(Written back in 1999 but never sent to Gossamer with the rest of my stories.) Rating: PG Archive: CounterMeasures, yes. Others, please ask first. Spoilers: Three of a Kind (US6) Summary: Missing/Post ep scenes. An experiment with the 155 Word Genre and the Locate the Fear Observation Deck card. "In the air" is a tournament poker term for the dealers to start dealing, to put the cards `in the air' so to speak. In The Air I - Locate the Fear by Martha marthalgm@yahoo.com Breathe. Scully says that breathing slowly helps the jitters. Steadies the arm. Clears the mind. Why am I taking the Cliff Notes guide to handling a gun? This is not my scene. I know that it's not loaded, but . . . Don't blink. Just stare. Focus on your target. Don't draw attention to yourself; just walk slowly towards her and . . . Damn. Quit hesitating, Langly. You have to do this cleanly. They have to believe that this is real. And we have to get out of this alive. Susanne's doing all the real work. Just aim and time it. How do Mulder and Scully do this? How can they hold this object in their hands, knowing the potential destruction capabilities? I do nothing more than type in a few strokes, download data, divert information through a medium still foreign to many. But am I any different? Has my keyboard been someone else's smoking gun? Breathe, Langly. It's showtime. ----------------------------------------------------------------- I no longer fear my future. I came to Las Vegas, craving the crowd, the exposure, the change of scenery; yet, I hide behind a stage curtain, peering out into the audience, always seeking that one face. Susanne. Tonight, I have found her. As she once found me. And again, I watched as she was driven away from me. But she left me with a smile, a kiss, a wave of her hand. And a ring. With a promise of 'someday'. I came to Las Vegas a hesitant soul, never venturing beyond my circle of cerebral expertise. Always afraid of the more immediate danger to the body that my associates and acquaintances had borne. That she had endured for years. I am ashamed of my timidity. But no more. I leave the man I used to be behind, in this desert of my yesterday. And I look forward to a tomorrow that has a 'someday'. ----------------------------------------------------------------- It's been a hell of a week. Two people are dead - three if you `count' Susanne - but two that could have been avoided. Grant may have deserved it, but Jimmy didn't. Jimmy. So eager to catch the latest. It got him killed. Wish we could have tagged his death to that CIA scum. Langly knew Jimmy best; they were a lot alike. And that frightens me. That could have been Langly underneath that bus. It's quite possible that he was told to shoot himself after killing Susanne. Maybe that's how Timmy knew that the shooting was bogus. If Byers hadn't been so quick thinking as to inject him with that drug, we'd all be buried out in the desert somewhere. Once again, Byers steps up to the plate and comes through for the home team. But didn't he get us into this? Next time he sees Susanne, I'm calling out the SWAT team. ----------------------------------------------------------------- end