Krycek had woken up in a good mood this morning, or whatever time it had been when they'd woken up. That wasn't entirely good news for Jimmy. It meant that instead of the silently brooding Krycek looming at the foot of the bed, occasionally fingering his toe, he had to deal with a playful Krycek determined to torment him just for the fun of it. He used his magic palm-top to do something that completely paralyzed him, and set about tickling him. Every part of his body was unnaturally ticklish once again, but he couldn't resist, couldn't even move a single muscle, except the involuntary muscles forcing laughter out of his burning lungs. It seemed to go on for hours.

"I hope I never need to break into this site again," Langly said, stretching, and popping open the beer bottle for the assignment he'd just completed. "They're on high alert after that other military site figured out we stole their satellite data. It took forever, tiptoeing around."

"Well, the important thing is that you did it," Byers said. He wished they hadn't been forcef to do this. He was worried about the use the information on secret biochemical weapon research would be put to. Would it be used by other countries to develop antidotes -- or to make their own versions of the weapons? At least they could publish a story about it, now that they could prove the U.S. government was engaging in research they'd denied. Byers knew he was rationalizing.

"Yep," Langly said lazily, sipping his beer. "Made it with ten minutes to spare."

"Are you sure Krycek's beer is safe to drink?"

"Oh, lighten up," Langly said, already taking his last swig. He tossed the empty bottle toward the glass recycling bin, but missed. Fortunately it didn't break, but just rolled away.

"Have you posted it to Krycek's web site yet?" The doorbell had buzzed a moment ago and repeated itself now, but Byers was reluctant to leave Langly's side until he saw the job completed. It was probably Frohike.

"Plenty of time," Langly said, copying the data and pasting it into the form at entirely too leisurely a pace to suit Byers.

"If you guys can't open the door, at least give me a hand with these," Frohike grumbled, awkwardly entering with his hands full. He'd been questioning people around the "neighborhood" yet again, looking for someone who had seen Krycek leave with Jimmy. On the way in, he'd picked up a large stack of the newspapers they subscribed to. Byers realized they'd gotten a few days behind in bringing them in, and it didn't take long for them to grow into a safety hazard outside.

Before Byers could get up to help -- he'd gotten so used to Jimmy leaping up to help with everyone's burdens that he'd gotten out of the habit himself -- Frohike's feet flew out from under him and he fell backward, papers flying everywhere. The beer bottle he'd slipped on shot across the floor. It would almost have been funny, but on his way down he knocked a piece of equipment off the table and it crashed to the floor beside him.

"Was that what I think it was?" Byers asked apprehensively. A glance at the screen showed that the browser was still trying to connect to Krycek's server.

"The network router," Frohike said sheepishly. "I hope you don't mind being off--"

"Get the laptop from the van! Quick!" Byers urged. It was the only thing that could be connected to the wireless network in the eight minutes and ten seconds the countdown showed they had left. Already Byers was judging whether it would be faster to type in the data by hand or set up an infrared link to copy it. He starting looking around for the infrared device.

Frohike seemed to understand that seconds counted. He picked himself up with amazing speed, if not grace, and sprinted to the door. On the way, his foot caught on a power cable that the falling router had dragged into the pathway and that the newspapers had covered, and he went down again. Out of the corner of his eye, Byers saw the screen go dark. Its power hadn't been cut off -- that would have been fine -- but the power to the computer supplying its video signal had.

"No!" Langly cried, sounding almost as upset as the time Frohike had wiped out his game by pulling the wrong plug.

"You saved the information to disk, didn't you?" Byers asked, already suspecting the answer.

"I'm sorry, man," Langly said miserably.

After finishing the tickle torture, Krycek had checked his watch and gone straight to his computer. Ever since then he'd gotten increasingly moody, and spent a lot of time pacing the room and rechecking his laptop about every five minutes. Finally, taking a deep breath, he went searching for something in his luggage, looking as if he was determined on doing some unpleasant task that had to be done. Then he approached Jimmy, looking very grim. He was holding the small knife that he had nicked him with yesterday. The cut had already just about healed. By the look on his face, he wasn't going to just nick him this time.

"What are you gonna do?" Jimmy asked hoarsely.

"Your friends have missed a deadline. By over an hour."

"So you're gonna kill me? Or just carve me up a little?" Anger overcame fear, but he was too weak to put as much volume into the sarcastic words as he normally would.

"I'm just going to cut off one toe."

Jimmy felt a chill as the horror of that sank in. He'd be mutilated forever. Even worse, the only reason he could think of for Krycek to cut off a toe was to send it to Lone Gunman HQ. What would that do to Langly and Frohike, getting something like that in the mail?

"It's only a toe," Krycek said, almost pleadingly. "Just a little one. You'll be able to walk just fine. It's no worse than what frostbite could do to you. Plenty of mountain climbers lose their toes."

"Yeah, but those guys choose to take the risk. What gives you the right?"

Krycek shut his eyes and took a deep breath. He crouched down at the foot of the bed and held his foot, using his prosthetic hand and two free fingers of the hand that was holding the knife. Jimmy kicked his foot free, and flailed it around so Krycek couldn't catch it. Krycek sighed and went to the palm-top computer and did something. Jimmy's legs went limp.

Once again Krycek knelt down at the foot of the bed and grabbed his foot. He ran his pinky over Jimmy's toes. "Can you feel this?"

"Yeah. It feels normal. Tickles a little."

"I'm sorry. I guess I don't have a setting that blocks feeling. I wish I could turn the pain messages into something else, maybe even pleasure, but I'm not set up for that."

In a way, that would have been even worse, Jimmy felt. To have pieces carved off of him and actually enjoy it! He shivered. Then he tensed as he felt the cold steel resting against the base of his toe. "Don't do this to me, Alex!" he pleaded.

"I'm sorry. I'll make it quick, and it won't hurt all that much."

Jimmy screwed his eyes shut. Clenched his teeth. This was it.

There was a knock at the door.

"Help!" Jimmy cried out immediately. It didn't come out as loud as he'd intended. He took a deep breath to try again, but Krycek quickly stuffed a washcloth back in his mouth. He'd had it ready to staunch the flow of blood, Jimmy realized sickly. But now -- maybe he was being rescued! Talk about the nick of time! Who could it be knocking at the door, but his friends, or maybe the police?

"Housekeeping," a woman's voice called from behind the door, revealing a flaw in his logic.

"Come back later!" Krycek shouted, much more loudly and clearly than Jimmy had managed. There was a pause. Krycek put his hands on Jimmy's foot again.

Then the knock repeated. "Housekeeping," the voice said again. The knob turned, and there was a sound of the door being rattled, but Krycek had double-locked it.

"Go away!" Krycek shouted.

She knocked and called a third time. Then the deadbolt clicked and the door opened a crack. Jimmy's heart pounded even harder. Maybe he'd be rescued after all! She'd surely call the police.

Krycek just muttered "Damn it, they never figure out that those can only be locked from inside."

The door hit the chain. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" The voice had a strong Hispanic accept and sounded vaguely familiar somehow. That was odd, because the only Latinos Jimmy knew well were all guys, and that was back on Long Island.

The door was open an inch, but Jimmy couldn't see out, and with a sinking feeling he realized that that meant the maid couldn't see him either. And if she did get a glimpse of a half naked man stretched out on a bed, there was no reason for her to guess what was going on unless she saw that he was bound and gagged. Maybe not even then; maids probably saw all kinds of stuff. Jimmy desperately tried to cry out, but she didn't seem to hear the muffled sound. The door closed, and Krycek breathed a sigh of relief.

"Do you remember what I told you?" Krycek asked him quietly.

Jimmy hoped he was talking about beating him the next time he yelled. The prospect of a few more lashes across his back didn't seem so bad, if it would buy him a reprieve. At least that would heal.

"Roll over," Krycek ordered. Jimmy struggled to comply, but his legs weren't working. Krycek saw his problem and temporarily gave him back his control over his own body. He put the knife aside and got the belt. Then he pulled Jimmy's shorts down.

Frohike had been trying for an hour to repair the router and estimated it would take him another hour or two hour to finish. In all fairness, Byers knew, that was fast service and would have made him a highly prized employee at any one of a hundred well-paying companies, if he'd been in that business. It didn't matter, though, because meanwhile Langly had almost finished stealing the data again, using the wireless connection. Armed with what he had learned the first time, it had gone much faster, but not nearly fast enough.

Byers felt useless for the whole hour, but after what happened with E-Com-Con he felt he would only make things worse if he tried to help. His concentration was completely shot now. All he could think about was what the lost hour was costing Jimmy. On the beach, Krycek had hinted darkly about exactly what he would do to him if they missed a deadline. Byers remembered how frustrated Jimmy had been in the long weeks recuperating from a knee injury he'd gotten once in the line of duty. He'd taken it cheerfully enough, but his joy when the cast had come off and he'd finally recovered the full use of his leg had been obvious, at least to Byers. Would Krycek really be cruel enough to rob him of his mobility by cutting off a foot? Or, possibly even worse, would he take something every man instinctively feared to lose? Or would he do something to his face, to ruin his good looks? Byers felt sick. Or would Krycek saw off an arm, to make up for the one that was taken from him -- taken, according to Mulder's theory, by well-meaning kids trying to save him from an even worse fate? Surely that would make a normal man even less willing to put someone else through the same thing, but Krycek was a cold-blooded killer.

"A foot would be even worse," he thought. He saw Langly turn around and realized he'd spoken aloud.

"Relax, Byers. I'll have it uploaded it two more minutes. Maybe he'll give us some slack. We only missed one deadline. And worst case, I'm sure he'll start with something Jimmy doesn't use much."

"Better hope not," Frohike said, without looking up from his repairs. "Removing his brain would kill him immediately."

"Hey, Byers. Come take a look at this, man." The relief was palpable in Langly's voice.

Byers looked over Langly's shoulder. He had the information pasted in and had the mouse over the Submit button To his relief, Byers saw the countdown timer had been reset and showed five minutes left, and new bold lettering had been added: "We still have a complete inventory of parts available! Act now and take advantage of our limited time offer, because they're going fast!" There were pictures below the form, showing Jimmy's muscular body spead-eagle and helpless on the bed, every single part still very much in evidence.

After Langly had clicked the Submit button and the response to the post had come back, he took a well-earned break while Byers carefully backed up to the form and saved the pictures to study later. To search for clues in the background, of course.