Skin (Chapter Six)

[thehonorablebat]

2025

Bradford pressed his burning forehead against the concrete wall, squeezing his eyes shut. Whatever the collaborators had injected him with deadened his limbs. Made him produce enough sweat to through soak his clothes.

His luck had run out. That fucking figured. Every time he gained an inch, ADVENT knocked him back a mile.

He had to hope Shen could carry the torch…

Weir’s face appeared in his mind’s eye.

That sparked enough sheer rebellious anger to get him clambering onto his feet. Bradford swayed and caught his balance by leaning against the wall.

At points over the years one simple fact had kept him forever pushing forward. If he gave up, Weir won. If no one else wanted to fight the traitor, than he would. He had to.

If for no one else than for the man Weir used to be.

He surveyed the cell the Trooper shoved him into after the collaborators delivered him. He’d seen more spacious broom closets. Just enough space for him to stand and a bed set into an alcove in the back wall. He couldn’t make out movement through the opaque black door.

Bradford knelt down to retrieve a small razor blade hidden in the tongue of his boot.

He’d make do.

He always did.

–

2035

“He’s being awfully helpful,” Montoya said. “He gave us everything we asked for without a complaint.”

“The trick is in things he left unspoken and double meanings. He loves those.” Bradford handed Rabbit her tablet back and nodded to dismiss her.

She bolted off to the truck the squad commandeered for the mission. In front of the driver’s side door, Wasp and Vandal played rock-paper-scissors.

“Those command codes he gave us aren’t going to work. They may have once, but he gave them to us because he knows they don’t. He told us the east and west entrances have lighter security than the north entrance, but fails to mention the south one entirely. He talked about the armored trains, but nothing about the landing pad that has got to be on the roof.”

Montoya tilted his head.

“Sounds like he really did give us everything,” he said.

“Don’t count on it.” Bradford stared off at the grave his people dug for the dead. “Finish up with Weir. There’s nothing left for us here.”

“Yes sir.”

–

Running a mission involved more anxiety and internal nail biting than Bradford cared to admit. He knew how to keep it to himself. Pretty sure his old file included the phrase ‘good at pretending like everything isn’t falling apart’.

He hated losing people. Each death felt like a personal loss. Even if he hadn’t known them well he still felt like he lost a friend.

Weir once said he had a soft heart. At the time he hadn’t registered it as an insult.

Soft.

Too soft for a true command role. Best he stay as the Commander’s glorified secretary.

His fingers curled around the railing in a white knuckled grip.

“Status?” Bradford asked.

“Rabbit is approaching the perimeter, sir. Patchin’ ‘er in.”

He straightened up, clasping his hands behind his back.

“What do you see Corporal?” Bradford circled around the geoscape to see the monitor displaying the active squad’s vitals. Rabbit’s showed a steady heart.

“…ADVENT recy…. plant,” Rabbit said.

“We’re getting a lot of static on our end. Probably a jammer inside.” Bradford turned to the radio technician. “Can you boost the signal?”

The techie removed one side of her headphones and said, “I can, but we run the risk of ADVENT pickin’ us up.”

Bradford shook his head.

Retreat or go, John. Pick up the pace.

“Rabbit, try to find the jammer. Be careful and don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

The static drowned her reply. Rabbit’s monitor lost connection.

“Vandal, hold position.”

“Yes sir….what? Why? Yeah, okay…Shut up! I’m asking him… Uh, sir. Crusader wants to-”

“No,” Bradford said, well aware of what Crusader wanted. “Hold position. Do not follow Rabbit.”

“Yes sir.”

Allowing Crusader and Rabbit to go on mission together asked for trouble, but no one on the Avenger did their job better. He had to trust the pair would stay professional when things went to hell. And things would go to hell. He could count on that.

Bradford stared at Rabbit’s board, willing for the connection to reestablish.

Five minutes.

At ten minutes he had to remind himself to breathe.

Fifteen minutes.

At eighteen the comm line exploded, making everyone patched in wince. Two seconds later he could hear gunfire. Mag rounds and shotgun blasts. Rabbit’s heavy breathing came out as bursts of static.

“Hey, Central, reinforcements would be great right about now.”

“Vandal, move!” Bradford hands itched to grab his own gun. To run. To do something other than just stand there and stare at monitors.

“Wilco!”

“Central–oh, fuck you too, buddy!–our guys from the Haven are here. Den Mother too!”

Bradford breathed a sigh of relief. A techie ran passed him to get to another console. They fiddled with the controls until the feed from Rabbit’s shoulder camera displayed on a screen. It gave them a great view of Rabbit slicing a Trooper in half.

She stood on a catwalk above a large open floor filled with black containers. At least three dozen stacked together. One stood open, Den Mother crouched in the shadows with Rabbit’s shotgun.

“Are all those containers full?” he asked.

“Can’t tell from here.” Rabbit rolled into cover to avoid being shot from the ground floor. Troopers swarmed in from the surrounding halls. “If they are we’re going to need a bigger truck.”

No shit. So many people. Where did ADVENT take them all from? Other Havens?…the cities?

An explosion took down a small portion of the western wall. A second grenade from the same source took out the Troopers moving to respond.

Kelly ran in. She dashed across the open floor and took cover behind the container Den Mother hid in. The two of them coordinated fire on the pod pinning Rabbit down.

The techie finished getting the feeds from the rest of the squad’s cameras. Bradford glanced between the screen, feeling one of his headaches coming on. He gritted his teeth through it. Focused on making sense of the chaos.

Wasp walked onto the scene with a wide spray from from his LMG, Crusader baking him up by shielding him with her GREMLIN.

Bradford made a mental note to tell Shen the new shield system worked great in the field.

A flash of fleshy pink on Rabbit’s feed drew his eye. She had seen it too. Rabbit melted into the shadows, sword at the ready.

The Sectoid peered down at the fight below. It hissed and scampered off towards a maintenance hallway at the far end.

Rabbit moved to follow it.

“You can’t take it on your own,” Bradford said. A memory of purple light made the pulsing in his head worse. “Wait for back up.”

“Just seeing where it’s going.”

She followed it into the narrow hallway bathed in red light that threw long  shadows. Rabbit slowed down to avoid being seen, following it by sound alone.

Bradford glanced away to check on the others. Crusader sat in an out of the way corner hacking open the containers while Wasp guarded her.

Den Mother, with Kelly’s help, had begun the process of getting people out through the hole in the wall.

He looked back at Rabbit’s screen and his heart stopped.

The Sectoid’s sharp nails tapped against buttons on an X-4 detonator.

Rabbit rushed the alien, sword raised.

It turned, hands thrown up to shield it’s face. The sword cut off the left. Rabbit reared back for another strike, but the Sectoid darted forward. It clawed her across the face. She rammed her elbow into its head in response. It stumbled, giving Rabbit the opportunity to slice its head off.

Once it’s body hit the floor, she didn’t waste time recovering. Rabbit ran over to the detonator. Her heartbeat spiked when she saw the countdown.

“I-I-I don’t know how to disarm this. God, Central, look at all these wires. I think–I think this is connected to a lot of charges.”

“Run.” Bradford hit an open comm channel. “Everyone run! Evac! Get the hell out of there!”

The ADVENT Troopers chose that moment to double down on the offensive. Their incoming fire became a spray to keep everyone they could unable to move.

Wasp used his last grenade to free up Den Mother and the final group of the prisoners they were able to rescue.

Bradford stood there frozen. He was going to lose them. He had fucked up. Again.

On Wasp’s screen he watched Kelly shake her head. She dropped her shotgun favor of her sword.

“Vandal–”

Too late.

Kelly leapt over her cover and charge the enemy. They focused their shots on her, letting Wasp lay down fire. Adrenalin got Kelly into sword range. She cut down several Trooper with three wide swings and sent the rest running.

Crusader’s GREMLIN flew over to drop a healing mist onto her as she swayed on the spot.

Rabbit emerged from the maintenance hallway, jumped down onto the ground floor, and thew Kelly over her shoulder all without breaking stride.

The squad ran out of there before the Troopers could regroup.

Bradford watched the survivors book it away from the facility in a blur. He only came back to himself after the explosion left a fiery crater in the countryside.

He brought his hand up to his earpiece and began coordinating their return home. Bradford knew from experience the numbness wouldn’t leave for another couple of hours.

–

Bradford unscrewed the bottle and poured enough bathtub whiskey into his glass it spilled over the top. He chugged it, feeling it burn down his throat. The glass slammed back down on the table making the other bottles and cups rattle.

He didn’t always have this problem. This inability to give orders or do what’s necessary. Used to understand that sometimes soldiers die. He remembered a time he sat behind his desk and handled information without thinking too hard of how it affected the people on the ground.

XCOM had changed that.

Running missions, watching the feeds made it all too obvious how his handling affected the people down there doing the real work.

He’d seen so many of them die, and too many of those deaths were his fault.

Bradford screwed the cap back on the bottle. Regret already sinking in. Alcohol felt too much like hiding from his problems. He needed to stop.

Heh, easier said than done.

In the almost five weeks Weir ran XCOM, he only lost a single person. Compared to the squad wipe Bradford caused in one mission. Compared to the amount of people he lost in the weeks following Earth’s surrender.

He’d known at the time losing the Commander was the single harshest blow the aliens had ever delivered against them. That wasn’t just his personal feelings talking.

Over the years he wondered what had turned Weir. What had the aliens said or done to convince him? He’d never gotten a straight answer from him. Still wouldn’t if he went down to ask him now.

After the initial betrayal wore off and things settled in his head, he could admit that maybe Weir wasn’t always set against him. That maybe the five weeks weren’t complete lies.

So what had the Elders done? Bradford considered torture at one point, but tossed that theory out fast. From what he could decipher between the redacted marks on Weir’s file, he seemed trained in resisting torture and interrogation. And what he knew of Weir’s personality, he knew the man would rather die than break.

The real answer. The one he found the most likely, came to him six years ago. In all honesty, it made him pity Weir in a way.

You could hit Weir all you wanted, he’d just laugh at you. But kindness? If you could get past his paranoia and defenses that’s the kind of thing that dug under skin. If you could make him like you, he’d kill for you. And a lot worse besides.

The Elders treated him like an heir, a son. In public the Speaker acted like his sibling.

Bradford rubbed his chin.

–

Weir woke up in his cell. He didn’t remember passing out. He recalled showing Montoya how to disable the self destruct on the weapons–neglecting to mention the GPS tracking operated on a separate system–and then being told they were leaving. Nothing after that.

Which meant he slept for a whole day. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that. Had he ever done that before?

He sat up even though his body wanted to go right back to sleep. Weir rolled out of bed and got onto the floor to try some push-ups.

At thirty, the storage room door opened. Weir sat up, resting his back against the bars.

Bradford came into view, dark circles under his eyes and a lack of his usual stubborn determination. That told Weir the man wasn’t here with interrogation on his mind.

“So how’d the rescue go?” Weir asked.

Bradford leaned his shoulder on the bars opposite him and rubbed his face.

“That good, huh?”

“You’re an asshole,” Bradford said without heat. Saying it just to say it.

Weir hummed.

“Montoya says you’re recovering well,” Bradford said. “The sudden lack of psionics shocked your system. You’re going through some mild withdrawal, but it’s nothing to be worried about.”

“Good to know I’m not dying.”

Bradford laughed.

“I think there’s very little in this world or out of it that’s capable of killing you.”

“Not for lack of trying,” Weir said.

“You had it coming.”

Weir just nodded. In the past few years self reflection turned sour more often than not. Make no mistake, what he had done warranted retribution, but he would not wish to take it back. He did it for a reason.

Like Angelis said, focus on what’s important. Earth’s safety would always be more important than his own personal moral hangups.

But his crimes had caught up to him now. He might have accepted that if Earth defense didn’t hang in the balance.

“We’re not going to torture you.” Bradford ran a hand over his face. “Not that we don’t want to, it’s just counter productive right now and we need to maximize efficiency more than anything else.”

“So what are you going to do with me?” Weir asked.

“Shen is going to be by tomorrow,” Bradford said instead of answering his question. “Be accommodating.”

“Is she going to hurt me?” Valid question, considering….fuck. He didn’t want to think about that.

Bradford grimaced and shrugged.

“You have it coming,” he said again.

“It didn’t happen like you think it did,” Weir said.

“Doesn’t matter what happened. Raymond’s still dead and you were there.”   

Weir closed his eyes.