Chapter 2- Names
Jake had just gotten the EXALT laser sniper riffle and he already (counting the two he killed getting said rifle) had killed seven more EXALT operatives. His gene modded pupils enabling his eyes to adjust faster than humanly possible. It was near impossible for him to miss a shot. There were five more EXALT following him, and unfortunately one was also a sniper, making getting around difficult considering that said sniper also had modded eyes. Probably one that increased his depth perception.
Jake considered getting that gene mod, but as a life long sniper his depth perception was already near perfect, he figured he didn't need it, especially considering that specific mod only worked if you were above your target, which while preferable, was not always possible. Besides, hyper reactive pupils may only be good if you miss a shot, which was rare for Jake, but better safe then sorry.
Jake watched the EXALT operatives search for him. They were close, but Jake was currently invisible to them. He looked at them while assigning priority targets. First he would have to deal with the sniper. Then the medic. After that it was fair game.
Jake looked up and saw a rail above him. He smiled as he leapt high and grabbed the rail, pulling himself over to get onto the balcony. A perfect vantage point for any sniper, and what's better, he did it all without making a peep.
Jake leaned down low peering at his target through the scope. The enemy sniper didn't even know what hit him. The others were alerted to Jakes location and fired blindly at where he was, or rather where he once was. After he took the shot, he didn't even check to see if it had hit. He didn't have to, he knew he was just that damn good. Instead as soon as he pulled the trigger he rolled back and hugged the wall allowing his mod to once again hide him from sight.
He was already on the other side of the balcony when the EXALT soldiers had to reload there guns. The heavy of the group pointed up while whispering to one of the operatives to go check and see if Jake was dead. Too bad said Heavy didn't know that his head was perfectly aligned with Jakes next target, the Medic.
Once the trigger was pulled the superheated laser beam passed through the skull of the Heavy and hit the Medic dead on. Jake was already moving before the two even fell down. He smiled as the remaining soldiers were once again firing blindly, this time in seemingly random directions where they thought the shot came from.
Jake smiled as the only two left were all on the low end of the EXALT totem pole. Two simple operatives, As he looked down the scope Jake idly wondered if this guys regenerative pheromones would do any good against a laser blast. The sound of the man falling to his death answered his question.
Jake watched the last guy begin to breathe heavy while shooting at random. The moment his gun ran out of energy, a laser blast hit him head on. However that was when something unusual that happened as the man fell. He exploded in a way similar to a Thin Man, with a toxic cloud of gas surrounding him.
"That's new", said Jake as he waited for the toxic cloud to dissipate. he wrote it off for now as he double checked to make sure there was no one left.
Satisfied he was now alone, Jake jumped down from the balcony with his new rifle on his shoulder as he looked down at the dead EXALT agents. Quickly he began taking what he could carry off them. An unused med-kit, a smoke grenade, and two frag grenades. He didn't even consider taking there weapons.
Jake began wondering what to do now. Spending nearly two months undercover with EXALT due to XCOM falling and spending a week running, then to suddenly be done with it made him pause. He now did not know what to do next.
"Guess I'll figure it out as I go along", said Jake as he walked away before he looked at the laser rifle in his hands.
Jake stopped as he examined it for a second, coming to a few realizations and ideas before he spoke.
"Let's see, you were supposed to kill me, then when I get ahold of you you kill these assholes, that kind of makes you a traitor", said Jake to the rifle before he began to smile.
"I think I'll call you Judas", said Jake as he slung the rifle over his shoulder, before he walked away idly looking to the EXALT agent who had thin wisps of poison leaking from his mouth.
Zhang looked down at the mutilated thing that had once been a man before him. Already he was cleaning the blades welded to his arm before he wrapped the man and the two other corpses in sheets. He would have to get rid of them later before his home started to stink. Actually now that he thought about it, he probably shouldn't stay here anymore considering his former employers knew where he lived. So Zhang did the logical thing.
He grabbed a bottle of whiskey, took a few gulps before he stuffed a rag in it and lit it on his stove. Zhang walked towards the door, throwing the molotov cocktail behind him where it crashed on the wooden floor and his house set alight, not like he didn't have spares anyway.
Zhang wondered if the police would announce him dead, after all he had pulled out the teeth of his prisoner so dental records were out, and without the fingers that were now in the sinks garbage disposer they wouldn't might just think it was him. Though he wouldn't know for sure until later.
Zhang walked toward his car. Not the most luxurious vehicle but Zhang treated it as such anyway. Driving was a bit of a chore with his cybernetics. Why Dr. Shen choose to shape the legs like he did, Zhang would never know.
After adjusting to the feel behind the steering wheel with cybernetic implants, and making sure his feet actually were where they were supposed to be, Zhang started his car and drove off. No real destination in mind, at least not yet. After a few hours of aimless driving, and getting gas twice while his cybernetic parts were hidden thanks to his loose clothing. Zhang made it to a long desolate road. Driving down it for a few hours, until he saw something he really wished he didn't see. A UFO just zoomed past and headed east.
Zhang sighed as he followed in the same direction, knowing something bad was going to happen when aliens were involved, though he did curse his luck at being seemingly in the middle of nowhere and running across one of the bastards. Following the UFO as it moved unusually slowly, Zhang began to wonder what the aliens were up to. He hoped it wasnt one of there terror attacks, those usually involved those big purple bugs that make people zombies, something Zhang really did not want to have to fight right now.
The UFO wasn't far away, just a few hundred meters really. When he saw something small, probably a Sectoid, leap out of the UFO on the ground before the UFO took off, Zhang decided he might as well investigate in case whatever they were planning somehow involved him. He continued driving until he saw a very large cemetery in the distance. Said cemetery was crawling with movement in the distance. Judging by how large they looked, they seemed to be Thin Men and Sectoids.
Zhang stopped at the cemetery when he saw a glowing green box shaped device, Zhang knew what it was immediately.
"Dammit, out of everything it could have been, why a damn plasma bomb", said Zhang to himself.
He looked to his pistol and grabbed it before getting out of his car. He didn't know if he was extremely lucky, or hopelessly unlucky to arrive at a spot where aliens planted a plasma bomb, but he didn't really feel like blowing up today, and besides, usually only Sectoids and Thin Men protected the Plasma bomb anyway, how bad could it be.
Zhang walked up to the priming mechanism, and shut it down, buying him a little more time to disable the explosive. To bad that alerted a pod of three Sectoids that immediately took cover. Zhang leaned down behind the currently deactivated primer as he held his pistol. He smiled when one of the Sectoids looked round the corner to see what was going on, only for a bolt of plasma to strike it's head.
"Well, that's one down", said Zhang as the Sectoids began firing in his direction.
Unfortunately what Zhang forgot about was that the UFO was still in the area. And currently a very large figure had just leapt out and fell to the ground with a crash before the sound of mechanical parts moving became known. By that sound alone, Zhang knew what it was long before the dust caused by it's landing cleared. Zhang sighed when the Mechtoid began firing plasma cannons in his direction, and Zhang noted his only weapon was a plasma pistol.
"Why can't anything ever be simple".
Dr. Shen kept several curiosities from his time at XCOM. Most of it were schematics. One thing he made sure he grabbed, was the Firestorm blueprints. He took great pride in the first Firestorm they built. As Shen looked over the various papers, a feeling of Nostalgia came over him. Dr. Shen had many ethical conversations with various personnel at XCOM, he fully understood why they did what they did, mostly about what those who were modified would become after the war was over, assuming they won.
Dr. Shen remembered talking to several of the soldiers who were modified. He would ask them what they would do after it was over. None of the answers satisfied Shen, and it usually boiled down to them saying they would keep on fighting. It did not sit well with Dr. Shen that most likely they would be used against other humans, assuming things went back to how they were before the aliens showed up.
Of the seventeen people given gene mods, only eleven made it to see the end of XCOM. Of the eight turned into MECs only six still lived, and of the six psionics, only four remained. Now that XCOM was over, Shen would often wonder what happened to those twenty one extraordinary individuals. Were they still fighting somewhere out there, and if they were, are they still alive.
After waiting two months, Dr. Shen really wished the Commander would show up.
It could not remember much. It only knew it's shape was wrong. A feeling of disgust fell over the creature now called a Thin Man as it looked at it's form. The Withered Ones changed it greatly, turning it into a mockery of the ones called humans. It did not know how the one called Vahlen freed it from their control, but it mattered little. For the first time, it was free while it's kin were twisted into shapes not their own and grown unnaturally in the cold unfeeling glass tanks. Copied to provide them with an army.
Memories of it's planet when the Withered Ones attacked with their machines, their small mouth less race, and the vile parasite who lay their eggs in the bodies of the dead. It's race fought the Withered Ones much like these humans did now, but in the end they failed. They were not the first to fall to the Withered ones, nor were they the last. The giant and tribal ones who were twisted into either the frontline combatants and the flying ones were the most recent to fall before these humans.
The one called Vahlen named his original race Snakemen, due to their similar appearance of the earth reptile, which she was kind enough to show a picture of one. To the now free Thin Man, the snake reminded it of their young, though without arms and of a slightly different shape, notably the head.
It turned to look at it's bonds. The burning rope around it's hands and feet and the strange strip that suck cloth to it's mouth. It could feel the poison within, poison that was added to them like the limbs called legs. It hated the Withered Ones for what it did to it's race. All for the cryptic goal of 'What lies ahead'. It hated those words, and how they were used to justify the Withered Ones atrocities and forced subjugation.
It did not know if it could free it's kin from their hold, but it was willing to try. Though first, It needed a name. Names were important to humans, though it was an alien concept to it's race. So was the humans speech and it strange elongation of throaty sounds to form words, rather than the tongue to smell, roar, and hiss. Scent was used for identifying others, not words or names, they were unneeded.
The Thin Man was drawn from its thoughts when the one names Vahlen returned. It watched her carefully as she began her examination of it. As she looked over its body she began speaking to it again as she had done before.
"Your bones are remarkable for flexibility. Were the bones in your arms always segmented", asked the one called Vahlen.
The Thin Man gave a nod, a gesture it recognized humans use for many thing, whether it be simply a form to say yes without saying it, or to acknowledge the presence of others.
"My people were always flexible, it was necessary. A vast majority of our world was covered in swamps and thick jungle, and our architecture was built with this in mind. Most of our paths were underground, allowing us to get from one city through the next without having to brave the dangers of the forests, and these paths were long and thin, twisting and turning. It was our main advantage against the Withered Ones, though the ones you call sectoids traversed them well", said the Thin Man through the cloth tied on it's face.
Vahlen nodded as she began writing notes. The Thin Man watched the humans gestures, some of which greatly confused it, such as the rapid closing and opening of eyes, and the way the humans lips moved with no words coming out, as if she were talking to herself. It was strange to watch, and slightly grotesque to the Thin Man, mostly because it to had that rapid closing and opening of eyes after the Withered ones changes to it's shape. It felt unnatural to it.
When it first regained awareness, that rapid eye movement disturbed It greatly, as did the existence of te strange loose skin called an eyelid, and how it twitched as it's eyes moved about, another thing that it found odd and unusual. It was not normal to it to suddenly possess a different shape, one that felt tight and constricting. The legs also felt wrong, and it much prefered a single long tail to get around. It mused a bit before looking to the one called Vahlen.
"What is this raid opening and closing of the eye I now possess, it is strange to me"
Dr. Vahlen looked from her notes to examine the Thin Man before she spoke.
"It's called blinking, it's a process spreads tears across the eye and remove irritants. I assume your people had something similar to a brille", said Dr. Vahlen with slight interest.
"In a way, we could however move our eyes, It wrapped around the eye, but was independent of the skin", said the Thin Man.
"Really, fascinating", said Dr. Vahlen with renewed excitement as she began making more notes.
The Thin Man ignored her as it looked around the room. Strange lab equipment that seemed rather old was all around the room, several tools for surgery including, all covered in green fluids. Thoughts of what that equipment was used for filed its mind before it pushed those thoughts aside, it began to think on other topics before one came to mind. Turning to Dr. Vahlen, the Thin Man spoke.
"I would like a name", said the Thin Man.
Dr. Vahlen paused before it eyes the Thin Man carefully. A look of interest and confusion on her face. It slightly amused the Thin Man.
"You want a name", asked Vahlen.
The Thin Man nodded, remaining silent as it waited. Vahlen looked at the creature before humming to herself as she began to think.
"I'm not good with names to be honest. I suppose something simple, how about Lind, it means snake", asked Dr. Vahlen.
The Thin Man tested the word, drawing it out as it felt how it moved on it's tongue, it began to comment on the word from it's perspective.
"Lind, it is heavy at the start, light in the middle, and rolls away at the end", said the Thin Man as he tested the word out a bit more.
Vahlen found is description of the word odd, though thought little of it. It would be foolish to expect an alien species to have a similar culture to any human one. No doubt the ability to speak several languages were implanted into the creature, and it's lexicon while vast, was also somewhat limited by the ethereal.
"It is a word like my people. A word meaning snake, heavy as we one were, light as we are now, and hopefully rolls away like we one day shall from the Withered Ones. It is a good name"
"Very well...Lind", said Vahlen as she idly watched the Thin Man continue to test the name on is tongue before getting back to her work.
A/N: During the final mission on the assault of the temple ship, the Uber Ethereal pretty much confirms that the other aliens are slaves to the psionic powers of the Ethereals, I thought an interesting idea would be a mechanic where you free aliens from Mind Control and can recruit them. That's kind of what is happening with Lind, but don't expect other aliens to become XCOM allies any time soon, Lind is a special case.
As for the EXALT operative who expelled Thin Man poison, well it is often mentioned that EXALT goes much to far with gene mods, I figure eventually they would attempt something like making an EXALT soldier who could spit poison similar to a Thin Man. Expect EXALT to have other such mods in the future.