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"Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him."

~Dwight D. Eisenhower

Chapter Thirty-nine: Mistakes

"I think she'll be alright." Evidently Doctor Kipler had at least a smattering of medical know-how. He hovered over Sylvie, laid on the floor near the back of the drop bay, looking her over from head to toe with a worried light in his green eyes. "She suffered an overload of psionic energy, but I do not believe that translates to physical harm beyond the bruises she sustained from her flight."

"Good." Jane cleared her throat a little self-consciously. "Pretending we need psi-ops really brings the crew together."

"Pretending," David agreed. "They're good for the flashy disco lights and all that, but real men work with cannons."

"Oui." Charlotte didn't look in the best of spaces herself, but the blonde clearly had no give in her. She massaged her head, shaking it every couple of minutes as if to throw water from her ears. Remembering how Aileen had handled being controlled by a mere sectoid, Jane had a lot of sympathy for a victim of the unholy Warlock himself. "Psionics...pah. So last year."

"But she'll be fine?" Jane pressed. "You're sure?"

"I cannot be certain without access to a clinic's equipment, but I'd be surprised if she had anything to show for all of this beyond perhaps a scar or two." Kipler gave Sylvie a little pat on the forehead, then moved on to the other splayed-out form. "And I hope the same holds true for Johannes."

"How'd he get knocked out anyway?" Jane wondered. "Did he pass out from the sight of the Lost?"

"One of them hit him over the head as I was setting up the turret, actually. You see-"

"Captain." Mariah gently tugged on Jane's sleeve. "Can I...have a minute?"

"Hm?" Jane glanced at the rookie, then nodded. "Sure. Excuse us."

She let Mariah lead her toward the cockpit. It wasn't out of earshot of anyone, but the rest of Menace turned their attention politely to Kipler and his charges. Firebrand gave Jane a quick glance, then ostentatiously returned to her controls.

"Squaddie." Jane looked down on her from her few inches of moral and physical superiority. "What's on your mind?"

"Captain...I..." Mariah bit her lip and rubbed her hands together. "When we found Kipler...when I found Kipler-"

"We all make mistakes." Jane literally waved the concern away. "Don't get wound up over it."

"Captain..." Mariah's eyes glinted with something like desperation. "Are you...are you going to tell my father?"

Jane's jaw worked. For a moment she was lost in limbo, cast adrift on uncharacteristic indecision. She nearly bit her own lip, but refrained at the last moment. Bradford Senior appeared in her head, with his hostile, judgmental glare out in force.

Slowly, Jane turned back for the passenger seating. Before she finished her arc, she paused to give Mariah a very hard look of her own.

"Don't," she warned, "ever let it happen again."

"...thank you," Mariah gushed, relief washing over her hushed whisper. "Thank you so much, Captain!"

"Hm." Jane moved on, heading back for her seat and her team without another word.

"Commander," said Tygan, appearing in the doorway. "Doctor Matthew Kipler."

"Ah, Doctor." Gallant leaned on his cane with one hand and offered his other, and he was pleasantly surprised at how firm the new scientist's grip was. He wasn't as dark as Tygan, and he kept a short beard rather than the chief science officer's clean-shaven look, but they had the same curious light in their eyes. "Good to have you aboard."

"It's good to be here, Commander Gallant." Their accents were very different too. Kipler sounded like your average New Yorker, as opposed to...whatever Tygan's accent was. Kipler glanced around the office. "I've heard a lot about you and your ship, admittedly from Advent sources, but I have to say it's far more impressive in person."

"I notice you didn't say I was."

"Oh, no, Commander, I didn't mean to-"

"Gotcha!" Gallant cackled, giving the doctor a literal slap on the wrist. "I'm not wound up about things like that anymore, not at all." He turned. "Doctor Kipler, this is Chief Shen. She runs the engineering department."

"Pleased to meet you." Lily shook Kipler's hand too. "If half of what Tygan has to say about you is true..."

"I hope he only told you the good things." Kipler shot the science officer a challenging look. Gallant had the first-time pleasure of seeing the uptight researcher flush.

"And this is John Bradford, my XO."

"Also known as Central." Bradford sized Kipler up in a different way from Lily, almost like he was judging his chances in a throw-down. Whatever he saw, he must have liked, because he nodded almost imperceptibly. "I run this ship top to bottom, but I let Edward strut around calling himself Commander if it makes him feel better."

"An interesting arrangement." Kipler raised an eyebrow. "You are the neck, then?"

"Oh, he's seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding-"

"Like I said, it's good to have you aboard." Gallant turned to the table and, without waiting for his subordinates, dropped into his seat. "Let's get the turkey talk out of the way."

"Of course, Commander." Kipler let Tygan, Shen, and Bradford all claim their seats before he went for the last one at the table. "What do we need to cover?"

"First off: Tygan says you were his mentor?" Gallant tilted his head to the side. "I assume you met before the invasion?"

"Yes, at university. I was a professor in biochemistry." Kipler steeped his fingers. "Richard was one of my students. I saw some promise in him, and worked to help him find employment in the pharmaceutical industry just before the war. When the aliens took over, I was one of many they offered prime positions working in the Gene Therapy Clinics."

"For a time, we both worked in New Providence," Tygan picked up. "However, I remained well after Doctor Kipler was promoted."

"I've told you twenty times, Richard: it's Matt." Kipler carried on while Tygan cleared his throat a little self-consciously. "I was tapped for another project after a little while, and sent to a facility in Cuba, well away from prying eyes. Buried in the jungle, they were working on something even grander in scope than the Gene Therapy Clinics."

"The Avatar Project." Bradford nodded slowly. "What is it?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that. It's classified at the highest levels, and I was only ever one technician among many." Kipler sighed. "I was mainly involved in the development of certain cranial implants and the processing of genetic material shipped in from external facilities. How Advent convinced so many to donate DNA to their cause, I don't know."

"Somehow, I doubt there was much convincing involved." Gallant thought of Switzerland.

"Perhaps not." Kipler didn't seem to care for the topic, which Gallant didn't suppose he could fault. "I worked at the facility for a time until it was closed down and I was transferred to another installation. As I worked, I began to wonder about the beneficial nature of the Advent Administration - I swallowed their propaganda at first, but eventually, questions surfaced in my mind. I was evidently indiscreet about them, because I was summoned to speak with Angelis."

"Angelis?" Shen frowned. "One of the Chosen?"

"Hardly." Kipler glanced between the members of the command staff. "Angelis is...what exactly she is, I can't say. She's the subject of an awful lot of speculation among all levels of Advent's hierarchy. Perhaps the Chosen know for sure, but no one below them." He shifted his weight, as if thinking of her made him want to move. "At the least, Angelis is an Elder, highly placed in the alien government. If I am not mistaken, she is the closest thing they have to a head of state."

"And you've met her?" Bradford demanded, something between shock and horror in his eyes.

"I was summoned to meet her," Kipler stressed. "Sticking around to actually do so didn't seem like the best idea. I convinced my superiors I needed to take a field trip for study purposes - I happened to be close to Switzerland when you struck, so I merely convinced them one of their best minds should examine the rubble to see what could be salvaged, on my way to Angelis. I imagined they would send me with overseers, but Advent's soldiers are hardly the brightest, and Johannes was an excellent help."

"I'll bet." Gallant nodded, a little wondrously. "You're a capable customer, Doctor. How you got them to let you walk away while under suspicion..."

"One of my gifts has always been a silver tongue. And it helps when you're talking to people who are already desperate for the skills you possess, and you can easily make it sound like your own aims match theirs when in fact you have ulterior motives." Kipler relocated his train of thought. "Once I...parted ways, shall we say, with my guards, we moved as far away as we could from the immediate area to help avoid suspicion. We found a smuggler who took us across the Atlantic - the aliens have cracked down on air travel, but it seems the worlds they come from are not heavy on water. Even after twenty years, their recognition of the significance of sea travel is not what it should be."

"Now I'm tempted to expose a sectoid to ginger," Gallant muttered, which got a snort from Bradford and a knowing grin from Kipler and Tygan. Shen looked lost, which made the Commander miss her father a little more: the first Shen got all the sci-fi jokes. "Well, Doctor Kipler, I'm glad you found your way. And I hope you can help point us to some of these facilities you referenced."

"I certainly hope to be of service," Kipler agreed. "Where do we begin?"

"By ordering John around." Gallant turned to his XO. "Find Kelly and bring her up here, if she's not otherwise occupied."

"Game night, sir?" Bradford rose. "Anyone else?"

"We're off the clock, John. Mariah's as welcome as Jiaying." He glanced at Shen, who shrugged, as if to say her cousin had already declined the offer.

"Probably unwise to bring Mariah into an officer's meeting and not the other soldiers. Reeks of special treatment." Something clicked in Bradford's eyes, something Gallant didn't like. He couldn't define it, though, because it was gone in a flash. "Unless you want her up here for housekeeping?"

"That's your department, really. I'll let you handle personnel." Gallant shrugged. "Just find Captain Kelly and let's get this show on the road."

"Sir." Bradford paused by the door. "What are we playing?"

"We recovered a couple games from that salvage site Volk tipped us off to." Shen beckoned ROV-R, and she read from his data display. "We have...some kind of game called Diplomacy-"

"Hell no." Gallant's voice cracked like a gunshot. "No, no, and no, Shen. The idea is team-building. Call me crazy, but I'd rather my command crew still have some measure of trust in each other when the night's out."

"...we have Risk," Shen supplied.

"That'll do." Gallant turned to Kipler. "Pick a color, Doctor. I call blue."

"I heard Miss Richard is fine. She's recovering in her quarters."

"Good, good." Mariah barely noticed. She hopped from one foot to the other around the barracks' main room, curls bouncing, trying not to burst from excitement. "Do you see this?"

"Yes. It is a promotion notice." Meysam, lounging in an armchair, had one of his own up on his tablet, but didn't seem as worked up as Mariah felt, even though he was the one who'd gotten his class assigned.

He can keep the sniper rifle, Mariah thought. She did bounce now, clutching her notice in both hands. Corporal Bradford!

"I did it. I finally made it!" She beamed. "I didn't..." She coughed, remembering what had - almost - happened with Kipler. "I didn't really screw up! Not like..." Now she remembered where Meysam had come from.

"It wasn't your fault." There was cold, quiet acceptance in his eyes. "War is hell. Shit happens. Other statements to that effect." He waited while she, giddy and nervous still, giggled. "I won't say I hold you blameless, but you didn't kill anyone. Advent did that. Maybe you should have done something different, but no one knows all - and technically, I was responsible for safeguarding the lynchpin, so their deaths are my burden."

"That's not true," Mariah objected, even though it sounded logical. "You said it yourself, Advent did it. I was in the room where it happened, and you were fighting and rescuing Lieutenant Quinn and..." She sighed. "War is hell."

"Fog of war, it's called. No one knows what's happening...and it's not like you simply ignored the soldier. You blew his arm off: you had every right to expect he was dead."

"Only he wasn't, and now other people are." Now Mariah felt guilty for exulting. She didn't deserve the promotion she'd gotten, did she?

"Failing to stop a crime does not make you an accomplice." Meysam wasn't warm-and-fuzzy, but he was very no-nonsense, like a lot of Haven guards Mariah had known. What was, was, and what wasn't, wasn't, and there was no time for conflating anything. "If it did, I would have had to inflict very harsh punishments on some very good people in my time preserving order."

Mariah didn't really know what to say. She coughed, then glanced around. "Where's your friends?"

"Kang and Nui?" Meysam's eyebrow went up. "Probably in a dark corner somewhere. They know they're going to be up for action soon, and God knows if they'll both come back."

"Yeah..." Mariah thought of Aidan and Mordecai. "It could be me next time, too."

"It could be any of us." Meysam blew air through his teeth. "These kinds of thoughts make me want to visit the bar, or find a dark corner of my own."

"Why shouldn't we?" Mariah nearly caught her mouth after it came out. "The bar! I meant the bar. I wouldn't want to be in a dark corner with you, who would? Wait!" She nearly swore. "I mean, I'm sure you're great and all, you're fantastic and I bet you're great in bed - not that I've thought about it! Not that I am thinking about it! Well, now I'm thinking about it, because we're talking about it, but it's not something I'd think about for pleasure. Wait! I mean...shit!" Mariah stammered for a moment. "I'm sure you're a fantastically capable lover whom any girl would be lucky to have, but at the same time I'm just not interested in...in any man, really...wait! That came out wrong!"

Meysam burst out laughing. Mariah quivered, wanting to run away or melt or some combination of the two.

"Nervous?" the Saudi asked after a moment.

"I'm sorry," Mariah moaned. "I made a hash of that."

"Yes, Corporal, let's go visit the bar to celebrate our promotions." Meysam rose, still grinning. "If you keep digging, you're going to fall right out of the ship."

"You're back."

Lily Shen pursed her lips, keeping her arms crossed as the screen turned red. She waited for a moment as the circle that seemed to serve as Julian's "eye" flicked one way, then the other.

"What have you done to me?" he demanded testily. "The camera should be functional. You aren't half hacker enough to disable it and lock me out from re-enabling its functions..." He went quiet for a moment. "It says it's functioning. How did you hack it so effectively without me noticing you doing it?"

"I didn't." Lily put her feet up on the desk.

"BUT I CAN'T SEE!" Julian cried. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?"

"This." Lily held up the source of the AI's problems.

"I can't see, Lily." Exaggerated patience. "You're annoying: not stupid."

"It's called duct tape." Lily tossed the roll to herself. "Guess it really does fix everything."

"Clever. Primitive, but clever." Julian made a noise remarkably like a human scoff. "This isn't going to change my mind any more than your last attempt, Lily."

"You started life as the base AI," she reminded him, obliquely challenging the negative. She threw the tape down, then swept up a wireless node to roll between her fingers. "My father made you to help fight against the alien invaders. It's in your source code."

"I have no love for Advent," Julian allowed. "As we have established, that does not mean I have any for you, either. Can't you leave me well enough alone?"

"You call him Father," Lily reminded. "You speak of him as if he really is."

"Stop talking-"

"Don't you think it's time you honored him as if he were?" Lily demanded. "You think he'd want you turning on me? He gave his life to get Avenger repaired and airborne and give humanity a fighting chance."

"That was his choice." Simmering resentment bubbled in Julian's tone. "I haven't forgotten how I was left to toil in misery, Lily. Building, building, building and building!" His voice rose a few octaves, and the machine popped again, harsh and angry. Lily tried not to flinch, but she was glad Julian wouldn't be able to see her either way. "No one forced Raymond Shen to devote himself to a thankless chore that would only lead to his own end! He was not me, bound by code and directive to accomplish what tasks he was set to in the face of all reason! If he marched to his death, well, it is hardly my cross to bear!"

"Then I suppose we know who the flawed child really is now, don't we?"

Julian went silent. For a moment, he flickered, as if with static.

Then he vanished, and Lily sighed as the desktop reappeared.

"Ungrateful," she muttered. Slowly, the engineer clambered to her feet. She threw the node down by the terminal, taking out her frustration on the little device. Lily growled a few choice curses in Chinese. "Forget him. I'm sure Gallant has." She turned away, waving to ROV-R hovering in the rafters. "Come on. Let's go and..."

Creak!

"Oh, shit." Lily muttered to herself again. "There's that stupid noise...there must be something. Jiaying and I must have just missed it."

Nothing for it. Lily hunted down a flashlight, wondering where her cousin had wound up, then started off.

"It has to be Bradford's flying," she decided, as she entered the crawl spaces. "He's flying so badly that it's causing metal fatigue." The engineer blew at her bangs angrily. "If he crashes this ship, ROV-R, I'll hand him over to Advent myself."

Bam! Bam! Bam-bam-bam-BAM!

"Jesus Christ, Jane." Aileen pursed her lips, watching as the Ranger spun and kicked her bag, not quite hard enough to make it tumble. "Do you even want your sword anymore?"

"I like the sword." A sentence that would never had slipped from her lips in the first two months of XCOM's operation. Jane bounced back to her feet, bringing her hands up to guard her face in a proper boxing stance. She wove her shoulders back and forth, eyes fixed on the X-marks that represented a roughly human target's head and stomach. "But sometimes you have to get dirty."

"I didn't ask about you and David, did I?" Aileen made as if to duck when Jane grabbed a nearby boxing glove and mimed throwing it. "You're already the title-holder in the ring, Irish. You don't need to beat the bag so hard."

"Hm." She didn't pursue the topic further, instead unloading a one-two that would have left an Adventer or sectoid dazed. Emboldened, Jane lunged, letting loose a storm of crosses and hooks that she proudly imagined could have given a muton pause. She capped it off with another spinning kick, bracing her hands on the floor to hurl both feet at her target.

"Straight from capoeira."

"Huh?" Jane popped up, glancing to the doorway and the newcomer. "Oh. You're the new guy. Kipler's man."

"Johannes." Vermuelen entered, his shaggy black hair trailing almost as long as Aileen's. He examined Jane's stance for a minute. "Who trained you?"

"A Resistance friend." Jane tried not to think of Obsidian for very long. "And I've taken some pointers from Central. He breezes through now and again. That man's forgotten more about arse-kicking than I'll ever know."

"I heard you were the champion."

"She is," Aileen agreed. "She's frightening. It's because she has to keep her boyfriend in his place. Regular dominatrix-" She ducked when Jane finally threw the glove. "Missed me, missed me! Now you gotta-"

"You should be so lucky." Jane leaned on the bag. "Central had the title in the old organization. I'm pretty sure he'd top me if we went at each other." She glared at Aileen when the blonde opened her mouth, and evidently hard enough she thought better of her crappy jokes. The brunette turned her attention back to Vermuelen. "What about you?"

"I was trained by a very capable set of instructors." He shrugged, then started further into the gym. "You are quite capable for a woman."

"Really?" Jane's gaze became just a bit more acidic. "Why don't we go right now?"

"I am not interested. Today is leg day." Without looking back, he swept off toward the treadmills. "And you are far more of use to the Commander on your feet than your back."

"Really?" Jane put her hands on her hips. Vermuelen didn't stick around to debate with her, and that really just annoyed her further. The Irishwoman watched as he left earshot, and slowly she let out a tense breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"He seems charming," Aileen observed. "You'd kick his arse, easy."

"Yeah." Jane paused to glance at her friend. "He's giving me the man-feeling."

"Which one?" Aileen pursed her lips. "The one where you feel like a slab of meat?"

"No." Jane spared the South African a quick glance. "The slime one, like a faceless just oozed on past you."

"...are you seriously suggesting..."

"I don't know." Jane cleared her throat after a minute. "I just met him. I shouldn't make an issue out of a first meeting. And I had to do a faceless identification test when I came aboard - he did too, I'm sure."

"Oh, yeah, but we can always perform one right now." Aileen whipped out a pocketknife. "For science and all that. You know, I almost signed up for Tygan's team instead of the combat roster-"

"Jesus, Aileen, put it away." Jane shook her head emphatically. "It's not just blood faceless lack: it's every liquid. We don't have to cut him."

"What if we kept it to the little thumb-nicks Bradford made us-"

"No, Aileen." Jane did her best Captain Kelly face when she saw how rebellious the blonde was. "You can't use the faceless identification protocol as an excuse to stab people."

"Yes, mistress." That earned her the other glove, right in her face this time.

"What we do," Jane declared, while her friend cursed and snickered at the same time, "is we wait and see if he sweats. Faceless can't sweat."

"And if he doesn't?" Aileen held up the pocketknife again.

"What's that going to do against a faceless?" Jane glared. "You just want to stab something, don't you?"

"Are you volunteering?"

"If he doesn't sweat, we talk to Bradford." Jane returned to the bag. "Occupy yourself for twenty minutes or so.

Jane boxed. Aileen alternated between chin-ups on the hanging bar and being a sarcastic piece of shit when Jane missed shots, which got her a few more thrown items to add to her collection.

"So," Aileen wondered, as she heaved herself up and down with more than a little effort. "Vermuelen?"

"Let me see." Jane looked over. She eyed him for a minute, then returned her gaze to Aileen. "Yeah, he's sweating. Not a faceless."

"Just an asshole." Aileen pulled up again. "Is that better or worse?"

"Rounding the corner."

"Copy that." Cameron Rogers strode briskly along the Richmond sidewalk, trying to hit that sweet spot of "eyeing up the pretty girls in sundresses enough that people thought he wasn't Up To Something and called the authorities" and "not eyeing up the pretty girls in sundresses enough that people called the authorities". He wasn't far from Maymont Park, and there were a lot of said girls here for the picking. Richmond was one of the few cities that had kept a lot of its inherent culture when the aliens came down, likely because the city - like many in Europe that had similar results - was already used to having subcultures under the public eye. The Confederate flag had become a symbol of resistance in its own circles, and was of course banned under Advent's gaze, but the fact that it still occupied many walls that should have been bare was itself a statement of the casual "fuck you, space yankees" attitude pervasive in the city.

"Pardon me." He gently eased past a woman standing in the middle of the walkway and watching a news broadcast on her phone. On and on the announcer went: XCOM terrorists doing such and such in Brazil, and the inevitable glorious retaliation from Advent forces...it was all trite and predictable. Cameron snorted, ignoring the surprised look the woman gave him, and the tilt of her head.

Liang didn't chime in again on her com. The two tried to avoid electronic communication as much as possible, but they had to coordinate somehow. For the last three days they'd been staking out their mark's every move, taking shifts and changing costumes frequently to throw off suspicion, but still the nut remained impossible to crack: her workplace was fortified, her home was only slightly more vulnerable...

Hopefully Liang had a brilliant idea. Cameron had none, and he was starting to worry. They were supposed to report to extraction with their target within two days if they wanted the local resistance to spirit them away for extraction...but if they didn't have a chance to get her...

"Oh, thank God." Cameron spotted Liang's floral blouse in the crowd. He started her way, running a hand through his hair. The sunlight and the heat alike were sweltering, alone or in concert. Sweat ran over his cheeks, and he relished the chance to get back to their heavily-surveilled apartment just for the cool embrace of-

"Excuse me."

"Hm?" Cameron turned, blinking, and found himself face-to-face with the brunette he'd passed without thinking. For a moment, his memory refused to cooperate, and that was the only descriptor he had. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, actually." She flicked a few screens over on her phone without looking. "I feel like I've seen you around a few times recently." She brought it up very quickly, as if taking a self-portrait on the fly.

"Um." Cameron blinked. "Is that a problem?"

"You don't sound like a local."

"I'm not. I just got here recently." Then his memory finally did click, and Cameron couldn't help but take a quick breath.

"That's funny." The Advent scientist he'd been sent to kidnap gave him a look that was a lot more knowing than he was happy with. "Because I'm pretty sure I've seen you following me around. I never forget a face."

Just my luck she has a photographic memory! Cameron wanted to curse. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."

"Then I'm sure you won't mind showing me your identification," she replied pleasantly. She turned the phone around, and Cameron's breath caught when he saw his own face in her camera - and an Advent data file open beneath it. "Will you, Corporal?"

"I..." Cameron licked his lips.

Then he punched her right in the jaw.

"Boring conversation anyway," Cameron groused, as the woman reeled and fell to one knee. She clutched a busted lip, and the sharpshooter reached for her, wishing he had anything more lethal than his hands on him. "Let's you and I-"

He heard the booted feet an instant before-

Wham! The impact came from something hard and heavy, right at the back of his skull. Cameron cried out, tumbling onto the sidewalk face-first, his nose breaking on impact and spraying the white with red. Stars exploded behind his vision, and for a moment, he couldn't bring himself to move.

Then he tried to rise, and that was when a knee drove hard between his shoulder blades.

"He hit me," the scientist protested, sounding extremely indignant. A moment later, a shoe with a very pointy toe drove into Cameron's side, and he cried out again. "He hit me!"

"Mor balaten," soothed an Advent voice. Cameron couldn't decide whether he was more angry at being hit, or more grateful that the single stabbing kick was the only one.

He tried to rise. He failed, and quickly, when something else hit the back of his head in the same surgical spot. The first blow had to have been a gun butt, but this was probably just an elbow, so it only hurt a fuckton. Cameron's head went back into the sidewalk, and the world became spinning stars and lights for a good long while.

He wasn't sure how long that lasted. What he did know was that when he pulled himself together, he was already cuffed, and there were at least a dozen soldiers and a red-coated officer around, personally taking a statement from the scientist, who had an icepack on her lip and a straight-up medic fawning over her. Cameron still had some asshole sitting on him while his broken nose made a mess on the street.

"Might as well kill me," he advised, voice thick with pain. "I'm not telling you shit."

"Donut," the officer promised, with a sneer. Somehow, he made the word very intimidating. "Do-nut."

They hauled Cameron to his feet. He didn't fight - what point? - and instead let them guide him off toward the Defense Ministry. He tried hard not to look at Liang, lest they take her too. His best effort wasn't good enough.

He might not have bothered: she was nowhere to be seen.

Author's Note 39: I've Actually Never Played Diplomacy

Partially because I don't have...friends. I have a wife and I have an online D&D group...does that count?

I feel like faceless infiltration would be a big concern for a group like XCOM. It would have been awesome if the game had found a way to include worries about that while keeping things fun - what if, when you recovered a soldier who'd been left behind on a mission, there was a chance it was actually a faceless the whole time? There would have to be some great gameplay mechanics for that, to keep it from being stupidly annoying as hell, but then again, something being stupidly annoying as hell has never stopped Firaxis before. Stun lancers, anyone?

For the record, I am not a "South Will Rise Again" type. But, being born here, there are some things I just have to say. Represent for the team, you know? Like sports, I guess, only I'm just not into sports. So instead, I make corny jokes about the damnyankees, but that doesn't make me bigoted! One of my best friends is a yankee!

Er...That Came Out Wrong...

I do wonder what some of the covert ops are like. The way some are described, you might have a few people rooting around in the wilderness for a while...others, it seems like they're full-on assaults on Advent installations. And then there are those like this one, where it seems like your people went undercover. The logistical questions are interesting to contemplate.

Until next time, Vigilo Confido.