Chapter 2 – Lab Rat
A/N: Thanks to Monkeyman for being first reviewer in addition to letting me know that it was broken
Central Officer John Bradford was very pleased. As soon as he woke up, he had received good news. As a rule, the nature of XCOM missions meant they very rarely took prisoners, and he understood why it was like that. After all, forcing a surrender from normal human enemies was already difficult, let alone being sure they were actually surrendering and not tricking them into close range. It was significantly worse in this was against the aliens – being remorseless and unceasing killers of all humans, the aliens did not appear to have a concept of surrender, only doing so involuntarily when struck by their somewhat-unreliable Arc Thrower. Although that was a bit of a harsh of him to say so, considering that it worked on more or less all the aliens that they encountered so far. That's an acceptable trade-off, at least in his opinion.
This time though, Alpha Squad had returned with not one but two unknown aliens! And one of them was an Ethereal, an alien which they knew existed but otherwise had no experience with. And they'll have the chance to interrogate it and the new unknown alien, this time even before they had engaged it in a fight!
Suddenly, the alarms in the base blared, and the emergency beacon lights flared up, casting red shades everywhere. 'What's happening?' was the thought racing through his head as he sprinted to the Mission Control.
"Sitrep! What's going on?" The Commander had arrived.
"Sir, it seems the disturbance is coming from the Science Department. The alarm was triggered from there…cameras show – Jesus! That's a live alien! And it's got Dr. Vahlen!"
Prophet's return to consciousness, in the hazy, murky few seconds before full awareness returned, reminded him of his time in CELL's skinning lab on Roosevelt Island, at the Prism. That soon jolted him into full consciousness.
"RAGHHH" He screamed as he rose up and broke the restraints they had on him. Whoever they were, they were clearly not CELL – CELL knew how to restrain him which was why he couldn't escape them and Psycho needed to break him out instead.
Taking in his surroundings, he saw what looked like a bunch of scientists around him, starting to panic. Grabbing the nearest one to use as a shield and to interrogate, he pushed her up against the wall and started his inquiries.
"Listen to me. You might know me – I'm Prophet. And I need you to answer all my questions. Who do you work for? Where am I?"
Instead of answers, all he got was more questions.
"Fascinating. You speak English. Clear English, and is that an American accent I hear? I don't think I've even heard the Thin Men speak before – are you a superior version of them? But you should know that holding me hostage won't get you anywhere. You're at the heart of XCOM – our stronghold, our base that you have already assaulted and failed. Even as we speak, the soldiers are coming here. You should release me now so that they'll be slightly less hostile towards you."
"What are you talking about? What is XCOM? Who are you? And why were you skinning me?!" Being reminded that you were trapped with a large and unknown number of hostiles in their base was never reassuring – never mind right somehow appearing in their base after being in space.
"Hmm. Interesting. Your tone of voice seems to indicate genuine curiosity and no knowledge of us. Very well. I am Dr. Moira Vahlen, Head of the XCOM Research Department. I am part of the XCOM organization; XCOM is short-hand for Extraterrestrial Combat Unit. We-"
"Extraterrestrial Combat Unit? I've never heard of you. Who are you with? The Brits? No, you can't be the Brits, if you were you'd have known who I was more or less immediately. Are you with the Russians?" Prophet interrupted her, greatly distracted by what she said.
His prisoner/hostage/captive either was brave or stupid or she just lacked common sense, he thought, as she turned her head as much as she could towards him, giving him a look.
"As I was saying before you interrupted me, XCOM is part of the United Nations."
"Now that Dr. Vahlen has answered your questions, I think it's time you answer ours. Who are you, and where did you come from?" A third voice cut in before Prophet could reply, coming out of the ceiling speakers.
"My name is Laurence Barnes, callsign Prophet. How is it that you have never heard of me? I'm one of the few men on the planet wearing a Nanosuit, and I'm the only one wearing the 2.0 version. I've been fighting the Ceph for years! Where the fuck were you guys?!" Prophet yelled in frustration.
"I have no idea who you are or what it is you're wearing, nor have I heard of any group of combatants called the Ceph-" came the even more mystifying reply.
"How the fuck have you not heard of the Ceph?! You know, that fucking alien race that's been running around since Lingshan, the race that caused New York 2.0?" Prophet yelled again in frustration.
"What do the Ceph look like?" the voice was ridiculously calm, Prophet absently noted, even as his frustration somehow still mounted even more.
'Fuck this. SECOND, access local communications. Tell me what's going on.' He mentally ordered the suit AI.
'Processing….The technological capabilities of this time period, apart from some anomalously advanced outliers, appear to be firmly rooted in early in the early 21st century time period. This is confirmed by both accessing this location's secured intranet and then accessing the worldwide internet. Preliminary Conclusion: feedback reaction from destabilization and subsequent destruction of Ceph wormhole by the Archangel directed energy weapon has displaced you to another universe.'