(Headers and disclaimer on Chapter One)

Prison of Innocents (12 of 20)

This isn't right, Scully.  Mulder's lips moved, but no sound
came out. He nodded out the front car windshield in the direction 
of Henry Donaldson - at least it looked somewhat like Henry Donaldson
 - in the street in front of him.  What's wrong with this picture, Scully?

Mulder had been thinking about the various permutations of
mind-melding that he'd discovered and, like pieces of a round
puzzle, tried pounding them into the square peg of Scully's
situation.  He wondered exactly where Donaldson fit.  Mulder knew
he was a big fat piece. A piece Scully might see if she were here. 

"My head is going to explode," Mulder said aloud, knowing
he would never talk this way if Scully were really with him.

What did power, instinct, intuition and Scully -
especially Scully - have to do with the ability to become
absorbed into another human's mind? He could sense her
next to him, hear her exasperated sigh at his flights into the
absurd.

He had been spending a lot of time reviewing his life with Scully-
particularly the time since he returned from survival training. He'd
begun to remember things she said -- at the time he thought her words
angry misjudgments brought on by the what they had thought were drugs. 
Things like: "...surely this isn't some scheme concocted to prove a 
point about ghosts or goblins" and "the end result might be positive 
for the X-Files.." The words had seemed out of context and vastly 
out of character then.  Mulder wondered if they were statements from 
her subconscious and as such more true than either of them realized.

The coffee in his hand sloshed over and burned his fingers.  He
hated this; he depended on her.  Not just to figure out parts of
the equation he couldn't see, but to make sure he didn't kill
himself.  For example, Scully would never let him drink the muddy
brew in his hand.  "That's lethal," she would say.  He expected
her to reach for the cup, grimace, and say --

"So don't drink it.  I'll take it if you don't want it."

Frohike slid into the passenger seat beside Mulder.  Langly had
just relieved him.

The Gunmen were certainly right about Henry Donaldson's
sexual preference.  It was all over the planet.  What was he doing
with a dog!  Mulder watched Donaldson, now dressed as a
transvestite, prance out of a pet store like the poodle
on the end of the leash.  He had been following Donaldson for
about a week, spelled by the Gunmen.  No one had slept much and
Mulder had a cut over his eye from a pimp who took exception to
"his lady" being tailed.

"Who are these pet store owners?" said Mulder.

"I thought you knew," said Frohike, blowing across the coffee lid.

"I checked them out. Nothing to connect them to Donaldson. The man
is retired Army -- that's the only possible connection." Mulder said.
"They're nice next door neighbor types."

"Donaldson wasn't well liked in the Army first place," Frohike offered. 
He'd just burnt his tongue. "Army people don't usually like queens in 
drag in the second place."

"Whose next door neighbors are they,"  the Scully in his head asked.  "They 
act as though they're taking care of Donaldson in drag."

"Anybody owe you a favor," said Frohike.    "He's too cautious.  We need 
reinforcements."

"Maybe we can cut back on surveillance," Mulder said.  His
eyes burned.  His musings about Scully had given him a headache.
And an itch he could not scratch with Frohike in the car.

"Hate to do that.  Got the makings of a best-seller here,"
Frohike muttered.

Mulder forced himself to study the picture of the
Assistant Attorney General Henry J. Donaldson strutting his
stuff on the street in a tight sheath dress and heels, dragging
a yipping white poodle.  Goes to show you never know about some
people, he thought.  Three hours ago this man was a dignified,
self-assured attorney presenting a complex case to an appellate
court.   Mulder shook his head.  This guy - madam, he/she - has
two or three sides to him.

And that was it.  Mulder sat straight up, spilling
coffee down his shirt.  "How many women does Donaldson
know? I mean, in his life.  How many in his life!"

"Including clerks - dozens," the Scully in his head said. "We
can't check them all.  Besides, even if we could how will we
decide which one knows his alter ego?" 

"What about his past?"

"What about his wife?" Scully said. "At the risk of repeating myself,
who are these pet store owners?"

"We need reinforcements," Mulder said.

Frohike threw up one hand.  "Didn't I just say that?" 
*************
The two weeks in isolation cleared Scully's head just as
Mulder suggested.  First she hadn't been able to remember much.
Then, the day before a guard came to escort her to the main cell
block she admitted to herself she remembered too much.

Her mind filled with images of Mulder in hot flashes of lust that
became nearly orgasmic at times.  She seemed to recall with vivid
clarity every time he touched her.  Recalling that kiss at the
airport roused such waves of heat in her that she could only breathe
in short, shallow pants.  Mulder was extremely fortunate she was
behind locked bars.  She took a deep breath and expelled it, then had
the decency to blush.  Zelda would probably be able to guess why
her cell mate's cheeks looked so rosy after two weeks confinement.

To Scully's dismay, Zelda greeted her return to the cell
with cool civility.  She rebuffed or deflected attempts at all
but superficial conversation and left for the recreation area at
the first opportunity.   Scully opened her locker and immediately
missed the picture of Zelda's son Scott that she had placed
there.  Zelda's message couldn't have been clearer. Scully pawed
through Zelda's belongings, causing her collection of special sale
postcards to scatter across the cell floor.  Scully picked them up
and studied them a moment.  What a strange thing for Zelda to collect.
Zelda never said anything about them when Scully read them aloud. 

And Bernice!  With a pop Scully recalled hearing Bernice say she received
one too.  Scully hurriedly put the cards in a neat stack on Zelda's
shelf.

Task complete, she continued searching for the photo and
found it in the first place she should have looked: Zelda's favorite
"National Geographic" magazine.  Her heart plummeted.  She pressed
the magazine against her chest and crawled into her bunk.  She
sat with her back against the wall, her legs drawn up.

What had changed, she wondered.  After two weeks in
isolation she was - as she had always been, really - still
isolated.   Even after mulling it over for 14 days Scully had not 
a single explanation about why she was here or how to 
escape.  She was no longer befuddled or confused.  Just scared and 
painfully aware that she could not meet the most minimal expectations 
of anyone.  She was tired of carrying it all herself. Who would she 
allow to help: Mulder, Zelda, her mother?  God?

Memories kept popping back to Scully like the burst of firecrackers. 
Like the lustful ones of Mulder she almost wished she couldn't remember.
She didn't want to recall the look of disappointment on Zelda's face
in the lunchroom.  The violence she'd committed that day - the level
of murderous rage she was able to sustain - overwhelmed her.  She
felt disgraced.  She wanted to tell herself that in her right
mind she could not, would never, do those things.  The ghost of
Donnie Pfaster mocked her denial.

Perhaps this prison was her penance for murder.  

Perhaps this prison was her penance for allowing the viciousness of
the acts she witnessed to find a place within her. 

Perhaps this prison was not acknowledging what was before her all along.

She should have known she could not deny impact of the
things she'd seen and heard merely by choosing to pretend they
didn't bother her.  She should have realized that keeping the
worst of it locked inside would eventually wear down her
humanity like droplets of water smoothed away mountains.  No
one notices and one day there is a valley instead of a hill.  She
had not noticed - or cared.  Perhaps Mulder saw but he shielded
her, keeping her from seeing the worst she had become.  He called
out the best in her and reflected it back to her because he
loved her.

"Ahh."  Shock made her suck in air.  She didn't question
it, nor for once, did she turn away from what she saw through
open eyes.  "Mulder, I'm sorry."  Her knees slid down and she
stared at the wall.  

She saw the corners of his mouth pull back,the lines in his face crinkle, 
and his shrug.  "You don't owe me, Scully."

"Not owe," she said, stroking his face.  His cheek felt
warm and faintly moist as though he'd been crying.  "Not an
obligation."

"A pleasure?" Mulder suggested.

"Yes!" she said.  "A gift and a pleasure.  I'm not afraid of
you."

"Not even a little?" She felt his kiss in her palm, on the
throbbing vein under her wrist.

She grinned.  "Maybe a little."

"A little fear is a healthy thing," he said.

"Can you forgive me?"

"Not my forgiveness you need," Mulder said.

"Dana?"

"I'm not convinced there is a Higher Power, Scully, but if
there is, I'm fairly sure you're not it," Mulder chuckled.
"Shouldn't you leave the God thing to God?"

"Yeah," Scully said with a smile.  She tucked her hair
behind her ear.  "Perhaps I will give it up." She heaved a great
sigh of relief and released herself at last from the shackles of
guilt and fear.

Now she must find the courage to return to full  freedom,
to Zelda's I AM and accept the forgiveness offered there, the
final release she craved.

She was not -- had never been -- alone.

As Zelda had said.

"Dana!"

"My God!" she breathed, knowing it was true, all of it.
The imagination and intuition she owned was the source of power.
Zelda had told her that truth from the first.  How that power was
generated wasn't as important as how it was used.  Once she
accepted that the rest was all so simple.

Zelda's face swam into focus.

And regarded her with mild curiosity.  Scully couldn't seem
to catch a good breath.

"Dana," Zelda said, "uh, I was wondering -- can I have
that magazine, please?"

"Would you like me to read?"  Scully said at last.

"Thank you, no."

Scully scooted off the bunk, noting that Zelda backed away
from her a step or two as she did so.  "Let's see.  We haven't
been to Nepal."  Scully held up the magazine and Scott's picture
fluttered to the floor.  The two women stared at each other.
Scully dropped her eyes and after a second's hesitation picked
up the photo.

Zelda took the picture from her hand.  "I'm sorry," she
said.  "It-it isn't your fault.  You aren't who I thought, that's
all."

"I'm not who I thought either," Scully said.  "But I will be."

Zelda said nothing, but cocked her head and the hint of a
smile stole across her lips.

"Can you help?"

Zelda shook her head.

"Can't? Or won't?"

"Can't." Zelda put her hands on the magazine.  "You are not alone.
You have to believe that."

"I do, actually.  For the first time." Scully surrendered
the magazine.  She went to the sink and patted cold water on her hot face. 
When she finished, Zelda had disappeared.

Tears coursed down Scully's cheeks, unbidden and unnoticed
until they dropped onto her shirt along with the water she had
not bothered to dry from her face.  She wiped them away with the
heels of her hands and splashed more water on her face.
She suddenly needed people close.  And noise.

She couldn't recall ever feeling it so strongly.  Instead
of being content to listen from a distance, she wanted voices
nearby talking to each other, to her and laughter - lots of
laughter.  Content with solitary pursuits most of her life, she
became frantic to see people playing games, watching television,
dancing to music on the radio as some inmates did.  She longed to
have the pounding drums from the music in the rec room
reverberate in her chest instead of the solitary beating of her
heart.

She tucked a book under her arm as a prop and went into
the recreation room.  Still, when she walked through the open
door of the recreation area she almost lost her nerve.
*******************************
Conversation stopped.

The only sound came from the booming bass of a song four
or five of the inmates had on the radio.  Overhead the television
played a soap opera.  Scully searched for Zelda and found her
lounging in a chair watching "Days of Our Lives".

Silence became a violin string quivering for a bow to strike it.
Scully swept the room slowly and all the women became
engrossed in whatever they had been doing.  Gradually the noise
level picked up.  In one corner of the area an argument broke
out.  The dancers turned up the volume.  Scully's relief was
almost tangible.  She walked to a chair with a decent reading light.  

As she made her way across the rec room it occurred to
her that she had inadvertently headed for Bernice's chair again,
for the green chair where Bernice sat every day to settle
disputes between inmates, dispense advice, box ears, and dole
out special privileges or cigarettes.

Now the empty chair drew her like a dangerous but forbidden treat.
Scully wondered if Bernice was in the recreation room yet.  She
didn't dare look around and it was too late to take another chair.
After a moment's hesitation Scully sat down, cleared her throat and
opened the book.  Her heart pounded.  

She hoped this breech of protocol would not spark another incident.  
She had seen that the woman could not only be verbally cruel, but physically
abusive with her so-called family.  Whatever happened, Scully vowed
she would not permit herself to respond in kind.  She could not --or
the person she believed herself to be might disappear forever.

She discovered she could read a few more words.  Not that
it mattered.  She was only waiting, moving her finger under
sentences for effect, listening to the sounds around her, and
praying Bernice and her cell mate would let this go by.  Over the
top of her book she saw two pairs of feet, one planted firmly
and the other shifting.

"Mama, Laquintia stole my comb and brush right outta my
locker.  My aunt sent me that new comb and brush last week," said
one of the women.  Scully recognized the speaker, a convicted
forger who whined all the time.

"Nahuh, na.  That ain't so! I found it in the bathrooms,"
Laquintia said.

Scully glanced up to make certain they were talking to
her.  Then she held out her hand.

Reluctantly the aggrieved party delivered the brush and
comb.  Scully studied them a moment.  "Laquintia stole this.  Looks
like darker hair over lighter." She handed the set back to its
owner.  "Go wash both these things immediately.  Lock up your
locker from now on.  There are thieves about.   Laquintia.." she
nodded at the tall, frightened woman in front of her, "didn't we
go through this same thing a few weeks ago?"

Laquintia's eyes grew wide and she cringed, clearly
expecting to be struck.  "Na, please, I-I don't never get--"

"Sit here.  On the floor.  Beside me.  Every time you come in
here come right to this spot and sit.  That way I can keep an eye
on you," Scully said.  She didn't bother to see if Laquintia
obeyed.  It had suddenly dawned on her that no matter what else
the women in the room appeared to be doing, everyone's attention
focused on her.  She cleared her throat again, adjusted her book,
and bent her head into the pages.  A half second later Laquintia
sat down.

"Can you read," Scully said without looking up.

"Mostly."

Scully handed her the book.  "Good.  Read to me.  My eyes hurt."

Laquintia found the place Scully pointed to.  In a moment
she said, "This thing? I gotta read this - I don't know half
these words!"

"What you don't know, spell them to me," Scully said.  She
folded her arms across her chest, leaned back in the chair and
closed her eyes.  She could barely feel her toes - 
the blood that had rushed to her head must have come from her
feet.  

And maybe that's what she was sent here to do.

Redemption.  An ancient word for the timeless, elusive reality that 
followed repentance.  Scully felt the waters of salvation rush in, tiny
rivulets of cold sweat down her neck and back, in her palms, on
her forehead.

Scully searched for Bernice and located her sulking with
Angela in the corner of the large room.  Her brown eyes filled
with resentment.  When she realized Scully sought her, she turned
away.  The hostility remained in the slant of her shoulders and
arch of her neck.

Laquintia stumbled over another word and tapped Scully's
arm.  "Spell it," she said, then repeated the word until Laquintia
pronounced it correctly.  Laquinta faltered again and this time
Scully not only pronounced it, but also explained what she could
remember about the hypothalamus.  Not much, actually.  The young
inmate tripped along and groped for words for an hour before
Scully, patience exhausted, called a halt for the day.

"I gotta do this tomorrow, Mama?" asked her sullen prisoner.

"Scully.  My name is Scully.  I'm the mediator - temporarily.  
But yes.  You must do this tomorrow and the day after and the 
day after that.  Perhaps you'll become proficient."

"You think that's right what it say in here about the
hyper-something making us mean or nice?"

"To a large extent the hypothalamus determines our moods.
We govern our own behaviors," Scully said.  "That's one of the
things that makes us different from animals.  We are supposed to
control our emotions."

Laquintia laid the book in Scully's lap.  "That don't sound
right to me.  Feelin's is feelin's.  You can't help that."

"You can govern what you do with them," Scully said.

"I don't think that's good.  You gotta let 'em out
sometimes," Laquintia mumbled.

"Some of them," Scully said.

"Yeah, uh-huh." There was doubt mixed with a little sarcasm. Scully knew
she was being challenged to account.

Scully tapped the spine of the book against her palm
thoughtfully, then rose and walked across the rec room.  A couple
of the dancers tried to coax her into joining them.  Two of the
women engrossed in cards invited her to play.  One made her
laugh.  A short skinny woman asked her advice about her husband.
A few women looking through some magazines glanced at her and
smiled.

When it became clear where she was headed, the room stilled. 
Bernice started out of room.

"Wait."

Bernice stopped but Scully had to speak to her back.  "I
apologize for striking you.  That was unconscionable," Scully
said.  She watched the book tap against her hand for an instant
then looked up.  "I have no excuse for my behavior, but I want to
assure you it won't happen again."

The room became quiet as an empty church.  Below, the
noise of other recreation areas, shouts of other prisoners on
other floors, and the clanging of metal doors punctuated the
silence.

Bernice turned and studied Scully for a moment.  One side
of her mouth began to curl and her hands balled in fists.
Scully dropped her arms, but her shoulders and her gaze
remained steady.  Open.  Vulnerable.  Unafraid.  

A cruel smile crawled over Bernice's face; her eyes hardened.  
"I had me a fine lover - like yours.  Took me a while to 
realize I had no friends, hardly anyone I spoke to at the office.  
Who would understand?  He wuz my only friend.  He beat me 'til 
I wuz too scared to do anything but what he wanted.  Made a big 
impression." She stood back, glanced at the surveillance camera, then 
focused on Scully. "Yur man don't beat you.   Not with his fist. So 
how cum you mind him...be so scared you don't please him?"

Scully's lips parted -- but it was the only indication Bernice's 
words meant anything to her.

"He don't think of you now," Bernice said flatly.

Deep in Scully, the barb hit.

"You know why men rule women in society?" Bernice's voice
carried this time.  "They are willing to be violent.  Women have never 
been, yet we are capable of more violence than men.  We gotta 
stop being afraid of our potential, and exercise it wisely."

Bernice leaned into Scully's face, her voice a husky, hollow noise that
hissed through the rec room like a poisonous spray.  "Don't tell me 
you don't know power.  You've killed -- my sister."

"What kind of power is it that eats away at you piece by piece," Scully 
said. 

Bernice snorted in disbelief.

"Reducing human interaction to violence changes us into less than we 
were meant to be -- changes anyone into the basest of creatures," 
said Scully.

"Look what it did to you." Zelda stood behind Scully's
left shoulder. 

"You taught her?" Bernice said.

"No."

Bernice turned her widening grin on Scully.  It was black
and ugly and her chuckle sounded like a threat.  "This be a
damn fool standin' here."

Scully didn't move.

Over Scully's head Bernice glimpsed the women in the rec
room.  Several gathered behind Scully.  None of them turned away
from Bernice's glower.  More women moved up.

"It stops here," Scully said.

The two women stared at each other.  The brown eyes that
had taken by force what Scully would never have given finally
blinked.  

"Fuck off," Bernice said and strode out of the area.

Scully let the air ease out of her mouth.  The tension in
the room deflated the same way.  Then she tucked the book under
her arm and started back to the green chair - only this time one
of the dancers insisted she get in their circle.  When she
demurred, another took her hand and they drew her in.  Within a
few minutes the dancers collected a crowd, persuaded others to
join and even coerced Scully into trying some of the steps.  The
drums and bass guitar beat into her back, against her chest.  The
laughter and joking of the women around her lifted her.  Like the
others, she soon lost herself in the celebration, in the
circle.

>From across the room Zelda watched Scully's awkward
participation - and ducked her head to hide a smile.  She put the
tips of her fingers against the top of her forehead, and bowing
slightly from the waist toward the East, she recited a prayer 
from the book her mother sent her years ago: "And here meets the 
first circle which, from the beginning of time, O Lord, you did
ordain to nourish and sustain Your handmaidens.  From the power 
of the first circle ripples flow out and join others.  And so 
is the Your universe kept in harmony."

Scully discovered Zelda still flipping through pages of
"National Geographic".  When she went to the sink to rinse out
her mouth, she found Scott's picture jammed into a corner of the
mirror.  It was a start.  

Scully slid into her bed and sat against the wall, spent and shaky.  
She continued to sit there even after lights out, eyes open and her 
spirit reaching for the One she thought had abandoned her at the  
the prison gate -- if not miles before.

The morning bell startled Scully awake.  She had no idea
she even fallen asleep.  The arms she thrust into sleeves felt
heavy and awkward.  Zelda said no more than "Excuse me," when she
wanted to use the sink. This morning the inmates lined up to march to
breakfast and took a circuitous route to the cafeteria.  Repairs
to lights in the usual corridors gave each inmate another chance
to cross the bridge-way in front of the huge window that allowed
them to gaze at what lay beyond them.

"Sun's comin' up! Lookit!" shouted one inmate and a logjam
developed on the bridge as prisoners pressed to see what they
seldom had an opportunity to glimpse.  From somewhere in the line
behind Scully two inmates began to push and shove, swear and she
heard a distinct slap as inmates in jockeyed for a way to see.

Scully stepped out of line and glared at the women.  She didn't
know them, but she glared at them and soon the bumping
and shoving stopped all down the line.  A prison officer hurried
up from the rear to restore order but there was nothing to do
when she arrived.  

"Get back," she barked to Scully.  

Scully obeyed at once.  The female officer sized up the orderly
group of prisoners and heaved a sigh of relief.  She paced the
bridge, going up and down the line of prisoners as they waited
for the congestion ahead of them to ease.  Finally the officer
stopped beside Scully, inclined her head to catch Scully's eye
and nod ever so slightly.

The sun burst over the hillside outside; Scully felt warmed.

By noon she was hot.  Extremely.  Her hands and face had
turned red from the steam coming out of the machine used to
press the blue prison shirts.  Once Scully saw a shirt with her
own prison number on the pocket come onto the machine and was
tempted to leave the press down until the shirt ignited.  It
might have except for Laquintia's intervention.

"You needa a drink, Li' Mama," she said through a plume of
steam.  "Me too."  They stood at the water fountain drinking deeply
until one of the guards meandered over and motioned for them to return
to work.

After lunch and group therapy sessions, those in the
laundry exchanged work details with those who had been mopping
floors throughout the prison.  So far Scully avoided being drawn
into the therapy discussions; she thought it pointless.  The young
counselor was condescending and the inmates responded by being
ridiculous.  What Mulder could do here, Scully often imagined.  

Her group spent the last session discussing community responsibility.
Scully had rolled her eyes.  What did that therapist know of
community?  The only thing Scully could say for group sessions
was that the meeting room was comfortable and the posters on the
wall interesting. The only time it was at all worthwhile were the 
times the group met with Dr. Otis. 

Once, after group, Clare had asked Scully to stay behind. "What would 
it take to get you to open up?"

"It's not you."  Scully said. "What I've seen has made me less willing
to try again.  What you've seen has only made you more determined."

"George - the director - calls it naiveté," Dr. Otis had said. "When 
does naiveté become dangerous, Dr. Scully?"

She didn't know. Scully hadn't been naive in a long time.

She hadn't been this exhausted in a long time.  Mopping, 
sweeping, scrubbing walls was cooler work than
operating the laundry press, but altogether more physical effort
than Scully had expended in two weeks.  Assigned to the
cafeteria after her morning in the laundry, Scully watched the wet 
mop head spread across gray linoleum when she dropped it out of 
the bucket then expand or contract as she pushed or pulled with the 
handle.  Ahead of her and behind her inmates performed the same 
monotonous ritual for most of the afternoon.

She didn't believe she had the energy to eat dinner, to
shower, or even sit in the rec room.  The others sensed her mood
and only Laquintia, sitting in her assigned seat, spoke.  She read
a few pages in the book Scully gave her, then gave up.  Scully
didn't prompt her to go on. Laquintia seemed content to sit.

Seeing the book closed, one of the inmates walked over as
though to talk with Scully.  Laquintia frowned and shook her head
at the woman as if to say, "not now." Undaunted the inmate
handed Scully a drink in a plastic bottle.

"I tell you what, you don't fatten up this prison gonna
get a bad rep," said the woman.  "You look like this is Dachau."

She didn't look as though she'd missed many meals.

Scully tried to smile, but it was almost too much trouble.

"Yeah, well - could you do something about these walls? Is
it not depressing as hell?" the obese woman said.

"I couldn't agree more," Scully said.  That sentence might
be her last; she didn't think she could move her lips again.

"Why can't we paint a picture, a mural, or somethin' if we
can't hang nothing."

"You know anyone who can paint a mural?" Scully asked, her
interest piqued.

"Maybe," said the woman.

"A mural of what?" Scully said.  "For argument sake."

"Woods, a forest.  Doesn't matter," the woman said.  "They
won't let us.  I asked."

"They won't permit it?" Scully sat up.

The woman shrugged.  "I'm heading a detail to paint this
whole area, starting day after tomorrow.  I asked if I could put
a mural on that wall and the sergeant said it has against the
rules to deface property.  He didn't look at my sketches.  How
does he know that's defacing?"

Scully held out her hand and wiggled her fingers.  The
woman put several sheets of paper in them.

"They're very nice," she said.  A few women gathered around.

Laquintia held them at arm's length, then grinned.  "Yeah,
they very nice."

"So how do we get these drawings on that wall," Scully
said.  "Ideas?"

"We could use the paint we got," said one woman.

"I used me some blue in the hall last month.  And yeller
last week.  We gots mor' colors somewhere," said another.

"Yep, I could mix colors.  Won't be great but-" the artist
said after some consideration.

"What about labor," said Scully.

"I'll help," said a woman lounging near the pinball
machine.  "I can draw a little.  So can Mary over there."

"Say we even get it up," said the artist.  "What's to keep
them from painting over it?"

"What do they want that we could give them in exchange for
the mural," Scully said.

"Peace and quiet," said one inmate.

"Work faster," said the artist with a grunt.

"Make 'em money," said Laquintia.  "So what we gonna do?"

"First we get it up, then we bargain," said the forger,
who, Scully noted, had dropped the whine for this occasion.

"Easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission?" said the artist.

"Something like that," Scully said and wondered if Mulder
would believe this if he heard it.

"What else," said Laquintia.  "Open up.  Let's hear what ya
thinkin'."

Half hour later Scully asked for a meeting with the
sergeant of the watch and requested several women from her pod
be transferred to the rec room paint detail.  To her dismay it
was Sgt. Anderson, one of the guards who had wrestled her from the 
cafeteria.  He was hostile and reluctant to entertain any request 
from her, pod leader or not.

Scully decided to take a different tact other than the
straight-forward appeal she'd planned.  Instead, she explained
that all the women on the list had experience painting and thus
could work faster.  And she told him the workers had run out of
paint, submitting a list of the paints required for trim, walls,
and ceiling.

The guard snatched the list from her hand and scrawled his
initials on it.  "Pod leader," he said with disdain.