+++Against All Tyrants, Transitioning+++
It was always hard to estimate how much time passed in the real world when sleeping, but as the last visions of an Elder's purple glow faded into the background noise of a dream, the former Commander of XCOM experienced something he hadn't been through in far too long. He was unconscious, yet wasn't being assaulted with the sight of a tactical display that didn't quite seem real, one that reminded him of an Air Force VR training program capable of almost perfectly mimicking reality. Almost, if it wasn't for the slight headache it seemed to give him coupled with a few flashes in the corner of his vision that seemed too out of place to be real. The nightmare had ended, and he could rest at last.
The Commander briefly enjoyed almost half a day of uninterrupted dreamless sleep before he lifted his eyelids, slowly. Painfully, too. It was like every muscle in his body was experiencing a very mild case of pins and needles.
"Easy," said a grizzled voice that he'd heard once before. "Tygan's procedure took a lot out of you, almost as much damage as all that time in a stasis suit. Still, he knew what he was doing and it takes a lot more than that to kill you anyways."
He grunted and forced his eyes open. Lying half-upright in a bed, facing a room full of fluorescent lights, couches, and a glowing blue computer monitor. A machine was beeping regularly, but it didn't sound like it was recording his heartbeat. Someone was holding onto the bed's railing, leaning towards him slightly. The Commander tried to move his head to see who it was, and his entire spinal cord erupted in protest.
"Don't try to move too quickly," the man said, hand falling from the bed as he stood up. "That chip we took out of you was jacked into your brainstem for years so there'll be lasting… discomfort."
Discomfort didn't seem fit for describing what it felt like for nerve endings to be in full revolt, but the Commander managed to ignore it. There was another part of that sentence that was far more alarming, and as he looked through bleary eyes at someone he recognized past all the age and damage that could only have been done by years of fatigue, the Commander vaguely felt his lips moving.
"How. Long?" he managed to croak out.
"Twenty years," Central Officer Bradford replied, voice as gravelly as the last sentence. He picked up a glass of water, which was downed not a moment after it was within arm's reach of the Commander. "We lost a lot of brave men and women searching for you."
The Commander's hands returned to being limp, glass resting on his chest as he listened. Twenty years.
"I don't know what you remember, there are detailed reports on your terminal for when you get up," Bradford motioned towards the monitor. "But a lot's changed. The old governments surrendered and became the ADVENT Coalition after XCOM's collapse. Resistance still exists across the world, but they're scattered and need our help to communicate and coordinate attacks, something we aren't always there to give."
The Commander took notice of Bradford when he said that. More than just how much the man had seemed to age in twenty years, he looked tired. His second-in-command was so worn down it was hard to believe he was the same 'Central' as before, with a lot more creases in his face and a posture that just seemed... broken.
"It's been tough without you," Bradford continued, and this time his expression changed. The weariness was replaced with something that didn't look hopeful as much as it was apologetic.
"I did the best I could, acted on the intel you were there as soon as we got it." He hesitated, then moved towards the door. "When you're ready, go see Doctor Tygan and Chief Engineer Shen, they'll want to speak with you before our next operation."
The Commander tried to tell him to stop, a monumental task when the water had done nothing and his mouth felt like it was filled with ash. Bradford stopped at the threshold, then turned back before he closed the door and left the Commander with his thoughts.
"It's damn good to have you back, Commander."
The door slid shut, and Bradford moved briskly down the stairs. Local operational assets wouldn't be in place for at least another three hours, which meant plenty of time to deal with the less-pressing but still very important concerns one had to have to keep the Avenger in working order. There were after-action reports to go over, other rebel cells that were still loyal to humanity were vying for XCOM's attention, and an unconscious soldier was lying in the medbay. One that wasn't part of their woefully inadequate roster.
A bulkhead opened in front of him as the Avenger's acting commander dropped his face into his customary scowl. He had seen something, in that bloody glass visor. It had been delirious and not entirely aware of what was happening, but Bradford knew he had seen and heard a flash of sincerity when they spoke.
Of course, if this was twenty years ago and the same thing had happened, he would have laughed and scoffed at himself for turning his back on a complete unknown that he just met in a combat zone. More than that, he would have been horrified for even thinking to recruit someone like that into XCOM's ranks, even if they were proficient enough to kill an entire squad of the aliens plus MEC support.
Unfortunately, the luxury of choice was just one thing the Elders had stolen from humanity. Never mind the fact that half the beds in the barracks were filled by people he would never have thought to employ in any army, much less the elite operatives that would decide the fate of humanity. Convicts, Exalt traitors, aging veterans, and an ex-plumber. He never really got over that last one, or how the man had killed two Officers with a bathroom sink.
The fact remained; XCOM had survived under his command, just barely. It was full of people with potential but it was emaciated and on its last legs. Desperate.
That was why he hadn't pulled his guest's helmet off in the Skyranger and shot them when they were out.
The door to the medby portion of the lab opened, and Bradford ducked under a pylon to see Dr. Richard Tygan, or the scarred back of his head at least. Their top researcher was clearly deep in thought as he considered a medical readout. Probably about their new acquaintance, who was lying on the table. Bradford almost did a double-take at the sight.
The woman was lying on the examination table, still unconscious. She had short sun-bleached hair pulled tightly against her head, Caucasian skin with a tan that probably came from one of the more tropical sectors, and two major details that managed to draw some amount of shock from the battle-hardened officer.
For one thing, somewhere around a fifth of her body was made of scar tissue from what seemed like every kind of wound there could be. Bite marks, from creatures he couldn't recognize. More than just a few series of criss-crossed bullet scars. The knit-together formations of burnt skin tissue and the telltale signs of grafting, from exposure to acid or fire, Bradford couldn't tell. That wasn't even counting how many smaller disfigurements there were, or how they varied. None were very far apart no matter where he looked, and they all looked old.
Secondly, if it hadn't been for the blue medical towel covering her chest, he wasn't sure he would have been able to guess if it was a man or woman. There was an undeniable strength and endurance to her, that much was obvious based off the fact she was breathing in spite of her scars. But where the Commander looked gaunt and exhausted, she looked somewhere between severely anorexic and 'executed then left in a ditch for three days'. Her frame didn't look like it could support her, much less carry triple the weight of a full combat load and keep fighting.
It was like looking at a corpse.
"Quite, Central," Tygan said over his shoulder. Had that been out loud? The scientist continued, "I have made several interesting finds just based off preliminary scans of the patient, this, 'Courier', was it?"
Bradford nodded, then gave an affirmative when he realized Tygan hadn't turned around. "So she said. What did you find?"
Tygan stepped away from the monitor, taking a tube with a circular pad on the end. It almost resembled a stethoscope, if it wasn't for the blue light that it emitted, covering the Courier's body.
"To begin with, I had thought you delivered me a patient that had already expired. I found no heartbeat, and only continued with the procedure when I realized the subject was still breathing. To complicate matters further, any attempts I make at acquiring more detailed medical scans only yield corrupted images and data that remains impossible to make sense of." The doctor sounded mildly frustrated, and Bradford cast a glance down to find that the Courier's chest was rising and falling regularly.
"No heartbeat?" he repeated, glancing at the readouts. The EKG displayed a horizontal line. He wasn't a biologist or a medic by any means, but it was rather basic medical information and common sense that humans without heartbeats didn't live very long. "Could it be ADVENT cybernetics?"
"As it stands that remains difficult to determine, due to the interference sensitive machinery exhibits whenever I target anything near the patient's heart," Tygan acknowledged. "However, while I can verify the presence of cybernetic implantation, I do not believe it to be manufactured by the aliens."
He tapped a display, enlarging an X-ray of- was that her spine? There was a static storm in the middle of the picture, but the top and bottom of the spinal cord was undisturbed, and ringing each segment of vertebrae was a metal covering. Smooth yet large, it sheathed the entire backbone in an armored shell that extended all the way to the skull.
The scientist tapped the display again, and a second picture came up of the Courier's head. The image was of noticeably poorer quality, but it clearly displayed alterations made to the skull, as if someone tried to add the same armor on her spine to her head. Plus several electronic components plugged directly into her brain.
Tygan motioned at the pictures before he spoke. "As you can see, someone performed heavy augmentation on the Courier's skeleton, brain and I suspect other organs. The changes possibly go as far as to remove her heart. I cannot discern what was used in its absence due to the interference..."
Bradford was only somewhat listening, staring at the diode-like objects that plugged into her brain.
"…Possible genetic tampering, if her rate of recovery is anything to go by. Not including the device that is surgically attached to the forearm. Central?"
There were flashes of the old XCOM base, when it was still a real war, when half the base staff had turned against them in an instant.
"Doctor, how certain are you that those implants aren't ADVENT and they can't be used to facilitate mind control?"
Tygan was unsurprised by the question. "I cannot say, but these implants bear no resemblance to any we have seen before, nor do they transmit or receive signals."
He relaxed. Slightly.
"I do not believe this is an ADVENT infiltrator, but I do not know where the patient could have originated from either."
It was a good question. He hadn't paid all that much attention to the reports before he came to the medbay, the Commander's surgery was a far more pressing matter. Still, there had been a nagging thought going through his brain while the Commander had emergency implant-removal surgery. What rebel cells were there that could manufacture armor like that? More to the point, how old was her equipment? The last time he'd seen an actual revolver humanity was the dominant species on Earth.
One of the terminals beeped, and the Courier groaned. The second part went unnoticed to Tygan, who was going over the readings rapidly.
"…This should not be possible," he murmured. "There were even more sedatives in her bloodstream than the Commander's."
"Where am I?" an unfamiliar flat voice asked, sounding far too emotionless to belong to the near-dead body on the table.
Bradford looked down, at the pair of gray eyes that drilled into his. It had been hard to tell earlier, gas mask and all, but there was no denying how the Courier didn't seem entirely lucid when they were at the clinic.
That was no longer the case. She was staring at him without a trace of confusion to muddle her senses.
"XCOM headquarters," he answered automatically. There wasn't so much as a flicker of recognition in her expression, which he thought was strange. The Speaker loved to make reports about their demise every other weekday, and even the rebel cells that didn't work with them directly knew the name of humanity's last defensive organization.
"Never heard of it," she affirmed, glancing at Tygan, inspecting his appearance before turning back to him. "Where's that in relation to America?"
Well, that was a surprisingly normal question. She was probably from the southern states' sector. It still didn't explain how she didn't know who they were, though. Or how she moved all the way to the African continent.
"That's classified." Time to test a hypothesis. "What do you know about an organization called the ADVENT Coalition?"
Tygan cast him a doubtful look that turned into surprise when she answered. "I don't know of it. Now, what'd you do with my equipment?"
Bradford struggled to reply. On the one hand, it wasn't a smart idea to let subordinates walk around with heavy weapons unless it was for supervised practice on the firing range. It was a lot stupider to let potentially-threatening unknowns walk into the armory and take the kind of ordnance she had been carrying, even if it did belong to her.
But there was something charismatic about her speech that made the answer slip out despite decades of experience.
"It's in the armory," he replied tersely.
"Thanks. So, since I was supposed to know the answer to your questions earlier, I take it words like 'Legion' and 'New California Republic' don't hold much significance here, do they?"
Bradford arched an eyebrow. "There's no legion of anyone but ADVENT around here, and usually people just refer to the California area as the Pacific US Sector."
Her lips twitched into a frown for a moment, but he noticed. "What's ADVENT supposed to be?"
"The new world government established by the aliens after their successful invasion," Tygan supplied helpfully.
I don't know what I expected, apart from waking up to find myself back in the Mojave and that the whole thing was just a result of excessive unplanned drug use.
That didn't happen. The guy in the lab coat just looked at me like I was a halfwit, and Sweater Man- no, that wasn't a sweater. It was a little too light to be called that, and too heavy to be a long-sleeve shirt. It was some weird amalgamation that left me unsettled. He looked impatient and slightly unhappy that I'd gotten more information out of him than he got out of me, even though they didn't reveal any world-shattering revelations.
Not for someone who was a local, at least.
"How is it you've never dealt with them before? Are you from one of the independent settlements in the US?"
"Something like that," I answered cagily. It wasn't a lie, but it was a bullshit response and I didn't even try to hide it. "I don't think we properly introduced each other, me being rather… out of it, last time. I'm the Courier. Courier Six, whatever you prefer."
"Central Officer Bradford, and this is Doctor Tygan," he introduced, not caring about my name. Glad I got theirs, it was getting kind of tiring for me to keep referring to them as 'Sweater Man' and 'Black fellow in a lab coat' in my head.
"Nice to meet you guys. So, alien invasion, huh? I didn't hear about that one on the radio stations."
I think we were all painfully aware I wasn't from this neighborhood, because Central's reply was curt. "You aren't from a rebel cell, or an independent colony."
"That's right."
"What were you doing in an ADVENT city center?"
The unfamiliar name that I didn't even recognize had been bringing up unpleasant memories I wasn't aware I had until now. Man-sized green tubes of metal and glass. Being strapped to a table as the scenery shifted around me, from one featureless and impeccably clean room to another. I couldn't tell if I was seeing the same dream over and over or if all their facilities were the same. Question is, what to tell the good Mr. Central? Well, the honest approach was working so far, and he seemed amicable enough.
"Escaping after something disguised as a human tried to implant something into my brain," and right away I noticed the alarm in him and the doctor.
"An implant? Were they successful?"
I gave him a look. "No."
Bradford was frowning and it was hard to tell who he was angry at and what for, but my money's on me because I just complicated things. Dr. Tygan was the next one to talk.
"You said, 'something disguised as a human'? Was it a lanky creature wearing a business suit?"
At least that was one part of yesterday that was easy to remember, for better or worse. "Yes, to both of those."
Tygan looked away, one hand on his chin and the other tapping at a terminal, muttering about how concerning it was, for them to be exploring these options on other subjects. I noticed the 'other', by the way. Bradford was somewhat more impassive. He looked like he was going to respond before bringing his hand up to an earpiece. I heard a few seconds of mumbling, then, "Copy that. Yes, you. Tygan's lab, medbay… possibly."
I clenched my fists experimentally. I could certainly feel the damage that had been done to me over who knows how long I spent with the Man-Spider, but that wouldn't be too much of a problem if they decided I was expendable. There was a scalpel on the table near mine, and as a lot of corpses can attest to, I don't even need that to be a threat. Some skills never leave you no matter the brain damage or the muscle atrophy coupled with severe malnourishment.
On that note, my stomach growled. Central looked at me, mulling the words over in his head before he spoke. "I sent someone here to escort you to the armory, as well as the mess hall. You'll want to ask them about the things you missed, something's come up on the bridge. Doctor, Courier."
He walked out the door. Dr. Tygan was already holding out a medical gown, and I hid my expression as I put it on. Third time's the charm, right? I just hoped whoever he sent got here fast.
Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long. Someone else came in while the doctor returned to reading a display in a language I couldn't read. Someone who looked like…
"Kelly, right?" I asked.
To her credit, she just nodded somewhat stiffly, as if I wasn't the unwelcome stray picked up the night before. "Right. Central Officer Bradford has instructed me to answer any questions you might have that don't have classified answers, as well as lead you to the armory and the mess hall. Not in that order."
Again, my stomach growled and I grinned good-naturedly. "Please, lead on."
She did, and I trailed after her, an excited feeling tingling along my spine. The same feeling I got amongst the trepidation at exiting Doc Mitchell's house and stepping into the Mojave for the first time. This was going to be a lot more interesting than life in Vegas, that was for sure.
"Not exactly ideal, is it?"
The Commander must have sensed Bradford's discomfort at that, because his next sentence was more mollifying and grateful.
"Still, impressive. Remaining hidden from a global regime for two decades, and getting me out of that hellhole. That must not have been easy."
It felt like he was being pitied and thanked, and while it wasn't wholly unwelcome, the Central Officer couldn't say it was a good feeling. When someone like the Commander was trying to be sympathetic.
He couldn't blame the man. It had taken a dozen senior operatives to get the intel to free him, some of them had been serving since the fall of humanity. Operation Lost Light's casualties had been total, and all the assets used to get the information from an ADVENT compound in Australia were compromised by now, if they hadn't been destroyed already. It was why they were in their worst situation yet, almost entirely isolated in what used to be northern Africa, without any means of far-reaching communications and a decimated troop count.
The Commander was going over a datapad with a list of names, scrutinizing each one thoroughly before he picked out four, seemingly at random. Bradford didn't know if it was, he was just glad the choice wasn't up to him this time. He was even more glad that these people were likely going to make it back, despite being rookies. The Commander hadn't lost for lack of tactical genius.
"It'll do," The Commander said again at last, tapping a button that gave Firebrand permission to take off as soon as she had the operatives aboard. "We're going to need some more soldiers, though. I don't think a dozen men and women will be enough."
"Some of our more experienced staff have set up a training ground in the settlement outside," Bradford replied. "Potential recruits go through it every day. It's not the best, but it's as thorough as we could make it given the circumstances, and another round of candidates are going to be finished by tomorrow."
"Mhm." The Commander was reading what limited intel they had for operation that would be underway in a matter of minutes. His earlier estimate of at least three hours before engagement had been shattered upon receiving frantic reports of 'We've been compromised!' and 'It's now or never, Central!'
Time was always in short supply on the Avenger.
"We uh, recently received someone who seems highly competent, playing a big part in your successful extraction."
"Really?" the Commander was finished with the datapad and was giving Bradford his full attention. "Are they on the list I just went over?"
"No," he answered quickly. "She's good, but I put someone to ask her about joining us only a few minutes ago. After going through a mental wellness evaluation and passing a training course to make sure her performance wasn't a fluke."
"Oh, good." The Commander's shoulders relaxed. "For a moment there I was worried I had sent someone we just met and didn't know if she was capable of following orders. Seems silly, to worry about that now."
"Right, Commander."
They watched as the operatives piled into the Skyranger, having already been geared up before being called. The floor rose as the roof of the Avenger split apart, and Firebrand took off for the Commander's first operation since the rise of ADVENT.
+++XCOM Memorial Wall+++
Rookie Ana Ramirez (Trooper, magnetic rifle)
Rookie Peter Osei (Officer, magnetic rifle)
There is a handwritten note taped between the two picture frames. The script is too illegible to make anything out.