“I MADE THIS!”
I honestly don’t know what people see in the idea of multiple identities online. I’ve tried it. I’ve abandoned it. Way too much headache for zero return. One ID is more than enough. I simply haven’t the time or patience to be more than one me at a time.
That wasn’t always the case. Many years ago, I tried having multiple identities online. Robin Starveling was a nomenclature for my fan fiction, poetry, and other more artistic endeavors. Doktor Zachary Carleton was for my SubGenius stuff and less serious comedic fare. There were other alter egos too, that are less germane to this particular blog post. I eventually threw all that away and have gone by ZachsMind on pretty much everything in the past decade or so, but there are ..remnants of Robin Starveling scattered in cyberspace if you know where to look. If anyone ever finds Prosaic Asylum, let me know. I put that on GeoCities but I can’t find it anymore. I think it’s permanently lost. Oh well. And I recall writing something as a tribute to Laurie Anderson under the Robin Starveling name which I stumbled upon again many years later but can’t find today. Oh well.
I’m surprised Nine Minutes is still here. Below is a fossil that proves Robin Starveling once existed, but he evolved into me. If anyone else wants to claim to be Robin Starveling, you’re more than welcome. I stole the name from William Shakespeare so you are welcome to steal it from me. Just don’t be an ass about it.
I leave the following as I found it, copypasted and unedited. I’m even leaving the glaring spelling and grammatical errors intact. I pored over this a dozen times before posting it back in the nineties. It went thru a couple few drafts and yet STILL there are spelling errors. How humiliating, but that’s who I was and who I still am I suppose. The format doesn’t carry over to WordPress very well, but i wish to preserve it as it was long ago. A slice of my brain I left behind to find later. As in now.
No the flash.net email address doesn’t work anymore, at least not for me.
Sincerely,
ZachsMind
aka Doktor Zachary Carleton
aka Robin Starveling
aka etc etc…
______________________________________
From bobdobbs@flash.net Mon May 12 07:05:34 1997
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: Nine Minutes (1/1)
From: Zachary Carleton
——–
REVISION UPDATE – MAY 1997
XFILES FANFIC ARCHIVISTS: Please remove any other versions of this
story from your archives.
PLEASE ARCHIVE!
Title: Nine Minutes (1/1)
Author: Robin Starveling
Rating: PG (Language and Adult Situations)
Classification: X – X-Files
Spoilers/Timeline: This tale starts as a retelling of a portion of “The
Pilot” then jumps ahead to immediately after “Sanguinarium” in
the fourth season. Could possibly spoil those 2 eps for some.
Keywords/Misc Descriptions:
This is a “plotter” story, not a “shipper.” There’s NO romance.
It deals with Time Loss and Military/Conspiracies. Characters
from “The Pilot” are briefly mentioned.
Point Of View: 3rd Person Limited; lending towards Scully’s perspective
Summary: In a tale that spans four years, the missing nine minutes in
early March of 1992 are partially explained.
DISCLAIMERS:
The following contains characters owned by Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen
Productions. The intent is fan fiction. It is my understanding that
Carter and 1013 are under legal restraints NOT to accept unsolicited
ideas or manuscripts and this is not written to be considered for the
series. If ideas or concepts contained herein are found in similar
X-Files episodes in the future, I publically relinquish any rights to
seek legal action against Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen or related
organizations and corporate entities regarding my publically expressed
USENET Newsgroup post. This is for entertainment purposes only. I give
my permission for this to be sent to newsgroups & archives as long as
this header stays with the work. Events and characters below are
fictitious. Any similarity to persons or events living, dead or undead
are purely coincidental. Objects in the mirror are closer than they
appear.
The Earth Is Flat.
Feedback of any sort is appreciated. Please write to bobdobbs@flash.net
if you have the inclination.
______________________________________________________________________
“There is in life only one moment and in eternity only one.
“It is so brief that it is represented by the fleeting of a luminous
mote through the thin ray of sunlight- and it is visible but a fraction
of a second.
“The moments that preceded it have been lived, are forgotten and are
without value;
“the moments that have not been lived have no existence and will have no
value except in the moment that each shall be lived.
“While you are asleep you are dead; and whether you stay dead an hour or
a billion years the time to you is the same.”
– Mark Twain
Nine Minutes
a work of Fan Fiction in tribute to The X-Files
by Robin Starveling
containing events written originally by Chris Carter
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
________________________________________
Collum National Forest, Northwest Oregon
Rural Highway 133
March, 7th 1992
11:21am
It was a peaceful day and they were actually having a normal
conversation, considering they were discussing missing people and
unexplained deaths. Doctor Dana Scully had to smile despite herself. The
travel in the car with this strange dark man, assigned to her by her
superiors just days ago as her partner… Well, after their first
meeting, this pleasant “joyride” through Oregon’s beautiful woodlands
was sheer heaven.
She chuckled a bit, partly by what Mulder was saying, but also by the
mild euphoria this conversation had taken. She was so happy they were
getting along so well considering the circumstances.
“Is the medical examiner a suspect?”
Mulder spit out a sunflower seed husk to the floorboards. Nasty habit.
Good thing she wasn’t dating this one. Would be alot of work to do.
“We won’t know that until we do a little gravedigging. I’ve arranged to
exhume one of the other victims’ bodies to see if we can get a tissue
sample to match one of the girl’s,” he picked his teeth, which was
another habit about him she knew she would have to get used to, “you’re
not squeamish by that sort of thing, are you?”
This strange man known as special agent Fox Mulder, who was obsessed
with researching the X Files, the very project she was asked by her
superiors to debunk, knew from her records that she was a trained
medical doctor. She had done her residency in forensic medicine, but
even she had to admit she’d never done an autopsy on a body dug from a
grave before. “Not sure,” she said, “I’ve never had the pleasure.”
Suddenly the digital radio turned itself on and broke the awkward
conversation. It turned itself on at 107.3 and as Mulder reached towards
the radio in an attempt to turn it back off, It flipped itself to the
bottom range of frequencies with no noticable assistance. Must be a
short in the car, Scully thought to herself, but this was a brand new
rental car. That’s odd. Then she noticed the digital clock on the
dashboard was acting strange too. Suddenly it jumped from 11:30am to
2pm. Again, no noticable explanation. Maybe if they stopped the car and
looked under the hood she could determine-
Then a weird sound not coming from the speakers of the sound system made
her instinctively put her hands to her ears. “What’s going on?” she
asked.
Mulder stopped the car as his answer to her question. In silence, he
stepped out of the vehicle and like a man who has experienced this sort
of thing before, opened the trunk of the car and pulled out a red spray
can. Then he walked a few spaces behind the rental car and as she got
out of the car to watch him, Mulder methodically drew a large red X on
the black pavement of the road. Then he looked up at the sky for a
momenShe put her hands on her hips, almost dumbfounded. “What the hell
was
that about?” She asked him as he nonchalantly tossed the spray can back
in the car.
“Ah, you know. Probably nothing.”
_______________
9:00pm
That evening they were driving away from Collum National Forest, having
just been ‘scared away’ from the crime scene of the Karen Swenson murder
by the local detective, his shotgun, and threats of being thrown in jail
despite their FBI credentials. In truth, neither was frightened off, but
the detective seemed intent on using his gun, and there was no need at
this point in their investigation to completely alienate the local law
enforcement.
The drizzle that started when they were leaving the forest was getting
stronger now.
Mulder was driving again. Scully had made a mental note to indicate
later to her new partner that she did have a driver’s license, but it
had been a long day so she filed that concern to the back of her mind
for a later time. “What’s he doing out here all by himself?” Mulder
asked out loud not so much to Scully, but to himself.
“Maybe he has something to do with this.” She showed Mulder a handful of
ash she had lifted at the crime scene. “What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know. Is it a campfire?”
“It was all over the ground. I think something’s going on out there.
Some kind of a sacrifice maybe.” She felt this was important evidence.
Such ash scattered over such a wide area lended evidence to more than
just a campfire. Some sort of great energy was occurring in those woods,
but wasn’t affecting the local flora which meant it must be contained
somehow by man. Mulder didn’t seem to be concerned about it, instead he
reached into his pocket and pulled a red compass from his jacket pocket.
Undaunted, she continued, “What if those kids are involved in some kind
of a cult and that man knows something about it?” She was expecting him
to respond by saying the next logical course of action would be to speak
to the detective, preferably during the day in front of witnesses and
when he didn’t have his shotgun draped over his shoulder. However,
Mulder was intently examining his compass, paying attention to the road
a bit less than perhaps he should.
The compass was going crazy. Spinning from north to south. She only
glanced at it. His equiptment could be faulty. “I want to come back
here,” she said.
Mulder seemed nervous or agitated and it was beginning to bother her. He
looked at his watch as if late for something. She glanced again at the
compass, still in his right hand. It read west, then northeast.
“You okay, Mulder?”
“Yeah I’m just, uh…”
“What are you looking for?”
Then a bright flash of white light from outside Mulder’s window suddenly
made them both close their eyes.
_______________
9:03pm
UNKNOWN
_______________
9:12pm
The car had stopped. She was expecting them to crash, since Mulder
hadn’t been paying attention to the road. They must have passed a car
with it’s brights on. She hadn’t been looking out at the road. So much
for her academy training. She really should have been paying more
attention herself, she thought.
Mulder tried the ignition. The alternator made no sound. The battery
sounded dead.
“What happened?” For a new rental this piece of junk left a lot to be
desired.
“We lost power. Brakes, steering, everything!” He looked at his watch
again, “We lost nine minutes!” They both got out of the car into the
pouring rain, “WHOOOO!!!”
“We lost what?”
“Nine minutes! I looked at my watch just before the flash it was 9:03!”
He looked at it again, “It just turned 9:13!” He began wandering away
from the front of the car, walking down the road in the downpour.
Scully followed after him.
“Look!” he pointed at the pavement and in the barely lit, cloudy night
she could barely make out the red x he had painted earlier that day.
Mulder threw his hands into the air and looked up at the sky,
exhuberant, yelling at the heavens, “Oh yes!” Then he turned to face
Scully. “Abductees!”
She looked at him like he was a madman.
“People who have made UFO sightings! They’ve reported unexplained time
loss.”
“Come on!”
“Gone! Just like that!”
She couldn’t believe her ears, “Now wait a minute, You’re saying that-
that time disappeared! Time can’t just disappear! I-It’s a universal
invariance!”
Suddenly, from about thirty feet behind them, the rental car’s engine
roared to life, and the headlights bathed luminescence over both of
them.
“Not in this zip code!” Mulder ran to the car. Scully looked off after
him dumbstruck, then looked down at the Red X.
Dad was right, Scully thought to herself sullenly, I should have stayed
in medicine.
_____________________
J. Edgar Hoover Building – FBI Headquarters
Washington D.C.
November 21st, 1996
9:03 am
“So, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?”
“That’s quite a seque, Scully. From scanning these files for relation to
our recent twist of fate with the plastic surgery profession to the
holidays? Trust me, after what we’ve seen the last thing I want to think
about is carving turkey.”
“Well, what’s left of my family is out of town and-” God, had she grown
that detached? So much death had she seen in recent years, and she talks
about it like that? Maybe she DID need a holiday.
“I don’t know Scully. I was so looking forward to waking up late and
missing the Macy’s parade on TV. It’s a sort of tradition with me.” He
turned to her with a knowing smile, “Seriously, if you’re offering, I’d
love to have dinner with you next Thursday. I’ll uh, pencil you in.”
“Thanks. I think.” She smiled back. “Look, we’ve been at this since sun
up. Do we have to do this now? I’m starving.”
“Ugh,” Mulder looked down at the desk and all the pictures of the recent
‘accidents’ at the hospital. “How can you think of eating? Just the same
I could do for some fresh air.” They both looked at the clock at the
same time. “Man, we didn’t even order for pizza. I can’t believe we’ve
been at this for twelve whole hours.”
Scully walked towards the clock. “The clock’s busted. The second hand’s
not moving.”
Mulder blinked and looked down at his watch. It read nine oh three and
forty two seconds. am. He tapped on it. “My watch has stopped too, and
it’s digital. If it ‘stopped’ the battery would go dead and the screen
wouldn’t read anything.” He grabbed his coat and headed for the door,
“What’s going on here?”
Scully followed behind them, and a quick run up the stairs, since the
elevator wasn’t working, they witnessed what could be the strangest
sight they had ever seen.
No movement. No sound. Several people apparently rushing about in the
lobby of the FBI building, late for work no doubt, frozen in space.
Scully walked over to one individual in particular. Mister Frieburn who
was an accountant from the third floor. When this apparent time
discontinuity happened, he must have tripped on his untied shoe laces
just a second before.
“Lookit this!” She motioned for Mulder to come over. She pointed at his
shoes.
Mister Frieburn, a sweet balding man who Scully recalled saying hello to
several times in the halls or at FBI’s cafeteria, was floating suspended
in space two inches off the ground, in mid fall. His briefcase was half
open, and she could see several sheets of paper filled with numbers,
frozen. When time returned.. IF time returned, the papers would probably
fly all over the lobby.
“You think if we closed the briefcase and put a mattress in front of
him-”
“No, Scully. Don’t touch anything!”
“This can’t possibly be happening?”
Mulder rolled his eyes, “After ALL you’ve seen!”
Scully scowled, “yes the last four years with you have been…
enlightening, but the laws of physics dictate that-”
He looked at his watch again. “Nine oh three. Why does that ring a
bell?”
Then they heard a sound. Other than their voices and their footfalls the
entire place had been eerily silent but they heard what distinctly
sounded like a brief static from a walkie talkie. It came from behind
the security desk.
They looked at one another, and immediately, quietly, Mulder pulled his
gun from his trenchcoat. Scully reached for her purse but frighteningly
and embarrasedly realized she had left it downstairs.
Not missing a beat, and realizing whatever was back there would get
nervous that their conversation had stopped, “Damn, Mulder. I left my
purse downstairs.” She quietly slipped her feet out of her high heel
shoes but otherwise didn’t move, “I’ll have to go back downstairs to get
them.”
In a whisper, they could barely hear from behind and under desk, “abort
mission! Repeat! Abort mission!”
“Scully, that’s silly. What are we going to do now that time has
stopped? Head for your bank and use an ATM machine?” He motioned for her
to go around the other side of the desk.
She turned her back and tried almost successfully to throw her voice as
far as she could, “I’ll be right back!” Then she turned around and
tiptoed to the other side of the desk.
“I think I’m going to go over here and check these security monitors at
the desk. See if we’re the only ones moving.” As he approached the desk,
a man in army fatigues who looked greener than asparagus nervously stood
up with his gun drawn on Mulder.
“F-freeze!” Then Scully jumped him from behind, Mulder ducked, and a
plate glass window shattered behind him, as the military gent’s gun went
off. Mulder put his arms up to protect himself from the glass, but then
looked up to see them slowly stopping in mid air. The way the morning
sun reflected through them, it looked almost beautiful. He crawled away,
making sure not to get cut.
Most of the glass slowly wafted to the ground like feathers. Good thing
Scully can’t see this, thought Mulder. Or hear it. They’re not making
any sound. So much for her laws of physics dictating anything today.
Outside beyond the glass he saw a green truck with the sign “T. D. Unit
20968” on the side pulling away with a squeal of tires. He thought about
chasing after them, but then heard the military officer punching Scully
several times behind the desk. He stood back up and rushed around the
desk.
It wasn’t Scully being punched. “Wow. Remind me never to get rough with
you, Scully.” The man was turning black and blue before his eyes, laying
face up on the ground, disarmed, with Scully on top of his stomach.
“What’s going on here! I’m agent Scully this is special Agent Mulder. We
would tell you we’re with the FBI but you’re INFILTRATING our building!
So you obviously know. I want an explanation!”
Then they heard a clicking sound coming from his mouth, and the army
gent’s nose and mouth began foaming. She thought she heard him crying,
just before he burst into flames. Mulder grabbed Scully by the back of
her suit’s neckline and pulled her away. A big flash of light appeared
behind them, and a cloud of smoke that quickly dissipated leaving the
smell of burnt cinnamon.
“Yuck! That’s some cyanide capsule!”
Scully was beating out the flames on her skirt, and stinging from what
she assumed to be first degree burns on her inner thighs. “Mulder help
me!” Instinctively he obliged, throwing off his trenchcoat with a shrug
of his shoulders and covering her up with it.
Then they heard a ringing sound in the air, and through the pain Scully
pulled herself from Mulder and ran towards Mister Frieburn. When time
continued a second later, she caught him and his briefcase, preventing
his fall.
“Gee. Sorry Miss Scully. Didn’t see you there.”
“Hello sir. You might want to tie your shoes.”
“No time. I’m late for work!” He rushed off with a quick thank you and
ran up the stairs. Scully looked at Mulder, on his knees with a
trenchcoat in hand, looking back at her. Everyone around them seemed to
not notice that to them, they had just materialized in the room.
Everyone seemed in a hurry to get to work.
Scully’s legs felt raw. She stepped back to Mulder and helped him up.
They looked back at behind the security desk.
“Excuse me,” a muscular man in a suit carrying a cup of coffee brushed
past them and sat down at the nearby chair behind the desk. The place
where the military man had burst into flames was empty. No trace.
The man behind the desk sniffed at the air, looked at Scully, “nice
perfume miss.”
“Uh, thank you.”
Mulder knew the security man would notice the broken glass window
by the desk any second, and he wasn’t in the mood to attempt an
explanation. “Come on.” Mulder said covering Scully’s singed skirt with
his trenchcoat, “I think there’s a first aid kit downstairs.”
“What just happened here, Mulder?”
He looked down at his watch, “I have no idea. But these people might as
well quit rushing. They just lost nine minutes.”
Scully looked down at Mulder’s watch. It read 9:12am.
END OF NINE MINUTES
A FANFIC of X-FILES
by Robin Starveling
featuring fictitious events written originally by Chris Carter
which were “inspired by actual documented events.”
—
Operation Cobweb
http://www.flash.net/~bobdobbs/xfiles
===============================================================================
“Nine Minutes” by Starveling, Robin
This story was downloaded from the Gossamer Project on 9 September 2013.
Do not archive stories elsewhere without permission from the author(s).
See the Gossamer policies for more information:
http://tooms.gossamer.org/local/policies.html
===============================================================================
ZachsMind 