14. MARITA CORVARRUBIAS

Marita Corvarrubias (often derogatorily referred to as the UNiBlonder) made her first appearance in the episode HERRENVOLK, where she is introduced as to replace (speaking as a plot device only) the assassinated Mr. X. She has since appeared in TELIKO, TUNGUSKA and UNREQUITED.

Marita Corvarrubias is the Assistant to one of the Special Representatives to the Secretary General of the United Nations. Apparently there are more than one Special Representative. This U.N. connection may be related to the Majestic Consortium. U.N. resolution 1013 provides the basis for majestic's "shoot-to-kill" policy on aliens. In ANASAZI the news that the MJ documents were stolen hits the Italian delegation at the U.N. first. So there's a possiblity that her access may be considerable. However, her access to information seems more limited than Deep Throat or Mr. X.

In HERRENVOLK, Mulder contacted her after Mr. X, dying from multiple gunshot wounds, scrawled the innitials "SRSG" in his own blood. She tells Mulder that her boss, the Special Representative is unavailable, and that the farm in Alberta (which was apparently staffed by alien clones) was found abandoned, the mysterious crop the aliens were tending mearly ginsing. However, she gives Mulder a photo of the clones working the fields, telling him "Not everything dies, Agent Mulder." I believe that she was letting him know that while she can't speak freely in her office, she has answers he is seeking.

In TELIKO Mulder goes to her for information about the West African seed that kept turning up around the victims of the "Menalin Vampire." At first she rebuffs him, saying she can't help, but Mulder presses on saying "You made an overture to me. You left an opening." She responds by getting him the Port Authority and FAA reports on the passenger from Burkina Faso who died under similar circumstances on a trans-atlantic flight. She also points Mulder towards the Burkina Faso Embassy and clears Mulder's way to Minister Diabira with a well-placed phone call.

In TUNGUSKA, Mulder seeks Marita out to get information on the source of the diplomatic pouches being smuggled into the U.S. by the minons of the Majestic Consortium. Not only does she discover, after a phone call or two, that the source of the material is Tunguska Siberia. Marita even provides Mulder with a diplomatic passport to asssit him in getting into the former Soviet Union. When Mulder asks her why she would help him she answers "Because there are those of us who believe in you . . . in your search for the truth."

In UNREQUITED Mulder contacts Marita again to get information about the assassinations of high ranking Generals by the seemingly invisible assassin Nathaniel Teager. Marita doesn't provide the information Mulder was looking for, but after getting Mulder to pony-up what he knows, she the missing links between the murdered Generals and the next victim. This gives Mulder insight into Teager's motives and the motives of the men who may be manipulating Teager's quest for revenge to assist in a further cover-up. Interestingly, the information she provides isn't from some shadowy "black ops" agency. She tells Mulder she gleaned the link between the Generals from a recent newspaper story.

As a plot device, Marita Covarubbias is a step forward and a step back. There had been plans to make Mr. X's character a female, but they were scrapped at the last minute by the creative team. On the other hand, she is the first "contact" Mulder has had that Mulder has sought out, not the other way around. Until ZERO SUM Marita was little more than a "deus ex machina" plot device for dropping clues on Mulder. However all that has changed. ZERO SUM has added a number of interesting possibilities.

First there are her efforts to thwart the smallpox bio-warfare test and her attempts to help Skinner in his efforts to discover what he was tasked to cover-up for the Cigarrette Smoking Man. Her efforts seem genuine but then there is Marita's own connection to The Cigarrette Smoking man. At the end of the episode it is revealed that Marita takes her orders from CSM. Whether all her actions or only some are dictated by CSM's orders remains unknown. What is also unknown is who was standing in the background listening on Marita's other phone while she was speaking to CSM. Was it Mulder? Was it some other member of the Majestic Consortium? Perhaps an agent of the First Elder, who is growing obviously exasperated with CSM's empty reassurances that the "Mulder" situation is under control? Either way, Marita probably means trouble for both Mulder and CSM.

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