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MANLEY'S DEPOSITION
by John Possidente
Copyright (1995) MicroProse Software, Inc.
X-COM Copyright 1995, MicroProse Software, Inc.
X-COM is a Trademark of MicroProse Software, Inc.
Deposition: 21 April, 2028: Dr. Robert Manley
The convention was going badly, so I was in the hotel
bar before noon. It had been the same thing all morning, in
every paper presented. "Of course, we have insufficient
experimental data, but..." and, "If we extrapolate from what
little data is available..." and, "Naturally, this is all
speculation, however..." Xenology was like that in those
days. It was pretty depressing. I had just about decided to
skip my own presentation--nobody but bored, brown-nosing
grad students would be there anyway--and take the next
transorbital home. I wish I had. Instead, I ordered another
beer and continued sulking.
When that bottle was about half gone, there was a tap
on my shoulder. I swiveled my stool around slowly, scowling.
As far as I knew, there wasn't anyone within two hundred
miles I really wanted to talk to. A man I had never seen
before stood there grinning. He was big, he was wearing
brown leather, and I was thoroughly intimidated.
"You are doctor Manley, aren't you?" he said in his
huge, deep voice.
"Yes," I said, but I would've agreed if he'd said I was
Thomas Jefferson. He was that big.
"Great," he smiled. It made me feel a little safer that
I had made this Slavic-looking giant happy. "Please come
with me. I have a research proposal for you." He turned and
strode self-assuredly out of the bar. Of course I followed
him.
I didn't know then that he was an X-COM vet, but there
were clues. His dark brown hair was really short--that
chopped-off, military haircut. That was a sort of trend with
the kids, though, so I didn't really think about it. What
should have told me was the way he carried himself. He was
totally relaxed, like nothing on Earth could possibly
threaten him, but he seemed to notice everything. He looked
both ways at every intersecting hallway before he stepped
out, and he twitched when he heard the elevator doors slide
open. I guess I was too busy wondering what he wanted from
me. I thought I was dealing with some monstrous, overeager
grad student. My primary worry was how I was going to get
out of sponsoring his research without angering him. Neither
of us said a word until we were in the elevator.
"Where are we going?" I asked. He looked down at me as
if just noticing that I was still there.
"My room," he said curtly. "It's secure." I wasn't
exactly sure what he meant by that, but by following him
this far I had tacitly agreed to view his proposal. We
didn't speak again until he had locked the door to his
little suite behind us. The bed seemed tiny compared to him.
I wondered how he slept on it.
"Doctor Manley, what's the biggest problem facing
researchers in your field?" He had settled himself onto one
of the two cane chairs in the room--gently, as if making an
effort not to break it. I hunched uncomfortably in the other
one. The shades were closed, and he had turned on all the
lights.
"How about you tell me who you are first," I was
emboldened by the discomfort and the beer, I think, or I
would never have asked so bluntly. He didn't seem to take
offense, and I relaxed a little.
"Call me Gregory," he said. That's about when my
nagging, half realized suspicions sort of crystallized. I
put two and two together.
"Wait a minute," I sat up straighter. "As in 'Gregory
Illych'?" he glanced away momentarily--answer enough. "As in
'X-COM Captain Gregory Illych'?" I continued. Now, he
started to look uncomfortable. I think I had guessed before
he was ready for me to know. "Renegade X-COM Captain Illych
for whom half the world's security agencies have shoot-to-
kill orders?"
"Uh, yeah," he looked down at his scuffed boots. I
didn't know why the military authorities wanted him so
badly. Nobody knew. I suppose I just assumed that it had to
be something horrible. At least he wasn't proud of it, I
thought. It didn't really occur to me until later that I had
been in a locked hotel room with probably one of the most
dangerous men on the planet. I don't think I could have been
more intimidated, anyway. I mean, he was just enormous, like
I was sharing a room with a truck.
"So, what's your interest in xenology?" I said, more to
fill the silence than anything else. I felt stupid as soon
as I had said it. Any soldier from the old X-COM would just
naturally have an interest in alien studies.
"You haven't answered my question," he said simply. I
didn't have to think over my answer for long.
"Well, it's obvious," I began. This was one of my
favorite diatribes, and it was unusual to have a willing
audience. "Xenology is a general term covering all the areas
of study relating to things alien, right? Now, before the
war, xenological studies were all speculation. There was no
data. As far as the researchers knew then, there might not
even be any aliens at all. That all changed with the
invasion from Cydonia, or so we thought.
"I was in college then, and you can imagine the
excitement. Everybody rushed to major in xeno stuff--biology
majors switched to xenobiology, psychology majors to
xenopsychology, and on and on. I was just starting my
doctoral studies in biochemistry, and I certainly wasn't
immune to the hysteria. I got my degree in nonhuman
neurochemistry just in time to spend a month doing research
in an X-COM base. I ended up the world's foremost expert on
alien nervous system chemistry." I paused for breath, and
Illych just nodded. I guessed he'd already known all that.
If I had thought about it at the time, I would have figured
that that was one of the reasons he'd come to me. In a way,
I was an X-COM vet, too.
"After the war, I was really looking forward to a long
stretch of productive research. I would be at the top of one
of the highest-profile areas of research. In a few years, I
figured, we would have the aliens' whole brain chemistry
mapped out. Of course, the world military had other plans.
"Everything from every X-COM base and laboratory, every
sample of anything alien, every tiniest fluid stain or
integument scrape was confiscated and locked away. It was
all locked away from those who could best use it!" I took a
few seconds to calm down. That part always got me mad all
over again. What a waste it had been! "It was a five month
fight just to get the recordings from the hyperwave decoders
that we had invented. Even then, at least half of it had
been edited out--censored!
"So that's the problem. The stuff has stayed locked up.
They claim that military researchers have been working on
it, but I've seen their reports. They obviously have no idea
what they're doing. Everything in those reports is a repeat
of something we discovered while X-COM was active, or a
minor extension of our work. Meanwhile, the materials are
being consumed by the experimental procedures. I know what
was in those bases. I know how much they're hiding from us.
I've been following the research, and I have a good idea how
much of the alien specimens are left. It isn't much. The
military broadcast a claim two years ago that it was almost
all used up. They had the gall to ask us to volunteer any
samples we had been hoarding, the cretins.
"So that left the rest of us, the non-military
researchers, out in the cold. We couldn't be re-trained, and
there's been no experimental data to work with, no
resources. Some few have turned parasite, leaching what they
can off of what information the military releases. Their
research isn't what you'd call stellar. Most of us can't
even do that, though. I need samples to work on; I can't
just go on speculation and extrapolation. All my work for
the last few years has been essentially worthless.
"That," I paused for effect, "is the primary impediment
to xenological research today. Now tell me why you care." He
shifted around in his chair and it creaked nervously.
"Aren't there rumors that some scientists have secret
access to the remaining military specimens?" he asked
without preamble.
"How did you..." I began. "Wait." I stopped to gather
my thoughts for a moment; this guy was way ahead of me.
"Okay, yes, That's a rumor I've heard. Nobody really
believes it, though. What possible reason could the military
authorities have for allowing secret access?"
"You said yourself that they're getting nowhere by
themselves," Illych got up and pulled a beer out of a
cooler. It disappeared, engulfed in his hand. I remember
being surprised that someone who was being hunted by several
security organizations would allow himself to drink. "Rather
than admit their failure, I say they'd be more willing to
engineer some covert research opportunities." What he said
made sense, but he hadn't dropped his bombshells yet. He
pulled some glossy sheets out of the cooler and tossed them
at me. "I know it's going on. I know where. I know who." He
leaned back on the bed with a satisfied smile. "There's
proof."
The sheets were old style 2-D photographs. I recognized
the scientists in them, and they were recent shots. Dr.
Baird had shaved off his beard no more than a month ago, and
in the photo he was clean faced. I even recognized one or
two of the labs. What I didn't recognize at first were the
specimens. When I did, I said something I'd rather not
repeat.
"You're convinced," Illych said quietly. "Good. Now, we
can get down to business." I was convinced, all right--
convinced, betrayed, and hopping mad. He got up and reached
for the cooler again. I stood, too.
"Hey," I grabbed at his elbow, emboldened by
familiarity, I guess. I'd swear I never saw him move. Just
all of a sudden I'm lying on my back next to the window, and
my jaw really hurts. He didn't say anything, just stood
there looking at me. I guessed--correctly, as it turned out-
-that that was no time to be showing weakness. I tried to
shrug off the pain. "You never answered my question. Why do
you care?"
He bent over the cooler, "I liked X-COM." A sheaf of
papers came out with two more beers. He threw one to me,
then unfolded some kind of map on the bed. I didn't feel
like getting up yet, so I stayed put. "I think we got a bum
deal after the war."
"You were heroes for a while," I chipped in. I knew
what he was going to say, but I couldn't say it for him.
I've run into more than a few old vets who weren't too happy
with the way things turned out, and I've learned that the
best thing to do is to help them talk it out--sort of prod
them along. The word 'heroes' usually does the trick.
"Yah," Illych said. "Heroes." He looked down at his
hands for a few long seconds. "That lasted at least a couple
of months. Then how do you get a job when your only real
skill is sneaking around frying monsters? You know, that
wasn't the worst of it. I mean, sure, they treated us vets
pretty awful. We got some tiny benefits package and a little
fame, then the push off. But what really got to me was how
they treated the X Lady herself." Now, there was a term I
hadn't heard in years. 'X Lady' was how the hardest core,
most vicious, meanest, and most successful soldiers referred
to the organization. To them, X-COM was like a mother figure-
-a woman for whom they'd do anything, take any risk. When
one of her bases was invaded, I remembered, all the soldiers
fought like demons, but certain men and women consistently
went way over the top. There were even rumors that they
stole alien corpses out of storage and had private, secret
barbecue parties.
"Okay," he continued, "I can understand they figured
there wasn't any threat left. Why keep the bases open? I got
that part. And yeah, they had to pension us all off and get
rid of the techs and the ships and all. No problem, just
sell off everything. That's respectable. She'd have just
faded into glory like an old soldier's supposed to." He
stopped to drink.
"That didn't happen," and I knew what did.
"Yah," he stood and started pacing the room. "That's
when it started to get ugly. The undersea research was the
only redeeming part of the next few years. I got to ride in
the prototype of one of the new subs. It was great. But
after they sold off X-COM 1, that was it. No more nothing.
"I guess the real bull started when somebody got the
bright idea of selling off the merchandising rights.
Merchandising!" He started counting off on his giant
fingers. "Gummy Sectoids, Muton Cola, Chrysalid Malt Liquor,
Plasma Pops, Blaster Launcher Gum," he paused to switch
hands, transferring his beer, "toy weapons, toy craft, fake
'Elerium' crystal charms, Squaddie dolls, alien action
figures!" Illych ran out of fingers. "The films weren't so
bad, but the comic books!" He shuddered visibly. "Then there
were the Hallowe'en costumes, the inflatable Floaters, and
that long, public legal battle with that auto company that
named one of their models 'Avenger'. I mean, it was just
plain degrading!
"Is that when you got the military after you?" I asked,
standing. He looked over at me without moving his head, and
I picked up the chair I'd sat in before and sat in it again.
"Yeah, sort of. See, my first try wasn't so smart. I
got together a bunch of X'ers and headed for the corporate
headquarters of the company that was doing all this. They
didn't like our attitude." He snorted. "Their security goons
were probably pretty good for keeping out terrorists. On our
way out, we had to get past some military. That's when I got
this price on my head."
Illych was leaving out the important parts, but I knew
all the rest from the news broadcasts. The public had never
found out who had destroyed the Goss Tower or why, but it
had been an awesome spectacle. Fifty stories of burning
offices and four hundred people dead is something that
sticks in your memory like a bad dream. The 'military' he
referred to meant the entire Houston police force and all
the National Guard that had been able to reach the site in
time, plus several heavily armed civilians. According to the
press, none of the attackers had survived.
"You blew the Goss Tower?" I said, astonished.
"Yah. Only survivor." He sat heavily on the bed and
stared at his boots. "Damn shame, all those people, but we
hurt the company bad."
"They told us you were all killed."
"Yep. Chased me all the way to Guatemala." He didn't
say it like he was proud, more as a matter of course.
"Always hated jungles," he muttered. He had my attention
now, and I had to keep him from drooping into introspection.
"So what's the plan this time?" I tried to sound
enthusiastic, despite the fact that I had already decided
that going along would be suicide. This guy's sanity was
long gone; he was way over the edge.
"I know where they're keeping the bulk of the samples
that are left. You want in, I'll get you in." Illych looked
at me, and he was dead serious. "All I want in return is a
promise, but it's a promise I'll hold you to." I knew he
would, too. He'd hunt me down if he had to, and there'd be
no way for me to escape. I realized right then that I had
better start watching my step, 'cause I'd gotten myself into
a very dangerous situation.
"What is it?" I asked.
"You do all the research you can. You release
everything you find, make it all public. No secrets." I
didn't have to think it over for too long.
"Okay," I committed myself. "You get me in to the alien
samples, and everything I get out of them goes public." Of
course, I regretted the decision later.
-:-
Later was two and a half days later, crouched in the
dark behind an aluminum shed at some horribly early hour of
the morning. Gregory Illych had gone ahead to recon the main
building. I was left alone, totally incapable of using the
weapon he'd left me with and even less capable of getting
myself out of there.
I knew that we were in Brazil, but I had no clue how we
had gotten there without being stopped by the security at
the airport or by customs. We were on the outskirts of Rio
de Janeiro, but damned if I knew the way back to the city. I
knew how to get over the fences, I just didn't know what he
had done to keep them from frying us. I knew where the
minefield started and ended, but I had no idea how he'd
picked our path through it. I remembered where the three
guard posts had been, but I hadn't even seen what he'd done
to the occupants. I had watched him disarm the motion
detection net, but I still hadn't a clue how it worked. I
felt a chill in spite of the humid Brazilian summer.
I was having some fierce second thoughts--and third and
fourth by then--but I followed Illych in. Let's just say my
options were limited.
Illych appeared in front of me and smiled a big, white,
boyish smile. He slid away again almost immediately, and I
went after him. We slunk quickly across ten meters of open
space, then ducked into a covered doorway. The security
light was conveniently out. The unmarked, battleship grey
door was already unlocked, and we slipped silently through.
I had a feeling that Illych had already been here. It might
have been some lingering scent in the hallway, or it might
have been the three unconscious soldiers around the first
turn.
Up two flights of stairs and we ran smack into a chain-
link security barrier. The corridor beyond ran straight as a
razor and smelled of gun oil. It was ten feet high and had a
single door at the other end, fifteen meters away. I looked
up at Illych and, for the first time, saw consternation on
his face. Uh-oh, I thought.
He pulled something from one of his many pockets and
bent to the locking mechanism. It sprung open with a little
"ping" after a few seconds. Illych attached a wire to both
the frame and the door itself, then swung the gate as far as
the wire would reach with one gloved hand. I started to
follow him down the tiled hallway, but he stopped me with
one outstretched, hairy arm. He motioned me to wait,
pointing to a tiny black box attached to the wall near the
door at the end of the corridor. I'd thought it was the
security lock for the door itself, but he seemed to think
otherwise.
Illych flipped some new lenses into his goggles and
peered ahead. What he did next, I wouldn't have believed if
I hadn't seen it myself. Backing all the way up past the
security barrier, he took a huge, running leap into the
hallway. I'd swear I saw his back brush along the ceiling at
least half the way. He landed not five feet short of the
door, and I saw him make a real effort not to fall forward.
With one smooth, elliptical movement, he flipped open the
black box and smashed its contents with his fist.
He waved me on, and I went in.
The storage facility was a lab like any other. I'd seen
hundreds just like it. We didn't dare turn the lights on,
but I knew where the special specimens would be kept in a
setup like this. I stepped through the dark room and into
the walk-in cooler, feeling like I was on my turf for once.
As I yanked at the cooler door, Illych grabbed at my
shoulder, but he was too late.
The lights came on.
-:-
You know the rest. Before you all came barging in and
shooting the place up I saw everything. My, what a mess
you've made of it. The one opportunity mankind has ever had
to study alien species', and you military types have even
botched that up. The samples in those jars are contaminated;
any first year grad student could see that. They're useless.
That poor, pathetic excuse for a Reaper you've got on
life support is almost as bad. How could you not realize
that the implants were necessary to the structural soundness
of its neural system? It's in every damn report that ever
came out about the things! Even if I weren't going to spend
the rest of my life in military prison, I'd never be able to
get any valid data out of those pitiful samples, anyway. I
might as well be working on one of the toy figures.
No, I do not have any idea where Illych went. The
bastard left me for dead is what he did. As far as I'm
concerned, I hope he never gets out of that damn jungle and
you all never find his body.
END OF STATEMENT
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