(Mulder voiceover): Nowhere in my search for truth did I or Agent Scully find peace. Not until the book appeared in my hotel room that night did I even suspect that finding the truth would give peace. I still wouldn't know where my sister was but somehow I knew that it would all work out in the end....

Mulder: Scully, how'd you sleep last night?

Scully: Fine, you?

M: Sounder than I thought, apparently. I had a mid-sombulance visitor. (holds up book)

S: To your hotel room? How did they get in?

M: The door was locked from the inside when I went to bed and was still locked this morning.

S: What do you think? Did Mr. Tooms squeeze under your door?

M: Well, I haven't had an xray, yet, but I believe my liver is still intact.

S: It might just be the lighting but I think you look yellowish.

M: (Looking in mirror) Nah, that's my morning look. Besides, it's not like every employee, every ex-employee and even a few former residents of this hotel don't have keys to my room - assuming, of course, that they used keys.

S: How do you feel?

M: About still having my liver? Quite relaxed actually, thank you.

S: Did you check (points to her neck)...?

M: Yes I checked. No chip.

S: (Nodding towards book) Well, what is it?

M: I don't know. The title is enigmatic to say the least. It appears to be named after the ancient Phoenician city where papyrus was developed. Roughly translated, the title of the book is…"Book."

S: Author?

M: That's another mystery. It doesn't say. I read the forward. It's a translation from ancient manuscripts written in several ancient languages. But no author. Not even "Anonymous".

S: What's this (pointing to the printing on the inside cover)?

M: I already thought about that but no one would be that obvious. I mean, if you were going to go through all the trouble of serupticiously planting a book in my hotel room without being detected, would you leave your name on the inside cover?

S: I'll tell you what...I'll run the name through our files. Why don't you do a little reading to see what it's about.

Later...

M: So, what did you find?

S: Not much of interest other than finding a duplicate copy in my room as well. (holding up copy of book) You?

M: I think we have an X-File here. The day I met them, the Lone Gunmen had an interesting visitor in a Susanne Modeski, a biological weapons scientist who claimed that these were being planted in hotel rooms around the world as vehicles for electronic surveillance.

S: Well?

M: (Holds up book, binding now loose) Nada.

S: So I thought you said we had an X-File here.

M: What's inside is the X-File.

S: In that book?

M: It doesn’t contain electronic surveillance but it tells of an Extra-Terrestrial watching our every move, even reading our thoughts. It starts out with a plausible, albeit extremely brief account of the beginnings of life on this planet planted here by an extra-terrestrial being.

S: Exactly how plausible is this account?

M: Well, it might be cheating but the author claims that an extra-terrestrial being with infinite powers created the whole thing ex-nihilo. Not only that, but this book details hundreds of times throughout its history where this extra-terrestrial being interacts with our kind.

S: Any alien abductions?

M: As a matter of fact, you don’t read very far before one man gets "taken away." But get this, Scully. There are two distinct types of ETs: Benevolent ones and malicious ones. They’re waging a war behind the scenes here on planet Earth.

S: Oh come on, Mulder. You can’t actually believe that.

M: Hey, it sure explains a lot of what the planet’s gone through, doesn’t it?

S: As in?

M: Mankind’s complete inability to get along with each other. Even on their good days.

S: Oh, that. Is that explained in there?

M: Here, you take your copy and I’ll take mine and let's investigate this. Whoever planted them in our rooms obviously wanted us both involved.

S: I’ll warn you. I’m a speed-reader.

M: Speedy Scully, Spooky Mulder. What a team.

Later…

S: Mulder, this is fascinating. There’s so much historical detail inextricably interwoven with the supernatural. Whoever wrote this was just taunting skeptics to check it out.

M: I think that’s exactly what whomever left these here wanted us to do. And why else would they choose us. This is definitely an X-File.

S: I think you’re right. But where do we start? There’s so much here. Did you notice the Extraterrestrial Biological Entities.

M: Yes, I noticed. E.B.E.'s with wings and an attitude. Where to begin...I don’t know. The entire book revolves around that incident where the benevolent ET came here impersonating a human, living among us for a whole generation. That seems to be a good place to begin.

S: Right up your alley, is it?

M: What? Am I salivating again?

S: Oh, a tad.

M: Well, lets take it from the top.

S: What do we know about the book itself?

M: I did some checking on it. The manuscripts predicting the arrival of this ET definitely predate his coming. That, in itself, is pretty impressive given the detail of some of the predictions.

S: What about the manuscripts recording his actual arrival? Were they far enough from the actual event to classify as mythology?

M: Nope. Manuscripts date close enough to the event so that there would have been eyewitnesses around to put an end to any falsifications. None did.

S: It seems everything centers around whether this ET actually came back to life again after his public execution. Couldn’t that have been a fake? Couldn’t the humans who befriended him have pulled a fast one, stolen the corpse and claimed he came back to life?

M: Well, while we don’t know the powers or nature of this ET, we do know human nature. These guys died insisting that the ET came back to life. No one dies for a lie. And these weren’t brave men, either. They even recorded their cowardice in their biographies but they were willing to die when all it would take is to admit to having stolen the corpse. Besides, if the accounts are accurate, they were in mourning and didn't believe that the ET was not dead and buried. No, I don’t think they stole the corpse. They would have to be incredible actors to pull that off for long. Just look at these guys. Academy award material they're not.

S: Maybe they misplaced it?

M: There were too many eyewitnesses involved. I count 4 people who were there when the corpse was laid to rest. And then there were the local soldiers. Were they standing guard outside the wrong grave? When ET's comeback hit the presses, if there were any doubt that they had the wrong burial site, it would be just a matter of finding the right one to put a stop to the whole thing.

S: Okay, but couldn’t everyone have just been expecting the ET to come alive again so much that they saw what they wanted?

M: But they weren’t expecting it. It took them by surprise. Those who saw him first weren’t believed by the others. And the wishful thinking lasted over a month! Not your usual hallucination. And it still doesn’t explain the empty burial site. Remember, the soldiers and the authorities behind them who wanted him dead didn’t dispute the fact that the corpse was gone.

S: But what if...

M: ...he didn’t really die? No, I’ve already thought of that, too. These soldiers were experts at killing. They would have made certain before burying the ET that he was assuming room temperature. Besides, in his beaten state, he could hardly have broken out of the sealed burial site and then have exfiltrated past the soldiers standing guard.

S: Mulder, this is getting disturbing. This can’t be real, can it?

M: You tell me. You’re the Doubting Thomas (tapping his book).

S: Yeah, I read that part with particular interest. I guess skeptics like me predate conspiracy theorists like you, huh?

M: Ah, but did you notice that the Doubting Thomas stopped doubting when presented with good and sufficient evidence?

S: What? You don't think...

M: I don’t know, Scully. It certainly has a ring of truth about it. Let’s pay a visit to a friend of mine from pre-FBI days.

S: You mean you weren’t born with that badge?

M: Got it for my 10^th birthday.

Later...

Book Reading Man: Mulder! Long time bro. This must be Agent Scully.

S: We need your help. We’ve been examining these books that appeared in our hotel rooms and we have a few questions.

M: I seem to remember you knowing something about it.

BRM: Know about it? It’s my life.

S: The book is about your life? You're the ET?

BRM: No, no, no. My life is about this book. The study of it, the honoring of its author, it’s my life.

M: I knew we came to the right place. What can you tell me about it?

BRM: How much do you know already?

S: Oh, oh. Here’s the part where he’ll tell us he has to kill us.

M: Well, we’ve gleaned that it revolves around the life and death and coming to life again of an Extra-Terrestrial.

BRM: That’s right, though Extra-Terrestrial isn’t usually how we describe him. He created the Universe including everything in it, you know.

S: Yes, we caught that part. But what does he want? Why did he create this whole world and visit it just to die a horrible, untimely death?

M: And then, after being tortured and killed by his own creation, he comes back. Why? I’m sorry but if I were an infinite being and some puny beings I created killed me, it would be painful sores all around, followed by pestilence, and, oh yeah, complete annihilation.

BRM: I guess that all has to do with the nature of God, er, the Extra-Terrestrial. He’s both loving and holy at the same time. That means that while his holiness precludes him letting rebellious creatures like us off the hook, his loving nature has devised a way to satisfy his holy demands and gives us a way to get on his right side. So he became one of us, living among us a perfect life and then dying on everyone’s behalf, paying off the debt we owe him.

M: Wow! The secrets of the universe all in one sentence. How long have you been keeping this secret?

BRM: Secret? Oh, no. There have been followers boldly proclaiming this good news for 2,000 years.

S: There are followers 2,000 years old? That’s remarkable!

BRM: No, no, no. Each generation has had its own followers.

M: How does one become a 'follower'?

BRM: All God requires is for us to trust that his son’s death was payment in full for our sins, our rebellion, period.

S: God’s son died for me? In my place? Mulder, that’s like what Melissa did for me.

M: ...and Deep Throat for me.

BRM: But this was the creator of the universe, having taken on flesh and living a perfect life among us dying for your sins so that you could live with him forever.

M: ...so our abduction doesn’t take place until...

S: ...after we die. You know, Mulder, that makes sense. I’ve always innately known that there was something after death. If there weren’t, why would anyone bother getting out of bed in the morning? If all we have to look forward to is annihilation, why would we as a species go on? It’ll all end when the universe collapses in on itself or expands into nothingness someday with no one to remember that we were even here. Talk about futility. But, life after death gives a whole different perspective to the matter. It has the ring of truth to it.

BRM: Well, it should. It’s true. You’ve examined the evidences for his coming to life again?

M: Yes, and quite frankly, it was compelling.

BRM: Yes, it is. But it is important that you not stop with mental assent to these facts. You have to take the next step of trusting what the son did on your behalf to pay off your debt.

Scully voiceover: We had been on a long journey, a journey that had lasted our entire lives and would indeed last literally into eternity. But, we had turned a corner in our journey and now we knew we were on the right trail. We had stumbled onto many secrets of the Universe in our quest for the paranormal. Ironically, when we found the greatest secret of all, though it certainly wasn’t meant to be a secret, it all turned out to be perfectly normal. Even the books we found in our hotel rooms had a normal, almost mundane explanation. A group of 'followers' had left them there, as they do in almost every hotel room in the world. They had been right under our noses all that time and we never even knew it.

"I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life." If you wish to know contact terryihs@yahoo.com. For more stories like this.