Mind games

"I thought your name was Jaclyn," said Dana Scully, still frantically trying to conceal her nakedness from the other women in the room.

Jessica Sanders just shrugged and said, "Well, you got me, Dana. It's Jessica. Just like the strange lady said."

"Still calling me the 'strange lady', huh?" asked the blonde woman who called herself Emma Frost. "Well, I've been called worse. Personally I prefer to be called the White Queen but hardly anyone I know ever calls me by that name nowadays. Anyway, I'm getting soaked, Jessica. Want to come with me to my hotel suite to dry off?"

"Wait a minute," said L. "She can't leave this club. Jessica here is still a person of interest in a federal bank robbery case."

Emma just laughed. "The Hellfire Club probably owns half the banks that Jessica robbed. That's how she first came to our attention. Anyone with that type of brass is someone that we want working on our side, not yours. So she's coming with me."

"Oh, yeah," said L. "Well, let me tell you one thing, lady --"

"Emma," said Emma.

"Lady," said L. "I'll have you know --"

"Wait a minute," said Dana. "Mulder was supposed to be guarding the door to this room. Whatever happened to him?"

"Oh, don't worry, Dana," said Emma. "Right now he's in the middle of his favorite dream. The one he calls his Kill Switch fantasy. You know. The ones with the nurses, only in this version, you, Dana, are one of the nurses. So he'll be okay. He might not wake up for a long while but he'll wake up. Eventually."

"Oh my God!" cried Dana. "Can you really do that to another human being?"

"Oh, you'd be surprised what I can do," said Emma. "By the way, there's a suspect in a major terrorist case outside that door right now. And you and L are fully dressed. Go get him."

"Of course," said Dana.

And just like that, Dana and L ran into the lobby to apprehend Emma's imaginary terrorist suspect, both still naked as the day they were born.

Liz just stared at Emma as she watched the two naked federal agents run out the door.

"You really have no shame, do you?" asked Liz.

"No, Liz, I don't," said Emma. "But I do have a sense of self-preservation. I do know that if I tried to play that same trick on Jessica, she'd probably try to tear me apart, and if I tried to play it on you, you'd burn me where I stand. Or at least you would try to. The chances are that I would try my damnedest to mentally burn out your brain before I caught on fire, and if I were feeling suicidal, I'd be tempted to gamble that I could kill you long before you could kill me. But fortunately for you, I'm not feeling suicidal."

Then Emma turned to Jessica. "Shall we go?"

Jessica just looked at Liz, shrugged and asked, "Why not?"