Minutes later, Scully found herself standing in the middle the new headquarters of the three publishers of the Lone Gunman expository publication. She had met the three socially awkward conspiracy theorists and friends of Mulder before. Mulder often leveraged their technology expertise and their rather dubious spying skills to get answers he typically was not entitled to.
The new headquarters comprised of a medium-sized windowless bunker room, with gray walls, low ceiling and industrial-looking metal shelves outlining the room's perimeter. The shelves overflowed with electronic devices, monitors, repair tools, kitchen items, blankets, garden equipment, camping and scuba diving gear, and countless gadgets of unknown utility. The only wall area not used for storage was the heavy metal door with eight locks through which Mulder and Scully had walked in and which closed shut behind them with an ominous thud. Scully eyed the locks apprehensively.
A flimsy plastic cart in the middle of the room appeared to be serving simultaneously as a server rack, a work desk, and an occasional dinner table. The three publishers removed from it several stacks of folders, a greasy pizza box, and half a dozen interconnected devices with blinking green equalizers, which they cautiously carried to the room corner taking care not to disturb the crisscrossed wires that linked them. Once the cart's top was clear, Mulder placed on it an old, torn, gray sneaker, size ten.
Scully shook her head with disapproval.
"I can't believe you took evidence from the crime scene, Mulder," she frowned.
"This is our case, Scully. We are still investigating."
The shortest of the three publishers, Melvin Frohike, dressed in a black leather jacket and wearing oversize round glasses, took a laser scanner and passed it over the inside of the sneaker. The scanner beeped.
The tallest of the three, Richard "Ringo" Langly, turned to look at a screen behind him through his own wide-rimmed spectacles.
"We have it," he said. "The barcode is still good." His long, blond, albeit observably unwashed hair partly covered the print on the back of his new-age T-shirt bought at a science fiction convention fifteen years earlier. Only one word at the bottom of the print was visible. It read: Roswell.
The third of the trio, John Fitzgerald Byers, prudently adjusted his brown tie, which matched his old brown business suit. He stroked his goatee pensively and walked over to one of the wall shelves, where an old battered dot-matrix printer had suddenly come to life. He picked a printed page and carried it over to Scully.
"The unique product number on the bar code of this item," Byers explained, leaning his head educationally towards Scully, "reveals the year the item was produced and the company that produced it. This sneaker was made last year, here, in Harrisburg, by a local shoe factory called The Walkassines".
Scully watched perplexed as Langly pulled out a laptop from the bottom of the flimsy cart. His fingers danced on the keyboard.
"Credit card hacking... check," he said. "Zooming in on year and month... check. Here it is guys."
The five of them gathered around his laptop. "Holy carbonates!" Mulder exclaimed. "She was not kidding about the Coke!"
Scully didn't know whether to be amused or concerned. "OK, can someone fill me in please?" she demanded.
Mulder pointed at the screen. "We have the history of the credit card expenses of one Anthony Terrence Crane, starting from July last year. Here," he said, "is Tony's purchase of one pair of sneakers for $39.95. Before and around that purchase, Tony apparently bought a lot of bubble gum. Starting about a month after the purchase, his bubble gum spending seemed to decline and was replaced by increased spending on Coca Cola."
Scully stared at the screen. "That does seem excessive," she admitted. "How much is that? Thirty cans a day?"
"Twenty-eight-point-three," said Langly. Scully eyed him suspiciously.
"So, what are we looking for then? Someone who would trade him coke for... Coke?" she asked.
Mulder shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "Langly, can we hack into the sales records of the store?"
"Mulder, we can't..." started Scully, but Langly didn't appear to be listening.
"Hacking into the store records," he announced despite Scully's attempt to object. His fingers on the keyboard were a blur of speed.
"Check!" he said triumphantly in a few seconds. He looked very satisfied with himself.
"So, what are we looking for?" asked Frohike, siding with Scully.
"Another purchase of the same type of sneakers," said Mulder.
"Here it is," pointed Langly. "A month and a half later. Sold to one Daniel McNiff."