Chapter Text
As the daily Command team meeting draws to a close, Central reaches beneath the table. He holds up a dark green sweater. Pinned to the V-neck is a yellow star with ‘YOU TRIED’ scribbled on top in Sharpie. That is, if you could call it a star. Lily’s an engineer, not an artist.
“I recognize a lot’s been going on, and people have feelings about that. But this is legitimately insulting.” Central points to the felt add-on. “A star has five points, people, not three and a half. This is a triangle with a tumor.”
“It’s not a toomah,” Lily quips.
Central shakes a finger at her. “I deserve better than this. A five-point star, at least. Do we need Sesame Street in the apocalypse?” He stabs his finger down on each point. “One point, two point, three point–“
“And three shall be the number,” Dr. Tygan intones over his cup of chicory coffee, rubbing his glasses to clear them of steam, “five is right out.”
The Commander sighs and massages her forehead. “That would explain why so many of our soldiers run through fire. Common sense isn’t.”
“They just place a lot of faith in you, Commander,” Central says.
“That’s even worse,” Lily snarks. “Blind faith? Why not look where you’re going?"
Behind her, ROV-R smacks into the wall.
Once again, there are weird noises coming from the War Room next to Engineering. One of these days, Lily is going to tape a “Keep your drama to the Lounge” sign to the door. It’s rather distracting when she has to create a program to calculate theoretical physics problems that could potentially land a soldier in another dimension if anything goes wrong.
Lily looks out into the hallway. Two soldiers limp past Engineering, accompanied by the Commander. They carry an injured Reaper between the three of them.
“Chryssalid,” the Commander says grimly, keeping the Reaper’s head steady against the board, “do you mind informing Central and Volk?”
“He’s here? Of course he is,” Lily says. She checks her schedule: Central should be readying for sleep. Knowing him, he’s the source of trouble in the War Room.
Lily bangs on the door. It slides open, revealing a groaning pile of men – in particular, one faction leader Volk sprawled over a certain Central Officer Bradford.
“Huh.” Lily blinks. “Am I interrupting something?”
“I swear to God, John,” Volk mutters into the floor, “an octopus would be a better partner. Left foot, not right, forward.”
“You said right!”
“This is why you fly like a headless chicken, John.” Volk groans. “Mystery solved, Shen. You’re welcome.”
“If you break something, I’m telling Tygan what you did.” Lily heads to the corner of the room to get the first aid kit. “Seriously, are you guys hurt?”
“Only my pride and my back.” Central pushes Volk off him. “Damn it, Volk, you gotta give me a warning before trying that shit.” He pulls the other man up. “It’s hard enough for me to dance without you flinging shit about.”
“Uh… Not going to ask.” Lily shakes her head. “Actually, quick question. Why do all the Reapers know how to dance?”
“The Internet’s gone.” Volk rolls his shoulders. “Had to pass the winter somehow. Either you fucked, drank or danced, and John was usually only up for one of them.”
“I was busy running the Resistance,” Central snipes back, “not my personal harem. And making sure you didn’t become a fucking plague maiden!”
“Maiden? I don’t think so. I have charisma, John,” Volk says, slapping his chest, “because I know my left foot from my right.”
“Womanizer.”
“Prude.”
“Manwhore.”
“Toasted piece of white bread.”
Lily coughs. The two men look at her. “Your Reaper’s back. He got hit by a Chryssalid, so we’re fixing him up in the AWC.”
Volk’s demeanor quickly changes. “I’ll go check on Okafor, but if you're looking after him, I know he’ll recover. Keep at your lessons, John. Maybe one day, you’ll impress your Commander with your sweet moves. Just not tomorrow.”
“You are such an ass,” Central grumbles. “See what I have to deal with, Shen?”
“Just as long as you’re not doing this to… um, you know, mourning and all that,” Lily says, her face heating up as she recalls the other conversation that happened in this room.
Central’s face softens. He unclips the flask from his belt. “Took your words to heart, Shen. You don’t have to worry about the Commander.”
“I’m not, Central,” Lily says as he takes a swig, “I’m more worried about you.”
Central isn’t at the bar, which is encouraging. She doesn’t blame him: August in the Mojave Desert is blazing hot, and its nights are uncomfortably warm. However, it makes it far more difficult for Lily to find the man when she needs to request materials and new recruits to her staff. She has sent him a message, but Central gets enough of those from the Resistance. XCOM is slowly uniting the fragments of the Resistance, as distasteful as they may be. They’ve stopped by the ruins of Las Vegas, which has turned into a den of iniquity, if Lily is kind, and a hellhole promoting violations against human dignity if she is not.
Lily has never liked the larger settlements that have sprung up since the world fell. Dad was equally wary, and while they traveled together, they kept clear of the havens that promised safety. Las Vegas has neon lights, flushing toilets and something resembling a school system for the eight hundred families who call it home. It survives because the underground flood tunnels and former nuclear bunkers allow occupants to flee ADVENT raids. Las Vegas is also home to back alley deals, if you know where to look: a kilo of ADVENT rations for an ounce of tobacco, three lives for an AK-47 still in working condition, an indentured slave in exchange for a deal reneged. Las Vegas will tear any unsuspecting soul apart and sell their component parts to the vultures that lurk among the cobbled-together storefronts. It is a Fallout dream without the radioactive nuclear waste.
If Lily had her way, XCOM would never even fly over the damned city. Boulder City, 8 hours by foot away, is infested with Lost, and an even better reason to stay far away. Unfortunately, Central is of the mind that Las Vegas is an important trading post for the Western USA, and has forged an uneasy alliance with the scum who take human form to peddle their wares of flesh and steel.
“I can never let you out of my sight again,” Central grumbles.
Lily follows the sound to the open door of the Armory’s first aid room. Central is sewing up a deep laceration on the Commander’s arm. The Commander’s uniform is tattered, and her jaw is purpling with a growing bruise. Shallow cuts encrusted with orange earth litter her torso, revealing older scars that gleam against the Commander’s pale skin.
“For future reference, protocol for a soldier being drugged is not to confront the guilty party alone, confiscate their drugs alone, and get into a bar fight alone,” Central says, punctuating each alone by tugging the thread through the Commander’s arm.
Lily does a double take as she notices the river of blood leading into the first aid room. She sighs, and goes to fetch the biohazard kit. What comes from Las Vegas will probably end up infecting the entire Avenger if left unchecked.
“I had Kelly, Laghari, Linscott, Siegel, and Beaulieu with me. And in my defense, I only found the drugs after rescuing Lanz.” Lily can hear the Commander’s grimace, even as her respirator makes her breaths echo around her ears. “Ciboire. I think there’s still glass stuck in the cut.”
“Yes, and they were keeping Lanz alive!” Central picks up a pair of tweezers. “Lanz will be off the combat roster for at least a week, but he should live. Therapy, on the other hand, will be a continuous process. Once I’m done sewing you up, I’ll put out a call for therapists. If we can’t find one, I’ll be available.”
“His assailant will never do it again. I’ve also found the scientist responsible for synthesizing the ketamine.”
Central stops. The needle digs into the Commander’s arm. “Where is she? He?”
“The brig.” Scarlet droplets have begun to bead up around the needle. “Tygan is removing the ADVENT tracking chip. The man specializes in chemical synthesis. I’ve given him the choice of joining us or leaving via his preferred method."
Though every nerve in her body screams for her to run – Central will no doubt inform the Command team of the events – Lily remembers the Fog Pods mutate life. She takes out the sampling kit from the biohazard gear. Tygan might want to check if the winds have carried over anything from Boulder City.
“There was a… one thing at a time.” Central sighs. “When were you going to tell me there was a mole in the Haven? There’s eight hundred families at risk!”
“Right about the time I came to you, but you insisted on sewing me up first.” The Commander’s voice is drier than the Mojave Desert. “Priorities.”
Lily dips the gel-infused swab into the blood smeared onto the floor. She slides it into a test tube, careful not to streak the gel against the sides.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
“I rather have the devil in front of me than behind me.”
“Jesus fucking sand shitting mother of hell cu–“
“Central! Needle!”
“Commander, I don’t often question your decisions.” Ice hangs off Central’s every word as he finishes the row of stitches. “This was a shitshow of bad ideas. Where was Lanz’s battle buddy? You pissed off Las Vegas’s underworld. We have ADVENT on an entire community’s tail – he was a mole? You got into a bar fight! You could have been killed! And for what? For something I could have done, with an adequate force, without risking your life–“
“Lanz could have died, he stopped breathing!”
“This is why we have the chain of command! Some lives are worth more than others! You should have sent me in!” Central shouts. “I don’t understand why for all of your tactical prowess, you can’t see this! Commander, you asked me what would kill me first. You asked if I valued my life.” Tears wet his dry and scratchy voice. “Why don’t you value your own? Is it guilt? Is that the reason why you treat every scrap of affection like it’s radioactive? If it’s because you want to join your husband, then just tell me! Because I don’t understand!”
Central’s breaths slowly quiet. Lily gets out the mop and scrubs away at the blood encrusted on the floor, trying to fill the silence with the vigorous squeak and slosh of bleach.
“I’m sorry, Commander,” Central murmurs. “Shouldn’t have said that.”
“I’m not offended.” She takes a deep breath. “I did leave you in the dark.”
Lily risks a glance upwards. The Commander is taking off her ruined shirt, leaving her only in a Nanoscale Vest that clings to her torso. Once she has deposited the bloodied fabric in the biohazard bin, she reaches out to touch Central’s hand.
“Since I joined the Forces, I have fought tooth and nail for every scrap of respect.” The Commander’s smile is wan and faded out, as she says, “I try to be the person I wanted to defend me back in the 90s.”
Central’s contrition crumbles into concern. He wets a wash towel and clears away the black blood and orange sand from the Commander’s other wounds.
“I was… lucky. It left no evidence that could smear my career,” she says, and winces as a smear of red appears across the wash towel. Central sits down on the chair next to the cot, and wraps his hands around her left wrist. The Commander nods, and he lays her left arm across his lap. He gently dabs at the scabs. “It would be his word against mine. A second lieutenant, against a corporal.” The Commander’s face could be carved out of wood. “You’re one of the boys. We can keep it between friends. Of course. All friendships involve– excuse me. It's nothing compared to what happened to you.”
Central stops cleaning her sleeve. He rests a hand against her cheek. For a few seconds, the Commander leans into his touch.
“We're not playing the misery Olympics, Commander. I’m here,” Central says quietly.
“Women had just been allowed to serve in combat posts. I was a trailblazer. People were looking at me to determine the future of women in the Forces.” The Commander lets out a tired laugh. “The brass would decide I had it coming. They had done it to women in other MOs. They had done it to men I called my brothers. I would be lucky to leave the Forces with just a dishonorable discharge.”
“You didn’t speak up?” Central is quiet. “Not like you, Commander, to stay quiet.”
As she scrubs at the sand clotted into the textured metal floor, Lily resolves to smack Central for the tactless comment.
“And then what?” the Commander asks. “I am Chinese, female and Francophone, Central: that would brand me as a troublemaker. There is no opportunity for advancement with that stain. I told a few friends outside the Forces. They asked how a good, Catholic,” she spits out the word, “girl could have gotten herself into that position. JS believed me. He begged me to escalate.” The Commander looks down. “But I loved my career. I didn’t want to throw it away. So I held my tongue. I worked my way up the ladder. I fought for the men and women under my command, the way I would have wanted someone to fight for me.”
Central brushes the corner of her eye with the pad of his thumb. “Say the word, Commander, and you will never have to fight alone. You’ve got me.”
“I don’t deserve it.” Her shoulders slump. “I worked so hard to earn my place, Central. Yet every single promotion, I was accused of fucking a superior. I couldn’t appear weak, couldn’t demonstrate affection, because it would seep into rumors and undermine my authority.” Tears threaten to leak into her voice. “I slaved away to clear the path for those who would follow me. But it was for nothing. None of my work made any of our soldiers’ lives easier.” The Commander looks down. “I failed to protect Lanz. I failed to defend the Earth. If I hadn’t failed the base defense, you wouldn’t have sold yourself for– I failed you, John, and nothing will ever make up for that, but I’m so sorry–”
Central sighs. He crosses his arms, though they shake as he represses the urge to embrace his superior. “Commander, promise me this. Next time, throw down a tracker, wait for me to show up, and then you can start apprehending them.”
“That, I will do.” The Commander sighs. “Sometimes, I think the detractors on the Council were right. I wasn’t the right woman to lead XCOM.”
Lily finally finishes cleaning up the blood trail.
“Commander,” Central says intensely, “listen to me. I hit rock bottom and decided it wasn’t deep enough, so I dug towards Hell. You aren’t responsible for my decisions.”
“Had we won the invasion, it would never have happened.”
“It’s rich from me,” Central says, “since I’m always going on about what could have been. We can’t change the past, Commander. But we can do better now. We’ll look after our men. We’ll make sure XCOM isn’t like the army. XCOM is my home,” Central says, spraying the contents of a medikit into the Commander’s cleaned wounds. He pinches the skin together to help it heal. “And as long as we’re standing, we’ll work to keep our men safe. What happened to Lanz’s assailant, anyways?”
“She committed suicide rather than be taken into custody.”
Central raises an eyebrow. “Is that ‘suicide’, or–“
“Tabarnak, Central, I’m a mess, not a murderer. The fight only happened after we discovered the drugs.” The Commander sighs. “Morphine, hydrocodone… Some of them still had ADVENT labels. I wonder if that’s ADVENT’s plan. Wear down our Havens by flooding them with addiction. I can’t blame people for trying to get away from this living hell by running into the arms of crack, booze and sex.”
“I say we can blame people for trying to abduct our soldiers. We were lucky to avoid slavers targeting our people for so long.” Central sighs. “There’s hell outside our door, Commander. I’ll start mobilizing the Haven evacuation.”
“What would I do without you, Central?” Lily hears the unsaid words in the Commander’s sigh. I wish I was a better woman for you.
“Less baby sitting, I’d imagine.” Central hesitates. “The door was open. Are you okay knowing that someone could have heard?” The faucet sings as Central scrubs his hands clean. “I can wipe the tapes if you’d like.”
“I don’t mind. It will be easier on me, if I am called upon to justify my decisions.”
Samples in hand, Lily tiptoes away. She can ask Central tomorrow.
As Lily passes by the labs, Tygan calls her over to the transmission electron microscope, frowning all the while. “Thank you for taking the samples. Have you ever known bacteria to look like this?"
Lily scrolls around on the screen, magnifying the membrane of the bacterium until she can see the two layers. “What am I looking at?”
Tygan mouses over to a small triangle-shaped thing with a circle in its center, inserted in the bacterium’s coiled DNA. It’s black against the white of cytoplasm, which means it’s very dense. Lily screws up her eyes. She doesn’t recall anything like this from her biology lessons, and tells the doctor as much.
Lily pauses, and rushes to recall her father’s notes from her tablet.
The invasion era XCOM found this substance. They called it Meld.
“I fear the infection in Boulder City has far greater effects than we ever imagined,” Tygan says, typing away on his tablet.
Usually, when a XCOM soldier requires punishment, Central handles the entire affair. The most common misdemeanors are public drunkenness, public indecency, and being a public nuisance. Lily knows there are more severe punishments, for more severe crimes, and she prays she will never have to see them carried out.
Today is not her day. She knew Las Vegas was trouble. Central storms up the Avenger’s ramp, dragging a handcuffed Tanzer behind him.
“Shen, need you in the Briefing Room,” he says. “This concerns you too.”
Once in the soundproofed room, Central launches into a detailed account of Tanzer’s crime: the sharpshooter is the reason why supplies are disappearing.
“You gambled away an Elerium core?” Lily gapes. “We needed that! I was going to make ammo with that!”
“This is your first warning,” Central says. “You’ll have regularly scheduled therapy sessions every week, and you must check in every hour while in a Haven. On your second offense, you’ll get 50 lashes and mandatory therapy. If it happens a third time, we’ll execute you. Am I understood?”
The sharpshooter bows her head. “Yes, sir.”
“Now, go explain to Dragunova why you won’t be attending rifle practice with her,” Central says. He stares after the retreating Sharpshooter’s back, ghosts rising from the grave in the grey of his eyes.
“Got your message, Shen,” Central says as she enters the bar later that night. He has already accumulated a small pile of glasses, though not all of them reek of moonshine. “Sent the word out to the Resistance. You’ll get your stuff at the end of the month. The Las Vegas cell’s going into hiding, maybe they’ll find something nice for you. Well, if it’s not poisoned with the aliens’ fucking bioweapons.”
“I wish Dad was here,” Lily says as she hops on the stool next to him. She takes a mandarin from the bowl of fruit and peels it, releasing fragrant oil into the air. “He would know what Dr. Vahlen had planned. We don’t have the resources to make a MEC trooper, and I’m not in the mood to chop off limbs.”
“She wanted to splice bits of them into us.” Central swirls his amber lager. “Maybe Vahlen had a point. We couldn’t hack it alone with ballistics.”
Lily does a double take. “That’s probably the nicest thing I’ve heard about her.”
Central drinks. “You heard what happened to Lanz. Wouldn’t’ve happened if we won.” The words spill out of him, as the alcohol loosens his tongue: the desperation of the last years, the failures compounding upon failures, the safe havens he helped found all dissolving into chaos or scattered after ADVENT raids. After fifteen years of despair, Central finally gave in.
“Sold off every moral I had, just for another drop. Was going on a week without the bottle. Made a deal in Dresden. Bring this woman in, and you’ll get vodka.” Central swallows. “So I did. I needed the drink like a man in the dark needs a fire. Woke up next to her body three days later. She was rotting in a ditch. Swore I’d never take out a contract like that again. I’d kill them myself if I had to.”
Lily doesn’t mention his conversation with the Commander, but Central nods.
“Still a junkie. Still needed my fix.” He twists his hands, until the dry skin between his fingers cracks and bleeds. Lily swipes a tube of lotion from the bar counter’s drawers and hands it to him. “It’s always about power, isn’t it. Lotsa angry people back then, wondering why soldiers couldn’t keep’em safe. As long as I had a drink, I didn’t care what they did to me. Was worth more when I looked more like a boy scout. Then the alcohol took over.” He pops the cap on the lotion and applies it to his hands. “I’m glad you didn’t know me back then, Lily. I wasn’t myself. The junkie ate me up. People ran from me when they didn’t want something outta me. Wonder if Tanzer will go down that road. I pray I can keep her off, but if she goes…”
The Chief Engineer closes her eyes and nods. Dad had always stayed clear of strangers who acted oddly; for some, the apocalypse was a soft route to self-destruction, and drugs were just one avenue. He became even more cautious while they were digging out the Avenger. They had sought out a haven to get badly needed personnel. One band of strangers managed to take him captive. Lily still remembers Dad screaming for her to run in Cantonese. She rescued him, with the aid of newly built ROV-R, but the memories of strangers’ twitching hands and almost toothless mouths still send shivers down her spine.
“I hope the Commander never sees me like that,” Central mutters. “I’d run too.”
“But we aren’t,” Lily says, finding her tongue. “Because you changed.” She hesitates. “I don’t know if you noticed, Central, but if you weren’t there when dad died… I don’t know if I could’ve made it until today. He was all I had. But then you were there. And you were my friend.”
“How much of me is still the junkie?” Central swirls his beer. “And how much is still me?”
“I guess it depends,” Lily says, “on how much you want that beer.”
Without another word, Central pours the remaining third down the sink.
“Sunflowers?” Central asks with a yawn.
“You can eat the seeds if you get hungry,” the Commander says, pressing the bouquet into his hands. The blue ribbon wrapped around the thick green stems flutters in the slight breeze permeating the Mess Hall. The Commander reaches into her satchel, and hands Lily a tub of seeds. “These have been baked and salted. I expect you to wash your hands before eating this time, Shen.”
“You eat gruel with a wrench one time,” Lily sighs.
“Sure, give me the IKEA version,” Central says, but Lily catches his smile. "At least you didn't make me grow these from seed."
“Stand up and face the sun, Central.” The Commander adjusts a sunflower so that the golden bloom rests in his cupped hands. “You deserve it.”
It’s hard to repair the leaks in the plumbing while most of XCOM’s soldiers are gathered around her. Still, Lily manages. She is a professional after all, and Central is teaching hand-to-hand combat today.
The Command duo fights in the center of the GTS floor, ringed by their men. The Commander repositions herself so that Central straddles her legs. She punches up. Central pushes down on her shoulders, trying to keep her pinned to the floor.
Central grunts. “Right, stop!” The duo freezes in place. Central's hand slides from her shoulder to her breastbone. “Now, to get out of the closed guard position–“
“Keep it PG, Central!” Gonzalez hoots.
Linscott puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles. “Red card!”
Central huffs as he releases the Commander from the closed guard position. “Stop fucking around! This could save your life!”
The Commander gets her knee up, and jabs him in the crotch. “And you, pay attention!”
“Motherfucker! Don’t try this on ADVENT,” Central grunts, jamming his elbow into the Commander’s gut, “they wear guards.”
The Commander flips them over. “It’s best to be on top,” she fights to pin Central’s arms to the floor, “to control the direction of the fight.”
“Fight dirty, or you’ll die.” Central grabs hold of her bun and yanks her head down. The Commander yells out a garbled French curse. “Jesus – sorry, sir–“
The Commander digs her elbow into his solar plexus. “T’es foutu!”
Lily rolls her eyes. She briefly wonders if the men have absorbed any of this information, or if they’re too caught up laughing at the catfight on the GTS floor.
If a soldier survives to their birthday on board the Avenger, they get their choice of meal served to everyone at dinner. Some soldiers opt for the more esoteric: Kokoren, for example, wanted sashimi, and Central had the Skyranger fly by the ocean to pick up some tuna because he was sick of catfish and trout. Tygan wanted nothing except an absence of Faceless paste on his plate, and Lily got her Chinese bakery fruitcake. It is August 10th, and Beaulieu will turn 26 at 10 PM (or so he says, most watches ran out of battery years ago.) Imahara requested a slightly longer lunch break, in which Lily can only assume she gave Beaulieu a vigorous birthday present because Central stomped out of the bowels of the ship muttering something about kids these days and where’s the bleach.
Lily takes her long-belated lunch in the kitchen – well, it was only belated because she covered Imahara’s longer lunch break. She munches on a slice of cattail bread dipped in huckleberry jam as the Commander whips up Beaulieu’s requested Black Forest cake. XCOM’s expanding grasp on the world means better food for all, and the soldiers have made a point of raiding convenience stores after missions in the city centers. Well, if Lily asked one of them, they would say that they were offered food by grateful civilians who weren’t shot by their local ADVENT peacekeepers, and for the most part, that is true.
“I’m surprised you know how to bake,” Central says, as he watches the Commander mix the xanthan gum into the cocoa powder. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”
“Public defenders are often alcoholics,” the Commander says quietly. “I begged my husband to stop drinking before it killed him. One weekend, I came home, and his friends told me J.S. was hospitalized for alcohol poisoning.”
Lily can see the strain on Central’s face as he does his best not to touch the Commander. He settles for whipping the fake cream into a frothy white mass.
“One near death experience took him from alcohol to sweets. His office had Twinkie wrappers, chocolatine crumbs and Laura Secord boxes everywhere. Then we had to worry about diabetes and fatty liver disease.” The Commander stirs in the canola oil. “So I worked on a diet with him. I learned how to make vegan baked goods, and froze them for him while I was at base in Valcartier.”
The Commander pours the batter into the cake tin, shaking her head as she scrapes the batter into the pan. “It didn’t quite work. He used to finish the muffins off the day I left, and stress-eat Chinese pastries for the rest of the week until I came home. But he did try, and he kept defending the hopeless and the downtrodden… and he wasn’t drinking as much. That was all I could ask.”
“Well, I’m glad you learned,” Lily chips in to break the silence, “I haven’t had a Chinese fruitcake in years.”
“It was my pleasure. Turns out, being a vegan baker is quite useful for the apocalypse. Having eggs makes it easier.” The Commander grimaces at the oven. “I miss milk. Xanthan gum doesn’t provide as much structure.”
“Sorry, Commander, there’s not that many cows around,” Lily says. “When’s the last time you saw a cow, Bradford?”
“Hmm… Commander,” Central spoons the cream into a tub, “when’s the last time you yelled at me for hiding guns under your pillow? Or does having a cow not count?”
“We’re getting a divorce,” the Commander says, offering Lily a preserved cherry. Lily bites down, and immediately thanks the apocalypse for the lack of maraschino cherries in the world as the sickly sweetness washes over her tongue.
“We’d have to be married first,” Central laughs. “Are we pre-emptively divorcing?”
“For efficiency’s sake. We are trying to be the antithesis of the army here.”
“I can run the numbers, but I doubt it’s that big an improvement, Commander.”
Lily rolls her eyes, and reconsiders her stance on whacking the duo with a wrench before they give her diabetes.