Title: Asurya Lokas
Author: Martin Ross
Type: Humorous casefile; Valentine's Day theme
Rating: PG-13 for adult language and innuendo
Synopsis: Mulder and Scully investigate a strange 
case of murder and animal attraction – and repulsion.
Spoilers: None 
Disclaimer: The X-Files is the property of 10-13 
Productions, Chris Carter, and Fox. 

"The only problem with your murder theory," Scully 
suggested as she scanned the now-waxy body on the 
exam table, "is that no one was murdered."

"Not in the traditional sense, maybe," Mulder 
countered.

"If by the 'traditional sense,' you mean caused to 
die at the hands of another, neither by accident nor 
the transmission of disease, then I'd be interested 
to know in what innovative and exotic manner you 
believe Mr. Rhawalpindi died. I did a complete 
workup, and there is no doubt whatsoever that this 
man was the victim of anaphylactic shock. My post-
mortem turned up an insect sting, Mr. Rhawalpindi's 
doctor told me the victim suffered from several 
severe allergies, and, most compellingly, we found a 
dead North American honey bee near the body."

"And your problem is…?" Mulder demanded as his 
partner re-covered the body.

"In a general sense, or specifically referring to the 
case at hand? Which isn't a case, by the way."

Pittsburgh, Pa.
Three days earlier
The strange and yet poignantly mundane death of Rajiv 
Rhawalpindi had come to the FBI's attention only 
because he had through several tenuous relationships 
and even more tenuous circumstances been deemed a 
"person of interest" under the Patriot Act. In the 
pre-911 world, the young software developer's 
introspective, nearly monastic lifestyle would have 
drawn little notice. In the post-911 world, the quiet 
Pakistani-American, whose sixth cousin had made some 
rashly nationalistic remarks at a demonstration a 
half-continent away, was viewed as almost too quiet.

So when Rhawalpindi, the subject of ongoing FBI 
surveillance, had been found dead without a mark in 
his Washington living/dining/computer room/den, 
memories of anthrax and Japanese saran gas prompted a 
CDC/EPA crew to covertly swoop down on his two-room 
flat. Every scrap of correspondence, every book, 
every pot, pan, and prospective chemical mixing 
vessel was confiscated and examined with every high-
tech device the FBI, the ATF, and the CIA could 
muster. With the exception of an ornate statue of the 
elephant god Ganesh that adorned a corner table and 
an addiction to eBay (Golden and Silver Age DC 
comics), the authorities could find little to justify 
the late Mr. Rhawalpindi's status as a person of much 
of any interest.

However, Assistant Director Walter Skinner, no big 
fan of John Ashcroft or the Patriot Act but a man 
devoted to his duty as the law prescribed, managed to 
satisfy his dual sentiments by assigning both one of 
his best agents and one of the Bureau's most 
aggravated wiseasses to the Rhawalpindi 
investigation. Both were the same man, and Skinner 
knew Mulder would appreciate the absurdities of the 
case while exhaustively eliminating any possible of 
terrorist malfeasance.

"Mr. Rolla--, Rawla, oh, shoot, Rajiv was a very 
polite young man," Mulder and Scully had learned from 
Olive Pizer, the decedent's possibly 130-year-old 
apartment super. "Every once in a while, I'd smell 
that incense stuff coming from under his door, and I 
suppose he might've smoked a little of that reefer 
weed the kids seem to like, but boys will be boys, 
won't they? I can't believe he would have anything to 
do with that horrible Mr. bin Laden. He always tied 
up his garbage bags very securely, and he never 
played his music loud during my CSI."

Mulder pictured Osama sloppily applying a slip knot 
to his Hefty bag, and suppressed a smile. "How long 
had he been living here?"

Without soliciting it, Pizer poured Mulder and Scully 
a second cup of a particularly acrid tea neither 
agent originally had invited. "Oh, my. Mr. Clinton 
was president…Yes, it was right after that nasty 
Lewinski girl was all over the news. She was my 
daughter, I'd have given her a good spanking."

"That'd teach her. And no trouble during that time?"

"As I said, he was extremely polite. Always had his 
rent to me first of the month. A nice boy, even if he 
was the unluckiest young man I ever met."

Scully perked. "Unlucky how?"

"Wellll, first of all, there was that girlfriend of 
his – oh, what was her name? This was maybe three 
years ago. She was one of them, too. Palestinian."

"Pakistani."

"Yes. They were to married – Rajiv was very happy. 
Then she got hit by the No. 12."

"Pardon?"

"Bus. The No. 12 crosstown bus. She was a student at 
the college, and she was going to one of her classes 
when the No. 12 swerved to avoid a boy on a bicycle. 
I understand she was killed instantly. The poor boy 
was heartbroken."

"Not to mention the girl," Mulder suggested.

"Well," Pizer murmured non-committally. "It seems as 
if poor Rajiv's life went downhill after that. The 
accident took place a few months after that girl 
died."

"Accident?"

"The oddest thing I ever heard of," the senior 
related. "He hit a deer in his car. At 11 p.m. on a 
Tuesday night, downtown. It leapt in front of his 
car, and he killed it."

"Mrs. Pizer, would you know if any of his co-workers 
ever--?" Scully began hastily, hoping to divert her 
partner.

"A deer, you say," Mulder said. "Was he hurt?"

"Rajiv? Oh, no. He had one of those balloons, you 
know, those car balloons."

"Airbag?"

"That's it. Oh, no – the mauling was much worse."

"Mauling?" Mulder leaned forward, a childlike gleam 
in his eyes. Scully sat back and sipped her 
industrial tea in resignation.

"Yes. A poodle. Or a Pomeranian. The one with, you 
know, the eyes…"

"A poodle mauled Mr. Rhawalpindi."

"Yes. Or a Pomeranian. A stray, I believe – there was 
no collar. It was horrid. Rajiv was out front, 
getting ready to go visit his parents on the west 
side, when the little cur just, well, launched itself 
at him. It was, well, just gnawing at his neck – 
blood was all over the sidewalk. It took Mr. Wallace 
in 2 and Ms. Jankowicz in 6 to get it off him. The 
bitch."

"Ah, the dog?" Mulder ventured carefully.

"Yes, it was a female. I remember now. Even when they 
pried the poodle from Rajiv's throat, it tried to 
reattach itself. Mr. Wallace was forced to use a golf 
club from his trunk to beat the dog to death. A No. 
7, he told me at the time, although I haven't the 
slightest interest in that silly game."

Mulder's eyes were wide now. "Then what happened?"

"Well, I suppose all of this must have taken its toll 
on Rajiv, because he attempted to hang himself one 
day. This was a few months after the mauling – for a 
while, he could scarcely be persuaded to leave his 
apartment. But that day, he'd just gotten back from a 
Pirates game, and he seemed very chipper, if I may 
say. Then I discovered a piece of Rajiv's mail had 
gotten in with mine, and I went up to his apartment 
to return it. I could hear his music, and so I 
knocked, but he didn't answer. I was concerned, so I 
unlocked his door to check on him. Rajiv was hanging 
from the light fixture, which certainly wasn't built 
to withstand that sort of weight. I called the 
ambulance, and they were able to bring him around."

"Did he say why he did such a thing?"

"When I visited the hospital, he apologized profusely 
for frightening me and for abusing the light 
fixture," Pizer informed Mulder. "He said he realized 
that he'd made a dreadful mistake, that his plan 
wouldn't have worked. Oh, he said…Yes, he said he'd 
realized he was too good for it to work, which seemed 
a little odd and uncharacteristically boastful. He 
promised me he would never try it again, that suicide 
was useless and he should get on with life. That was 
about four months ago, and he was fine until, of 
course, he died this morning. Oh, my; you don't think 
he killed himself?"

"It's too early to determine," Scully replied, "but 
it would initially appear that he didn't."

Mrs. Pizer shook her silver-blue head. "Poor young 
man. He was so unlucky." She leaned toward Mulder, 
and her voice took on a confidential tone. "I don't 
want to speak ill of the dead or judge another 
person's faith, but I always felt the boy worshipping 
Babar the Elephant would lead to no good."


J. Edgar Hoover Building
Three days later
"All right, let's indulge your precariously teetering 
imagination," Scully finally piped up. She had 
resisted the temptation to rise to Mulder's thesis on 
the trip back from the Quantico pathology lab, during 
lunch, and throughout most of the afternoon at the 
office.

Mulder turned, a triumphant grin on his face. "Why, 
Scully, what if Skinner should walk in?"

His partner closed her eyes for a second. "Let us 
examine this so-called 'case' logically. Means, 
motive, and opportunity – the keystones of any 
homicide. I don't see any of the three here. Take 
opportunity: For this to be a murder, the killer 
would have to have known Rajiv Rhawalpindi was prone 
to anaphylactic allergies and ensure he would be 
stung by a bee in his apartment."

"Absolutely. That's essential. It's key to this 
murder."

"And what," Scully asked patiently, "was this 
omniscient killer's motive."

Mulder pushed his chair back, rose, and came around 
the desk. He crooked a finger under Scully's chin and 
kissed her lightly.

"Why, love, mon cheri," he murmured Gallicly. "You 
want a Diet Pepsi?"

Pittsburgh, Pa.
Two days earlier
"He didn't get real weird until the shitzu attacked 
him," Byrin Gittes told the agent, fingering his 
eyebrow ring and eyeing his Mac like a lover he'd 
been forced to abandon mid-coitus.

"I thought it was a poodle," Mulder said.

The chief programmer of 3.0 Development shrugged. 
"Whatever. It like messed up Raj's mojo or something. 
He started gettin' all religious and all. And worse, 
man. I showed up at his place with a pizza one night, 
and he was readin' a biography of some old actress 
broad. The one was in that chick flick. Actually, 
maybe she was in a bunch of chick flicks. That was 
when I knew Raj was seriously whacked. Then he 
brought in the snake."

Mulder straightened in his chair. "Snake?"

"Yeah. He almost got his ass fired over that. Raj 
like insisted the thing had somehow gotten in through 
the air vent, but I think he was into, you know, that 
snake handling shit."

"Snake handling's generally a fundamentalist 
Christian practice, and I understand Mr. Rhawalpindi 
was a devoted Hindu."

"Well, snake charming, then. Though I never saw any, 
you know, flute or nothing."

"What kind of snake was it?"

"What do I look like, man? An ornithologist or 
something? One of the code writers freaked and beat 
the shit out of it. Raj almost freaked on him, which 
I why I think he brought it in, you know…"

"To charm," Scully supplied.

"Did you know Rajiv's fiancé, Sana?"

"Jesus," Gittes breathed. "You mean Indira Ghastly? 
Sana was a world-class bitch, dude. She had Raj's 
cojones in a firm grip at all times, and she looked 
at us like we were a bunch of lowlifes or something. 
Especially the babes. Sorry, ma'am – the chicks. She 
had like a permanent she-hard-on for any chick even 
smiled at Raj. Don't mean to diss the dead or 
nothin'."

"Certainly," Mulder said.

**

"Terms of Endearment?" Mulder squeaked as he sorted 
through the personal effects the FBI Homeland 
Security Squad had removed from the Rhawalpindi 
apartment. He displayed another DVD. "Steel 
Magnolias? My God, The Cemetery Club? Scully, 
certainly you see the pattern here. It doesn't take a 
behavioral scientist."

Scully repacked a stack of T-shirts emblazoned with 
catchy cyberphrases. "Pattern?"

"Scully, our victim, Mr. Rhawalpindi, was a serious, 
serial pussy."

"Ah, the professionalism," Scully sang, moving on to 
Rhawalpindi's books.

"Seriously, though, here's this software guy who 
creates cyber-warriors and loves baseball and the 
NFL. How does this square?"

"Not everyone's an aficionado of the works of Jackie 
Chan and the Three Stooges, Mulder," Scully offered 
drily. She hefted a thin volume. "Looks like Mr. 
Rhawalpindi was exploring his feminist side 
literarily, as well."

Mulder stepped around the boxes, and read the 
binding. "The Search for Bridey Murphy. That's not 
beach reading, Scully. It's the true story of a 
woman's paranormal experiences."

"A man after your own heart. Mulder, we're wasting 
our time here. This poor man was no terrorist – just 
lonely and unlucky."

"Very lonely," Mulder murmured, glancing at Shirley 
MacLaine's smiling face on the DVD cover.

J. Edgar Hoover Building
Two days later

"Love?" Scully challenged as Mulder set her soda on 
the desk. "Rajiv Rhawalpindi was murdered because of 
love."

Mulder ripped the end from his Butterfinger wrapper. 
"Money, love, and in-laws. Your big three. Yes, I 
think love was at the root of Rhawalpindi's death. 
Dark, obsessive love, but love nonetheless."

"And who might have loved Mr. Rhawalpindi enough to -
- what was it now -- have him stung to death?"

"Don't forget the car accident, the shitzu attack—"

"I thought it was a Pomeranian…"

"— and the snake attack."

Scully popped her Pepsi and leaned back. "I've 
thought about that. I don't suppose you saw an item, 
about a week ago, about a Chicago police dog 
suspended for biting an African-American child only a 
few minutes after allowing a white boy to pet it?"

"Racist dogs, Scully?" Mulder laughed. "Of course, 
I've read about the phenomenon. Some say it has to do 
with canine visual perception, others a lack of 
canine cross-cultural exposure. Personally, I believe 
sometimes shitzu just happens. That's your theory? 
That Rajiv Rhawalpindi was the successive victim of a 
racist deer, a supremacist lap dog, a religiously 
intolerant serpent, and a xenophobic bee?"

"Any theory I might propound," Scully said evenly, 
"would be irrelevant, because there is no murder. I 
suppose next, you're going to try to tell me 
Rhawalpindi committed suicide via anaphylaxis."

"No," Mulder stated seriously. "He'd given up on that 
idea. And that was probably about the last straw for 
the killer."

Scully's brow arched. "The mysterious lover who 
planted a deadly bee in Rhawalpindi's apartment."

"You're close."

Pittsburgh, Pa.
One day earlier

 "Like something on the goddamn Fox network," Sgt. Oz 
Detterich told Mulder, swabbing a French fry. "'When 
Freakin' Bambi Goes Bad.' Yeah, I remember it, OK – 
ain't every night we get a deer go berserk in the 
downtown area."

Mulder unwrapped his Whopper With Cheese. "How do you 
think it got that far into the city?"

The cop, mouth full of potato, shook his head. "We 
always kinda figured maybe somebody brought her in as 
a prank, or maybe some hunter hit her out in Bucks 
County, threw her over the hood for a trophy or for 
some venison sausage, and she just wasn't quite dead 
enough. Yeah, I know. But it makes about as much 
sense as anything else did. Maybe the thing was sick 
or something."

"Did you do a post-mortem?"

The cop grinned. "Nah. We had a pretty good idea what 
killed her."

Mulder smiled back, sheepishly. "Sorry. Did you have 
any witnesses to the accident?"

"Three or four late-night partiers who saw the doe 
before it ran in front of the motorist's car. They 
said it was just standing there, still as a statue. 
Couple cars came past before Mr. Rhawalpindi, and 
they said the thing didn't move. Only ran out into 
the street when Rhawalpindi drove through. Almost 
like she was waiting for him. Like bad karma."

"You have no idea," Mulder murmured.

**

"You should pardon me for saying," Singh Rhawalpindi 
told Mulder, "but Sana was perhaps the finest 
argument I ever saw for the old pre-arranged 
marriages of my father's and grandfather's times. She 
was a grasping, venal, and rabidly jealous woman."

"Rabidly jealous?" Mulder echoed, regarding the 
graying orthodontist.

Rhawalpindi brushed a piece of lint from his smock. 
"Agent Mulder, one of my nephews was married a few 
weeks prior to Sana's unfortunate death, and Rajiv 
brought her along. Well, at the party afterward, Sana 
mistook a cousinly embrace for an overture toward 
Rajiv, and nearly wrestled the poor woman into the 
buffet table. You should have seen the look of 
murderous rage in Sana's eyes. She was 
pathologically, violently possessive. She told my son 
that he was hers' forever."

Mulder nodded thoughtfully as his cell phone sounded. 
He flipped it open. "Mulder."

"Yeah, Agent Mulder?" a brisk voice grunted. One of 
the zealous domestic security guys with whom Mulder 
and Scully had been liaising. "Ran down that reading 
list you wanted."

Working on a slowly emerging hypothesis, Mulder had 
used what he'd felt to be one of the more odious and 
invasive provisions of the Patriot Act to his 
advantage. He'd asked one of the junior Efrem 
Zimbalists to dig up Rhawalpindi's public library 
record for the past three months. Mulder scrambled 
for his notebook and pen. "Yeah, shoot."

"We got nada," the agent reported. "Nothing. Just a 
bunch of religious stuff – Hindu, Muslim, some stuff 
about Indians. Not Rhawalpindi's kind, the woo-woo-
woo kind."

"Native Americans, you mean?" Mulder suggested, 
suppressing his irony.

"Yeah," the agent grunted, missing Mulder's 
suppression. "Oh, and a couple books by some guy 
named Casey."

Jackpot, Mulder thought. "Would that be C-A-Y-C-E?"

"Roger that," the agent affirmed.

Mulder smiled at the father of the deceased "person 
of interest," who frowned curiously. "Anything by 
George Orwell on that list?" he added mischievously.

"Orwell?...Nah."

"Peace out, then."

J. Edgar Hoover Building
One day later
"Edgar Cayce," Scully perked, draining her diet soda. 
"The psychic."

"And expert in reincarnation," Mulder added.

Scully fell silent. "Mulder, I'm a little surprised 
you'd leap to such a cultural stereotype. Just 
because Rhawalpindi was a Hindu--"

"As a Hindu, Rhawalpindi likely was more aware of the 
phenomenon of reincarnation than most Christians, 
Jews, or Zoroastrians would be. And actually, Scully, 
Hinduism doesn't have any exclusive claim to the 
perpetuation and migration of the soul. The Muslim 
Q'uran states, 'Every living being shall taste death, 
then unto us you will be returned.' Many American 
Indian tribes maintain animals and even non-living 
objects possess souls. I think that's why Rajiv 
Rhawalpindi developed his interest in chick flicks. I 
think it was an offshoot of his fascination for 
Shirley MacLaine and her fascination with 
reincarnation and past lives."

"Shirley," Scully mouthed, "MacLaine."

      "What if the karma we create in this life 
shapes our destiny, Scully? What if the evil we do 
demotes us to a lower niche on the food chain in the 
next life? Or the good we do elevates us? I think 
these are the questions Rajiv Rhawalpindi began 
asking himself when the pattern began to emerge."
      
      "And what pattern was that, Mulder?"
      
      "Deer, dog, snake, bee. What would that 
succession suggest to you?"
      
      "Steps on the evolutionary ladder? Except is a 
deer higher up the ladder than a dog, or just 
larger?"

      "Don't quibble. I think Rajiv began to suspect 
that his bizarre series of animal attacks was no 
accident, and he started to consider the possibility 
that these animals were consciously attempting to 
kill him. But why would the animal kingdom be out to 
kill a single human being."
      
      Scully propped her heels on Mulder's desk. 
"Obviously, you've never watched America's Funniest 
Home Videos."
      
      "Sarcastic isn't sexy, Scully. Look at the 
evidence. Who would know the route through downtown 
Pittsburgh Rhawalpindi took when he visited his 
parents? Who would be in a position to know he was 
susceptible to anaphylactic shock? And who would have 
a reason to want him dead?"

      "Love," Scully recalled.
      
      "Love. After the accident with the deer and the 
shi--, ah, dog and snake attacks, I think Rhawalpindi 
began to wonder why Death was knocking at his 
apartment door. Then his cultural orientation kicked 
in, and he started to ponder the possibility that 
Sana had been reincarnated, and that he was on her 
hit list.
      
      "Sana was a rabidly jealous woman, as Rajiv's 
old man noted. She told Rajiv he belonged to her 
forever, and she meant it. She wanted Rajiv to join 
her on the next astral plane, and tried to punch his 
ticket to get him aboard. The problem is, like most 
obsessive, self-directed people, Sana never 
understood the nature of karma. Her transgressions as 
a woman earned her a zoological demotion, and her 
misplaced 'love' for Rajiv made her sink deeper into 
fanatical obsession and her attempts on her 
boyfriend's life. With each descent in karma, Sana 
got bumped down a few more species."
      
      "Reincarnation for Dummies," Scully sighed. 
"And I suppose Rhawalpindi's suicide attempt was some 
tragically romantic bid to join Sana in the 
afterlife."

      "Now, I'm getting real tingly, Scully. I think 
Rhawalpindi became convinced his one true – if deeply 
flawed – love was reaching out for him from beyond 
death, and he decided to join her. But dangling over 
his coffee table that day Mrs. Pizer discovered him, 
I think he had a dual revelation. No. 1, that killing 
yourself is neither as easy or fun as one might 
think. No. 2, that he and Sana were ships that were 
spiritually incapable of passing in the night or at 
any other time. Remember what he told Mrs. Pizer 
while he was recovering in the hospital? That his 
plan wouldn't work. That he was 'too good' to make it 
work. Rajiv Rhawalpindi was a kind, polite, 
considerate man. His death likely would serve merely 
to elevate him to a higher station, while Sana was 
doomed to progress further and further down the 
evolutionary ladder. By now, she may be a blade of 
grass, a virus, a telemarketer. Rajiv Rhawalpindi 
ultimately realized he was simply too good for her, 
and I think perhaps he suffered the fatal sting of a 
woman scorned."
      
      Mulder leaned back in his chair, waiting for 
Scully to jeer his theory or offer a witty bon mot. 
Instead, the redheaded agent rose, walked to the 
door, and fished into her handbag. She returned and 
slid a large pink envelope across his desk. Mulder 
stared down at the valentine, then looked up 
guiltily.
      
      Scully smirked. "Men. No, Mulder; don't say a 
word. This may surprise you – it certainly surprises 
me -- but I'm strangely touched by your odd and 
clumsy little theory. The idea of a love that 
transcends death, a desire manifested in such single-
minded obsession, it shows me a romantic dimension 
that, frankly, I wouldn't have suspected of you." She 
moved around the desk and eased onto Mulder's lap, 
wrapping her arms about her partner's neck.
      
      "Yeah, you say you love me," Mulder murmured, 
feeling rather warm, "But would you kill me?"
      
      "Keep talking," Scully whispered.