Central Officer Bradford was the only high ranking staffer left from the war 20 years before, and he knew the feeling. They were making enough progress to slow down the AVATAR project, which it's sinister goal was, but they were losing too many soldiers in the process. XCOM needed some good tactical advantage before any new nasty alien nasty surprise froze them in their tracks.

And them the Commander ordered that last operation. Of course, the Informant had provided the info and the much needed supplies, but it turned to be absurdly difficult. The so called ADVENT VIP was being protected by something that resembled a garrison, and when that garrison crumbled, they tried to kill him.

Even worse, the boy consistently failed to remember anything besides his name, even after recovering some coherent thought and having both Magus Wraith and Dr. Tygan try their tricks in him yielded no result. The good news was that the brain looked intact enough and some time would bring memories back. In the meantime, the lack of space made it impractical to throw Adam into a cell, so he was put under surveillance in the bar/memorial zone as soon as he was able to walk after two weeks thanks to good medikits.

So now he was babysitting him while most of the troops were on mission. It was easy, for the most part, he simply stared blankly at the list of fallen soldiers.

"How long has this been going on?"

"You should know, you worked for the enemy."

Adam showed him the scars of his hand.

"The enemy tried to kill me. In no merciful way, in fact."

"Point taken. But I am not convinced. It could be a subtler than usual approach to infiltration."

"Yes, so subtle that involves knocking out the infiltrator until his bones are broken."

He clenched his fist.

"Look. I don't know if it's true. I could be some sick bastard that processed all that people into green goo. If that's true… have that white-haired girl dissolve my brain and let Dr. Tygan serve it as hot soup. But, in the meantime, I would like to know more."

The kid had an attitude, Bradford conceded to himself.

"We have been organizing the resistance for several months now. We've lost people."

The Officer was tempted to order some alcohol from the bar, but he decided against it. He was 55 years old already, and his liver was punished enough after twenty years on the run with enough despair and sorrows to cope for a lifetime.

"I am sorry."

"For what, kid?"

"For the soldiers that fell to retrieve me. I am not that useful."

"It was worth it, kid. If only for the supplies. It's harsh, but we can recruit good soldiers now. Only one soldier would be irreplaceable."

"Wraith?"

"Yes. She's got the talent to be a Magus. She can mind control almost anything."

"Including me. It was really strange having her inside my mind. But it was a lot better than Dr. Tygan's mind probes, anyway."

"Well, the doctor is somewhat ruthless, but he knows what he's doing."

The interior communications announced the return of the Skyranger.

"Do you want to see it, kid?"

"Please. I was not conscious the last time and I don't even know if the sky is blue."

When Firebrand looked at the landing platform and saw Bradford accompanied by that battered up boy of the last time, she smiled and turned to Wraith.

"Your boyfriend's here. Such a sweet boy!"

In response, she got a low level psionic punch bruise.

"Ouch, did I hit a nerve, cowgirl?"

"C'mon, Wraith. Everybody knows that he is just your mind controlled boytoy."

Still laughing, they stepped out.

Then, the Grenadier started to launch her grenades to the sky and the troops took turns… to try and to blow them up with a gauss pistol.

"Interested, boy? The pistol's not a plasma one. That could be too easy."

The question and the subsequent explanation took Adam by surprise.

"Let him shoot! It will be funny."

"What do you say, Bradford?"

In response, Central took his plasma pistol out.

"Give him the weapon. If you try anything, kid, you are dead. Nothing personal. "

"I know. Well, if I die, at least it will be quick."

He took the weapon. It was heavy, or maybe his arm was not that healed at all.

"Shoot."

The grenade was launched. It was a trick, of course. A long distance supersonic shell, not even suitable for tactic battle, it was too fast even for the gauss pistol and it was rigged to safely defuse without exploding thirty seconds after the launch.

Adam new nothing about it. He raised his arm, considered the distance… and shot, pointing the pistol to the ground and taking the finger off the trigger immediately. There was no way to know how to secure a weapon like that. Everybody stared at him in astonishment.

Six second later, a flash of light reached the Avenger. Some ten seconds later, the sound of the explosion was heard.

Wolf was the first to react.

"Motherfucker. That was…"

"The core exploding, yes." The grenadier confirmed.

Adam offered the pistol back.

"You learnt it… somewhere."-Said Wraith. "Like a boot camp? The image was fuzzy."

"Then you saw more than me, Magus."

Bradford lowered his weapon.

"That was muscle memory."

On the Bridge, the Commander looked at the image closely. So the Informant wasn't bluffing. Good.