Uninvited Ch. 04: The Way Home

I came to the edge of the field, parting the long shoots with my hands and peeking through at the house, like my own it was built in a sort of courtyard with a barn towards the back of the plot. I didn't see any lights on inside, no movement, no signs of activity. I shouldered my weapon and looked through the magnified scope, trying to see into the dark windows, but there was nothing.

I glanced to my left and, with some difficulty, spotted Vi lying prone on top of the silo with her weapon angled towards the house. The sun had set now, and darkness covered the landscape in an inky blackness. If they weren't in the house, might they be in the barn? The idea had not occurred to me until just now, but a human-sized dwelling might be too small to be comfortable for the bulky creatures.

Confident that Vi had me in her sights and could provide covering fire if I got into trouble, I crept out of the field and over to the wall of the farmhouse. I looked through a window, not seeing any movement inside, and proceeded around the side of the building. The barn was painted red in the traditional style, and this one had no Muton-sized holes in the walls. I felt exposed as I crossed the open courtyard, but I arrived at the barn without incident. There were slats in the ancient planks that made up the walls of the barn, and I pushed my face up against the wood to see inside. Damn it, too dark.

I continued along the wall, trying to stay flat against it in case anyone inside the house might be looking out, and came to the large barn doors on the front face. I leaned on one of them, pushing it with my shoulder, keeping my weapon at the ready. When a human-sized crack opened, I slipped inside, careful to stay low and avoid making too much noise. I had a torch, but if there were a dozen sleeping Mutons in here, using it would be suicidal. I squinted as my eyes adjusted to the gloom inside the barn.

It seemed empty, just a few broken down farming machines that I couldn't identify, and...

Kadavy's stolen food, piled against one wall, along with what looked like weeks worth of collected tools and scrap. What on Earth were they doing with it? I looked up to the hayloft, a platform raised off the ground and built into the wall of the barn. My heart quickened as I made out half a dozen bulky shapes, shifting softly as if they were asleep. One of them stirred, and I watched a long, muscular arm emerge from the pile to scratch itself. I backed up slowly, slipping back out of the door, then turned and started to jog away towards the house. The soldier in me demanded that I get to the nearest cover, and I tried to make as little noise as possible while also obeying the adrenaline that was now coursing through my veins.

I crouched behind a corner of the house, keeping the barn in view, then I waved to Vi and gestured in the direction of the truck. She seemed to understand, as her dark silhouette dropped off the silo and out of view. I kept my weapon trained on the doors of the barn for a few more moments, ensuring that I hadn't roused any of them, then turned and ran back into the field.

I arrived at the truck panting, and doubled over as Vi eyed me curiously from her seat in the flatbed.

"Half a dozen of them, at least, Mutons."

She flared her hood and narrowed her eyes, hissing menacingly.

"Yeah, I know you don't like them. What the hell do we about this? Can we take on a squad of Mutons without XCOM support? I don't think they're armed."

She seemed unsure, her pink tongue flicking the air like a lizard. Finally she shook her heavy head, her hood flapping with the motion. I leaned on the truck, catching my breath, and tried to clear my head.

"Maybe there's another way. The one we encountered in our barn wasn't violent, it never tried to attack us, we have to remember that they're not under Elder control anymore. They're lost and directionless, stranded on an alien planet that they don't understand." Vi cocked her head at me as my face lit up. "They need food and shelter, and what do we need? A farm."

It took Vi a moment to put two and two together, then her yellow eyes widened and she shook her head vigorously.

"Why not? We could employ them, they're as strong as horses, they could help us get the farm up and running. Do we have any right to just kill them? They didn't choose to be here any more than you did."

Vi hissed dismissively, and mimed using her tablet.

"Ok, we can talk about it when we get back home. Just have a think about it, ok?"

She tapped the roof of the truck with her hand impatiently, and I obliged, climbing into the driver's seat and turning the ignition key. The engine revved to life, and I turned us back in the direction of our farmhouse, the truck bouncing on the uneven dirt track as we drove away.

I knew that Vi disliked Mutons, though I had never really pressed her to explain exactly why. During our time on the Avenger with XCOM we had been at war, hatred of a commonly encountered enemy was a natural response, but now I felt as if it ran deeper than that. Rivalry perhaps? Did Mutons treat Vipers poorly, or vice versa? I had no idea about how the various ADVENT species interacted outside of the battlefield. All I knew for sure is that much like the Vipers, the Mutons wanted nothing to do with ADVENT once they had been freed, they had chosen to leave rather than stay and fight with the Troopers and Archons in the cities. That suggested that they had their own culture and their own will, and that they intended to make a new life for themselves here. Who were we to deny them that based on what was, for all intents and purposes, a prejudice? How would Vi respond if I were to stand my ground on the issue?

We arrived back at the farm, the yellow glow of the truck's dirty headlights illuminating the dusty courtyard. I felt the suspension rock as Vi dropped heavily out of the back, and I turned off the engine, getting out and closing the door behind me. She headed straight for the front door, obviously intent on retrieving her tablet computer in order to chew me out for suggesting hiring Mutons as farmhands. We had never really had a reason to argue before, either so much was happening around us that we barely had time to speak to one another, or we were engaged in a lengthy session of violent lovemaking. I didn't really know what to expect as I trailed behind her and entered the house, turning on what light switches still worked as I went. The Mutons knew we lived here now, perhaps they had assumed that all of the farmhouses in the region would be vacant like the one they had found, somehow I didn't expect them to return to my farm, nor Kadavy's for that matter.

They would need to get their food from somewhere though, and anyone who became hungry enough would also become desperate. If I had my way, it would never have to come to that. I heard Vi's fat coils descending the staircase to the second floor, and she appeared in the hall, the glow of her tablet's touch screen illuminating her face in a blue light.

[MUTON DANGEROUS]

"I know that," I said, crossing my arms and leaning against the wall. "I've killed my fair share of Mutons you know, but those were under the control of the Elders, just like your people were. I'm sure if you asked anyone in XCOM what they thought about Vipers, they would say that 'you' were dangerous." She shook her head, frustrated. I doubted the tablet could translate what she wanted to convey very accurately, and this was one situation where the language barrier was a problem.

[MUTON VIOLENT, BAD THINK, BREED TO KILL]

"Bad think? You're saying they're stupid? Unintelligent?" She nodded. "They were bred for war? ADVENT made a lot of changes to the genetics of their soldiers to make them more suitable fighters, Vipers included I'm sure."

She seemed to grow angry now, her hood flaring a little as she typed furiously.

[DO NOT COMPARE]

"Why not? From the perspective of humans there's little difference between a Viper and Muton, they're both alien monsters ADVENT use as weapons." She recoiled a little, seeming hurt, but I interrupted her as she began to type a retort. "I learned that Vipers aren't monster, that they're no different from humans. The Elders made them do the things they did, me and you got over our differences, didn't we? Why can't you apply that same logic to these freed Mutons? Why not give them a chance to change the way you did?"

[YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND, I MANY YEAR OF MUTON ALONGSIDE, ADVENT OLD EXPANSE TIME, WAR MANY NUMBER]

Her synthetic speech was becoming garbled and nonsensical as she began to ask too much of the software, feeding it more information than it could handle as she tapped frantically at the screen.

"Slow down, slow down. Whatever you think of Mutons, that's based on how they behaved under Elder control. The psionic network is down now, we killed the Elders, every alien species has reverted back to its natural state. Can you say that you know how wild Mutons behave, or just ADVENT Mutons? Remember, when we met that Muton in the barn last night it didn't try to attack us, a Muton under Elder control would have tried to take us apart, armed or otherwise."

She hissed dismissively, not the reaction I wanted from her.

[YOU NOT KNOW, I KNOW]

"Yeah, well I'm saying that what you think you know doesn't apply anymore. The situation has changed. What, should we just kill them, even though they've done nothing to harm us so far? That would make us no better than the Elders, looking at entire species and just saying 'oh yeah these ones look menacing, so we'll make them soldiers and that's all they will ever be'. You became more than a soldier, didn't you? Why shouldn't they?"

I couldn't believe I was arguing so passionately for the rights of Mutons of all things, but when I thought about just razing the barn with the sleeping aliens inside it, I got a knot in my stomach. It was wrong, I felt it in my bones. Vi seemed angry, she was glaring at me with her reptilian pupils, if she had a rattle on her tail I'm sure she would have been shaking it.

"Hey, maybe you're completely right and they'll attack us on sight when we try to make contact with them, but we have to try Vi. We can't go around killing sentient creatures for no reason."

[MISTAKE, YOU WILL REGRET]

"Yeah maybe, but if I don't try, I won't be able to live with myself." Vi shook her head, and lowered the tablet, turning towards the guest bedroom. "What, no goodnight kiss?"

She grumbled and closed the door behind her after piling her long body inside the room, and I sighed, making my way up the stairs to my bedroom. Let her sulk, she hadn't put her foot (tail?) down on the matter, so it looked like we were doing this. Now I had to figure out how to make contact with the aliens. They seemed to be on the hunt for resources, food and metal by the look of what I had found in the barn, perhaps I could leave them a gift of some kind? Could I bait them out like wild animals, eventually having them eat from my hand, so to speak? It was worth a shot.

I fluffed my pillow and shrugged off my jacket, leaning my rifle against a chair by the window. Vi would come around eventually, if my plan worked she would have no choice.

"You sure this is a good idea?" Kadavy asked, sitting next to me in the truck as we wound our way along the dirt track towards the Daugherty farm. His shotgun was sat across his lap, one of his grizzled hands gripping the barrel nervously. Vi was in the flatbed, wearing her armor today with her plasma rifle attached to the back of her metal chest piece through some magnetic system. She didn't like the plan, but she hadn't refused when I had asked her to back me up, after all she seemed to expect this whole venture to go south very quickly. I was optimistic though, and I had gathered a potato sack full of scrap metal from around the farm, along with the few cans of food I could spare from the pantry. It was the best I could do for a good faith gift.

"So far they've only come out at night, I don't expect to meet any of them today, I just want to leave the scrap and then go home. We'll come back tomorrow and see if they took it. If they did, then I'll come back again with another gift, and see if they'll take it in person."

"You didn't see what these things did to my dogs," Kadavy snarled, his free hand moving to his gun. "My vote is dropping a God damned Scud on that barn."

"Despite the way it seems, they've not been hostile towards us so far. I'm sorry about your dogs, but if two alien animals came running at you, barking and snarling, what would you have done?"

Kadavy shook his head, scratching his beard pensively.

"I hope you're right, boy. So far your Viper hasn't eaten anyone," he said, glancing through the back window at Vi's armored midriff. "Maybe you're an alien whisperer or something."

"Well, we gotta give them a chance. Vi was like them once, either brainwashed or under psychic control, I don't really understand how it works. But she was a soldier for ADVENT, and it was only through interacting with humans that she broke the conditioning. She's been socialized, I guess you could say. Whatever control ADVENT exerted over them is gone now, they're wild, essentially. We can't know how they'll react to us, but we can't just kill them either. At least I won't."

"Well at least you've got a conscience, can't say as much for myself."

We stopped the truck a distance from the Daugherty property and dismounted, Vi passing the heavy burlap sack to me effortlessly with her tail, my knees almost buckling under the weight of it. I struggled upright and hefted it, starting off towards the house, Kadavy and Vi flanking me with their weapons ready. The courtyard came into view as we rounded the field of tall, wild plants, no aliens in sight so far. I told my companions to stay by the house as I inched towards the barn with the bag, they stayed behind cover, Vi's eyes darting around suspiciously as she shouldered her plasma rifle.

I heard her hiss angrily, alarmed. I turned back to the barn to see a gigantic Muton standing by the door. He stared at me with his beady yellow eyes, sunken beneath his heavy brow. His pink hide was covered in tribal tattoos of unknown meaning, the exposed skin on his face and arms was covered in black ink. He wore an undersuit like the Muton we had encountered at our farm had been wearing, the heavy armor plating that would usually be hanging from the attachment points was absent. Even without the armor the alien was imposing, heavily muscled with wide shoulders and oddly disproportionate arms like a primate. He stared me down, unmoving, and I slowly lowered the burlap sack to the dusty ground. I heard Vi spit furiously, and I spun around, raising my hand to her.

"Vi, no! Wait!"

Unused to me using such a commanding tone, she lowered her weapon, her eyes still fixed on the Muton. If he made a wrong move she would drop him regardless of what I told her, and then we would have a full scale turf war on our hands, that wasn't the plan. The Muton hesitated, as if he wanted to turn back into the barn, likely to rouse his pack and send them after us.

I gestured to the sack, and took a few steps backwards. He stared at me with his emotionless, dead eyes, almost like those of a shark. Was he as stupid as Vi had claimed? Was all of the tactical knowledge these Mutons had displayed in combat entirely pre-programmed, or were commands foisted upon them via the psionic network? He took a tentative step towards me, not afraid of us, but cautious. His eyes fixed on the bag, and I took another few steps backwards towards the house. As confident I was that these aliens were not overtly hostile, I was still more than ready to bolt.

Every time he lumbered towards the bag, I skipped back a little further, until eventually I made it to the cover of the farmhouse. Vi spat her disapproval as she pulled me out of view, keeping her eyes on the Muton as he pawed at the burlap sack with his massive hand, his fingers like thick sausages. I peeked my head around her yellow coils, watching the alien as he pulled at the drawstring, tugging the sack open and plunging his hand inside. The Muton stopped, visibly taken aback, and cocked his head to one side like a dog. He withdrew a can of beans, examining the object, comically small in his massive hand. Damn, could they even open such cans? It hadn't even occurred to me, perhaps I should have included a can opener.

He brought the can to his nose and sniffed it, and I noticed that the rebreathers I had always seen them wear was absent on this Muton. I could see his flat nose and his thick lips as he opened his mouth to reveal large, tombstone teeth, biting down on the can and crushing the metal. The can split, bean juice leaking free, and the alien let the liquid run over his tongue. He seemed pleased, and pursed his fat lips against the break in the can, sucking ardently. He made short work of the meal, discarding the container, then rummaged in the sack. He picked out a hubcap, holding it up and examining the metal disk, seeming pleased. He replaced the scrap, then drew the string and lifted the sack, draping it over his shoulder with shocking ease and heading back towards the barn. He paused at the door to look back at us, it was hard to read his expression, but I didn't get the impression he was about to sound the alarm.

The Muton vanished into the gloom of the barn, and I patted Vi's scaly rump.

"Come on, let's go now. We'll come back tomorrow."

"I've never seen anyone get that close to a Muton without being ripped apart like a doll," Kadavy muttered. "Maybe you're right and there's somethin' to this." Vi rolled her eyes and huffed in response, still dismissive and stubborn. I shot her an angry glance, and gestured for them to return to the truck with me. I felt elated, vindicated, and relieved that no blood had been shed. These were not wild monsters, and I was sure that the Muton had appreciated the gift. I would bring more tomorrow, perhaps the alien would even allow me to get closer. I didn't know how I was going to communicate my offer of employment yet, perhaps Vi's tablet might be of use if she would let me use it for that purpose, either way my plan had been set in motion.

The truck stopped short of Kadavy's property and he swung the door open, dropping to the ground. He gestured for me to follow, slinging his shotgun over his shoulder on its strap, and I hopped out of the driver's seat.

"Stay here Vi, I won't be long," I called to her. I wanted to respect Kadavy's wishes to keep her off his land, though he did seem to be warming up to her. That was the key to human-alien relationships, I was sure of it now, exposure. She sagged her hood and leaned her head on the roof of the vehicle, exhaling dispassionately. Her mood had really been sour since our argument the previous night, I had never seen her so...I guess the only way to describe it would be sardonic.

I followed Kadavy up to his house and he led me inside, offering me a seat at his kitchen table. I sat, and he passed me a beer from his fridge. I cracked it open and took a draw of the cold, bitter liquid, examining the room around me. It was rustic, overloaded with a lifetime of collected decorations and ornaments, from landscape oil paintings of farmland to a shelf full of porcelain chickens. He pulled up a chair opposite me, and drank from his own can, then placed it on the table and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"So, looks like your plan might work. You absolutely sure this is what you want? Can't say I'm too happy about having a pack of Mutons roamin' around the countryside, but you've been right so far, don't see any reason to start doubtin' you now."

"Yeah, I'm sure. It might sound like a crazy idea, and I guess it would seem that way if you haven't seen the things I've seen. These aliens can be socialized, they can be assimilated into human society, I've done it with Vi and I can do it with these Mutons too."