Don't Bite the Hand That Feeds
Right now, they were in a place that had once been called Rhodesia.
Joseph Liang supposed the country had once had a name before that (or names), but he wasn't so well versed in African history that he could name it off the top of his head. He knew that in 1965 the country had achieved independence from Britain, and became known as Zimbabwe. Thirty years after that, tiberium had been found on Earth. Not a moment that he supposed the people of Zimbabwe would have cared too much about at the time, but they couldn't have known what was to come any more than anyone else. They couldn't have known that forty years and two world wars later, the country of Zimbabwe, like so many other countries in the world, would no longer exist. That people would refer to it as Zimbabwe for ease of reference, but it no longer existed as a geo-political entity. That it was now a world of barren, scarred landscapes and ruined cities, as its people fought to stay alive before that fight became fruitless. Wherever tiberium spread, war was sure to follow in its wake – and not necessarily conflict between GDI or Nod.
There'd still been battles fought. Now, in the year 2035, he'd seen one fought over a nuclear missile silo. Once established by the Brotherhood, then lost by the Brotherhood after the Second Tiberium War, now reclaimed by the Global Defence Initiative. He'd observed the battle from afar. He'd been there as the casualties started coming in. Had treated everything from bullets, to shrapnel, to worst of all, tiberium poisoning – practically a death sentence. He knew that centuries ago, wounds suffered in battle could take more lives than the battle itself had. Now, in a world steadily being overcome by a green crystal and the remnants of the human race divided between two factions, that paradigm had returned with a vengeance. GDI hadn't lost all humanity, so right now, he was watching the surviving Nod soldiers be taken into APCs for transport into POW camps. He didn't know whether this was a mercy that could be sustained. And worse, as a doctor, part of him didn't know if it was even warranted now.
"Doctor Liang?"
He turned to the source of the voice. He'd have recognised it anywhere, but it did one good to face the person who was talking to you.
"Commander."
Especially if that person was Michael McNeil.
"How you holding up?"
He blinked behind his glasses. "You're asking me?"
"Think it's best to know now before anything cracks."
He frowned. "I'm not that fragile."
"Didn't say you were. But you're the best egghead we've got out here, so if you're going to do a number on me, I'd like to know ahead of time."
He turned away, letting his gaze return to the Nod POWs – men and women of all ages and races (mainly African in this part of the world), bound together by the insane belief that tiberium was the future of humanity. A belief that he could never understand, yet not attribute fully to insanity. Nod's leaders were insane, but the sane had to exist in sufficient numbers for the Brotherhood to function – even if it was a shadow of its former self.
"You needn't worry about me," he murmured. His gaze shifted away from the troopers and towards the Brotherhood's battle commander – the one McNeil had defeated hours earlier. The one being taken into Firebase Sierra proper for questioning.
"Good," McNeil said. He patted Liang on the back – a bit harder than he cared for, but he wasn't going to complain. "See you around."
He watched McNeil head off – another battle, another briefing, another…whatever people like McNeil did in their downtime. He couldn't be sure. He let his gaze shift back to the Nod commander – what did she do in her downtime? He didn't know, and he doubted she'd tell him if he asked. Funny thing was, she looked familiar – her hair, her eyes, her figure, her left arm, which had tiberium shards jutting out of it, along with her neck. Just like-
"Jade?"
The word came out a split second before he started walking over towards her, as if his body was being directed not by his mind, but by his soul.
It can't be.
His mind was ignored though, as he found herself face to face with the Nod commander. She looked surprised, as did the two troopers who were escorting her. Troopers that he noted had no piece of skin exposed, likely in case she tried to brush her arm against them.
"Doctor?" one of them asked.
He stood there, staring at the commander. This was insane. It couldn't be her. Not after-
"Joseph?"
It was her. After everything else, it was her voice that had confirmed it. A voice that he hadn't heard in a decade.
"Doctor, is something wrong?" the second trooper asked.
The commander - no, Jade, it was definitely Jade – began to laugh.
"Something wrong?" she asked. "Oh, you have no idea you fascist-"
She got the butt of the rifle in the gut. Liang went over, but Jade held her arm up. A warning to not come any closer, lest he be infected in the same way she had. On in his case, infected again.
"Doctor, do you-"
"She's my sister." He stood up straight and took his ID card. "And I want you to transfer you to briefing room two."
"Sir, you don't have the authority to-"
"Actually I do."
It wasn't a lie – while he was a doctor, and technically a civilian, he did have the authority to pull rank. A strange quirk of GDI's bureaucracy, as battlefield commanders exercised ever fuller control over their forces through their EVA units. He hadn't called the shots in McNeil's battle, but he'd been staring over the proverbial shoulder, so to speak. As someone who was an expert in both medical technology and tiberium, that was a skillset that could prove invaluable.
And in this case, valuable enough that the troopers obeyed his orders.
"What happened to you?"
Jade didn't answer. She just sat there at the desk, her hands cuffed, her eyes evading his. He didn't know if she knew what he did, that at best, he'd have her for half an hour before the privileges of rank expired and she was handed over to someone that would be asking very different questions, and be willing to do so in a less polite matter.
"Jade, come on."
Maybe she did know. If so, did she care? The Brotherhood of Nod was run by psychopaths, but it still rewarded competence. If she'd ended up commanding their forces, she must have developed the fortitude to reach the position of battle commander.
"Jade, just talk to me."
"Liang, Jade. Battle commander. Serial number-"
"Jade!" He thumped the desk, both his organic hand, and his cybernetic one. He saw his sister fall silent. Saw her eyes linger on the cybernetic hand, and beyond that, the cybernetic arm.
"You did it huh?" she whispered. "You amputated your arm."
He took a seat, folding both of his hands before him. Flesh met steel in awkward union.
"Didn't think you had it in you."
"The tiberium affected us both," he whispered. His eyes met hers, and for the first time, she didn't evade his gaze. "Jade.." He swallowed. "Yu said that you'd get it treated. That-"
"I said that I'd find a cure." She nodded towards her right arm, the tiberium shards shining for the world to see. "I did."
"A cure?" he whispered, venom flowing out of his mouth like water down a stream. "This…this isn't a cure. This is-"
"Madness? Insanity? Anathema?" Jade smirked, leaning back in her seat. "That's what we used to think, wasn't it? Back in GDI Labs? When we were looking at tiberium like a problem to be solved?" She chucked. "Showed what we knew didn't it? When the accident occurred, and we both got exposed to raw tiberium."
"Jade-"
"Did it feel like your skin was on fire? I never asked." She took a breath, nodding towards her infected arm. "Doesn't hurt now though. Bet it hurts less than the phantom pain you probably get."
He didn't say anything – cybernetics had come a long way, but phantom pain was still an issue.
"The Brotherhood found me Joseph. While you were hacking off your arm, they saved me. Let me appreciate the gift. Let me see the future."
"No," Liang whispered. He took off his glasses. "Not you. Not now. Not like this."
"You're a scientist, aren't you? Aren't you meant to look at things impartially?"
He laughed. "Impartially?' He leant forward. "You want impartial? Okay, here's impartial. First fact is that I thought you were dead – last I heard you were on your way to Rotterdam, when your jet was shot down by Nod forces."
Her eyes darkened slightly. "That's true."
He'd dared to hope otherwise, but pressed on. "More impartiality is that you've turned your back on GDI, the human race, and…" He swallowed.
"And you?" she sneered.
"Yes, me," he said. "And what's also impartial is that you're a battle commander of the Brotherhood of Nod, who killed over a hundred GDI soldiers in the past few hours-"
"Shame. Thought I killed more."
"You've got tiberium jutting out of your arm-"
"Looks nice doesn't it?"
"And you're following the word of a madman who's dead, not to mention-"
"Kane isn't dead!"
Liang recoiled. Up until now, Jade had been smug. Self-assured. Irritating as only a little sister could be. But now, he could see something different in her. The way she'd stood up, even with her hands bound to the table. The way her eyes blazed with the same fanaticism he'd seen in far too many Nod soldiers.
"You can't kill the Messiah," she whispered. "Kane isn't dead."
"McNeil would say otherwise."
"He's escaped death before, and he'll return," she spat. "While you play the butcher, rejecting tiberium's gift, he-"
"Tiberium's a curse and you know it."
She snorted. "You may be my older brother Joseph, but you're not smarter."
"Maybe." He sighed, letting pity and contempt flow through him, washing the venom away, and leaving a void in its place. "But I'm not the one in the cuffs."
A silence lingered between the two siblings. Silence broken by the tick-tick-tick of the wall clock, counting down the seconds he had left with his sister. The seconds he and the rest of humanity might have left on Earth if the tiberium crisis wasn't averted. Seconds that ticked faster every time people like Jade Liang reared their heads.
And yet…she was his sister. A sister who'd embraced oblivion and insanity, who'd thrown any sense of ethical science to the wayside, but still, his sister.
"Doctor Liang?"
He spun round – he hadn't even heard the door open. But he saw the troopers walk in – the same two he'd seen outside, and a third bringing up the rear.
"We're here to take custody of the prisoner."
"But I have-"
"Privilege expired five minutes ago. Also, Commander McNeil wants to see you."
Liang sighed. "I bet he does."
He wasn't worried – McNeil was known for paying lip service to protocol, if at all. But he watched his sister be un-cuffed and be escorted by the GIs. Looked at her arm, at the shards jutting out of it. A reminder of what he'd avoided when he'd amputated his arm? Or the future of what awaited humanity?
"See ya bro." She winked as she was led out. "Let me know if you want an upgrade. I've come a long way since I was your lab assistant."
He didn't say anything. He just stood there in the interrogation room. Listening to the footsteps heading down the hall, growing ever fainter. Listening to the tick-tick-tick of the clock. Counting down to the end, whatever it might entail. An end he didn't know that he'd see, or even if he wanted to.
As time ran out for Earth, it had long since commenced the Dance of the Hours.
But he could offer no applause.
A/N
So, Command & Conquer: Rivals is a thing, proving that not content with killing the franchise in Tiberian Twilight, EA now wants to parade its corpse in front of us. Still, it's the only CnC content we'd have in ages (Tiberium Alliances aside), and it did get me to drabble this up, so...yay?
Little note, I wrote this with the suspicion that Jade would be a commander in the game, that she's the one you can see on the home page with tiberium jutting out of her (and/or is the Nod commander in the cinematic trailer). From what I've heard, Jade apparently is a commander in the game, but I don't have access to it, nor has anyone elaborated on her appearance (and YouTube hasn't helped). So if there's any discrepancies with my take on her here and her in-game portrayal, that's the reason why.