Down and Safe: Part 1

A rather large pair of feet dominated the desk, haphazardly plopped up on a small stack of manila file folders. A portable mini-disk player sat on one side of the desk hooked up to a cheap pair of headphones. The other end of the headphones was hooked up to the ears of FBI agent Fox Mulder. He appeared lost in a daze, staring off into space and twirling a pencil between his fingers.

"Mulder...", Scully started, but was cut off by Mulder's sudden jerk back into reality. He lost his balance on the chair and toppled ungracefully onto the floor, his headphones jerked off his head and the Mini-Disk player was pulled violently off the desk, joining him on the floor.

As Mulder slowly got to his feet, Scully stared at him in disbelief. "You really shouldn't sneak up on me like that.", Mulder accused.

"You were in another world, I was in the room a good ten seconds before I got your attention.", Scully replied.

"Damnit! I think I broke it.", Mulder said, still ignoring Scully, as he bent over to retrieve the Mini-Disk player. Straightening up, he opened a desk drawer, deposited the dead Mini-Disk player in the drawer, and removed a gaudy white bracelet. He tossed the bracelet to Scully. "Ever seen one of these?", Mulder inquired.

Scully turned the bracelet over in her hands a few times. "It looks like a leftover Star Wars toy from the late 70's, but I'm assuming you think it's something else.", she replied.

Mulder started, "It was sent to me in an unlabeled white box. I looked under what appeared to be a battery cover and I found a small receiver unit. I brought it over to Jimmy Bailey at Multiex."

"Isn't he the guy that used to work over in the Advance Audio department?", Scully cut him off.

"Yeah, he quit after IS took away his Mac. Anyway, he took his ideas and his Powerbook and joined up with Mutiex.", Mulder replied. "He managed to hook it up to a recorder, and discovered it was still receiving signals. I was listening to a few transmissions when you walked in..", he finished.

"You gotten so called transmissions before, what's so special about this set? I never seen you so entranced by a tape before.", Scully asked.

"Mini-Disk, not tape." He quickly corrected her. Scully rolled her eyes. Mulder took his toys too seriously. "What makes this one unusual is that it's in English, and it accurately predicted today's stock market rebound.", he continued.

"So did half of the stock brokers out there. Just because the transmission correctly predicted the stock market's actions today, doesn't mean we're dealing with time traveling aliens, Mulder.", Scully said.

"Not aliens Scully, humans. Humans with advanced time travel and matter transportation technology. The transmissions are in English, but the accent is British.", Mulder responded.

"Matter transmission? How do you know that?", Scully inquired.

"The recordings refer often to a teleport device, and the most frequent messages seem to be matter transmission confirmations or requests.", Mulder answered.

He took the bracelet back from Scully, and snapped it on his wrist. "Ever seen Star Trek III?", he asked.

Scully became confused, "You know I don't watch that type of stuff Mulder, what are you getting at?"

Scully could swear she saw a twinkle in Mulder's eye. "Watch!", he said. He brought up the bracelet, as if to check the time on a watch, and quickly said, "Bring me up! Now!" Scully watched in disbelief as a white border appeared around him and expanded. Mulder has disappeared.