Disclaimer: I don't own any of the X-COM or Mass Effect games, nor any other games, books or movies that might be mentioned or served as an inspiration of this story. It is not for sale or rent. I make no money of it.

The X-COM Files

=X=

Prologue

=X=

21 February 1997

Iceland

Freezing northern wind howled over steep rocky shores carrying fat snow flakes. Down below the dark sea smashed into freezing foam, yet the ground was warm due to local geothermal pools. The effect of the clashing elements was spectacular, especially where hills broke the incoming wind. Fog oozed all over the area, from hot and oppressing in the centre, where steam rose from bubbling pools of water, to just wet enough to make feeling the cold that much worse on the edge.

It was there, where in the middle of the night a purple glow illuminated the shore and made the steamy air look as if on fire. The air itself cracked with unseen power and the water drops in it began to shine with the same energy that lit up the area. A thump echoed through the fog, a sound of metal hitting stone.

"You exceeded my expectations for a third time, human." A raspy voice that held a tremendous amount of power echoed throughout the fog. "You were meant to give your people a chance, to buy them the time they dearly needed. It was expected that you would die in the process. You had no training after all and while you do have the gift, it wasn't anything to write home about as your kind tends to say."

Deep inside the fog, nearly at the centre of the bubbling hot spring, a purple rift in reality twisted and turned in ways the human mind couldn't comprehend. In front of it a tall, spindly figure floated. It possessed two pairs of thin, bony arms, though the rich red robes and the dark armour they covered did an excellent job of hiding how frail the being appeared to be.

At its feet, another figure laid in a heap. It was a man clad in dented and cracked black armour. Its paint was burned and peeling, leaving just a faded hint of a logo and intelligible shoulder patch.

"Three times you exceeded my expectations." The floating figure continued after examining the one of the rocky ground for a few moments. "Do you know what's the traditional reward for a job well done among my people?" It inquired in a tone that hinted it might actually like some input instead of simply monologuing.

A painted grunt answered it.

"Curiously enough, it tends to be the same, a new and harder job." An arm pointed at the fallen man and four thin, long fingers stretched towards it as offering a helpful hand. "Here and now, your people face a hint of the real enemy. My people in this reality will come visit sooner rather than later and when that happens, humanity better be ready. I found your potentially useful allies. Do prove me right or this world will suffer the consequences."

The floating figure crossed his hands in his people's farewell gesture, turned around and moved through the pulsating crack in reality. It closed with a snap right behind and thus the purple glow vanished as if it was never there. However, it took time for the energy in the air to dissipate and the fog continued to glow, if dimer and dimmer over the next few hours.

The light-show was enough to garner interest from the closest village and a soon people were out and about despite the ever increasing snowfall. They got to the hot spring just in time to find and recover a wounded stranger in a need of immediate medical attention.

=X=

5 May 1996

Project Insight HQ

Munich

Germany

Strange happenesances, legends, horror stories, conspiracies and simply the not yet explained. Since the dawn of the century, all of those had increased across the world in a frankly concerning fashion. The two world wars and the following cold one that on multiple occasions nearly became hot, were a fertile ground for all kinds of things that should have been left slumbering or simply never pursued got disturbed and the consequences, they were becoming more and more overt as the years passed.

It all began almost innocently; too low key for people to really pay it any particular attention. An increase of crime here, strange behaviour over there. Ancient forces began to awaken, others made impotent for millennia got their powers back a tiny bit by tiny bit. A gruesome murder in New Orleans, a charismatic cult leader gaining popularity Arizona, a string of kidnappings in Europe... On the face of it, there was no connection. There were many explanations of the rising instability, crime rate and cases of people getting insane, good ones at that. Plausible, even. Politicians all over the globe vowed to be harder on crime, increased financing of their law enforcement agencies and said all the correct sounding things on TV and radio.

It was all business as usual at least until early '94. It was then that a series of events across the continental United States and Europe made certain people in governmental circles stop and take notice.

Jerome Brown, knew that very well. Couple of years ago, he was an up and coming detective in New York who was just getting to grips with his time spent in the military during Desert Storm. For him, the first taste of the unusual came during that short conflict, though it was easily dismissed as a hallucination caused by spilled chemicals. The death of two of his people written off as a tragic accident caused by that exposure.

He believed that narrative; he wanted to believe it. It was certainly more plausible having a fatal run in with a desert Jinn.

What happened back home however, well it brought everything back. That case put him on the path that led here, to Germany and the establishing of Project Insight...

=X=

17 September 1995

Shinning Path Compound

Arizona

Ruby Ridge, Waco and now this. It hasn't been a good time for the FBI lately. No one really wanted yet another siege, yet here they were again. State Police had the perimeter locked down tight along with National Guard elements, multiple FIB special units, including the famous HRT were in place along with SWAT groups from the nearby city and an ever increasing army of reporters and protesters were nearby causing problems for everyone.

Horatio Davis had the unenviable position of being the agent in charge of the whole circus, which meant that when everything went to hell, it would be his head on the chopping block. He was bound by conflicting orders and agendas, trying to juggle too many balls at the same time and just to make everything better, considering the kind of people the FBI suspected the Shining Path to be, he would rather be accused of Waco's fallout and would gladly take the blame for that fiasco in exchange of not having to deal with this.

In the tent behind him people from the Governor's office, a representative of the Director, the local government and all the agencies taking part in the circus argued. The dry heat wasn't helping tempers and he was just glad that this wasn't happening in Florida – even lower temperatures there were much harder to handle thanks to the infernal humidity there. On the other hand, if this mess happened in that state, then it wouldn't have landed in his lap, or perhaps that was wishful thinking.

Horatio rubbed his receding brown hair and sighed. The people he was supposed to work with were busy having yet another shouting match and nary any of them noticed he stepped out for a moment to gather his thoughts and calm down before he lost his temper and thus made the situation even worse if at all possible. His grey eyes scanned the Path's compound in the distance. The place was well lit up – they hadn't cut off electricity or water yet to avoid escalation. At least officially. Unofficially, doing so would be of a marginal help at best. The compound was a far cry of what the FBI had to siege in the past. Neil Kole, the cult leader and top current contender for biggest pain in Davis' ass, was loaded, both from an inheritance and help from wealthy suckers, some of whom were locked tight along with him – just another issue that made the situation even more politically tenuous than such a siege would otherwise be. That meant the compound was the closest to self-sufficient you could find in this part of the US. There were damn expensive solar panels on the roofs combined with a few wind mills for power generation, not to mention a ridiculously large fuel tank for generators, something that was enough by itself to summon nightmares of a nasty fire and a second Waco in the making. The cultists were rumoured to be excellently stocked with food too and they had a large and nasty arsenal of the best small arms money could buy. It was an open question how many of them knew what to do with those weapons, however considering that the compound was built like a modern day Alamo, just a few could be enough to ruin his day.

As if all that wasn't enough, there was something in the air today. It was some kind of nervous energy that made everyone on edge and frayed their patience even worse than usual.

A commotion coming from the road leading towards the compound and the main law enforcement camp in the area got his attention. Multiple black SUVs were making their way towards him – he could count at least ten but there could be more, he wasn't in a position to see the end of the convoy, just that it was large enough

"Great, now that?" Horatio spat a couple of colourful curses before regaining control of his irritation and surprise. "Perez, Jansen, who are our new friends?" He shouted to his liaisons with the other agencies.

Davis' tone was sharp enough to cut through the still ongoing argument and the people inside the tent piled out just in time to see the convoy arrive.

"I've got nothing, sir." Monica Perez admitted. "No one should be bringing this many people or equipment. We certainly didn't request such assistance, whatever it is."

"I'm at a loss, too boss." Wendell Jensen reluctantly admitted.

"Ideas, anyone?" Horatio grumbled. At least no one had decided to sent in the military, which was a small miracle. There were loons calling for it on the news believing that the army could deal with the issue faster and with fewer casualties when the FBI inevitably fucked up by the numbers.

That estimation took a huge hit when the cars stopped and the passengers waited for a few moments so the dust raised by their arrival could settle or at least partially disperse before they got out.

The people who got out of the SUVs looked like they meant business and made Horatio's heart sink as well as stroked his building anger. They were decked in tactical kit in desert camouflage and looked like army special forces. They were certainly armoured and armed heavily enough to pass for Delta or something.

"What the hell?!" It was Jensen who voiced Horatio' thoughts.

=X=

8 January 1994

New York

In an office building just a few streets over from the famous New York Stock exchange, Detective Jerome Brown did his absolute best not to spill his breakfast and two coffees on the crime scene. He had seen a number of the horrors people could do to each other during Desert Storm. A field containing the still burning remains of a whole Iraqi regiment of the Republican Guard that got caught in the open, with their pants down, by Allied air power was the only thing that came close. There were hundreds of wrecked vehicles and the torn pieces of a few thousand people. Some poor bastards were maimed, burned and still alive when Brown's unit got there. Others, well, what was left of them was still prominent in his nightmares.

This crime scene was a comparable slaughterhouse, minus the smell of cooked flesh, which was a small silver lining he would be forever grateful for. Instead, here the walls and even the ceiling were painted red. When he thought of a slaughterhouse, by the looks of it, this was a literal one. Whoever did this atrocity, for there was no lesser word to use, was blade happy. There were sliced and cut off pieces all over the place and if the gruesome shrine in the centre of the office space was anything to go by, this was the same bastard Jerome had been after since the beginning of the week. He was already investigating two murders, single persons fortunately, nothing like this, where the sick bastard responsible had built a similar, if much smaller and less sophisticated shrine with parts of the poor bastards he slaughtered.

Brown averted his gaze from the sick mockery of an altar, which had a bunch of forensic techs busying around.

=X=

Chapter 1

=X=

Part 1

=X=

2 January 1994

New York

An irritating, insistent ringing brought him back to the world of the living. Jerome Brown groaned under his soft, warm covers, before habits trained by years in the military kicked in and he groggily got up. Once he slid out of bed, the brisk air of his bedroom was enough to awake him in a hurry. The central heating in his flat was acting up again, it seemed. Jerome sighed and headed for the bathroom for his morning rituals, something he interrupted to go put the kettle on to make himself a hot cup of coffee – just what the doctor prescribed. A scalding shower helped him feel more like a real human being and the heater in the kitchen did wonders for his muscles and joints, which did cause him some problems, especially in the winter after years of abusing them in the military.

Brown checked the time, concluding he had more than enough time for his morning shift even if the city was still partly buried by snow after last night. He switched the radio in the kitchen on, not wanting to do the same to the TV in the living room, which would require leaving the doors open and thus letting all the sweet heat go away to the rest of the flat – a big no-no at this time of the year when the central heating was down. There was some catchy rock song on he wasn't familiar with, with the news and weather forecast about to follow and he was up just long enough to catch them while he got a breakfast ready.

While cooking, Jerome rubbed his shaved head – which was in need of trimming up. Ever since that nasty accident back in the desert, he has been losing hair and soon decided to get rid of the rest of the hair instead of fighting a futile holding action. At least he looked decent with a shaved head, something that not everyone could claim. At least in his distinguished opinion anyway. With no spouse or stable relationship on the horizon, that left his opinion on the matter as the one that mattered.

He got the eggs and bacon out of the frying pan and into a plate. He knew very well that such a breakfast was far from healthy – his six pack was slowly going away, though he wasn't sure if it was the diet of junk food he enjoyed half the time nowadays or the comparative lack of exercise in contrast to what he subjected himself to back in the army. Eh, come spring he would do something about it. Being a bloody civilian did have its benefits – no runs in the cold unless he absolutely had to, like when chasing a suspect. Besides, his joints did thank him for the reduced activity lately.

Jerome finished his breakfast paying half-ear to the news anchor. He heard nothing noteworthy or new until the weather forecast.

Once he was done eating, cleaning after himself and making sure he was dry and warm, Brown got his work suite on, complete with his badge, gun, cuffs and all other little things that he often found useful to carry around. Just in time too, because when he looked out of the window, his partner just parked outside. He got his coat and headed out. It was time to see how the New Yorkers decided to kill each other at the start of the new year.

"Jerry, get in and close the door!" Greg Vargas, his partner waved him to hurry up when he got to the car. Jerome couldn't blame him either – the temperature outside was way south of freezing but at least it wasn't snowing any more.

Gregory was a small man of a mixed Mexican descent, who hated cold weather with a passion. The way he was hard to see behind the layers of clothes he had on to keep the chill out was funny, though Brown wasn't one to really mention it. The bloody cold made his knees and left elbow stiff despite the warm clothes he had on too. At least the car's AC was up and running merrily, making it pleasantly warm.

"How was the vacation, Greg?" Jerome asked.

"Fiona and the kids loved it." Greg flashed him a brief grin. "I just wish it was long enough for the city to warm up."

"Don't we all."

"We've got a case." Greg's good mood was suddenly gone as he continued to speak. "They just called us in while you were coming down. It's something ugly by the sound of it."

"No rest for the wicked I guess."

Greg switched the sirens on and they were on their way.

=X=

Thanks to the traffic, which was worse than normal due to the weather, despite being just January the second, a trip that should have taken twenty minutes or so took nearly an hour. At one juncture, while stuck short of an intersection, Jerome managed even to run to a nearby open shop and get them cups of hot coffee and was in and out before Greg could move the car. After last night's heavy snowfall, despite clearing machines being out in strength, there were still many streets that were yet to be opened, bottling up a lot of the city. The time at least gave the partners a bit of time to catch up after Greg's long overdue vacation. Soon enough, they did get to their destination, one of the many resident buildings in the area, marked by a small car-park of police vehicles parked in front.

Even for a bad murder, which by all accounts this was, that was excessive. This was the real world, not a police drama on the TV.

Paramedics, the coroner and forensics were in place in strength, which when all was said and done was a good thing. The pale and drawn faces of what might have been the first responders, not so much. Brown knew them – Ronny and Frank. Good, experienced cops both, with over twenty years in the service between them. They've seen some nasty shit in their time and the way they looked didn't hearten him.

"Boys." Jerome nodded at his colleagues. "What are we looking at."

Ronny looked green at recalling whatever waited inside.

"It's bad, Jerry." The Irish cop grimaced. "I've never seen something like this before and it won't be too long I see such a thing before I retire again. It's a pure butchery. Someone sick did this."

"It's like walking into a slaughterhouse in there." Frank added. "A neighbour smelled it first and when he got out in the corridor he saw a bit of blood leaking under the front door, which was when he called us."

"Lucky us." Greg muttered. "Shall we?"

They walked inside and soon found themselves on the fifth floor. A group of cops held back the neighbours, whose reaction was typical – from the expected shock to curiosity and fear along with the inevitable trouble maker or two who wanted to see what was what or just cause troubles for troubles sake.

When they approached their destination, the first thing Jerome noticed was the familiar coppery smell of blood and lot of it. The source was obvious as soon as they reached the door. It was in the corridor leading deeper into the flat, which explained how the blood got outside in the first place. There was a rug on the floor, which had absorbed some of it, slowing the spread a bit and buying the murderer a bit of time to get away. Jerome was thinking that, while his eyes refused to look at said source. He had to force his gaze upon it, at which point he blanched too. There was a twisted... thing made of bloody flesh. It looked like a demented Christmas tree decorated with the internal organs of at least one person; it was wrong and not just because someone got butchered in order to make this. It's very shape, once Jerome got a good look at it, well, it was utterly wrong. Something in the back of his head wanted him to shy from it, bringing atavistic sense of horror into his heart.

"Sweet Mother of God!" Greg mumbled beside him, thus bringing Davis out of his daze. He shook his head, looked away from the sick monument and finally took in the rest of the flat. There were forensic specialists scouring the place and Jerome didn't envy them having to carefully pass around the trophy to get in there.

"We need to find this bastard, Jerry!" Greg hissed and crossed himself.

"We will, buddy. Preferably before he can do this to someone else. Let's get to work."

=X=

That afternoon, the two of them were stuck in the LT's office and they had precious little to show for their efforts. The weather last night, not to mention that this was the time just after New Year, ensured that a lot of people were home, recovering from their celebrations or simply keeping warm. No one saw on heard a thing – which was plausible, especially if the victim had been murdered first and drawn and quartered second – something that the coroner would enlighten them about once they were done gathering up and mopping all the pieces anyway.

"So you have, nothing." Lieutenant Barnes sighed. "The Commissioner has the Mayor on his neck ever since he heard what a mess we've got on our hands. That means that I've had the Commissioner and the Captain both breathing at my neck for results. If we don't get something soon, the Mayor might do his best to involve the Feds, too. It's going to be a complete circus soon. Please tell, me I understood you wrong."

The Detectives looked at each other. Until forensics and the coroner were done, there wasn't much more they could do. Due to the nature of the murder and the identity of the victim – a perfectly ordinary fellow who had no connection with the criminal world or any enemies anyone knew of, they were fast to exhaust their available options. There were a lot of uniformed cops scouring the place looking for witnesses, Silvester Parks had no family left and his colleagues had and neighbours both had only good things to say about him. What angles they had to look at with what they knew and currently had not been promising. Unless forensics found something it wasn't looking too good. On the other hand, it was likely that kind of sick man who did the deed made a mistake or two, it was just a matter of finding it. They had people looking at all mentally disturbed people living in the area and they would be looking into them too.

Unfortunately, besides the gruesome nature of the murder, there was nothing to go by at this point. Nothing, besides the obvious was out-of-place in the flat, no obvious clues so far. They fortunately hadn't heard about other such cases happening, though that was something they would be looking at too, not that they were back at the station.

"Nothing then." The Lieutenant grumbled when he didn't get a satisfactory answer. "Go find something then! Anything you need, within reason, you've got it. Find whoever did this before he could do it again!"

They went.

=X=

That evening, they were at the coroner's office with nothing to show for a day of hard work. Lately there had been an upswing in violent and bizarre crimes all across the country, whoever if there was a case similar to theirs, no one had reported it anywhere they could easily access it in the time available. Checking with Parks' work and colleagues so far gave them nothing. No obvious suspects, nor motive. Questioning the neighbourhood was a flop as well – a lot of false signals that led nowhere, even if one of them might hold a hint of truth. There were a few people noticed on the streets in the area last night, all wrapped from head to toe in winter clothes making identifying them from description all but impossible. The crime scenes got swept for everything of use – like prints, hairs, etc... The later appeared to come exclusively from the victim, while without a suspect, the prints were of no much use, though once processed they would be checked against what law enforcement database existed, but that would take time.

The visit to the coroner wasn't of much help. An extremely sharp blades were used and a small mercy, Parks was already dead by the time he was taken apart. The perpetrator must have had experience with either butchery as a doctor or both. Possibly a butcher, surgeon or even a coroner – that at least was more than they had previously.

Unfortunately, by the time, The Butcher, as the media soon dubbed him, struck again, they were no closer to figuring out who he was or why he did it, besides being crazy.