Chapter Text
Alex knew he was going crazy from stress when he thought he saw a man hiding in a bush outside the gene clinic.
He was worked up. He was, frankly, a little too worked up, but doctors had always stressed Alex out, even though they’d lately been coming back with good news. ADVENT had made some sort of breakthrough. Something about stem cells and nerve re-gene-eration.
There were a lot of things like that — tech that was thought impossible in his grandparents’ day that was in every city, if not every home now.
Alien benefactors tended to do that to a planet.
Really, the important thing was that maybe George could walk again. Assuming that the absolute battery of tests they were putting him through came back with… whatever it was they were looking for.
This was all very stressful, and that was why he’d stepped out for some air. But Alex hadn’t thought it was hallucination stressful.
He blinked, trying to square the circle, but it was the same: a man hunched over in the hedges. Dark coat, dark hair — all dark, really, except the visible sliver of his skin, which was like pale wax.
He didn’t seem to see Alex, so Alex stepped forward to ask if he was okay.
“I have eyes on the VIP and two troopers,” the man muttered.
The man’s earpiece buzzed faintly with another voice.
“No grenades,” said the man. “Too many civilians.”
Alex stopped mid-step as he noticed the rifle.
The smart thing would’ve been to back away slowly, silently, and get his grandpa out of there before all hell broke loose.
So obviously Alex tripped over his fucking shoelaces.
The man’s eyes were dark, and so intense it felt like Alex’s heart was going to stop. Or maybe that was just because he was in the sightline of a dude with a gun hiding in a bush. The radio chatter was more distinct now. That was probably adrenaline, too.
“Seb? Seb, what’s going on down there?”
“Nothing,” the man hissed. “I’ll take care of it.”
Never a good thing to hear from a dude with a gun, but Alex’s legs wouldn’t cooperate. His shoes scrabbled across the sidewalk, trying to get away, but the man grabbed him by the ankle.
“Hey. Hey, chill out.”
“I will not chill out,” Alex whispered, and was an armed insurgent seriously telling him to “chill out?” “Give me one good reason to not call security.”
The man cocked an eyebrow. It occurred to Alex that he was probably a lot younger than he’d initially pegged him as. He had to be mid-twenties, at the oldest. “Because that’s gonna force me and my friends to immediately open fire?”
...Shit, that was a good reason.
“So here’s what you’re gonna do. You walk back in that clinic like nothing happened. You grab whatever and whoever you need to grab, and you walk out the front door, because in five minutes, this building’s gonna turn into a shooting gallery. Nod if you understand.”
Alex nodded, hating the way he could feel his neck tremble as he did.
“Now get the fuck out of here.”
The next morning, Alex made everyone breakfast.
Not necessarily out of an appetite for it — strictly speaking, Alex rarely had an appetite at all — but because the process of measuring out eggs and potatoes would take his mind off the broadcast blaring in the next room.
“ Yesterday morning, the terrorist organization known as XCOM attacked a gene clinic in downtown Zuzu City. ADVENT forces quickly responded to the event and evacuated the building… ”
The day Alex was born, aliens came to town. XCOM was a group of people that was less than happy about that. This is the most detail in which you can describe ADVENT and XCOM without taking a stance on either of them.
The way ADVENT told the story, XCOM was once a squabbling coalition of Earth’s fragmented nation-states — before most of those nations were persuaded to see reason, anyway. No reasonable person could argue with miracle cures, technological leaps, and more energy than humanity knew what to do with.
The terrorists that today called themselves XCOM were, of course, not reasonable people.
“That’s horseshit,” said George. “Unless they’re already countin’ Alex as one of theirs and countin’ pulling the fire alarm as ‘evacuating.’”
Evelyn tsked at him. “Lower your voice, dear. Sometimes it’s like you want the wiretap to hear you.”
They both regarded the little speaker built into the wall — the ADVENT Assist that was a part of every apartment, and which Alex’s grandparents almost always called “the wiretap.”
Alex carefully poured the eggs into a bowl, the coarse yellow powder clinking gently, whisked some water in, and then poked his head out of the kitchen. “Assist, put bacon on the shopping list.”
“Please speak slowly and clearly,” the Assist said, predictably, since it was right next to the blaring TV.
George leaned in. “Horseshit!”
“Could you please repeat that?”
“If you don’t understand English, why don’t you go back to your own planet?”
“Ooh, is that how it is? You’re bringing out ‘go back to where you came from’ now?” Evelyn said, performatively disappointed.
“How am I meant to be racist to a speaker in the wall?”
Pancakes and hash browns were generally less fussy than the eggs; only requiring a quick trip to the microwave, although Alex was somewhat proud of coming up with a trick to make the pancakes cook evenly. (The trick was just sandwiching them in paper towels.) He took the plates into the living room.
“You’re such a sweet boy, Alex. ADVENT will be lucky to have you.”
Alex laughed awkwardly as he dug into his eggs — solidly yellow, spongy. He’d never quite figured out how to take compliments from his grandma without feeling juvenile. “It’s nothing, really.”
“ XCOM abducted Dr. Harvey Mazza from his place of work before fleeing the scene, ” said the news, flashing a picture of a bespectacled man with a mustache onscreen. “ As of today, he and his captors have yet to be found. ”
George said, “He’s right. ADVENT food, you’ve barely gotta cook it. You used to have to slave over a hot skillet to make this breakfast.”
“The eggs still go in a skillet, grandpa.”
“I meant real eggs, not that powder shit.”
Evelyn and George were old enough to remember real eggs. The Mullners had their roots in what used to be the central United States, where they even had their own chickens.
But Alex had been a baby when Kansas’s former residents were relocated to the newly built Zuzu City. The only unprocessed eggs he’d ever seen were emojis, and he’d only seen chickens in children’s books about farms.
Under a blue sky and yellow sun, a white chicken pecked at seeds. Chicken , the book read in English. Zhichen , it read in ADVENT-language.
Next to the chicken was a giant bug burrowing happily in the soil. Chryssalid. Bogkieg.
Alex set his plate in the dishwasher and shouldered his bag. “I’m gonna hit the gym.”
“But it’s so early,” said Evelyn.
And so soon after the clinic attack, Alex could infer.
“I’ll be fine, okay? Besides, I lost enough time to yesterday’s attack, and if I don’t train, I won’t make captain.” ADVENT captains got more perks, or at least, that was the rumor. They definitely got paid better.
Evelyn sighed. “Just be careful.”
“Always. Love you.”
As Alex made his way out the door, neither he nor his grandparents caught what was on the TV. The banner now read SUSPECTED TERRORISTS.
A blonde head peeking over the railing of a roof, a narrow gun barrel just barely perceptible. A bleached mullet poking out from inside a bus shelter. A blurry purple figure running down the street, with some sort of drone trailing her.
And, crouching in the bushes just outside the clinic, a pale man clad in black, speaking to a strapping young man with his back to the camera.