A/N

Another similarity-based crossover, namely that Kane's description of the Tacitus's data could easily be applied to Lantean technology...and admittedly numerous other memes from sci-fi. Came up with this regardless.

Evolution

Michael McNeil didn't like Cheyenne Mountain.

Granted, the wasteland that was once Colorado wasn't that appealing either, but there was just something...wrong, with being underground as far as the battle commander was concerned. Maybe it was because Nod usually operated underground, maybe it was because he preferred to operate from the air in an Orca command ship. But with the Huron docked at Peterson Air Force Base and well out of his range, all that was left to him was the command and control hub of NORAD. And since the concept was pretty much redundant in the wake of there being so little of North America left to defend (and with Nod's airpower crippled in TWII), all he had left to do was twiddle his thumbs and gaze out at what the Tacitus had provided them.

Or what was supposed to provide them...

"Magnificent, isn't it?"

McNeil glanced at Doctor Gabriella Boudreau, walking over to him within the briefing room. The same briefing room that he was supposed to meet General Paul Cortez in to discuss the progress of rooting out CABAL's still functioning cyborgs. How the ex-couple was able to operate in the same hunk of granite he didn't know.

"Looks like a big...circle...thing..." the marine murmured, staring out at what was apparently a "stargate." He'd never been one for the complexities of quantum physics. He glanced over at Cortez's ex-wife. "Didn't think this science was in your field doctor."

"It isn't," she admitted. "But since the Tacitus provided the data for us...well, I can't help but be interested."

"If it gets us to the Philadelphia from here...well, I'll go through your hole anytime."

Boudreau blinked, McNeil winced and somewhere on the other side of the world, a child cried in awkwardness. Still, hopefully it would pass as surely as Boudreau's sonic emitters were beating back the spread of tiberium. Nod had reacquired the Tacitus briefly after the Second Tiberium War and the powers that be had decided that Cheyenne Mountain was the safest place on the ecologically ravaged Earth to store it. And if Boudreau had to work in the same facility as her ex-husband...well, tough beans. And not just because beans were becoming as rare as every other vegetable.

"You know, it's interesting," the scientist said eventually, defusing the hole comment as surely as an event horizon dissipated. "It's not just wormholes into orbit that the Tacitus has provided. It's...well, I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's providing what Kane told you of?"

"Hmm?" McNeil asked, reflecting that Kane wasn't that much better a topic than wormholes for him. "What do you-..."

"Come on Mac, I read your report. What he said to you in Cairo."

"Oh. Right."

What Kane had said...well, he'd said many things, but some things stood out more than others. Case in point...

You're only delaying the inevitable. I have the Tacitus. I am invincible. The Tacitus told me of tiberium missiles, of invulnerable flying ships, of real-time genetic mutation. More than alien. More than human! The next step in our evolution as a species!

"Evolution, mutation, starships…" Boudreau mused, as if reading the CO's mind. "It's funny, but the Tacitus makes reference to ascension as much as Kane did in the closing days of the war. I mean, there's this thing…an ascension machine…mutating you, evolving you, eventually becoming pure energy."

"Energy…" McNeil mused, thinking of glowing illuminated insectoid figures for some reason. "I see…"

"No Mac, I don't think you do," Boudreau laughed. "I mean…I barely understand it myself. Invulnerable flying ships? Well, the Tacitus mentions Aurora-class starships, but they could be anything. And alterans? Did they create the Tacitus? Did we evolve from them? Can we evolve into them?"

"Or…do we focus on sonic technology?"

McNeil didn't want to tell Boudreau how to work. Give him a Noddie, a pulse rifle and he could work out the maths. Give him material from a data matrix of unknown origin, and his head hurt. Probably hurt Boudreau's too, by the look of it, as she quietly composed herself from near-literal flights of fancy.

"You're right," she admitted. "One step at a time, eh? Save the Earth first and all that."

McNeil nodded. "Sure. Save the Earth…"

And then the stars. And then perhaps meet those who made the Tacitus.

It sounded quite appealing, all things considered…