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"Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you."

~Saint Augustine

Chapter Ninety-three: The Edge

"Nice place." Henri spared a glance around at the two-story transmission station. "Except for all the Advent symbols."

"Previous owner." Julie sat on a storage crate, one hand close to the mess of bandages marking her wound. "It's clear inside."

"Will I have to…" Henri cut his eyes at Nathan, watching a flight of birds fluttering off through the distant trees.

"We cleaned it up pretty well." Julie spared a glance for the tower. "Just don't go in there with him. We didn't want to risk a fire, so…"

"I see." Henri nodded. "We'll be inside. Is that where Piotr and Denver are?"

"Yeah. Wiring up the transmitter." Julie extended her arm. "Give me a boost."

"Of course." Henri pulled her up, an affair marked by much restrained swearing on her part. "Does it hurt?"

"No." She tossed her head. "Yeah, it hurts a lot. Those drugs do a wonder, but..." She seriously contemplated another shot, but regretfully left her stimulant pack where it was. If things got wacky, she'd need them then.

"Then lean on me." Henri beckoned to his son. "Let's go, Nathan. It's not safe out here."

"Coming." The boy obediently drifted into his father's wake. What a good kid.

Julie's heart stung for her own charge.

The transition from yard to interior hallway cut off the sun overhead, which was a sad fact of life. In shadow and dark red lighting, Julie and Henri advanced with Nathan in tow, bypassing doors for living quarters and an armory.

"The weapons are gene-locked." Well, more accurately, they couldn't confirm that they weren't, and no one wanted to get electrocuted and set off an Advent network warning finding out. "They're not here."

"I understand."

"Stupid…" Julie's leg seared, and she had to stop to let it rest. "I don't feel good, my friend."

"I'm shocked you're moving as well as you are. Lean on me." Henri did pause to give her a worried look. "This had better work."

"You're telling me. I can't run any longer." Julie managed a deep breath. "Denver and Piotr seem like they know what they're doing. I can get XCOM's attention. The Commander will bail us out."

"You know the man?"

"For my part." Well, that was kind of a misnomer. "My aunt was a friend of his. I, uh, had some significance to the organization."

"Then I finally have made a powerful friend." Henri chuckled softly, even if joy never touched his eyes. "Come. Let's see what our friends have sorted out."

"Yeah." Julie couldn't help putting her weight on Henri's shoulder, limping alongside him toward the transmitter room door.

This had better work. Truer words had never been spoken. Time was running out, and fast. Advent would be hot on their heels, and at any moment, a patrol group could sweep in, notice a lack of comms traffic, and investigate.

The whole thing had far too much of an Alamo feel to it for Julie's liking.

"You could have escaped." Henri hesitated one more time, just outside the door. "Skills like yours…you would have made it out of Athens."

"There's no guarantee–"

"No. But I stand by my statement." Henri gently patted her back. "Thank you, Miss Julie. You saved our lives."

"Jury's still out."

"There is that." Henri tapped the door panel, the egress sliding open before them. "Gentlemen?"

"Welcome to prime time." Piotr waved from across the chamber. Within, a single terminal sat at the corner of the dark-walled room, red mood lighting casting a bloody pallor over the enclosed space. Wiring and comms equipment lined the walls, humming gently about its work, while Denver sat at the console typing away on a screen full of alien characters.

"What's the word?" Julie inclined her head to point, directing Henri to set her down on a box stashed in one corner. With a hissing growl, she stretched her bum leg out in front of her, back to clutching the wound. "Well, I have a few, but there's a kid present."

"We're in, thanks to your program." Denver tossed her datapad, which Julie was not prepared for. She unceremoniously shielded her face, but Henri was faster on the draw and snatched it from the air before anything could happen. Denver paused. "Oops."

"Never mind. Happens." Julie took the pad from Henri. "Continue."

"Well, we made it through cybersecurity. Next step has been connecting to Advent broadcast networks. Slow going." Piotr leaned against the wall, fishing out a hefty cigar and lighter. "But we have just about finished with the work. When Denver gives word, you can be transmitted across most of the planet."

"And then the real fun begins." Denver glanced over his shoulder. "There's no way Advent will miss us broadcasting."

"I know." Julie met his gaze levelly. "If you don't want to stay, you've more than done enough for us."

"We have nowhere else to go." Denver returned to the console. "I have never yet given up when it was wise to."

"We win." Piotr shrugged. "Or we die. Either way, no more suspense."

"What he said." Denver finished typing another string. "We are connected. Send your message, and we will hope for salvation."

"And in concordance with Irina and Jane's debriefing, it seems we have a lead." Edward Gallant leaned forward in his chair, fingers steeped. "During her infiltration of the gene clinic in Canada, she found an entrance to the Hunter's lair."

"Are you sure?" Volk's eyes narrowed through the video connection.

"I know what I was told. All that remains to be seen is the accuracy of Major Kelly's observations, but you all know she has been the top of the top in XCOM for a long time. If she says it, I believe it." Gallant nodded once. "I believe in the accuracy of her report."

"Then we have work to do." Geist's image flickered, but Gallant could still see him rubbing his chin. "Your strike on the Warlock bought my people much clearance, much safety. We are all better off for it. This Hunter has never chased my kind with the same vigor as the Warlock, but Angelis' children have no place on our world."

"Then you endorse this hunt for a monster you have no enmity with?" Volk scoffed. "If I didn't know better, Geist, I'd say you were one of us."

"Is that a joke, Volikov?" Geist…actually seemed amused. "I will betray you when the moment comes, I promise. But until then, I shall maintain the charade."

"At least he's honest, eh, Commander?"

"Sure, Volk." Gallant tapped on his keyboard. "I think we need to meet, and more than just over comms. We'll have to put together any information we have on the Hunter to make this happen."

"Agreed. I will contact my best people." Betos nodded from her headquarters…somewhere in Central Asia. She moved a lot, following the front. "Where is it you would like to meet?"

"I will be in Poland shortly." Whether that meant Volk was already there or not, Gallant didn't know and wouldn't ask.

"I can be there, if the Power is willing." Geist beckoned to one of his people just out of frame. "Whatever information we can find, we bring."

"Vox Tala for Ten." Betos nodded firmly. "I will speak to Gray at the Market too, and ensure we have not missed anything he can supply."

"Excellent. I'll put Central on hooking up an exact meeting point." Then there was the eternal question. "The recovery of Major Kelly put us back into contact with Irina Vasilieva, but we lost a man in the doing. Major Kelly is also far from fit for field return." That was an understatement. "If you have any additional personnel leads…"

"Commander, I'm sure I speak for us all when I say we've turned a lot of stones recently." Nonetheless, Volk shrugged. "I'll take another look."

"Thank you." The war had to be fought, and wars were won by men. "I look forward to hosting you all aboard Avenger."

They disconnected, one by one. Gallant held his breath until the last icon winked out, leaving him alone in his quarters.

The Hunter's lair. Was that really a wise push right now? We do what we must. Always. If he just had one or two more people, he'd have a lot more breathing room.

But you don't, Commander Gallant. He inhaled sharply, pulling himself back to center. One thing at a time, not two.

"Central." He keyed his comm. "I need you to take point managing a meet-up with the Resistance in Poland ASAP." He waited for the response. "Thank you, John." What was next? He switched channels. "Doctor Tygan, give me an update on the Codex project."

Jane Kelly rolled through Avenger's halls, half the height she was used to, rattling across metal decking she'd never feel under her feet again. That frigidity was one of the million little things she'd taken for granted, she'd hated, she'd scorned and thought nothing of–and now she was denied, was stolen from her.

"Hold the elevator!" She stuck out a hand on the approach, waving to be seen. Fortunately, the man inside did as she asked, sticking his foot out to keep a path open.

"Hello, Major." He pulled a precise salute. "Captain Franz Schneider, at your service. We have not had the pleasure of acquaintance."

"Yeah, great." Jane bit her lip, contra-rotating her wheels to turn the chair around as the elevator doors closed.

"Where are you going?" Franz held a hand by the buttons. "I am for the GTS, but–"

"I can hit a goddamn button." Jane reached over to smack the Quarters icon. "I'm not an invalid." Not totally.

"Apologies." Franz inclined his head. "I meant no offense, Major."

"Stop calling me that." Jane scowled. "Major Kelly my ass. I'm never going into the field again, and we all know it."

"Your rank is duly earned regardless." Franz cleared his throat, perhaps a little taken aback. So what? "You are up and about quite early, all things considered. Are you recovering well?"

"Oh, yeah. I'll be dancing balls next week." Jane didn't even bother to fight the acid dripping off her voice.

"I merely wish to ask if there is anything I may do to assist you." Franz spared her a look. No, not just a look–a Look, capital L. A searching one. A questioning one.

"Spare me your fucking pity." Jane turned her attention sharply back to the door. "We don't know each other. I'm no one to you, and you're less than that to me."

"You are in pain–"

"Shut up." Jane scoffed. "Be a sanctimonious prick on your own time and leave me to be useless on mine, how about?"

"Hm." Franz inhaled deeply. "I apologize for causing offense, Major Kelly."

"Stop calling me that."

"If there is ever anything I can do for you, you have but to ask. I have seen many endure much, and I will not hold against you what you say in grief." As the elevator came to is stop, door sliding open, Franz adroitly stepped out of the conversation. "Good day, ma'am."

Jesus Christ. Jane bit back a few thousand more acidic comebacks. What a piece of shit. Who made him God Almighty, here to save the fallen souls? Irritably, she hit the button for the crew quarters a few more times. Stupid useless broken machine.

Well, those were some adjectives she and the elevator had in common.

God damn the Assassin. But that wasn't the end of it, and a long, long list of names flew by in Jane's darkened heart and mind while she waited through the rest of her ride. God damn the Hunter, the Elders, that general…and may He damn me too.

The door opened. Jane's breath caught as the first person she saw was Meysam, settled on the main couch with Charlotte hovering on one side and Fatima the other, Father Giovanni rounding out the group as they played poker. Wasn't gambling a sin? No, they were wagering candy pieces. Did that count?

Jane almost went somewhere else. Facing Meysam sounded like hell, bubbling her guilt to the forefront of her mind like hot lava. But the door to her room sat just on the other side of the lounge, and if she could just make it there, she wouldn't have to worry about running any gauntlets.

She flicked her brakes loose, rolling forward as quickly as she could manage.

"She showed up, at least. Not the accuracy I was hoping for, but she's trying." Dragunova sat near the kitchen, chatting with Mox over a cigarette. "Hiroshi says she's gotten back on her Void Rift program, and while she hasn't mastered it, that's…" She waved with her smoking hand. "Jane."

"Don't let me disturb you." She rolled past the Reaper and Skirmisher as fast as she could. Did they stare in her wake? Of course they did, like everyone else. Staring at their cripple of a senior operative, pitying her.

But no one stopped her. No one got in her way, and she especially didn't have to come face-to-face with Meysam. The door to her room beckoned, opening with a soft hiss as Jane hit the access button–

"Hey, Jane." Aileen all but materialized by the door, nursing her bad arm. "I missed you this morning."

"Oh, sorry." As if Jane hadn't specifically run away to avoid her mother hen of a so-called best friend.

"Do you want to watch something?" Aileen fished for her datapad, pulling it out to show off the movie library. "We can curl up in your room in our pajamas, put on something stupid, get some snacks, the works. Like old times."

"Why?" Jane's lip curled. "So you can make sure I don't wet the bed?"

"No, not like that." Aileen blinked sharply. "Jane, I just meant–"

"Keep your pity." That was the most insulting part: people acting like life could just go on in the wake of such abrupt calamity. Everything was different now. What point pretending? "Don't waste your time on me."

"Jane, I was just trying to–"

Jane hit the access button again, slamming the door in Aileen's face.

Why won't they leave me alone? She slumped in her chair, almost forgetting to flick on her brakes and protect herself from Avenger's constant jostling. Come to gawk, come to manage, come to pity. They have lives left to live–at least for now.

What point to prolonging the inevitable? Angelis would return. Her Chosen would return. Jane had won her stay from the hand of death…but it wouldn't last.

Her friends had too little time to waste even mere moments of it on a wreck like herself. A stupid, broken, useless relic of a time now past, cut short in her prime. It wasn't fair.

Kang appeared in her mind again. Jane shivered, hugging herself tightly.

I should have died. Why do I still exist? If God held the answers, He wasn't sharing. Hot tears broke out over Jane's cheeks. They don't understand. None of them. Not Aileen, not Schneider, no one. They think they can help me, but all they can offer is pity. None of them understand.

I'm alone.

"She has been through a lot." Mox swirled his drink, trouble in his large alien eyes. "She will need time to come to terms with it."

"She's never shut me out before." Aileen sat at the table, the shock of Jane's sudden dismissal painted across her face. "I haven't heard her talk like that since…"

"She spoke that way at the bar." Janet Ross leaned against the wall, arms crossed. She spared most of her attention for Franz on the far side of the room, midway through showing Charlotte and Meysam how to shoot pool.

Sanctimonious relic of the old world. She couldn't muster too much venom, though. We lost Julie because I lost focus.

Maybe that was true, maybe it wasn't. Did it matter? There was a lot of failure to go around lately, more than enough for Janet to have a slice and a half every night like cake.

"She needs time." Mox nodded judiciously.

"She needs a kick in the ass." Dragunova took a long pull on her cigarette. "She's wallowing in it."

"Would you like to be the one to administer it?" Aileen glared at the Reaper. "I heard about Sylvie."

"She's up and about, isn't she?" Dragunova shrugged. "I make no apologies."

"Hm." Janet had mixed feelings about all that. Sylvie needed to get herself up, but the reason she was in such a state was…well…once again, Janet fought a pang of guilt.

She pushed herself off the wall, abandoning the conversation without so much as a word.

I miss you. Anne Lawrence flitted into her mind's eye, always with something heartfelt to say. She wasn't the most powerful Templar, but she was loyal, loyal to the end–if she'd known her fate was to fall on the wayside, she would have faced it unflinchingly nonetheless.

And the aliens deserved to suffer for her death. But Janet's rage had cost more than it had set right. Responsibility was a heavy curse, and all the more so for–

She slammed into a human form rounding the next corner. With curses flying, they both stumbled away to grasp for purchase on the walls.

"Sorry." Firebrand dropped her eyes. "Lost in thought."

"That's me as well." Janet hesitated. "Are you…well?"

"Yeah." Lilah's eyes grew vacant. "Well, no."

"I'm sorry." Janet reached out to pat her shoulder, with more tentativeness and wary care than if she'd been petting a berserker. "You have not had it easy."

"Well." Lilah shrugged, the fire still out of the woman she had been. "The times were good."

"Yes." Wisdom, or semantic foolishness? Time would tell.

"Tygan wants to do an ultrasound." Lilah smiled thinly. "Imagine that? Using his lab equipment for…that."

"We live in interesting times." But that did raise a load of questions. "If you, uh, need help…"

"With what?" She blinked dazedly. Janet nearly winced.

"Ah. With…that. I'm sure everyone aboard would pitch in for whatever you need." That was terrible. "I mean, I…I would…"

"I know." Lilah mustered that fake smile again. "You're kind. Thank you."

"Of course." What was there to say?

"Excuse me." Lilah ducked past, head hanging low. Janet couldn't help watching her on her path.

A path that led her to the pool table, as it happened, and the tentative picking up of a cue.

Maybe we cannot grieve forever. Janet returned to her exodus, full to brim with conflicting images: a mourning woman, enduring what had to be one of the greatest tragedies life had ever dealt her–and a soul fighting back against the dark cloud, even if only in fits and starts. Maybe all we can do is all we can do, and maybe when the dust settles that is enough.

She would miss Anne. She would always miss her, probably. Just like she'd miss so many other people. The world would keep turning.

And always, it turned to one thing above all.

I have to help get Julie back. Atonement, redemption, call it what you will. Whatever it takes.

In the depths of the purple-lit darkness, a single light went off.

"Really, now?" General Din Dourde spared a glance for her instrument panel, abandoning her next set of plans for another great trap: a retaliation strike on a Haven, carried out by dropping beacons to draw Lost into the assault. When XCOM deployed to engage the swarm, teams of Spectres and Faceless could engage, picking them off one by one. It was a promising idea, even if it needed more work.

But that would have to wait.

Rogue transmission. Happened all the time, but what set this one apart was its strength. It's coating half the planet.

The source was…hard to define. Dourde began typing, musing while she activated homing programs and cross-referenced their information.

"Southern Europe. Near Greece." Now that was interesting. Dourde pulled up an event log for the region. Some nonsense in Athens, small time things, but more importantly…

Julie Richardson. XCOM's senior psionic operative was on the lam in the Mediterranean. Now this beacon just appeared out of nowhere?

Some commanders might think it coincidence. Din Dourde was not like those commanders. The only question was what she could do about the situation.

Normally, she would alert the Hunter immediately. At the moment, however, he was in his Regenesis Chamber, recuperating after the battle in the Caribbean. He would likely remain there for some time to come. If this signal was intercepted by XCOM, it would be more than likely that their own elements would arrive on the ground to recover their lost operative.

Slowly, the potential for a different version of her grand trap appeared to Dourde. Not a Haven as bait, not Spectres and Faceless, and maybe not even Lost–but she needed more resources to pull it off, and there was no one to advocate for them at this moment.

Except…

She activated her comms program, throat dry. Her call went out on the new hotline the Hunter had ordered installed, crossing the earth and burrowing deep into its crust.

"Yes?"

"Mighty Assassin." Dourde pulled up the signal feed again. "I have a lead for you."

Author's Note 93: Shared Enemies

I haven't made any effort pretty much at all to model the different reasons having different Chosen influences. That's because frankly, I think they'd be sent wherever the action was on, not be given different fiefs. For gameplay purposes, the game consolidates them into certain regions so you can be prepared as a player, but it doesn't make a ton of sense to split them across the world in the geographically disconnected sections you can find them in.

The battle lines begin to be drawn for the Season Three Finale. There's still a few more turns to take before we launch into it, but it takes shape and coalesces before us even now. This was written on 4/26/23 and I am hoping to get the next chapter done today as well, so I can crank the rest of Season Three over the course of the next seven days. I'll probably fail, but no great task was ever accomplished by setting realistic goals, was it?

Until next time, Vigilo Confido.