[Lore]GDI: Hidden Away feature

By : (ponic3)

Editor: (GeneralJist)

Rev 3: 11/1/2015

Hidden Away

New Adana, the crown jewel of the GDI empire. One of the few remaining Blue Zones in a world that has been ravaged by the apocalyptic doom brought upon by something as innocuous as a crystal. A crystal from the stars that has brought nothing but misery upon humanity. To think, there was a time when that crystal, known as tiberium, was once thought to be the saving grace of the human race, brought to us in an uncertain time. Back in those days, the people of the world had so much to be thankful for, they just didn’t know it yet. The enemy was so much more simple then, even if it was decentralized. The great Western powers battled the Eastern bound terrorist group, GDI vs. The Brotherhood of Nod, until tiberium arrived and changed the rules of not only war but life itself. The technological boom that resulted from it was unprecedented, but bit by bit, one molecule at a time, tiberium ravaged our world, and it took everything. It took our homes, it took our land, it took our water, it took our way of lives, it took our peace, it took it all...

My name is Dr. Richard Neumann, PhD in Genetics Research at GDI Hopedale Memorial Hospital, and I live within this so-called crown jewel of the Global Defense Initiative, the New Adana Blue Zone. Reclaimed from the tiberium plague, but it is not a cure, just an example of how the GDI is able to hide its head in the sand like the old extinct species known as the ostrich. Does the Initiative really believe that it can just hide in their Blue Zones and wait until doomsday comes around and finally puts an end to our suffering?

I can’t live like that, and so I went into Genetics Research. I believed with all my heart that the secret to the tiberium plague lay within the crystal itself, or maybe the mutants that it infected. I spent my life working to explore the crystal and find a cure, following in the footsteps of the famed scientific heroes of old: Albert Einstein, Arthur C Clarke, Ignatio Mobius, Gabriella Boudreau, the list goes on. There’s one key difference between them and me. I have nothing to show for my work, not a single cure, even with the vast amount of resources at my hands courtesy of the GDI defense contractor and close ally Idris. Of course, I’m not the only one with nothing to show for their work.

The GDI scientists and my fellow Idris colleagues have not nearly enough to show for their work either beyond some containment to keep Blue Zones habitable. Is this a solace? Of course not! Our race is dying out there, everyday tiberium takes another part of our lives and we are running out of things to give.

“Richard, come on,” calls my wife, Eliena.

“I’m coming, my love,” I can finish typing up this damn report later, it all takes second place to my current state of affairs.

I follow Eliena into the backroom. Living in a Blue Zone is a tight fit, especially when there are so few of them left. Buildings are all mostly tall skyscrapers, no one owns a house anymore. ‘Homes’ are single suites. An average dweller gets one bedroom, complete with a kitchenette, and bathroom. Families are afforded the luxury of two rooms, one for them and one for the children, but the citizen is the one who has to make the spacing issue work.

I go to the backroom, with my wife and my eldest son Robert who is only twelve years old. We all can’t stand to look at what is beyond, but we can’t let it alone just because we find it difficult to bear.

Eliena opens the viewscreen into the room that is mounted on the wall. As an electronics expert for GDI, Eliena is more than capable of wiring up such difficult technological marvels into the house, which is why we are able to do this without dying ourselves to keep this secret. The wall beyond is reinforced with portable sonic walling, a new technology we developed for quarantine rooms that fits into the reinforced structural beams of a standard wall, and sound proofed to keep the secret beyond at bay. None of us can go in to be with the one that needs the company of his family the most.

The viewscreen flickers and the cameras inside activate, as do the microphones so we can be as close to him as we can.

“Gavin,” calls Eliena into the microphone, “I love you so much.”

My youngest son, Gavin, he’s nine-years old, and he looks like anything but a nine-year-old. Normal nine-year-olds are running around, causing mischief, getting their hands into the cookie jars. Gavin just lays in his bed all day in agony. Why? The tiberium poisoning!

A failure near one of the emitters of the New Adana Blue Zone, caused a near catastrophe. Sure the GDI engineers were able to fix the problem quick enough, but not before so many citizens were affected by the tiberium poisoning. There was no saving them, those citizens were rounded up and sent far away from the Blue Zone as quickly as possible to keep the plague from spreading. Weeks later other citizens began to show similar poisoning effects, as small tiberium particles had undoubtedly mixed with the air. Those citizens met the same fate, no hospitalization, just sent away without a care in the world.

As I look at Gavin, laying on the bed, coughing violently, and watch as the green plague slowly spreads over him, turning his skin that horrid tiberium green colour. He focuses on us and reaches his hand out. We haven’t been able to touch him for so long, we can’t even go in there to be with him in his dying moments, we can only watch. All I feel is my heart shattering, and not only because it is my son but because I know the exact course this will take as it takes him.

I know the extremely slow pain and precise sequence that my son will die in as the tiberium slowly crystallizes his body and infects his lung tissue, suffocating him and putting him in agony as it all begins so slowly. I know that there will come a time when we’ll either have to give Gavin up, or take the deed upon ourselves and put him out of his misery. Tiberium has taken everything, but for me, it has taken just a little bit more, what is there left to rip from me?

“Gavin?” I say to my son, “it’s time for your story.”

I grab a chair and sit down at the camera holding Gavin’s favourite storybook series: The Red Knight Chronicles. I give a passing look at the clock. Time is running out, and running out quickly. It will all be over soon, but damn it if I’ll let Gavin miss out on the single point of peace that I can give him every day. The rest of the family sit by me as I open the book and begin to read.

“Chapter 4, the queen looked out over her vast kingdom...”

---

The roar of the engines from the transport as we race over New Adana drowns out near any other outside noise. The only way we can hear each other is the live MIC that we are all connected to.

“Check weapons,” calls out my sergeant, Reynolds. A no-nonsense woman, people say when Reynolds was a private she personally strangled a Nod cyborg.

Probably a fallacy since Nod cyborgs didn’t require oxygen, but I am in no hurry to test that theory out and be on the receiving end of her tirades. I’ve seen what happened to new recruits when I was going through boot! The sound of weapons clattering brings me back to the present and I perform the necessary checks on my GD15R. The R stands for reduced. The GD15 is basically a highly cut down version of the military GD15. Where the standard military uses massive rifles for large scale battles the GD15R is a single infantry weapon, designed for riots and use within the confines of a Blue Zone when dealing with civilian uprisings, not made for large battles. No fancy grenade launchers here for the Blue Zone Tiberium Containment Unit (BZTCU). We are an offshoot of the GDI military, a economical way for the GDI to enforce Blue Zone law without outsourcing the duties to a specific group for Blue Zone peacekeeping beyond the demands of the military.

“Remember, boys and girls,” calls out Reynolds, “Blue Zone combat is a sticky business, no civilian casualties! This is dirty work, but it has to be done, for the good of the human race and the Zone. That said, remember, let’s not make this any worse than it needs to be. Check drop-in systems and prepare to move out.”

Dirty work, that is certainly an understatement. I joined the BZTCU to keep the New Adana Blue Zone safe and preserve what fragile peace we have. Still, this isn’t what I signed up for. It doesn’t sit right with me having to turn our guns on our own citizens.

“Bratson! Are the contents of your day dreams more important than my orders?” shouts Reynolds at me.

I instantly snap out of my stupor. I hate my last name, never mind hearing Reynolds shout it with that crack of a whip that only she can pull off with a voice alone. “Ma’am, no ma’am, I was only reflecting on our current duty assignment ma’am.”

“Do you have a problem with it?”

A direct question. It’s a trap and I know it, but I certainly can’t lie. “Yes, ma’am.”

I instantly regret my answer because Reynolds is now right in my face. Her deep set brown eyes and dark red hair are more than a little bit unnerving.

“New Adana, one of the last Blue Zones in the world and that means one of the last safe havens from the tiberium plague. That means we have an obligation, keep it that way, because if we fail, where do you expect the population of people to go? If the Blue Zones fall, that will be it, there will be no more hope for us as a damn species. It might be dirty work, but I expect you to put your feelings away and get the job done! Are we understood?”

I’m just thankful my face is hidden behind a visor. “Yes, ma’am, understood.”

“Approaching drop zone,” comes the announcement from the pilot of the transport.

“Get ready,” ordered Reynolds.

We all get up in unison and form two lines, preparing to drop out of the back of the V-45 Thunderhead Transport.

The door opens and the loud roar of rushing air and engines echoes off the transport’s metallic walls. Below is the New Adana Blue Zone, and we are slowing down to hold station and hover above one skyscraper dwelling, not particularly fascinating compared to the new standard building codes that most dwellings must abide by in a Blue Zone.

“Remember, target is a family of four, suspect of tiberium contamination, their nine-year-old son. No matter how it goes down, this won’t be pretty. Let’s get it done people,” ordered Reynolds. “Move out!”

My comrades all follow our sergeant out of the troop bay door. I tarry for a moment and suck in a breath. This can’t be right. The person we are targeting, he’s a high-level GDI scientist. How could he do this? How could he be the one to violate our laws? He knows the risks! It’s all so difficult to process, these grey matters..

Damn it all, and damn me for going along with this!

I look down and recite the mantra before stepping off the ramp.

“For The Good Of The Zone, For The Good Of The Zone, For The Good Of The Zone."