Aswan's Fall Chapter 4
Command & Conquer and associated are trademarks of Westwood Studios. Original concepts and ideas are mine.
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Meera concealed her absolute shock surprisingly well. Zach had done so as well while Hasan maintained his stoic silence and Gerard was absolutely non-plussed. It was the same all over again, Zach and Gerard, occasionally joined by Hasan.
She'd known Hasan for a more than a decade and was close friends with him. She'd grown up with him in the Johor Yellow Zone, daughter of a refinery plant manager from England and his Indian wife. Going to the same school, it was to her fortune that they'd met as they did.
Going to a coed secondary school, Meera had been picked on by some of the girls as well as the boys for being reserved and quiet, the nerdy, smart girl whose head was buried in books and computers all the time. A member of the drama club as well, she'd been subjected to vicious bullying by her classmates constantly.
Eventually she'd made friends with Hasan, whose younger sister was in the drama club. A serious, hard-working boy, quiet and diligent, he was also a prefect and the captain of the Vale Tudo team and a school swimmer. Apparently, being a sports captain, prefect and school swimmer gave him a lot of clout amongst the student community.
The bullying had eased away after he'd used his pull as sports captain of the Vale Tudo team and position as a prefect to send a message to the bullies. The more persistent ones had eventually learnt to avoid her after she threw a boy twice her size into the pool, courtesy of Hasan teaching her a thing or two. The rest had disappeared after she'd been seen associating with his clique. Bullies were cowards, and one did not want the school martial arts team, known to produce district champions every year, to come after them.
Personally, Meera was surprised he'd joined the military rather than becoming a corporate or government scholar and eventually a civil servant or politician. Hasan seemed more at home running a corporation or some sort of mafia operation rather than being a soldier as far as she was concerned. And she meant the latter in a good way.
No longer that geeky little girl, she was an accomplished espionage agent whose reputation for professionalism among her colleagues was renowned. If anything, they would have sworn she had ice water in her veins.
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"So...I assume your product is high-grade and will go for...a packet for a thousand?" Meera helpfully said as she looked at Hasan. He glared back at her, playing the part of a hostile businessman to perfection. He'd always been a good method actor and an excellent improvisational actor – courtesy of his sister blackmailing him into playing the part of gangster or villain innumerable times in school plays.
His voice, slow and grating, ground down on Gideon Merovin's nerves. He licked his lips, moistening them, eagerly anticipating the coming narcotic high. His eyes flickered back and forth between the packets of heroin, barely larger than a small packet of pocket tissue.
"Because of who the customer is, we'll be charging you higher. After all, I don't usually deal with Nod. We're independent...brokers and do business with everyone. We need to recoup our losses. After all, Nod aren't known for being trustworthy. Say... a thousand five?"
Dr Merovin rose up in anger. "That's ridiculous. We rule this zone. You do business here because we let you. Do you know who I am?"
"I don't really or care. You're a motherfucking Brotherhood cunt-face who wants my product? Fine. I'll do business with you, but I set the price. Your boys are bleeding the zone dry and killing of my customer base. Bad for business, what with GDI winning and all..."
"The Brotherhood has the welfare of the Aswani people at heart -"
"And that's why you allow people like me to traffic in this? Why a young girl like that can sell her body? Wow, I applaud you. Great leadership."
Hasan began to clap, applauding the Dr Merovin with sarcasm written all over his face. Dr Merovin attempted to reply but stopped, realising he'd lost the battle. Before a sly grin came to his face.
"So you're a GDI sympathiser aren't you? Mr..."
"You may call me Ali. GDI bastards - arrogant uptight arseholes, but then I wouldn't be in this business with them around. Trying to threaten me? We can make you disappear Dr Merovin. Nod may rule the zone but the cartels run the streets.
Meera cut in at this point. She knew Hasan's history. His close friend had been a Nod sympathiser, caught up in trying to pose as a big-time sympathiser for money before he'd got in too deep. Asian governments didn't care too much for Nod sympathisers and unlike the Western Hemisphere members of the GDI, were more than a little ruthless.
The Brotherhood was far less prevalent and more underground in the Asian regions for the simple reason that most of their supporters tended to 'disappear' and if found, were more or less clinically dead. Their deaths tended to be attributed to 'extreme lead poisoning' and 'copious amounts of neural tissue leaking from the skull'.
Human rights were all very well and good until it came to the Brotherhood of Nod. The government detained him without trial, arresting him while he'd been walking in the street and interrogated him with a vigour that was generally reserved for pedophiles, child molesters and rapists. Asian counter-espionage were rather paranoid with regards to the Brotherhood after all.
Hasan had tried using his influence as a GDI Special Forces operator and what few political links he had to try and get his friend free…and it had nearly worked. Unfortunately, his friend had hung himself in prison before the review board could clear him. Hasan still blamed himself for it at times, for not being able to protect his brother. But it had inculcated in him a near fanatical dislike towards Nod.
There was a reason why he'd volunteered for Project Bahadur. His fanaticism had been tempered over the countless black ops he'd carried out, slowly recognising that in many ways, GDI mirrored Nod, though was the far better option. GDI , even with all its faults, was for humanity and Earth and sought to at least maintain a level of survival for the greater majority of the population that didn't stress the already fragile ecology of the planet.
"Dr Merovin, perhaps I could be left to negotiate with these businessmen? It would certainly be less stressful for you sir. Please, take a seat in the room you booked. I'll be with you shortly."
She casually dismissed the escorts and closed the door. She held it closed until she was sure they were out of hearing range before meeting the looks of her old friends.
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"How long's it been Meera? Three years?" Zach asked, keeping his distance from her. Hasan and Gerard shared a glance. The two had history between them. Memories of shared intimacy, of the times they'd spent together came to Zach as he smelt her familiar perfume.
"Four actually, since the day you broke off our engagement."
"You were engaged?" Gerard asked in surprise before Hasan cut him off with a glare. Gerard knew better than to ask any further.Beter not to get involved with a lover's tiff.
"Since we don't have time for this little reunion shall we pay attention to more pressing matters?" Hasan asked pointedly. As the situation was, it was already FUBAR (Failure Beyond Attempted Recovery/'Fucked up Beyond All Recovery' colloquially).
He neither had the time nor patience to let the personal matters of anyone complicate the immediate mission – to escape from Aswan. While their regiment had already been pulled out of the flames and into the water, their situation was no better. The Brotherhood was still hunting for them and would by now had smarted up to the fact that the corpses they'd dressed in their uniforms were actually some faceless mooks off the street.
Meera glanced at him and saw the visible fatigue on his face, the lines that furrowed his brow. While a handsome person, the stress of life and the constant fighting on his part hadn't let him age very gracefully. He looked 5 years older than he actually was.
"Meera this is Gerard. Gerard – Meera. She's a spy from InOps. Now to business. We can catch up later. Meera, I assume you're undercover right?"
Meera sighed, glad to have escaped dealing with the situation with Zach. Her ex-fiance, he'd broken off the engagement during a particularly hard time in his life, after his father had died from cancer and he'd been left the sole breadwinner while still in university. He'd dropped out and signed up with GDI Special Forces, given that it was a family tradition. His father was a sniper and he'd followed in his footsteps, becoming a pathfinder.
Still, despite the circumstances the situation had left no small bitterness in her heart towards him. At least with Hasan around they could concentrate. He was a capable leader for the simple fact that he could get people to focus on the task at hand by virtue of his logical mind and common sense. For everything he'd went through, he was a man of faith whose religion grounded him. It was rare to find someone like him.
"Salaam Hasan. I apologise for the initial friction. You were the last people I expected to see in Aswan. InOps has been monitoring this facility for years, and after we gained information that supposedly fragments of the Tacitus were here, I was assigned to infiltrate the base."
Hasan nodded. In a way, she'd joined the GDI because of him. After graduating university with 1st class honours in drama and journalism, without the faintest idea as to what to do, he'd jokingly suggested she put her acting skills to good use serving the greater good of humanity by joining the GDI.
Taking him at his word, he'd arranged for an interview with an old friend from InOps and that was the last he'd heard of her for a year before suddenly running into her wearing the stripes of a junior lieutenant while on leave in London. It was also there that he'd introduced her to Zach, then a pathfinder in training and 5 years her junior. They'd hit it off and before he knew it his two closest friends were engaged. Then they'd broken up and things had become a bit too prickly for his liking.
He pulled down the bundles of cloth that concealed his face and smiled. In better times, they'd have met in a pub or on a kelong, a floating fish farm that reared crabs, lobsters and fish in controlled environments, in waters freed of Tiberium algae.
With the prevalence of Tiberium worldwide, much of the available land in Blue Zones was carefully managed and efficiently maximised for various purposes, with most people living in high-rise apartment blocks, while agriculture had shifted to using vertical farming, aquaponics, hydroponics and aeroponics to feed the population of the Yellow and Blue Zones under GDI control.
Beef was a luxury product only the richest could afford, while chicken and fish were the staple foods of the current age. Hasan remembered stories from his grandfather of when beef had cost only a dollar for a kilogram, while nowadays a kilogram of either pork, beef or ostrich could fetch the princely sum of a hundred dollars for a kilogram.
"So Meera, do you think you could help us escape from Aswan? I'm sure you've heard about us by now from the public loudspeakers" spoke Hasan, a wry smile on his face. He could still hear the loudspeakers outside, faintly reporting the news that the 'GDI infidel hate monger imperialists' had been captured and shown the light of Kane.
"That...might be a problem. Access to Aswan is heavily restricted due to the critical nature of the research they carry out. If you mean by train, you'd need approved tickets and passports from Nod officials which I have access to. And given my position, it'd look suspicious if I did so, since it would essentially blow my cover. And my current assignment is too valuable to do that. But there could be a way..." she mulled silently.
There was a hidden cache of arms and escape vehicles that she'd assembled over the past few months, letting no one but Dr Merovin know, deceiving him into thinking it was an emergency cache designed exclusively for his use in the event of something going wrong with his research, or political infighting starting up again in the Brotherhood.
"And what exactly are you doing that's so high priority?" Zach asked, curious to know.
"That's classified and you don't have the clearance. I'm not obliged to answer you Zach" she said swiftly, a trace of bitterness in her voice. Just because she didn't express her anger towards him openly didn't mean his presence didn't affect her.
"But I do Meera. And I need to know if we're going to survive this" Hasan spoke calmly, hands folded in his lap.
"Sit down. It's a long story but I'll try to keep it short. Basically, whatever they stated publicly to you guys, that's not the Tacitus or any fragments of it that they have in there. It's...something that...I'm not sure but the way the Brotherhood is conflicted over what to do with it makes me think there's something more to it. From all the rumours I've been hearing, it's an artefact that's got even Kane spooked."
Hasan nodded. Their current situation had stabilised but if his suspicions and intuition were correct, their mission had just expanded its parameters. As an InOps officer, an elite one who could be trusted with deep cover operations like this, Meera was one of the best. And when dealing with InOps, he'd learnt from experience that within the Brotherhood, rumours generally had a great degree of truth.
"Take 5 minutes and tell us in summary. I've got a faint idea of where this is going and I think if we play our cards right, I'll be able to exfiltrate all of us from Aswan without harm."
"Hasan, did you just say all of us?As in me being part of the 'us'?" Meera questioned, a slight panic overtaking her. For as long as she'd known Hasan, he'd also been a man who was known to come up with brilliant improvisational plans that often saved the day as much as they caused a tremendous amount of trouble for all involved. And her instincts screamed to her that this time was no different...
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Dr Gideon Merovin reclined in the chair, taking a deep puff from his cigarette. With tobacco so expensive now, due to most arable land turned over to cultivating food crops, they were a luxury good only the richest could afford. As such, being the Chief Scientist of the Aswan Temple, he was privileged enough to enjoy access to them.
Blowing a smoke ring, he took another puff and sunk back into the cushioning of the sofa chair, letting his body sink into its contours. It was his day off and he planned to enjoy it. Ever since he'd been assigned Navia Masood as his assistant, life had greatly improved for him. She was a tremendous asset, with a photographic memory able to piece together all the details of his day while he concentrated on the more important details.
Ever since the discovery of the artefact, codenamed Cerberus, the hound of Hades, the internal leadership of the Brotherhood had been thrown into political chaos, with Kane for the first time being opposed by multiple members of the High Council at the same time over the course of action to take with regards to Cerberus.
At the tail end of the Third Tiberium War, after the successful counter-attack by the GDI had driven the Scrin offworld, a remnant force of Scrin had been annihilated by Nod forces in an ambush as they retreated to the last remaining Threshold tower. While sifting through the remains of their vehicles, they'd found an anomalous object in the wreckage.
In an effort to gain an edge over GDI, intensive research had been devoted to analysing and reverse engineering Scrin technology, allowing for improvements in material sciences, power generation and Tiberium harvesting, while theoretical physics had gained a tremendous boost by the display of practical wormholes that were possible.
However it was the Cerberus that had defied Nod scientists until just recently, when two fragments found to be in GDI hands were recovered and placed in the presence of Cerberus. The results had been astonishing, to say the least. It had emitted a scramble radio signal with a burst of tachyons as well as opened a nano-gauge wormhole through which it had transmitted a high-energy maser in the exawatt range, defying conventional physics and producing an energy output several magnitudes above what human technology could achieve currently.
The bursts of information it had given out had rapidly subsided, but not before at least several terabytes worth of data from the radio burst had been recorded onto solid-state memory disks. What they'd uncovered was alarming.
Among the first things uncovered was the Arecibo message, followed by a string of prime numbers repeated in cycles of ten. The data that had followed had shocked them greatly. It was a key to translate the clearly sequenced fragment of data sent.
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As they'd translated the data, intelligence had analysed and evaluated it, along with corresponding data from recovered Scrin data crystals and classified parts of the Tacitus. When the final picture had come together, the shock it had sent through the High Council was nothing less than earth-shaking.
A species known only by the titles 'Chinek' or 'The Silence', but who the Scrin referred to as the 'Starkillers', had been engaged in a genocidal conflict with the Scrin for the past million years, the onslaught barely stopped by the Scrin who'd been pushed to the verge of extinction until they'd found the reason for the conflict.
According to the Scrin, the reason for the war had been the attempted colonisation of a cluster of star systems which the Chinek, a species of artificial life forms, inhabited along with several other carbon and silicon-based life form species under their protection. Like any animal whose home was invaded, they had attacked.
The Scrin had only worsened it by destroying what they thought was a key part of the infrastruture that maintained the Chinek military. It had instead turned out to be a holy relic that was a centre of the Chinek religion. Heavily damaging the structure, the onslaught that followed had turned what had been a defensive war intended to push the Scrin out of their home into a genocide.
The resulting backlash from the Chinek had devastated Scrin population centres until the Starkillers had reached their homeworld and utilised an asteroid to crack its crust before leaving. This was considered rather minor compared to the fact that the Starkillers had lured an entire Scrin armada into a star system and caused the star to go nova, wiping out a full third of the Scrin's naval capacty.
The resulting interregnum had splintered the homeworld-fleets of the Scrin, who'd eventually recovered after several millennia and rebuilt their strength. In an attempt to remove the threat, an expeditionary force had been once more deployed into known Chinek territories, around a dyson sphere in the Andromeda galaxy.
The force had disappeared without a trace and for the past hundreds of thousands of years, the Scrin military had devoted more than two-thirds of their strength to maintaining a quarantine around the said area of space, even avoiding the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way galaxy for the simple reason that they'd been colonised by species associated with the Chinek.
Their entire reason for harvesting Tiberium or 'The Ichor' as they named it, was to gather enough resources to confront the Starkillers as well as create habitable ecologies for themselves through the transformation of the environment, to ensure their survival as a species against something they'd barely survived.
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As Gideon mused on it, he tapped on the laptop in front of him. The revelation that there was a species more technologically advanced and older than the Scrin was one thing. That the Scrin had barely devoted but a fraction of their strength to attacking Earth, and even then had devastated both sides with what were now known to be non-military units was the spark that had set off the schism.
Several of the younger Brotherhood commanders had there and then called for a truce to be made with the GDI, in the interests of consolidating the strength of humanity to face the possible threat of annihilation.
Other commanders had called for a renewed war against the GDI, in order to unite the world under the flag of the Brotherhood. Kane, as usual, had his own agenda. Given the ideological violence of the three past wars, any commander who'd suggested an alliance had been executed.
Several hardliners had already been assassinated in turn while many younger commanders in the Asia-Pacific region had gone into secret talks with the Asian governments seeking truce and eventual inclusion of their own territories and forces into the SCO framework, given that the SCO, while a hard negotiator, was more pragmatic than the Western European and North American GDI governments.
Meanwhile the GDI was dithering over whether now was the best time to attack, as spies from within fed back to Nod. The initial assault on Aswan was the first push, an exploratory maneuvre
The Western Hemisphere coalition of the GDI would have insisted on disarmament and demobilisation of the forces as well as democratic reforms and the disassembling of the entire apparatus of Brotherhood civil administration, in a bid to purge them of Nod's taint. The SCO were pragmatic in that they adopted something like the Russian approach to technology, which involved placing one thing that worked on top of another thing that worked, creating something that while not too efficient was rugged, redundant and reliable.
But all this was secondary to Gideon's own research. While one did have to be somewhat of a political animal to survive in the Brotherhood, just like any other organisation, his priority was science. Gideon had no use for ideology or fanaticism, instead preferring the artistry of science, a statement which he saw no reason to see as a contradiction.
Indeed, he saw science as a systematic study of the natural world and an art. One had to straddle both worlds to appreciate the creativity and logic required in science.
Science as an entity progressed by steady, incremental amounts over a given interval, with irregular interruptions by bursts of insight from great minds such as Newton, Einstein and Hawking, much like religion had evolved from sudden revelations as to the nature of the world by the likes of Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad. While scientific advance was owed to the former, one greatly desired the latter.
Not since Hawking or Einstein could one argue that Gideon was currently among the most brilliant scientists in the world and he owed much of his work to the sudden bursts of insight that came to him as he mulled over the mundane details of physics in his mind.
He'd retreated into the world of science since a young age, losing himself to it laws and linearity, unable to handle the intricacies of human relationships. Logically, he knew his 'heart', or more technically his emotional quotient was low and probably broken, not that he cared too much.
Growing up in the Algerian Yellow Zone ruled by Nod, one of the wealthier ones as well, he'd been selected to be among the scientific elite after his work came to the attention of several senior science officers. It had helped to save his mother and sisters as well as him. As long as he immersed himself in science, his family didn't starve and he got to do what he enjoyed.
But somewhere along the way. he'd lost something and ever since then, he'd filled the gulf in his life since then with drugs, escaping into the state that it brought. To be fair, he didn't really enjoy it and truly wasn't addicted to it, but it had become a habit and so he continued.
Working his way up the ladder, he'd learned to calculate his moves, becoming a competent politician, though lacking that spark of charisma that defined a politician, always using his logic and never his emotions. Due to his political neutrality and self-acknowledged scientific brilliance, he'd been able to get a posting to Aswan and been placed in charge of uncovering the mystery of Cerberus.
And what a mystery he'd uncovered. Barely less than a fortnight ago, in a bust of insight he'd redid the calculations as he'd realised their major mistake, attempting to apply Euclidean and Newtonian mathematical concepts to this technology. Rather, it required one to look at it from a quantum angle.
The artefact Cerberus was something so far beyond the Tacitus that it had initially shocked him and forced the entire science team to relook their data. The Cerberus was an object that essentially violated several well-known physical laws as humans understood them, and then some.
The only way they could explain its existence and mode of operation was as a 512-dimensional hypercube which manifested in the form of a simple cube of silicon-based material in space-time. So far, every time it had undergone spectroscopic testing, the results it returned were different. The only thing consistent about it was its inconsistency.
Given that it violated M-theory, which postulated 10 alternative dimensions to space-time plus one extra dimension, it had sent the entire science division into a tiff and forced them to relook their data. Their basic principles were intact but to actually understand the Cerberus required a phase shift in the current paradigm and an understanding of the structure of space-time several magnitudes beyond what was currently known.
Turning his attention to the analyses of the fragmented data captured on their hard drives, the assessment of his fellow scientists did nothing but astound him. After fully deciphering the data, the technical details had astounded him. While they didn't understand everything about it, Nod now had in its clutches the technology for practical interplanetary and interstellar transport. The Starkillers had given humanity keys to the stars.
The deciphered information from the Cerberus had full details on how to construct whad had been termed a 'phase gate', essentially carving its way through dimensional space and folding it such that one instantaneously appeared at a fixed point regardless of distance. While it didn't violate causality, it was certainly food for thought.
The next had been a vast library of information on the capabilities of nanotechnology and its dangers, in essence a manual as to the best use of the fledgling technology. Gideon had full copies of both on his hard drive.
He heard a knock on the door and watched as the drug dealer Ali came in with Meera, his own and the other man's bodyguards waiting outside. In Meera's hands were clutched several vials of heroin.
"Your secretary and me reached a deal boss. A pleasure doing business with you" the man said, a wide grin on his face. Meera winked at Gideon who smiled back. She was such as efficient assisstant. She just had a way of dealing with difficult customers that left Gideon amazed at her. That and the fact that she was known as a 'badass bitch' back in the base left him glad that she was on his side. After all, one didn't mess with a woman who could flip over a hundred-fifty kilogram man with practised ease.
He rolled up his sleeves and prepared to inject himself, looking forward to escaping the gulf within that gnawed at his mind once more in the euphoria of the narcotic.
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As the drug took effect Meera stepped in front of him and began to talk to him softly, watching as his eyes glazed over and his head began to nod from side to side. She quietly withdrew a syringe filled with sodium thiopental and found an artery on Dr Merovin's arm. She swiftly injected it, measuring the dosage to match the heroin.
There was a small danger that he could die from an overdose but she was careful, doing the best she could under the circumstances. While truth drugs were effective but known to have disputed reliability, in combination with hypnotic suggestion they were a devastating weapon in an interrogators arsenal.
Many hardened fanatics had revealed their secrets to her as she subjected them to the treatment. Of course under GDI law it was a rather grey area that InOps fully exploited, used in facilities outside the North American Blue Zones due to the sensitivity and legality of the techniques involved.
"You are in a restful, euphoric, happy place. It is nice and warm and dark. Listen to the sound of my voice.."
Hasan watched carefully as Meera set to her work.
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"So..." Gerard said as he looked at the Nod soldier. They were elite Black Hand, assigned as part of the personal bodyguard of Dr Gideon Merovin. They stared back wordlessly at him from behind visored masks.
"What's your name?" Gerard said, forcing a smile on his face. It was the first time he'd ever come this close to a Black Hand trooper. Usually the closest he ever got to meeting them was from behind the scope of a rifle. They were usually too dead to speak afterwards.
"O'Riley. Sergeant" the man intoned mechanically, looking at this drug smuggler. The silence returned thicker than ever. Gerard scratched his head before coming up with an idea to break the ice.
"Since your boss is off getting all high and flighty, how 'bout a game of blackjack or poker?"
At this Zach grinned. If anything, he was a card shark. The only person he hadn't beaten yet at either poker, blackjack or chess, his three strongest games, was Hasan himself. A Black Hand soldier, obviously senior, made to move before restraining himself.
Gerard blinked. Another card shark.
"How about we do it with real money eh? Make it more interesting. I'll even wager you my gun. a classic beauty. Imagine owning this beautiful fully automatic shotgun, capable of tearing through the toughest personal armour of any GDI infantryman eh? How 'bout it mate?" he began, imitating an Australian accent horribly.
At this point the one who'd identified himself as O'Riley broke out into a burst of laughter before proferring his hand to Gerard. "You're on Arab of Aswan. For a yellow zone dog you've got balls. The Black Hand are the elite of the Brotherhood. By the end of this game you'll regret ever crossing the Black Hand of Nod."
"It's set then. Just to be sure there's no cheating, we'll have her deal the cards" Zach said as he pulled a folding table out from beneath the bed, motioning to the teenage whore who'd chosen to remain to start dealing cards.
And so began a most unlikely game of poker, as the GDI Pathfinders sat across the table from the Black Hand, fighting for victory in this game of cards.