Hello, and welcome back to Enigma

So. This chapter. Wow. That was a long one.

Editing this chapter seemed like an easy thing to do at first. I actually really enjoyed the first iteration of it, so I figured not a lot was going to have to change.

WRONG

As always, expect the unexpected. Turns out entire sections of this chapter needed to get re written or heavily edited. As such it increased the word count by almost 50% and gave me several headaches along the way.

A lot of work went into this chapter to bring it up to the same quality level as the previous chapters. Which brings me to something that I have wanted to say for a little while now.

I really need some support if I'm going to get through this.

This rewrite is killing me. I thought writing new chapters was tough sometimes, but this? This is literally mind numbing. Hence the time it takes to get each chapter out.

So. If you do enjoy this story, then PLEASE make sure to leave reviews or PM me with your thoughts on things.

Nothing. And I mean nothing will ever motivate an author more than reviews. Not follows, not favorites, nothing.

Seeing that someone has decided to take the time to share their own thoughts with you is probably the greatest feeling ever. And honestly even one per chapter is enough to get those creative juices flowing.

So please. If you want to see this continue, please drop a review ever once in a while. You would not believe how much it helps.

Right. Enough of this serious business, let's get on with the chapter.


Wednesday, May 4th, 2024

0230 Hours

Here's a free tip to anyone who is currently looking to join the military.

If you are ever, at any point during your career, offered the chance to experience what the full speed emergency landing of a Skyranger feels like. Do. Not. Do. It.

It's not fucking worth it.

No matter how nice or cute the pilot may seem, know that under that sweet smile and mask of happiness, lurks the most insane adrenaline junkie you will find this side of the pond.

Big Sky. Fucking hell, did she know how to fly. Granted I knew that from the start but to actually experience it first hand? That's a different situation all together.

I could literally feel the wobble of my legs as I stumbled my way out from the planes bay and onto the flight tarmac. Was she always this exuberant and excitable?

For the sake of my own sanity and nerves more than anything else, I fucking hoped not.

Chancing the repercussions of an upset stomach, I slowly straightened myself out and for the first time, took a good hard look at what I could only assume was going to be my new home.

Then promptly had to rub my eyes, and pinch myself to make sure I wasn't hallucinating or dreaming.

XCOM's Forward Operations Base is, in a word, awe inspiring.

Even to this day, I can scarcely manage to put into words the sheer enormity of the feelings that were instilled within me, the moment I first lay my eyes upon the towering walls of XCOM's main base.

Anxiety, admiration, amazement, shock, confusion, wonderment, fascination, surprise, uncertainty, the list goes on and on. Far too many emotions to try and comprehend all at once, let alone while attempting to also grasp the sheer size of the operation I was now a part of.

The hangars tarmac alone was absolutely immense. At least four full size football fields could be fit into the space, not to mention the fact that it appeared to have been built entirely underground. Or at least I had to assume that was the case, as massive reinforced concrete walls surrounded each side of the complex, stretching upwards for what seemed an eternity before being capped off by a set of massive metal hanger doors.

No doubt it had been built this way to allow easy access and take off room to the three other Skyrangers, that were currently stationed at specific intervals along the ever stretching tarmac.

Teams of mechanics and engineers bustled around the hanger with a practiced ease, fixing or maintaining each one of the transports with a meticulous care and discipline scarcely seen outside of the military.

High above us, precariously perched near the top of each wall face, sat four large glass faced rooms. Which I could only guess, must be the command decks for each of the launch pads below them, judging by all the cameras and flood lights that littered the smooth surface of each wall. There was no doubt in my mind that the operators in each of those rooms had a clean and clear bird's eye view of the action, giving them direct control and command over each area at large.

Truly, this base was a remarkable display of technological and engineering prowess, the likes of which I had never seen before.

"Pretty cool, isn't it," came a sudden stark chuckle from beside me.

Never let it be said that Big Sky can't be sneaky when she wants to be. Somehow, the fiery spirited pilot had managed to place herself not two feet away from me, without garnering my notice.

Granted according to some of my old mates, sneaking up on me when I'm distracted is like sneaking up on a hibernating bear, so I can't give her too much credit.

"Cool, I think is a big understatement here." I retorted, still marveling at the scene set before me.

"The tarmac is about four and a half acres total," she explained giddily, a smile stretching from ear to ear. "And as you have probably guessed, yes, we are in fact underground. About a hundred and fifty feet below ground level to be exact." She glanced my way to gauge my reaction to the news, before continuing on. "It may seem a bit extreme, but this actually gives us the ability to launch up to four fully loaded Skyrangers at the same time. Which, depending on the mission and time constraints, is very much needed."

My brain was having some severe trouble keeping up with all of this information. I mean, seriously? Secret underground bases were something usually reserved for the movies and video games. Not real life.

"Don't worry though," She hurriedly exclaimed, completely misinterpreting my entirely lost expression for one of disappointment. "The rest of the base is way more impressive!"

I blinked a few times in confusion as the meaning of her words washed over me. "The rest of the base?" I asked hesitantly, almost afraid of her answer, "You mean the service tunnels and such right?"

She raised an eyebrow in return. "Well, I mean the hangar only makes up about a third of the actual base..." She explained tentatively, treading lightly on what she must have assumed was my own very thin mental ice.

A good choice considering right now it was more like a mental minefield than a skating rink.

I almost lost it at her statement alone. Whirling around to face her in a fit of hysteria,"You mean there is more than this?!"

"Well yah." She spoke slowly, evidently amused by my inability to comprehend the enormity of the place I had ended up. "There's the training room, the mess hall, the labs which take up about forty percent of the entire base..."

The list went on and on, and with each new entry, my brain fried just a little more.

By the end of her mental catalog, I may as well have been a walking zombie. Some things are just too much to take in all at once, and this base was a perfect example of such.

It took several deep breaths and a serious mental slap to help calm myself down from the sheer absurdity of my current situation. This hangar was absolutely ludicrous on its own, but to think that this was only the tip of the metaphorical iceberg was completely insane.

Seriously, just how much power did this XCOM division have?

"Big Sky to Command Module Three, Big Sky to Command Module Three."

Amazingly, the intercom clearly and crisply delivered the message despite the massive amount of background noise that the hangar produced. No doubt some amazing technology I had never heard of was responsible for that feat, or maybe they just had really good speakers. At this point I was willing to entertain anything as possible.

Lisa flashed me a sympathetic smile as her name was called. "Sorry! Duty calls! I gotta run! You good to go Lock!?"

"Don't worry, Sky," came the measured response from just behind me. "I'll take him from here."

A quick smile in response and she was gone just as quickly as she arrived. Leaving behind only myself and Lock, who unlike Lisa, could quite clearly see just how lost I was.

"I know the feeling," she explained, a neutral expression adorning her face as she spoke. "It's a lot to take in the first time, but don't worry too much. You do get used to it over time." Her cool and composed voice pulled me from my own mental fit with a practiced ease that leadership figures were known for.

"Uh-huh," I muttered skeptically, giving the hanger one more quick look around, before taking a deep breath and addressing her once again. "So. What do we do now?"

Her expression never once wavering, she turned and began walking towards two hefty looking metal doors on the far end of the hanger, motioning for me to follow her. "Now," she coolly replied. "Now you get your answers."


Fucking hell.

Not even five minutes of being outside the hangar and it was already becoming abundantly clear than Lisa hadn't been exaggerating in the slightest when she said that it was only about a third of the entire base.

If anything, I would guess she was actually being generous to the hangar.

Room after room after room passed by as we walked further into the bases depths. Some were obviously laboratories of one kind or another, others contained what I could only describe as alien artifacts, and still others I could scarcely begin to fathom the reason for their existence. Seriously. Who has any use for a room filled with nothing but green smoke?

Scientists, lab rats, and security forces littered each area we passed, though not one person seemed to be paying any attention to the two of us as we traveled. Most of them were far too engrossed in their work or experiments to even look up, let alone interact with us. It was surreal to say the least.

Finally, after dozens of twists, turns and staircases, most of which I had already forgotten, we found ourselves in front of a set of large glossy black metal doors.

Adorning the door was a strange military styled emblem, one that I was certain I had never seen before, and the words VIGILO CONFIDO. Both appeared to be engraved deeply into the material, though how or why I couldn't really tell.

The message that these doors delivered however, was very clear. Whoever sat behind this set of doors, was the man or woman who ran this entire operation.

Whoever sat behind this door had the answers to all of my questions.

A small beep sounded, and without hesitation Lock pushed the doors inwards, holding it open for me to enter with her.

Controlled chaos. That's the best description for the office space we entered into. Everything had a place, and everything was in that place, but to the untrained eye, a hurricane may as well have done the organizational pattern.

Book shelves, filing cabinets and large safes littered the room. Each one completely overflowing with fax's, texts, books, files and documents of varying natures and topics. From top secret to grandma's cookbook to funding reports, it seemed whoever owned this office had a thing for knowing literally everything about anything.

At the center of the chaos, completely clean and devoid of any unnecessary items, stood a rather large and well used mahogany desk. Complete with a desk lamp, name plate and several chairs aligned in front of it, it looked almost picturesque admits the cacophony of clutter that culminated the rest of the room.

A deep sigh emanated from behind us, bringing my attention away from the room itself, and centering it one poorly lit corner. Where amidst a stack of dust and dossiers, there stood a very large, and very well dressed gentleman.

"You're late," he stated gruffly, without so much as turning around to greet myself or Lock.

"Unforeseen complications, sir," she replied quickly and professionally. Clearly used to the behavior of her superior. "Private, this is the Commander. Acting General of XCOM's main forward operations base, and mission logistics liaison officer for all of our operations."

I took a tentative step forwards, extending a hand to the man whom I would no doubt be working under. "It's a pleasure to meet you sir." I announced, trying my utmost to replicate the respectful tone that Lock had addressed him with.

"One hour, thirty-six minutes," he retorted, seemingly unmoved by my address. "Do you know how many lives can be lost in one hour, thirty-six minutes?"

Confused by his response, I hesitated on answering his question.

"Ten million, four hundred and sixty-seven thousand, three hundred and twenty, lives. Give or take a few thousand," he rambled onwards, finally turning himself towards myself and Lock. "So tell me Private Drew L. Crawford. Is what you accomplished during that one hour and thirty-six minute delay, worth the lives of over ten million people?"

The tension that permeated the air was almost palpable as he awaited my answer. This time however, I did not hesitate. "No sir," I replied evenly. "It was not."

"How disappointing." he muttered disdainfully, returning his gaze once more to the files behind him.

I let my hand drop back down to my side with a small thump. Disappointing? Really? He spoke to me like I was a child who just broke curfew.

"Well then, sir," I shot back, struggling to contain my own frustration. "Since this is clearly a time sensitive mission, how about we skip the small talk and get right down to it."

That comment got his attention. His eyes snapped back to mine, and in the instant it took for him to snap the file in his hands shut, I was already coming to regret my actions.

Lockdown had an air of not-to-be-fucked-with, but this man this, snake, he was something else entirely. Everything about him seemed to radiate peril and deceit. His immaculate posture, the underlying threat of his voice, hell even his completely dead to rights eyes. Everything about him screamed at me to get as far away as possible and to never look back.

I unconsciously took a half step backwards as he stalked towards me. His physical proximity to me was making me more and more uncomfortable.

"Let me make this perfectly clear, Private." his voice rumbling deeply as he paced forwards. "Time costs lives. Therefore, everything is time sensitive. The next time you stand before me, guilty of being late, you had better have saved more lives than your tardiness has killed. Are we clear?"

The sheer malice behind his thinly veiled threat was immense. And with the amount of technology and power this facility no doubt offered him, there was no doubt in my mind he could very well back it up.

"Yes sir." I quietly responded, backing down once more.

Sparing me one more gaze before making his way to one of the safes behind the desk, his voice returned to its previous monotone drawl. "Good. Now, at ease and please sit. We have much to discuss, and as you guessed, it is time sensitive."

I carefully and quietly took a seat in one of the two chairs in front of his desk, waiting for both Lock and The Commander to take theirs before daring to say anything.

Thawp.

My head snapped downwards as several large overflowing files, with a bright red TOP SECRET labels cleanly stamped into the middle were unceremoniously dropped down in front of me.

Very meticulously lettered in at the top of each file, were names.

Lisa Big Sky, Rina, Park Chip Ma, Shane Ace Weaver, among others. A quick rifle through them further cemented my suspicion. These were in fact the personal files of each member of squad Lockdown, minus one: Lock's.

I felt a lump bringing to form in the back of my throat, as I gazed down on what was probably the largest collection of top secret military documents I had ever seen. "Permission to speak, sir?" I felt myself croak out, watching as The Commander circled his way around to the large, leather office chair that stood empty behind his desk.

"Permission granted," his reply devoid of any expression or emotion that I could note.

I wet my lips in a half-hearted attempt to move forwards with my questions. "Sir, what am I doing here?"

The chair strained and creaked as he took a seat, swiveling it around to face myself and Lock, as he clasped his hands tightly together under his nose. After a moment's pause, he spoke.

"I'll answer your question, but first I have a question of my own. Do you even know where here is?"

I nodded, "XCOM. A top secret research and development division that tests and supplies the resistance with state of the art equipment and weapons, based on the aliens own technology."

"Close," he agreed, nodding at Lock. "But not quite."

"Ok?" I replied slowly, disliking the way he was shying away from my initial question. "So what is XCOM then?"

"XCOM or Extraterrestrial Combat Unit," he began dryly, glancing at me passively as he spoke. "Is a top secret division of the Global Resistance created to help ensure the safety of our planet in the event of an alien attack. However, I'm sure you are hoping for a more detailed picture than that, so I'll start from the beginning."

He quickly paused to re adjust his glasses before continuing. "On February 12th, 2011, an unidentified object was seen crashing into the heavily forested area of Irkutsk, in Russia's Siberia region. The object was later recovered, and despite a whole host of evidence and eyewitnesses saying otherwise, was shown to be a meteor that had for some reason, had not broken up in Earth's atmosphere. The incident was then swept under the rug and over time people seem to have forgotten it even happened."

He paused again, to look at me. "That's the official story anyways. But as I'm sure you have guessed by now, that's not what actually happened."

I nodded a few times in agreement, patiently waiting for him to continue.

"Believe it or not," he stated proudly. "February 12th 2011 is actually the very first time in recorded human history that we made direct contact with a life form from another planet. And by that, I mean we sent up two F-22 raptors to try and make radio contact with the craft, only to have it shoot down one of the planes immediately upon visual contact. So in retaliation we shot those bastards down faster than you can say prime directive."

"Wait. Hold up." I exclaimed, shocked by this sudden admission. "You did what?!"

A smug grin spilled out over the Commanders face. "We shot them down. Plain and simple. Took a while to do so, slippery bastards that they are, but we eventually got them. Turns out, that unlike in the movies, their crafts are quite susceptible to Stingers."

I sat there, completely floored as he continued his explanation.

"That was the start of it all. After that incident, everyone seemed to agree that we needed a specialized force to deal with the potential alien threat. Thus the Council of Nations was formed, and by extension, XCOM."

"However," he declared. "As you can plainly see, things have changed since then. From that small and limited foundation, we have slowly grown into what we are today. The largest and most successful top secret division of the global resistance."

"Every single major development in science, weaponry and medicine, every single major military offensive and battle that has occurred, every single victory that the resistance has had in the past years, all of it has been directly because of the efforts of every man and woman in the facility." He stated each fact with total authority. Completely and utterly confident in the validity of each and every word he spoke.

"What is XCOM you ask?" He concluded decisively. "XCOM is all that stands between the invasion force and our total annihilation."

If there was ever something to call a bombshell, it was that.

I sat in my chair completely speechless, my mind trying desperately to fathom the magnitude of what he just stated and to extrapolate what it meant for my own future.

My conclusion?

That nothing about this situation made any fucking sense. Not one bit of it.

I am a nobody. Just some run of the mill army grunt. I have no special talent, nor am I some closet genius. I have nothing that I can offer this man that would help him, and yet for some reason here he is, spilling what may well be the biggest secret this side of the resistance to me like I was the fucking president.

What. The. Fuck.

Finally, after several minutes of headache inducing thought, I found the courage to speak again. "Pardon my language sir." I began. "But if that is all true, and I'm inclined to believe it is, then again, what the fuck am I doing here?"

"You're here," he stated, stabbing at me with his finger. "Because we are losing and I need a contingency plan."

Speechless. I was completely and utterly speechless. I opened my mouth several times in vain attempts to speak but nothing came out.

I had no clue how to process this information. My mind could simply not grasp the reality that this silver tongued devil before me had now created.

I mean, us? Humanity? We were on the losing side? That just did not seem possible.

"You mean…" I began tentatively.

"Yes." He cut me off completely. "We are losing. That is the reality of our situation. Deal with it."

I felt the familiar tingle of anger creeping into my body as he spoke.

This man was proving himself to be the definition of selfish. He had the gall to interrupt me, tell me to simply deal, with what was the mental equivalence of Fat Man begin dropped on me, and still hadn't even answered my original question.

Unable to suppress my agitation at the confusion of this whole mess any longer I lashed out. Standing and slamming my hands down onto his desk "Ok, so what then!?" I bellowed straight into his smug little face. "You want me to become some kind of biological suicide bomber to save millions or something?!"

"Of course not!" A scowl creasing his face as he spoke. "That would make finding and selecting you, a complete waste of time, money and by extension lives!"

"So what is it you want then?!" I yelled, throwing my hands up in defeat.

He pointed directly to Lock beside me. "I want you to become her".

"… What?!"