1st Cant: In Each Human Heart
It didn't matter if you were a eleven year old child or a scarhide veteran with a two hundred scalps on your belt. When you stepped through the doors of the Temple the first lesson was always in breath. As the Temple's mistress was fond of repeating. 'Control of the breath is control of the self'. If asked she would gleefully pontificate on the myriad of evolutionary reflexes that were linked to the breath then she would move on to the spiritual implications of respiration. She would wax poetic about energy and chi, will and intent.
On the most fundamental level, and for that matter, practical, breath was the ultimate interchange of energy between you and the world. Oxygen mediated life. It was through the extraordinary efficiency of aerobic respiration that the multicellular life was possible.
This seeming incongruity of purposes was quite shocking to the average initiate who came to those great ruby and onyx doors expecting hypnotic litanies of prayer or bone-breaking physical challenges. Those things did eventually come, along side the less expected lessons in philosophy, art and expression.
Here in the temple perfection was the goal.
It wasn't enough to create a supreme soldier. Soldiers could be created by shoving a rifle into a child's hands and filling their naive minds with promises of glory in another life or salvation by the benevolent hand of the messiah.
The goal was to create a person who could be many things, a knight in the service of Kane. Just in times of peace. A ruler and a protector. Terrible in times of war. Deadly, yes, but also cunning and learned.
Deep red light filtered down from the high set windows and the hall echoed with rapid panting breaths.
A soft melodious voice, subtly expressing menace and the possibility of salvation drifted between the kneeling disciples.
"Fear strikes at your breath. It paralyzes your lungs and stills you into a state of an animal quaking in the predator's shadow. You have all felt the almost subconscious freezing of your vital processes when you anticipate the possibility of failure. Even over something so trivial as a Hero's plight in some work of art or literature. Tension stills your breath. Fear stills the breath. Anticipation stills the breath." A sharp crack of bamboo on flesh echo through the hall. The mistress reminding her charges that attention must be paid or pain is the reward. Later on the strikes will be to distract and even later they will only be reminders but for now they serve as punishment. "The reverse is also true. Fear can be quieted, nervous anticipation quelled, tension dispelled if the aberrant breaths that serve as their handmaidens can be shooed from your lungs. Ruling your breath is ruling your mind. Do not make the mistake of thinking that your brain is somehow elevated from the flesh! Mind is servant to the body and body to mind, to even draw lines of distinction is foolish!"
The speech was grandiose and well rehearsed. A thousand times it had been given to a thousand supplicants. It had a well worn feeling in the mouth of Grand Abbess Taja Yadav, the words fit her tongue like a good pair of shoes. It was her favorite part of the whole induction.
The Speech.
It was part a harangue against the inevitable decadence that the filthy recruits would be dragging into her hallowed temple but mostly it was just a collection of practical wisdom. It was a distillation of her philosophy of life.
The Abbess described an elfin figure. Short glossy hair and teak skin wrapped in a shell of dark creaking leathers. A rich crimson sash fringed with heavy golden trim and an ebony rosary, each fat bead inscribed with the sacred scorpion marked her exalted position in the brotherhood.
Despite the majesty of her rank it was her face that was unforgettable and demanding of undivided attention. From the tip of her chin to edge of her hair line, from left ear to right, over the the curve of her lips, down the crook of her nose, even upon her eyelids, crawled a dense emerald script penned in no earthly alphabet. The secret speech of the Tacitus written upon her visage. If the eye was relaxed patterns in the scripture made themselves known. Whorls and spirals, jagged crests and deep troughs. Spells the ignorant whispered. A glamor on all who gazed upon her. Those that knew better whispered instead of the Marks of Awakening and the Path to Enlightenment. No one who knew of such things could gaze upon the Abbess without feeling their skin crawl. Without wondering how deep into bone and flesh the mysteries delved.
"Mischa" The Abbess spoke now not to the class but to one student. Calculated menace filled her tone even as she savored the sound of the name, relishing each syllable as if it were a sumptuous meal.
"Yes Mistress."
"Do you believe that you are wise?"
"No Mistress"
"Do you Believe that you are strong?"
"No Mistress"
"Do you believe yourself swift or agile?"
"No Mistress"
"Do you believe that you are a worm before the glory of the messiah?"
"Yes Mistress"
"Well at least you are listening, had you said 'no mistress' one more time I would have died of boredom. So now that we have established exactly how terrible and worthless you are in every category of existence, sentiments that I feel all your brothers and sisters here today would parrot with equally bland fervor, let me ask a question of some actual difficulty. Do you think you can handle difficulty?"
"Yes Mistress!"
"Oh Excellent." Sarcasm dripped from the Abbesses voice. Her unexpectedly pink tongue slithered out and ran rapidly over the drawn outline of her mouth. "Just the well reasoned response I was expecting. How about you tell me what you do believe that you have that is worthy of being here under my legendary tutelage. And please, don't say 'my devotion' or 'my body' or any of the other banalities that ten thousand supplicants before you have eagerly offered up to me." Her whipcord form turned a carnivorous eye to the rest of the class. "And do not think that poor Mischa here is going to be alone in his public dissection. Here in the first days I plan to flense each and every one of you with exquisite care." Her cruel smile lit up her kaleidoscopic face. "You will sit on your knees till they are bloody, you will attempt to breath properly while I hit you repeatedly and I will preach to you wisdom that you are ill equipped to comprehend or even remember. Scattered as your minds are." She spun, rosary clattering and her heavy sash swirling with calculated drama. "So Mischa... impress me with you special talent, your unique qualification, your contribution to this great brotherhood."
The young man, a boy in truth, named Mischa Summers was sweating profusely. Even in the dark red light of the temple he glistened. His unnatural white hair was sodden and tangled and his sharp rat like features were twisted in concentration. He radiated an almost desperate desire not to fuck this up. So he opened his mouth and proceeded to do just that.
...
Mischa hadn't lost control of his breath.
The Abbess wouldn't have been proud, it took more that remembering the literal first lesson to make the old bitch proud, but it would at least have amused her to know that her most difficult student was at least that good. A faint smile painted his lips. He had never really fit in at the Temple.
It wasn't that he couldn't learn the lessons. He was a decent student, never the worst and usually only a little above or below the average. Certainly there were exceptions, he was one of the greater close range fighters in Temple memory and none living could matched the machined precision of his handwriting. However when it came to the more sophisticated layers of military strategy he was one of the Temple's greatest failures.
Still none of this really struck at the heart of it.
He had never managed to subsume his self into the will of Kane. A small part of him always stood apart and chirped irrelevant nonsense. The sort of nonsense would end up leading him astray at some crucial juncture. Preventing him from fully committing himself to the Blackest Hand.
An unpleasant liquid sensation ran over his forehead, down the side of his face welling around his ear before dripping into the wide shallow pool of mud that he was now halfway sunk in. Decay was thick in the air and it was difficult to ignore the scent of rotting meat. That was the first difficulty that his breathing was facing today. The second was the heavy weight that pressed down on his solar plexus. Both of these problems with his breathing had to do with being buried in a small mountain of corpses. Well... mountain was inappropriate.
It was more of a medium sized hillock.
He had heard that somewhere in Japan there was an entire hill comprised of the severed ears of people who had the unfortunate luck being born Korean when one Shogun or another had been in a conquering mood. They rolled a layer of sod over the ears and then put a temple on top of it. Somehow trapped in the tangle of emaciated corpses the thought of a mound of ears was comforting rather than disturbing. Ears were such silly things. Even knowing that the bloody handed warriors had carved them from men women and children, living and dead, conscripted levies and cowering peasants didn't do anything to lesson the sheer absurdity of an ear mound.
The tiny part of his brain that wouldn't shut up wondered whether or not his semi-coherent ramblings were a coping mechanism or if he was just sick in the head. Black humor was one thing but he was sharing space with corpses he had a good deal of responsibility in creating. Each of the bodies bore meticulously placed bullet wound upon their brow and he might as well have held the guns.
...
It had begun a week ago when he and the mission he was attached to had shown up in the bleak yellow zone ruins of a little town outside of what once was San Antonio. The Confessor that lead them was a dour middle aged man who had taken the name Ezekiel as a sign of devotion after a midlife conversion. He had a bad habit of taking off in wild impassioned sermons about the decadence and evils of heretics and infidels but he was kind to children and mothers regardless of their faith and never once turned away a starving zoner without at least a bottle of clean water a full belly and a stack of MRE's to take back to whatever kin they had left. Sure he also made sure they left with a copy of 'The Ascendance' as well as countless tracts detailing the Gospels of Kane. He was a missionary and that was what missionaries did.
Zeke had his own little preachy staff. Uptight seminary types. Mischa's side of the operation was composed of militants of the slightly less than fanatical persuasion. Like attracted like it seemed. Victor, Duncan, Xia who on strange occasions preferred to be called Sarah, Arnold, Maria, Emilo, Sven and Mitzi. had been culled from the seething throngs of disaffected idiots known as general recruitment and formed around Mischa.
In the Brotherhood rank was formal up to a point, but much of the combat doctrine was based around improvisation and flexibility. Militants tended to follow whoever was yelling at them at the moment. After a while it tended to narrow down to the same set of faces yelling and they developed preferences. A Cabal as these groups were called usually formed around a Confessor or a Brother of exceptional charisma or someone of rank out and out told the militants where they were supposed to be.
Either way it was one guy who did the leading and a bunch of guys who followed him for whatever reason. It was a highly informal arrangement and often you would have floaters. Militants who would drift from one Cabal to another. They called it maintaining ties. Most of the rest called them weasels.
True commanders. Those ordained from on high or those who rose below learned the names and faces of those underneath them who had cabals at their command, those that got things done. Generally it was in this way that business was conducted. At least until word came down from exalted circles that shit that needed doing wasn't getting done. At that point Black Hand would descend on the situation and 'sort it out' often with extreme prejudice.
Things got more formal when armor and air assets started getting involved. Allot more saluting and certainly more titles, but one of the central goals of the Brotherhood was to create a globe spanning organization that was entirely self propagating. The various factions policed each other and sought the guidance of the inner circle but were by in large exceptionally independent. Mischa had once quipped that it was ''Franchised World Domination". The Grand Abbess had laughed demurely behind one hand and then proceeded to break his jaw as a lesson in when to be silent.
Ezekiel's Cabal was one of the better missionary cabals operating in Y-6. They brought scores and scores of the faithless into the light. Incited fanatic commitment to the brotherhood from those that previously only gave Kane lip service.
The volunteer numbers from Ezekiel's Parish were extraordinarily high. For his success it was decided, by an Abbot or some militant Brother-Captain, that the Black Hand of Kane needed to show their support for Confessor Ezekiel. An blessed warden to help him walk the righteous path. So Mischa Summers Knight of Kane, Annointed of the Temple,Warrior Monk of the Black Hand and favored Student of the Grand Abbess Taja Yadav herself was chosen to shepherd the good man on his sojourns.
The perfect task to occupy the time of a man who wasn't exactly in the highest favor.
A task that ended up being an exceptional bore.
The cabal humped from one flyspeck to another in a convoy of dilapidated buggies that would have been considered scrap metal during the second Tiberium War. In each little encampment often populated by no more than 5 or 6 gaunt from severe starvation wasteland families the gaunt from a severe faith Confessor would hear their sins, make judgments on land and property, hand out provisions, tiberium technology, weapons and give a rousing sermon from The Book. Note the significant capitalization there.
On an intellectual level Mischa understood that this strange nomadic pattern of nurture, support and connection building was in essence how the Brotherhood's government over much of the world functioned. Thousands of these waste land enclaves visited by thousands of confessors provided a background support that made the yellow zones home turf for Nod. Taken with the endless supply of fanatic militants pouring from the festering urban hives and the material support of the Nod aligned war lords and you had an almost complete picture of how the brotherhood functioned. The Order of the Black hand was the final component. The glue that bound the diaspora into unity. The voice of Kane and the origin of the One Vision and One Purpose of liturgical fame.
Understanding the practical reality of his mission did little to assuage a bone deep irritation.
Mischa had come so close to being above all this, to being a real player. If things had been a little different he could be enjoying a better life. Mischa was however introspective enough to understand that he would probably never be happy, no matter what the situation. For him bliss only came when he was wrapped up in a challenging task and in that aspect his current situation was a spectacular failure. An endless march of boredom.
It wasn't that he wanted to be on the front lines screaming the glory of Kane.
No. He had had his fill of the front lines.
He never wanted to be there again.
Not ever.
It was just that he wished...
Well he wished for interesting times.
...
"Raise your wrist. Control comes from the wrist. Each stroke must be precise but swift. Hesitation ruins the composition, it betrays the amateur. It is better to be confident and wrong than to appear to be unsure. Weakness is forgivable, it is the nature of humanity to be weak. It is the thoughtless display of this natural weakness that we seek to stamp out. You can share the misgivings in your heart with your confessor your lover and your goddamn mother but you are to be an exemplar! An icon. Even if you are wrong you cannot allow it to seem like you are anything but absolutely certain.
"As the more introspective among you have already realize this begets a problematic dynamic. If you cannot be seen to err then how can you correct yourself? How can you make realistic evaluations of a dynamic situation and allow for your own mistakes?" She paused to let the question percolate, then continued, "The answer is that you cannot and that, IT! DOES! NOT! MATTER!.
"There is uncertainty in every corner of every room. It is a constant companion to each and every one of us. Whether we acknowledge it or not, it is an unchangeable fact! No amount of self reflection and recrimination will change this. It will not even ameliorate the INEVITABLE damage. Instead all you can hope to do is forge forward. Make a single confident decision for each problem as it comes to you. It does not matter if you completely reverse your position between one day and the next as long as you never show hesitation. Hearts and minds are just as important as land and resources. What's more the most important mind, the most important heart, are your own.
"Do not allow the demons of self doubt to sap the the strength of your strong arm!" Her arm was held high, hand splayed to heaven. "Faith and FURY!" The high hand closed into a fist. "Power over the heart and mind!" The fist touched forehead and breast. "Peace of the soul through power of the will." The hand was open again and sweeping out to encompass the class. "Peace through Power!"
It was a rant.
Grand Abbess Yadav was in full swing now. What had begun as a simple commentary on form had spun into a spontaneous diatribe on the nature of their existence.
Mischa supposed that this was one of her strengths as Headmistress. It lent a certain organic quality to the classes that she dropped in on. Other instructors actually did the teaching of form and the Abbess would float from class to class offering corrections and insights. Often hijacking the entire lesson to deliver a message that she felt was important to the development of her beloved students. Mischa could certainly admit that it was inspiring, albeit in a rather demagogic manner. She had an easy charisma and an off handed mastery of all the skills her charges fumbled to learn.
Still, the tiny voice that whispered doubt and suspicion in Mischa's hear wondered if it was really appropriate that she deliver this sort of grand speech in the middle of a calligraphy lesson. It was a god damn class on how to draw letters on a piece of expensive paper.
Paper for fuck's sake!
No one used paper anymore. It was a dead skill. Smart paper and ubiquitous computerization meant that even an illiterate could compose complex works of prose or poetry. Which was a good thing given the average level of education in the Zones was essentially nil.
The Zones.
What GDI casually triaged away as Yellow Zones were in reality so much more complex. It wasn't a place defined by its tiberium infestation, it was many different places defined by many different people. People of a thousand stripes once allied in the grand old world coalitions called nations. Struggling to maintain their meager existences. Farming with home made hydropontics because the omnipresent ground poisons leeched into all food grown in the wastes. Eating soil grown food because there was never enough clean food to go around. In the zones life was a endless series of multiple choice questions that had no right answer. You were lucky if you lived past 35.
Mischa's family had been relatively well off as Zoners went. They owned enough guns to keep the neighbors at bay and had a 'pont big enough to support both their children if not themselves. Both of them were chronic asthmatics like every Zoner over twenty. Microscopic tiberium shards that swirled up on the dust storm that kicked out of the barrens were embedded in everyone's lungs and eventually you either went into spontaneous respiratory failure or developed a chronic wheeze and watched your health slowly spiral downward. Mischa's parents hadn't been exceptionally devout people, they kept a shrine to Kane in the back of the house but it was for their children that they went to the Temple every seventh day and served.
The Priests of Nod understood that in the Zones there was no escape from Tiberium. The green shale was a slow choking death for any human without the good fortune to be born into the Pre-tiberium dreamland of the Blue Zones. The fantasy playground that GDI Supported on the bowed spines and impoverish shoulders of the Yellow Zoners. The only sane option was exaltation of the mortal shell. Divination into a form that was no longer vulnerable to the green death. To become more than human, to search for perfection. It had been too late for Stasja and Daniel Summers, they had come to the faith too late in life, both of them already had the viridian pox in their lungs. Creeping through their guts.
Despite their impending death's a hope for their children brought them to the Temple of Nod where Mischa and Natasia were given the baptism of Kane
If you asked Mischa whether it would be better to live with parents or with tiberium rot he would have been a long time in answering.
Mexico City was a hive before the great fall of civilization and a hive that was none to kind to the children at that. After the fall it was a seething maw with too many teeth, always hungry, always desperate, dying by bits even as the stupendous birth rates made their valiant attempts at staunching the bleed
Those that lived in the tangle would do just about anything to escape, to be saved, and the Brotherhood was always there hidden in the bustle, helping hand extended. To gift the masses with hope and life.
Mischa always thought that there was no mystery in the Messianic vision most of the zoners had of Kane. They were all lost in the land of Nod. Exiled from the eden of the Blue Zones.
Mischa the urchin had always been thankful for the shelter of the Temples. Mischa the young man had been thankful for the purpose and Mischa the adult had given up body and if not all, at least two thirsrds of his soul in the service of Kane.
Ever since he was a child he had had a deep faith in three things. His body, his location, and in people. It was not in Kane or in any other divine agency that Mischa put his faith. Rather, he invested in the webwork of human beings that composed his Brotherhood in Nod.
It was simple equation. He just couldn't bring himself to believe. He was pathologically unable to commit to the mysticism that surrounded the Messiah. Certainly Kane himself was a mystery. How was it possible that he kept on coming back? It seemed supernatural. Then again so did Tiberium, thinking machines and insect aliens who could teleport and phase solid matter and yet all of them were frighteningly real.
Faith was always something that the young boy had in people and objects. Not concepts. Faith that some quecha punk was going to try and stab him, faith that there wasn't going to be any dinner tonight, faith that his crew could sneak into a 'pont and a snatch some food. The brotherhood took care of its own and would accept any that came to its door, Mischa had faith in that. He also had faith that GDI wouldn't accept a scrawny zoner with tiberium scales dusting his ribs into their ranks. It wasn't really even faith, though he used the word because it seemed right. Instead it was a knowledge, a certainty that could not be confirmed but he understood with unshakable perfection to be true.
So he had knelt at the alter, mouthed prayers to Kane and lied when asked if he believed.
His career as a child soldier for the brotherhood was filled with the sort of banal horrors that can be expected of any profession that regularly brought one into contact with death.
Mischa had quickly learned that being a deft pickpocket and a superb liar were career skills in the shifting and often lethal politics of the militant branch of the Brotherhood. It was a shock to go from the helping hands and quiet devotion of the temples to the fervor and hatred of the Soldiers of Kane. He had not been quite so happy with the jobs that had been tasked to him. The whisper cough of a shredder pistol and the ragged gurgle of someone trying to breath blood became background noise.
The Brothers Militant had learned early on that most GDI soldiers were hesitant to shoot children and exploited that flaw to the utmost.
It wasn't long before Mischa, Julian, Tiffany and all the other little Soldiers of Kane were sneaking into blue zones with Pre-fall disney princess backpacks stuffed with pipe bombs and shaped bombs were for the malls and clubs. Shaped charges for molding into wolverine and titan leg joints or on the underside of the robotic harvesters as they trundled to the yellow zone tib fields.
GDI was understandably paranoid about their defenses but they constantly fell short in the imagination department. A GDI Colonel who had cut his teeth in TW2 fighting legions of Tanks and foot soldiers, scrapping from building to building, calling in air strike and orca raids wasn't mentally equipped for the slow 'peacetime' pressure that the brotherhood inflicted on GDI holdings. They could shout and call it terrorism all they wanted to but it was the underdog's privilege to engage in 'asymmetrical warfare'.
Desperation and hatred led cabals to innovate in their methods. Children had been a good idea, the dogs had been an even better one. They were fast and silent and even a feral cur could be trained into a well guided missile if you knew how. All it took was a few simple electrodes, a collection of microchips burned with an easily acquired set of programs, a bone saw, a knowledge of canine anatomy and a strong stomach.
It was strange. The actual killing never haunted him. It was the other things. The things that came between the killing. He had lots of nightmares to keep his nights interesting. Nightmares about his deeds, nightmares about his brothers and sisters, both living and dead. Nightmares about the dogs.
The dog nightmares were a special kind of terrible.
...
Ezekiel called a halt in a town called Boerne. At least that was what the ancient roadsigns declared it.
Dust from Red-7, rich with tib particles and pregnant with supercharged ions blew in heavy from the north. Sinister Seven was what they called the massive cancer that sat in the heartlands of the former United States. Everyone was wearing their flak jumpers with matching respirator masks to shield their delicate pink innards from the malignant clouds. Mischa was wearing his full Black Hand Plate and was enjoying the relative comfort of the hermetically sealed armor.
The tall crown like helm on the confessor bobbed as he navigated through the cracked asphalt maze of the town. There was a large underground settlement here, another stop on the tour, a couple hundred families. Close to a thousand souls in all.
"Hey Mish you think that they are gonna have real fruit here? " The call buzzed over the closed circuit laser comms net. Sounded like either Emilo or Sven. They were visually as different as was possible, one a swarthy peruvian the other a pale nord but both of them had grown up together in Rio and shared an identical Brazilian lilt and a favella slush vocabulary. Neither of them cared to address him by his proper title of Friar Summers, or even by the less formal Brother Mischa and he did not care to correct them. He didn't even care to have their respect.
"Likely they have it, but likely you won't see any!" Xia's aussie twang chirped brightly.
"Real fruit can go the way of the rest of the old world." Mitzi had a sultry alto rumble which was at odds with her bubbly name but perfectly in line with her heavy frame and "classic" figure, "I'd much rather see some twinkies. I heard those wrappers are greensealed."
Now Victor added his voice,
"Nothing from the before was greensealed! Thats an legend, twinkies are just so naturally toxic no one could tell the difference!"
A clamor of hooting interjections and wit of varying quality lit up the commband.
Discipline was normally lax in irregular units but Mischa who was officially in charge couldn't be bothered to even make a half hearted showing in keeping his men in line. Ezekiel would have put his foot down and given everyone a good tongue lashing. He and his three acolytes were completely humorless and ascetic but he didn't have access to the militants comms channel. He thought that he did but Emilo and Sven shared more than just a culture. They also shared a passion for cryptography and had monkeyed with the math of Confessors crypt algorithms and dropped him stealthily from the loop. The rest of the militants abused this privacy to no end.
"I am more concerned with those reports of a GDI HK squad operating in this area. The pony wire wasn't all that specific and that makes me nervous." That was Duncan his Brother-Sergeant.
The pony wire was the name the Brothers Militant gave to the massive courier network that Nod used to spread military intelligence. The brave young men and women of the express drove, flew and ran a eclectic collection of irregular vehicles, beaming Line of Sight laser comms messages to and from concealed towers and emitters. Any of Nod's Militant or Black Hand forces could pull the collected intelligence reports off these towers and put their own up onto the pony wire. The relays were normally completely silent to prevent detection but if you had a really important message it would intermittently ping an open air broadcast announcing its priority cargo. The reverse was also true and the wire they had crossed a few days ago contained dire warnings about a particularly brutal group of of Zone Raiders that was operating in and around Sinister Seven. The wire had be painfully vague on the disposition or mission of the Raiders but these days Scrin hunting was the automatic assumption.
Arnold finally broke his silence.
"HK squads aren't going to concern themselves with a rag tag band like ours, not unless we pop our heads up and start making a ruckus. I am a lot more concerned about whatever they are hunting. If its visceroids or floaters then things will be okay but if its Scrin remnants? Well thats a whole different story. Anyone recall Chicago?"
There was abrupt silence over the channel. The Chi Town conflict had been grisly, a real slaughterhouse, Mischa knew that Mitzi and Arnold had friends in the Chicago theater. Or rather had once had friends in the theater. They all had the seen the grainy footage of a Scrin Skinny almost curiously vivisecting one screaming man after another. No one could look on that sort of detached cruelty without understanding why GDI called them Ravagers.
"No one has forgotten Chicago mate." Victor was somber. "how bout once we get the preacher man well settled into his digs down in the mole town we run a little recon job and settle everyones fears."
The rest of the crew chimed in with approval. War by democracy. Brother-Sergent Duncan's respirator obscured face swiveled to catch Mischa's eye, or rather the optics array on his helm. Disapproval flashed through his bright blue irises like a laser blast. Duncan was old school Militant with over twenty five years of service to Kane. Veteran of two Tiberium Wars and a countless brushfire conflicts. If Kane was his first god then Discipline was close second. He was dissatisfied, to put it mildly, with Mischa's laissez faire command style and though he was too good a soldier to publicly chew out his officer he was a relentless harpy in private. Mischa was frankly bored by him.
"Sounds decent. Though I think that we shouldn't push it too far. We have to remember that even if we find a serious threat we don't have anything that can handle it. Our best defense is not being discovered and even a careful con job runs the risk of the scout being detected." Mitzi was always practical and level headed. Her reasoning was solid as usual, uninspired but solid The entire squad began to noisily voice their approval of her plan. Mischa saw the burning glower that shone from Duncan's brilliant baby blues intensify and his rough voice came crashing across the channnel.
"PEOPLE! Despite the illusion that you have constructed concerning your place in this world we are going to do this MY way! As soon as the 'fessor is situated I want every one of you to start securing the city. A house by house sweep no less. I want you to familiarize yourself with the terrain we are in now not go humping out into the barrens in search of a Hunter Killer team that could take you apart with a violent sneeze or a Scrin horror show that might not even notice it was killing you. While you are doing this the Friar and I are going to spend a little time patching into the Pony Wire and see if we can get any extra info on these Hunter Killers and their target.
"If we determine that there is only a minor threat profile then we can all relax a little and see if they actually do have real fruit or Twinkie's if thats what you prefer. If we have the slightest chance that this could turn ugly we are going to booby trap this whole city and then bunker down and pray that no one notices. Under no circumstances are we going to engage in any long range con job." He swept his hands around him in theatrical emphasis "Do you see that Venom support hovering overhead? Do you hear the rustle of our Shadow's lurking in the eaves? Do you smell the burnt rubber of our Bikes? I sure don't! And attempting to do visual recon of the fucking desert using a goddamn refurbished dune buggy when all the possible threats we are facing have omnidirectional lidar, magnetic echo systems, IR snoopers and god knows what else is not just stupid it's suicidal. Or might I remind you that we aren't here on combat duty. We are fucking babysitters!"
Mischa placed a gentle hand on his Sergeant. "Brother" He spoke in soft tones. "We understand." Then he dropped off the comms and spoke the next words quietly into Duncan's ears.
"I don't mind you running the squad, in fact I think you are probably a much better leader than I am and undoubtedly a better battle commander." He tilted his head in deference. " I have never labored under any illusions about my use to this squad. I am a figure head here, a morale booster. But you are going to learn that there are limits to how far you can go. I don't give a shit about how you dispose of the rest of the cabal but you never tell them what I am going to be doing, even if you phrase it as a suggestion, you don't presume to command me. I am here out in this fucking wilderness guarding this hump of a priest only because I got caught in the middle of some politics. You're a vet. You should know what sticky, hard-to-wash-out shit politics is."
"I didn't know that... Sir," he put a harsh emphasis on the title, 'and I don't presume to know what got you here... Sir." Contempt was thick in the Brother Seargent's voice.
Within his mask Mischa sighed. He had never had any skill at intimidation. He could charm the pants off just about anyone, and had done just that with most of his more attractive class mates back at the Temple, but his attempts to coerce always ended with him looking the fool.
"Just tend to your men brother. I will dispose of myself."
"You do just that... Sir." Duncan turned his back on his nominal officer and walked back towards his men, voice popping back up on the comms. "Lets get inside double time! I smell an ion storm on the air. Hup hup!"
The cabal moved quickly, chastised but still subtly defiant. You couldn't ever really get a solid position of authority over these sorts of independent operators. Not like the boot camp trained militants that had been churned out during the wars. Meat robots, programed with mindless zeal and pumped up on combat drugs. Zone Runners like these were flexible and adaptable and as a result unruly.
As they entered into the hollowed out building that served as the entrance to the mole town Mischa let himself fall behind, quietly diminishing his steps and letting the other go on ahead. He wasn't in the mood to play patty cake with the locals while Ezekiel ran through his checklist of righteousness.
Duncan had put him in a foul mood.
Once he was certain they were gone ahead he stole back up the tunnel and into an empty corner of the ruins. Standing in the remains of a tacky living room he worked a thick armored finger up into the neck joint of the armor and popped the release. A hiss of compressed air sounded loudly in the darkness. Climate control and dust filters aside, he hated wearing this walking coffin. Cursing at his sergeant and his bad luck to even be here Mischa ripped the helmet free exposing his sweaty head to a cool current of air running up from the mole town. The cape, curiass and vambraces came next. Piece by piece he stripped himself of his armor until he was clad only in the sheer skin suit beneath.
He wasn't supposed to be here. He wasn't supposed to be just another Friar in the Black Hand.
She had told him that he was destined for great things. That he was going to change the world. A bitter and slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up from his lungs as he violently wrenched the pieces of his armor into their storage configuration.
He needed to get out and run.
He needed to remind himself who he was. What he was.
They had taken much when they exiled him to this flyspeck but there was so much more that they couldn't ever take away. Long loping strides took him rapidly beyond the edge of the city once called Rome. The badlands stretched out forever and beyond the horizon he could see the eerie ion storms that hovered permanently over Red Seven. He squinted and let his vision fall through the infra red spectrum. Duncan was right, you didn't do long recon unless you had the right equipment. But he didn't know Mischa half as well as he thought he did. The pale white haired man smiled a thin smile.
Fuck Duncan. He was going to have some fun.
Gathering up hundred odd kilos of armor like a bundle of discarded socks Mischa marched out of the darkness and into the open air. Heedless of the tiberium winds he heaved the armor into a rusted dumpster. He could get it later, and if anyone was foolish enough to try and steal it... well the Scorpion was venomous indeed.
...
Taja Yadav never yelled. She hissed and crackled like fire. Rumbled and threatened like a storm over the horizon, and murmured soft groaning threats like a mountain before an avalanche. If her intimidations didn't bring about the required corrections she moved quickly into violence. When you pushed too hard or stepped out of line she punished with brutality and cruelty, inflicting deep wounds to serve as a lasting reminder. On the mats she was just the opposite. Chivalrous and restrained, patient and even gentle, she would spar a thousand times and never leave you with more than a light bruise.
Mischa was just shy of nineteen and had been at the temple for three years now. The Holy Skorpios that he had gotten tattooed on his left arm to mark him as a Brother of Nod now had its matching counterpart. The Mark of the Hand showed to be a Monk of the Order, strong right hand of the Messiah. Black Hand of Kane.
He had gotten the skorpios when he was fourteeen. He had been jazzed out of his mind on adrenalin and stimulants, blind stinking drunk sitting in a fox hole while GDI swept the outskirts of Boston for the unknown assassin who had slit the throat of the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture in her posh high rise apartment. Confessor James had cracked open the vodka and had Acolyte Small start on the Mark of the Brotherhood with Director Karen Thortons blood still spattered on his arms.
The Mark of the Hand was given under much more somber circumstances. Scribed with exquisite care by the Prior of Names in the Grand Hall in front of all the assembled Brothers. The air had been rich with incense and the Brothers chanted hymns to sanctify the occasion. That sort of pomp and circumstance bored Mischa, he would have fallen asleep save for the face that tiberium weave tattooing was painful beyond description. He had worked the fuck out of the Abbess's breath control to keep from showing his agony.
Block, parry, riposte.
Strike, evade, strike.
There was a rhythm to close ranged combat. A meeting of two people and the achievement of balance between them. Both parties pushed and pulled, receded from their foe and flowed into the empty spaces that presented themselves. Mischa couldn't help but ponder how intimate the whole affair was. His open palm scissored inwards and glanced off the abbesses bare shoulder, their sweat mixed and she writhed with fluid speed, twisting the energy of her evasion into a strike that drove the breath from his lungs.
She always had favored body shots.
"Better! Much better my son." Blows flickered between them, "I can count the number of humans that can lay hands upon me on the fingers of my hands." High and low, "We take baby steps to enlightenment." She whirled about and lashed him across the stomach. "Now let us try once more and this time when you throw your weight into reckless offense make sure you harness the excess of explosive force and already have your next move underway."
Mischa would have responded with a 'thank you mistress, but fuck you mistress' if he could. Instead he focused on suppressing the panic that was rising in his chest. He kept himself loose and his maneuvering smooth as he calmly fought to regain his breath. Even now it shocked him how rapidly conditioning and method could overwhelm the body.
The Abbess spoke in a rapid manner when actually teaching, as if she didn't want to waste time on any speech that wasn't grandiose scenery chewing spectacle, yet Mischa had regained his breath and stance before more than a handful of words had left her lips. He waited politely for her to reach the end of her thought then threw a viscous sucker punch at her throat and swept her legs out from under her.
"Abbess. I heard rumors floating around the Temple that you are considering me for The Program." The Abbess bent like a willow away from the throat shot and used the movement of his sweep to whip her entire body into a whirling spin, lashing out with one slender foot to catch him again in the solar plexus.
"You have good ears Mischa." God she hit hard. "It is wise to listen to the whispers of your fellows. But do make sure that you do not develop a reputation as a gossip! 'Loose lips sink ships' as they say." Mischa was ready for the body strike. He bent and faded backwards pushing the Abbess's foot with both arms, adding wild momentum to her movement, preventing her from bringing her leg back under control. As she spiraled down to the mats he leaped forward driving a strong reversed punch into her exposed short ribs.
"So is that a yes Abbess? Am I being considered for commando training? Officially it doesn't even exist and unofficially you have nothing to do with it. Still a little bird told me that you have trained every Commando the brotherhood has fielded since before the Second War." Mischa wasn't sure how it happened, but like a cat the Abbess twisted under his blow and it found no purchase on her sweat slick skin. Spray rained from her short sodden hair as a corkscrew form took her to a safe distance.
She came up smiling. Which was a bad sign. He peeled back lips and mask of tattoos described a devils visage.
Faster than he had ever seen anyone move the abbess pounced upon him raining blows in a dizzying flurry.
"My son has been snooping has he?" Blows stippled his arms. Walking pain up towards his neck, "My son uncovers things that are best left hidden." she cut at him with knife hands, stomped at the inner calves, "But my son is wise enough to tell me that he has been misbehaving and now hopes to be rewarded for his transgressions." She laughed. A high musical thing that echoed between the meaty slaps of her ongoing assault. "My son knows me well. Here in the Sanctum of Kane we practice holy deception." An uppercut nicked his jaw and rattled teeth. "You have indeed risen in my estimation." Desperately Mischa wove a defense against her blows. Her style had shifted, no more leggy spins and lancing hand strikes. She thrust herself inside his guard hooking punches and elbow strikes while her legs shuffled mechanically occasionally slinging a knee or shin kick and his legs of stomach. Well two could play that game. If she wanted to shift them game from the third circle to the second then he could shift it from second to first!
"It wasn't my intention to impress Abbess." He made no attempts to attack. He bore out her punishments. "I am honestly interested in whether you feel I am suitable for that exalted service to Kane." Mischa was waiting for the abesss to flag. "Exactly how many Commando's have ever lived? A hundred? Two hundred at most?" It was coming, a slight slackening of her pace. He had to let her grow tired. "To be even considered for such a honor is immensely flattering." Npw! He relaxed and let an incoming hook slip inside his defenses. The blow hurt but he could easily handle the pain. Quick and sure he fastened his hands onto the abbess and brought both of them crashing to the mat. He over topped her by a head and a half and had far more mass. They were both slender but where she was petite he was wiry. Bearing down he trapped her striking arm and snaked his legs around her torso. Now all he had to do was squeeze her precious breath from her. So squeeze he did. His thighs tightened to iron consistency and his lower back cried with the sweet strain of it. Taja's breath hissed from her in sibilant exhalation.
"Mischa!" Her shout was unexpected, but not nearly so unexpected as her free hand buffeting his ear. He wasn't quite sure how or why but his vision exploded into stars and he felt his skeleton melt into gelatinous consistency. When vision returned he found that he was missing time. His internal clock, a standard bit of implanted wetware, told him that he was missing 15 seconds of consciousness. The Abbess stood over him a satisfied grin quirking her features.
"What?" That was all he could think to say. He tentatively brought his hand to his ear, testing for damage. The real shock was that his ear didn't even have the boxed soreness one could expect after being hit by a heavy blow. A faint electric numbness was the only evidence that the abbess had struck him. Grand Abbess Yadav extended an open hand her midnight fingernails glinting in the moody red light.
"Ah my son, there are more mysteries in this ever changing world than you would believe. Would that you had more faith in miracles you wouldn't be so confused all the time." Her emerald eyes shined unnaturally in the shadowed recesses of her face. In a moment of shock he realized there was no reflection, instead the light came from within those menacing orbs. "Just remember that miracles are not confined to the realm of light and salvation. Dark miracles and the damnation they bring are just as important to the will of Kane." Mischa's shaking hand clasped the abbess's and he haltingly dragged himself into a sitting position.
"Miracles are all well and good but it is your judgment that matters and you I put my faith in. We can talk endlessly about the will of Kane but it is your will that decides who makes the cut or doesn't." Mischa grimaced and rubbed his tingling jaw. "Do you think I am ever going to beat you?" The Abbess laughed.
"You are looking at things from a perspective too close to the ground. Do you think that I am fully aware of why I do anything? There is always a mystery to some actions. The feeling in your gut that says 'no this is unsafe' or 'I trust him'. Even beyond the Will of Kane that exists in these hidden places in our hearts there is a Will of Nod that affects causality. The simple minded among your brothers expect the parting of seas or loaves into fishes." She snorted a rude laughter. "These are gaudy miracles of the charlatan king and show nothing more than a vulgar illusion. True divine will lives in the chance encounters, the split second decisions and the subtle coincidences of our world." She reached across the gap between them and tapped his breast. "Think on this my son. After fifty years of defeats and oppression the brotherhood has persisted and finally grasped the only victory that ever mattered. What strange symmetry that is. To survive by the skin of our teeth through so many tribulations only to have the promised day come at the hand of our most mortal of enemies. Victory gifted to us by GDI. Is it simple coincidence and our perseverance, or is it Divine will that that guided our failures as well as our successes "
The Abbess rose from her crouch and walked to the shrine that dominated the training hall. She bowed once in respect then lifted the Black Blade of Kane from its sacred rack. The sheath was enameled with a lacquer that perfectly matched the abbess's fingernails and deep red tassels hung from the hilt. She folded up into a formal mediation the sheathed sword laying across her lap. Mischa instinctively mirrored the posture.
"Abbess?"
"Shush for a moment my son. I will speak again in good time. For now I want you to see the sword of Kane. I want you to think upon it and ask what lessons it has to teach."
With that she slowly withdrew the blade from its sheath. Mischa was surprised when the tip emerged. The blade was short barely filling a quarter of the scabbard. It was a smoky black and from it shone tiberium runes glowing a harsh green. As Mischa gazed upon it he realized that it wasn't metal, it was some form of plastic or carbon fiber and the hilt was simply silk and wood. It was thin and double edged and capped with a chisel point and it gleamed wetly with a dark oil. They both stared at the blade, breathing slowly and with deliberate purpose. To Mischa the Tacitan runes scribed on the blade seemed to bleed into the surrounding material, creating a fuzzy halo that blurred the line where one substance began and the other ended.
It was near an hour before the Abbess softly spoke.
"The Blade of Kane is not what is expected of it. It is short where it is expected to be long, light where it is expected to be heavy. Venomous where it is thought to be inert and it is not forged of metal, it is forged of the same carbon that gives birth to all living things. Within this living frame lies tiberium veins. We place it on our altar as a symbol. As a reminder of the war like function that we must all fulfill in the pursuit of out duties. We never unsheathe it save in front of those inducted to the mysteries of Kane for to unveil it is to rob it of its power. It is a divine weapon not because it is exceptionally effective or blessed by Kane or Nod. It is divine because it is a symbol of what we seek to be." Slowly she returned the blade to its scabbard and slowly and with infinite reverence returned it to the shrine. "When you complete your training here I will hand you badges and honors, uniforms and symbols of rank. Then I will give you two gifts one will be contained in scabbard much like this one with a hilt and tassels much like the one you see here, the other will be a scroll of Kane's wisdom held in a case of suspiciously similar dimensions to the blade you just saw. If you find that everything about these gifts is what you expected then I will never see you again and I wish you luck in you endeavors. If you find that once again the blade of Kane is not what you expect then perhaps there are deeper mysteries still for you to discover."
...
It was a storm.
As Ion Storms went it was not so terrible. No more than a category II however there was no comparing it to the storms of old earth. It lashed the landscape with brilliant energy. Hundreds of bolts of weird lightning spilled out of the red clouds and the crackling energy of the storm front above was reflected in the tiberium fields that stretched out below. The ion discharges would ricochet from one terminal to another. Cloud to field and field to cloud then back to the super storm that hung permanently over Red-7. The very air was charged with untapped power. If your stuck your tongue out you would feel a faint electric tingle from the tiberium dust that floated on the air, reflecting the fury of the storm.
Mischa rode low and fast ahead of the storm, he wore a simple mask of indeterminate origin and his sleeveless undershirt showed clean unmarked shoulders. His bike was a civilian model stamped with neither Nod nor GDI markings. The bike he had found in an abandoned cache a mile out of town. He had spent the better part of a day patching it up. It was cathartic to create something and he found the labor honest and rewarding. The bike was almost entirely mechanical running off the sort of archaic of a solid state fuel block that, had tiberium fuels not become ubiquitous, would be the pinnacle of human technology. That was 30 years ago and now this marvel was no more than a junk heap worthy relic. Of course it was just the sort of crap that a unaligned zoner would be forced to use. Which was good because that was exactly what Mischa was pretending to be.
He had left a message on the Commchan that he was going to do long recon and that Duncan was in command till he returned.
The terrain whipped past him had nearly two hundred clicks and hour. Recklessly fast for a normal humans with human reflexes and human eyes but understandable if one was trying to outrun an Ion Storm. It was a ruse of course. Mischa could have fallen asleep at 200 kph and not crashed the bike. Hell at double the speed he would still have been well within his control range. Of course this piece of crap couldn't hit even close to 400 kph. Among land vehicles only Sidewinder Attack Bikes with their supreme aerodynamics, tiberium power cells and massive throbbing engines could hit that sort of speed. To properly maintain control at those reckless velocities the brotherhood made sure that its bikers had eyes and nerves to match the extreme nature of their vehicle.
Mischa wasn't a biker but he oh was he wired. He was beyond wired. He was custom tooled. And he had a performance profile that would make a veteran attack biker weep with envy.
He had been riding hard for near two days now in a ever expanding spiral with its center in the laughable ruin of a strip mall that served as a downtown to Boerne. Take that with the day he spent getting the bike into working order and he had been alone for three blissful days.
Away from Ezekiel and his rote pieties and Duncan and his worries and inflexible need to enforce his will. He could have tolerated the rest of 'his' militants but he had never even in his youth been 'one of the lads'. It was an effort to keep up the facade of camaraderie and he infinitely preferred being alone with his own thoughts.
He missed the temple.
The Grand Abbess was never fun to be around but she certainly was exhilarating. He missed his brothers and sisters of the Hand. They always had minds and with the sisters bodies to match. These militants were canny enough and competant at their jobs but there was no spark to them. No flair. And at the risk of sounding a bit shallow none of the sisters were quite up to par. Xia was cute enough but he was pretty certain that they played for the same team and the rest just weren't even worth it. It was almost peaceful out here even with the brewing storm and constant dust clouds.
Over the last days he had discovered that there were several small Riparius fields around the town but only one had a blossom tree at its heart. None of them were tactically all that significant though he had spotted a couple of Forgotten mutants harvesting Tib by hand, loping in and out of one of their rat holes. He had almost stopped to quiz them but you never knew how tiberium mutation would affect the brain. They could be poets, madmen, scientists or idiots and you never knew whether they had similarly unpredictable friends hidden away possibly with guns. In general the mutants just wanted to be left alone. So alone he left them.
His eyes lazily scanned the horizon, sampling various spectrums of energy. A waste of time really as the ion storm flooded the environment with high energy particles and almost all types of EM radiation. Still it was a conditioned reflex, he could no more stop being watchful than stop his heart from pumping. A sudden staccato flare of orange light and corresponding bursts of heat far to the north brought his scattered attention to a quick focus. That was abnormal. There were a dozen different things that could cause that sort of pattern but his mind quickly evaluated and discarded possibilities. Gas detonations. Lightning fires. Heat bursts. Jump Flares. Raiders.
Hard brakes and a sluicing side slip brought him to a dramatic halt. Choices. Did he confirm or high tail it back? His eyes dialed up the magnification and the horizon leaped closer. Maximum sweep all fields, seeking another sign but finding nothing. Well if it was Raiders then they would have only jumped if they were forced to. Those psychotic bastards weren't as exactly stealthy, at least not by nod standards, but the Brotherhood was a bit unreasonable when it came to standards in that category. Still they had decent ECM, radar absorbent ceramic armor and they didn't go out of the way to advertise their presence. Plus they were fast. They weren't called raiders for nothing. Completely independent, operating in Blue, Yellow and Red Zones with equal ease they were true universal soldiers, mission success measured in body count.
Fuck it.
Mischa kicked off and revved the engine. There was nothing to link him to the Brotherhood and unless they were as completely psychotic as Nod's endless propaganda about GDI Raiders accused them of being he could at least count on them not lighting up a civvie on a bike.
...
It was dark and quiet in his cell. His bed lay unslept in, coverlet emblazoned with the holy hand stretched taut over the thin hard mattress. His entire being thrummed. He had gone through his graduation with a breathless excitement. He had maintained decorum and accepted the honors and ceremony with grace and aplomb. But now here, finally alone he was cracking. Before him in the dim light lay the sword and the scroll. Both of them felt exactly as one would expect them to feel and he could divine no trickery to their forms. He was wracked with nervous anticipation. Which would contain the Blade of Kane? Was he worthy of the next step or was he going to stagnate. His fingers brushed each in turn.
Slowly he grasped the scroll by its hard casing, and started to unfurl it. His heart hammered in his chest as the creamy vellum and dark characters spread out before him. Out and out it rolled like the tongue of some strange magical creature. He was nearing the end. If the blade was here it would be at the center. Gripped by a sudden panicked urge to know he to griped the edge and flipped the scroll outward revealing every thing that it hid.
His breath caught.
Nothing.
Disappointment welled in his heart. He could feel tears in the corners of his eyes. He hadn't cried since his father had died, it wasn't that he hadn't wanted to its just that the tears never came. Even now as he faced the biggest disappointment of his short life he couldn't coax the salty droplets from the edges of his vision. They hung there stubbornly refusing to give him the release he needed.
Angrily he grabbed the scabbard and jerk the blade from its sheath.
Or at least he tried too.
The handle popped free like a cork revealing nothing at all. Confusion replaced all other emotions and he snorted back the nasal drip that had been accumulating. What the hell?
He held both empty vessels in his hands weighing them and trying to find the meaning. Now more than ever he was certain that there was another message, another meaning. Apparently his evaluation of the situation was flawed. His mind raced seeking possibilities and options. He sniffed again, his nose sensitive and inflamed with emotion twitched irritably.
What was going on? No Blade of Kane meant what? That he wasn't worthy of the Black Hand? That he wasn't worthy of The Program? That he was the Blade of Kane?
God he hated this symbolic bullshit. A hacking cough issued from his lungs. And what the hell was wrong with his throat? His fingers scratched at the skin of his neck almost without thought and then froze. Cold dread shot through his limbs his suddenly clumsy hand flopped out and grasped the scabbard.
Airtight!
Gas!
Mischa sprang to his feet, or at least attempted to. His legs failed and he sprawled awkwardly onto the floor. Paralysis crept through his limbs an his neck seemed no longer capable of holding the weight of his skull. There was a thump at the door as he nervelessly splayed out onto the cold stone floor of his room. Someone uninvolved with his poisoning? Or the perpetrator? Either case could be bad. Some of the initiates took opportunism very seriously. Quietly the door swung inward and a stream almost imperceptible footfalls followed by the clicking squeak of boots marked the entrance of a whole gaggle of uninvited guests.
"Bundle him up. I want this room cleaned and turned out for the new arrivals and I want him vanished by the first bell." There was a sound of silk on silk and then gentle hands grabbed him, rolling him onto a dark pool of fabric. Dread filled Mischa. A black bag! The Shadows wore masks and full operational gear and they wrapped the light bending disruption fabric around him with tender spider like motions. Everything about shadow teams was soft. Even their voices.
"Still conscious mistress."
"I know, its all part of the lesson." The Abbess's tattooed face loomed suddenly in front of Mischas eyes. "I will be seeing you again my son. But I won't tell you not to fear. Fear is wholly appropriate." With that she thumbed his eyelids closed and he felt a light kiss brush his forehead. "Brotherhood, Unity, Peace"