Charles Terrace

Less than half an hour later, Dana was knocking on the front door of the specified address, a nicely maintained but nondescript house. Charles Terrace was part of an anonymous little suburb in Somerset, not too far from DC.

"Agent Scully?" A voice from the other side of the door, the same young woman from the videotape.

"Yes, I'm here." Dana said, suddenly filled with trepidation.

"He- He wants you to put your gun down, and come in with your hands up." the girl said. Looking up, Dana saw another security camera, identical to the ones back in the office, mounted on the outside of the house, observing where she stood right now.

"I just want to see Mulder, where's Agent Mulder?" Dana asked. There was a moment of hesitation, as if the woman on the other side of the door was having to confer with someone, before she spoke out again.

"You can't come in unless you put your gun down. Those are- those are just the rules." she said flatly.

I must be crazy, Dana thought, as she agreed to it, unholstered her weapon and set it down on the floor.

"Okay, I put my gun down. Now can I please come in?" Dana asked, her hands raised.

"Turn around." The young woman said. Dana did, and as she stood to face the anonymous, deserted suburban street, she heard the door open.

Dana heard a metallic scrape, as whoever opened the door picked up her gun.

"Okay, come in." the girl said. Dana followed her inside.

The living room of 427 Charles Terrace looked like any other nicely-appointed house in the DC area. It was clean, sterile, didn't seem lived in. Sweeping her eye over the place, Dana saw no signs of habitation, no family photos or effects.

"I just want to say, I'm sorry. I'm NOT a part of this. Not willingly." the young woman said. Dana looked at her.

She was an attractive girl of about eighteen, nineteen. She wore her dark hair down, long and straight. She was slender and a few inches taller than Dana. She wore a black blazer and skirt, a school uniform, the patch on the breast pocket said Saint James' Catholic High School.

"I heard you on the videotape, what are you not a part of, Miss...?" Dana asked.

"Amy. Murray." the girl said. She was holding Dana's gun, not by the handle, simply holding it in her two hands, as if she wanted nothing to do with it.

"I'm not a part of anything! I made that video with your partner, but he made me! I---!" The young woman began, agitated, almost crying.

"Who's this "he" Amy? And where's Agent Mulder?" Dana asked.

"I don't know where your partner is now. Someone else took him. He's not here." Amy said, sounding to Dana's ear as if she was telling the truth.

"As for him, the voice I'm sure you heard over the phone... Shit, where do I even begin?" the schoolgirl said, sweeping her long, dark hair back.

"A couple of months after I turned eighteen, I got a call. This crazy robotic voice. It sent me to a payphone. In the booth, there was an envelope of photos. Photos of me, when I was... alone." Amy said. Scully caught her meaning.

"The voice said that I was going to be his assistant from now on. If I didn't go where he wanted, do what he said, everyone would see those photos. My parents, my classmates, he said he knew which colleges I wanted to go to, could even send them there." Amy continued.

"And what did he make you do?" Dana asked, tense, excited.

"At first it was just small stuff, y'know? Delivering parcels, placing mail orders. Eventually it got more... serious. He made me meet people. Or- or film myself... myself..." Amy broke off with a sob, something Dana was alarmed to find made her a little wet.

"Amy, anything he made you do, I'm sorry, we'll get you out of this." Dana promised, embracing the young woman. As their hug broke apart, Amy looked at her, red-eyed and sniffled.

"Agent Scully, there's no way out of this. Everything I think of, he's planned something. And he wants you to be a part of it too." Amy said, defeated and hopeless.

"A part of it, what do you mean?" Dana asked. Amy looked as if she could barely bring herself to keep talking.

"He called me, said the men who have Mulder now will shoot him, unless we... unless we..."

Scully's stomach turned. This girl, barely a woman, had been **** and taken advantage of. When Dana got her hands on the man behind this all, there would be hell to pay.

"Look, I'll just have to show you." Amy said, beckoning Scully on. The agent followed the schoolgirl, back out into the hall of the house, up the stairs, and into a bathroom, noting security cameras at every turn.

The pink bathtub was full of warm-looking water, steam radiated up from it. Errant traces of bubblebath flecked the surface of the water like scum on a pond. In front of the bathtub was a camera on a tripod, the lens pointed directly at the tub.

"He said we have to get in, and film ourselves... having sex. If we don't mail the tape before midnight tonight, your partner dies, and my life is ruined." Amy told Dana.

Surprised, Scully looked from the bath, to the camera, to the shaking girl beside her.

Could she really...?