A/N: so this one took way longer than i thought for a couple reasons. one is that i found this bit to be slightly more difficult to write than i initially thought. two, i'm trying to get my ass back into college and fuck me i gotta relearn 4 years of high school in a few months. i got no private teachers/tutors coz there's no demand for them at the moment (a recent change in my country's education system means nobody's graduating for a few years). i got none of my old textbooks and notebooks since i got rid of them YEARS ago. basically, i've been bashing my head against my desk for days on end. and now, my laptop decided it hates me and just uninstalled a LOT of my drivers because i had the audacity to update my OS from the shitty windows 8 to the equally shitty windows 8.1 and for some reason, it won't allow me to reinstall any of those drivers (errors keep coming up every time i try). so yea, i haven't been doing so hot
thankfully my anti-depressants and monthly therapy actually seems to be working as i haven't been under this much stress without snapping in... fuck i don't know how long. feels good in a bad sort of way.
Elizabeth, David, and Cho all boarded the VTOL while Artyom remained on the ground. "Intelligence agents rarely show up in our bases," David explained, "they're more useful on the field where they can actively gather intel on a moment's notice."
Once they were safely strapped in, Elizabeth took the file supposedly holding XCOM's biggest secret. To say that she was confused when she opened it would be an understatement.
"Psionics," she said, not bothering to mask her disbelief. To her, this was absurd; unnecessarily so… which probably meant that they weren't messing around. She closed her eyes and massaged her forehead in an attempt to reconcile what she knew and what she was now presented with.
"I understand if you're having a hard time accepting this," David said, "but it's definitely real." The line sounded practiced to Elizabeth, probably was. Didn't make believing it any easier, though. "Perhaps a demonstration would help?" he asked.
A few deep breaths later and she nodded. If it was real, then she'd have to know about it in order to exploit it. If it was bullshit, then she can move on and forget about it. Or they could end up hijacking her mind and use her as a puppet, in which case there was probably not much she could do to stop it.
That's when she was hit with a rather bad headache, though not bad enough that she couldn't ignore it. Under normal circumstances she would have, but nothing about this situation was normal, so she paid extra attention to it. It felt different from the usual migraines she got from over-working or from lack of sleep. It felt… off somehow, forced. She looked at David, whose face was contorted in what would have been humorous if it wasn't for the implications it provided.
When he finally relaxed and loosed a breath he was apparently holding, her headache immediately disappeared. That was damning evidence in her book. "That was you, wasn't it?" she asked.
David flashed a tired smile. "Yes."
"Impressive," she said. And she meant it; it wasn't every day that you find someone who could literally give you a headache. "But if that's all your psionics can do then there really isn't much to work with."
"I'm only psionic in name only, really," he replied, "that's about the extent of what I can do. The majority of the psions we have on hand can do only this much, unfortunately."
"And the ones who can do more?"
"They can do a whole lot more," he said. "The specifics are in the file but they can induce a myriad of emotions, shift perceptions, and cause incapacitating phantom pains. The more adept individuals can even temporarily seize control of someone's mind. Not to mention the Progenies."
Elizabeth was about to ask about what a 'progeny' was but David beat her to it. "A Progeny is a psion with vastly increased capabilities. To date, only one has been found and according to the records, she was able to mind-control no less than 50 people from across the globe. Unfortunately, she died in the assault on the Temple Ship."
All this was, quite literally, very unbelievable. Still, lying at this point served no conceivable purpose, therefore unlikely. And David DID allegedly give her a headache. It was quite terrifying, however, to consider that these people had access to quick and easy brainwashing.
Though the file she had made it rather clear that 'easy' was debatable. Out of the hundreds of combat personnel XCOM had, only 1 in every 5 were psionic. Of that number, only a paltry 12, designated as QUEENS, had abilities that could make a tangible effect on the field. And with the combined lack of concrete knowledge and experience, they didn't even have experts to teach the troops how to use their abilities. This led to each individual QUEEN to lean towards one aspect or another. QUEEN-6, for example, specialized in spreading fear but was found deficient in 'fraying.' Elizabeth sighed. She'd have to deploy them individually attached to proper squads as force multipliers while ensuring that battlefield conditions matched their abilities. It added more complexity, which meant more points of failure. Not to mention that replacing these units would be incredibly difficult and unreliable. Speaking of which…
"How do you identify a psionic?" she asked.
"We screen everyone that joins, which takes about an hour. However if you test positive, you have to undergo a procedure to… activate your abilities which can take a few days," he answered.
Seemed reasonable, but if she were in charge (which she was, she reminded herself), she'd find a way to test every last living human for psionics as they would immediately be pegged as VIPs. That goes double for Progenies. She'll get to it after this invasion was done, though. But then if the aliens' objective was the psionics, then that would make finding them her priority. She shook her head. Right now her priority was figuring out was the aliens' objective WAS, how they fight, and how to fight them. She'll work on the rest later when things were less unclear or more desperate.
There was still one issue that demanded her attention ever since David's demonstration, though. "David," she called, "if I can't even be sure if my thoughts are my own, how can I trust you?"
It was a pointless question, she knew. There was no turning back now and a commander was much easier to replace as compared to the other assets they had. She needed peace of mind, though.
David's answer did nothing to assuage her doubts. He let out an amused huff and replied, "If you're asking about trust, you won't like what's coming next."
Elizabeth braced herself. Clearly this was going to be unpleasant.
"Do you recall those biological modifications I refrained from discussing?" he said. She nodded. "Well once we confirmed the existence of psionics, the commander at the time looked for a way to resist any mental assaults. It was possible to shrug off psionic attacks through force of will, but this was insufficient for rather obvious reasons. A more reliable and permanent defence was needed."
She really didn't like where this was going.
"Fortunately, our science team came up with a solution in modifying our brain in such a way that would make psionic attacks a lot more difficult, knocking you unconscious if an attack was particularly strong. It also could potentially 'reflect' those attacks, causing pain-"
She held up her hand to stop him from talking, which he politely did. "You want to modify my brain? You're not garnering a lot of good will here, David."
"Well, it would make controlling your mind that much more difficult…"
"In other words," she said slowly, "your way of assuring me that I can trust you requires that I trust you even more."
"I- well I actually thought of it that way."
"Can I even opt out of it?"
David was looking a little flustered. "Well- no, you can't. If you do, you would be considered compromised and executed."
So much for being a volunteer. It made sense to her, though, and she hated that. Like she thought, there really was no point in asking that question aside from some assurances that didn't assure her at all.
"Can I take your silence as a vote of confidence, ma'am?" David asked.
She huffed and handed him back the file. "Let's just get to where we're going."
The rest of the flight was spent in relative silence.
A/N: the next chapter will hopefully be longer, though the last 3 'chapters' was supposed to be one long one anyway. also, we're gonna meet the science and engineering heads next. i've been dying to try and write those guys ever since i started writing this. i'm a bit worried that elizabeth is gonna come out as a flat character as the story goes on, but i'll deal with that when i start to get complaints/criticisms stating that. and as always, review my shit.