"Say what you will of what the movement became, but the Brotherhood had its roots in nations which had been under the boot of Western occupation for the better part of 50 years. In face of that oppression, any liberation, no matter how terrible its consequences, will seem preferable to subjugation."
- Richard Bradley, "The Land of Nod", 2025.
Vidzeme Region, Yellow Zone 1
[18/5/2056]
To call the space a bunker was generous; it was a burrow, dug by desperate creatures reverting to their most primal instincts. Loose dirt showered him as the enemy's war machines rumbled overhead. He gripped his rifle like a lifeline, and waited for the world to cave in.
Instead, a light rain began to fall. Droplets fell from the heavens, and the thunder of the enemy's cannons ceased. It felt like a miracle; a stay of execution.
Then the sky opened up, and the light of God shone down on him, in all its fearsome power.
The blow hit him in the chest.
Gideon was thrust reluctantly into consciousness. His waking mind grasped at snatches of sensation, like a drowning man clinging to flotsam. A deep, rotting stink filled his nose. The rattling of a cage, no, a car… a loose collection of scrap rolling along on rough tires. A single unlaced combat boot sat in his lap.
Gideon looked to the driver, a slight figure in goggles and an ill-fitting rebreather. A threadbare red sock wiggled on the brake pedal.
"Did you throw a shoe at me?" He asked incredulously.
"Yup. You were snoring," the driver replied by way of explanation.
Gideon took in his surroundings. The buggy had left the dusty fields of Poland behind, and was rattling along a straight strip of relatively intact road through a patch of dark marshland. To the left of the raised roadway, an inundated patch of bog bubbled intermittently, filled with the skeletal shapes of desiccated trees. To the right was an expanse of boulder-strewn earth, gleaming with protrusions of Tiberium crystal. An unearthly green mist hung over the landscape.
A rusted strip of derelict train tracks ran parallel to their path. The sleepers were rotten, and the rails bent at sharp angles wherever a crystalline growth had forced its way out of the ground. It had been a long time since any trains had run through here.
A rusted radio mast stood silent vigil over their procession. Its dishes no longer broadcast, and the hazard lights had been without power for decades, but it gleamed nonetheless. Runners of crystal had crept up the base of the tower, coating its trusses like dew on a pine tree. He recognised the landmark; they were close to Riga. The prospect of returning home after a successful mission should have been comforting. Instead, something nagged at Gideon.
The negotiations had gone better than he'd anticipated; he was grateful it hadn't turned into a bloodbath. They had left with the valuable aid supplies, as well as a truck full of prisoners. The ambush could have been disastrous, but it might prove to be an unexpected boon. Returning with the traitors in chains would buy him political cachet with Radić .
But the fact that they'd had to negotiate at all rankled him. The Baltic States had been a homeland of the Brotherhood for centuries, but the global elite had never respected their autonomy. That GDI thought self-determination was within their power to grant or retract made Gideon's blood boil, as did Radić's apparent willingness to become a client state of the globe-spanning hegemony.
"Something on your mind, boss?" the driver asked.
"No, it's nothing." The driver had been with him for the past year, and Gideon trusted him well enough behind the wheel, and in a firefight. But the man had come up through Radić's militia, and betrayal was only as far away as the promise of a promotion in the Brotherhood.
"Did you see that?" an excited voice called out from the buggy behind them. Gideon turned to face the sound. A young man was half hanging out of the vehicle, pointing out into the desolate expanse to the right of the road. Gideon followed the direction of his finger, but the crystal wastes were as empty of life as ever.
"See what?" someone replied, frustration tinging their voice.
"I thought I saw movement." The young man sounded less certain now.
"There's nothing out there, kid," Gideon said, partly to himself.
—
Riga, Yellow Zone 1
The city rose up to meet them like a wall of stone rising from a green ocean. A network of old apartment blocks stood like the wall of a fortress, their many windows peering out over the surroundings like arrowslits. The Soviet-era residential complex had seen better days. Perhaps a century or more ago.
A rudimentary barricade and guard post blocked their passage. Alone, the simple wooden structures wouldn't be enough to stop a rolling convoy, but Gideon could see the glint of optics watching from within the gutted facades of the apartments.
A figure wrapped in a grey cloak and goggles extricated himself from the guard post and approached their convoy, steaming mug in hand.
"Koks tavo tikslas?" the guard asked.
Damn, my Lithuanian is rusty.
"Uh, my… turiu Radić's… supplies? Aid." He waved in the direction of a crate-laden trailer, which had been removed from the GDI truck and hitched to their vehicle. The guard scowled at him, but ambled over to inspect the hexagonal crates.
Gideon surreptitiously slid his hand under his coat and clutched the handgrip of the Makarov pistol concealed there. It wasn't unheard of for border guards to declare aid shipments as contraband, and claim the haul for themselves.
"Gerai, praeikite!" the guard called out. Gideon looked to the driver for confirmation, but the man had already set their vehicle rumbling into motion. As their convoy trundled past the barricade, Gideon saw a thick bundle of artery-like cables running to a laser emplacement within a metal shell. Camo netting had been tossed over the turret almost as an afterthought.
The stripped-bare structures formed a protective cordon around the city. It was more akin to a mediaeval curtain wall than anything modern; riddled with traps and murder holes. Gideon felt the weight of a thousand tonnes of concrete and steel hanging over his head, and breathed a sigh of relief as they passed within its boundary.
Beyond the cordon reserved for defensive purposes, the city slowly came alive. The citizens, those too young, old, or infirm to go to war, emerged from their homes to watch the procession weave through the narrow alleyways. A woman leaned out of the third-storey window of one house, hurriedly pulling in a line of laundry and eyeing the sky. A gaggle of gangly children kicked a football over the cobblestones. The ball was badly deflated, but they still laughed with glee as their chaotic game roamed through the streets.
As they crossed a bridge over a dried up river bed into the city centre, signs of Radić's regime became evident. Watchtowers had been erected on the tallest structures, bristling with speakers and floodlights. Armed guards patrolled gantries between the rooftops. A chorus of platitudes boomed out through the commons. Gideon caught snippets of Brotherhood! Unity! Peace! in a dozen languages.
A mighty monument rose over the commons. It was a monolith of white stone, though weather and neglect had stained the pristine plinth. At its peak stood a statue of Lady Liberty. She was clad in copper, weathered into a mossy green verdigris over the years. Her hands were raised to the heavens, and held in them was a golden irregular hexagon; the emblem of the Brotherhood.
A ways beyond the statue was an equally grand monument to the might of the Brotherhood; Colonel Radić's residence. The three-storey structure was a grandiose edifice of white stone and rich red brick. Its tall clocktower rose grandly over the town square, and its wide wings reached out as if to embrace the people gathered before it. A red banner fluttered from the tower's apex, brandishing the Brotherhood's symbol for the whole city to see.
Their procession ground to a halt in the cracked town square. A group of labourers were in the process of raising a stage in front of the building's steps. Uniformed guards kept watch from between the colonnades that fronted the building, brandishing their automatic weapons quite conspicuously. Gideon had a strong suspicion about what kind of spectacle the Colonel had planned for that stage.
The parade of sightseers that had followed their passage through the city milled excitedly around the idling vehicles. Gideon's boot-clad foot broke the crust of the dusty ground with a satisfying crunch as he dropped from the buggy. He gently pushed back against the masses, but the press of hands pulled at him like a pool of mud.
"Lūdzu, kungs," one elderly woman begged as she clutched at his coat. "Vai jums ir zāles?… uh… medicines! I need them, please; my son is sick!" Her pleas were joined by others - cries of starvation, injury, illness and despair.
"I have to hand these over to the Colonel, I'm sorry," he told the desperate masses. "They'll be shared fairly among everyone." He hoped the apology in his voice was enough to convince them. He wished it would persuade him.
The elderly woman continued to tug at his sleeve. Her hair was like silver wire, sprouting from a spotted scalp beneath her head scarf. Gideon sighed, and mounted the trailer. A nine-digit keypad beneath a digital display greeted him from the nearest crate. Damn GDI and their high tech shit. He slapped the lid of the crate, then shook his hand as it smarted from the impact.
Gideon cast his gaze around for unfriendly eyes. The uniformed guards were advancing down the steps of Radić's manor, but they were still some distance away. Surreptitiously, he drew a blade from the sheath inside his boot, and began to work at the keypad. The device was recessed into the surface of the container, but he should be able to pry it away with the right -
- a hand slapped his calf, and he nearly toppled off the trailer.
"Gideon, you leave these with us, eh?" The speaker was a pale, thickset man with a shaved head. His heavy, black coat was adorned with Radić's red and white striped standard. The rest of the guard squad had arrived, and were forcing the crowd back from the convoy with the butts of their rifles. Gideon saw the woman in the scarf fall to her knees, vanishing into the crush of people. "We open up GDI's gifts for the people, ya?" The bald man continued, giving him a significant look. Gideon nodded, and dropped from the trailer. He sheathed the knife safely in his boot.
He slapped the driver on the shoulder as he passed the open cabin of the vehicle. "I'm heading back to the Hand; I'll see you later." The man nodded, then turned to converse with the guards.
Gideon was allowed through the cordon the armed men had established. He searched for the old woman in the head scarf, but navigating the crowd was like trying to swim against a riptide. For all his efforts, he only found himself flushed to the outside of the scrum. He cast one last sorrowful gaze at the desperate people, and began making his way to the military accomodations.
The barracks had once been some sort of grand building, maybe a hotel or casino. Even after decades of decline in the city, it was still an impressive structure. Tall rectangular windows peered out over stone sills; most of them even still had their glass. A circular turret adorned each corner of the ornate structure. The one nearest the main door had been topped with a giant metal rendition of a fist. Its steel fingers clenched a sphere of stained glass, which depicted the planet Earth.
The "Hand of Nod", as it was known among the faithful, was a common sight in military encampments. They marked where the holy martyrs of the Brotherhood dwelt. The Hand in Gideon's hometown of Laredo had been a symbol of wonder for him growing up. It featured a holographic globe within its grasp, one that updated in real time to display the regions of the world liberated by the Brotherhood in gleaming red light. Gideon's father had been particularly proud of it. "This is a symbol of our holy purpose. This world cries out for the Spirit Hand of Kane, and we will be the ones to bring it to them."
On the first day of the Third Tiberium War, when the Messiah had announced the commencement of a crusade of liberation against the infidels, the globe had burned like a beacon. The simple steel sculpture that was Riga's Hand didn't inspire such warmth in Gideon's heart.