The commander's return had been... eventful, Shen reflected.
Showing up with a dragon in tow tended to do that.
When Shen had been startled out of his break by the alarm blaring, he had inquired to the nature of the emergancy. Because it was XCOM, he had been expecting just about everything. Everything, that is, except for two teens on the back of a bronze dragon trailing the Skyranger.
The eccentric owner of said dragon, a bright, exuberant lad named Leo Valdez, had landed after the commander vouched for him in front of a group of wary security personell, shouting "People of Earth, I come in peace!" No-one had been amused.
After that lovely display, the commander had explained that Leo was another demigod they had run into in Hong Kong. That part hadn't surprised Shen in the slightest.
It took a while, but he was getting used to the whole "the Greek Gods are real" revelation. He had seen enough proof between the demigods and the appearance of Athena herself. It made him wonder what other dieties were out there...
Shen shrugged slowly, then turned back to the firestorm he was working on. They were finishing the cockpit's seals and, god willing, would be done by the end of the week. While most of the base was relaxing and watching the spectacle that is Mark spinning an adventure around the table,he and around ten engineers were putting in overtime to finish their interceptor. Many people joked about the firestorm being "his baby," but he really was proud and determined to get it right when it came to getting the firestorm ready. Many of his staff felt the same way, leading to an electric atmosphere and hard work. Someone had rigged up a radio to the work area's speakers, blasting a song Shen wasn't familiar with. It was, he grugingly admitted, highly apropriate.
"Lining up at seven eight
And I go to work at night,
I got no time for living here
I'm working all the time"
"Rachel," Shen asked politely, "could you check the power feed on the engines?"
"Sure thing, doc." Rachel gave a salute with her wrench, then dove under the firestorm's engines.
Sometimes, the chief engineer wished everyone at xcom had rachel's enthusiasm when it came to their job. The war would be a lot shorter.
The engineer looked up again when he heard someone enter the room. It was Leo, the lad with a dragon, and his eyes widened when he saw the interceptor. "Holy Hera," he muttered under his breath.
"Why hello, Leo," When greeted, steping down from the aircraft. "How could I help you, young man?"
"Actually," Leo began, rubbing the back of his neck, "I was getting a little restless in the rec room, social events aren't my thing, and I heard a couple engineers talking about this sick new project you were working on." Leo shuffled around, his hands tapping nervously on his thighs. "Could I take a peek under the hood?"
Shen thought for a moment, then nodded. He knew a fellow engineer when he saw one, and getting a... mythical view on their engineering would be fascinating.
"The engine access panel is here," shen said, opening a large panel aft of the cockpit. "We used an alien power source recovered from UFOs, and the engine-"
"Produces lift via a graviton field, right?"
Shen nodded, a small smile reaching the corners of his mouth. "How did you guess?"
Leo smirked. "It's a gift. How did you adapt alien computers to work with conventional software?"
"We didn't," Rachel interjected, frowning in thought at the odd boy in front of her. "We basically rewrote the base programs from scratch, switching to english in the process."
The impish boy nodded. "Makes sense, you didn't want to chance any nasties the aliens left in the software."
Rachel grinned. "You seem to know your stuff."
"Well, I did build a flying warship, so it comes with the territory."
"You built a... you knwo what, I'm not asking." Rachel's brow creased. "You want to help us, kid, or are you going to gawk at the firestorm all day.
Leo's smirk became ever more mischevious. "Where do you want me?"
"Right at that engine, help me run some diagnostics."
"Yes, ma'am!"
The song went into the base line.
"And that's why they call me,
They call me the working man!"
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Calypso was intruiged by the "gaming session" she was witnessing. It reminded her of the storytellers she had seen in human villages in many respects, and yet, at the same time, was a different beast entirely in that it was interactive.
"The Dead King rises to his full seven feet, his eyes glowing yellow in rage." Mark, the "DM," raised his hands above his head, bumping his mandolin aside, and assumed a raspy, menacing, voice. "'So you made it past my levies. Bah, those small-minded fools have no Idea what the big picture is.'"
Mark is sitting at the head of a table, three seats on either side of it. A screen partially conceals him from the players, who are the others sitting at the table. From what she had been told and seen over the course of the past hour and a half, Calypso believed that the "players" each assumed the role of a character, like an actor, and then acted out or told the dm the actions and roles that character was doing at any given moment. The characters included an elvish Cleric with healing spells, played by Bradford, a sneaky halfling rogue, played by a man named AK, two human fighters, played by two "techies" from the control center, and a half-elf ranger, played by XCOM's most vetran soldier, Osvaldo Soto. The team's wild mage, Played by Rachel, had died rather spetacularly early on when a magical surge had propelled her 200 feet into the air, only to crash into the ground, exploding into a swarm of butterflies. She had decided to help the old engineer with his project, since she couldn't play and had work that needed to get done. Around the table and throughout the rec room, other members of xcom watched and listened to Mark and his players talk, fight, and think their way through the elvish kingdom of Evergreen.
Bradford spoke in-character as the dwarf cleric "you shall not take over this land while we still live, lich!"
Mark strummed a dramatic cord on his Mandolin, his face breaking into a grin. "The lich chuckles. 'Heh, that's what you think my goal is? Perhaps you aren't as smart as I first thought. If you were able to see my final plan, you would wish that I had smited you right here. But alas, you have made yourselves my problem."
The tension in the following silence is palapable. Mark looks around the room. "Alas, we end it here tonight." A massive sigh of dissapointment flows thruout the room as everyone packs up. "Remember," Mark shouts, picking up his dice, "we still have a job to do. Stop the aliens, ect. See you tomorrow."
After almost everyone clears out, Mark makes his way over to the demigods, as...
Wait a minute, where's Leo?
"Leo snuck down to engineering. Poor guy has trouble with crowds, probably," Mark states, catching the panic on Calypso's face. "What did you guys think?"
"It was interesting," Calypso remarks, "like someone took a play, and then turned it into an interactive game."
"It was amusing to watch," Jason comments, "but why was everyone so into it?"
"Probably because it's the only two hours where the problems we are facing aren't real," Mark states. "For a short time every week, we aren't responding to a threat that could kill us instantly, we are kicking in evil's door before it rears it's ugly head. Also, it is the only time where Bradford is not stressing out over me or the base. It's nice to see him not worried about this emergency or that problem."
There was a moment of silence, then Calypso spoke. "What are your odds. Against the aliens, that is."
Mark sighed. "I don't know and I don't care. That goes against rule number one in this crazy-ass world.
"Which is?"
Mark smirked, a twinkle in his eyes.
"Fuck the odds."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Commander Johnson sat behind his desk, fingers steepled. He was waiting for his three top advisors to arrive. It was 2 am, and the Commander needed this done before dawn.
Bradford, Shen, and Vahlen did so in short order, and closed the door behind them. Mark did a quick sweep with a bug scanner, the fith time in one hour. He then turned towards his most trusted advisors.
"Gentlemen," he began, "we have a problem. I don't trust the Greeks. Or rather," he amended at the start of their objections, "I don't trust their gods. They are too volitile, too petty, and too divided to be a stable ally. If things head south between us and them, we need backup. And by backup, I mean a second pantheon."
Everyone looked thoughtful for a second. Shen spoke up. "The Greeks can't be the only pantheon. The demigods said that they were an imbodiment of western civilization, every action in their world has an impact on western civilization, and vice versa."
"Indeed." Mark mildew, a smirk formed on his face. "The Greeks weren't the only civilization that impacts our buildings, our morals, our..." suddenly, a light went on in his head. "...Money,"
Mark almost wispered the last part, elicting a nod from Vahlen.
"Indeed, the Norse shaped the face of the mideval world, there's even Viking runes etched into the Hagia Sophia. They are probably still around."
"Let us not forget western Culture is not the only one with strong mythologies," Shen interjected. "Shinto, Buddhism, Vedic... all of these are worth looking into."
It was odd how casually they had adjusted to the idea of myths being real. It probably had something to do with one literally walking in the front door of their base.
"Those seem like good ideas, what do you think..." bradford was halted by the sight of the commander crawling under his desk. The Central officer sighed. "What are you doing, Mark?"
"Looking for an Americain dollar. If we are looking for gods - aha!"
The commander slammed old George onto the table, then flipped the dollar bill over. He looked for a second, a grin spreading across his face, when he suddenly darted for his bookshelf, grabbing a large volume, he found the page he was looking for quickly.
"So if they set up shop in America... AHA!" Mark flipped the book shut and put the volume on his shelf. "I know who to find them."
"Who is them, Mark?" Bradford asked, weary of the name game they were playing. He seemed to be the only one who was lost. Why all the excitement over a dollar bill?
"The guys that built that." Mark tossed the bill at Bradford, who looked at the back of the bill. He smirked after a second, finally getting it.
"They were influential, weren't they?"
Mark got his game face on, his hands rubbing together as a plan of first contact formed.
"To find them, let's start with major cities in the U.S. that have rivers that divide at least part of it from east to west. Houston, Memphis, New York, run the gambit. They might be in other places, but this is a good place to start. I want every type of satilite photo - thermo, uv, even sisemic if possible - of the east side of each river. We will go over them by hand, and look for anything out of the ordinary. I know it's a long shot, but hey.
"Fuck the odds, we find Egyptians, right?"