The Major crossed his arms. “I don’t think I heard you correctly, airman.”
Gimble stood and saluted his father. “Can we start watching it, sir!”
As if on cue, the opening sequence filled the TV screen and the Major sat down in his recliner. Mulder was sucked in the moment the opening montage started. Diagrams of schematics of flying saucers straight out of a sci-fi novel filled the screen, while a narrator explained that biblical Ezekiel “saw the wheel”—a UFO—and other people have seen them, too. So the US Air Force created a team to investigate.
“Of course they chose our boys,” the Major said, touching the US Air Force patch on his chest. “But they never wanted them to actually find anything.”
The episode dramatized a scout leader’s encounter with a UFO, outside a small Mississippi town. “I saw a flash of light in the sky, and I went to check it out.”
A fake UFO that looked like a spaceship in a comic book zapped the guy with lasers that left his arm covered in burns.
“It was probably swamp gas playing tricks on the guy, like they said at the beginning,” Gimble said.
“That’s what the government wants you to believe.” The Major was glued to the television, and Mulder couldn’t blame him.
On-screen, the scout leader dragged a hand over his face. “I never should’ve gotten close to their ship.”
“Whose ship?” one of the air force investigators asked.
Mulder knew what was coming.
After a dramatic pause, the scout leader finally spoke. “Aliens.”
The Major said the word along with him.
“I bet he burned himself while he was building a campfire,” Gimble said. “And he didn’t want to lose his job.”
“Being a scout leader isn’t really a job,” Mulder pointed out. “They don’t get paid.”
“Gary is a skeptic.” The Major rose from his chair and turned off the VHS player. “He doesn’t know the truth.”
“I’m not a skeptic.” Gimble leaned forward and dropped his head in his hands, exasperated. “Do you think President Carter would let anyone put a show like that on the air if aliens really existed?”
The Major looked at his son. “By telling everyone that aliens and UFOs exist, the government is proving they don’t.”
Mulder nodded. The argument made a certain kind of sense. People expected the government to keep secrets. “Your dad has a point.”
“You don’t actually believe any of this alien stuff, do you?” Gimble gave Mulder an incredulous look.
“Anything is possible. It wouldn’t be the first time that the government lied. Look what happened with Watergate.” Mulder remembered hearing about the Watergate scandal on the news. It felt like the moment in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy pulled back the curtain on the wizard.
He had witnessed firsthand how easily people accepted the explanations they were given. After his sister vanished, the authorities had conducted a massive search. When it turned up nothing, they decided Samantha’s disappearance was an isolated incident—and overnight, everyone on the island did, too.
Except Mulder.
“Watergate will look like a bunch of children arguing on the playground compared to what our so-called government is involved in this time. They think they’re in control, but they aren’t the architects behind the design,” the Major said.
Gimble blew out a loud breath and slumped against the sofa, tossing one of his game dice in the air. He seemed to have heard this before.
The Major rushed over to the map. “The world is in chaos. War, famine.” He tapped an article on the map. “And crime. But Chaos can’t exist without Law.”
Chaos can’t exist without order, was probably what the Major meant, but Mulder wasn’t about to correct him. “Mind if I take a look?”
The Major stood taller. “Go ahead.”
Mulder moved closer to the gigantic map of the Washington, DC, metro area taped to the wall. Colored pushpins marked specific locations, and the Major had strung a web of lines between them—the waterfront in Southwest DC; a residential area in Annapolis, Maryland; a stretch of forest in Severn, Maryland.
Newspaper articles with grainy pictures were pinned next to each location, along with random items, like half-finished word searches, glossy black-and-white crime scene photos that looked real, and fortunes from fortune cookies. A mug shot of a woman with mascara smeared down her face, after she was charged with pimping teenage girls, was pinned next to a Washington Post headline about a madam whose body was found in a waterfront dumpster. Under the Annapolis pushpin, the Major had saved a longer article with the headline FATAL OVERDOSE EXPOSES ANNAPOLIS DOCTOR’S REAL PROFESSION. He had circled the phrase opiate-dealing psychiatrist discovered dead. Mulder’s gaze followed the black line from the Annapolis pin to the Severn pin, where the Major had taped a newspaper clipping about a man who had been killed in the woods by wild animals.
“What is all this?” Mulder asked without taking his eyes off the map.
“You don’t want to hear about it,” Gimble said from his spot on the sofa.