As Claymore sat, listening to music on a cobbled together stereo while sitting on a rubber barstool that practically pulsated with lice and maggots, she reflected on her current state.

Her newest place of residence was a settlement called Golgotha. Twenty years ago, it had apparently been a popular tourist site, flooded with people who came to see its Mediterranean beauty. Now, it was a pile of shit on the verge of collapse. The only thing keeping it from turning into another empty ruin were the human lives rooted there, stubbornly clinging to the broken masonry.

Claymore thought the name was appropriate. Golgotha was a place where people, animals, and things went to die. Its graveyard boasted a larger population than the town itself. Even the concrete, it seemed, got all fucked up, crumbling and softening the moment it was placed in the soil.

Golgotha's only bar happened to be the only "not shitty" building in the whole settlement – only by a slight margin, though. Its stone structure had pretty much eroded from rainfall, and rotted wooden support beams had been embedded into the ceiling to keep the place from collapsing. The walls were nonexistent, replaced with dark green tarps that had been chewed and pulped by maggots and moths.

These were adequate conditions compared to the sorry state of every other building in the settlement. Still, it didn't do a damn thing about the cold.

Claymore rubbed her hands again, growing impatient. She hadn't gotten her fix since her last move, and the withdrawal symptoms were kicking in. She was a bit grateful that the barkeep had some of her stuff in stock, but it was still the worst fucking service she'd seen in the last twenty years, and then some. The withdrawal had grown to the point where she was contemplating whether she should just kill the bartender and take whatever he had on him. It wouldn't be the first time she did it.

As if hearing her thoughts, the manager, a stocky Italian, emerged from the back, carrying a frothy blue drink in a dirty, pink plastic cup. Claymore really didn't give a shit if he washed it or not – she'd drunk so much crap during her wandering years that her body had become acclimated to it.

"Here you go, ma'am," the barkeep said. "Whiskey with crushed Elerium powder."

Claymore snatched the drink from his hand and began gulping it down. The thick, cloying liquid clung to her throat, and the powdered elerium tasted like sawdust dunked in gasoline. But it was worth it. She choked back the volatile mixture, and coughed for a bit before continuing.

God, that was the stuff. Claymore had, even before Unification, been something of an experimenter, dabbling with pot and crack. But when she hopped on the elerium bandwagon, boy did she grab on. Someone had told Claymore some time ago that elerium was some kind of superfuel, a power cell that could power the entire East European board with only a few grams. Claymore only laughed, thinking how typical it was that humans be given the key to all their energy problems, only to turn it into a shitty-tasting pick-me-up.

Still, she was glad for the elerium. It kept her senses sharp, and gave her a fighting edge even on the worst of days. Without either of those, she wouldn't have lasted a day outside of the ADVENT megacities.

Of course, there was the addiction to deal with, and the fact that she was probably charring her insides after consuming so much of the stuff. But that seemed like small shit compared to getting gutted by bandits, or worse.

Claymore was halfway through her drink when she heard the tarps shuffle behind her. Even in the din of the rain, she could hear footsteps, rain-clogged and heavy.

"Ciao!" shouted the barkeep, greeting the newcomer. "May I get you something to drink, signore?"

"No," whispered the stranger. His voice was a low growl, like an ancient diesel-powered engine.

"I'm here because I'm looking for someone," the stranger said. Claymore heard a shuffle, like a hand being withdrawn from a pocket. "Have you seen a person with a tattoo like this?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Claymore saw the barkeep lean forward, examining whatever the stranger had.

"Nope," he said, after a while. "Never seen nobody with a tat like that. And I seen a lot of tats in the past five years."

"I see," the stranger said. He turned to Claymore.

"Ma'am."

Claymore turned to the stranger, the last of her drink slithering down into her stomach. She got a good look at the man: Graying hairs, haphazard stubble. This guy had definitely seen better days pre-Unification. She noticed that he had one of those new-fangled Megacity sweaters, although this one was dirtied and torn. A shoulder strap was looped around his right shoulder, with a knife strapped snugly against it.

"I haven't seen any –" she began, stopping as she saw the picture hanging from the man's fingers. It was a hexagon, with an eye in its center. A star hung below the eye, and a line separated the hexagon into two halves.

As soon as she laid eyes on it, she lunged at the man, grabbing the trusty mag pistol that lay on her hip. The barkeep, knowing what was about to happen, booked it.

Her original plan had been to knock down the bastard with her pistol and pin him using sheer force. The glitch came when the stranger blocked her tackle. Claymore felt thick, rough fingers grab her wrist, before forcing her arm against her back. The smooth grip of the mag pistol slipped out of her hand, hitting the floor with a loud clack.

In response, Claymore kicked against her attacker's legs, planting a boot against his thigh. It was a tough bit of meat, barely shuddering under her assault. The stranger emphasized this fact by staying silent.

Claymore tried to sweep the man off his feet, but he caught on and applied an unnecessarily large amount of pressure against her arm. Which was fortunate for him, since Claymore could take an unusually large amount of punishment.

"Don't," he cautioned in that sandpaper voice. "I'm not here to fight."

Claymore still struggled, whipping around like she was having a seizure. The man and his grip didn't budge. Not one bit.

The man sighed, clearly unimpressed. "Alright," he said. "I'll let you go. Just hear me out."

Claymore felt the pressure loosen on her arm. She leaped forward, propelled by adrenaline and her elerium-fueled senses. She grasped her mag pistol in one moment, and was by the bar counter in another. With the pistol pointed at her assailant, she backed herself against the counter and clambered over it. She breathed deep, letting the burning pain drape itself over her right arm as the adrenaline left her system.

"Drop the knife," she called to the man. He complied, unsheathing a black, serrated knife from his shoulder holster, before letting it fall onto the rotted wood.

"Ma'am, I –" he said, but she cut him off.

"Shut it," she said. "I'm talking here. Who sent you?"

The man rolled his eyes. Really.

"No one sent me, ma'am," he said.

"That's a load of viper shit," she barked. "Only ADVENT knows what this –" she held up the photo with the emblem "– is."

"ADVENT isn't the only one who knows what EXALT is, Claymore," the man said.

Claymore's eyes narrowed. "So what, you read my mind. Think that scares me?"

"No. But now I know I've found the right person." The man chuckled, low waves of pleasant sound rising from his chest.

"It's funny. This isn't the first time we've been in this situation," he continued.

"What are you going on about?"

"Well," the man paused, taking his sweet time, maybe for suspense. "Does the word 'Portent' ring a bell to you?"

Claymore felt her left eye twitch, while the furrows in her cheeks deepened. Jesus Fucking Christ.

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," Claymore said.

The man began to walk forward. "You called me a 'boyscout', if I remember correctly, operator Claymore. Said if I got anywhere near you, you'd bite my fingers off. Had the gall to call my associate a 'Nazi bitch', too."

Claymore dropped her pistol. She had to be high off the elerium again. Nothing this unreal could be happening. Only in cheesy films and insane drug trips would someone, someone you thought dead for two decades, just walk back into your life.

"Jesus H. Christ," she muttered. "Of all the places to see you again, Sweaters."

The man smiled. "It's been a long time since that convoy raid twenty years ago, but I think you remember my name."
Claymore slumped against the bar, sliding the mag pistol away like a glass of scotch.

"John fuckin' Bradford," she answered. "Yeah, I remember you."

After several minutes of waiting, with no bartender in sight, Claymored had decided to take the task of hospitality into her own hands. Standing in what was apparently a kitchen, she rummaged through a mud spattered cooler, slick with rainwater, and came up with two bottles of draft beer.

"On the house, Sweaters" she said to Bradford. She slid one bottle over to him, its moist surface leaving a trail of brown blots across the wooden countertop.

Bradford shook his head. "Thanks, but I'm –"

"Just fucking drink it," she ordered.

Bradford shrugged, and uncapped the beer. He withdrew his hand, and then, amazingly, downed half his beer with one gulp.

"I've had practice," he explained to a slightly bewildered Claymore.

"Uh huh," Claymore replied, sipping weakly at her own drink. The beer didn't sit well with the elerium slop rotting in her stomach acid, so she put down the bottle. "Alright, to business," she said. "First of all – why'd you come looking for me, Sweaters?"

"Well," Bradford said. "I need someone. Specifically, someone I can trust."

"Sounds illegal," Claymore said. "You're in the smuggling business?"

"Actually, the Resistance business," Bradford admitted.

Claymore sighed, exasperated. "You've gotta be kidding me."

Bradford shook his head. "You could say that quitting is not high on my list of priorities.

"Don't worry, either," he said, in a tone that basically said "be-very-worried". "We've got everything ready. We're only short on manpower. That's where you come in."

Claymore took another sip of her beer. "Do you need me that badly? I doubt an EXALT grunt was your first choice."

"The recruiting job needs someone with your… expertise," Bradford said. "I'm also looking for people to help me run this thing."

"You had at least two other folks working with you," Claymore pointed out. "Like the Nazi."

"Vahlen," Bradford said, with clear distaste in his voice, "disappeared after XCOM went under. No idea where she is, or what she's doing."

"Oh." Claymore said. Too bad. But XCOM's resident mad scientist had creeped the hell out of her, so Claymore assumed her diluted reaction was out of whatever misguided remnant of human sympathy was still left inside her.

She ventured another question. "Well, what about egghead?"

Bradford's next answer was more definitive.

"Dead," he said, dropping the word like a sack of bricks.

"Wow," Claymore replied, a bit more dumbfounded this time. "I mean… Jesus…"

Bradford nodded.

Claymore raised her bottle, and this time the sadness was real. Despite her position as a captive, XCOM's chief engineer at the time had been really, really damn nice to her. She always remembered him (in those rare moments when she had the coherency to remember her old life) with some measure of fondness.

"To egghead," she declared.

Bradford rapped his glass against hers. "To Raymond Shen."

They both sipped and sat back.

"Fuck," Claymore said, feeling exhausted all of a sudden. "Do you have anyone left?" she blurted out.

"We have Shen's kid," Bradford said. "She's good with a wrench, but that's about it."

"She's not good with people?" Claymore asked.

"You bet," Bradford said.

Claymore pressed a hand against her temple. It was a bit much. Although her time at XCOM had been brief (and much of it spent in a spacious, well-furnished cell within its underground headquarters), she still had enough time to learn about her captors. Vahlen, again, was one creepy bitch, but at least she and Claymore had agreed on certain scientific ideals. And Shen had been way too hospitable, what with her being a domestic terrorist and all. Sure, enhanced interrogation from Council operatives wasn't the definition of five-star hospitality, but the staff at XCOM had ensured she'd be treated like a human being instead of one of those bobble-headed grey freaks.

There was one person that did come to Claymore's mind. A bit of a hard ass when it came to warfare, but by no means a heartless bastard.

"What about the one running your whole operation 20 years ago?" she asked. "She with you?"

Bradford bit his lip and sank lower against the bar.

"Dead too?" Claymore ventured.

Bradford started to chew at his lower lip.

"Maybe," was all he said. "We lost contact with her too after the invasion. I have my suspicions, but all you have to know is that she's the reason I'm looking for you."

"Woah," Claymore sputtered. "Just one goddamn second. Are you saying that you're trying to make me, an ex-EXALT operative, the commander of your little Resistance too?!"

"No!" Bradford stood up, as if he'd been electrocuted. "God no!"

Claymore breathed out in exaggerated relief. "Good."

Bradford nodded. "Yeah. This job, it's related to the Commander."

He reached into his pocket while saying that, and withdrew a small, green tablet with a hexagon screensaver. It pulsed as he tapped a finger against the screen, revealing the schematics of a building.

"Damn it, Sweaters," Claymore said. "I can't see shit."

"Sorry," Bradford apologized, flicking his finger across the screen and raising the brightness. "Force of habit from my… current living conditions."

"I can only imagine," Claymore muttered under her breath.

"Anyways," Bradford said. "We have reason to believe that the Commander was abducted," Bradford explained. "And taken here." Bradford tapped another finger, highlighting a room hidden deep in the simulated facility.

"That looks like a gene clinic," Claymore said. "Pretty unusual place for a political prison."

"We thought so too," Bradford said. "But it has abnormally tight security." Another flick of his wrist caused several video feeds to pop up onscreen. Claymore's stomach tightened as she saw ADVENT's peacekeeping forces, their emotionless, black visages staring at her from the screen.

"There are at least five squads guarding this building, and then some," Bradford continued. "Very excessive for just one gene clinic."

"And you want to assault this building," Claymore said. "But you don't have enough cannon fodder to do it."

Bradford frowned. "Volunteers, Claymore."

"Bullshit, Sweaters" Claymore said. "Anyone who's mad enough to try this is going to wind up dead."

"Maybe," Bradford replied. "Which is why I need you. You know the land better than anyone else in XCOM right now. You've probably met a few characters who are willing to join our cause."

"Yeah," Claymore said. "But I'm not really willing to hijack people and send them to their deaths like those sleazebags at EXALT did."

"This will succeed," Bradford pushed, a hard edge to his words. "We've spent months amassing resources and drawing up a plan. People will die, but they will not die in vain."
"Then can I be privy to the details of this oh-so-wonderful plan, Sweaters?" Claymore asked. "You seem very sure that it'll work."

Bradford chuckled, and did a mock show of looking around the empty bar. "I'm not exactly eager to share classified information this early," he said. "The only details you need to know are that you have three weeks to get a sizeable strike force.

"Right," Claymore said. "And I need to get how many poor fools roped into this?"

"Around ten," Bradford said. "But that's only for the initial operation. We're going to need to expand and maintain our fighting force after this."

"You sound like you're in it for the long haul, Sweaters," Claymore said.

"Very much so," Bradford said. "It's going to be a massive commitment. Are you ready for that?"

Claymore snorted. "What a change of pace compared to my twenty years spent getting drunk and inhaling elerium powder."

"Seems like luxury," Bradford commented.

"It is. To being shot at," Claymore retorted. "So, my biggest concern is this – what do I get out of this?"

"The honor of defending the freedom and safety of other human beings?"

"I'm ex-EXALT, Sweaters. I already know what that bull means."

Bradford grinned.

"I'm just kidding you. But, how does good food, warm water, electricity, and a fully stocked bar sound to you?"

"Sounds too good to be true," Claymore said casually, but she licked her dried lips all the same. She could just feel the warm air circulating and rushing across her dirt-caked skin, along with the taste of a prewar vintage that had been made in a vineyard rather than in someone's basement.

Compared to snorting radioactive powder and slogging across miles of wasteland, that seemed like heaven.

"Well, Sweaters," Claymore said, sighing. "I'm gonna die soon, some time or another. Going out comfortable ain't too bad."

Bradford stood and extended a hand to her. "Welcome to XCOM then, Claymore."

Claymore wrapped her fingers around Bradford's calloused palm.

"It's a goddamn pleasure, Sweaters."