Hello, and welcome back to the never ending tale of woe and misery that is Enigma.

Now I know what your thinking...

Alex? Are you feeling ok? This is the second chapter this month. Whats up man?

Truth is, I have been sick for a few days and as such have had a bit more time to write.

Lucky you for you guy's I suppose. But anyways.

Gonna do something I don't normally do this time around and respond here to a few of the reviews. Mainly because they are guest accounts thus I can't PM them the answer, but hey. Such is.

Guest Number 1: Yes I am a but ambitious. I do like me some big but's and I can not lie.

Guest Number 2: Yes we do know roughly which parts of the world are controlled by ADVENT. Africa, Australia, South America are all 100% done zone, India is all but lost, Mexico is on the ropes, Europe is feeling the thunder, as is Russia, and China may well be in trouble to. That's all I will reveal for now.

Hope you all enjoy this.

As usual please don't forget to review!

Love the engagement from the last chapter. Hope to see more!

Cheers

Alex Lee


Friday, September 19th, 2024

...Way too fucking early

There have been many questions in my life that I have been forced to ask myself while waking up early in the morning.

Normally they are relatively simple things like "where the fuck am I?", or "what the fuck did I do last night?". Unlike my mates who often found themselves asking much more complex and extremely worrying things, like say "Why am I in a bathtub?", or worse yet, "Who's fucking arm is this?"

As fate would have it though, that was that very question I found myself muttering upon waking up to my internal alarm. That, alongside a series of swears and profane words used to describe my feeling towards the muscle cramps and brutal hangover that hit me meer moments later.

Craning my neck forwards, I was greeted with a mop of white hair to go with the person's arm that was currently draped across me, along with two fully dressed bodies to match. A fact that I was both momentarily confused by, until my sleep-addled brain finally clicked into first gear and the previous nights events came flying back to me.

Lockdown. The bed. The sheer metric shit ton of alcohol we had both ingested...

A small groan escaped me as my head flopped back onto the pillow behind me. The numb feeling in my arm told me she had probably used me as a pillow the entire night, sprawling out across me like I was her own personal space heater.

Gods above, what had I gotten myself into?

Glancing down at her again, I couldn't help but roll my eyes at the current situation. It was like a scene from a bad tv show. Two rivals being forced to work alongside one another in order to fight against a much greater threat, slowly growing closer until they finally became something more than friends...

Was that what Lock and I were now? More than friends? Or was this simply a one time deal? A moment of stupidity we would both pretend never happened after we left the room…

My throbbing brain didn't have the answers, and ABBY seemed to be out of commission given her current lack of insight on the issue.

It wasn't like our lives needed to be more complicated right now. Maybe keeping this as a one time thing was a good idea then…

My gaze returning once more to the sleeping head of my companion in this silent debacle.

Frankly speaking, it was a goddamn miracle I had even managed to wake up on time. Lock certainly hadn't. Her light snores were a testament to the amount of liquor we had consumed. Lord knows how she would react when she finally woke up.

Now the question became whether she would be more pissed of at me for waking her up now, or for letting her sleep in.

She needed the sleep. Of that I was sure.

She pushed herself more than anyone of us, and deserved the rest. But would she see it that way?

I let out another sigh.

Probably not. She would be more pissed that I had wasted her precious training time.

Resolved to my decision, I raising my hand and placed it on her shoulder, shaking her lightly until she let out a long groan.

"Come on. Time to wake up Lock." I encouraged her softly while continuing to shake her shoulder, hopefully not giving her a chance to fall back asleep.

"Five more minutes, private," she yawned, her head flopping back down to it's position on my shoulder once more. "Captain's orders…"

Cringing as blood rushed into my arm for a split second, before being cut off once again, I nodded. "Yes ma'am. Can you pick a different pillow though? My arm's completely numb."

A small laugh erupted from her as she picked herself up temporarily, and flopped back down onto my chest. "So much for being all manly and shit," she chuckled, a small smile gracing her face as she wiggled into a more comfortable position.

"So much for you being all hardcore and shit." I poked her, inciting another small chuckle.

"Fair point," she yawned. "Just don't tell anyone else."

I nodded and stayed silent, allowing her to wake up at her own pace before asking any more questions.

"Yes we should keep this only between us. No this is probably not a one time thing. And I don't know what this makes us either, but lets keep it simple for now. Lord knows we don't need any more questions on our minds right now."

My eyes shot open as Locks words registered.

"Fucking mind reader…" I sighed deeply. "Am I really that easy to figure out?"

She shrugged. A coy smile playing across her lips. "I would be lying if I said no…"

"Fuck." I groaned.

"Not yet," she smirked right back. "Let's survive this next mission first. Then we can talk."

Glancing down at her, I couldn't help but marvel at how unguarded she seemed in comparison to her normal stone-faced facade. This was a side of Lock I doubted more than a handful of people in the world knew about. Her human side. One of only a few parts of Abby Johnson that still remained.

"Alright," I agreed, glancing over at my bedside clock. "Speaking of which, your five minutes are up."

"Shit," she muttered, sliding off to her side before standing up. A long series of cracks and pops followed each and every movement.

"Haven't slept that well in a long time," she grunted, stretching each limp as she moved towards her discarded boots. "Right. Hangover first, food later."

"Right behind you, Cap."


"Squad Lockdown report to the Commander's office. I repeat Squad Lockdown report to the Commander's office."

"Of course…" I muttered quietly, stepping out of the shower. "Of fucking course he calls us now…"

Toweling off, quickly slipping into my BDU, and lacing up my boots nice and tight, I jogging out of the change room and upwards to the bases head honchos office, specks of water still flying off my head as I breezed past scientists and security alike.

Though I suppose one should be grateful that we got to eat and shower before being called up….

Jogging through the open office door, I skidded to a stop right in front of the Commander's desk. Thankfully, I was the third of us to arrive.

Lock of course already stood tall at attention, with Ace standing right beside her. The Commander of course barely acknowledged my arrival as he continued to sort through the various papers on his desk

Falling into position beside him, I waited patiently in silence for the rest of our team to arrive.

We thankfully didn't have to wait long.

A minute later all three rushed into the room one after the other, falling into formation with a practiced ease as we all now awaited what would inevitably be our next mission.

"Close the door."

Turning on the spot, I quickly went and closed to door before returning to my original position.

"First and foremost, I wish to congratulate you on your successful missions yesterday." He stated, spearing each of us a glance. "You all completed the assignment in record time and showcased in perfect fashion the effectiveness of the X1 charges"

Both Ace and I shared a quick glance at his words several retorts burning the tip of my tongue as we both stiffly nodded our acknowledgement of the Commander's praise, whilst holding our tongues with all the force we could muster. A task which I'm sure was doubly hard for Ace to do, given his background.

"It is due to this success, that I have been able to secure the materials necessary to outfit every single current and future MECH unit with a high yield X1 for use after the mech unit's squad has been rendered combat ineffective."

Even as the words left his lips, Chip and Psycho were both already on the move.

"Permission to speak sir!"

"Permission to speak sir!"

"Permission granted," he nodded, returning to the mountain of papers before him.

"Sir." Psycho stated. "It is not necessary for Squad Lockdown to carry such weapons with them, sir!"

"Lockdown will only fall if XCOM does," Chip added, his monotone voice a stark contrast to the passionate booming vocals of Psycho. "As such, we do not require this contingency plan."

"The name Lockdown has belonged to several squads before this one, and they all were killed with relative ease," The Commander replied, glancing wearily between two sets of reports. "Whether you think you require it is or not, I don't really care. My job here is to win a war. As such you will both carry one, regardless of your feelings on the subject. Are we clear?"

"Sir. Yes Sir."

"Sir. Yes Sir."

Both mech units stepping back into line almost immediately, though clear signs of anger could be seen creasing Psycho's face as he stood.

"Now then. I brought you all here to inform you of some rather significant events that have occured in the last day or so," he continued barely looking up from his work as he spoke. "Yesterday at roughly o' fourteen hundred, the Pakistani city of Lahore was destroyed by ADVENT. Eleven million people were killed, and the city itself was almost entirely obliterated by what our scientist are now calling Psionic Storms, or Rifts for short."

A series of holographic images flashed up from his desks projector, displaying in full to us the carnage that ADVENT had wrought on the city. I, for one, could barely process the sheer number of bodies that filled each image.

"In response to this massacre, we have begun preparations for a full on offensive against ADVENT," he continued, undaunted. "However as of this point in time, we have no defense against this type of attack, nor any way to detect it until much to late, thus making any large scale counter attack risky, lest the aliens use this weapon again on that part of the battlefield. This is where you all come in."

The images instantly flicked to a satellite map of some random region of the planet. A bright green dot marked what was obviously a very important location.

"Our scientists have managed to track an unknown signal type, being broadcasted by the Outsider you captured to this location in the Alps," he glanced up at each one of us. "Normally a recon unit would have already been deployed to scout out the area, however recent analysis of the ADVENT attack on Lahore, revealed a similar signal being transmitted to a location nearby the city."

"You think these signals are connected?" Ace piped up.

"Correct," the Commander nodded, his gazed now permanently fixed on us. "Your mission is to find whatever the Outsider is transmitting to, and bring it back to us undamaged for analysis."

The sheer amount of emphasis he put on the word undamaged made it clear that whatever we recovered was probably worth more to him than any of us.

"All the information we have will be provided on route to location. Are we clear?"

"Yes sir!" We all stated in unison, though probably more out of habit than truly meaning it.

The shock and confusion of the information we had just received was evident on everyone save, of course, for our stone faced leader Lock.

"Good," he nodded, turning back to his computers. "Report to launch pad four ASAP for launch. Dismissed."

Turning away from his desk, we all made our way out of the office, and down towards our respective gear locations. I myself was almost in a daze as I methodically packed and grabbed all the necessary equipment for our mission.

The pictures and death toll running almost on repeat through my mind again and again as I made my way to the hanger with my gear in tow.

Nothing really seemed to get past the grey cloud now circling my head. Not Lock, Not the rest of the crew. Big Sky's normally infectious smile, and boisterous jokes had no effect on any of us, as we filed onto her craft, and sat down for launch.

Even Holly, normally the first of us to recover from funks like this one, seemed to struggle in putting a smile back on her face.

The situation wasn't helped by both Chip and Psycho kept craning their necks to glance at the device strapped to their backs. The X1 charges they now carried seemed to carry more physiological weight than physical.

"Don't worry," Chip caught my eye. "We have been assured it is impossible for them to detonate accidently."

"And we won't be manually detonating them on you guys either," Psycho winked. "No matter how much we are tempted to."

I fake wiped my brow in response. "Thank God. One less thing to worry about."

A small chuckle flooded the craft, as we all forcefully clung onto the small moment of normality.

Unlike previous missions, most of this trip was sat in silence. Everyone was too caught up in their own thoughts to really notice the pass of time. The trip only was really being broken up by questions, the transferring of tactical data, and each of us grabbing our respective weapons ammo.

"Lock?" I muttered over our comms channel, eyeing Psycho as he fidgeted in his seat. "I think we could all use one of your epic pre-battle speeches right about now…"

"I know." A rough sigh escaping her as she leaned further back into her seat. "I don't exactly have much happy-go-lucky stuff to say right now though."

Raising an eyebrow, I cocked my head curiously at her. "Isn't that kind of your job as captain?"

"Probably," she shrugged back. "I never really read the whole Inspiring Leader bit of the Captain's Handbook."

That one caught me off guard a little. "There's a book for that kind of stuff?"

A small laugh crept out from her as she shook her head. "Of course there is. It's more of a technical document than anything else though. Protocols, paperwork to complete, expected duties and tasks, etcetera."

"Ah" I nodded back. "Boring as crap then."

That got a chuckle out of her. A small one sure, but it was progress.

"Kind of wish there was a whole bit on leadership though," she mused quietly. "Would have made this job a whole lot easier, yah know…"

"Oh," I nodded sheepishly."Anything I can do to help then?"

Another sigh emerging from her she shook her head. "You're really something, you know that?"

I didn't really know how to respond to that. Didn't need to either as she stood up and made her way to the center of the craft.

"Alright Ladies," she snapped, her voice easily piercing the constant hum of the engines on either side of us. "Time to reign in those grey clouds and sinch those panties up a few notches."

Everyone was quick to sit up straight in their seats as she spoke, myself included.

"I'm not going to lie to you and say that everything is gonna be alright. We all know better. We all know how fucked things are, and how much more fucked they are going to get."

"An interesting way to start a motivational speech…" I muttered quietly to myself.

"The mission that we are headed out on right now is going to be chalk full of things that can and will possibly kill you," she continued. "As have all missions we braved before this, and as all missions we will complete in the future. This is the path we must walk. It is the one most most consistent with our character, and our courage as members of the elite."

I watched her take a slow shaky breath. "Someone once said that the cost of freedom is always high, but that we have already paid it. That the only path we shall never choose, is the path of surrender or submission."

"We are Fucking Lockdown!" She stamped, staring each one of us in the eyes. "We are the best there ever has been, and the best there ever will be. We will not surrender or submit so long as XCOM exists. So it's time to drop the mopey puppy acts and get your heads back in the fucking game!"

There was a long pause as her voice finished echoing around the bay area.

"You totally fucking stole that whole bit from John F Kennedy didn't you?"

I burst out laughing as the accusation from Big Sky rang through the intercom system. I couldn't help it. Everything was just to much right then.

Soon enough others followed suit. Chucking or laughing as Lock's face grew more and more red by the second.

"Fuck you all!" She seethed, stomping back to her seat. "At least I tried!"

I may have actually felt bad for her, had I not seen the small smile that graced her lips as she turned away of course.

"Alright settle down back there. Landing in t minus ten minutes. Strap 'em and rack 'em ladies."

I chuckled lightly, racking the slide on my pistol before holstering it once more. Lock may not be the most eloquent of speakers, but she had tried, and was successful in her goal.

Frankly, that was all that mattered anyways.

The tension from earlier was long gone.

Everyone was locked in, and ready to go.

Whatever lay before us, we would be ready for it. Of that I was sure.