"Dr. Shen, is this a prank?" Payens tossed the file on top of the terminal and spun his chair Shen-ward, with Nicole sitting on the corner of the desk looking at her phone. "A helicarrier? Why the hell would we ever need a giant sky boat?"
"It was just an idea, sir," Shen said, "in case something were to happen to the base."
"If something were to happen to the base, we'd have a lot more to worry about than being able to look out windows for a change. They only way this could be more a blatant exercise in Marvel fanboyism is if you staight up call it 'The Avenger'."
"Eh… you're right, that would be silly…"
"You named it 'The Avenger', didn't you."
"...Yes?"
Payens sighed and started pecking at the terminal's keyboard, leaving Nicole to hand the file back to Shen.
"How's the mech construction coming along?"
"It's going well; DJ should be awake and taking the suit for a test drive within the week. Although, I had an idea for the suit to make it more-" A loud burst of static from the computer cut Shen off and made Payens and Nicole jump. The monitor was a seizure-blitz of flashing colors, gradually shifting to black and red. A figure covered in shadow stood with their back turned on screen, outlined with digital red.
"Hello, X-COM," the figure spoke in a distorted voice, "this moment has been a long time coming. YOUR RECKONING IS UPON YOU!"
"Shen," Payens said, staring into the screen, "please tell me that you set this up to convince me to greenlight the helicarrier."
"I apologize sir, but this was not me," Shen said, staring at the figure as they struck a grandiose pose.
"Nicole, tell Bradford to track this signal. Now." She immediately dialed Bradford's phone number as she leaned over the desk to get a better view.
"You DARE to oppose the future," the figure said, pointing at his audience, "FAIL to see the greatness that has come from beyond the stars, AND SLAY THE MOST MAGNIFICENT LIFE THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN! But your crusade against destiny IS OVER!" The figure stepped back to reveal a banner with an eye symbol, surrounded by a red hexagon. "WE ARE GUARDIANS OF THE FUTURE! THE ENTOURAGE OF DESTINY! THE DELIVERERS OF TRANSCENDENCE! WE! ARE! EXALT! MUHHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHA!"
"Aaaaaand there's now a Saturday morning cartoon villain sending me prerecorded hate mail. Just what the doctor ordered."
The figure faded from the screen, leaving only the eye logo and a number reaching well into the billions.
"Is that…" Payens leaned back into his chair propped his head up with his fist. "No, there's no way they could get that."
The computer beeped, and started blaring a siren noise as the number to drop rapidly.
"WELL, I'VE BEEN WRONG BEFORE."
"What's happening?" Nicole asked.
"Dr. Claw is stealing all our fucking money!"
"What?! How?!"
"Bitch, I don't know! Get Bradford on the phone already!"
"He's not answering."
"The one time I actually need him, and he's busy jerking off somewhere!" Payens turned back and held a hand over the keyboard, watching millions of dollars fly into someone else's pocket. At the rate the budget was draining, it would only take a few minutes to hit zero. Payens took a sharp breath and punched the escape key hard enough to crack the keyboard, making the computer exit off the counter and go back to the desktop.
"Did… Did that just work?"
"I don't think that it will be that easy, commander," Shen said, peering over Payens' shoulder at the screen. Payens clicked his way over to the budgetary files, and found that the budget smaller but stable. Shen and Nicole breathed a sigh of relief while Payens headbutted what was left of the keyboard.
"Just when I think that existence had an upper limit on retards, a new truck load of them blindside me," he groaned into the space bar.
"Look on the brightside," Nicole said, laying a hand on his shoulder, "If they're dumb enough to leave that it, tracking them down shouldn't be a problem. We find the base, send in the team to kick their asses, and take the money back. It won't take more than a few hours."
"Since when have you cared about my feelings?" Payens said, lifting his head to face her.
"Since our budget got involved. Now, are you going to send somebody after them or what?"
"She makes a point, commander," Shen said, adjusting his glasses, "Poorly designed hacking software aside, they still managed to breach our security and steal some of our resources. There is an organization of alien sympathizers that just acquired millions of dollars; who knows what they could be planning to do with it?"
"Ugh… Fine." Payens stood up and started walking towards the door. "Nicole, slap Bradford whenever you find him. Dr. Shen, are any units of the new armor ready yet?"
"Yes sir, we have one ready for it's final field test. It's the Brazilian's... customized suit."
"Perfect. If there's one thing that raises my spirits, it's some good old fashion idiot depopulation measures."
The ramp of the Skyranger touched the grass several seconds before it hit the ground. A small house and a dingy barn sat a few hundred feet off in the distance, surrounded by rolled up hay bales. The midday sun's heat was challenged by a cool breeze that made the tall grass dance in time. The picaresque picture was promptly ruined when the Brazilian stepped onto the field in jet black combat armor with a freshly painted skull on the helmet's visor. What the armor lacked in sharp edges, it made up for with shear intimidating presence. The Brazilian stared at the farmyard and let out a chuckle as Peña, Golubev, and Tariq stepped out behind him.
"Hey boss, are you sure you got the right place?" He said amusedly.
"This exact address was found inside their siphon virus," Payens said over the comms, "I'm damn positive that this is the place. We also found their email in the code; I sent a message saying that I'm Nigerian prince to see if I could get the money back before we actually met them. No response yet, but I'm optimistic about it."
Golubev pulled his rifle scope up and scanned the house, seeing the tips of people's' heads rush along the bottom of the windows.
"Yep," he said while trying to count how many people he saw, "they are definitely gearing up for a fight in there. There's at least three people in the house, and I am damn positive that the barn is holding more of them." He lowered the rifle out of his and turned to Peña. "Think you can hit it with a rocket from here?"
"Maybe, but we should probably confirm that they aren't just panicking farmers before we open fire."
"Fine, but I'm staying here. I haven't been able to do actual sniping in forever thanks to the alien bullshit fog."
"Speaking of sniping," Tariq said, throwing the end of her scarf off of the laser rifle, "can we get moving before the enemy does that? I like my internal organs to stay internal."
"Agreed," the Brazilian said, "I can't kill them unless I can see them." He started to wade through the grass towards the house, with Tariq and Peña close behind. Golubev went back inside the Skyranger and crouched down to stabilize his aim.
After an uneventful minute of walking and a quick fence-hop, the squad stepped onto the dirt of the farmyard proper. The barn was only a few yards away, the doors cracked open so that barely any light could get inside. Tariq creeped up to the side of the barn peered through a hole in the wood. There were a lot of miscellaneous boxes scattered around with only a paper thin line of light to illuminate them, with the farm's tractor sitting right in the middle of them. She put her ear to wall and the sound of a magazine being load and unloaded from a gun. She waved for Peña and the Brazilian to move to the back of the barn.
"Is somebody in there?" Peña whispered once they were a good distance away from the barn.
"Yep. Let's light 'em up."
"Wait, are you sure it's not just some scared farmers?"
"Positive, this story would get way too dark for a comedy if we shot innocent civilians."
"Could you speak up? I didn't catch that."
"I said that there was way too much gun noises in the dark for their to be innocent civilians."
"Can we just shoot some people already?" The Brazilian said as he started to pace. "It has been too damn long since I've taken a life."
"It's been five minutes already? Time flies."
"Cute." The Brazilian pointed his shotgun from the hip to the barn. Tariq and Peña followed suit, and started blowing the barn to hell. Amidst the grand symphony of gunshots and splintering wood, the faint sounds swearing, exploding heads, and counter fire eked out of the barn. After an eternity of lead/laser tsunami, the entire back wall fell apart. The inside looked like a slaughterhouse run by meth heads; busted wood, blood splatters, and dead bodies all laid scattered around the room. All the corpses were men in business casual with bandannas over their mouths and military grade guns in hand that would never get to be used. in hand, assuming that said hand wasn't blown off in the horizontal hailstorm of hostility.
"Well boss," Tariq said, one hand touching her earpiece and the other slinging the laser rifle up to her shoulder, "I think we can confirm that the enemy is, in fact, an enemy."
"Fantastic," Payens said, "so they are genuinely retarded enough to leave their hideout's exact address in their malware. We've finally found the Moriarty to our Sherlock. Huzzah." A lone gunshot rang out from outside the barn once Payens finished talking. Tariq and Peña ducked by instinct, while the Brazilian just took a casual look around.
"Golubev," Tariq said over the comms, "was that you?"
"Yep," Golubev responded as he leaned on the back wall of the Skyranger. "Now that we're that these guys are our actual targets, I'm shooting at where I think they are in the house. And let me tell you, the living room looks great in red." He paused to let another gunshot take the mic for a second. "And now the kitchen looks better, too. I should become the world's first long-distance interior decorator after this war is over."
As the ringing of sniper fire faded, it was replaced the coughing of a starting car engine. Tariq and Peña backed into the barn with weapons aimed towards the outside.
"Do you have a visual on where that noise is coming from, Golubev?" Tariq called.
"Nope. It's probably from behind the house, to hazard a guess."
Right on cue, a beat-up truck barreled out from behind the house, tearing up dirt and throwing it skyward. A man wearing an all black suit, a massive cape, and eyepatch with EXALT's logo on it stood up from the truck bed with a sleek assault rifle in each hand.
"COWER IN YOUR NOTHINGNESS, X-COM!" The man shouted over dramatically as the truck made a sharp turn around the barn to reach the squad, "I AM JUDGEMENT INCARNATE!" He slung both of his guns up hip-level and started firing through the open wall of the barn. Tariq and Peña lept behind what was left of the tractor, while the Brazilian let the bullets bounce off and dent his shiny new armor while he took a pot shot at the truck. He missed, but as the trucks drifted around the far side of the barn, it slide directly into Golubev's line of sight.
Golubev fired a shot directly into the driver's nose, sending the truck way too far into the drift and making it flip over into the dirt. The caped monologuer was launched from the truck bed and straight into a wooden fence, crying a villainous… cry of defeat as he flew.
"Damn," Tariq said as walked out of the barn to survey the wreck, "if only this chapter could have come out that fast."
"What'd you say?" Peña said, following her.
"If only we could always win fights that fast."
"Less talking," the Brazilian said, forming the caboose of the team's murder train, "More ending this."
The team sauntered up to the caped man as he laid on a pile of broken wood boards. He propped himself up on his elbow and coughed up some blood.
"I underestimated you… X-Com… But… you are still... no match… for the MIGHT OF EX- AGUUH!" He yelled as his internal bleeding got tired of hearing of his shit.
"So here's how this going to work:" Tariq said, leveling the laser rifle at his chest, "You're going to tell us everything useful about your organization, or else the Brazilian is going to get his own personal punching bag."
"A punching bag?" The Brazilian said. "Eh, I need something more like attest dummy." Tariq stared at him for a moment to check if he was being serious.
"Sure, whatever," she said before turning back to their captive. "Start talking, before I put more than splinters up your ass."
"It is… too late… The money we stole has already been put… to better uses… Take comfort in your victory… for when we rise from the shadows… to usher this world's new rules to their thrones… you… will be nothing but ash…"
"What part of 'useful information' is so hard to understand?"
"I suppose… It is only fair to give… the blind man directions…" He pulled himself up to a kneeling position, letting his cover his entire body. "We… are lead by… a nation that did participate in the Cold War." On finishing, he whipped a syringe out from the folds of his cape and shoved it into his own neck, and he crumpled to the floor almost immediately. The team simply stood and looked at each other, moderately confused.
"... Well, then." Payens said as he leaned back into his chair. "This has been an interesting experience."
"Hey boss," Golubev said, stepping away from the wall he was leaning on to stretch, "I know that everyone is deep shock about the enemy's genius intellect, but what's the status on that Nigerian prince trap you set up?"
Payens reached over to the terminal in front of him and clicked open the mail shortcut on the desktop. He logged into his personal account, opened the inbox, and stared at the screen with as soul had another piece blown off.
"... Boss, you still there?"
"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life gives brain-dead man-children, cry."
"... Is that a yes on the prince thing?"
"Cry until the hallways look like fuckin Venice."
"I'll take that as a yes on the prince thing."