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Unification Day
I awake on a cold slab, a makeshift surgeon's table. I have a headache like you wouldn't believe. It's pounding at the back of my skull. I reach around to feel my neck and find stitches there.
"Commander, you're up" says a voice from behind me.
I twist to see who's talking. It hurts. I see tall black man wearing glasses and a white lab coat, head shaved bald, walking over to me.
"Commander, let me introduce myself. I'm Dr. Tygan. You've . . . been out for some time," he says, "you were captured by the aliens and were recently rescued by XCOM operatives."
At that point it all floods back into my brain. I remember the aliens returning . . . with an offering of peace. It struck odd to me that an invading force that we had just driven off our planet 15 years ago, would come back offering peace. And the Advent Accords were signed guaranteeing peace between humans and the aliens.
I then recall being awaken in the middle of the night by an Advent Officer and hurriedly escorted out of my house . . . my wife pleading with the Officer to let me be. The Officer nodded to a Trooper and heard the quick buzz a laser round going off. I couldn't hear my wife's voice anymore, only my own screams as I was now being dragged out the front door. Then the needle going into my neck. And that was it . . .
The doctor's voice snapped me out of it.
"The stitches on the back of your head. We had to remove a chip from your brain. The aliens put an implant inside your skull."
The look on my face must have worried Tygan as he shifted the conversation a little.
"Look. I have the scars, too."
He turned around and showed me scars on the back of his head. I felt them, ragged and bumpy on his clean shaven scalp.
"Anybody who works for Advent or goes to their gene therapy labs gets them. I'm hoping I have the opportunity to figure out what they do," he continued, " but enough about me. I think you ought to head up to the Command Center, there's somebody there who would very much like to talk to you."
I stand and the room twists a little on me.
"Don't worry," says the doctor, "just lingering effects of the anesthesia. I'll fetch an operative to assist you upstairs."
The operative arrives and I drape an arm over his shoulder as he steadies our ascent up a set of stairs. A set of doors shift open and I see a familiar face staring up at a very familiar holo-globe. It's my Executive Officer, my XO, from back in the day - Bradford or "Central" as we all liked to call him. He looks over and smiles at me.
"Commander, it's good to see you. Come on in . . . "
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