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" Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence."
~Edgar Allen Poe
Chapter Thirty-four: The Lair
"Of all the available options," Bradford growled, fists down on his desk, "what on earth possessed you to choose the one that was irredeemably stupid?"
"I...I just..." Mariah swallowed, well aware she was all but alone under the gaze of XCOM's number-two man. She couldn't help but glance to Captain Kelly, framed at Bradford's right, but there was nothing behind the sheet-ice walls of her brown eyes. Why she was here, Mariah didn't know, because she wasn't tearing in and she wasn't trying to soften the blows.
"I was..." Words were hard to come by under that searing, judgmental stare. "I listened when people talked about the Assassin. I read the data file we compiled on her." She tried not to glance at Kelly again...and failed. "I read something about how she was vulnerable to blast damage, and I thought...maybe it was just a Chosen thing, so-"
"And you didn't even think about how Mox was in the blast radius?" Bradford exploded. He slammed a palm down on his desk, hard enough Mariah jumped. "And you didn't even think about how the things you were blowing up were the supplies we were there to collect?"
"I...I..." Mariah fought the urge to lick her lips. She held herself at attention, shaking inside and out almost as badly as when the explosion had ripped through the convoy. "I just...I was worried about the Hunter taking Sergeant Mox-"
"Christ, Mariah!" Bradford hissed through his teeth. "You certainly fixed that problem, didn't you?"
"He didn't die." Mariah knew it was about as lame as comebacks got, but she couldn't for the life of her see a better one.
"Yet." Sometimes one word could do more to chill a room than an impassioned speech. "It's a miracle they didn't have to amputate his leg, and it'll be an even bigger one if he lives in spite of everything!"
"I..." Mariah cast about for any other defense. "We got a lot of alloys and supplies anyway. We won't lose the war for losing those on the last truck-"
"How do you know?" Bradford's eyes flared again. "What if we do, Squaddie? What if your sheer ungalled stupidity cost us our Skirmisher liason and the resources we need to take on the Chosen?"
Mariah shook. Her eyes burned too, but not in the same way as her father's. Her defenses were untenable: what she'd done was exactly as stupid as Bradford had declared. If only she'd thought to think for just one whole second...
If only I hadn't thought so much! she cursed mentally. I should have taken the obvious shot instead of trying to be fancy!
And it had been obvious. The XO treated it as if it were a matter of course...every other soldier would have realized these things. Somehow, Mariah hadn't.
She wasn't half the soldier he was.
"I'm sorry." She managed to keep her voice from cracking, and though her vision started to cloud, she was sure nothing would be visible across the room. It took all her self-control. "I'm sorry, sir."
"Don't tell me that." Bradford tossed his head. "Tell Mox - if he lives. You can tell Outrider if he doesn't, and pray you keep your teeth through the conversation."
Mariah nodded, blinking quickly to try and keep her composure. Silence dragged out for a long moment, and she wondered if she was supposed to say something. She couldn't imagine what there was for her to say.
"Now, you made several kills in action." Bradford's tone was the perfect contrast to his still-warm eyes. "Under other circumstances, you'd leave this room a corporal. As it stands..."
Mariah couldn't keep herself together much longer. "I understand, sir," she whispered. "I'm...I really am..."
Bradford let out a long, hissing sigh through his teeth. "Dismissed."
"Yes, sir." Mariah snapped off a salute that she knew was less than perfect. She turned and hurried for the door, clenching her teeth together and digging her nails into her palms until she'd not only crossed the threshold, but heard the door hiss shut behind her.
"Oh, my God." Mariah hit the first side door she could, stumbling into what declared itself Power Relay 1-A. Thankfully, no technicians were on duty at that exact minute. Mariah found a pile of wooden crates in the darkened far corner, and her legs gave out almost as soon as she reached them. She sat heavily, hearing the wood creak dishearteningly.
She didn't care.
"I'm stupid," she whispered, reaching up to wipe at the first tears trickling over her cheeks. "I'm stupid, I'm stupid...I'm so stupid...this is all my fault."
Her father's anger hung in her mind, and his cold dismissal echoed in her soul.
"West Point!" Edward Gallant couldn't conceal his pride. Honestly, he didn't even try: restraint was not the most common trait of your average twenty-three year-old.
"And you did it all without a bit of help from me." Michael Gallant had a bit of an Irish twang in his accent that six generations in the US had failed to eliminate from the family gene pool until Edward's own time. "I'm proud of that, son, as much as of anything else."
"I figured my chances were better if they didn't know my dad was that senator." Edward grinned, and his father chortled too. They shared many things, including a sense of humor and a birthday that would be coming up soon. They also shared a deep sense of family obligation, and that was what made Edward's brow crease now. "Dad, if we need to stop for a minute-"
"Oh, no. I'm fine." His cane came down a little harder than usual on the DC sidewalk. To outward eyes, they could have been anyone: finely-dressed elderly men were far from unusual in this of all cities, and the same for smart and sharp military types on their heels. The senator paused, leaning on his cane, to point at his son with the authority of fate. "Someday, Ed, this will be you."
"Please." With the confidence of youth, Edward dismissed the ludicrous possibility. "I won't live long enough to get a cane and a hunched back."
"People usually live longer than they think they will," the senator observed. "I survived Vietnam, after all, and I wouldn't have given you a nickel on that possibility if you'd asked me back then."
"Be fair, Dad: a nickel was worth a lot more back then."
"The House for you," Gallant Senior decided, as he had many times before. "That'll be my revenge on that upstart Speaker." He finally did stop, as he reached an overlook above the Potomac. "I am proud of you, Edward."
"I appreciate it." It was the best reply he could think of. "I look forward to serving and leading to the best of my ability." He managed a wry grin. "Maybe you'll see me in front of your committee before it's all said and done?"
"Hm." Gallant Senior sighed quietly. "Son, I hope you'll forgive me one moment of age."
"Just one?"
His father failed to laugh. "I want to give you a thought to chew on."
"Alright." Edward squared his shoulders. Usually, when his father said that, a Clausewitz or Napoleon or Sun Tzu quotation followed. "Hit me."
"You're a good man and I think you'll make a fine soldier." The senator leaned hard on his cane. "But you should remember that there's a price that comes with being a leader, too."
"Dad?" Edward frowned.
"Sometimes the price of winning," Gallant's father had said, "is that someone else has to lose." He'd gone quiet for a moment, but the strength of his tone hadn't wavered when he picked back up. "Sometimes, Edward, being in command just means you have to choose who dies."
Edward Gallant, several decades later, sat in his office with a bottle in hand, eyes hooded as he studied the personnel file up on his terminal. Aidan MacLeod had been a Resistance fighter in his native Scotland for many years - it was like he'd gone berserk upon hearing of the surrender to the aliens. He'd hunted Advent with others and alone, for purpose and for sport, and never yielded for even an instant. He'd hardly been green.
"And now he's gone." The words tasted like ash in Gallant's mouth. "That could have been Kelly just as easily. Experience means nothing, not to those...things."
Slowly, he leaned back in his chair. One of the Commander's hands went to his cane, and he rested his fingers on the padded grip for a moment. A bitter smile touched his lips.
"I guess you were right, Dad," he murmured. A long drink later, he slammed the empty bottle down. "I'm alive long after I thought I'd be gone."
"You can't let yourself dwell on these things, Commander."
"Holy fucking dog shit!" Gallant leaped out of his chair with dexterity he hadn't thought he'd still possessed, and he snapped that prototype laser pistol up and leveled it all in the span of a heartbeat. He defaulted to the two-handed grip, which left him off-balance as his maimed leg decided to be a little bitch, and Gallant's hip slammed painfully into his desk. His teeth came together hard with an audible click!
"You'll drive yourself mad," the purple-cloaked figure leaning on the left wall continued. She had some kind of engraved bucket on her head, but otherwise could have come from a fantasy movie, with her rune-studded skirt - it couldn't be a skirt, not really, but that's what it looked like - and the glowing lines running down her exposed biceps and elbows, and the heavy gauntlets that encased her forearms.
"You." Gallant didn't have a name for a minute, but then he did: "Ross."
"Charmed, Commander." She pushed off the wall to curtsy. "We meet again."
"Have you never heard of knocking?" Gallant demanded. Slowly, he lowered the pistol, wondering if he should hit his shiny new panic button. "What if I'd been indecent?"
"In your office?" She cocked her head to the side. "What do you do in here when you don't have ops to manage?"
"Paperwork, mostly. John has a fetish. Gets him hot and bothered."
"And you?"
"I'm more into voluptuous redheads." Gallant finally set the pistol down. "They've got more of an allure than requisitions and promotion notices."
"Hm." She reached up, disengaged something in her head-bucket, and peeled it off.
"Oh, lord." Gallant sighed. "Foot, mouth?"
"Perhaps." Ross threw out a long ponytail of bloody locks, almost as vivid as Julie's. "But now I have a negotiating advantage, don't I?"
"God, women." A male curse as old as time. "Negotiation, huh?" He took up his cane for support, biting back a snarl as his hip protested leaving the position that hurt it. "Is Geist joining the party?"
Ross looked like whatever she had to say tasted sour. "Geist is of the opinion that the possibility of cooperation bears enough merit to at least examine."
"That's a ringing endorsement." Gallant didn't want to sit before she did, but his leg and hip burned, so he did his best to be unfair: "Please, take a seat. Let's talk like professionals."
"I prefer to stand." And so she did, leaving Gallant no opening whatsoever. He stewed, wondering if all Templars were like this, or if she was an outlier even among her own kind. Ross tucked her bucket under her arm. "You have encountered the Warlock."
"Yes." Gallant narrowed his eyes. "What of it?"
"Your soldier. The one from whom he took information."
"Sylvie."
"She will have no lingering consequences, Commander." Ross sounded very certain. "What was done was done, and the Warlock is not present in her mind. We have dealt with this problem ourselves many times, for the Warlock has always hunted my people."
"Has he?" Gallant's eyes narrowed. "How do I deal with him?"
"I have done battle with the Warlock, and I know his weaknesses. His armor is designed to repel bullets, and can be easily penetrated at close range-"
"Close range?" Gallant raised an eyebrow. "And what if it doesn't work?"
"From the brain and cranial implants of a sectoid, a device can be fashioned that my people call a mind-shield." Ross reached into a pocket, and a moment later she dropped something that looked like a contact lens the size of Gallant's forehead on the table. "Consider this a peace offering from Geist: to you we give our knowledge of battle against the Warlock."
"In exchange?" Gallant braced.
"He would like to meet, Commander. And he would like that Betos and Volk know nothing of it."
Gallant blew air through his teeth. "I can't go behind my allies' backs."
"What you can and cannot do is immaterial. This is what my master desires." From Ross' tone, that meant it was Law. "He would like to meet with you in private to discuss what terms might be struck for an alliance between XCOM and the Templars. And he insists that the Skirmishers and the Reapers know nothing of this meeting, nor any other member of your command staff. What comes is between yourself and Geist and no others."
"I..." Gallant made an angry noise in the back of his throat. "He doesn't make things easy, does he?"
"If you knew what was coming and what could come to pass if wrong actions are taken, you would understand the road of caution." Ross might have been preaching Gospel. Gallant suspected if he'd asked, she could have started reciting passages from some Templar bible.
He let out a long, quiet sigh.
"Deal," Gallant finally said. "When and where?"
"The meeting shall occur two days hence, at ten o' clock." Ross smiled - and why not? She'd gotten what she wanted. "I doubt you and I will meet again, Commander. If you forgive the impertinence, and speaking solely for Janet Ross rather than for Geist, the idea of alliance between the Templars and your allies is unthinkable."
"I love you too." That got a snort out of her. Gallant glanced down and claimed the mind-shield. "Now, do you wear this on your head, or can it go anywhere..."
She was gone. Gallant let out an aggrieved whine.
"Stupid..." He sank to a seat. "What, am I Commissioner Gordon now?"
"I think he'll be alright." David took a deep drink, then slammed his bottle down. "Bradford?"
"Which one?" Jane demanded. She didn't drink from hers just yet, instead pushing it alternately from one hand to the other. "Central or Mariah?"
"The whole thing."
Jane grunted. "Central was hard on her. Very hard."
"He's hard on everyone."
"Yeah, but..." Jane sighed. "You're right. He's hard on everyone. It's just a bit of a skewed situation, knowing what they are. I guess it seems worse than it really is. If I pulled the shit she did, I'd be in it up to my eyebrows and he'd let me know in no uncertain terms." She grimaced, remembering certain past events. "He has before." She sighed again, much louder this time. "How about red?"
"Julie?" David's face got a little grimmer. "She's in a lot of pain, but she did most of the surgical work on herself in the field. Hiroshi and the medical staff are united in their disbelief and awe, so she's something of a celebrity down there at the moment." The Grenadier chuckled. "I hear Sylvie's been screaming abuse at Junior in French. She's still quarantined, so she can't visit the medbay."
"Hopefully she pulls through. And Mox. Outrider will, she's a tough bitch." Jane leaned forward to bang her forehead on the table. "I tell you what, David, this business of watching everyone die without being able to do shit about it is no fun at all."
"You're telling me." The Australian sounded more phlegmatic, but his eyes betrayed him. "Aidan was a good sort."
"Funeral tomorrow." Jane considered that a mixed bag. Her teammates from before XCOM had never gotten funerals, so it was a matter of celebrating the dead. On the other hand...
"Fuck it all," she declared, nails and gravel in her voice. "We go out, we kill some aliens, we get shot, we get stabbed and hit with trucks and mind-controlled..." She contemplated her drink more seriously. "His first fucking op, too..."
"We got what we went there for. And Rogers, Outrider, and Julie all came through alive." David took another deep drink. "Then there's Mox. No one knows what to expect: a human being, and they'd be prepping a coffin and ceremony. But since he's Advent, people are...uncertain. Betos has had some medics in communication with Tygan's techs."
"I should go down there," Jane decided. "I should-"
"You should finish your bloody drink, Irish." David's eyebrow went up. "No one's going to die in the next ten minutes that you could have saved if you abstained."
"Fair." Jane didn't think it really was, but the ones making it unfair were purple rather than Australian. She drained about half the bottle in one pull. "I sure as hell hope we got enough crap to be worth the effort, that's all I have to say."
David only grunted. After a moment, Jane did too: it seemed to encapsulate all there was to say.
"Fuck it all," she repeated, feeling like the phrase was oddly profound. "Fuck all of it."
Gallant rubbed his chin. "Personnel cost?"
"Only two operatives," Bradford told him over the com. "That should be enough to get in and get out with the package, unless we've really misread the ground."
The Commander grunted, rapping his fingers on his desk. "Start drawing up plans. We haven't made enough headaches for our friends in the Advent administration yet." He blew air through his teeth. "Leave the personnel selection to me. We need some of our best people, but I don't want to be out some of our best people, if that makes sense. No matter how important this scientist is - what did you say we needed her for?"
"She's a high-ranking type with the Administration, specializing in the Avatar Project, according to Shadow Man's sources. She's also knowledgeable about the Hunter, and could provide us with a way to locate where he makes his lair."
"All right. If Rogers is ready, match him with...with Liang, I think. Yes, Rogers and Liang. Get them briefed and-"
Beep!
"That's probably Tygan." Gallant leaned back. "Keep me informed, John."
"Yes, sir." Then he was out, and Gallant hit the button to open his door.
"Commander." Indeed, in came the scientist, datapad tucked under his arm. "Thank you for seeing me."
"My chief science man wants a one-on one, and you think I would have told you to come back with tacos?" Gallant raised an eyebrow. "You mentioned some kind of hacking device?"
"A decryption device, rather," Tygan corrected. He took a seat, then laid down his datapad. Quickly, it began projecting holographic images he manipulated one-handed to show off his brainchild. "By processing the ship's computational power through a device Shen and I have designed, I believe we can hack the aliens' encryption methods and begin the process of examining the material recovered from the black site in Switzerland."
"And the golden stripper?" Gallant rubbed his chin.
"Yes. The codex." Tygan was meticulous about that name, probably because the other one embarrassed him too much. Gallant, having much worse ones in mind, thought that was cute. "We still have the brain recovered from the black site action as well. With the proper housing and development, this SHADOW System should be able to begin decryption of the data preserved in its drives as well."
"Hm." Gallant picked up the pen he barely used for its intended purpose. Idly, he rolled it between his fingers. "The catch, Doctor?"
"Commander-"
"The catch." Gallant raised an eyebrow. "You made too much of a deal of getting in here to talk to me about it. Where's the knife?"
"Commander..." Tygan's jaw worked. "It's going to require a lot of supplies. Many of the alloys Shen has earmarked for special equipment production."
"We need better equipment to help even the odds in action," Gallant immediately riposted. "Magnetic weapons seem to be enough right now, but we haven't run into anything heavy yet. If we can't increase our capabilities in kind with the enemy-"
"I am well aware, Commander. Work is continuing on our own attempts to replicate plasma-based weaponry, but we require a better understanding of this elerium element first." The interruption was about as close to annoyed as Tygan got. "Commander Gallant, our forces are holding their own for now. That situation is, of course, subject to change, but we should take advantage of the opportunity we have so long as we do have it. Right now, we can afford to funnel these resources into the SHADOW project."
"Can we?" Gallant wondered. "What returns are you expecting?"
"Commander, we do not have the ability to examine the black site material at this time, nor the capacity to jack into the codex brain." Tygan highlighted a section of the data hovering in the air between them. "Between those two, we have a potential loose thread: learning what this material is and pulling data from the alien unit designed to safeguard the Avatar Project..."
"...you're thinking we can find out what the Project is." Gallant eyed his scientist with unfeigned respect. "You're thinking that we can do more damage to it from a position of information."
"In so many words, Commander." Tygan deactivated his holograms. "Our only hope at understanding these alien secrets is a machine like the one I have proposed. Sooner or later, we must move forward with this development if we intend to stop the Avatar Project."
Gallant sighed. "I miss the days when we could just taze a sectoid and pull some shit from its brain." He conspicuously did not mention the interrogator he also missed more every day. From the look in Tygan's eye, he didn't have to. The Commander fiddled with his pen some more. "We're going to drop below the alloy red-line if we tackle this project, aren't we?"
"Yes, sir." Tygan didn't mince words. "This requires your active approval."
"The joys of command." Gallant finally straightened in his chair. "You've got my approval, Richard. Find a suitable room, get Shen's team on board, and construct some kind of SHADOW Chamber where you can do your mad science. I'll be the one to tell her: she'll take it better coming from me than you."
"Slightly," Tygan warned, and Gallant wished for a comeback.
The whirring hiss of pneumatics was familiar and comfortable, which didn't mean he liked it. There was something about the age of doors with hinges that was now lacking - perhaps the ability to slam them dramatically for entrances and exits.
"Damn shame," Shaojie Zhang muttered around the cigar he was still busy puffing. "Damn crying shame."
"Are you going on about doors again?" Annette Durand was at his four o' clock, and the Furies tailing the both of them, as Zhang made his way from Entrance down the white corridors - under the ceiling vents he eyed with respect after the last test demonstration - into the confines of Headquarters. "I swear, you are an old man, Chilong."
"And your cigars stink," Matt Hawkins chimed. "Where was that even grown? Canada?"
"Shut up." Zhang plucked the cigar free to exhale a cloud of smoke his irascible and disrespectful team would have to walk through. He exulted in petty things like that. "I didn't see you gunning down any mutons, Alecto."
"Only because I was keeping the spectres off of you." He scoffed...and coughed a moment later, along with the Tariqs.
"Hm." Zhang left it there. They left the hallway and entered Command, all awash in white light and glowing research panels.
"There you are. Big Sky told me you'd be coming in." The Commander was naturally the first person you expected to find in Command. Balding he was, but increasing age had done as little to gentle him as it had Zhang. "The mission?"
"Here." Annette drew the portable drive from a pocket. "We've got your stuff, Commandant."
"It's good stuff," Fatima agreed. "Better than Chilong's."
"You'll be high for days," Said chimed in. Zhang blew air - and smoke - through his teeth.
"The model of modern military efficiency," observed the Commander. He examined the drive for a moment, then handed it off to a tech. "No luck on the reach?"
"No," Zhang agreed. "The Warlock's a slippery fish. It took us the full two weeks just to figure out where he makes his lair: finding out what to do about it is another matter altogether. Maybe the Templars know."
"Templars?" The Commander scoffed. "A bunch of bitchy lunatics."
"Lunatics with arm blades," Marcel Garcia pointed out. "I agree with Chilong. If we want to proceed, we'll have to reach out - if not to Geist, then to Volk or Betos."
The Commander sighed, trouble popping up in his eyes. "I'll have to talk to her about that one. We've only done as well as we have because we've played low and safe." He drew himself up. "Your gear's stowed?"
"Yes sir," Strike-One chorused. The Commander nodded.
"Very well. Get some R&R. You'll be shipping back out sooner, rather than later, of that I'm sure."
"I'd be disappointed if we weren't," Annette quipped. Zhang nodded, clamping his teeth down on his cigar.
"Except you, Chilong." The Commander waved past the sapphire hologlobe the entire room - and by extension, the entire base - had sprung up around. "You're in back. Boss wants the details."
"Of course." Zhang pulled out his cigar and disposed of it. The boss hated smoking.
"Dismissed," the Commander finished, with a precise salute that showed where he came from.
Zhang paused to return it. "Yes, Commander Van Doorn."
He didn't feel his age too much as he tramped over the metal planking of Headquarters. He did when he had to take the stairs up to Level One, pausing for a moment on the landing to give his knees a rest. Annette had lingered, and she grinned his way in a most disrespectful fashion. Zhang huffed and carried on. He'd have his revenge in five or ten years: she wasn't a spring chicken herself anymore.
"The Old Man," he muttered. "Who'd have thought it would be me still, all these years after the War?"
His feet hit Level One plating. Zhang approached the first door, slowing down as a retinal scanner quickly took his measure. He had to put his thumb on a scanner too, and say his name.
"Identity confirmed," the system told him. Thus duly satisfied he wasn't the Assassin, the hissing door ahead opened with a whine of pneumatics. Zhang went through at a measured pace, weighed down by carapace armor still stained with yellow blood.
The room on the other side was dark. It was lined with computer terminals and holoscreens, and mist seemed to gather from the chill. Zhang didn't like the cold, but she did.
And there she was, standing at the center of it all with her brown hair in a long braid, wrapped in her trademark white lab coat, working on a trusty tablet she'd kept for twenty years. Her eyes were intent despite the lines of advancing age on her face, and nothing in her movement suggested weakness.
"Colonel Zhang," she greeted, bringing that vivisecting gaze down on him. "Guten morgen."
The Heavy nodded. "Good morning...Doctor Vahlen."
Author's Note 34: Redheads
Red hair best hair. Always. Says the man who married a brunette. Um...
Janet Ross was the first Templar I seriously played with(I did a game where I manually started with the Templars, since doing Lost and Abandoned doesn't give you the opportunity to get a Templar early enough for them to be a seriously leveled-up member of your team). I don't make Chuck Norris jokes any more. I make Janet Ross jokes. Ross the in-game soldier had Bladestorm and Reaper in addition to her Templar abilities, and I can't even encapsulate her badassness. She once repelled mind control from the Warlock without a mind-shield. And at low level, to boot!
Speaking of unspeakable badasses, my most recent playthrough had a Ranger with Bladestorm kill a purifier with a reaction slash. Purifier exploded. The Ranger took no damage because she also had Untouchable. I literally cheered when it happened. It was another book character, who is no slouch in canon, but that was possibly more badass than anything she's yet done on written page. Three cheers for the Princess of Death!
I'm going to air all my cards: I don't like Van Doorn. It's not because I dislike the character - it's because literally every time I play Enemy Within, I get the "rescue Van Doorn" council mission within the first two weeks. Literally, every single playthrough. As much as people seem to love how brolic and fearless he is, I can't tell you how unspeakably annoying I find it to have the camera snap back to him for an unskippable dialogue line every goddamn turn until I collect him - and then there's digging the sectoids out from the high ground. Yeesh, that mission is annoying as hell. Unless you have a heavy and a squadsight sniper. Then it's a cackle-fest as you do the nuke & shoot on the far side.
Last night, a full MS critique I won through the USVI Pub Fund auction came in, for one of my professional manuscripts. I have the rest of March as a buffer for VC, and I don't know just how much work will be required - all I have ATM is a first-pass overview of the commentary - but I may wind up putting VC on a temporary hiatus in two or three weeks while I work. I'll get to a good cliffhan-I mean, stopping point before I do anything like that, rest assured. Hopefully the damage is minor and I can knock my revisions out and extend the buffer at the same time, but I'm not going to count on it or promise it, and professional workVC.
Until next time, Vigilo Confido.