A fat man waddled out of a small apartment door. He looked around the catwalk but saw no-one, so he ventured out. He absently tugged on his white vest and adjusted the black pants he pulled on earlier. He leaned on the catwalk rail, and looked around. It was still fairly dark here and there, but the suns first rays generally touched this part of the catwalk early, so the man felt quite happy that no-one was about. It was one of the few joys in his life. He felt like he had the world to himself.

Right on time for the party lard butt.. five... four.... three... two....

Click? The fat man pondered the significance of the slight click he heard from under the catwalk then tried to lean over for a better look.

A figure in a dark coat Watched on. Right, I have to stop buying timers from Jimmy. At that point fat man waddled a little further over the rail, strained to look at a smallish black box he caught sight of, then in a massive explosion he was thrown clear across the U shaped building. There was a sickening thud as the man collided with the other side of the building and his limp body fell. The man in the dark coat walked over to the broken corpse. He absently knelt down and peered into the dead man’s remaining eye, the other was a good sixteen feet away. Right, This is the guy. Psyke emblem burned into the eye, no implant, right. This is the place. Time to earn my keep...

< X-Com Base ‘Java’ Med-bay 8:30 Tuesday 7 March 2084 >

“Right then, May I present the lady Fergusson?” Mike asked from the side of Tim’s bed. Tim sighed and adjusted his hurt leg. “Who in creation are you talking about Mike?” Tim asked tugging gently at the bandage. At this point Sam Fergusson walked in, complete princess outfit. “Presenting the lady Fergusson for tea and crumpets lord Tim!” Miske clapped heartily while introducing the ‘lady’. At this point Sarah, who had been quietly watching Mike and Tim, burst out into laughter. “What did Mike offer you Sam?” She asked between giggling fits. “Front row seat to the Grav-ball finals next week.” “The finals that sold out last saturday morning? And I knew for a fact that Mike was here all of last week....” Tim commented with an innocent grin on his face. The ‘lady’ turned and stared at Mike angrily. Mike held up a finger then looked out the door. “I uh, left something boiling, be right back!” Then Mike ran out of the door at great speed with a ‘lady’ chasing him. The lady was uttering very ‘unladylike’ language. Tim finally started to laugh.

< Somewhere underneath the Maze towers 8:53 Tuesday 7 March 2084 >

A young man, in his early twenties, ran down a dimly lit corridor. Occasionally small particles of rock and debris fell from the roof, a sign of the massive number of people in the towers. The man reached a T junction in the corridor. He took the left turn and ran onward towards an open door. Several seconds later a dark figure appeared at the junction, and continued in his slow, measured tread.

“Boss! Somethings wrong! The dealer’s been killed! The sentries are missing! Boss?!” The young man yelled as he searched through dimly lit rooms. He ran into a small bedroom type thing and tore open a door leading to the bathroom. He poked is head into the bathroom, and screamed. The ‘Boss’ had been shot to peices. The corpse had been dumped in a bathtub. The young man ran back into the main rooms looking around wildly. Then the sound of slow footsteps walked up to the places door. The youth stared at the door. A tall man, in a dark overcoat opened the door, raised a lawmaker pistol, blew the youths head off and pulled out a com in one swift movement. The man in the overcoat turned around and stepped away from the growing pools of blood. He flicked open the coms audio pickups then walked out of the rooms, closing the door. He started speaking into his com. “Right, Hi there.... about my Payment....”

< X-Com Base ‘Java’ 13:18 Tuesday 7 March 2084 >

The commander reached over his desk for the bowl of synth-snacks. Synth-Snacks were basically Evonet’s recycled snack food. Tasty, not entirely unhealthy, and fairly cheap. He absently munched on two. Then slapped his com. “Fergusson?” The com Chirped back. “Yessir?” “You out of that princess outfit yet?” The voice from the com replied, tiredly. “Yessir.” “Right, do me a favour and get a line to Marsec. Also send Banks and Deevans my regards.” “Yessir. Be a moment sir...” The process of getting a line for X-Com was an interesting operation, basically they used a scrambled com line that circled through half the city, was bounced off several satelites and was coded to a payphone. It took a couple of minutes to set everything up. “Sir, lines ready. Also Jenks wants you in the medlab, Wilson’s results are a bit strange.” “Right, tell him ill be there after lunch. Ill be taking that call now.” “Yessir.” The com switched and then dailed with the usual, crisp and clear tones. After a few minutes a voice picked up. “This is the head office of Marsec, how may I help you?” A secretaries voice asked. The commander replied. “Hi, Can I speak to whoever is in charge of earth operations?” “I’m Sorry sir, Mister Devlin isn’t taking any calls right now...” “Tell him this is in connection with order AHK6173.” “Alright sir, could you repeat the order number?” “AHK6173,” “Right, ill tell him.” The commander waited around for a minute while the secratary talked to Devlin. He smiled to himself, after all an order for a valkyrie inteceptor, several hovercars and other assorted weaponary was going to be smiled upon. The order had been made earlier that day, and the commander was just going to see if he could beef up relations between MarSec and X-Com. After all MarSec was one of the most heavily armed factions in the city, one of the others, megapol, was already allied with the X-Com project. After another second of waiting a new voice came on. “Hello? This is Larry Devlin, speaking?” “Commander John Burrel. Is that a secure line on your end?” “Uh, yes Mr.Burrel.” “Right, I am sure your aware of some rather large orders made this morning under anonymous buyers?” “Yes... I am...” “Well thats us. The senate reformed X-Com and right now we are interested in entering a trade Agreement.” The other voice on the line half choked. “This is a joke, right?” “No joke. Ill send a couple of my people your way. We know how much you like keeping things under wrap, we need to be kept under wrap for the next while. Ill be in touch.” “Uh, right, Goodbye Comma-” The commander slapped the off button to the com cutting off the head of earth based MarSec operations. He absently reached over for a doughnut, but first slapped the base com and paged Jenks.

< X-Com Base ‘Java’ Bio-lab 13:42 Tuesday 7 March 2084 >

Doctor jenks looked down at the still form of Wilson. From what Jenks could make out Wilson was defined as brain dead. In fact most of the central nervous system was gone. Some kind of green goo had attached itself to the brainstem and eaten at it. Jenks assumed this was the acid from those purple pink things the troops referred to as ‘Spitters’. However Wilson was still breathing, barely. This was a mystery. The commander then walked into the lab. “Jenks, what the hell is going on? You said he should be dead?!” Jenks turned to the commander, and nodded. “Yes... its strange. I think something like that spitter acid is eating into his brain, technically he is dead. I have to assume something like his body is in some form of rigor mortis.” Jenks said, turning back to Wilson. At that point the figure stopped breathing. The ‘flatline’ sound started going as wilsons heart stopped. “Well, thats it commander. Want me to autopsy him?” The doctor said, looking at Wilsons corpse. “Sure Jenks, but first finish that container you were working on.” “Yessir.”

< X-Com Base ‘Java’ 15:02 Tuesday 7 March 2084 >

“No! The other way!” Tim Banks and Sarah deevans yelled in unison at the kids show playing, basically a large greeen cartoon landscape was being projected from the Senso-Vision box on the table. A large, dumb looking animated fox walked into a tree, pronounced ‘Lookit’ da birdies...’ and collapsed, blue bird chirping around his head. Mike Wolff walked past the table the senso was being projected from at Tim and Sarah. As he got into the small field and saw the fox slam into the tree. “Just once I would like to see an original joke....” He commented before walking through the very same tree, and back into the ‘real’ world. “We still like ‘em!” Sarah yelled at mike as the large, dumb, football playing dog came back into the scene. Mike continued through the small ‘living area’ the troops had set up in a training room. Frank Isaacs was playing some complex dice game with Toby Long, who had set up a limited area sound field. Mike walked through the field accidently, and got a blasting of ‘My heart has been torn asunder’ (Papa Dingo and his boys, the album ‘Dead goat’) “Turn it DOWN Toby!” Mike yelled. Toby stared at him for a moment, reached down to the porta music audio negotiater, flipped it off. (They basically ‘negotiated’ the air, making a sound proof barrier in the air, not too tough to do, sometimes called a walkman because walking around recharged the things) “You wanted me?” Toby asked. “Yeah, keep the field smaller, I don’t think Ill hear again man.” “Whatever Mikey.” Toby said resetting the field, and getting back to the dice game. Mike then walked over to Samantha Greene, who was quietly sitting in a corner with a packet of potato chips and a newsletter disk from the mutant alliance. She ran her finger over the change page icon on her reader, and continued. Mike walked over. “Hey, Samantha?” He inquired, not knowing what to expect since Samantha kept to herself in general. “Yes Mike?” she replied, still reading the newsletter. “Commander has us going out to pick up a couple of MarSec people early tomorrow, our cover for the rest of the world is that we’re mutant alliance types negotiating.” Samantha nodded slightly and turned a page. “So who are we picking up exactly?” Mike reached down to his back pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. (Since half the world was dead, synthetic fibres were used. Mostly a new form of Nylon.) Uh, Bill Irish.... that’s our contact... and Gene Torres, a hybrid.” At the word ‘Hybrid’ Samantha looked worried, her sectoid type eyes blinking twice. “Another... Hybrid?”

< About three kilometres out of Mega Primus limits. 19:23 Tuesday 7 March 2084 >

A man wearing a dark coat leaned against the hulk of a burnt out tree restlessly. Hoboy, well if those morons don’t show I’m gonna.... His line of thought was interrupted by a hovercar driving into view at high speed, then landing not too far from his spot. Finally. A man got out of the hovercar and walked over with a suitcase. “Hi there.” The dark coated man said simply. “Hello, Did you find them?” “Nope, the Psykers didn’t build the implants there. I did however take out the block leaders as instructed.” “Right, well here’s your payment,” The man with the suitcase handed it over. “We’ll get in touch with you around Thursday.” “Right, don’t worry.” The man turned back to his hovercar. “Oh, and tell Larry I send my love....”