Laura Cooksey
lcooksey@clark.net

X-Files characters (c) Ten-Thirteen, Chris Carter, and 20th
Century Fox, and used without permission. No copyright
infringement is intended.

The author welcomes comments at her e-mail address.

                      Miracles
                         by
                     Laura Cooksey
     
Tuesday, August 8, 1995. FBI Headquarters, Washington, DC.

     Fox Mulder looked up from the paperwork at his desk in
the cluttered X-Files office. Dana Scully, his fellow FBI
agent, who was also a physician, was engrossed in an article
in the New England Journal of Medicine. She had, in fact, been
reading the magazine for the past hour. "What _are_ you
reading, Scully?"
     "Hmm?" She looked up, a little distracted. "Oh, it's an
article on statistical analysis of medical data. You know how
some areas of the country have much higher incidences of
certain diseases?" Mulder nodded, and Scully continued. "A
group of medical statisticians at Johns Hopkins were examining
data from a number of studies, looking at the methods used,
trying to find any flaws in procedures that would account for
statistically significant variations by accident."
     "And find ways to re-examine existing data to produce
more accurate results?" Mulder suggested.
     "Right. Well, they looked at three studies that had found
significantly above-average incidences of leukemia, and one
study with an average incidence of cases. Upon rechecking the
data, they found one small area -- in the study with an average
incidence -- with a rate of leukemia _remission_ that was 2.3
times normal. In the article they cite it as an example of
normal statistical variation in medical data."
     "Depending on your definition of normal. Where was the
area with the high rate of remission?"
     Scully flipped through the pages of the magazine.
"Western Pennsylvania. The data came from a study by ColeMed
Pharmaceuticals of long-term results of chemotherapy on
leukemia. The Johns Hopkins team double-checked the data, even
interviewed some of the patients again. But they didn't turn
up any errors in the data or the analysis. It's just a fluke."
     "ColeMed?" Mulder thought for a minute. "Near New
Castle?"
     "Yeah," Scully replied. "Why?"
     "ColeMed sounds familiar. Give me a minute." Mulder got
out of his chair and walked along the row of filing cabinets
in the office. Stopping, he pulled out a drawer and began
thumbing through the hanging files inside. Pulling out a file,
he scanned the papers in the folder. "Here it is. Five years
ago there was a rumor in the UFO community that ColeMed was
experimenting with alien tissue cultures. An independent
researcher, Alan D'Abruzzo, went to investigate ColeMed. He
was killed in a carjacking on the Pennsylvania Turnpike."
     Scully took the folder as Mulder offered it to her,
opened to the police report. "That sounds like quite a
coincidence. I don't think I've ever heard of a carjacking on
an interstate highway before." She scanned the file. "Did he
ever get to ColeMed? There's no mention of the company in this
report."
     Mulder took the folder back, skimmed it once more, then
closed it. "I don't know, Scully. Want to find out?"
     "Are you serious? You want to go all the way to New
Castle based on a statistical fluke and a coincidence?"
     Mulder grinned at her. "Do you have better plans? We've
got an unsolved murder, possibly conspiracy to commit murder,
and a rumor of alien tissue samples. How can I resist?
Besides, if we stay up there a week or two, we can go to
Pennsic."
     "Okay. But _you_ get to make the travel arrangements this
time. I also think we should talk to the researchers at Johns
Hopkins first. I'll call and see if they can fax me some
information on the ColeMed study."
     "Good. I'll talk to some of my UFO contacts and see what
they know."
                               
                          **********
                               
Thursday, August 10, 1995. Pennsylvania Turnpike.

     "What's the matter, Mulder?"
     "Nothing. I'm just trying to get figure out where all the
controls are on this car. You know how it is with rentals."
Scully nodded with a grin, and opened the glove box, looking
for a manual. "I tried that when I picked up the car," he
said. "No luck."
     He glanced at her briefly before changing the topic. "So,
what was in that ream of papers Johns Hopkins FedExed to you
yesterday afternoon?"
     Scully pulled some of the papers out of her briefcase.
"There were a spate of leukemia remissions starting in March
1989 and continuing through July 1991. ColeMed was starting a
study of long-term effects of chemotherapy on leukemia
patients. They examined a number of patients from hospitals in
Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio.
     "Listen to some of these interviews with patients and
their families: 'I'd been fighting the cancer for almost three
years, and the chemo always left me weak. But then I started
to feel better, and the doctors told me I was in remission. It
was a miracle.' Here's another: 'My son saw an angel in his
dreams. His blood was almost normal the next day. Two weeks
later he was fine. God answered our prayers.'"
     "But you think it's just one end of a normal bell curve,"
he said.
     Scully nodded. "If you flip a coin enough times, you
might end up with a string of 100 heads in a row. It's
unlikely, but not impossible. And it doesn't mean that
anything abnormal or supernatural is happening."
     They drove for a couple of hours, checked into their
hotel, then visited the local police.
                               
                          **********
                               
Friday, August 11, 1995. ColeMed Pharmaceuticals.

     Scully and Mulder drove to the main offices of ColeMed,
on the edge of New Castle. The offices were in a nondescript
building in a small office park. "Not very impressive," Mulder
commented. They entered the lobby and approached the
receptionist.
     Scully flashed her ID. "Good morning. I'm FBI Special
Agent Dana Scully, and this is Special Agent Fox Mulder. We
have an appointment to see Mr. Philips, your head of
personnel."
     The receptionist checked her computer. "According to
this, the appointment has been changed to Dr. Akerson, our
head of research and development. His office is on the third
floor, room 303. If you'll sign in and take visitor badges
first, the elevator is just around the corner to your right."
     Both agents complied, noting the change in plans with
interest. The elevator doors closed with just the two of them
inside and they got off on the third floor. Akerson's office
was large and overlooked the park in the center of the office
complex. His secretary announced them, then escorted them into
the room. Dr. Akerson, a medium-sized man in his mid-fifties,
with salt-and-pepper hair, stood up as they entered.
     Mulder introduced himself and Scully. Dr. Akerson invited
them to sit. "Please, make yourselves comfortable. I
understand from Mr. Philips that you'd like to see a list of
all the employees that were at ColeMed during the period from
June to September of 1990."
     "That's right," Mulder said. "We're investigating the
murder of a researcher who was supposed to have visited
ColeMed during that period. We'd like to find out if he
actually talked to anyone here."
     Dr. Akerson shifted in his chair. "Of course, I'd like to
help the FBI with its investigation, but without a court
order; well, you understand. Personnel records are
confidential."
     "Of course, Doctor." Scully pulled their court order out
of her bag. "Would you like to have your legal staff review
this?"
     "Not at all, Agent Scully." Akerson glanced at the
document briefly. "I'm certain everything is in order." He
stood up. "If you'll follow me, I'll walk you up to the
records room on the sixth floor. I'm sure we can get you set
up with everything you need."
     The three of them rode up to the sixth floor, where Dr.
Akerson led them to Mr. Philips office. "John," Akerson said,
"could you get one of your people to help Agents Scully and
Mulder, please?"
     "Of course," Philips replied. He selected a man in his
early twenties and introduced him to the group in his office.
"Mr. Mulder, Ms. Scully, this is Paul Wiedlander, one of my
MIS staff. Paul, this is Dr. Akerson, our head of R&D, and FBI
Agents Scully and Mulder. I'd like you to help them get a list
of personnel out of the computer system. They'll let you know
exactly what they need."
     Wiedlander looked nervous, getting far more excitement
than he was accustomed to. "Yes, sir, Mr. Philips." He flipped
his ponytail over his shoulder self-consciously, unaccustomed
to dealing with people outside the company.
     Akerson led the three of them back down the hall past the
elevator to the records room. "Well, I'm certain Mr.
Wiedlander can help you from here. If you have any questions,
or need anything, just ring my secretary, and I'll make
certain you get the help you need. I hope you find what you're
looking for."
     "Thank you, Dr. Akerson," Mulder said.
     The room was huge, taking up half of the floor, with
filing cabinets, book cases and a few computers on modular
desks. There was a small room that could be entered via a door
in the wall to their right. Wiedlander plopped down in front
of one of the PCs and logged in. Scully pulled up a chair to
observe, and Mulder hovered over her shoulder. "Now, what
records are you folks looking for?" Wiedlander asked.
     "All the employees that worked here during the period of
June to September of 1990," Scully said.
     "Gotcha," he replied. With a few mouse clicks he fired up
the Windows program that served as the front-end to the
personnel database. "You folks are lucky. We just got the last
of the archived personnel records transferred off of hardcopy
six months ago."
     As he was selecting the data they needed, the computer
beeped. He did one of those annoying things computer gurus do:
switching from the program he was in to the email program,
checking the message that came in, answering it, and switching
back to the database in the span of just a few seconds.
     "What was that?" Scully asked, amused.
     "Hmm? Oh, sorry. That was my friend, Pidge. She was just
letting me know that she was coming up to see me. She's
Akerson's foster daughter."
     "Does she work in the building?" Mulder asked.
     Wiedlander laughed. "No, sir. She's only eighteen. She's
autistic and skittish, but very smart. She likes to hang out
in the library, which they're moving into here, now that a lot
of the paper records are being warehoused." He nodded toward
the books on the shelves in the back half of the room. "We eat
lunch together and talk about computers, when Akerson's in
town."
     "That's interesting," Scully said. Wiedlander seemed
friendly and full of information. She decided to take
advantage of those two traits. "We were curious how we ended
up talking to Dr. Akerson after we made an appointment with
your boss, Mr. Philips."
     "Oh, Akerson's got his finger in everything outside of
the main office of ColeMed. The HQ is in Pittsburgh, but the
labs are all here and north of here. Akerson is a hot-shot
researcher, and a micro-manager." The latter was obviously a
characteristic of which he disapproved. "He's always nervous
abut the company image. Doesn't surprise me a bit that he'd
take charge if he found out two FBI agents were interested in
ColeMed employees."
     The door opened and a blur in blue scrubs shot into the
room. A very slender young woman just under five feet tall
braked to a halt just shy of the desk they were using. She
looked startled to see people besides her friend in the room.
Wiedlander greeted her. "Hi, Pidge. I'm kinda busy right now,
but maybe we can get together a little later, okay?"
     She nodded, her short, dark brown hair bobbing with the
motion. "I'll be back in the stacks," she said in a soft voice
and disappeared down an aisle.
     As she turned to go, Mulder could see a tracking band
around her right ankle. The kind of thing used with prisoners
on work-release programs to make sure they don't escape. "Mr.
Wiedlander," he started to say.
     "Please, just Paul."
     "Paul, what was that on her ankle?" Mulder asked in a low
voice, not wanting to upset the young woman, if she was still
in earshot.
     Paul sighed as he continued to work on the computer.
"Pidge has tried to run away a few times. Dr. Akerson had a
security system installed to keep track of her both here and
at his house. He takes her to work with him everyday. I kind
of feel sorry for him; she's a real handful, I'm sure. Not
that I don't feel sorry for her," he added hastily. "It's a
shame."
     "Has she gotten any professional help?" Scully asked.
     Wiedlander shrugged. "I think so. Dr. Akerson can
certainly afford it." He finished typing and punched the
return key authoritatively. "This is going to take a while. We
should get the first few records back in less than a minute,
but it will take the next half-hour or so to get them all. The
database is too big, and our server is seriously overloaded. I
keep telling Philips to upgrade, but you know how that goes,"
he said, secure that bureaucracy was the same everywhere.
"I'll print the job out when it's done. You can come back by
later to pick it up. I'd be happy to give you a call."
     Scully smiled at him and examined the interface of the
program carefully. "Is it okay if we browse through the data
that comes back? I might want to print it out later, but we
can probably eliminate a number of the records first. No point
in wasting paper."
     He frowned for a moment, then shrugged. "Sure. I was
supposed to be talking to a contractor about expanding our
WAN; our Wide Area Network. Let me give him a call and
cancel."
     "You don't have to," she said. "I'm sure we'd be all
right on our own for a little while."
     "Really? That would be great. I guess I should have
logged you into a guest account, instead of my own account.
Don't mess anything up and get me in trouble!" he said with a
laugh. "I'll use the phone in the adjacent office. Just knock
on the door if you have problems."
     "I don't think we'll have any trouble with it," Scully
said. "It looks pretty straightforward." Wiedlander got up and
headed into the small adjoining office, while Mulder sat down
in the chair he had vacated. The ColeMed employee hesitated in
the doorway of the other room for a moment. "Um, I should
mention that Pidge is especially skittish around male
strangers. No offense," he said to Mulder.
     "That's okay. None taken," Mulder responded. He waited
for Wiedlander to close the door behind him, then turned to
Scully. "I don't think she's autistic."
     "Neither do I," Scully replied. "Do you believe that
business about the security system?"
     "I have my doubts. Why don't you see if you can get her
to talk to you, Scully. I'll dig through the records here and
see if anything promising turns up."
     Scully wandered back through the bookcases and found
Pidge with her feet propped up on a desk, a large book in her
lap. Pidge's head snapped around nervously as the FBI agent
came into view.
     "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," Scully said. "What
are you reading?"
     Pidge cleared her throat. "Um, it's a reference on
diagnosing and treating arthritis."
     "Osteoarthritis or rheumatoid?"
     "Both," Pidge said. She took her feet off of the desk and
sat up in the chair. "What are you guys doing with Paul?"
     "We're FBI Agents. I'm Special Agent Scully and my
partner is Special Agent Mulder. We need to talk to people who
were ColeMed employees about five years ago, so Mr. Wiedlander
is helping us with the personnel database."
     "Are you really an FBI agent?" Pidge said, suddenly
looking very interested.
     Scully nodded with a smile. "Don't I look like one?"
     Pidge thought about that for a second. "I don't know.
I've never seen an FBI agent before. Where'd Paul go?"
     Scully was dismayed by how short Pidge's attention span
was. She flitted from topic to topic like a hummingbird
visiting flowers. "He needed to use the telephone, so he's in
the office near the entrance."
     "Okay. We usually have lunch together. Do you carry a
gun?"
     "Sometimes," Scully answered cautiously.
     "Slick," Pidge said, clearly impressed. Scully was a
little worried at the slightly wild look in Pidge's eyes.
Still, she interacted with Scully -- a complete stranger -- far
too readily to be autistic. There was something very weird
going on. "So how did you get a nickname like Pidge?"
     "I don't remember. Everyone's called me that since I was
just a kid. Hey, did Paul tell you I was crazy?"
     Scully saw no reason to lie. "He said you were autistic."
Pidge seemed to expect that answer, but looked very surprised
when Scully continued, saying, "But, I think he's wrong."
     "Really? Have you studied psychology?" Pidge asked.
     "Some," Scully equivocated. Pidge seemed about to say
something else when a beeper went off. Scully almost checked
hers by reflex before realizing that Pidge was carrying one,
too.
     The young woman fished it out of her pocket and shut it
off, glancing at the readout. She sighed. "Gotta go. Akerson
wants me. I'm probably in trouble for talking to you." She
stood and put the book back on a shelf before heading for the
door.
     "I hope you're not in any trouble, Pidge," Scully said.
Pidge stopped, surprised, and her wild eyes blinked. "That's
okay, Ms. Scully. I've gotten good at handling it. But,
thanks."
     Mulder glanced at Pidge as she left, then raised an
eyebrow at Scully as she sat back down. Scully exhaled,
suddenly realizing how tense she was. "She didn't weird you
out, did she, Scully?"
     "She makes you look positively ordinary," Scully replied.
"Ouch," Mulder protested. He tried to look hurt, but failed
miserably, and Scully ignored him. "If she's getting any help,
which I doubt, it isn't enough."
     "Child abuse and neglect are beyond our jurisdiction.
What do you suggest we do? Involve the local police?"
     "I don't know yet, Mulder. I want to do something,
though. This isn't right."
     He nodded, scrolling through records swiftly with the
mouse. "I know. But one problem at a time."
     "Right," Scully said. "See anything interesting in the
personnel files?"
     "We're up to eight hundred records and the count is still
climbing. We need to narrow it down to those who might have
been at the New Castle facility during that period."
     "I'll say." She leaned back in the chair, frustrated. The
two of them remained in the records room through lunch and
into the evening. They culled out records of employees who
were now deceased or who had never worked in New Castle. But
that still left them with almost five hundred names. Pidge
didn't make a reappearance, but Wiedlander stayed with them,
on and off, until they were printing the information for all
the remaining names. He walked them down the hall back to his
cubicle and showed them which printer their job was on. "If
you two don't need anything else, I'll be heading out," he
said.
     "Thanks, I think we're fine," Mulder said, gathering up
the first set of pages and flipping through them to make sure
they were printing properly. Scully asked, "Is it okay for us
to stay in the building unescorted? I didn't realize it was
almost eight o'clock."
     Wiedlander zipped his briefcase closed before answering.
"Sure. You've got visitor's badges. You're the FBI, for
chrissakes," he said with a big grin. "Just leave the printer
on when you're done. I'll be sure to tell the receptionist or
security that you'll be down shortly." He paused and gave
Mulder (who was standing with his back to Scully and
Wiedlander) an appreciative look. With a smile, he winked at
Scully, who had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
     "Good night. Thanks again," she said as he departed.
     "What's funny?" Mulder asked when the other man had left,
seeing Scully's expression.
     "You don't want to know," she said.
     He thought about it for a second, then grinned. "How come
nobody loves me for my mind?" Scully laughed and patted him on
the shoulder. "Don't worry, Mulder. I love you for your mind."
     "Thanks, Scully. I knew I could count on you," he said,
with just a hint of sarcasm, acknowledging the depth of their
relationship as friends and partners. They waited in silence
for the printer to finish spitting pages.
     The last page hummed out only a couple of minutes later,
and they put a rubber band around the last ream of sheets,
dropping them into an empty paper box. Each personnel file was
two or three sheets, so it was quite a load. Mulder hefted the
box and Scully opened the door to the hallway. He stepped
through and Scully followed.
     Then the world went black around them both.
                               
                          **********
END PART 1