--- Data Canister Storage, recovering avaliable data now.



--- All data classified to the highest levels. Unauthorized viewing of this data in a manner that harms the operational security of X-Com is considered Treason.



--- Checking Credentials.



--- Credentials Confirmed.



--- Compiling UFOpaedia.



--- Done.



--- Compiling list of commonly accessed events, 1997-2003, First Alien War.



01. Data Canister 437, X-Com Archives. UN formalization of Multiple Black Operations under Extraterrestial Investigations Taskforce, 1997

02. Data Canister 441, X-Com Archives. Siezed Astronomical data, Hawaii, 1997.

03. Data Canister 443, X-Com Archives. Abduction victim investigations : Anna Webber, United Kingdom. Janessa Greene, United States. Edward Konrads, Canary Islands.

04. Data Canister 495, X-Com Archives. Incidents in the former Soviet Union, reference Silo facility 5776-38974-12.

05. Data Canister 524, X-Com Archives. Recovery of 'lost' materials, Area 51, 1998.

06. Data Canister 495, X-Com Archives. Rogue Science Facilities, Texa--- Listing halted.



--- Entry '53' accepted.



--- Loading Data Canister 927, X-Com Archives. Siege of New York, 2000.



--- Displaying most commonly accessed file.



--- New York City, upper New York bay, December 23rd 2000, 16:13 EST.



The camera image shifted erratically with every fast turn the news helicopter made. Down below on the waters of the New York bay ferries surged away from the piers and docks of manhattan, leaving long white wakes.

"The events of the past four hours are beyond words, viewers. It feels like a lot longer. It seems to have started at the Mount Sinai Hospital, and even now there must be millions trying to get out of New York as the, the alien creatures seem to be attacking..."

The camera shuddered and panned abruptly, focussing in on the Brooklyn bridge, the road surface choked with vehicles and running men, women and children.

"Jesus. I always thought it was just conspiracy nuts. I guess the destroyed villages in Ecuador wern't hoaxes after all-"

The colours of the image washed out around a white cloud of billowing fire, obscuring the bridge.

"Oh Lord"

The brightness finally dimmed, rolling tongues of flame almost lazily dissipating, leaving behind cherry red glowing car shells, pools of metal dripping together and thick ash that began to pour off charred bones.





--- Highlights selected for maximum continuity now compiling.



--- Done.







--- Phase One: Preliminary Investigations





1. --- Transcript of debriefing, X-Com operation leader in the field, Captain Darren Throop, 8573-3tf-XCM, 04/01/2001.



"I'm not sure who's responsible. At Oh-Three-Twenty-Two hours on the twenty third we had a brief track on a UFO at the Nova Scotia base, all indications were that it was probably a medium scout heading south along the east coast. It dropped off our screens about fifty kilometers out of New York. The base commander didn't bother to scramble an intercept.

"It was logged with the war room at the Pentagon and forgotten about. I guess they dispatched agents pretty soon after that. We were busy observing a trio of large UFOs holding steady in orbit over the North Atlantic. We knew one was a supply ship, but we couldn't identify the other two. They had our full attention, the base commander was certain that these UFOs were waiting around to support some kind of major assault... We didn't hear there was a problem in New York untill shortly after twelve hundred hours.

"Knowing what I do now, I wish the base commander had scrambled every damn Interceptor in the western hemisphere after that bloody scout..."





2. --- United Airlines, flight 844, En-Route to New York from Washington, December 23rd 2000, 07:16 EST.



There was music. A cold breeze. A field of sunflowers. Footstep by footstep, dragged towards the opposite end of the field.

"Peter?"

His vision swam, long ripples of colour, golden fields of sunflowers.

"Wake up now son."

The voice sounded like his father's. Someone walking towards him through the field, their hair shining gold in the sunlight.

"Give me your hand."

It was a little girl. Young, innocent, free. She had a sunflower in her hair.

"That's it. Squeeze my hand, Peter. Hard as you can."

She stepped up to Peter. Smiled. A tiny gnat fluttered onto her bare arm.

"You're not squeezing my hand, Peter. You're making me angry, boy..."

The girl started to thin, her flesh turning green as she rotted away. Her flesh scabbed away, her bones chipped into nothing, untill the sunflower was all that was left of her, containing her very essence, rooted into the ground.

"Squeeze my hand, Peter, or I'll get my belt..."

The field of sunflowers swayed gently, side to side. One by one the stalks bent over, dipping to the ground, petals shrivelling away and the stalks drying out, dessicated, as tiny black gnats flitted down onto them.

"Peter! Are you listening to me, Peter?"

The whole field was covered in a boiling swarm of gnats and everything was dying, bit by bit...





His head rocked back, his face stung.

"Conners?"

Peter opened his eyes experimentally. The flight attendant was staring at him, along with half the passengers in his range of vision.

His partner, Boris, slapped him in the face again. "Conners! Are you awake?"

He blinked slowly. His head felt gummy, tired. "Yeah, yeah. Jesus. What's up?"

"You were, ah, screaming, sir... Would you like something to drink?" The flight attendant asked, holding out something white in her hand.

Peter shook his head by way of reply, sending a dizzy roll through his senses. "I... I'm fine."

The flight attendant reached forward gently. The moist towelette brought an unpleasant chill to his flesh as she wiped underneath his nose.

Boris stared at him for a few moments, before looking up to the flight attendant. "He will have nothing, I will have a vodka, no ice."

"Yes sir, of course..." She folded the towelette neatly, placed it down on Peter's arm-rest neatly.

Peter lolled his head forward, stared down at the wet, white fabric, now stained with a fresh red smear.

Boris smirked, spoke loudly. "It must be the cabin pressure, Conners. Sometimes gives me nosebleeds too."

The other passengers looked away. The floor-show seemed to be over.

Peter swallowed, his mouth dry. "Yeah. Cabin pressure."





3. --- New York City, Manhattan, North Side of Central Park, December 23rd 2000, 08:15 EST.



The early morning light was cold on the skin. It wasn't even capable of melting the frost gently dusting the winter grass. There was a long, dark path through the grass, where the frost had been trodden down into an icy mulch. Hunching his shoulders against the cold, Peter glanced back down at the thin road slicing through Central Park.

A news van, trailing thick clouds of exhaust, sputtered to a halt behind Peter's dark silver sedan, a beautiful new ford, effectively wedging it against the two police cruisers that had halted there.

"Jesus christ. Never rains but it pours."

Boris smirked vaguely as he ducked underneath the fluttering yellow police tape. "What are you complaining about? I'm the one who's driving," he said, his voice marked with a less than precise english accent.

"They're right behind the car's trunk. I left the fucking lasers in there. If we need firepower, they'll get the damn lasers on film."

"No problem." Boris pulled open his coat, and grinned. A Heckler and Koch mark 23 was wedged into a modified shoulder holster, along with a silencer.

"Oh, sure, like some forty-five slugs are going to nail a muton."

"The Mark 23 would not solve the problem of a muton, no..." Boris glanced down at the news truck significantly.

Peter glanced at Boris, an expression of distaste twisting his features. "I really hope you're joking, man."

Boris buttoned up his coat before patting the bulge of the Mk. 23 with a reassuring smile. "Just sharing the techniques I learned back in Russia. For all the reputation the American intelligence services had, you do not have a very strong stomach..."

"Guess not."



The park was walled in on all sides by skyscrapers, giving it a crowded feeling. Here, in the south-east corner, jammed up against downtown Manhattan, the looming towers gave the impression of being stuck at the bottom of a pit.

The park trees were stripped naked by the winter, branches coming together with sharp clicks in the faint breeze, but channeled through the canyon-like streets of Manhattan until it was concentrated into a blast of icy air that pulled with it dusty embers and ash.

Mounds of ash covered the ground for an area of about ten square meters, the still glowing hulks of blackened trees laying flattened and defeated.

"I'm guessin' it was an alien landing. Hull hot like the space-shuttle just flash-fried all these trees."

No, UFOs just dropped out of the sky, sliding on gravity waves. No need to get frictile with the atmosphere, and so, no heat. Peter continued to stare at the ground. The breeze had blown away most of the detail, but he could see the dinner-plate flat depression in the grass and ash.

The cop smirked, still warming his hands over the glowing embers of one of the park trees. "So. Guess you're gonna do that government cover-up thing, huh?"

Peter didn't bother to reply, but Boris did.

"A vagrant fire got out of control. What else can it be?"

Peter crouched down, swept his hand out a couple of inches over the ash. Bit by bit, black flecks sprang up and stuck to his fingertips, almost as if by magic.

"Heh. Right. Bullshit. Press is gonna have a field day on your ass, man. That murder across the park's gonna cinch it."

The alien weapons fired a kind of high energy plasma, which left the air ionized... along with a static electrical charge in whatever it hit, Peter reasoned. They must have blasted the trees down. He stood up, tugging a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the ash away from his hands.

"Sensationalist nonsense and propaganda," Boris sneered.

"Tell that to the vic, man. Guy was gutted, like in all those cattle mutilations."

Peter glanced from Boris to the cop, eyes narrowed. "We didn't hear about this. Who's the investigating officer?"

"Detective Brewer. Murder site's that way," the cop replied, pointing across the park. Between the naked and burnt trees, more news-vans seemed to be clogging the narrow streets through Central Park.

Peter nodded slowly. A dead body would be more interesting to the press than a landing site... it had the human element to it.

"Thanks for the tip, Officer. We'll go check that out," Peter said, turning and striding across the frosty grass.

Boris shook his head slowly once they were out of earshot. "Ah, for all the reputation the American Intelligence services had, you do not abide very much by standard operating procedures, Conners. Where are photographs and careful diagrams of landing site, hmm?"

Peter smirked back.

"It was just a vagrant fire. Right?"



"This ain't your jurisdiction, Feeb."

The detective was hostile, understandably so. His crime scene was surrounded by journalists straining at the yellow tape cordons, and uniformed officers were having one hell of a time keeping them from 'accidently' wandering inside.

His FBI identification, employment made current even though he hadn't worked for the organization since '97, wasn't enough, apparently. He flipped shut his wallet. "Actually it is," he said tiredly. "But I don't want to strong-arm you, Detective Brewer."

Brewer grimaced. "That some kind of threat, Agent Conners?"

Boris remained in the background, hiding his broad smirk behind one hand.

"Look, we think there might be some kind of serial killer out here that's striking across state lines. You know how these things snowball," Peter lied smoothly.

"Pat hasn't told me anything about any serial killers. What's the MO?"

That would be Patrick Mansley. Special Agent in Charge of one of the field offices in Manhattan. Peter had met him for about thirty seconds at a hostage situation six years ago. Damn.

Rolling over Peter's silence, Brewer pulled out a Cellphone and started dialing, watching Peter and Boris with suspicion.

Peter smiled confidently, despite the sick feeling in his gut. If Mansley hadn't been briefed about the UN's new and special relationship with the CIA and FBI, this was likely to get messy, and fast.

"Pat? It's Ted."

"It's been awhile. How are the kids?"

"Fine. Listen, are you at the office? I've got a couple of agents here trying to bust my balls with some serial killer story I haven't heard a damn thing about."

"Serial killer? No, nothing like that... who are they?"

"The one is Peter Conners, badge number..."

Peter shook his head as though in amusement, and produced the identification once more. He should really have been ready to quote the number by heart...

"Right, and the other guy...?" Brewer nodded questioningly to Boris.

Boris simply smiled and held out his own wallet and identification card.

"Boris Braczynski, badge number--"

Boris smirked, leaning aside to whisper to Peter. "And so once again a great conspiracy is unveiled by a common beat officer, eh?"

"Yeah, those stories aren't just propaganda," Peter whispered back.

"I haven't heard of either of these guys. Hang on, don't let them get out of your sight, I'll get my secretary to run a check on these two."

Brewer grinned, like a rat who'd just found a shotgun left on a table, aimed directly at a sleeping cat. "Give me a second, would you boys?" he asked, waving over a couple of uniformed officers.

Peter rolled his eyes.





4. --- New York City, Manhattan, City Streets around the North Side of Central Park, December 23rd 2000, 09:12 EST.



Rudrick drew the back of his hand across his mouth, wiping away a trickle of whiskey. The bottle was empty, though. Where the hell was he going to find some more, now? Rudrick left the bottle and the bag with all the trash, getting up and lurching down the alley a few steps.

Just a little further down the alley, Morty tugged his coat tight around himself, crunching up all the little balls of newspaper he'd stuffed into his shirt. Petey was still poking the barrel, like he could make the fire spring back into life without any wood at all.

Well... there was still some whiskey left. Rudrick licked the back of his hand hopefully. It was real cold, pale, even.

Maybe Petey could get the fire going if he had some help.

"I gotta get me some gloves," Rudrick complained. He grabbed a spare stick, leaned over to see into the barrel.

Petey glanced up, one eye all bruised. "You leave me alone, man. I ain't giving you mine. They're mine. You know what that means?"

Rudrick poked at the mess of ash and embers. "I didn't mean that... and it's christmas anyway! Time to... time to give gifts."

"Yeah? What you going to give me?" Petey shoved Rudrick away from the barrel. "And you leave this alone! You can't just smash a fire! You gotta coax it, gentle like..."

Rudrick dropped his eyes to the floor. "Aw c'mon. Morty! Give us some of your newspapers, man."

Morty looked up, eyes shockingly white against his dark skin. "Nuh. You go find y'own trash to burn." He shifted, the newspapers stuffed into his coat rustling audibly, a crude form of insulation.

"It's all soaked with snow... Come on man"

"Git! Git! You leamme alone, I worked hard to get my newspaper, I ain't giving it up so you guys can just burn it"

"Yeah, you hear that? Morty worked hard for his newspaper. You quit slackin, Rudrick. Go find some trash."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever..." Rudrick glumly stuck his hands under his armpits. "You guys got any whiskey or beer or somethin'?"

"Git"

Rudrick backed away. "I was just askin'..."



Rudrick could smell smoke. Smoke meant fire, and fire meant he could warm up his hands, and maybe bum some booze off whoever started it. In summer, when people had barbecues in central park, he could sometimes guilt them into feeding him burgers, too.

The smell of fire, why... it was just about the same as it was in summer. From central park, too. Except there were cops everywhere, and a big russian guy and two smaller ones all getting into a car, journalists everywhere. Trudigng acorss the frosty remains of grass, Rudrick tried his luck at the edge of one of the crowds up against the police tape, stretching it out so they could get closer to the middle of the park.

"You guys got any coffee or spare change or anything?"

A camera turned on him. "You see what happened?"

"Uhm, yeah. Yeah I did." Rudrick stuffed his hands under his armpits again. "You got a blanket maybe?"

"What did you see?" One of the journalists shoved a little microphone at him.

Rudrick shifted from foot to foot. His toes were all numb, now. "Uh. There was a guy. A really big guy... And they... uh... uh... shot him... you got any spare change, man?"

"Shot him?" The journalist glanced at his partner skeptically. One by one the microphones and cameras disappeared, along with his chances of some spare change.

"Uh, no, I meant... stabbed? Maybe?"

One of the cops manning the tape perimiter waved Rudrick away. "Get outta here, nothing to see."

Rudrick grimaced, and turned away.



It wasn't all that difficult to duck under the yellow cop tape near the whole big burn site, where there was lots of half-burnt up wood which would burn really easily... and then maybe he could get the rest of the guys to give him some booze. But then another cop yelled at him to go away, arrest him if he took any, because it was a crime scene.

Rudrick hadn't wanted to get arrested. Last time he was in jail someone tried to shiv him, then another time some guys tried to make him their... God, it just wasn't worth thinking about.

Halfway back out of the park, though, Rudrick remembered how warm those holding cells they put you in first were. And he'd gotten a free meal.

Screw the guys, they could get their own firewood.

Rudrick turned off the path, started through the trees. It'd be a shortcut, back to the side of the park with that big pile of ash in it.

His steps crunched over the icy ground, feet slipping on the dead grass every so often. The tree branches all around cracked together in the wind.

Rudrick kept his head down, stepping through underneath a pair of trees. Fragments of ice hit his shoulder.

He glanced up. Frost was cracking off this big black lumpy thing in the tree. Smoothly it extended one arm, then another, with crab-like pincers.

"What the..."

It dropped out of the tree. Rudrick barely had time to scream before he was pinned against the ground, and there was a sudden wet warmth through his clothing...

"Oh no, Oh jesus no"

The claws shredded off his shirt.

"Not like in prison, not like in-"

A sudden wet pressure, a sucking, like a kiss... a sharp peircing pain.

"No, no, no.... No! I... oh... Gggngh"

Language deserted him. Rudrick could only think about running. Running and hiding. Somewhere dark, somewhere warm...

The black creature lifted itself off him, hissed once, and filled with terror, Rudrick ran.





5.--- New York City, Manhattan, 102nd Street East, Police Department 23rd precinct, December 23rd 2000, 10:45 EST.



"This is bull."

Conners glanced back at Brewer. "Look, Mansley told you we were agents, right?"

"Out of his own offices. For ten years. And he's never heard of you before?" Brewer shoved his hands into his pockets. "You guys don't belong in New York. So let's make this quick, so you can get out."

Boris leaned back on one foot, surveying the police station's front office message board. "Is very nice city. You are sure we can't stay? Is so, picturesque," he commented, slapping the photograph of a murder victim with the back of his fingers.

Brewer glanced over and spotted what Boris was staring at on the board. He winced, looking away immediately. "Jesus. You sicko."

Boris smirked. "Sicko with jurisdiction."

Well. Technically speaking, their cover hadn't been blown. Conners felt that, if nothing else, put them in the clear. An hour spent waiting for red tape to clear itself up and dealing with an extremely panicked Mansley hadn't helped any.

"Anyway." Conners shook his head. "Unless you want to see what other surprises we have under our hats, we'd like the investigation files now. And the body."

"I'll get copies made."

"The originals. All of them."

Brewer grimaced. "Wanna sleep with my wife, too?"

Boris seemed to be seriously considering the offer.





6. --- New York City, Queens, 164th Street, Queens Hospital Center, December 23rd 2000, 11:35 EST.



Traffic had been murder. Almost literally. Well, manslaughter, at least. A drunk had strolled across the road, screamed at Boris and Conners in their car, and fled for an alleyway. How in God's name Boris had managed to stop the sedan on Manhattan's icy streets, Conners did not know.

"Guy going around with a torn shirt like that, at this time of year..."

"You are still stuck on that? I tell you this for free, Peter. America is full of vagrants. Winter is time they are culled by the cold, so next year more men failed by capitalism can take thier place, yes?"

Conners quirked an eyebrow. "Is that rhetoric, or do you believe it?"

"Make it easy to ignore suffering." Boris shrugged. "Forget about it. Focus on task at hand."

Getting caught up with the local police, a ride across New York, over the East River, a surly partner. So far this was shaping up to be a great day. And now, waiting for a bloody coroner in an empty exam room on top of everything else. And Conners' jet-lagged biological clock thought it was time for lunch.

Conners sniffed at the air. "What's that smell? Damn, I'm hungry..."

"A dead body." The Coroner leaned in the office's doorframe and pulled off his gore stained surgical gloves, making the latex snap in the process.

Boris nudged Conners. "And Brewer thought I was sick one"

The examiner cast a skeptic eye over the two of them. "You called about this morning's John Doe from Central Park?"

Brewer, grimacing, nodded in reply. "That's the guy."

"Didn't have time to do more than an external examination."

"And?" Conners enquired, an eyebrow lifted.

"Extremely messy. Looked like some kind of nasty flesh eating bacteria with being mauled by an animal on the side."

Conners exchanged a glance with Boris."Mind if we have a look?"

"Body's gone," the coroner held up his hands defensively. "Hazmat team from the CDC."

"Shit. You have any documentation on hand?"

"They took the file. You'd have to ask 'em for copies."

Another look was exchanged. Boris nodded slowly.

Conners watched the coroner for a few moments. Tried to pull back the tickle from the back of his mind, the sting in his nose, the wind in his hair, the coroner's eyes, watching from behind the coroner's eyes, a feeling of-

"Jesus, you okay?" The Coroner stared.

Conners grimaced, lifted his hand to his face, felt the seeping stickiness. "Yeah, yeah." He nodded abruptly, flicked his hand at Boris, made a thumbs down gesture.

Boris's face went hard as he recognized the hand signal's meaning.

Conners turned away, headed towards a basin and faucet. Not quickly enough to miss Boris reaching past the coroner to slam the exam room door.

Conners rinsed under his nose, tilted his head back, pinched the bridge of his nose.

Out came Boris's gun. The Mk. 23 had a malignant gleam. Boris pulled a lengthy silencer from the shoulder holster, screwing it in with three quick twists.

"What the fuck is this?" The Coroner backed against a wall.

"You seem to be living under illusion. Illusion that you have rights. Right to privacy, right to-"

"Look man I don't want any-"

The sharp smack of the butt of Boris's pistol against the Coroner's face echoed in the dingy exam room.

"-right to speak, right to vote, right to live. Right to anything. This is the illusion your decadant society has given you. The illusion that you live in democracy, yes?"

The water was cold. The burning in Conner's nose lessening. Maybe it was higher up. Maybe it wasn't even in his nose. Maybe it wasn't anywhere physical. Halfway between a memory of having his nose broken as a kid and the way his gut churned.

"It is pleasant illusion, yes, but still illusion. This, this is not illusion. It is gun. Gun is what I use to make illusions go away. Sometimes forever. This it can also do to democracy."

The way Conners' hair would stand up on the back of his neck when Becky wasn't home. The way he felt about his father. The way they trained him in that damn base carved into bedrock outside of Scotland. The way those damn skinny little ones would put things in your head. The way his father's boots creaked outside the bedroom door.

"Now you have big illusion that you can hide secrets. Ah... Ha ha! You have also pissed your pants! Perhaps this is a sign you are no longer having this illusion?"

The hollow noise of the belt. Smack. Smack. You've been a very naughty boy, Peter. A downright malicious little brat. Now take my hand, boy, and maybe we won't have to put you in military academy, set you straight. Take my hand. Squeeze it. That's right...

"Excuse me a moment. Conners"

"Ow" Conners winced, rubbed his shin. "Why'd you kick me in the leg?"

"You are not paying attention to the wonderful testimony our friend here is going to give us."

Conners glanced down at the coroner. His pants were wet, his upper lip was bleeding, and there was the silencer of Boris' Mk. 23 wedged up against his eye, forcing the eyelid open.

"You got towels?"

The coroner lifted one arm, pointed at a cabinet.

Conners nodded. "Thanks." Maybe he was becoming hemophiliac. That'd be great. Never stop bleeding.

"Now then. You have no illusions, yes? So you will now tell me all I want to know. These men, they were not the CDC, yes?"

"No, uhm, I..." The coroner spluttered. "They had ID but they just lifted the body and left. I've never had the Center for Disease Control do anything like that! Normally they're all paperwork and a million questions"

Boris nodded sympathetically, pulling back the slide of the pistol. It rammed forward with a thud, an unspent round of ammunition flicking out of the gun and rolling into a corner. The coroner quivered, eye watering uncontrollably. The white was starting to redden around the silencer.

"My present to you. Now I can shoot you only twelve times, not thirteen."

Conners opened the cabinet, pulled out a towel, scrubbed it against his face. His father was dead. He had to remember that. Dead and he'd never get the chance to say that he was sorry, never get the chance to have his father forgive him, never get a chance to resolve the thousands of questions in his head.

"Oh Jesus! No! I can tell you more! The body'd been dead since six AM! The bacterial cultures are still cooking but I don't know if there's really anything! There was this, this, goop, acidic goop in him! Way too acid to be stomach acid! I took photos"

Boris cocked his head. "Photos? That the 'CDC' men did not take?"

"Yes! They're over there! In the cabinet! Filed under today's date"

"I think maybe," Boris said, pulling the slide back, letting another round flick out of the weapon, "you are going to live to see end of day."

Conners put down the bloody towel, opened the cabinet tiredly. Flicked through the folders.

"I don't know anything else! I called the CDC! They said I shouldn't worry and they'd handle it"

Conners found the folder, pulled it up onto the counter. Pulled it open. A stack of polaroids greeted him. The hair on the back of his neck pricked up.

"You dialed usual number?"

"Yes"

"And usual man answer?"

"Yes. No! I don't know"

The third one in the stack showed part of the chest. The rest of it was torn open, bloody and fleshy. Ribs had been neatly shorn off. Too crude to have been surgical, though. Maybe bolt cutters. The flesh that was left was pale, drained of blood. Except for a round bruise below the man's nipple.

Conners dropped the photograph and clutched his hands to his face.

A bruise with a slim wound in the center.

"Oh shit."

7. --- New York City, Manhattan, City Streets around the North Side of Central Park, December 23rd 2000, 11:50 EST.



"Rudrick"

Morty pulled his coat in tighter around himself, kicking a can along the alleyway. "This is nuts."

"We can't get the fire goin' anyway man." Petey shrugged, stepping around an icy puddle. "Besides, that dumbass might've got himself hurt."

"So why don't we call an ambulance or a cop and go see if there's a soup kitchen open?"

"Because Rudrick's an okay guy when he's had his liquor, okay?" Petey grunted, flipping open the lid of a dumpster.

Morty winced, shuffling up next to Petey to dig around inside. "I'm just sayin' he's a dang louse and it serves him right if we forget about him."

Petey looked over an empty bottle, gave it a hopeful shake. Nothing sloshed around, but he kept it anyway for the deposit. "Yeah, whatever. Rudrick! Where the heck are you?"

Petey wandered further along the alley. Morty slammed the dumpster lid in disgust with a hellish clang.

A scream echoed down the alley as if in reply.

"Oh damn. Rudrick!? You okay man?" Petey started running, cracking open a puddle of ice.

Morty grimaced, following in his usual shuffling gait, trying to avoid getting his feet wet.

Pete dragged plastic garbage bags off a moaning huddle of shivering limbs. "Rudrick? Aww crap"

Petey reached out to shake him by the shoulder. Rudrick looked pale, his clothes were all torn up. Like he'd be cold as all hell. But no, Rudrick felt hot to the touch.

"Shit. Rudrick's high on something weird, Morty," Petey said, glancing up, away from the swinging fist.

"Leamme a-a-al-looone" Rudrick wailed, shoving Petey down. Morty could only watch as Rudrick smashed his fist into Petey's face again and again and-

"Get the fuck off me you shit"

Petey threw Rudrick off him. There was a cracking noise as Rudrick fell. Rudrick tried to get onto his feet, fell to a shaking crouch. He hacked up a thin misty spray of blood, then spat a thicker glob of it, fell over. His ribcage shivered. Didn't move other than that.

Morty blinked. "Oh jesus. We gotta get him to a hospital."

Petey sat up, wiping at his face with one gloved hand. His other eye was bruising up now too. "Him? Him?! What about me?"

8. --- New York City, Over the East River and heading into Manhattan, the Triborough Bridge, 12:06



Boris leaned on the car horn, sending out a high pitched wail as he wove through traffic with his foot flat. Conners hung onto his seatbelt and his cellphone.

"Pick up pick up pick up..."

"This is high priority line you are calling, Peter?"

Boris overtook a heavy truck, weaving briefly into the oncoming traffic as the east river dissappeared below, Ward Island flashing by.

"Yes. Damn it. Where's the nearest securable line?"

Boris shrugged, slowing down behind a van. He beat on the car horn. "Fucking American drivers..."

"United Nations library, languages section."

Conners wiped sweat from his forehead. "Member number Three Five Six Seven, Nine J P."

A brief pause. "Thankyou for calling in, Mister Byers."

"That's, Uh, Jesus." Conners shook his head. The confirmation sequence would take another thirty seconds. "That's Geoffry Byers. Correct."

"Yes. Can I help you with a book, Mister Byers?"

"Yes. I need to know the print number of your copy of- Oh fuck it. It's a situation Thirty-Twelve, red, New York City."

Dead silence greeted him. Conners tried not to look as Boris hit the turnpike at speed, narrowly skimming past a station-wagon and onto the bridge from Ward's Island and back to Manhattan.

"Could you repeat that please?"

"Situation Thirty-Twelve. Red. New York. Probably in Central Park."

More silence.

"Please make your way to JFK International airport and go to the evacuation point."

Conners shook his head. "I don't think you understand. We're heading back to Central Park. Maybe there's still time to catch this thing."

"This is an interceptable call. Your message is recieved. Continue contact from a secure location."

The phone clicked.

Conners glanced across at Boris. Boris kept his eyes on the road.

"So one hatched at Six AM, two hours after the UFO trace. It goes adult at Eight. Twenty fresh ones. They hatch at ten... and just went adult. Jesus. We might have four hundred hatching within another two hours."

Boris nodded grimly. "Unless they bite young. In which case is more like some thousands, yes?"

"You drop me off at the park. Then get to a secure line. Maybe at Brewer's precinct station. That's just a couple of blocks out from the park."

Boris quirked an eyebrow. "What, you go alone? You are kidding me, Peter."

Peter shook his head. "I'm used to it."

"Is your butt."

9. --- New York City, Manhattan, Madison Avenue, Mount Sinai Hospital, December 23rd 2000, 12:10 EST.



Nurse Jennings couldn't stand the ER. Normally it'd have been fine. But taking a long shift over the holidays while her husband was home really ticked her off.

"Miss?"

A pair of grubby hands were on the reception counter. Extremely grubby. They were owned by an African-American hobo.

She sighed. "What seems to be the problem, Morty?" She knew the bum. Soemtimes he came in hoping to score some painkillers. Normally not untill it was painfully late.

"My friends, they..." She followed his gaze.

Another man in a coat with bits of newspaper sticking out of it shoved a limp figure into a waiting room seat. He cradled his face. "Bastard loosened my teeth. My good teeth."

Morty grimaced. "My pal, Rudrick. He ODed on some real bad shit, miss. Real bad..."

Nurse Jennings slapped her forehead and yelled over a shoulder to the other nurses, "Oh Jesus. Hey, guys! We've got another of those weird ODs on our hands" Great. Lunch break was officially over before it had begun.

10. --- New York City, Manhattan, North Side of Central Park, December 23rd 2000, 12:10 EST.



Conners bailed out of the Sedan, racing around to the back. Boris popped the trunk. Conners flicked it open, clanging on its hinges, and he flipped up the hatch to get into the car's spare tyre well. The tyre was missing. In its place was a pair of rifles. A metal framework and insulating stock, pistol grip and handguard. The front end was just a lens.

Conners plucked one up, two of the heavy red canisters containing the gasses needed to pressurise the laser chamber, and a considerably smaller box marked with the three sided nuclear hazard trefoil. He slotted the box containing the energizing isotopes into the steel casing, screwed the gas canister in, and tripped the ignition switch. Almost immediately he could feel heat pouring off the laser rifle.

Boris leaned out of the driver's side window. "There will be witnesses..."

Conners narrowed his eyes. "Boris, one way or another, there will be witnesses."

"You have spare gas cylinders?"

Conners patted the heavy red can sticking out of his jacket pocket. "Enough burntime for an hour and a half."

"Alright. Don't get yourself killed." Boris held out the ruggedized plastic frame of a proximity tracker. "You're not going to take a radio?"

Conners took it and wound the strap over his shoulder, flicked it on. The main body of the unit shuddered, the display under armoured glass coming on with a chime. A quick sweep in the direction of nearby trees elicited a blurry pattern of swaying branches.

"No. I'm set. Get out of here, call down everything you damn well can."

Boris nodded grimly.

The car left a long yellow smear on the tracker's screen.

There was a lot of ground to cover.

Peter started walking.

11. --- New York City, Manhattan, Madison Avenue, Mount Sinai Hospital, December 23rd 2000, 12:12 EST.



The doctor flashed lights into the patients eyes, testing response. "Where the hell's that narcan?"he yelled, trying to wedge open the patient's jaws to check the airway.

The bum, Rudrick, spluttered. His face was yellowy. Kidney malfunction? Nurse Jennings bent over his body, running a stethoscope over his bare chest, searching for a heartbeat. She grimaced.

The sound was strange. Like slithering. What the hell did that mean?

The flesh underneath her twitched. Something pulled away from the pressure. Inside the bum's gut. She pulled her hands back, staring.

"What the fuck?"

"Nurse?" The doctor glared at her across the patient.

Three sharp cracks. Ribs snapping.

Everyone stared.

The torso bulged out. Black claws pierced through the flesh, from the inside, and a bloody goo seeped from the wound almost immediately.

The screams of the medical staff were only of secondary interest. The main show was the quivering body, while the claws, pincerlike, scissored through the skin.

The body rolled off the table, pushing over the doctor.

Almost like a man discarding his coat, the thing pulled Rudrick off itself. Snapping its claws, it unfolded itself, covered in oozing gore with a glossy shine. Two antennae-like spines rose and stiffened, bouncing in the air over the creature's shoulders. Its eyes were tiny, face a grinning dead skull with blood and acidic juices dripping down.

It stepped out of the rag-like remains.

It paused to grab the doctor with its pincers, hauling him to his feet, as it stood on backward-jointed legs with not-quite feet. What seemed like a skull's grinning teeth proved to be tiny plates, moving like the mandibles of a crab to open. A thick rod of muscle shot out from between the mandible plates, latched onto the doctor's chest.

He flailed, screamed.Was released with an almost disdainful, casually annoyed squeal from the creature. His arm was hanging at a godawful angle with blood seeping into his white coat.

Nurse Jennings screamed. "Security! Security"

The creature repeated the process, jabbing its head at another of the nurses, before plowing through the room's swinging doors and into the waiting room.

The doctor looked up at Nurse Jennings. His face was twisted in agony. He grabbed out for at the crash cart while scrabbling to his feet, his fingers slipped. He didn't seem to notice that he'd cut himself on a scalpel. He didn't care much, either, raising one enraged fist over Nurse Jennning's head.

Drool poured from his lips as he swung, clipped her across the forehead, sent ringing pains through her body.

He slurred some words into an angry scream, brought his fist down a second time, a third time. She saw him raising his fist again, but didn't really feel the fourth blow. Or the fifth, or the sixth, or the seventh...

12.--- New York City, Manhattan, 102nd Street East, Police Department 23rd precinct, December 23rd 2000, 12:17 EST.



Boris tweaked aside the blinds of the office he'd taken over for his call. The American police were getting agitated. Clearing their desks of files and making phone calls.

Good. The busier the circuits, the more difficulty in singling out the single encrypted signal on the station's hardened line.

"Da. Yes. At least one Chryssalid, it hatch at about six AM."

There was a grunt from the other end of the line, made tinny by the encryption rig the phone had been plugged through. "That correlates with a signal we had logged at about four AM. Medium scout. Though there's no indication anything in that class has equipment to handle terror units."

Boris rolled his eyes and stepped away, letting the blinds snap shut again. "That is for engineers to decide. Me, I have evidence, autopsy photos, with almost textbook implantation wound. Some prick has also taken away body. Is suspicious."

"Yeah." The controller's voice betrayed his disinterest. "Look, I'm kicking this up to the War-room on highest priority and I've logged notices on GEOSCAPE, but I need you and Conners ready to Evac on ten minute's notice."

"What are we meant to do? Sit in airport?"

"I'm not going to argue about this, Braczynski. Ten minute standby. Those are your orders, buddy."

"Bullshit! You want evac, that means you think there will be combat response. What is response team going to do? Cruise down streets in Skyranger shouting 'Here Chryssalid, nice boy, come play with us'? You need eyes on ground to find these things."

"Yeah, well I'm responsible for making sure you guys aren't killed. Which reminds me. Trewitt was chewing my ass earlier."

Boris growled. "What does that bastard want?"

"Some girl in his offices died of an aneurysm or something late last night. Crazy fool wanted to know if Pete was alright, he seemed to think whatever it was might be catching."

Boris risked another glance through the blinds. Fewer police now. He watched one pull on a jacket and hurry out the open office outside's doors. "Peter quit that black operations bullshit. He is perfectly healthy, Da? Da. End of discussion."

"Fine."

"Will make contact when we reach standby status." Boris slapped the phone into the reciever and began unplugging the encryption rig.

Just then the door burst open. "What the hell is going on in my city?" Brewer demanded, sweat sheening his forehead as he pushed past Boris to get at the sidearm hanging from the office's coat rack.

"Hm? What now?" Boris enquired, allowing icy calm to take him, brushing off the lapels of his jacket.

"Hostage situation at the goddamn hospital. Mount Sinai, just a couple of blocks down. What the hell is going on?"

Boris quirked an eyebrow. "Aliens invading."

Brewer stared at Boris for a moment, then pulled his coat on over his shoulder holster, heading back out. "Very funny, jackass."

13. --- New York City, Manhattan, North Side of Central Park, December 23rd 2000, 12:20 EST.



The wind blew fragments of caution tape over the dead brown grass, flittering like butterflies. Peter ground the tape into the dirt with his heel, grimacing vaguely. The crime scene had been abandoned. A couple of cola cans leaned next to an abandoned cardboard box filled with the refuse of a news crew, abandoned in the scurry to the next story.

Peter jammed down the trigger of the proximity scanner, swinging it side from side as he crossed into the dense clutter of trees. When he released the trigger, the screen filled with foggy yellow traces surrounding a central blob. The swaying trees. His own moving body.

He glanced up, a sick feeling taking hold in his gut. The world was almost in black and white. Snowdrifts and bland yellow-brown grass with almost black tree-trunks shining with ice and meltwater, sun almost at its peak and throwing sharply defined shadows.

His shoulder ached from the weight of carrying the laser with one hand, with its stock jammed into his elbow, held barrel up with the still burning mechanisms away from his body.

The grass crunched with errant snowflakes as he wound his way past the snowdrifts, moving deeper into the tree covered hills of Central Park.

"Come out and play, sweetie," he breathed, jamming down the tracker's trigger again, swinging it around awkwardly with his left hand. "Come find your snack." He released the trigger button. The slight yellow fog of swaying branches clouded the screen as if he'd breathed on it. But something in the cloudy pattern wasn't right. It was all just a haze, fading as the tracker's charge burnt out, but there was something there, in the foggy cloud of motion surrounding him.

Blood droplets dripped onto the tracker's screen. Peter leaned his head back, snorting down the blood-clogged mucous in his sinuses, and found his eyes trailing up, up at the spindly black tree-branches, glossy with ice. Shiny as the carapace of an insect.

He had just enough time to drop the tracker in its straps and scrabble for the heat-shielded foregrip of the laser before the chitinous claws of a Chryssalid, dropping from the branches above, raked down his back with the burning agony of tearing flesh and hurled him into the ground.





14. --- Nova Scotia, X-Com Base 'Nova Scotia': XF-37, X-Com Intelligence Services Control Hub 7, December 23rd 2000, 12:10 EST.



Alana Bryant stared at the computer screen for several shocked seconds at the 'disconnected' icon, flashing brightly over an automatically generated transcript.

Yes. I need to know the print number of your copy offal kitt. It's a situation Thirty-Twelve, red, New York City.

A little numbly she reached up and corrected 'Offal Kitt' to 'of- Oh fuck it.'

She saved the transcript, placed it into the automatically designated folder, and pulled up the codebook file, hoping she was wrong.

Section thirty - Encounters of the Third kind, confirmedly hostile in nature, belonging to races under groupings A through E.

That was inclusive of everything from sectoids to silacoids.

She ran her cursor down the list, untill she found the twelvth entry. She pinched the bridge of her nose.

Type Twelve - Species Group D-2 Nonsentient Parasitic Terror Weapon / Chryssalid

The colour code attached to the entry was similarly understated.

Code Red - Active Infection in open environment.

Alana took a long breath before closing the codebook file. She took the time to print out the transcript with an appended codebook translation and give it to the watch supervisor. She then left the watch room, ignoring the protestations of her watch supervisor, went to her bunk and pulled out the photograph of her two children, aged Four and Nine years old respectively, and took the time to kiss each of their faces, both shining at the eldest's birthday party last june, back in Queens.

She then unholstered her service automatic, pulled back the slide to chamber a round, and shot herself through the right temple.

Her body, while found almost immediately, was not put into the morgue untill twelve hours later, long after the emergency klaxons had stopped ringing.

--- Phase Two: Response



15. --- Nova Scotia, X-Com Base 'Nova Scotia': XF-37, Base Command and Control Center, December 23rd 2000, 12:18 EST.


Javier Deerman, Colonel, 5831-9ct-XCM, highest rank possible for a military man, wiped sweat off his forehead, staring through the Triple-C's blast doors, yawning wide open. Soldiers marched past, stamping feet no competition for the ready-alert klaxon. Those going to the right were typically still in their underwear or off-hours coveralls, some wiping sleep from their eyes. Those moving to the left were marching by squads, wearing dark urban camouflage with G3 battle rifles over their shoulders of a model so generic they'd be almost impossible to trace, belt pouches full of grenades and ammunition which had supposedly been delivered to an Israeli army base, and a big blank patch over their shoulder that always made him feel uneasy.

His men couldn't even wear dogtags.

He turned to his Captain, and opened his mouth to ask Jennson how his squad was. But as of that intercept two days ago, Jennson wasn't his captain anymore. Jennson was a vague smear on a couple of plates of alien alloy down in storage and a form letter that had yet to be mailed informing his family of his death in a car accident on whichever base he was supposed to be serving on in the 'real' world.

No. His Captain here was Throop. Formerly just some face in lineup. A sergeant a few weeks ago, Javier thought. He'd never really noticed the man, despite signing his promotion papers in a desperate attempt to fill out needed officer positions. Was trying not to remember the earnest look of respect on Throop's face.

"How's your squad, Lieut- er, Captain?"

"Teams NS-Two through NS-Four are still gearing up. NS-One is on ready-five standby to board, sir." Throop cleared his throat. "Depending on how the ranger pilots are handling things, we should be good to get into the air by twelve-thirty. We push the airframe hard, we'll be down by thirteen-thirty."

Javier bit his lip. He reached out and slapped Throop on the back. "Go join your men, Throop. We'll be sending the other teams as soon as possible."

The captain nodded, hefting his G3 over a shoulder, a laser pointer you could buy off the internet from a hundred places clipped to the barrel, and saluted. "Sir. We'll clean this up fast."

Javier watched the man go. He couldn't even be thirty yet. Maybe he'd had some officer's training before he'd been sucked into X-Com, Javier didn't know. He swallowed down his guilt.

"Captain?"

Throop paused at the door, glancing back with a sickening kind of trust. "Sir?"

"Good luck, uh... Darren."

Throop saluted again, pausing to pull on his helmet. "Thankyou, Sir. Respectfully... If you can't greet me when I'm back, Sir, I'll save you a good spot on the ferry." He nodded, and joined the moving soldiers in the halls outside.

Javier relaxed, only a little. At least the newbie captain knew what he was getting into.

He turned, watching as the broad GEOSCAPE display threw up a bright red tag circled over New York City. Almost immediately a phone started ringing.

Javier shut his eyes. Nova Scotia had been first on alert, thanks to that woman at the intelligence hub who'd just shot herself. And now the intelligence she'd had was confirmed.

"Sir? It's the war room on hotline one..."

And first on the ball, Javier would be the one left coordinating this mess. And taking the blame.

16. --- New York City, Manhattan, Madison Avenue and East 102nd Street, December 23rd 2000, 12:32 EST.



"This is fantastic, just fantastic."

The woman jostling Boris's arm elbowed him aside with a strength he found surprising. He was even forced to lean on the heavy police barriers blocking the road, beyond which trucks of police full of technicians continued to pull up.

The space she'd shoved into existance was rapidly taken up by a burly man with a news camera. Boris found himself recoilling away, giving up his front-row place at the spectacle just a few dozen meters away from the Mount Sinai hospital center, purely to avoid the man's body odour.

Either that, or a long ingrained fear of cameras, Boris wasn't sure which. As it was, he'd been unable to find a way through the mess of traffic and closed off roads around the city precinct and the hospital by car, so, he'd switched to moving on foot, then joining the crowds trampling the street and even the gardens of the nearby office blocks to get a good view of the unfolding excitement.

In America, every tragedy is good for spectators, or so he'd learned.

"We have unconfirmed reports of a gang of drug crazed- No, wait. Do people even say drug crazed anymore?"

"Hell if I know, Ellen." The man with the camera shrugged, before resuming the filming of the building facade about a half block down, surrounded by police cruisers.

Boris elbowed the woman heavily. "You want story? Is biiig story. Aliens invading."

She spun on him, as best she could in the crush, and fixed him down with a narrowed, icy gaze.

"Leave town now," Boris advised, grinning broadly now. "Or the big headed aliens, they will get you."

"Oh just fuck off man. Rodney, Rodney, can you get rid of this guy?"

The fat man lowered the camera, scratched under an armpit, and glared at Boris.

Boris smiled in response, and backed off. "Is not my life." With that, he started moving to the back of the crowds again, up to Park Avenue. From there maybe he could find a footpath into Central Park before people could find out if the 'drug crazed madmen' were still things that could be called men.

Boris suspected that such an idea was purely optimism.

17. --- Nova Scotia, X-Com Base 'Nova Scotia': XF-37, Base Command and Control Center, December 23rd 2000, 12:40 EST.



"Hey now, I know the reaction plan for an attack on New York hasn't been finalized, but I thought we were meant to be carrying the ball on this one?"

Javier rubbed at his mouth, staring over the GEOSCAPE display while Colonel Powers, base commander at Houston, continued to drawl away. There was just too much activity to keep an eye on all at once. Down near Peru, a pair of interceptors were chasing down a medium sized UFO. There was an operation in central germany trying to find a downed pilot. Over the Indian Ocean a lone interceptor pilot was making the rough decision on wether or not to bail out over water, a couple of Scouts hovering around his damaged plane like a couple of vultures.

Closer to home a trio of radar pings were still in orbit over the Atlantic ocean, moving a hundred kilometers closer to North America's western seaboard every hour, almost lazily hanging up there.

A sharper accent, more Bostonian. Colonel Eddings, the North American theatre's coordinator. "A - It's not confirmed as an attack yet. Right now it's just a sighting, even if it is worrying. B - We can't switch to a set of protocols not everyone's been briefed on. Colonel Deerman. This mess is on your table right now."

One of them was a supply ship, they'd gotten a flyby before it'd moved up into orbit, an interceptor flight over Kenya that was on it's way back to base. He'd been right in his earlier assumption - a task force to support some kind of attack. There was the brief wail of a new track - a medium sized ship lifting out of the Amazon basin, heading north.

"Deerman?"

"Javier? You walk away from your console there buddy?"

Javier pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm here."

"What's the plan, Colonel?"

His career was on the line here. If he over-responded, clamped down on this hard, he'd be out within a week with internal investigations claiming he was unfit for breaching covert guidelines. If he under-responded... he didn't want to think about it. Regardless. It'd be over.

"I think... I think that right now, we've just got information out of one of our agent teams. We're not picking up anything obvious on the media. But as a precaution... Powers, I'd appreciate it if you could get one of your skyrangers in the air with full squads kitted for urban warfare, and send your third ranger up here, we don't have enough if this turns nasty."

"Aw hell, man. When are you getting in that damn replacement?"

Replacement. Because one of the two Skyrangers assigned to Nova Scotia had been knocked out of the sky after dropping a team in the everglades. A team that'd disappeared. A list of twelve names with MIA stamped over them pinned to the board in his office and a visit from internal investigations over 'wasting resources'.

"Whenever. Eddings, do me a favour and get yourself ready to get onto the horn with everybody relevant up there. Department of Defence, whoever handles emergency management."

"Absolutely."

"I'll get back to you two."

At their current rate the group of three over the atlantic would be over Washington DC in another ten hours, based on the orbital trajectory report the orbital mechanics men had drawn up. He needed fresh ones put together. Washington. Was that their real target? Cut the head off the richest funding nation while X-Com was distracted with a couple of Chryssalids?

What if the whole damn thing was a feint to get enough air traffic out of X-Com bases to pin one's location down for an assault?

A report of a couple of Chryssalids didn't seem like much compared to losing a whole d