"Hit the throttle into overdrive, you lynchhead moron!"
Minelli screamed at Borja. He took another sip of his
martini. He scratched his nose and took another, just to
cool his nerves. They wouldn't get him.
He had grown up in Rome, when the New Mafia rose up. He
had joined up as a hired thug after fiddling around in the
Italian Army as it tried to hold the breaking nation apart.
He was one of the most ruthless killers, and Antonio
"Sharktooth" Minelli was still one of the most feared
criminals around. But when he went to Mega-Primus and
joined up with Osiron, he had gone into the drug trade,
where he grew fat and lazy. No longer in the front line,
dealing with Italian Commandos, heavy-duty Urban Control
Army Squads, drug-crazed terrorists, double-dealing fellow
criminals, and other unsavory elements in the cities outside
Mega-Primus, he was now fat on oysters, dealing with the
administrative side of the business. He didn't do his job
well, he knew, or else the Boss would have provided him with
enough money for a Sanctuary Clinic Health Gym, where the
latest in Nanotechnology kept those who had the wealth for
it trim, lean, fit and nearly immortal.
He missed the old days.
"You leave us no choice. We will open fire." Those
accursed policemen.
"Diego, get me out of here!" he screamed at his
driver/bodyguard Diego Borja. To the comlink, he shouted,
"You can try and get me, Megapol nukeholes!"
The autopilot in the pursuing Megapol vehicle took note
of the insult. As a Cyberweb computer, it was objective and
indifferent, and right now the top priority was to take
Minelli down. So let the fat drug lord scream all the
curses he wanted. The HUD in the car windshield lit up with
an aiming reticle and combat radar. The police hovercar
fired, its 40mm autocannon rounds veering unerrinngly toward
Minelli's hovercar.
The rounds buried themselves in the thick alloy armor
plates of the modified Hovercar. The car jerked, however,
and the martini sloshed. Minelli slammed the champagne
glass in the car window in rage. Borja veered towards the
right. The souped-up antigrav engines of the car whined as
the car moved laterally.
More cannon rounds shot past the car.
They were now above the Mega-Primus city walls. Below
the two vehicles, another Megapol police car gave chase.
Unlike the other, it had a human pilot and was ground-based.
"This is Blue Panther 3. I got Minelli on my sights."
Aiming his airguard autocannon turret carefully, he opened
fire. The shots missed as Minelli's vehicle banked to the
right and dropped altitude. It slammed into the
plasti-concrete of a nearby office building.
Blue Panther 3 cut a U-turn across the intersection. He
swerved unto the wrong lane, and put his siren volume full
blast as cars streaked towards him, their horns blaring.
Minelli secured his seatbelt even further as two more
Hovercars joined the chase. That made four police cars
after his butt. The car shuddered as laser bolts traced
carbon streaks at his hovercar.
"Doesn't this car have defenses?"
"Yes, sir, Mr. Minelli. One Lancer 7000."
"Then for God's sake, open fire!"
Borja took a wide turn to the left as he steeled himself
to face the police cars. He hadn't flown in a fighter plane
since last year, when he was hired by the French Liberation
Army to take down one of its political enemies. He
deliberately eased on the steering wheel as the Lancer 7000
peeked its sinister head over the headlights. This caused
the Hovercar to take a wide turn, rattling the police
pilots.
"This is Blue Wing 5, what the hell is Minelli trying to
do?"
The computer of Red Eagle 2 analyzed the Hovercar of
Minelli as it changed direction. It recognized the barrel
of a Lancer 7000 just before it appeared on the target
scan. In a flash, the autopilot relayed a message to the
other policemen in the voice of its human pilot.
"This is Red Eagle 1. Looks like he's trying to defend
himself."
"This is Blue Panther 3 to Blue Wings 5 and 6. Take
Minelli from the left. I got his antigrav engines on my
sights."
The airguard turret blasted out a burst of fire.
Borja and Minelli immediately felt their vehicle buck
wildly. "What the hell was that?" Minelli screamed out.
"Antigrav engines are hit, sir. Minimal damage. Let's
see what these boys really got."
"Get them, Borja! Just make sure you get me to
Rendezvous 21!"
Unfortunately, the "minimal damage" was sufficient to
reduce the Hovercar's turning rate. Borja blasted out laser
fire, going wide as the police hovercars took evasive
action. Well. Time to go for small fry. He scanned the
HUD Displays. Locking on the single Stormdog giving chase,
he dove, his lasers aiming for the police car.
Blue Panther 3 shook as the vehicle jounced over a
crater that Minelli's laser had recently carved in the
road. "Uh, Red Whatevers, I need backup out here!" The
vehicle shuddered again, violently, and the siren went
dead. Displays showed damage to the upper armor plates were
significant. He swiveled the turret upward and blasted off
several shots. Minelli's car twisted and barrel-rolled,
climbing altitude as it did so. Whoever piloted it was a
real Red Baron.
Minelli ran his hands over his wet hair. There was
still a big chance of escape. Breath easy, Sharktooth. His
holoprojector crackled. The display read: TRANSMISSION FROM
BOSS.
Oh, frag.
He turned it on.
The voice of the Boss came over the speakers, but he
never permitted anyone to see his face. His message was
short and succinct. "Don't fail me again, Minelli. Ever."
The holoprojector read: TRANSMISSION ENDS.
***
The Boss looked at the three latest reports that had
come in. The first one concerned the heroin shipment at
Scrooge Mansions. It had failed, utterly. Minelli was
going to pay. No. It was merely a small operation. Give
old Sharktooth another chance. Feed his ego some more.
The second was from Lab 3, hidden in the basement of the
Jacob Hock Institute of Higher Learning. They had managed
to figure out the psionic workings of the Psyke device.
What was it again? Psiclone? Now, they would be able to
mass-produce the illegal substance. He smiled. Psyke had a
profit gain over Osiron because of this wondrous new
narcotic. Now, the advantage would be gone.
The third report was puzzling. Frankly, the Boss was
wondering how he could turn this piece of information from
his spy network to his advantage. It read: X-COM IS HERE.
SPECIFIC LOCATION UNKNOWN AS OF NOW. HOWEVER, WE DO KNOW
THAT THE HEADS OF THE LEGIT COMPANIES KNOW ABOUT THIS TOO.
X-COM IS OPERATING UNDER HEAVY COVERT STATUS.
The thing that bewildered the Boss most about this
message, though, was his memories...
***
Dujardin closed his faceplate. His comlink crackled.
"This is the Recovery Team. Please transmit corpse and
equipment information and location."
"Transmitting now," Dujardin replied.
The communications and tactical network in his helmet
quickly uploaded the information to the other X-COM Techs
and Agents. As of now, he was standing over the new E.D. he
had downed earlier. He squinted at it.
It was a pink worm, a species no X-COM agent had ever
seen. All the aliens they had encountered in Mega-Primus
since last Monday (two days ago) were the big, shambling,
humanoid Blues and the small, athletic and ultra-dangerous
Crabs. The pink worm had also been difficult to kill. He
had come upon it unawares in the basement. It had slithered
quickly across the floor, almost as fast as the Crabs, and
he had managed to get one quick shot at it --- a miss ---
before it ran into some pieces of junked appliances. In a
flash, it had quickly chewed through the junk, and when
Dujardin had squeezed another shot at it, it had disappeared
into the shadows.
When he poked around the junk, he had been surprised to
see that the worm had drooled some weird enzyme that ate up
metal like it was butter. He hadn't seen the worm
slithering up to him until it had spat out its first gob of
the enzyme down his back --- thoroughly melting the armor.
If not for his quick reactions, he would have been soup
by now. He had swiveled and fired his Sniper Rifle at the
thing. It now had a blown off head.
The floor around the corpse bubbled. Yeesh. He
wouldn't dare touch that thing.
"Hey, you! This is Lieutenant Pearce of Narcotics
Division. Who the hell are you? And what's that hole up
your back?"
Dujardin turned and saw a man in the standard Megapol
bullet-resistant jacket holding an M4000. He didn't have it
pointed at Dujardin, that was probably because of the
Megapol insignias decorating Dujardin's armor. All part of
X-COM's covert regulations.
"Uh, yeah, I'm Officer Mike, uh, Mike Case of, um, the
Level Four, uh, Emergency Health Services," stuttered
Dujardin. He knew that only officers in Level Four
Divisions wore armor as heavy as Dujardin was wearing now.
He recognized Pearce as a Level Two Narcotics. Health
Services? The only Level 4 Health Service Divisions were
those fighting killer plagues. He would have to think fast.
"Level Four Health? Oh my God!" Pearce backed away.
"Yeah, uh, but don't worry. No killer diseases here!"
Come on, think, think, think. "Um... we're, uh,
investigating the remote chance that, uh, Osiron may be
developing biological weapons to, uh, you know, mop up
competition."
Pearce paled. Dujardin knew that his armor made him
look like a spaceman.
"This snake you see behind me? We think that, uh,
Osiron genetically engineered it to hold some sort of viral,
uh, disease. But don't worry! This thing only transmits
its, um, thing through its bite or in direct contact with,
uh, the venom."
Well. Acceptable. Just then, a Recovery Team Tech
elbowed his way past the shaking Pearce. "Hey, boys," said
Dujardin. "Glad you're here! This is the snake! Careful
with it, who knows what Osiron did with its genes!"
The Tech, dressed in a heavy-duty biological suit, put
on the Cydonium gloves. He didn't know what this crazy
Agent was rattling about, but in cover-ups, it was best to
agree with everything. So, this was the new alien species.
Doc Moray will throw a party tonight.
He opened the refrigerated canister behind him. Coolant
gas rushed out, hissing. He picked up the specimen, then
carefully placed it inside the canister. Just then, his
hand suddenly stung like anything. He grimaced in pain,
then was horrified to see that the bodily juices of the
alien had melted through his Cydonium gloves. His hands
were know being badly sizzled.
"Holy Nuke!" He began screaming as the smell of melted
skin wafted through the hallway. Dujardin tapped his comm.
"One tech injured --- MI." MI. Martian Invasion. That
meant that the injury had something to do with contact from
foreign biological substances. That was a prospect that
horrified many of the scientists. They called it the War of
the Worlds Scenario (after H.G. Welles' book), where the
invading aliens were killed by the common cold bacteria.
The same thing could happen here, this time with a reverse
in roles.
His comlink echoed with curses from the other Techs.
"Don't tell me Hadley's down! Stupid amateurs! Tell Larsen
to hire real scientists next time!" Their cocky tones
belied their worry. MI scenarios were more horrifying than
a fleet of UFOs in the horizon.
Pearce turned a ghastly shade of white. "I don't feel
all to well right now..."
"Uh, yes sir. We'll take you up for examination now."
Dujardin tapped his comm. Just then, techs bounded up to
Tech Hadley, whose hands had already melted. He was
screaming horribly, an ugly sound that echoed in the
hallway.
The techs quickly sedated him, then strapped him onto an
antigrav stretcher. They were about to push him away when
Dujardin tapped one.
"Uh, Doctor! This guy here, he might be contaminated."
He pointed at Pearce. The tech stared at him for a moment.
"Radio command," he finally said. "You boys, get a
stretcher! Sedate him!" The other techs quickly jabbed
Pearce in the arm with a needle. The lieutenant went down.
Dujardin radioed command. "Uh, command, this is Rookie
Dujardin. We're bringing a Lieutenant Pearce up to base.
He needs a new memory, over."
"Very good, Dujardin. For a Rookie with hardly a good
day's experience, you handled cover-up pretty well. That,
combined with your great performance in this solo
investigation mission, as well as babysitting the Initiate,
is making Larsen think twice about not promoting you to
Squaddie."
Rookie Masaharu Dujardin smiled.
***
Pearce hung in a black, deep void. He was groggy, and
he kept shaking his head. Looking around him, he found out
that he couldn't see. He had the oddest sensation of
floating around, but he wasn't sure. He soon became
disoriented, flailing his hands about. He began to feel...
something groping around in his brain. He shook his head,
but that something still continued.
For some reason, thoughts came unbidden to his head.
Lieutenant David Pearce, Narcotics Division, Level Two Squad
Black Cobra. An intercepted message from Minelli forced
Inspector Isaki to divert squads from the Psiclone
Investigation to confiscate a shipment of heroin in Scrooge
Mansions. Crycroft, Shadrin, Trindell and Chekhov of Black
Cobra were sent. Distress call from Trindell... Pearce and
three other men, escorted by Red Eagle 1, sent as backup...
Shadrin radioing him about Minelli's escape... Officer Mike
Case, Level Four Emergency Health Services...
Contamination... MI... Hadley... Tech... Command...
He screamed as he had the distinct sensation of someone
squeezing his brain. He continued screaming as the pain
went on.
***
Sergei Shadrin opened his eyes slowly. A comforting
white haze surrounded him. His eyes began to focus, and
soon he could make out several lights shining down at him.
What the... He tried sitting up. His body ached all over,
especially where his arm wound was. Looking at his
shoulder, he was surprised to see it bandaged.
He was sitting in a comfortable anti-grav mattress.
What looked like medical equipment hung from a droid
suspended above him. Staring at the droid, he recognized it
as a Nanotech Surgery Droid. Looking around, he could see
ten other mattresses. One of them was occupied. Three men
in white stood over it. Peering around them, Shadrin could
see a man, sleeping peacefully. He was horrified to see
that his hands weren't there. Instead, there were inflamed
stumps.
"Hadley isn't hurt bad. Prosthetics could cure him in
no time. A few robotic hands would make him a little less
clumsy."
"You must understand that Hadley was dealing with a new
E.D. He secured the specimen using standard procedure, but
didn't know that that thing could melt his arms right off."
There goes that word again. E.D. Sergei had the faint
memory of a man named Dujardin standing over him, firing a
Stun Grapple.
"Excuse me," he cried out hoarsely. "Am I in a Megapol
Rescue Station? Where am I? And who are you?"
The three men in white looked at him. One of them came
over. "Hello, Officer Shadrin. It's a pleasure to see you
awake. I am Dr. White."
"Oh, so this is a Megapol Rescue Station?"
"Uh, not exactly." He tapped an intercom panel beside
Shadrin's bed. "Commander Larsen, Initiate Shadrin's
awake."
"Initiate Shadrin? Alright, someone give me some
answers now!" Shadrin shouted indignantly. "Where the hell
am I?"
"You, Officer, are in the Medical Facility of the X-COM
Base Avatar." Shadrin turned and saw a distinguished
looking grey-haired man entering the med facility.
Accompanying her was a blond-haired young woman and an
android. "I am Commander Jacob Larsen, commander of base
operations." He extended a hand to Shadrin.
Shadrin didn't take it. Instead, his luminous grey eyes
went wide. "X-COM? X-COM? Here?" He immediately felt an
instinctive panic. He was a Homo Xenosapiens, a hybrid
between the human race and one of the alien races X-COM had
combatted over eighty-six years ago. Did they suspect that
he was an agent for alien infiltration?
"I didn't do anything!" he shouted. Larsen smiled at
him reassuringly.
"No one's accusing you of anything. Why don't we four
have a little chat at our briefing hall?"
***
Michael Bouton looked around him. The three of them
were seated in a luxurious hall. Rows of seats encircled a
central holoprojector, which was currently displaying an
X-COM sign. The large X crossed in the center by a
horizontal bar was fast becoming a familiar sight. The base
itself was as drab as the grey uniforms the base personnel
wore, but X-COM insignias occasionally punctuated the
corridors.
His optical sensors focused on Officer Shadrin. Bouton
had once worked in Megapol as a Solmine Security Officer.
However, the City Edict of 2076 forced him and other droids
out of their jobs to "safeguard economic security for the
other inhabitants of Mega-Primus." They were scared that
the efficient and intelligent droids would force them out of
their jobs. If Bouton was human, he would have been amused
by the truth of such a notion.
But he was objective and indifferent. His programming
as a droid forced him to find employment, for the only
reason a droid existed was to do a job. His security
program had prevented him from being a loading droid or
anything like that (the only jobs droids were allowed to have
were menial ones); he felt no emotion, so even such a
degrading job as that would satisfy his programming. But
there was nothing he could do in Mega-Primus. He jumped
ship from Earth to a Lunar Colony. It was currently in a
war of independence against the remnants of the World
Council overlords ruling it. His so-called Sentience
Programming allowed him to modify his program, and so the
former security droid became an assassin for hire. He was
cold, precise, emotionless and deadly efficient. He had
accepted over 20 missions, each knocking out an important
political target in various colonies around the moon. A
week ago, he had been approached by several men in dark
suits, and they had offered him a job he couldn't refuse.
Twelve thousand dollars a week. His modified, profit-hungry
programming told him that this would be to his advantage.
His sensors now focused on Jacqueline Laroyenne, a
scowling, blond-haired young woman. The droid knew very
little about her. He calculated that this put him at quite
a disadvantage. But he also calculated that he was quite
superior to her in many ways. If she ever turned traitor,
he would easily deal with her.
Commander Larsen flicked a control pad, and the room
darkened. He turned pushed another control, and the X-COM
sign on the holoprojector disappeared and was replaced by a
schematic of Mega-Primus. "Let's have a little briefing,
shall we?"
***
Dujardin looked around nervously. Biocontainment always
scared him to death. There was something about the purple
lights and suited scientists that freaked him out. His
breath misted in the faceplate of the environment suit he
was wearing. Frag this place.
Around him were other scientists in environment suits.
The suits were necessary to prevent another MI. In front of
them was a large transparent plasteel cylinder. Inside the
cylinder, floating in an anti-grav field in a sterile
environment, was the blown off carcass of the worm he had
taken down just a few hours ago.
That solo mission was worth it. Bioscanners and
deep-level X-COM undercover sociologists suspected minimal
alien infiltration in Scrooge Mansions. Masaharu, with a
little help from Shadrin (Issue 2) had downed two Blues,
three Crabs and this worm. He had also watched Sergei
Shadrin strut his stuff. Not bad as officers ago, but that
trick with the mindbender was really neat. The mission had
catapulted Dujardin up one rank. He was now Squaddie
Masaharu Dujardin.
Beside him, Doc Moray, head of the Biochemistry Labs,
was asking him some questions about the dead worm to
facilitate research.
"Well, Mr. Dujardin, let's start. Describe the creature
while still intact."
"Uh, yeah. It was like this pink worm, as long as my
elbow to my fingers. Very fat. It was fast too. It had
two small eyes above the big, toothy mouth; I think I blew
up that part so I might as well tell you."
"Okay. Any forms of attack?"
"Uh-huh. It spits out gobs of this green stuff. Those
things, enzymes probably, melts steel like crazy."
Doc Moray nodded. He had seen Hadley's stumps of arms
and the remains of Dujardin's armor before it was sent to
Engineering for repairs.
"Well, Mr. Dujardin, that would be all."
"Anyway, just let me tell you something. This thing,
you know, it's like, how do I say this, a hyperactive worm,
with its speed and spit and all. It's like a hyper worm."
Moray smiled. A hyper worm. Flicking on his datapad,
he accessed the UFOpaedia Alien Files.
Dujardin looked over his shoulder. He saw a picture of
a Blue corpse. Written under it were the words "SCIENTIFIC
DESIGNATION: NONE. AGENT DESIGNATION: BLUE." Moray pressed
the forward button.
The next entry was a video clip of a Blue in Alien
Containment. He pressed forward again. There was a picture
of the soupy Crab carcass. Written under it were the words
"SCIENTIFIC DESIGNATION: NONE. AGENT DESIGNATION: CRAB."
Moray pushed the forward button. There was a picture of
the worm corpse as it lay on the dissecting table. Under it
were the words "SCIENTIFIC DESIGNATION: NONE. AGENT
DESIGNATION: NONE."
Under Agent Designation, Moray entered in the word
WORM. Under Scientific Designation, Moray entered in
HYPERWORM. With another button, he uploaded the new data
onto the UFOpaedia files.
"Congratulations, Mr. Dujardin, you just gave the first
scientific name to an alien."
***
An engineer of Cyberweb examined the observer droid in
front of him. He chewed his lip thoughtfully. He had been
assigned to redesign the Senate observer droid in response
to Senator Landers' call a few hours ago. As one of the
Senates' senior members, he had often noted malfunctions in
the droid while playing back Senate sessions. He had
submitted a whole new schematic holo to redesign the droid.
The engineer looked at it now and gagged in disbelief.
The guy was crazy!
Oh, well, he'd have to do the job. Cyberweb depended on
Landers to pass laws that would help the company recuperate
its losses after Mega-Primus shut down the droids in 2076.
They did everything to please Landers, and in return Landers
lobbied for the passing of the Heavy Armaments Law which
allowed certain city cars to carry missiles and plasma
cannons. Since Cyberweb was a major distributor of AI units
for guided missiles, that helped business a lot. It also
put the powerful MarSec company in Landers' good side. As
part of their agreement, Landers also campaigned for the
return of droids to their former status. That put the
Sentient Engine Liberation Front as one of Landers'
staunchest allies. Landers also owned stock in Synthemesh
and rubbed elbows with executives at Lifetree. In short, he
was a very powerful man.
If the engineer didn't do this job, Cyberweb would fire
him.
A few hours later, he heard the door to the workshop
hiss open. Inside stepped a man dressed in a Roman toga.
The engineer laughed at that to himself. Crazy fools.
Accompanying him was a small, dark-suited man and two
security guards. Definitely not Cyberweb's.
"Who are you? I need some ID for your clearance in this
area," he called out.
The Roman scowled at him. "I'm Senator Landers, and I
have a Senate session to attend to fifteen minutes from
now. Cyberweb told me you're the engineer who's working on
the new observer droid."
"Uh, yes, sir." The engineer gulped. Wait till his
wife found out who he was talking with right now. "The new
observer droid for the Senate is finished, but what I don't
understand, sir, is why ---"
He paused. The small man had bounded up to him, leering
gleefully. "You don't have to understand anything."
His leer grew wider. The engineer suddenly felt
nervous. Suddenly, he saw the man reach for something
inside his bulky jacket. In a flash, the man had pulled out
an orange pod of some sort. The top opened, and a crab-like
creature bounded out. Its powerful legs braced themselves,
then it launched itself into the air. The engineer began
running, screaming for his life. The crab landed a few
meters away from him, and in less than a second, it closed
the distance between them. Vaulting upwards again, it
landed smack on the engineer's head. The thing was crawling
on his head, and he was screaming wildly now, his arms
trying to pull the creature off him. He felt a sharp object
being lifted towards his nape. Then he blacked out as the
creature drove the sharp thing toward his spine with
ferocious strength.
Landers watched distastefully as the man buckled. The
senator could see a slimy, worm-like orange thing slide into
the hole its proboscis had created in the man's nape. The
hole closed up, seemingly miraculously, and none would have
noted that there ever had been a wound in the man's nape.
There was a little throbbing of the nape as the worm thing
slithered upwards, towards the brain. Landers felt like
vomiting. The carapace of the creature fell from the
engineer's head, and it self-destructed, its purpose in life
achieved, in a frenzy of enzymes that dissolved the creature
into soup.
"Weakling. That man just fainted out of fright."
Landers' companion was displeased. "Now we'll have to wait
till he wakes up before we can begin our operation." He
then turned towards Landers. In a show of extreme speed, he
had pulled another of those pods from his jacket and flung
it towards Landers.
The senator dug into his toga and brought out a Plasma
Pistol as a crab thing crawled out from the pod. With
dangerous aim, Landers knelt and blasted off a shot at the
creature. It hit the alien square between the eyes. He
stood up and aimed the gun at the man who had thrown it.
Immediately, the security guards beside him raised their
guns at the senator. Landers considered killing him, but it
was too disadvantageous. Besides, he might come in useful
later.
He lowered his gun. "Never mess with me."
"Very good, Senator Landers. I never knew you had it in
you." The man addressed the guards now. "Burn the
carcasses."
The guards strode forward, then armed themselves with
flamethrowers. Turning it on to full heat, they sprayed the
burning oil droplets at the crab carcasses. They quickly
dissolved, leaving no trace.
"What about the security cameras?" Landers had to ask.
"If I had allowed them to be operational, guards would
have been here by now. It is not good to underestimate me,
Senator. Now, isn't it time to get your show on the road?
You might be late for the Senate session."
"Of course," Landers grunted. He activated the observer
droid. "Come with me."
Next Issue (On Tour): APOCALYPSE goes into focus in this fourth issue.
How
do Minelli and Borja escape from the squadron of Megapol police cars
after
them? What happened to Pearce? Megapol is in the middle of a Psiclone
busting operation that may well involve the other criminal gangs Psyke
and
Diablo! Larsen takes Shadrin, Bouton and Laroyenne on a guided tour
through
Base Avatar, but it is far from a leisurely one as the base goes red
alert! The
senate session begins. What insidious plan does Landers and his
companion
have, and what does the observer droid have to do with it? Till next
week!
Lio Mangubat
X-COM (and XCOM) are trademarks of MicroProse Software. Get yourself a copy!
X-COM: UFO Defence is copyright 1996 by Microprose Software, Inc. All rights reserved.
X-COM is based on characters and design by Mythos Games.