com]

...Emotional turmoil. Yeah, you're right. The psychological mind-altering ones are worse than the physical changes. As much as no one wants to wake up as an inanimate object.

[i_speak_softly]

That hasn't happened to me. Yet.

[ufo-fanboy.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there are some experiments that no one wants to ever experience firsthand.

[i_speak_softly]

You've only been here a few months, right?

[ufo-fanboy.livejournal.com]

Only since this past March.

[Sometimes it feels like forever, sometimes no time at all.]

[i_speak_softly]

Can I ask how the recent experiments have gone for you?

[ufo-fanboy.livejournal.com]

Of course. I've only gone through two of them personally. [Analyzing and thinking about the experiments has been of great interest to him so he'll share.] The first one I experienced was the alteration of species. I turned into an alien lifeform, unlike anything I've ever seen before. To be perfectly honest, that wasn't a bad experience, if somewhat inconvenient.

[He pauses a moment, the next one gets a bit more personal and like every introvert in the universe that makes it harder to share.]

The alternate lives that we experienced in April... that was a different story. In that version of events, I had a sibling, and we were very close. That's... The chance to experience that in real life was taken from me, so having it all be a lie was like going through that loss again. That part aside... the whole thing left me seriously questioning reality for a while.

[i_speak_softly]

[Oh, Mulder. The loss of a sibling can only make Don assume the worst.]

I'm sorry... for your family...

[ufo-fanboy.livejournal.com]

...I appreciate the sentiment. Thanks.

She was only eight years old, and they took her. Aliens, forces in the government- I still don't really know the full truth of who was responsible. But I'll always be determined to find out. [He gets really fired up by the whole thing, it doesn't matter how long it's been.] ...I'm... fairly certain by now that she was used for tests too, not unlike our experience here. I almost hoped I'd finally find her here, when I first arrived.

[i_speak_softly]

[Stunned silence. That's kind of exactly what Don has feared his whole life, and he's not entirely sure he believes it happened to a human.]

Is that - why you became a paranormal investigator?

[ufo-fanboy.livejournal.com]

That's exactly the reason why. [It's why this WHOLE place riles him up and gets his obsessiveness kicking in.] I was there when she was abducted. I saw it happen. I'll do anything I can to uncover the full truth, to find her and expose the people behind her abduction.

[And no. Alien/human hybrids and clones and the like DO NOT COUNT, damn false leads.]

[i_speak_softly]

[That sounds - absolutely horrible.]

What was her name?

[ufo-fanboy.livejournal.com]

Samantha. Samantha Mulder.

...I wonder if I'll ever see her again someday. The real her.

[i_speak_softly]

You saw... ? [He doesn't want to finish that thought. But please go ahead and finish it for him.]

[ufo-fanboy.livejournal.com]

You mean the ones I don't see in spooky visions and other places in my head? Clones. One time, it was an adult set. Another time, it was a set of clones that were only children- about the age she was taken- being used as mindless drones for some experiment...

[i_speak_softly]

[He recoils. It was traumatizing enough fighting a robot duplicate of his father.]

Who could do that... ?

[ufo-fanboy.livejournal.com]

The worst possible excuses for humanity that exist. These people are on the same level as the Malnosso, for the things they've done.

[Because what he's mentioned... is only one small part of it.]

[i_speak_softly]

Sounds like Luceti isn't so different for you.

[ufo-fanboy.livejournal.com]

The similarities are pretty creepy. It looks like mad scientists are more common throughout the universe than they should be.

[i_speak_softly]

I guess wherever there are scientists, some of them always figure out the easier alternative.

[ufo-fanboy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, unfortunately when they have no regard for ethics and no limits to how far they'll go... then things end up like this, with lives disrupted or destroyed. That's not to say all scientists are like that. I've met a fair share of good ones, as well.

[i_speak_softly]

[Don smiles a little at that. He'd like to think he is one of the good ones.]

[ufo-fanboy.livejournal.com]

[He counts! Mulder is definitely not one to go around thinking all the scientists are nutjobs.]

And I'm glad for those of you who can be trusted.

[i_speak_softly]

[Every time you say that, he feels a little better about putting his own biodata in your hands.]

I'd better be getting back home.