“Come on man, hurry up.” One of the grunt soldiers turned to look at me.
“I’m trying, I’m trying. What do I look like, some kind of alien tower expert?” I retorted through my helmet.
“You’re the engineer with the implant, Higgins. Not me.”
“I may be the engineer, but do I look like I have tentacles or claws like the Scrin bastards who built this thing?”
“Whatever, man. We can’t spend all day at this Threshold. Nod will find us if we stay much longer. I got a family back in the blue zone, and I don’t want to die in some deserted tiberium field at the hands of those fanatics.”
“Whatever, man,” I mumbled under my breath. This piece of... “technology”, wouldn’t give me any feedback, optical implant or not, and the ion storm originating from the top of the citadel wasn’t helping. Even if I knew how to get my implant working with this monstrosity, I doubt an eyepiece would operate a piece of alien architecture, especially some rift to another dimension.
I touched the side of my helmet, operating some of the buttons. The gold-tinted glass covering my eyes lifted.
“I can’t figure out shit,” I yelled behind me.
“You’re going to have to figure out that “shit” then, Higgins. This is our only opportunity here, and your own incompetence isn’t getting us anywhere,” Smith yelled back from atop his APC.
“Whatever you say, commander.”
“I can hear your sarcasm, Higgins. Duly noted.”
“Asshole,” I muttered.
“I can hear you, Higgins.”
“Great. Now would you shut up so I can work on this?”
I slammed my palm into the side of my helmet, closing the visor. My eyes shifted up and down the Threshold. The structure spiraled up, parting the clouds to form a large ring of darkness at its peak. Even through the ion storm’s lighting, the blackness persisted. I shuddered. It was an admirable work of architecture, especially by an invading alien race who had constructed these in a matter of weeks, but why did they have to make it so damn eerie?
“You’re not going to work for me, are you?” I asked it.
I looked over towards the APC Smith had been perched on. He wasn’t there anymore. Probably hopped down to get some coffee and kick children.
“Who am I kidding? There wouldn’t be a coffee shop in a red zone,” I said to myself.
Static rung through my receiver.
“Higgins, report to the APC.” It was Smith’s voice.
“I’d love to, but there’s only about eight of them in this whole damn area.” I replied, eyeing the APC he had been mounted on.
“I think you can guess which one, Higgins.”
“And what makes you think that?” I asked innocently. My receiver was quiet.
“If you think I can..” As I walked towards the vehicle, I noticed the tiberium infested earth, the many craters left from our fight with Nod, and multiple MCVs hastily unpacking so we could begin base construction in this area. A living hell, some might say.
“Paradise.”
I punched the button on the back of the APC. With some mechanical whirring, the door lowered, crushing the tiny tiberium crystals that seemed to be everywhere in this zone, now that I thought back to it.
“Are we ever going to get some harvesters down here to clean the place up, Smith? I’m sure there are some health regulations in that big rule book of your’s.” I couldn’t help myself. “Maybe a couple ‘worker’s rights’ regulations, where the commander can’t be an absolute a–”
“Shut up and get in here, Higgins, before I tear that damned mouth of your’s off. We don’t have time for your wit.” Smith retaliated. What an ass.
“Sheesh. Sorry. Don’t have to be so stringent.”
“It’s people like you, Higgins, that make me like I am. Now get in here.”
“Yes sir, ‘commander’.” I walked up the ramp into the APC. Numerous monitors blinded me, contrasting the ion storm and dimly glowing tiberium outside. “So, what do you need?”
Smith hit a button located next to one of the screens, and the ramp closed behind me. I was trapped inside an APC with a lunatic. “What I ‘need’ is for you to pay attention for once. Look at the radar.”
Multiple blips occupied a larger screen on the back wall.
“Yeah? We have some blips.” I stated. Smith could pass for a blind-man.
“I see that. You know what those blips are, Higgins?” It seemed like he wanted a serious answer.
“Pixels on a monitor, sir.”
“Damn it, Higgins. They’re Nod forces. They’ve found us, and if we don’t hurry up and get that Threshold working, we’re going to be taking the full force of a Nod as–”
Something rattled the APC. Men screamed outside. I reached for my pistol and punched the button Smith was by. The ramp fell open, hitting the ground with a slam. Running out of the APC, I heard someone yell.
“It’s the Scrin!”
Something droned overhead. I looked up. The ion storm had dissipated, being replaced with something much deadlier.
“PACs!” I yelled.
It’s drones dispatched. The APCs turned their guns towards the sky, and all at once, I was deafened. Static rang through my receiver.
“We’ve got Stormriders coming in from the north, and Tripods from the east. We’re not equipped to deal with this kind of th–”
The static voice stopped, replaced by gunfire and the sound of Buzzers. I looked around. Tripods fired their beams upon our dwindling number of tanks, Buzzers sliced at our infantry, and Stormriders swarmed our Orcas.
Another voice rang through my receiver. “Higgins, why the hell are you just standing there? Get the damned Threshold working! We can’t back out of this fight. We’re flanked on all sides.”
“Smith, I’ve been messing with that damn thing for hours and you expect me to get it working while we’re being assaulted?!”
No response. I tightened my grip on my pistol and ran to the base of the Threshold.
“Work, damn it!”
I flew through the air as the ground behind me shattered. Heat burned my back, and rubble rushed past me. I felt my bare hand touch the Threshold’s tower.
“Foreign entity detected.”
The voice rang clearly through my head. No static, no gunshots, no explosions. Just the voice.
“Foreign entity detected,” it repeated. “Opening user interface.”
Suddenly, multiple lines of text appeared before me. I moved my eye, and the text followed it.
“// TCN Aligned and Ready.
// All Hubs Synced.
// Optical Implant in Activation Range.
// Activate Scrin Portal.”
“What the hell?”
The Threshold bellowed, and a purple light blinded me.
“You did it, Higgins!” My receiver rang. “How the hell you did it, I have no idea, but you did!”
The Threshold continued to whirr and churn. The beam of light shot into the clouds, filling the rift of darkness which used to be there. It seemed like the end of the world.
“All infantry. Load into an APC and get ready for evac. We’re leaving through the Threshold.”
What the hell were they thinking?
“Are you insane?! We can’t leave through this monstrosity! Who knows where the hell it goes? It could go to hell, for all we know!”
“Would you rather die?” The receiver retaliated.
“Than go through a portal that may or may not make me die? You bet your ass I would.” Gunfire rang past me. I looked over, only to be greeted by Nod rising over the hill to our east.
“Screw it,” I said to myself, and began sprinting to the nearest APC.
The ramp shut behind me.
“Everyone buckled in?” The driver asked. “We’re leaving.”
I felt a jolt, and the motor of the APC began humming as we drove towards the monster.
“Damn it.. damn it.. damn it..” I muttered to myself. Here I was, in an APC bound to get torn apart by a portal, eaten and recycled by the Scrin, or blown up by Nod’s fanatics. This couldn’t get better.
“You fellas ready?” The driver called.
We were nearly inside the Threshold. Here we go..
It felt as if gravity had just been turned off. The APC's wheels began to spin as the ground underneath them no longer held resistance. Soaring through the air, we rushed to greet the portal head on.
“SHI–”
I felt my molecules being disassembled, reassembled, and disassembled again. It wasn’t painful... more... relaxing, strangely. But what’s a little more strangeness next to going through an alien portal? A lot, it would seem.
“Hey.. um.. are.. are you alright?”
I opened my eyes, jolting up as I heard the soft voice speak to me.
“Am I in heaven?” I asked to the empty grass field that laid before me.
“No.. um.. you’re in Ponyville, mister..”
“Who’s talking to me?!” I asked the field.
I heard a shriek behind me, and I turned to look.
“My name is.. is.. Fluttershy..”
