text. un: knicksfan1961

[bigfootfetish]

[ In 1999, usernames describing interests are king and web 2.0 has yet to be dreamt of. This looks like a place to keep a weblog, and Mulder's not opposed to the possibilities. ]

Since childhood, I've dreamt of space. Who among us didn't, raised as we were? We grew up in the shadow of JFK's promise to take America to the moon, watching Neil Armstrong's fateful steps on minuscule TV screens, sitting in sweltering living rooms and imagining we were the ones clambering out of Apollo 11. That it might have been faked by Stanley Kubrick is beyond the point; we were kids, and we believed.

I've taken a giant leap for a man, let alone mankind, waking up in what appears to be a space station and not a sound-stage built by the Walt Disney Company. I see no flaws as of yet, no flies in the ointment. And yet I confess that I'm suspicious.

My concerns are several, key among them the possibility that I'm actually dying in a cave somewhere under the surface of North Carolina. That this is a distraction from the real work I intend to do, lunatic hallucinations designed to keep me from escaping my fate - but if my mind doesn't deceive me, this could be the case I've waited for. There's no denying that the bargain I've (allegedly) made is a strange one, threatening the fabric of time and space. And yet it feels almost reasonable: if I can be stolen from a hospital bed to the furthest reaches of the universe, why can't I intercede in events that have already happened?

(Merely existing here, witnessing technology beyond any I've seen in my dealings with Cancer Man or his shadowy colleagues, already continues work I've chased for years. I want to know more.)

I'm keeping a careful eye out for anomalies in my perceptions, anything that might lend credence to my null-hypothesis (digestion by way of fungi). I'm also on the search for a functional television and VCR; among other things, I've arrived with a handful of videotapes, but I have no way of watching them.

Comments

[rehandle]

Thanks anyway. You're a little too far out of your jurisdiction for me to worry too much about verifying your credentials.

[ Agent Fox Mulder... every day gets a little more wild. ]

There's a Deputy U.S Marshal around here too.

[ Just in case having fellow US government agency staff present might combat the effects of there also being. Jake the Dog. ]

[bigfootfetish]

Huh. How is he?

[ Mulder, don't be sexist. But the point is, the U.S. Marshals are sometimes helpful, sometimes...really not. ]

[rehandle]

[ Sadly for everybody, Tim Gutterson is a man and Stephen Strange is also a man and so today nobody learns a single thing. ]

Key player in a recent interplanetary evacuation scouting party, if that's any indication.

[ He and Gutterson may not have seen eye to eye, but he still threw his all into making it work when general consensus overruled his concerns, and for that he has Stephen's respect. ]

[bigfootfetish]

Sounds like you got one of their better deputies.

[ Fox "fuck the Feds" Mulder. ]

I'll spare you the interdepartmental quibbling, though. What kind of doctor are you?

[rehandle]

[ Hahaha, that's -1 point to the soothing effects of the U.S. Marshals, noted. ]

Neurosurgeon, M.D. Ph.D. No longer practicing.

[bigfootfetish]

Impressive. Does 'no longer practicing' extend to the space station?

[rehandle]

For the most part. But the infirmary's well armed with capable doctors.

[bigfootfetish]

Good to know.

What do you do now? I've known my share of medical doctors, and speaking broadly, you don't seem to do all that well with too much leisure time.

[rehandle]

I can't claim to break that mold. Before I answer the question, fair warning: it's your next trip hazard. [ Trip hazard... badumtsh. ] Ready?

[bigfootfetish]

Trip me up, Doc.

[rehandle]

I'm a sorcerer.

[bigfootfetish]

What kind?

[rehandle]

The magic kind. Do you have a list of varieties?

[bigfootfetish]

Black, white, or gray. Necromancy, divination, conjuring, charm creation, spiritual healing. Do you favor Enochian magic, are you partial to Thelemic beliefs, how do you feel about the Kabbalah. Hell, we could break down individual categories if we wanted to get really particular. Do you read the future in the entrails of farm animals, or do you use dice?

1/3...

[rehandle]

[rehandle]

[ ]

[rehandle]

Whereabouts on the station are you?

[bigfootfetish]

Right now? The sunlight room. If you'd prefer to talk out here, I'll be the guy in the sweater.

[rehandle]

Great, see you in ten seconds.

[ Which would be his cue to tear open a portal of sparking amber approximately five strides to Mulder's left and step right through, dressed in his station casuals and a puffer jacket with his flying cloak disengaged and bringing up the rear. You know, just to make sure he's reading sorcerer enough, portal aside. ]

Agent Mulder.

[ If he sounds less than enthusiastic it's because he just aged 10+ years in 2 seconds at the hands of this very man. ]

[bigfootfetish]

[ Mulder doesn't tend to startle easily; you lose the instinct sometime after your third near-death experience. But his shoulders tense at the suddenness of Strange's appearance: nothing, and then something, all of creation summed up by a man who looks like he spends twenty minutes landscaping his facial hair every morning.

He turns to get a better look at the guy (and more importantly, the cape floating along behind him like a scarlet ghost). ]

See, if I thought tearing holes in the fabric of reality was on the table, I would've led with it. That always seemed a little more scifi to me.

[rehandle]

Mm. Well, surprise.

[ Dry as anything. Behind him the portal spins on, the view through it that of a standard station bedroom, and the cloak hovers just a little higher to peer over Stephen's shoulder with all the eyes it simply does not have. ]

To answer your question: I'm a Master of the Mystic Arts. Typically but not exclusively we utilise Eldritch magic. Usually no to the necromancy, historically yes to the divination - no entrails, bones, runes or dice required - I wouldn't call it charm creation but we do imbue objects with magic [ the cloak lifts one of its corners in a 'hello, yes, that would be me' style wave ], and actually yes on the spiritual healing, but not with any of the methods I imagine you could list for me. I don't practice according to any of the belief systems you just mentioned, though it's not unlikely there's some overlap, ancient as our practice is.

Does that about cover everything?

[ Please never speak to him about the entrails of farm animals ever again. ]

[bigfootfetish]

[ Mulder's gaze moves between man and cape and portal, uncertain where his attention should settle. With Strange, obviously, but look, he's already composing notes in his head for his field journal. The field journal that was going to be on the network and now most definitely is not. ]

If they'd offered a Masters in Mystic Arts back at school, I might have skipped the FBI Academy. [ Good news, that smart mouth never turns off. ]

You've opened up a whole new range of questions for me, Doc, but you look like you might have somewhere to be. [ Viz., that portal back to...is that his room? Mulder wants to walk through it so badly. ] What do you think? Stay for the great conversation or go back to whatever you were doing a minute ago?

[rehandle]

[ In spite of himself, that one gets a pinch at the corner of his mouth. It's not quite a smirk, but it's close. And then the offer of a great conversation, and at the same time as his eyes briefly close for just a second longer than a normal blink would last (absolutely covering up an eye roll as he makes a decision that is inevitably going to exhaust him), he lifts a hand to make a gesture in the air and the portal at his back spins closed.

Damn if he doesn't love talking about magic to the appropriately enthusiastic. ]

Alright. Intro to Sorcery starts now, what do you want to know?

[bigfootfetish]

To start with: Were you born magic, did you achieve magic, or did you have magic thrust upon you?

[ Don't worry, there'll be more questions. He's going to need a private file for this. He'll need to tell Scully everything he learns, watch her scoff, and then make her look at that floating cape. This is real - this is true.

But for now, they can go for a walk in the fake sunlight and trade a few stories. ]

[rehandle]

[ A huff of laughter at the reference - okay, nerd, let's go.

It doesn't trouble Stephen to fall into step now he's committed his afternoon to letting one Fox Mulder in on the secrets of the multiverse. If only Wong could see him now... ]

Let's call it a two/three combo. Picked it up in my late thirties mostly by accident - I'd heard they had a miracle cure for nerve damage. What they actually had was magic, and now I help save the world every other week.

Remind me again of your investigative purview?

[ 'Again', he has asked 0 times. ]