Part 2: A Routine Examination

Chapter 2: A Routine Examination

March 29, 2004

: There you go Commander Zander, that's not so bad, isn't it?



: You're not the one with wires coming out of you head.

: Ha, no wonder it took you so long to finally schedule this. I've told you how important these mental evaluations are, right?

:Believe me, I'm well aware of what this war did to our men. I wanted to form this clinic for soldiers ever since the war ended. I've seen it all first hand. PTSD, schizophrenia, the two or three psionic conditions discovered in the last few years....and then there are all the stories from the soldiers retrieving Elerium from the bottom of the ocean...

: I've heard them too, people believing they saw monsters in the water. We've all seen a lot of tragedy in the war, which is why it's so important to diagnose mental conditions in former soldiers before it becomes a problem. Hallucinations like that are warning signs. Luckily for some, this machine can detect problems before they manifest.

: So what do I have to do? I'm not too familiar with this gadget.

: It's basically a psionic recorder. All you have to do is remember all the events of the war, and the machine will translate your memories into images. Strong memories can even be extracted as video. Once we have all the information, we examine the record for signs of problems.

: Where do you want me to start?

: At the beginning of course.

: Well, I guess it started when I got the news that my brother Gerhard was killed in battle. I was told he was killed in a UN operation in Yugoslavia. I actually was preparing to be transferred there myself when I was approached by a bunch of American soldiers. I was in grief and the whole thing is a bit of a blur, but the next thing I knew I was signing a bunch of NDAs and was on a plane heading towards Sicily.


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: I arrived at some kind of military base. I though it was American, but there were people from all kinds of nationalities there, and I didn't recognize the uniforms. The base was in disrepair, with equipment scattered all about. Very cramped conditions. I started wondering what the hell I had signed up for, and if I had made a big mistake. I was instructed to head to the Director's office.



: The Director's office was literally crammed into a storage closet. Man, back in the early days XCOM had no idea what they were doing, and the base was full of ridiculous crap like this. It got a lot better once we had some reliable funding, but it was like living in a submarine for the first couple months.

I stepped through the sliding door, and that's when I first met him. Ulysses was large and imposing man, even while sitting down at his desk. I noticed an American flag stitch on his vest. I could tell he's seen a lot of action somewhere.

Ulysses: Good day, Mr. Zander. It's good to see you here. You have my deepest condolences about Gerhard. He was a good man.

Zander: Thank you sir. I heard you were there?

Ulysses: Yes. Sadly I lost five good men on that mission. I was the only one who made it out.



Zander: About that - The men who brought me here told little about what this is all about. Only something about your recent appointment to Director and the chance to follow in my brother's footsteps.

Ulysses: First I must remind you of the agreements you signed before coming here. You can discuss nothing you see here with anyone outside the base. The penalty for a breach...is harsh. Do you understand?

: I nodded my head. He pulled out his laptop from his desk, clicked on something and then showed me.

Ulysses: This is an image from the research laboratory on the base.



: It took me a minute to notice, but once the gray figure started moving, I uh...it's hard to say exactly how I felt about this.

: We all felt something weird the first time we saw an alien. Please continue, the machine is recording everything automatically for you.

Zander: What...the...

Ulysses: We call it Allen. We found him in a tank of fluid inside an alien spaceship that we shot down.

: I don't think I said a word for the next few minutes. I sat there with my jaw on the floor as the Director explained how they had began tracking alien incursions on Earth, how the UN formed the XCOM project as a multi-national program, and how, well, how they've failed miserably in both shooting down UFOs and capturing them intact.

It was certainly something.

Ulysses: So! Any questions?

Zander: Are you kidding me? Where do these guys come from? What do they eat? Do they believe in a God.....why does the plaque on your desk say "R U SIRIUS"?

Ulysses: That's because it's my name. Roscoe Ulysses Sirius. I go by Ulysses, it's uh, well, my parents were flower children, what can I say! C'mon, let me show you around the base.



: The Director gave me a quick tour of the base and-

: Hold on a second. What's the name of this base?



: Early Light. Named about something in the American national anthem, why?

: Oh nothing, just a minor recording glitch. Continue.

: We went to the hangars where I saw them loading up our Skyranger with equipment and the remote controlled tank.



: And they were finishing installing Avalanche missiles onto the two Interceptors.



: Finally he showed me my bunk which I had to shift-share with another soldier.

Ulysses: Get some rest Rookie, and I'll have someone send up the briefing material you're cleared to be reading. In the meantime, it's Zeta Reticuli, meat smoothies and something called the "High One".

Zander: Huh? The what now?

Ulysses: The answers to your previous questions. We think they come from Zeta Reticuli, they eat meat smoothies...

Zander: Oh, okay, I get it. Thanks.

Ulysses: Training tomorrow at oh six hundred. It's quite intense, it'll get you up to speed in only two weeks.

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: So how long do you think this whole thing going to take? It was a long war.

: We recommended a six week program, you approved it in case you forgot.

: Great.


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