~B
Metal Gear Solid Previous Story Transcript (From Metal Gear Solid 2)
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Transcribed by Rob McGregor (mcgregorr@xtra.co.nz)
Last (And Probably Final) Update - 27/11/01
A group of people I know (especially those from Europe waiting for the
game as well as a few people wishing to quote areas of it for others)
have been waiting for this to appear online, and so it's taken one simple
minded idiot with a lot of time on his hands to write this all down.
Many thanks to HellRaiser for his help with this,
getting the capture I could work with, it wouldn't have been possible
without him :)
I hope you find it helpful especially if you were waiting for someone to
be bothered to write it all out. :)
With going back through Nastasha's book I'm thinking that some people
might like to see a glossary of terms added to this document for
reference once I'm fully finished. Some of the abbreviations are used
over and over and some words even I didn't know the meaning of and
needed to look up.
Thanks to all the people who've e-mailed me saying thanks for the
transcript or even offering to help out. I really appreciate it :)
Hello to all the guys at MetalGear.net and Metal-Gear-Extreme.de who've
helped me along with my interest in the Metal Gear series, and to those
who've let me take a break from working on New-Blood.com to indulge
my interest in writing this out. I'm sure I'll get right back to work
on the site as soon as I finish this.
Seeing as I really have nothing to do with writing this text, and mealy
transcribing it to people, I don't want to claim anything but recognition
of the time and effort I spent to do so.
If people wish to include this for other guides, though I have no idea
why, they may do so as long as they credit the fact I spent a few hours
writing this all out.
To anyone else who tries to write it out themselves... good luck. It's a
lot of work.
19/11/01 - First Edition. Includes File #1 - Book Review, File #2 -
Conspiracy File, and the first 20 pages of File #3 -
Nastasha's book.
22/11/01 - Second Edition. Includes 104 more pages of File #3.
I had hoped to add more, but couldn't due to time restraints.
I'll continue to update this file as I have free time in
the coming week. Suggestions to add the brief histories
of Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake from in Metal
Gear Solid are also being considered.
25/11/01 - Third Edition. Waiting for the Euro special pack of Silent
Hill 2 to arrive to my door, so I've spent part of the
weekend I've had free typing up the next 100 pages. I also
added the previous operations files from MGS for Metal Gear
and MG2: Solid Snake.
27/11/01 - Forth Edition. Finished the final pages of Nastasha's novel.
The file is complete. This will be the final document update
however I may come back to this in the future and add a
glossary... who knows.
1. Metal Gear (MGS)
[13 Pages - Complete. A brief synopsis of the storyline of the
original 1987 Metal Gear game for the MSX home computer.]
2. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (MGS)
[19 Pages - Complete. A brief synopsis of the storyline of the sequel
to Metal Gear, also for the MSX home computer.]
3. The New York Mirror (MGS2)
[11 Pages - Complete. A review of Nastasha Romanenko's book on the
Shadow Moses incident from Metal Gear Solid. This also appeared in
the MGS2 demo with Zone of the Enders.]
4. The Shocking Conspiracy Behind Shadow Moses (MGS2)
[129 Pages - Complete. A book about one slightly crazy UFO fanatic's
uncovering of Nastasha's book from a disc sent to him, and the events
that happen when he tries to follow the truth of the Shadow Moses
incident.]
5. MGS: In the Darkness of Shadow Moses: The Unofficial Truth (MGS2)
[324 Pages - Complete. Nastasha's book in its entirety, which covers
the storyline from Metal Gear Solid. There are a lot of new facts
uncovered throughout.]
Page 001| The year 1995. Deep in South Africa, 200km
| north of Gaezburg. Outer Heaven -- an armed
| fortress nation established by the legendary
| mercenary. He was feared in combat by both his
| friends and foes as a hero and a lunatic.
| The "Western" nations have found out that a weapon
| of mass destruction capable of re-writing war history
Page 002| is under development at Outer Heaven. They have
| called upon the high-tech special force unit FOX-
| HOUND to take care of the situation. In response to
| this order, Big Boss, commander-in-chief of FOX-
| HOUND, sent Gray Fox, the man with the code name
| "FOX" which is given to the best member of the unit,
| "Operation Intrude N313"...
|
Page 003| After a few days, his last message being "Metal
| Gear...", Gray Fox was missing In action.
| Taking the situation seriously, the top men of the
| "West" again called for FOX-HOUND. Big Boss
| selected Solid Snake, who had just recently joined
| FOX-HOUND, as the agent, and entrusted
| everything to him.
|
Page 004| Successfully making a solo infiltration to Outer
| Heaven, Snake got in touch with local resistance
| members - Schneider, Diane, and Jennifer.
| With their cooperation, Snake succeeded in
| rescuing Gray Fox. Gray Fox then laid out the
| terrifying facts about Metal Gear. Metal Gear
| was the development name of a nuclear
Page 005| warhead-equipped two-legged walking tank. It
| can walk through even the roughest terrain's that
| would stop normal tanks. It can conduct local warfare
| by itself with unique weapons like its Vulcan cannon
| and anti-tank missiles. It was indeed a new-type of
| weapon that can conduct a nuclear attack against
| any place on the face of the earth, from any land
Page 006| surface...
|
| With Metal Gear, Outer Heaven was trying to
| establish its millitary superiority over the entire
| world. In order to destroy Metal Gear, Snake
| rescued Metal Gear's chief engineer, Dr. Pettrovich
| and his daughter Elen, who was taken hostage to
| force her father to continue with his development.
Page 007| Snake hears from Dr. Pettrovich how to destroy
| Metal Gear. However, as Snake approached the
| heart of Outer Heaven and Metal Gear, well-
| designed traps are set all around Snake -- as
| if all his actions are being leaked to the enemy...
| In the midst of the escalating battle, the leader
| of the resistance, Schneider, fell into the hands
Page 008| of the enemy... and Snake himself, was injured
| through the deadly battles with Outer Heaven's
| best mercenaries.
|
| But Snake's indomitable spirit lead him to
| the 100th floor basement of the secret base where
| Metal Gear was developed. Evading the powerful
| defense system that wipes out all intruders,
Page 009| Snake ultimately succeeded in destroying Metal
| Gear.
|
| Snake tried to escape from Outer Heaven upon
| completing the mission. However during the
| escape he was confronted by one man -- FOX-
| HOUND commander-in-chief Big Boss. Big Boss
| laughed at the astounded Snake and told him of
Page 010| the truth about his mission.
|
| While serving as the commander-in-chief of FOX-
| HOUND, Big Boss also ran a mercenary dispatch
| company, utilizing his connections and capital
| from his years as a merc.
|
| He was planning to build this company a larger
| military establishment, and he built Outer Heaven
Page 011| as its base. His purpose for sending the rookie
| Snake to Outer Heaven was to cause information
| confusion against the "West."
|
| However, Big Boss miscalculated. He never
| thought that Snake would make it this far...
|
| Having lost Metal Gear, Big Boss activated the
| self-destruction system of the underground base.
Page 012| While the countdown to destruction continued,
| his scream echoed in the emptiness.
| "You have gone to far. Too far!"
|
| On the 100th floor basement, the battle between
| two men commenced -- free of ideology and
| politics...
|
Page 013| The armed fortress nation, Outer Heaven,
| collapsed. The impenetrable fortress made from
| the best military technology, and occupied by
| the toughest mercenaries burned in flames.
| Behind him, the flames reached skyward, as Outer
| Heaven fell, leaving Solid Snake all alone...
|
|
- Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
-------------------------
Page 001| 1999, the world was facing a energy crisis.
| It was obvious that the supply of petroleum would
| run out faster than expected. However, the
| development of an alternate energy resource is
| far from completion. The price of petroleum has
| skyrocketed and the world economy is in much confusion.
| The 21st century was expected to be one of chaos.
|
Page 002| One man's invention changed the entire situation.
| A Czech genius and biologist, Dr. Kio Marv, invented
| "OILIX" a micro-organism that refines petroleum to
| produce a highly purified form of petroleum.
|
| The world was filled with hope upon the discovery
| of this messiah to solve the energy crisis but at
| the same time the world entered a time of tension
Page 003| regarding this new algae.
|
| Just when the whole world's attention was drawn to
| OILIX and Dr. Marv, he was abducted by someone
| and disappeared. Nations began investigations
| immediately, and a name soon appeared...
|
| "Zanzibar Land."
|
Page 004| Zanzibar Land was a democratic military regime
| that suddenly appeared in Central Asia in 1997.
| When their uprising took place, the CIS army,
| formed around Russia, sent a suppressive unit
| immediately. Zanzibar Land resisted by gathering
| a band of mercenaries from nations around the
| world and fortifying most of it's land.
|
Page 005| As a result, the CIS army was repeatedly defeated,
| and Zanzibar Land declared its independence.
| Due to the active role mercenaries played, this war
| was called The Mercenary War and Zanzibar Land
| was referred to as an armed fortress nation.
|
| A military nation with a group of strong mercenaries,
| surrounded by a tough fortress...
|
Page 006| According to the latest information Zanzibar
| supposedly was armed with nuclear weapons.
| The whole scenario was crystal clear.
|
| By obtaining OILIX in addition to nuclear weapons,
| Zanzibar Land was trying to establish its economic
| and military superiority over the entire world.
|
| Concerned about the situation, the United States
Page 007| ordered Roy Campbell, commander-in-chief of
| high-tech special forces unit FOX-HOUND, to
| rescue Dr. Marv. Campbell was a former member
| of FOX-HOUND. He brought back Solid Snake,
| the man who single handedly brought down the
| armed fortress nation of Outer Heaven 4 years ago,
| and asked Snake to bring back both Dr. Marv
Page 008| and OILIX. Successfully infiltrating Zanzibar Land, and
| with the help of CIA agent Horry and others Snake
| was able to go deep into the fortress and meet
| again with Dr. Pettrovich, the chief engineer of
| Metal Gear at Outer Heaven. He too was abducted
| to Zanzibar Land and was forced to develop
| another Metal Gear.
|
Page 009| He told the surprised Snake of an even more
| shocking fact. Big Boss, the man Snake had
| defeated at Outer Heaven, turned out to be the
| general commander of Zanzibar Land.
|
| Snake rescued Dr. Pettrovich in cooperation with
| Natasha, Dr. Marv's guard and former Czech
Page 010| International Secret Police agent, and then headed
| for the confinement facility deep in the fortress
| to save Dr. Marv.
|
| Later when Pettrovich and Natasha crossed the narrow
| suspension bridge over the deep valley, a missile
| blew the bridge away.
|
| Natasha flew into the air because of the explosion.
Page 011| While unable to do anything to save Natasha, Snake
| started hearing a well-known voice.
|
| "Hey Snake. We are good buddies. I can let you
| go. Just leave this place at once!" ...Gray Fox.
| Snake saw Gray Fox controlling Metal Gear.
|
| The best soldier in FOX-HOUND who, after the fall
| of Outer Heaven, disappeared as if he followed
Page 012| Big Boss. Losing Natasha in front of his eyes
| and letting Pettrovich get taken away Snake
| screamed "Fox! I will not give up!"
|
| After a series of deadly battles with mercenaries
| Snake finally made it to Dr. Marv's confinement
| facility.
|
Page 013| However, he arrived too late. He saw Dr. Marv's
| corpse and Pettrovich, who could do nothing
| but just stand there.
|
| Pettrovich told Snake that Dr. Marv could not with-
| stand the repeated tortures because of heart
| problems. Snake then received an emergency call
| from Horry. The information she supplied was very
Page 014| shocking. Pettrovich had been voluntarily visiting
| Zanzibar Land to develop Metal Gear.
|
| The abduction of Dr. Marv was conducted under
| the directions of Pettrovich himself. After the truth
| came out, Pettrovich attacked Snake, but Snake
| easily put an end to him and obtained the structural
| plan of OILIX.
|
Page 015| While trying to escape, Snake was confronted by
| Metal Gear again, controlled by Gray Fox. The
| tremendous battle took place in the underground
| base. Snake finally succeeded in destroying
| Metal Gear. However, Gray Fox didn't submit
| and challenged Snake to the final battle.
|
| In the midst of a minefield, Snake and Fox fought
Page 016| without any weapons. A fist-to-fist duel involving
| no hatred or murder intent. During that weird
| moment of purity, the two were bound by forces
| transcending words and emotion.
|
| Snake won the tough but pure battle against
| Gray Fox. However, there still was someone else
| Snake had to fight -- Big Boss. Just like 4 years
Page 017| ago at Outer Heaven, Big Boss was waiting
| for Snake.
|
| "One who has experienced the tension of battle
| can never leave the battlefield. I am the one
| giving you something to live for, and that is war."
|
| Snake was infuriated at the arrogant Big Boss.
| "There is only one battle I have left to fight. To free
Page 018| myself from you, to shatter the nightmare... Big
| Boss, I will kill you!"
|
| With the structural plan of OILIX, Snake and Horry
| escaped from Zanzibar Land on a rescue helicopter.
| Snake once again saved the world.
|
| However, there was no smile on his face. Big Boss's
Page 019| last words kept ringing in his head.
|
| "Whoever wins, our battle does not end. The loser
| is freed from the battle field, but the winner must
| remain there. And the survivor must live his life
| as a warrior until he dies."
|
| Snake then disappeared into the white lands of
| Alaska, alone...
|
Page 001| "In the Darkness of Shadow Moses:
| The Unofficial Truth"
|
|
|
| Author: Nastasha Romanenko
| Reviewed by George Franklin
|
|
Page 002| Some topics in the recent American past have
| the immediacy and power that still engage
| our collective imagination. Names like, "The
| Grassy Knoll," or "Roswell," roll off our tongue
| with deliberates reserved by most other
| nations for holy lands. With this new non-
| fiction account from Nastasha Romanenko,
| Shadow Moses -- the scene of a nuclear siege
| two years ago -- is set to join their ranks.
|
Page 003| Official history states that the takeover of
| a nuclear weapons disposal facility on a
| lonely outpost in the Fox Islands, Alaska was
| the work of a radical right-wing group. Their
| demands for the release of group members
| incarcerated in federal penitentiaries were
| never met, and the incident was speedily
| resolved by the successful deployment of a
| commando unit. B.S., the author asserts.
| Romanenko says that she served as an advisor
Page 004| to the Nuclear Emergency Search Team, and
| deconstructs what she claims to be a cover-up
| story by the government with precision.
|
| According to the author, Shadow Moses Island
| was nothing less than the U.S. Army's testing
| grounds for a top-secret weapon known as
| Metal Gear REX, an all-terrain bipedal tank
| with advanced nuclear capabilities. As for
| the facilities takeover, Romanenko alleges
Page 005| that it was the U.S. military's own shadowy
| "wet-works" force, known as "FOXHOUND,"
| that staged an armed insurrection in a bid
| for REX's possession.
|
| The government responds to this crisis by
| sending in a lone operative, a former FOX-
| HOUND member known only by the code name
| "Solid Snake," into Shadow Moses.
| His infiltration is aided by a remote mission
Page 006| control team consisting of an unidentified
| "Colonel Campbell." a FOXHOUND medical chief
| "Naomi," a radar and electronics expert "Mei
| Ling" (supposedly a teenager), and the author
| herself. Once on the island, "Snake" joins
| forces with Metal Gear's developer-turned-
| prisoner "Otacon" to eradicate the weapon of
| mass destruction.
|
| Among the other remarkable characters that
Page 007| make an appearance in Romanenko's expose
| is another FOXHOUND commando, a revolver-
| virtuoso called "Shalashaska" a.k.a. "Revolver
| Ocelot." One of the most controversial
| allegations in the book deals with this
| figures connection to a disavowed Russian
| militia led by a "Colonel Gurlukovich,"
| Romanenko paints a bleak picture of a
| thousand-strong, highly disciplined army
| with nuclear weaponry operating covertly
Page 008| within the American border. Even more
| irresistible to conspiracy scholars and
| students of recent history is her thinly
| veiled suggestion that the whole affair
| was planned from the beginning by certain
| forces inside the U.S. government.
|
|
|
Page 009| The U.S. Army and the usual suspect of
| federal agencies have issued a statement
| denouncing the book as a complete fabri-
| cation. However, with a number of detailed
| eyewitness accounts that back up the author's
| assertions cropping up daily on the Web, the
| denials serve more to enhance the book's
| growing reputation. "Shadow Moses" is an
| engrossing read for casual and serious
| readers alike, and promises to involve
Page 010| readers in a meaty debate over the truth
| of the matter for many years to come.
|
| Excerpted from the literary review column
| "All Booked Up", The New York Mirror
|
|
|
|
Page 011| (Advertisement for MGS/MGS VR Missions)
- The Shocking Conspiracy Behind Shadow Moses
-------------------------------------------
Page 001| The Shocking Conspiracy
| Behind Shadow Moses
|
| by Gary McGolden
|
| The island of Shadow Moses lies due north
| of Alaska's Fox Islands, deep in the Arctic
| Circle. Above one of its rocky cliffs stands a
| cabin normally used for meteorological
| surveys, and it was here that I found myself,
Page 002| seated on a chair with my hands bound behind
| my back and a burlap sack covering my entire
| head. A blizzard rages outside, and the cabin
| was a dark, silent patch somewhere inside the
| storm. I could sense at least four men around
| me.
| They had been interrogating me for what
| felt like hours now.
| The burlap sack is pungent with the traces
| of coffee beans. In the biting cold of the cabin,
Page 003| images of Brazil come to me unbidden; alleys
| coiled through with vivid, untended profusion
| of flowers, children with skin like frothy
| chocolate, sunshine capable of burning out
| the cornea, erupting between palm fronds.
| I can feel my sense starting to fail.
| The man in the front of me asks for the
| second, or the hundredth, time.
| "I'm going to ask you again. What's in the
| optical disc?"
Page 004| "Told you, I don't know. I just found it,
| okay?"
| "You're lying, you bastard!"
| A fist explodes into the pit of my stomach,
| bringing up a peanut butter sandwich of many
| hours ago along with the rusty taste of blood.
| The relentless beating and numerous knife
| cuts of the past hour have my whole body
| screaming with pain, but I refuse to tell them
| what they wanted. I had too much invested at
Page 005| this point, too many days of dangerous
| investigation into the story of a lifetime. There
| was no way I was going to give it all up at
| this point.
| "That's enough."
| A voice spoke up from somewhere in the
| back of the cabin.
| "We have the disk back. Just get rid of him
| so we can get out of this place."
| Even in my current sorry state, I was still a
Page 006| journalist. He had said, "We have the disc
| back." That meant that my hosts were the
| original owners of that optical disc. The last
| piece of the puzzle was in it's place; I knew
| beyond a shadow of doubt that everything
| recorded on the disc was true, and that the
| conspiracy I had suspected did in fact exist.
| At that moment, I heard a window shatter.
| The raging storm outside seemed to gain
| entry to the cabin in an instance, and I heard
Page 007| thin screams from the captors that encircled
| my chair. The next second, they had already
| fallen heavily onto the floor.
| The brief confusion ended before I regained
| enough presence of mind to even panic.
| Whoever was now here, whatever had
| happened, my tormentors were obviously out
| of commission. But now I could hear measured
| footsteps approaching across the floor.
| If this person had just saved my life, who
Page 008| was it? Or was I about to share the others'
| fate? The footsteps came to a halt in front of
| me, but strangely enough, I did not feel any
| sort of a presence nearby.
| The burlap was slowly lifted from around
| my head, pulled off by an unseen hand. The
| stinging night air cooled my face, and my
| eyes gradually regained focus in the darkened
| room.
| And I could finally see who it was that stood
Page 009| before me.
| Just out of the sight of most of its citizens, a
| massive conspiracy determines the working of
| this nation.
| Weapons of mass destruction secretly
| developed by the military.
| Super-soldiers re-engineered into war
| machines through genetic manipulation.
| A killer virus that only targets specific
| individuals with deadly accuracy.
Page 010| Tanks that walk rather than roll, and carry a
| nuclear payload.
| A covert organization, the third and the
| most powerful political party, my encounter
| with which landed me in this chair in the
| Alaskan winter...
| All of these are a part of the truth I found
| sealed within the optical disc, and I intend to
| share what I have learned in the pages to
| follow. That includes everything I now know
Page 011| about our government, and the secret arena
| where an even greater power pulls the
| strings. This is the truth many have glimpsed
| but never dared to talk about.
| Everything detailed in this book actually
| happened, and after I lived it, my world was
| no longer the same safe place I knew. Neither,
| I promise, will be yours if you have the
| courage to keep going.
|
Page 012| It all began a month ago --
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Page 013| THE POSTMAN RINGS
| A month before my dramatic escape from
| death on Shadow Moses, I was having late
| breakfast in my apartment in New York.
| Ever since and alien abduction episode in my
| childhood, I'd been plagued by a
| persistent ringing in my ears.
| A large patch of mud was my undoing.
| I slipped, fell and was knocked unconscious.
| When I came to, it was already dawn.
Page 014| Later, I was trying to see the bump on
| the back of my head in the mirror when I saw
| "IT" instead. A small hole, about the size of a
| pinprick, had been made behind my ear. You
| learn a little something when you watch as
| much TV as I did. There was no doubt that I
| had been abducted by a passing UFO, and
| had spent the hours while unconscious with
| alien beings! Unfortunately, no one in the
| area recalled seeing a UFO, and not a single
Page 015| person had the sense to listen to my story. I
| realize now that this was the day I decided to
| uncover truth for a living, and become a
| journalist.
| But back to the present day. It turned out
| that the ringing wasn't in my ear, but from the
| doorbell. The thing shrieked somewhere south
| of a baritone bat sonar, barely within the
| range of human hearing. Blame the mangling
| it took from a particularly displeased visitor.
Page 016| Outside the door was the mailman, and in
| the mailman's hand was a thick manila
| envelope. On the envelope was a label,
| addressed to me.
| A letter bomb!
| I pressed my ear against the envelope and
| concentrated hard. But not a tick from the
| thing. Of course, no one uses analog watches
| in bombs these days. That's why they call it
| the Digital Age. In fact, why would there even
Page 017| be a watch in a letter bomb? The point is that
| the unlucky recipient opens it, and the bomb
| goes off. Which means that it's actually the
| completely silent envelopes that are
| dangerous. I knew that opening that flap
| would send my eggs to the big omelet in the
| sky, but you don't get to be an investigative
| journalist for thinking inside the box.
| I tore through the bottom of the envelope
Page 018| instead.
| *Riiip*
| No!
| The contents of the suspicious envelope
| dropped to the floor with lightning speed!
| In this world, you can never be too careful.
| Let this be a warning to you, readers: when
| circumstances compel you to open an
| envelope from the bottom, turn it upside down
| first. As a rule, I discovered, objects fall
Page 019| down, and this is what happened to the
| contents of my lethal envelope, straight down
| into a half-eaten depth of a delivery pizza
| forgotten on the floor. I don't recall when
| exactly this food item arrived on these
| premises, but the thing was definitely a
| museum piece by now.
| Fortunately, it wasn't a bomb but an optical
| storage disc, now liberally smeared with
| peanut butter. This disc was the kind that
Page 020| comes in a clear plastic casing, through which
| the rainbow sheen of the circular unit shone.
| I gazed into it awhile, thinking of the UFO from
| that fateful day.
| Anyway, I fished the optical disc out, noting
| the lack of a label. A quick wash at the sink
| got rid of the crud it had accumulated.
| The disc was drying by the window as I
| hunted through the now-harmless envelope
| for clues. A single sheet of Xerox paper was
Page 021| stuck to the inside and it read:
|
| "From the desk of MAX SMITHSON, Editor-in-
| Chief, MEGASURPRISE magazine
|
| I'm mailing you this optical disc that was sent
| to the edit department. It's right up your alley,
| see if you can turn up something more. We'll
| do a book if you get enough stuff together.
| This is your chance for a comeback, so don't
Page 022| screw it up."
|
| Max is an old friend, and used to manage
| most of my book deals way back when. We
| hadn't seen each other much since I gave up
| writing. Not that that he has the right to tell me
| about comebacks and screwing up, but I find
| myself growing excited by the prospect of
| writing another book. But there was a
| problem, and it was a big one.
Page 023| How the hell was I going to get the disc's
| content?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Page 024| THE SHOCKING TRUTH WITHIN
| My next-door neighbor is a starving college
| student, and I hit him up for the use of his
| computer now and then. I banged on his door
| and screamed repeatedly until he scuffled up
| to the door half-asleep. Once inside, I made a
| beeline for the piece of junk and stuck the
| disc into the drive. The icon appeared on the
Page 025| display with a gentle whir. The file name read:
| "In the Darkness of Shadow Moses".
|
| But an urgent click on the icon only brought
| up an error message. What nefarious scheme
| was this!? What secret encryption was
| preventing me from accessing the data!? I
| clicked again and again with the same result,
| and started to gnaw on the keyboard in
| frustration. The starving student come running
Page 026| over, wailing about his equipment. He typed in
| some moon-man language, avoiding patches
| of my spit, and a frighteningly cheerful
| application startup screen appeared on the
| display. Then lo and behold, I finally laid my
| eyes on the dense mass of text, the contents
| of the disc!
| At the very top it read: "'In the Darkness of
| Shadow Moses' by Nastasha Romanenko"
| The starving student was being scholarly
Page 027| and trying to read the text over my shoulder.
| I knocked him out with a punch to the solar
| plexus and devoured the file's content. It was
| like a blow to the head with a frozen tuna; my
| brain was reeling from the shock. The file was
| fill of wild stuff: top-secret conspiracies,
| incredible genetic experimentation, cold-
| blooded military deployment of classified
| weapons. This was the most incredible
| stuff I had ever come across.
|
Page 028| THE UNOFFICAL FACTS
| ACCORDING TO THE DISC
| Most readers should be aware of the series of
| strange military actions involving an island
| father north of Alaska's Fox Island, some
| two years ago. The island was called Shadow
| Moses, and received a series of well-
| documented but never-explained visits of
| obvious significance. USS Discovery, an Ohio
| class ballistic missile submarine, was ordered
Page 029| away from its designated training area and
| was confirmed offshore of Shadow Moses
| Island. It joined an E-3C AWACS that had
| already and suddenly been deployed to the
| area, with none other than Jim Houseman, the
| National Security Advisors, aboard. Sixteen
| hours later, 6 F117 Night Hawks with full a
| payload took off from the Galena AFB for
| Alaska.
| Various theories were placed into circulation
Page 030| by the media at the time. Some journalists
| insisted it had been a foiled invasion
| attempt by a foreign state, other suspected a
| coup d'etat by a part of the U.S. military. I
| myself wrote an opinion piece for a magazine
| explaining that Shadow Moses was the Ellis
| Island for the "Greys." This diminutive grey
| race is after all the most famous of our alien
| neighbors, notorious for having secret bases
| all over planet Earth.
Page 031| But according to this file, we had all been
| off our marks.
| What had instead unfolded on Shadow
| Moses was the most major terrorist incident
| in history, and apocalyptic scenario born out of
| a government-developed superman project
| and a doomsday weapon of the same origin.
| On that fateful day, the nuclear weapons
| disposal plant on Shadow Moses had suddenly
| been seized by an irregular operations squad
Page 032| called "FOXHOUND", aided by a group of
| next-generation super-soldiers. And what
| they threatened was no less than a nuclear
| strike against the mainland United States!
| So how is it that we're still alive?
| Apparently we have a man known only as
| "Solid Snake" -- an his solitary infiltration
| of the disposal facility -- to thank for i.t
| Believe it or not, this is only the tip of
| the iceberg as far as the Shadow Moses incident
Page 033| is concerned. This disc contains many more
| horrifying facts such as a major government
| conspiracy, a classified weapon described
| as a "walking nuclear-capable tank", and
| advanced genetic manipulation projects. Many
| of these hidden dealings were discovered by
| Solid Snake as he carried out his mission, and
| it is now my job to relate these facts to you
| the readers.
| But it is still a little too premature to do
Page 034| so? The content of the disc may after all be
| nothing more than fiction, or even a delusion.
| After all, who exactly is this Nastasha
| Romanenko?
|
|
|
|
|
Page 035| IN SEARCH OF NASTASHA ROMANENKO
| A quick search of the Web turned up a few
| illuminating facts about this elusive writer.
| Nastasha Romanenko was at one point with
| the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency). At the
| time of the Shadow Moses incident, she
| appears to have been a freelance military
| analyst, having already resigned from the
| Agency. Nuclear and weapons technology
Page 036| would certainly be right up her alley, and in
| the disc she states that she took part in Solid
| Snake's mission support. Her exact role was
| as a member of NEST (Nuclear Emergency
| Search Team), providing field expertise via
| the radio. Her intimate involvement in the
| mission giver her a complete and clear grasp
| of the facts surrounding the case despite the
| government's successful cover-up.
Page 037| A look at Romanenko's curriculum vitae and
| body of papers makes her anti-nuclear stance
| more than obvious. That, along with all the
| other facts about this person, suggests that
| unless she suffered a sudden chemical
| imbalance or is plotting a second career as a
| Hollywood screenwriter, Nastasha Romanenko
| does not indulge in expounding conspiracy
| theories for its own sake.
| All very interesting. So where is Nastasha
Page 038| Romanenko now? I decided to give Global
| Elements Inc., the book's publisher a call.
| Below is a complete transcript of the
| conversation.
|
| Me: "Hello. Listen, you leftover carnival
| prize, what do you know about a woman
| named Nastasha Romanenko?"
| Whoever it was: "Hey, your village called.
| They want their idiot back. And watch
Page 039| your language, freak." Click.
|
| Clearly, they're hiding something. Why else
| the abrupt response and the hasty hang-up?
| I was on the trail of something important.
| Something dangerous. If the content of the
| disc was true, this Nastasha Romanenko was
| definitely the Woman-Who-Knew-Too-Much.
| Her life would be in danger, and she must
| either have gone to ground or was already
Page 040| dead. That brief telephone conversation spoke
| volumes: there was contract out on her life!
| If this was the price of speaking the truth as
| described in that disc, the picture was
| complete. But was everything she wrote really
| true?
| I went back to my apartment and packed a
| bag. I was headed for Shadow Moses.
|
|
Page 041| THE COLDEST PLACE
| I took a plane out to the northernmost
| domestic airport and went to see my cousin
| John-Dee.
| John-Dee is a hardcore Alaskan and a big-
| eye tuna fisherman. When I asked him to drop
| me off at Shadow Moses Island during one of
| his trips out to sea, he turned pale and a
| nervous tick started up at the corner of his
| eye.
Page 042| "Shadow Moses? Are you nuts? All the
| other guys say the place is crawling with the
| military. If you get even close to the shore
| they shine these huge searchlights in your
| face, and some of my buddies even got
| interrogated once!"
| I felt the sudden chill of fear along with a
| certainty that I was on the right track.
| "You're a wuss, you know that? Try being
| abducted by a UFO, that'll teach you what's
Page 043| really scary."
| "I got a family, you know? I'm not about to
| go messing around with The Man!"
| "OK, you get me as close as you can then.
| I'll swim the rest of the way."
| "Swim? You're gonna turn into frozen tuna
| treat."
| "Don't worry about that. I have an idea."
| We sailed out for Shadow Moses Island that
| day.
|
Page 044| THE TRIP TO SHADOW MOSES
| It was colder than the dairy section and the
| boat pitched like a subway derailment on
| caffeine. I shook constantly from the cold,
| retched peanut butter into the sea, then
| downed some more to keep warm. A few days
| passed in this pleasant fashion until John-
| Dee, drawing lines on his charts, turned to
| me.
| "I'm sorry man, but this as far as I can
Page 045| go. If you really want to do this thing, you're
| going to have to find your own way."
| There were at least 20 miles to Shadow
| Moses according to the charts. But John-Dee
| was already a blubbering wreck, and I didn't
| have the heart to strong-arm him. I steeled
| my nerves.
| "It's okay. Help me get ready."
| The plan was brilliant. I'd gutted a super-
| size tuna and stuffed some inflated balloons
Page 046| inside, along with a small oil lamp to keep the
| interior toasty. I would cover the length of my
| body with the fish and dog-paddle my way to
| the island. Any oxygen shortage could quickly
| be remedied thanks to the balloon, and my
| landing would appear to be nothing more than
| a large dead fish swept ashore. All I had to do
| was slip out of the tuna undetected and
| investigate the hell out of the place.
| Absolutely brilliant.
Page 047| I bore the fishy stink of the tuna skin with
| proper journalistic aplomb and walked to the
| edge of the ship's deck. The Arctic wind was
| numbing even through the wetsuit, but I bade
| John-Dee a hearty farewell and jumped into
| the sea. But right then, disaster struck!
| Actually it was the tuna spine. Its bony
| mass conked me hard on the back of my head
| from the force of the landing. I tried to right
| myself, but I was jammed tight against the
Page 048| balloons. The tuna started to sink rapidly, and
| I kicked my legs wildly as about a gallon of
| seawater rushed into my lungs. To add insult
| to injury, the lamp fell over, shedding its
| cover. I could feel the heat of the exposed
| flame dangerously close to my face, and smell
| the singed hair. This is why I hare traveling.
| But after what felt like hours, I found myself
| ashore on Shadow Moses Island.
|
Page 049| Let's take a moment here to review what
| happened on the island on that fateful day.
| Romanenko's disc provides a complete
| answer.
| Shadow Moses was no ordinary weapons
| disposal facility, but served as a secret
| military training ground among other things.
| On that day, the wetworks commando unit
| known as FOXHOUND and the next-generation
| Special Forces group were conducting joint
Page 050| exercises.
| FOXHOUND is an "irregular" squad of elite
| soldiers, equipped and armed to the teeth
| with the latest technology. There were longtime
| -- and strictly behind-the-scenes -- players
| throughout recent history, engaging in
| sabotage, selective assassinations and other
| covert military operations. Wherever the
| United States could not officially intervene,
| whether it was a civil war, regional unrest or
Page 051| other types of low-intensity conflict,
| FOXHOUND was there. It's unlikely, however,
| that an average citizen has ever heard of them
| before; these commandos remain a top-secret
| government project.
| And then there's the next-generation
| Special Forces unit. This is a cutting-edge
| anti-terrorist force newly organized to cope
| with terrorist incidents specifically involving
| weapons of mass destruction typified in
Page 052| nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare. They
| drew heavily from former mercenary ranks,
| and are on a diet of rigorous VR training
| guided by the FORCE 21 concept. The result is
| combat capability, which is rumored to
| surpass even those of the Delta Force and
| DEV GRU (formerly known as Seal Team 6).
| Most frightening of all, these soldiers have
| supposedly been manipulated at the genetic
| level to increase their combat performance.
Page 053| They were the purebreds among the dogs
| of war, and they turned on their masters with
| a surprising demand. Having seized the
| civilians that were on hand, they demanded
| that the government turn over to them the
| body of FOXHOUND's founder and combat
| genius, the so-called "Big Boss." The
| government had 24 hours to comply or
| a nuclear strike would be initiated. But what
| would motivate them to make such a demand,
Page 054| and how did they intend to make good their
| threat of a nuclear launch?
| With these questions still unanswered, the
| government decided on a seemingly reckless
| course of action. For this daunting task of
| stopping a nuclear strike and freeing the
| hostages from the clutches of these ultimate
| soldiers, they sent in a single man. His name
| was Solid Snake -- no other than a former
| member of the now-renegade FOXHOUND and
Page 055| a legend among mercenaries for single-
| handedly bringing down the fortress cities of
| Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land.
| Your reaction is probably one of incredulity.
| "Just one guy?" You may wonder. "They
| decided to gamble the future of the entire
| world on a single mercenary?"
| I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment.
| But there is more to this mission than meets
| the eye, as I was later to discover.
|
Page 056| SOLID SNAKE'S REMOTE SUPPORT TEAM
| Snake was delivered to the island by USS
| Discovery, an Ohio class ballistic missile
| submarine. He may have been the lone field
| operative, but there was a distinguished
| mission control team in contact with him by
| radio.
| The overall control of the mission rested
| with Colonel Roy Campbell aboard the USS
Page 057| Discovery. As a former commander of
| FOXHOUND and Snake's CO during the 1999
| Zanzibar Land standoff, he was forcibly called
| out from retirement to deal with this latest
| crisis.
| Also aboard the Discovery was Dr. Naomi
| Hunter, a genetic engineering expert with the
| commercial biotech firm ATGC Inc. She was in
| charge of FOXHOUND's gene manipulation
| program.
Page 058| Mei Ling, the architect of the mission's state-
| of-the-art radar and communication systems,
| was the third team member. Apparently
| something of an engineering wunderkind, she
| developed this next-generation communication
| technology while still as student at MIT. At the
| time of the mission, she may have still been in
| her teens.
| McDonnell Miller, a former FOXHOUND
| survival instructor, was the only land-bound
Page 059| member of the mission control team. Unlike
| the other four, Miller was working out of his
| home in Alaska at his own request.
| Lastly, Nastasha Romanenko, the author of
| "In the Darkness of Shadow Moses," rounded
| out the team as an expert on nuclear and
| other weapons of mass destruction.
|
|
Page 060| WHAT TERRORIST ACTS
| WERE COMITTED HERE?
| THE HOSTAGES AND WHAT THEY TELL US
| The first task faced by Solid Snake upon his
| infiltration of Shadow Moses Island was the
| rescue of the hostages. Two of the captives in
| particular were considered top-priority, but
| neither survived the mission. Though Snake
| successfully freed both men, they died
| suddenly in an identical manner. At the time,
Page 061| the mission control team tentatively attributed
| the deaths to heart attacks -- a diagnosis
| that was to prove starkly incorrect.
| The first hostage was Donald Anderson, the
| head of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research
| Projects Agency), the R&D body of the U.S.
| Department of Defense. The organization is
| responsible for planning and overseeing the
| development of new weapons technology.
| The other VIP hostage, Kenneth Baker, was
Page 062| the president of ArmsTech, one of the largest
| and most powerful defense subcontractors in
| the country.
| An overseer of the U.S.'s war technology
| and a powerful arms producer don't just
| happen to meet in an out-of-the-war military
| outpost. No one reading this account can fail
| to realize that these two had no business in a
| nuclear weapons disposal plant. And since
| neither Anderson nor Baker was in the habit
Page 063| of enjoying winter picnics, Romanenko's
| assertion that there was a new weapon
| secretly being developed on the island rings
| all the more true. According to her, there was
| indeed such a weapon, and it was close
| enough to completion to warrant a field test.
| But what exactly was this new weapon?
|
|
Page 064| THE MOTHER OF ALL WEAPONS
| Metal Gear. I'm not sure it's a term that
| many of you have heard. I know it only as a
| kind of a journalistic urban legend while I was
| still a beat reporter. It was a phantom bipedal
| tank that moved with unprecedented speed
| across difficult terrain such as mountains,
| desert and swamps, firing nuclear warheads
| from locations that were previously
| impossible. Once this weapon rolled off the
Page 065| assembly line, nuclear strikes could be made
| from almost any adverse terrain, and the
| tactical nuclear map for the whole world
| would be rewritten.
| This nuclear-capable bipedal tank is said to
| have lurked in the wings of both Outer Heaven
| of South Africa and Zanzibar Land in
| Central Asia. One theory holds that the
| development had progressed to a working
Page 066| prototype stage, but the weapon never
| materialized on the world arms stage. In a
| strange coincidence or a casual connection, it
| was none other than Solid Snake who saved
| the world from the threat of Metal Gear during
| both incidents.
| But history does indeed repeat itself, and
| the specter of Metal Gear rose once again --
| in the state-of-the-art weapons development
| program of Shadow Moses Island.
Page 067| When I reached this point in the narrative,
| I suddenly checked myself. Wasn't Metal
| Gear's time effectively over? Ever since the
| collapse of the Soviet Union late last century,
| the idea of mutual assured destruction and
| the arms race to maintain this dangerous
| status quo had been fading into obsolescence.
| The START2 treaty signed by both
| superpowers had already started to chip away
| at the nuclear stockpile even back then.
Page 068| In fact, the disposal facility at Shadow Moses
| had been built to disarm and temporarily store
| many of these same warheads. With the very
| idea of nuclear weapons under serious
| scrutiny, why would the military invest in the
| development of a nuclear-capable tank?
| Or was there something more to this
| weapon?
|
Page 069| THE NATURE OF THE BEAST
| Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you
| Metal Gear REX, the newest of its kind.
| Almost forty-five feet in height, equipped with
| Vulcan cannons and laser array and shielded
| by a cutting-edge composite armor, rendering
| the unit practically impervious to even HEAT
| (High Explosive Anti-Tank) warheads. And I
| haven't even gotten to the truly scary part of
| this thing.
Page 070| The crown jewel of this Shadow Moses
| Metal Gear was its rail gun technology. The
| gun was designed to fire nuclear warheads
| clear of the atmosphere, where they would
| automatically align themselves to the target
| and ride the optimal trajectory back down to
| Earth.
| "So what?" you may think. "There's a big
| fat missile flying in from the sky. Who cares
| where it came from? Just shoot the damn
Page 071| thing down." But here's the catch: You won't
| be able to find any of REX's warheads, let
| alone shoot them down. Don't believe me?
| The facts bear me out.
| Normally, ballistic missiles go through four
| phases from launch to impact. The first is the
| boost phase, which consists of the time
| between the missile's launch and the point at
| which it leaves the atmosphere and exhausts
| its supply of rocket propellant. Following the
Page 072| burnout, the rocket enters the post-boost
| pause that concludes with the separation of
| the reentry vehicle that contains the warhead.
| The third stage is the midcourse phase, in
| which the reentry vehicle separates and
| achieves a controlled descent back into the
| atmosphere. The warhead's reentry into the
| atmosphere and its arrival at the target mark
| the fourth and terminal phase.
| Current missile defense systems are
Page 073| alerted to incoming ballistic missiles by
| detecting the rocket burn during the missile's
| boost stage. However, Metal Gear's missile
| technology employs a rail gun rather than
| conventional rocket propulsion to achieve
| boost-stage acceleration. As a result, there is
| nothing for existing missile defense systems to
| detect.
| The rail gun's effectiveness is nothing short
| of amazing, with a range of over 3000 miles,
Page 074| rivaling that of mid-range ballistic missiles.
| It reliably homes in within 170 feet of the
| target 50% of the time, placing it in the same
| class as high-end ICBM's. The ability of a
| Metal Gear to conquer virtually all terrain
| means that the rail gun can launch a stealthy
| nuclear strike from almost any spot on the
| globe.
| This invisible attack would make it
| impossible for anyone to pinpoint the origin of
Page 075| a given missile even in the event of a strike.
| Without a clear aggressor to retaliate against,
| the concept of mutual assured destruction falls
| apart. Without the fear of MAD, the existing
| rules of nuclear non-engagement would no
| longer apply.
| It also wouldn't matter if the whole world
| knew that a nuclear missile would be launched
| from Shadow Moses Island; the missile
| defense system was helpless against the new
Page 076| breed of ballistic missiles. This was exactly
| what the terrorists counted on in unleashing
| Metal Gear REX and its all-powerful nuclear
| weapon against the world.
|
|
|
|
|
Page 077| WHAT I FINALLY SAW INSIDE THE FORTRESS
| Anyway.
| I trudged through the cave, sweating under
| the weight of my trusty tuna. Soon, the rocks
| gave way to smooth walls and a row of bright
| lights. I had finally arrived -- this was no
| doubt the cradle of insurrections, that military
| facility which Solid Snake so brilliantly
| penetrated, the eye of the storm that
| threatened to engulf the world!
Page 078| Fortunately, there was not a soul to be
| seen. I could, however, hear a faint cry
| amidst the whistle of the wind.
| "Gary, help me -- "
| I couldn't believe my ears. How could
| anyone on a remote island that I'd never
| visited know my name? I took a good
| cautious look around and saw a familiar
| figure among the steel pillars in the corner.
| It was -- John Dee!
Page 079| My cousin, who'd so carelessly pitched me
| overboard into the subzero water only few
| hours ago, was now sitting on the ground, tied
| to a post. What had happened?
| "Help, Gary -- "
| I trotted over to where he was calling
| pathetically, the tuna heavy on my back. He
| smiled weakly when he saw me.
| "What the hell happened to you, John-
| Dee?" I asked, crouching down next to
Page 080| him.
| "I dunno. Right after I let you off, this black
| helicopter came around."
| "A helicopter?"
| "Yeah. A kind of squarish black one. The
| next thing I know, I'm tied up here... Gary,
| why're you still wearing that fish?"
| Was there more to this as I'd suspected?
| Who was responsible? The military? Or that
| mysterious group mentioned in the disc, the
Page 081| one whose authority outstrips even that of the
| President of the United States?
| My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden
| gunfire. I instinctively pulled the tuna over me
| again.
| "Gary, you gotta help me! Untie me, will
| ya!?"
| Where was the shooter? The bullets were
| wildly ricocheting off the posts, making it
| impossible for me to pinpoint the origin.
Page 082| If I stayed put, I was dead meat. What should
| be my next course of action?
| "Untie me, man! Gary!"
| "Don't call me Gary! I'm just a tuna!" I
| started to run, dodging bullets and sprinting
| up the stairs. I was unstoppable, speeding
| away like a gazelle in a large fishskin.
| Farewell, cousin John-Dee. There are
| responsibilities greater than your safety that I
| must shoulder. Mine is a high and lonely path.
|
Page 083| SOLID SNAKE VS. THE ARMY OF DARKNESS
| Let's take this moment to review Solid
| Snake's footsteps. The nuclear weapons
| disposal facility that he had infiltrated was
| crawling with terrorists, and engaging the
| enemy was unavoidable. This was a
| battlefield, no mistake about it.
| Snake's progress had been impeded at
| every step by the patrolling squads of super-
| "genome soldiers," and such formidable
Page 084| FOXHOUNDs as Psycho Mantis, the master of
| psychokinesis and mindreading, the chameleon
| -like Decoy Octopus, the chaingun-wielding
| giant Vulcan Raven, and Sniper Wolf, one of
| the best marksman in history. The following is
| a profile of individuals whose involvement with
| the government conspiracy seems to be the
| most intimate. The information should help
| make the terrifying truth about this case
| more clear.
Page 085| - Revolver Ocelot
| An ex-Spetznaz, also known as
| "Shalashaska." After the collapse of the
| Soviet Union, he found lucrative contracts
| as a mercenary in conflict-ridden regions
| throughout the world. His activities led to his
| recruitment by the U.S. government, and
| his entry into FOXHOUND. As his code name
| indicates, he is a brilliant marksman whose
| preferred weapon is a revolver.
Page 086| Ocelot challenged Snake when he came
| looking for Kenneth Baker, the President of
| ArmsTech Inc. But the battle never reached
| the conclusion Ocelot wanted due to the
| sudden intrusion of the stealth camouflage-
| clad cyborg-Ninja. The Ninja's sword cut a
| deadly arc right through Ocelot's right arm,
| and Ocelot retreated in agony.
| The Russian sharpshooter also served as a
| liaison between his terrorist band and a
Page 087| Russian militia led by the renegade Colonel
| Gurlukovich. According to FOXHOUND leader
| Liquid Snake's master plan, the Russian militia
| would join them on Shadow Moses after the
| nuclear strike had been launched. They would
| then commence and all-out assault on the rest
| of the world from their safe retreat on the
| island. With nuclear missiles that could neither
| be detected nor defended against, over a
| thousand first-class Russian soldiers, next-
Page 088| generation genome commandos and the
| combat skill and tactical cunning of
| FOXHOUND, this new army's objective was
| nothing short of World War III.
|
|
|
|
|
Page 089| - The Ninja
| The mystery figure equipped with a
| reinforced exoskeleton and stealth camouflage
| confounded Snake as well as the terrorists
| with his superhuman strength and agility. His
| interest seems not to have been what was
| happening within the facility; evidence
| suggests that he was there solely to engage
| Snake in battle. It was through such an
| encounter that Snake realized the identity of
Page 090| the Ninja.
| His name had been Gray Fox, and he was
| supposed to have been killed by Snake, his
| best friend. This may seem surprising, but the
| dead coming back tom life is a fairly routine
| occurrence. There are examples throughout
| the world to prove the fact. When a Roland
| Grace's grave was relocated in 1952, there
| were deep gouge marks discovered on the
| inside of the Hungarian farmer's casket lid.
Page 091| It looked as though the dying man had tried to
| claw his way out of the coffin. On a brighter
| note, a Japanese man called Jin-emon
| Natakama walked out of a stalactite cave in
| 1914, a full ten years after he had gone
| missing while exploring the same cave. His
| family was doubly astonished to discover that
| he had apparently not aged a day since they
| last saw him. All this makes complete sense to
| me, and it should to you as well in a moment.
Page 092| Two words: pyramid power. I have no doubt
| that Gray Fox was forced to undergo the same
| revival process by military scientists in the
| course of their horrific genetic experiments.
|
|
|
|
|
Page 093| - Liquid Snake
| I know exactly what you are thinking as you
| hear the name of the man who led the Shadow
| Moses uprising -- and my answer is yes.
| Solid Snake, our hero, and Liquid Snake are
| none other than twin brothers.
| They are not, however, twins in the usual
| sense. This is yet another manifestation of the
| U.S. military's dangerous love affair with
| genetic engineering. The two Snakes are
Page 094| fighting machines created through the
| so-called Project "Les Enfants Terribles"!
| The rumors that the government is
| attempting "mass-production" of super-
| solders are numerous and persistent. Just the
| other day, I came across something called
| "D-People-E-O," a humanoid combat droid.
| Development on the outer shell had gone off
| without a hitch, but the unit had to have a
| human being inside to function, which
Page 095| decreased its utility somewhat. The military
| finally realized the fact late in the game, and
| pulled the plug. There was also a plan to use
| a well-known psychokinetic's DNA material to
| breed an army of gifted soldiers.
| Unfortunately, someone pointed out that there
| is indeed no spoon -- at least not in a normal
| combat situation.
| Solid and Liquid Snakes, however, were
| successfully created from their "father" Big
Page 096| Boss' genetic material. They were literally
| born to be extraordinary soldiers, and it was
| no surprise that when they finally met, the
| result would be a titanic confrontation.
|
|
|
|
|
Page 097| WHAT I SAW ON THE ROOF
| I hauled myself and the tuna up the steps,
| dodging the invisible sniper. The spiral
| staircase seemed to go on forever. Just as I
| was about to give up the climb, I saw the exit
| to the roof.
| I pulled open the door and lurched into the
| faintly lit gloom. The subzero wind felt
| soothing on my overworked body. I laid the
| tuna down and sat down next to it, trying to
Page 098| catch my breath. The enemy may purse me
| even here, but I had nothing left in me to run
| with.
| I pulled out my hip flask of peanut-butter-
| and-bourbon, and took a long swig. The fiery
| liquid slid down my throat, hot and thick.
| Peanut butter is my Waterloo. When I was a
| kid, I was a wuss who couldn't eat peanut
| butter like other red-blooded children.
| One day, I decided to confront this weakness
Page 099| of mine, and put myself on a peanut butter
| overload; anything I put in my mouth had to
| have peanut butter on it. I piled the stuff on
| everything from chilidogs without onions --
| my favorite dish -- to spearmint gun to my
| first girlfriend's lips.
| The inevitable result was that I came to hate
| peanut butter. If I didn't much like it before, I
| now loathed it with abandon. If I could gather
| the entire world supply of peanut butter and
Page 100| dump it in the Bermuda Triangle, I would.
| As it is, all I can do is eat as much of the
| stuff as I can. Peanut butter, I will always hate
| you.
| How does that song go?
| "And I-ai-ai will always hate you-u-U-u"
| No, that's not it.
| "Will always -- "
| It must be another song I'm thinking of.
| Can't remember. Snow is starting to coat my
Page 101| shoes.
| Where was my tuna? Oh, there it is, right
| next to me.
| Bright light in my eye. Now I remember
| what day it is -- June 24th. The anniversary
| of my UFO abduction. Why am I so sleepy?
| And what is that sound?
| It was a chopper. A squarish black one, and
| it was coming closer.
|
Page 102| FOXDIE --
| THE SECRET ASSASSINATION VIRUS
| If you recall, I wrote that the two hostages
| -- the DARPA chief Donald Anderson and
| ArmsTech president Kenneth Baker -- died of
| a heart attack while they were being rescued
| by Solid Snake. The actual cause of their
| death, however, was a specially engineered
| assassination virus called FOXDIE.
| FOXDIE is a retrovirus that kills only a
Page 103| select people; its development was passed
| onto Naomi Hunter from her predecessor.
| Once FOXDIE find its way into its target's
| system, the person dies almost immediately.
| It's practically a viral equivalent of
| spontaneous human combustion.
| Dr. Hunter had injected Solid Snake with
| this virus, and as he unwittingly made contact
| with his targets one by one, they fell prey to
| the retrovirus' power. But the decision to
Page 104| infect Snake was not hers -- that order in fact
| came directly from the Pentagon!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Page 105| THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT'S GOAL
| The true object of the DOD was to
| selectively assassinate the perpetrators of the
| terrorist uprising. All Snake had to do was to
| come into contact with the targets; the mission
| objectives he was actually given --
| namely to stop the nuclear launch and rescue
| the hostages -- were nothing more than a
| smoke screen. By simply sending Snake in as
| a disease vector, the Pentagon stood to
Page 106| reclaim their expensive investments,
| Metal Gear and the bodies of the genome
| soldiers, with little risk of damage.
| The Pentagon also believed that FOXDIE
| would successfully cover up the incident by
| the virtue of its lethality. However, Naomi
| Hunter's reengineering of the virus cast grave
| doubts on the reliability of FOXDIE itself. Even
| though the nature of her manipulation was
Page 107| unknown, the Pentagon decided to take
| extreme measures to counteract this
| development.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Page 108| THE BOMBER ON THE HORIZON
| Alarmed by the news of Dr. Hunter's
| tampering, the then-Defense Secretary Jim
| Houseman personally took over as the
| mission's commander and headed for Shadow
| Moses on an AWACS. Around the same time, a
| bomber took off from a base in Galena,
| Alaska, carrying a payload of surface-piercing
| B61-13 tactical missile. The Defense
| Secretary had decided on a more direct
Page 109| approach to cover-up.
| Fighting nuke with nuke -- it was a
| rationale that smacked of a return to the arms
| race, and Snake was furious. He had already
| succeeded in destroying Metal Gear REX, and
| the terrorist incident was over for all intents
| and purposes. Was a nuclear air strike to be
| his prize for accomplishing all this?
| As it turned out, the air strike never
| happened. Somebody had countermanded
Page 110| Jim Houseman's orders. You may think that
| the only person with the authority to override
| the orders of the Secretary of Defense was his
| commander-in-chief, the President of the
| United States. But like most things in this
| account, the truth is far from obvious. The
| hand that stopped the nuclear strike was that
| of a shadowy secret society!
| But what kind of a group is it whose power
| outstrips even that of the American
Page 111| Presidency?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Page 112| THE FACE OF THE ENEMY
| When I came to, I was sitting in a weather
| station cabin with a burlap sack on my head
| and my hands tied behind my back. So this is
| the way it ends, I thought dimly. I haul myself
| all the way out to this pimple on the Arctic
| and died at the hands of an invisible
| executioner without finding out a thing.
| One of my captors moved in closer and
| started to rummage through my inside chest
Page 113| pocket. I cursed inwardly; this was where I
| carried Nastasha Romanenko's disc, the entire
| account of the Shadow Moses inside! My
| policy is, the best way to ensure that
| something doesn't get stolen is to have it with
| you at all times. Clearly, I needed to
| re-evaluate that one.
| The man easily found and seized the disc.
| "What is this?" He demanded.
| "Whatever it is, it's worth more than you."
Page 114| I responded with as much menace and dignity
| as the burlap on my head allowed.
| "Well, well, that is something..."
| What followed was both highly tedious and
| painful, and nothing of great significance was
| said until that electrifying statement, "We have
| the disc back."
|
| We've now come full circle since the start if
| my account, and caught up to the point where
Page 115| it originated. it was unclear how the disc had
| gotten to Max Smithson at MEGASURPRISE,
| but my captor's words indicated that the disc
| had originally belonged to them. Either that,
| or they were the ones who wanted it the most
| urgently. I took my courage in my hands and
| opened a dialogue with them.
| "You, you guys happen to be that secret
| society whose power outstrips even that of the
| American Presidency? Answer me, you
Page 116| artificial coloring on a cheap drugstore candy
| cane!"
| This had the exact effect I'd hoped for,
| namely to send them into a violent fit of rage.
| I must have hit pretty close to home. The
| contents of the disc were as good as verified
| -- this was indeed the secret society whose
| power outstripped even that of the American
| Presidency! In my delight, I hardly paid
| attention to the obscenities that were being
Page 117| screamed at me, nor to the distinct sound of a
| gun being pulled out of its holster.
| It was then that the cabin suddenly erupted
| into controlled chaos. It seemed only seconds
| from the time the window was smashed in to
| the moment I realized that my captors had
| been decimated and I was alone with my
| savior.
| Who was this human whirlwind? I was
| ready to lose my lunch from the curiosity and
Page 118| the terror. I could taste the peanut butter in
| my mouth, I could hear the enigma walk up to
| me, and lift the burlap sack off my head.
| I concentrated on the hammering of my heart
| for a moment, then slowly looked up.
| There was nobody there.
| I could see nothing, sense nothing. But
| someone was untying the ropes biting into my
| wrists. Invisible hands place themselves on
| either side of my head in a strange parody of
Page 119| a coronation. They deftly removed the
| bandanna I had earlier fashioned into a clumsy
| bandage for my bruised head; the faded
| piece of cloth was not my own, but a flotsam
| found on the beach. I reached for the unseen
| figure with my shaking hands, but with one
| quick flick of the bandanna, it was gone.
| But there were more surprises to come.
| As I gingerly moved my stiff body, I felt an
| unfamiliar bulk against my chest, and
Page 120| discovered the precious optical disc,
| miraculously recovered. Not only that, but
| there were enough backup copies to fill me
| with awe and pop the stitches on my flimsy
| pocket.
| I thought of my mysterious savior:
| possessed of superhuman fighting ability,
| invisible, and capable of burning discs in an
| instant. There was only one possible
| explanation.
Page 121| He had to be an alien, probably the little
| gray kind.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Page 122| LIFE AFTER SHADOW MOSES
| And so I came in from the cold to my hole
| of an apartment in New York, my trusty tuna
| beside me. The landlord mentioned that my
| neighbor, the starving student, had gone
| missing recently. It could be that I was nosing
| around the wrong information from his
| machine. if I ever see him alive again, I should
| apologize.
| I am currently banging out this manuscript
Page 123| on an antique typewriter. This is the truth as
| described on the optical disc, and as
| elaborated and verified by my own
| experiences on that fearsome island.
| As this account draws to a close,
| my thoughts dwell more and more on
| Nastasha Romanenko, the woman who risked
| everything by recording the facts of the
| incident onto this disc. I think it was her way
| of giving voice to the victims of this mission,
Page 124| the casualties of nuclear weapons throughout
| modern history, and to all the lives disrupted
| and damaged by an elaborate government
| conspiracy. Her will was passed onto a
| counterculture journalist in New York City --
| that's me -- and the truth is now out there for
| all to see, just as she dreamed. Readers, the
| responsibility to disseminate the facts of the
| Shadow Moses incident is now yours.
| What will YOU risk to know the truth?
|
Page 125| PUBLISHERS AFTERWORD
| This nonfiction work was based on the
| factual account written by Nastasha
| Romanenko, a military analyst who allegedly
| took part in a secret mission to counter a
| terrorist incident on Alaska's Shadow Moses
| Island. Her account was published in its
| original, unabridged form as "In the Darkness
| of Shadow Moses" after the successful
| publication of this volume.
Page 126| Gary McGolden, the author, is a journalist
| and a nonfiction writer who is best known for
| his past bestseller, "The Telekinetic Powers
| of the Lock Ness Monster - The True Energy
| Source of UFOs". The details of McGolden's
| adventures on Shadow Moses remain
| uncorroborated, but there are serious doubts
| as to his tuna-aided landing on the island.
| There is in fact ample evidence that he was
| swept out to another small island several
Page 127| miles south of Shadow Moses and failed to
| realize that fact.
| McGolden has seemingly vanished into thin
| air following his manuscript's arrival at our
| humble offices. While this has been a source
| of great pleasure to our accounting
| department, I sincerely hope that this
| notoriously fickle but talented writer is hard at
| work on a follow-up to this volume.
Page 128| Though certain aspects of the book require
| further fact-checking, this alone should not
| dissuade you of the veracity of many of its
| main assertions, nor should you dismiss the
| contents of Nastasha Romanenko's disc
| outright. Instead readers should approach
| this account with an open mind and a sense of
| adventure, much as Gary McGolden did when
| he first received the disc in the mail.
| I should note, however, that Gary was
Page 129| mistaken about one thing. I never mailed him
| that disc.
|
| Max Smithson, Editor-in-Chief
| MEGASURPRISE Magazine
|
|
|
|
- In the Darkness of Shadow Moses: The Unofficial Truth
-----------------------------------------------------
Page 001| I dedicate this book to the casualties of
| Shadow Moses as well as to all those who
| suffered the tyranny of the nuclear weapons
| -- and to Richard Ames.
|
|
| Nastasha Romanenko
|
|
|
Page 002| PROLOGUE
| Shadow Moses Island: XX XX N, XX XX W
| Even the local fishermen rarely venture to
| this outcropping of land. Yet the incident of
| all incidents took place on this remote isle,
| north of Alaska's Fox Islands. A number of
| confirmed facts undermine the U.S. govern-
| ment's denial of the entire affair. Among those
| are the sudden appearance of the Ohio-class
| nuclear submarine USS Discovery off Shadow
Page 003| Moses, far away from its designated position,
| and an official record that shows that a
| squadron of six fully-armed F117 Nighthawks
| departed from Galena Air Force base for
| Alaska a scant sixteen hours later. In another
| possibly related event, and E-3C AWACS on
| emergency deployment to the Alaska area is
| said to have had none other than the then-
| National Security Advisor Jim Houseman as
| its on-board VIP.
Page 004| What exactly happened on Shadow Moses?
| There was no lack of rumors to account for
| this series of unusual military activities: an
| armed incursion, a coup attempt by a branch
| of the military and other theories made its way
| to the public table. I can state unequivocally
| that none of them came close to the truth.
| What actually took place was the single
| greatest terrorist incident in modern history.
| It was an act of political violence on a scale
Page 005| the world had never seen, a blow that
| threatened to send the Damocles' sword
| of nuclear warfare into a free-fall. Most
| significant of all, the attack stemmed from
| several so-called 'Black Projects' which
| the U.S. government had been conducting
| in top secret, away from public scrutiny.
|
| I have in my hand two optical discs. One
| contains the entire record of events that took
Page 006| place on Shadow Moses Island that fateful
| day; the takeover of a nuclear weapons
| disposal plant by an armed group. Other
| key points of this incredible record are:
| - The identification of the perpetrators as
| the government's own genetically-enhanced
| next-generation commandos and a covert
| special forces squad, FOXHOUND, with a
| long dark history of secret intervention
| - The existence of one Metal Gear REX, a
Page 007| bipedal nuclear-capable tank whose deve-
| lopment was one of the most classified
| projects of all time
| - The discovery of a massive government
| conspiracy
| - The activities of a former FOXHOUND
| operative who single-handedly took on this
| daunting situation and averted the crisis, a
| man who is known only by his code name:
| Solid Snake
Page 008| The other remaining disc holds the details
| of Project FOXDIE, a massive cover-up, which
| the U.S. government planned and executed in
| order to prevent exposure. There are, after
| all, forces within the U.S. government who
| seek to maintain the military power structure
| established in the last century, and will not
| hesitate to resuscitate the terror of nuclear
| arms in order to achieve that end.
| My intent is to expose their activity, and
Page 009| the entirety of the Shadow Moses Affair,
| through this book. Only then can we hope
| to free the coming generations from the
| damnosa hereditas of the 20th-century
| nuclear arms race.
|
|
|
|
|
Page 010| I looked up from the mass of documents at
| the sound of the doorbell. On the monitor in
| front of me was a half-finished status report
| on the resurgence of nuclear arms
| development in a certain Middle Eastern state.
| The UNSCOM (United Nations Special
| Commission) had officially requested a survey
| by the UN weapons inspectors, and had been
| refused entry; tensions were once again
| running high in the Gulf. As a military analyst
Page 011| whose specialty was nuclear arms, I was
| under contract from a think tank to produce a
| study of the situation. It was due the day after
| the next, and interruptions were definitely not
| welcome. I ground out my cigarette in the
| ashtray and stepped out of the study.
| All visitors to my house are checked via
| a surveillance camera and then let in through
| the heavy gate. The property itself is
| surrounded by a high wall. It may seem like
Page 012| overkill for a beach community, but security is
| a necessity in greater Los Angeles, if only to
| keep out the legion of swimsuit-clad tourists.
| However, there was nobody to be seen at
| the gate. It was either a prank, or the camera
| was malfunctioning.
| Reluctant to investigate but feeling unsettled
| nevertheless, I headed back to the study and
| sat back down at the computer to continue my
| work. Just then, someone spoke behind me.
Page 013| "You always were a little careless."
| I spun around, kicking my chair over. There
| was a man standing at the entrance of the
| study, slouching in a well-tailored suit.
| "Richard!"
| He caught my eye and grinned. Ignoring my
| surprise, he strolled into the room, gazing
| around at the pile of books and papers.
| "And still as disorganized as ever."
| He shrugged his shoulders in a familiar
Page 014| gesture, triggering a wave of memories laced
| with bitterness.
|
| Richard Ames and I were married, once
| upon a time. We were both young, and
| working for the DIA (Defense Intelligence
| Agency). We spent much of our brief marriage
| in disagreement over virtually every issue, and
| just as I come to realize that our union was
| a mistake, he disappeared from my life.
Page 015| A while later, I received the paperwork for
| divorce from his lawyer. There was a generous
| alimony offer involved, which I refused. Not
| only did I find the thought of owing him
| anything intolerable, I also wanted to prove
| that he was not the only one who could walk
| away without an explanation. The divorce was
| finalized without us ever meeting face-to-face,
| and we were legally strangers once again. In
| the fire years since, I quit the DIA and became
Page 016| a freelance analyst. I had not seen Richard at
| all, nor even heard of his whereabouts.
|
| "How did you get in here?" I demanded.
| After all, attempting to scale the wall or force
| the front door would immediately trigger the
| security system. But he refused to be ruffled.
| "If you're going to use a flimsy lock like that,
| may as well not bother. I'd recommend a more
| professional security setup."
Page 017| "Does the term 'breaking and entering' mean
| anything to you, Richard?"
| "You know law isn't my field of expertise,"
| he replied nimbly and peered over my
| shoulder at the report on the computer
| display.
| "Radio isotope projectile separator...
| uranium-235 production feasibility for high-
| speed gas centrifuge... This must be about
| that Middle East nuke development. Look like
Page 018| your career is going well. That's great."
| I pushed Richard aside and asked him flatly.
| "What do you want?"
| He took a step back and regarded me with
| a slightly mischievous smile.
| "What, you afraid I came back to give us
| another chance?" He let the silence linger as
| if to relish my reaction. Then, suddenly formal,
| he continued, "It's an official request from the
| DIA."
Page 019| He place a folder on the desk. "I'm asking
| for your cooperation as a member of NEST."
| NEST stands for Nuclear Emergency Search
| Team, a group that operates on the Depart-
| ment of Energy budget. It was established in
| 1974 to provide technological support to the
| FBI in areas of intelligence, investigation, site
| securement, damage containment, and medical
| response during incidents involving criminal
| threats of nuclear weapon use. Call it a band
Page 020| of experts on nuclear terrorism, if you will.
| NEST consists of independently contracted
| scientists from federally funded research
| entities like Los Alamos and Lawrence
| Licermore, and military specialists from groups
| dealing with nuclear arms issues. I happen to
| be one of the latter group.
| Richard was opening the file folder. "You've
| heard of Shadow Moses Island, I assume."
| I nodded assent. I had indeed heard of the
Page 021| remote place, north of Alaska's Fox Islands.
| Though it was hardly public knowledge, the
| island was home to a nuclear weapons
| disposal facility
|
| According to the terms of the START2
| (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), the total
| number of tactical nuclear warheads owned by
| the U.S. and Russia were reduced to some-
| where between 3000 and 3500 in the later
Page 022| decades of the twentieth century. The outcome
| was a massive number of warheads in need of
| disposal when there was already a shortage of
| storage space for radioactive materials. As a
| result, warheads had to be kept somewhere
| before they could be dismantled and their
| radioactive elements extracted for long-term
| storage. The Shadow Moses facility was the
| answer. It was the crystallization of the forces
| of nuclear proliferation, political engineering
Page 023| that gives preference to delaying a solution
| rather than producing one and a hidden
| military agenda to preserve what it could of
| the old nuclear stockpile.
|
| Richard took out several photographs from
| the folder and handed them to me. They all
| appeared to be satellite captures of the
| nuclear weapons disposal plant on Shadow
| Moses Island, perhaps acquired from the NRO
Page 024| (National Reconnaissance Office). There were
| multiple human figures around the building
| structures.
| Richard broke the silence.
| "The disposal plant was seized by terror-
| ists." I looked up sharply at the news, but his
| next words left me speechless.
| "And the ringleaders are FOXHOUND
| members."
|
Page 025| An "irregular" team of the best commandos
| the military has to offer, armed with cutting-
| edge technology. That was FOXHOUND. The
| best of the best, and completely unknown to
| the public they ostensibly serve. Their function
| was to intervene in the kind of low-intensity
| conflicts the U.S. could not officially touch.
| They were the shadow soldiers of numerous
| regional conflicts and civil wars, shaping
| history with sabotage, selective assassination
Page 026| and other covert acts of war.
|
| Richard had more to say. "It's not just
| FOXHOUND that's involved in this. FOXHOUND
| was conducting joint exercises with the next-
| generation special forces, and they're a part
| of the takeover as well."
|
| The next-generation special forces is
| an aggressive anti-terrorism squad deployed
Page 027| to counter acts of political violence involving
| weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear,
| biological and chemical warfare methods. The
| combat philosophy is derived from the one
| used for Force 21, and most of the recruits
| come from a mercenary background. The men
| are intensively trained in VR environment, and
| their combat capability is estimated to be well
| beyond even those of Delta Force or the Night
| Stalkers. While the government categorically
Page 028| denies the accusation, there are persistent
| rumors that the men have been genetically
| enhanced to increase tactical advantage.
| FOXHOUND and the next-generation special
| forces. They were without a doubt the most
| skilled group of fighting men produced by the
| U.S., and they had hijacked a nuclear arsenal.
| Richard had more bad news.
| "There are also civilian hostages involved.
| Two of them happen to be the DARPA chief,
Page 029| Donald Anderson, and Kenneth Baker, the
| president of ArmsTech, Inc."
| The Defense Advanced Research Projects
| Agency is the research satellite of the U.S.
| Defense Department, charged with planning
| and leading the development of new weapons
| technology; AT happens to be one of the top
| three defense contractors in the country.
| There is no such thing as a coincidence,
| especially the kind that involves the head
Page 030| of those two organizations meeting in an
| out-of-way nuclear weapons disposal plant.
| I decided to be direct with Richard.
| "There was something going on in that
| 'disposal' facility, I take it? Let me guess --
| a demonstration of a new weapon."
| "How should I know? Shadow Moses is also
| a prime Northern Lights observation locale,
| you know." Whatever Richard knew, he wasn't
| telling. But his evasiveness only confirmed my
Page 031| suspicions. Whatever was going on, this was
| no ordinary terrorist incident. With that in
| mind, I moved onto another point.
| "What are their demands?"
| "They want a body. Not just any corpse
| though -- they want FOXHOUND's founder,
| Big Boss. Legendary soldier, best fighting man
| of the twentieth century, the whole works."
| "His body? Why would they want something
| like that so badly?"
Page 032| "No idea, but unless they have it within 24
| hours, they'll launch a nuclear strike," Richard
| glanced at the watch coolly, "So we have
| about 19 hours."
| "You don't seem too worried."
| "The DOD is already working on the
| situation."
| Just as I'd suspected. Richard always has a
| plan in place and the machinery in motion
| before opening up to someone else. All he
Page 033| asks from others is approval after the fact.
| "Shadow Moses is completely locked
| down. We had to rule out deploying an entire
| assault team. Instead, we're inserting a single
| operative to free the hostages and prevent
| the nuclear strike."
| "Impossible."
| "Possible -- for Solid Snake."
| Solid Snake...! The former FOXHOUND, a
| legend among mercenaries for single-handedly
Page 034| bringing down the fortress cities of Outer
| Heaven and Zanzibar Land. Yes, with Solid
| Snake in the picture, there was a possibility of
| success. But still...
| "USS Discovery, an Ohio-class nuclear
| submarine, is already in place with Snake
| aboard."
| So the plan was already a go. I looked
| Richard in the eye and held his gaze.
| "And what do I have to do with all this?"
Page 035| He grinned. "Snake may be a legend, but he
| knows jack about nuclear weapons. Which is
| why I'm asking you to be a part of mission
| support. We'll have you set up in no time."
| Right on cue, two men started to move a
| large piece of hardware, apparently communi-
| cation equipment, into the study. Richard
| nodded towards the bulky load.
| "I'd like you to be available to Snake for
| consultation via satellite linkup."
Page 036| As soon as the equipment was in place, an
| engineer type started to make adjustments. I
| could see another group of men setting up a
| satellite dish in the backyard. They were all in
| civilian clothes, but not a few of them had the
| build and the oddly-fitting jacket that marked
| them as armed military personnel. Clearly,
| refusal was not an option.
| But there was still something that puzzled
| me. NEST has a small investigative team, SRT,
Page 037| on standby at all times for immediate
| response. They were stationed at Nellis AFB in
| Las Vegas, just over in Nevada. Clearly, they
| were the natural choice for this assignment.
| And if not the SRT, the DIA also had a number
| of qualified nuclear weapon specialists.
| Richard had started to direct his men on
| where to set up the equipment, but I inter-
| rupted him.
| "Why me?"
Page 038| He turned and answered without missing
| a beat.
| "I need people I can trust. There's too much
| at stake."
| It was a lie. The Richard Ames I knew
| trusted no one. But it was clear that whatever
| the reason, he did not intend to tell me.
| "It's a good thing I was in. What would you
| have done if I weren't?"
| "You have to be somewhere. We would have
Page 039| located you."
| "I'm sure you would have."
| "So are you in?"
| I took a deep breath. "Of course."
| I don't enjoy being a pawn, especially
| Richard's, but I had no intention of standing by
| while nuclear terrorism was in progress. A
| nuclear strike takes an untold number of lives,
| all in a blink of an eye, Adults and infants,
| women and men, it kills indiscriminately. If
Page 040| there was a chance that I could do something
| to stay the hand on the nuclear button, I had
| to do it.
| "So everything is set..." Richard slapped a
| fist into the other palm.
|
| "Insertion was a success. Snake is on
| Shadow Moses." Richard walked into the
| study with the update he'd just received from
| one of his men.
Page 041| The study was almost unrecognizable,
| thanks in part to the racks of communication
| hardware. Cables snaked across every square
| inch of available space, and engineers and DIA
| agents were coming and going in controlled
| chaos. The place looked like what in now
| was -- a temporary mission control room.
| Richard laid a hand on my shoulder.
| "You should be hearing from him soon.
| You're clear on how to use the radio?" I
Page 042| nodded assent.
|
| While the engineers were busy setting up
| the equipment, I had been briefed on its use
| as well as the mission.
| Snake had been delivered to the general
| area of Shadow Moses Island by USS
| Discovery, and Ohio-class nuclear submarine.
| He was then ejected from the submarine on a
| swimmer delivery vehicle (SDV), which he
Page 043| abandoned once within the range of under-
| water listening devices located near the
| disposal plant. He would swim the rest of the
| way, in the freezing cold Bering Sea water.
| This last leg of the insertion struck me as
| nothing short of suicidal until I learned that
| Solid Snake was outfitted with a state-of-the-
| art sneaking suit and had been injected with a
| compound designed to prevent the onset of
| hypothermia. In addition, while Snake would
Page 044| be the only field operative involved, he would
| be in radio contact with a support team during
| much of the mission.
| The members of this support team drew
| from a wide range of backgrounds. The
| mission control officer was Colonel Roy
| Campbell, who would remain aboard the USS
| Discovery. I knew him by reputation alone. He
| was a former FOXHOUND commander, and
| Solid Snake's CO during the quelling of the
Page 045| 1999 Zanzibar Land uprising. He had retired
| soon after, but from the looks of things, he
| had been called out of retirement for this
| mission.
| Dr. Naomi Hunter, a genetic engineering
| expert on a temporary assignment from the
| gentech giant ATGC, was also on the team.
| She had apparently been leading the bio-
| engineering program for FOXHOUND. Richard
| matter-of-factly confirmed that both FOX-
Page 046| HOUND and the next-generation special forces
| had been undergoing genetic manipulation to
| enhance their combat capability. I have a diffi-
| cult time grasping what we have come to --
| modifying a person's essential genetic struc-
| ture for the sake of creating a better soldier.
| Also aboard the Discovery was Mei Ling,
| the inventor of the new radar and communi-
| cation system deployed for this mission. She
| was something of an engineering wunderkind,
Page 047| an MIT student who managed to turn the
| current protocol of secure communication
| completely on its head.
| The last of the support team was McDonnell
| Miller, a former survival instructor for FOX-
| HOUND. Unlike the rest of us, he had
| volunteered his services upon receiving news
| of the incident on Shadow Moses. Like myself,
| he was working via satellite linkup from his
| home in Alaska.
Page 048| The five of us were more than equipped to
| support Snake from our respective areas of
| expertise, but Snake was still the lone field
| operative and the mission was a desperate
| one. Despite that, Richard maintained that this
| was the most workable plan produced by the
| DOD situational analysis. In hindsight, perhaps
| I should have suspected something then. The
| signs of a conspiracy were there, cleverly
| disguised as it was in a seemingly reckless
Page 049| mission plan. But we failed to see it, and both
| Solid Snake and I were to regret out folly
| bitterly.
|
| "It's time Nastasha," Richard called out as
| the call signal came on. The line was already
| live as I nodded to him and took my position.
| I could feel myself growing keener, more on
| edge.
| "This is Nastasha Romanenko. Good to meet
Page 050| you, Solid Snake."
| "You the nuke expert that the Colonel was
| talking about?"
| The voice that responded over the radio
| was, above all things, calm. Here was a man
| operating alone out of a deeply hostile terri-
| tory, and I could sense nothing resembling
| tension or impatience in his tone. Instead, it
| was as level and unruffled as someone
| answering a routine telephone call at their
Page 051| office desk. Impressed, I continued on.
| "Correct. If you have any questions about
| nuclear technology, all you need to do is ask.
| My department is military analysis, so I should
| be able to provide support with weapons
| information as well. I was called into this
| mission as a Nuclear Emergency Search Team
| (NEST) consultant, and I'd like to emphasize
| that my cooperation was freely given. I have
| no intention of allowing any nuclear strikes on
Page 052| my watch, let alone the rogue kind. Let me
| work with you on this one."
| "...You get to the point fast, don't you?"
| "There's a missile that's about to fly. A
| nuclear strike can never be someone else's
| problem, and I'm not good at standing around
| twiddling my thumbs... Not that I can do little
| more than advise in this case."
| That fact was all too obvious. Snake was the
| one who was putting his life on the line in
Page 053| Alaska, and I was safe and sound in California.
| All I could do was talk over the radio.
| Snake's voice became less abrupt. "It may
| not seem like much, but it's enough. No one's
| asking you to come out here and fight. That's
| my job... Anyway, Nastasha, I'll be counting
| on your help."
| It was strangely comforting voice, a voice
| that inspired trust.
| "Same here." As I answered, I resolved to
Page 054| myself to do everything in my power to help
| him complete this mission.
| "The nuclear weapons disposal plant on
| Shadow Moses dates back to 2002. It was
| built solely for the purpose of temporarily
| storing nuclear warheads slated for
| disposal..." I started to brief Snake on the
| background of the disposal facility, running
| through the points he needed to know.
|
Page 055| My first short exchange with Solid Snake
| ever, I was beginning to understand why he
| was called the man who "makes the
| impossible, possible." The icy clam in the
| face of insurmountable difficult, the absolute
| confidence, made it suddenly seem possible
| that he would pull off this deadly mission.
| He had the power to make me believe.
| I grew conscious of Richard's gaze.
| "What?"
Page 056| "Oh -- just that you have a kind of glow
| about you when you're working. I like it."
| "A glow? Funny, you used to call it
| workaholism in the past. You found it very
| unappealing, I recall."
| "Time flies. People change their minds."
| "It's called nostalgia. You'll dislike it again
| soon enough."
| "Perhaps..."
| Richard continued to look at me.
Page 057| Solid Snake certainly managed to live up to
| his reputation. He adroitly wove his way
| through the enemy's patrols and infiltrated
| the nuclear weapons disposal plant, where he
| made contact with Donald Anderson, the
| DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects
| Agency) director. Throughout the mission, we
| had radio monitoring capability over Snake's
| every movement thanks to his internal nano-
| machines. It was through this access channel
Page 058| that I learned a shocking fact.
| Donald Anderson -- discovered in solitary
| confinement by Solid Snake -- confirmed that
| the terrorists had full nuclear capability, and
| that Shadow Moses Island was the site of a
| field exercise for Metal Gear.
|
| Metal Gear. The very mention of that name
| sent me reeling. It was the ultimate weapon, a
| nuclear-capable bipedal tank that could
Page 059| launch a rapid and accurate nuclear strike
| from virtually any terrain, from mountains to
| marshlands to the desert dunes. It could
| bestow the dubious privilege of initiating a
| mission strike from sites that were previously
| out of the question as launch locations. For
| that very reason, analysts had long predicted
| that if brought to fruition, Metal Gear techno-
| logy would rewrite the tactical map of the
| world.
Page 060| The are speculations that this Unholy
| Grail of weapons development was being
| pursued late last century in the South African
| fortress state of Outer Heaven, then in the
| ultra-nationalist sovereignty of Zanzibar
| Land in Central Asia. One source went so far
| as to claim that a working prototype had been
| produced, but the weapon never made it onto
| the world military stage; instead, it was
| destroyed by a special forces operative. The
Page 061| squad in question was FOXHOUND, and the
| operative was a man codenamed Solid Snake.
| I briefly wondered if it were some strange
| quirk of fate that had brought Snake into this
| latest incident, but I knew Richard too well.
| Snake had to have been called in because of
| his past battles. Whoever had planned this
| mission had been thorough, and the more I
| realized the fact, the less I liked it.
|
Page 062| A few years ago, I interviewed a high-
| ranking DOD official and led the conversation
| to the subject of Metal Gear. His response at
| the time was that the U.S. had very little
| interest in developing a weapon like Metal
| Gear (not that he officially admitted that such
| a thing as the Metal Gear existed - on a
| purely a hypothetical level, IF such a techno-
| logy were available). With the collapse of the
| Soviet Union, nuclear arsenals built to
Page 063| enforce the idea of mutually assured
| destruction had lost its justification, and the
| deterrent argument was losing ground. In the
| current "multilateral world order rife with
| smaller regional powers" as he put it,
| development priority lay with cruise missiles
| and smaller weapons with lower lethality that
| could be carried by stealth bombers.
| He also went on to note that Metal Gear,
| with its affinity for rough terrain, would be
Page 064| extremely difficult to discover and destroy.
| Hence, it was the perfect nuclear strike
| system for rogue states. He was deeply
| concerned that if such non-democratic
| sovereignties were to get a hold of Metal Gear
| technology, the resulting upset in the balance
| of military power would lead to a massive
| rupture in world order. It was a fear that I
| myself shared.
| An artifact of the Cold War. The devil's
Page 065| candy, created by nuclear proliferation. That
| was what Metal Gear seemed to be. So why
| was this weapon, a cutting-edge technology
| that was politically long-obsolete, being
| developed once again on American soil? It
| was possible that the Defense Department
| wanted to restore last century's nuclear
| strategy to the national agenda. Or did this
| new Metal Gear have something that set it far
| apart from Metal Gear as I knew it?
Page 066| Anderson had more to say. Metal Gear's
| launch key consisted of two separate pass-
| words, one held by Anderson himself and the
| other by Kenneth Baker, the president of
| ArmsTech. Anderson's own password was
| already in the terrorists' hands, and he feared
| that the same was true for Baker's. A
| renegade FOXHOUND psychic, codenamed
| Psycho Mantis, had literally read Anderson's
| mind and obtained the key.
Page 067| The bottom line was that the terrorists
| could activate Metal Gear and launch the
| missile whenever they pleased. The worst-
| case scenario had come true.
| However, Anderson revealed that there was
| still a way to prevent the nuclear strike.
| Kenneth Baker alone had the emergency
| override key that could be used to reenter the
| launch code and cancel the missile launch.
| Even if the terrorists had already completed
Page 068| preparations for a strike, the override would
| reverse the process.
| His only hope now riding on obtaining the
| override key, Snake attempted to leave the
| cell area with Anderson in tow. We heard the
| terrible cries over the radio at the same time
| Snake did. Anderson had suddenly started to
| clutch at his own chest in agony, and before
| we could even recover from our initial shock,
| he was dead. Dr. Naomi Hunter, monitoring
Page 069| the situation from onboard USS Discovery,
| tentatively diagnosed the cause of death as a
| heart attack.
| Snake walked out of the cell alone in search
| of Kenneth Baker, leaving behind what had
| until recently been Donald Anderson, chief of
| DARPA.
|
| "All right, what exactly is going on here?"
| I confronted Richard as soon as I confirmed
Page 070| Snake's safe departure.
| "You know the situation. There was a Metal
| Gear field exercise being conducted on
| Shadow Moses. FOXHOUND and the next-
| generation commandos were in charge of the
| exercise, and now they're threatening to use
| the Metal gear to launch a nuclear strike."
| "Apparently, I didn't know about that
| particular situation."
| "If you say so."
Page 071| I glared at Richard, but he didn't turn a
| hair. He knew as well as I did that I could
| not abandon the mission. Even if I did
| refuse to cooperate further, there was an
| entire group of DOD personnel around me
| that would not permit that to happen. I
| briefly closed my eyes and brought the
| recent events into focus again.
| "What happened to Anderson? Why is he
| dead?"
Page 072| This time, I could see a trace of a reaction
| in Richard's eyes.
| "It's hard to say from our end. Naomi thinks
| it was a heart attack but -- I'll have his
| medical records pulled just in case." He
| turned and left the study, presumably to give
| orders to that effect.
| The sounds and the voices being broadcast
| from the radio told me that Snake was moving
| deeper into the complex in search of Kenneth
Page 073| Baker.
|
| Snake found the ArmsTech president in one
| of the underground levels. Kenneth Baker was
| bound to a steel girder along with multiple
| packets of C4 explosives. Before Snake could
| free Baker, he came face to face with the
| originator of this trap: a FOXHOUND operative
| called Revolver Ocelot. It seemed that he had
| anticipated Baker's rescue attempt upon
Page 074| receiving news of Snake's arrival.
| According to Naomi Hunter, the former
| director of FOXHOUND's genetic manipulation
| program, Revolver Ocelot is a former
| Spetznaz. He moved into OMON (Otryad
| Militsii Osobogo Naznacheniya, the Interior
| Ministry riot squad, AKA Black Berets) and
| the SVR (the Russian Foreign Intelligence
| Service) -- a successor to the KGB's First
| Chief Directorate -- after the collapse of the
Page 075| Soviet Union, but was unable to adapt to the
| new regime and dropped out. He cut a swath
| through the world's hot spots as a mercenary
| before being recruited by FOXHOUND. As his
| codename indicates, Ocelot is a master
| marksman with a marked preference for
| revolvers.
| We could hear the gun battle between
| Snake and Ocelot over the radio. Ocelot was
| using an antique Single Action Army revolver
Page 076| against Snake's SOCOM pistol. The first Single
| Action Army Revolver was manufactured in
| 1873. A small number of them are still in
| production today, but strictly for collectors
| and antique weapon fanciers; using this out-
| moded weapon for live combat is unheard of.
| But Ocelot seemed to invest the vintage gun
| with diabolical powers. He would purposefully
| fire against walls and the floor, weaving a
| tight web of ricocheting bullets around Snake,
Page 077| gradually hamming him in. All we could do
| was silently monitor the battle. However,
| Snake was slowly but surely gaining the upper
| hand by dodging the ricochets and exploiting
| the revolver's lengthy reload window. Finally,
| just as Snake was about to deliver the
| decisive blow, an explosion rang out.
| "My hand!" Ocelot's scream came a second
| later, followed by more explosions.
| "What the hell is going on!?" Richard
Page 078| cried.
| The controller in charge of the data sent in
| by Snake's nanomachine started a running
| commentary.
| "We don't know yet, I'm seeing a life sign
| other than those of Snake, Ocelot, or Baker."
| Explosions continued to boom out over the
| radio.
| "The unidentified fourth subject is knocking
| down girders. No sign of firearm use! What-
Page 079| ever it is, it's moving fast!" The controller's
| voice rose with excitement. "The speed is well
| above anything a human being should be able
| to handle."
| The situation was chaotic. I could make out
| Ocelot's voice through the roar of collapsing
| metal.
| "Stealth camouflage! Someone left a job
| only half done... As for you -- we'll continue
| this later!"
Page 080| It seemed Ocelot had left the area.
| The explosions went on one after the other
| as girders crashed to the ground. In the midst
| of the collapse, Snake confronted what we
| could only guess was the fourth life sign.
| "Who are you?"
| "I'm like you... I have no name."
| It was not human, but an artificial machine
| voice that answered. In spite of the metallic
| tones, there seemed to be in that voice an
Page 081| unspeakable pain. Baker's labored groans
| could be heard over the conversation.
| "You have a reinforced skeleton -- !?"
| Suddenly, the possessor of the metal voice
| let loose an animal howl. The shattering
| scream set the communication speakers
| screeching, and I instinctively covered my
| ears to shut out the maddened sound.
| The cry went on and on, then cut out as
| abruptly as it had begun. In the ringing
Page 082| silence, the controller's voice floated out, thin
| and hollow.
| " -- the fourth subject has disappeared."
| The words brought us out of a state of
| shock.
| "Can we track him?"
| "Negative. He's vanished, no traces."
| "Collect as much data as you can."
| "I have the full results on information
| relayed by the nanomachines. There's an
Page 083| electromagnetic pattern that resembles a
| stealth camouflage signature."
| "Stealth camo and reinforced exoskeleton..."
| Richard muttered, deep in thought.
| "Not everything is happening according to
| plan, I take it?" I inquired with some
| sarcasm.
| "It's within acceptable deviation. The
| mission will go on as planned."
| For a split second, his eyes betrayed his
Page 084| disquiet; then he quickly recovered his
| characteristic arrogance. "You just concen-
| trate on your job."
| Snake had called the fourth life sign the
| "Ninja." I could not help but wonder about the
| identity of the name's bearer, and what it was
| that accounted for the superhuman abilities he
| had just demonstrated.
| Far away on Shadow Moses Island, Snake
| was attempting to raise the shaken Kenneth
Page 085| Baker back on his feet. We could hear Snake
| asking him about the nuclear launch code,
| knowing the answer even as he spoke. Baker
| painfully acknowledged that he had volun-
| teered the information. He arm hung broken
| and useless by his side, presumable Ocelot's
| handiwork.
| According to Naomi Hunter's intelligence,
| Revolver Ocelot had served as a Special
| Interrogations Consultant in the Soviet gulags
Page 086| during his days with the Spetznaz. In other
| words, he was an expert in torture. There was
| no way that the weapons technology
| executive, an untrained civilian, could with-
| stand the techniques of coercion developed in
| the cells of Lubianka. We now had con-
| firmation that the terrorists possessed both
| launch keys. The situation was more desperate
| than ever.
| Baker's response to Snake's queries about
Page 087| the emergency override key was almost as
| grim. He had entrusted a soldier, a woman who
| had refused to join the mutiny, with it while
| they had been sharing the cell. I caught
| Snake's sudden murmur.
| "The Colonel's niece?"
| The "Colonel" was presumably Campbell,
| and Snake seemed to know something I
| certainly did not. I stole a glance at Richard
| but his expression was as closed as ever. He
Page 088| no doubt had known from the outset about the
| presence of Campbell's niece on Shadow.
| Snake was pressing Baker, asking him
| whether there was a way to stop the launch
| without the override code. The executive gave
| him a name: Dr. Hal Emmerich. If it were
| indeed the case that the launch codes were in
| hostile hands and the strike sequence had
| been started, it stood to reason that the only
| person who may know of a way to cancel the
Page 089| launch was the chief of Metal Gear's develop-
| ment program.
| As Snake promised to search out Emmerich,
| Baker handed him a single optical disc. It
| contained, he said, all the data from the
| training exercise.
| What exercise data? He had to be referring
| to the Metal Gear exercise. I saw Richard
| raise his eyebrow sharply.
| Baker, oblivious to the frenzy of speculation
Page 090| he had remotely set off, continued.
| "There's no need to feign ignorance. You
| were sent to retrieve this, and we both know
| it."
| I was now even more puzzled than ever. If
| Metal gear was being developed on Shadow
| Moses, surely the research data was backed
| up somewhere outside of the ArmsTech lab.
| Not only that, but why would the president of
| the company have been carrying the data
Page 091| himself? I was apparently not alone in my
| disconcerntment. Snake took the disc, obviously
| uncertain. It was clear that he, like myself,
| had not been briefed on the existence of the
| disc.
| The disc safely out of his hands, Baker's
| tones became pleading.
| "You have to stop them. If the truth got out,
| AT would be finished -- I would be
| finished -- "
Page 092| "But Metal Gear technology is already a
| known factor."
| "The core technology is, but that's not -- "
| Baker trailed off, suddenly pale with pain. "Oh
| God, what did you do to me...?"
| We could hear hid labored coughing as he
| gasped out.
| "It can't be... That thing. Damn Pentagon
| bureaucrats... I get it now... You son of a -- "
| He tried to lunge at Snake, but reeled back
Page 093| in a fresh wave of pain. Still clutching his chest,
| he fell down, dead. It was too similar to the
| last moments of Donald Anderson's life, and
| the fact had not escaped Snake. He was
| immediately on the radio with Campbell.
| "Colonel, you'd better be listening real well.
| This one dropped dead too."
| Snake demanded an explanation, but neither
| Campbell nor Dr. Hunter could provide an
| adequate one. Snake was clearly dissatisfied,
Page 094| but Campbell directed Snake to cooperate
| with his niece, Meryl. The only way left to
| prevent a nuclear strike was to obtain the
| emergency override key, and the key was in
| Meryl's hands. Snake walked away from
| Baker's body in search of the elusive
| commando.
|
| Kenneth Baker had been colluding with
| Donald Anderson, the DARPA chief, to secretly
Page 095| develop a new Metal Gear on the govern-
| ment's co-called Black Budget. My later
| investigations revealed that regular payments
| in the tens of thousands of dollars had been
| made to the corporate account of a firm for
| which Anderson's wife ostensibly acted as a
| consultant. The ArmsTech payoff into this
| dummy company had started several years
| ago. The total amount is difficult to estimate,
| but there is little doubt that Anderson had
Page 096| been bribed to the tune of an astronomical
| sum.
| Even the government Black Budget had
| limits, however. I recalled a rumor from some
| years before the Anderson payoff started. The
| CNO (Chief of Naval Operations) at the time
| had a classified pet project, and the scuttle-
| butt was that it involved the construction of a
| completely new type of battleship. Just what
| kind of a ship was never revealed, since the
Page 097| entire program fell apart after the CNO
| suddenly passed away. The unexpected death
| coincided with ArmsTech's launch of the Metal
| Gear development program. The Black Budget
| earmarked for the CNO's little project must
| have been freed up by his death; the question
| was whether it had been freed up for
| allocation to the new Metal Gear development.
| The manner of the CNO's death was officially
| ruled a suicide, but I could not help recall the
Page 098| theories to the contrary that had made its
| rounds back then.
| Whatever the background, Anderson and
| Baker's deaths could not be a coincidence.
| Anderson's dying words included a reference
| to the Pentagon, and I was certain that there
| was more to it than met the eye.
| "So now Baker is dead as well. Are you
| looking into his medical records too?" I asked
| Richard.
Page 099| "We'll do that. Just as a precaution." He did
| not seem particularly disturbed. "It may have
| been for the best, anyway. Having to babysit a
| senior citizen with a broken arm sure wasn't
| going to help Snake with his mission."
| "You haven't changed a bit, I see."
| "What?"
| "That bad-boy act of yours. You only talk
| like an insensitive jerk to divert attention from
| something. I wonder what you're hiding?"
Page 100| Richard turned away.
| "Nothing. There's nothing to hide."
|
| Having successfully made radio contact with
| Meryl, Colonel Campbell's niece, Solid Snake
| agreed to put off a rendezvous with her in
| favor of rescuing Dr. Hal Emmerich, the chief
| of Metal Gear development. He reached that
| lab just as the Ninja was attempting to attack
| Dr. Emmerich, and the two fighters
Page 101| immediately squared off.
| Snake and the Ninja launched into a silent
| hand-to-hand combat, a balletic exchange of
| blows that seemed almost to serve as a
| private dialog. The fighting seemed intermo-
| nable to us as we followed over the radio, but
| just as in the last encounter, the Ninja
| suddenly let loose an inhuman howl, and
| vanished into the maelstrom of its ragged echo.
| It was our second encounter with the Ninja,
Page 102| and we were as in the dark about him as
| ever. But Snake had recognized something
| during their battle, and he raised Campbell on
| the radio.
| "It's Gray Fox -- the Ninja is Gray Fox. I'm
| 100% sure."
| "That's impossible. You took him -- in
| Zanzibar Land -- " We could hear the
| perturbation in Campbell's voice.
| Naomi Hunter suddenly cut in.
Page 103| "Yes, he was supposed to have been killed.
| But he wasn't."
| Dr. Hunter revealed that her predecessor at
| the helm of FOXHOUND's genetic treatment
| program, one Dr. Clark, had been conducting
| human testing. Gray Fox, the alpha soldier of
| FOXHOUND and the only member allowed the
| FOX designation, was the subject. After he
| had been shipped back from Zanzibar Land
| mortally wounded, his superior physical
Page 104| abilities and combat skills had marked him as
| an ideal test subject for genetic manipulation
| and skeletal reinforcement experiments. He
| was listed as killed in action, but kept alive in
| a lab.
| I could not help but note with some surprise
| the emotional tone in which the normally
| collected geneticist described these events.
| When Snake asked why she had not volun-
| teered the truth of the Ninja's identity earlier,
Page 105| Naomi had only a terse reply.
| "It was classified information."
| According to records she had seen, the
| subject -- Gray Fox -- had died in an acci-
| dental lab explosion two years ago. I turned to
| Richard.
| "Is this true?"
| "What's true?"
| "The accident in the lab."
| "It's true. The cause of the explosion was
Page 106| never determined. Dr. Clark died in the
| accident, and the only remains they could find
| of Gray Fox were fragments of the reinforced
| skeleton."
| "So Naomi wasn't the only one who knew
| about this and didn't say anything."
| "It was classified information," Richard
| mimicked.
| Snake secured Dr. Emmerich after the
Page 107| Ninja's departure. Amazingly enough, the
| engineer had believed Metal Gear to be a
| portable tactical missile defense system,
| rather than a nuclear-capable tank. It was a
| peculiar irony that the chief developer himself
| had been unaware that the project was one of
| offense, rather than defense.
| On discovering that he had been deceived,
| Dr. Emmerich volunteered his expertise to
| Snake. He mentioned his grandfather's
Page 108| involvement in the Manhattan Project, and the
| ethical termoil the man had carried with him
| to the end of his days as a result. Ironically
| enough, the older scientist's son, Hal
| Emmerich's father, was born the day the
| atomic bomb had found Hiroshima.
| "Three generations -- sometimes I wonder
| if nuclear warfare is out personal albatross,
| an inherited pathology."
| We could hear the pain and the regret in
Page 109| Dr. Emmerich's voice. He seemed genuinely
| upset that the technology he had developed
| purely for the furthering of knowledge and
| betterment of mankind had been exploited for
| weapons development.
| You may call me harsh, but I felt little
| sympathy for him. Technological and scientific
| innovation need not have direct bearing on
| nuclear or virological research to contribute to
| the making of weapons of mass destruction.
Page 110| After all, the Ninja was born of genetic engi-
| neering and cybernetic research, which could
| easily have healed a civilian rather than
| improved upon a solider. A scientist cannot
| pleased naiveté to the practical products of their
| own research. The consequences must be
| anticipated, and the ethical burden of a newly
| developed technology must ultimately rest
| with the individual researcher. I wondered if
| Dr. Emmerich would ever realize that onus.
Page 111| Freed from the laboratory where he was
| being held, Emmerich cloaked himself with a
| stealth camouflage of his own making and
| promised to keep out of sight. With the stealth
| camo, he could easily evade the terrorists'
| surveillance.
| His rescued charge safe, Snake departed
| for a rendezvous with Meryl.
|
| Snake's objective was to meet with Meryl
Page 112| and re-enter the launch code using her over-
| ride key, outwitting the FOXHOUND psychic
| Psycho Mantis all the while. To this end, he
| headed towards the hangar where Metal Gear
| was being stored.
| The best laid plans... Meryl was ambushed
| on the way by the FOXHOUND sharpshooter
| Sniper Wolf. Snake, attempting to rescue the
| wounded commando, was himself captured.
| He was taken to the terrorist command post
Page 113| still unconscious, stripped of all his gear.
| However, his cochlea-implant radio passed
| unnoticed, and we could hear the terrorists'
| conferring about the incapacitated operative.
| We gathered from their talk that the prepera-
| tions for the nuclear launch were complete.
| Richard was unusually intent on identifying the
| individual terrorists in the room. From the
| voices involved in the conversation, we
| confirmed the presence of Sniper Wolf,
Page 114| Revolver Ocelot, and the leader of this
| uprising himself, Liquid Snake.
|
| What little I knew of Liquid Snake was
| troubling, and it came entirely from a slim file
| folder Richard showed me just prior to
| mission commencement. The man with the
| same designation as Solid Snake was
| recruited into FOXHOUND after Solid Snake's
| departure from the unit. His fighting skills
Page 115| were formidable, and he quickly rose to
| leadership position in FOXHOUND's field
| operation team. His real name, place of origin
| and other information remained classified.
| Only a single photograph accompanied the
| documents, and I had not be able to contain
| my astonishment at the sight of it.
| "It's not a mistake. That IS Liquid Snake,"
| said Richard, echoing my thoughts.
| "But -- how?"
Page 116| The face in the photo was the spitting
| image of Solid Snake.
| "I wouldn't know. But once the two Snakes
| run into each other, something may come out."
| His words were noncommittal, but Richard's
| tone spoke volumes.
|
| And now, the two Snakes -- Solid and
| Liquid -- had indeed come face to face. But
Page 117| Liquid had little to say.
| "So long, brother." He called out before
| turning and walking away. The voice was full
| of hatred, but there was also something in it
| that seemed to confirm and gleefully
| anticipate another meeting. Why this was so
| was as mysterious to me as the reason he
| called Solid Snake "brother." I would not find
| out the truth until a little later.
| What awaited Snake after his brief
Page 118| encounter with Liquid was Ocelot's KGB-
| tested "interrogation" techniques. Ocelot
| apparently had no interest in extracting
| information, but rather appeared to be
| enjoying the acts of torture for their own
| sake. Snake's ragged gasps echoed from the
| radio in the silence of the control room.
| The heart rate and other physiological data
| transmitted by his nanomachines graphically
| demonstrated the extent of his suffering.
Page 119| All we could do was listen and wait.
| After Ocelot was done, the battered Snake
| was taken to a cell. Campbell soon established
| radio contact with him, but Snake had some
| hard questions for his former CO instead.
| He had realized that Metal Gear was a nuclear
| delivery system, and for once, Campbell was
| at a loss for an answer.
| "So you did know about this all along..."
| Snake rasped out bitterly.
Page 120| Campbell continued to be silent. It was all
| the confirmation Snake needed.
| "You should have told me."
| "...I'm sorry."
| "Pawns don't need to know, is that it?
| You've changed." Campbell had no rebuttal to
| Snake's barbs.
|
| According to Campbell, even the President
| had apparently been unaware of the existence
Page 121| of Project Rex until the day before. To make
| matters more complicated, he was due to
| meet with the Russian president the following
| day for the formal signing of START3.
| The treaty stipulated further reduction of
| the nuclear arsenal, picking up where START2
| left off. The agreement would reduce the
| number of Russian and American tactical
| ballistic missiles to somewhere between two
| thousand and twenty-five hundred, and the
Page 122| signing was a historic event that had been
| made possible by long and arduous process.
| If the fact that a new nuclear weapon was
| being developed by the United States were
| made public, there was a significant chance
| that the signing would never take place.
| Worse still, the loss of confidence in
| America's commitment to non-proliferation
| could create international turmoil.
| The government clearly had every
Page 123| reason to keep the situation under wraps,
| and there were ample indications that the
| terrorists had counter on the fact. The
| timing of this takeover as well as the
| twenty-four hour deadline said as much.
| Campbell continued to plead his case with
| Snake.
| "Snake, you've got to stop them."
| "Sing it to someone else."
| "You're the only hope we have."
Page 124| "All right then, tell me what this new war-
| head is about."
| "I told you, I don't know."
| "I don't believe you."
| "..."
| "If the situation is so desperate, why don't
| you accept their demands? Give them Big
| Boss' body. It's just a corpse."
| "That's not an option..." Campbell was
| floundering under the barrage of Snake's
Page 125| questions.
| "Is there a reason you can't comply with
| that demand? A reason you haven't told
| me?"
| Naomi broke in as Campbell fell silent.
| "The President's passed a number of
| policies that severely restrict genetic engi-
| neering on humans. He can't afford to have
| the public know about the military's use of
| genetically-enhanced soldiers."
Page 126| "Is that really all there is to it?"
| Campbell did not reply.
|
| I received a call from Snake soon after.
| Captive, alone in enemy territory, unable to
| trust his own mission controllers to tell him
| the truth -- there was little I could say to
| help a man in Snake's situation. "Capture
| does not mean defeat. Stay vigilant for a
| chance to escape, and don't give up."
Page 127| I had doubts about the effectiveness of
| these words coming from someone with no
| combat experience, but it was the best I could
| offer. We had no choice but to trust in Snake's
| abilities.
| As I closed the radio channel, I caught
| Richard studying me.
| "Yes?"
| "You're very -- passionate about this job."
| "Do you object? It's the job you forced on
Page 128| me, after all."
| "No, but I admit that I'm a little jealous."
| "Ah, the jealousy act. Yes, I know that one
| too."
| Richard averted his eyes.
| "I wouldn't call it an act. If -- no forget it."
| He lit a cigarette. Chesterfield. The same
| brand as Humphrey Bogart.
| "You still smoke the same brand."
| "You know me. Once I decide I like
Page 129| something I can't kick the habit. Cigarettes,
| line of work, woman -- everything." He didn't
| look at me as he replied.
|
| The torture was conducted again and again,
| solely for the purpose of breaking Snake. He
| held out each time, but his strength was
| steadily ebbing, and the voice we heard over
| the radio was growing more labored.
| "Naomi, talk to me. I need something to
Page 130| distract me."
| "What do you want me to talk about?"
| "Anything."
| "I'm not good at finding things to talk
| about..."
| "Tell me about yourself."
| "About me...? That's not so easy."
| "You got any family?"
| "...It's not a very happy story."
| "I don't have any family -- I guess there
Page 131| was one person, someone who called himself
| my father."
| "Where is he?"
| "Dead. I killed him."
| I was even more taken aback by what
| Campbell volunteered next.
| "You're talking about Big Boss."
| "What? Big Boss was your -- ?"
| "No reason you should have known."
| Campbell elaborated to Naomi. "It was six
Page 132| years ago, in Zanzibar Land. Snake and I are
| the only ones who know about it now."
| "Oh god -- was Big Boss really your
| father?" Naomi still seemed disbelieving.
| "That's what he said, and that's all I know."
| "You knew and you still killed him...?"
| "Yeah."
| "Why?" Naomi asked fiercely. There was a
| pause before Snake answered.
| "Because that's what he wanted. And what I
Page 133| wanted."
| "But it's still -- patricide."
| "Yeah, I know. My personal nightmare
| too..." Snake's voice was the faintest we had
| heard.
| "Is that why you left FOXHOUND?"
| "Maybe. I can't deny that it felt good to lose
| myself. It's easy to do that in Alaska..."
| After a moment of silence, Naomi confided
| in a low voice.
Page 134| "I don't -- really have a family of my own
| either. I have a brother who put me through
| college, that's it. He's not a biological
| brother -- and a lot older than me."
| "Where's he now?"
| Naomi's reply was deeply pained.
| "He's gone..."
| There was deep sorrow in her voice, and, I
| thought, something more.
|
Page 135| "A stepbrother who put her through
| school -- I wasn't told about that," Richard
| muttered. There was suspicion in his voice,
| and, puzzlingly enough, a hint of anger.
| I opened the personnel profile on Naomi.
| Naomi Hunter. Born New York City, 198X.
| Ph.D. in genetics. Recruited by the industry
| giant ATGC soon after completing doctoral
| program, moved to California's so-called
| Biotech Bay area. Led several genetic therapy
Page 136| programs, until recruited by FOXHOUND to fill
| the post of chief geneticist as a result of her
| accomplishments in this field. Parents died in
| car collision when Naomi was two years old.
| One brother, ten years her senior, a U.S.
| Marine. Killed in training-related accident
| when Naomi was seventeen.
| Richard thought for a minute, then scribbled
| something in his notebook. Summoning one of
| his men, he tore the page out and handed it
Page 137| to him.
| "Wire this message to the skipper of USS
| Discovery. And make sure Campbell doesn't
| know about it."
| "What are you plotting now?" I knew even
| as I asked that Richard would not respond.
|
| The torture was repeated time and again,
| but Snake managed to take advantage of the
| guard's waning vigilance and escape. The
Page 138| location and the fate of his fellow hostage,
| Meryl, eluded us.
| Evading the intense manhunt that followed,
| Snake still refused to stray from the course
| that lead to the Metal Gear hangar. What drove
| him? Guilt for Meryl's capture and an urge to
| avenger her? A sense of duty to the mission?
| The will to stop the carnage of a nuclear
| strike? None of them seemed to apply to
| Snake. He was an enigma. We could do little
Page 139| but watch over him as he ran, wounded and
| exhausted.
| After successfully taking on Sniper Wolf as
| she reemerged for an ambush, Snake closed
| in on the Metal Gear hangar only to discover
| Vulcan Raven blocking his way. The giant
| FOXHOUND operative, armed with a fighter-
| plane Gattling gun, was a daunting enemy.
| In the end, however, Snake eventually
| prevailed.
Page 140| The stricken Raven, leaning against the
| wall, started to speak as Snake approached
| him.
| "There are some breeds of snakes that
| nature never intended... I think you and the
| Boss belong to one of those. Go and settle it
| with him... I'll be watching how it ends."
| The dying Raven then dropped the
| bombshell.
| "I'll give you one clue. The man who died in
Page 141| front of you wasn't the DARPA chief. It was
| Decoy Octopus -- one of us FOXHOUNDs. He
| was a master of disguise... I guess the Grim
| Reaper was the only one he couldn't fool."
| "Is he dead?"
| Raven did not answer Snake's sharp query
| Snake tried another tack.
| "Why go to all that trouble and impersonate
| Anderson?"
| Raven smiled faintly.
Page 142| "That's all the clue you're going to get.
| Everything else, you'll have to figure out
| yourself."
| A few minutes later, Vulcan Raven died.
|
| Richard was chagrined.
| "So that's how it was. They had us
| completely fooled."
| "Why would Octopus impersonate
| Anderson?" I asked.
Page 143| "I don't know. Maybe to get information out
| of Snake."
| "That would mean that they knew Snake was
| coming."
| Richard stubbed out the cigarette without
| answering. His face was expressionless, but I
| knew exactly what he was thinking.
| We had a leak.
| While Richard and I were talking, a call was
| made to Snake.
Page 144| "Snake, it's me -- "
| "Master?" Snake answered. It was
| apparently Master Miller.
| "I need to talk to you about Naomi Hunter.
| Turn the monitoring off -- "
| Miller had barely finished his instruction
| before Campbell cut in.
| "What about Dr. Hunter?"
| Miller made an exasperated sound. It was
| clear that he had not intended Campbell to
Page 145| hear what he had to say.
| "Colonel, is Naomi there?" Snake asked.
| "No, she's trying to catch up on her sleep."
| "Okay..."
| Campbell turned his attention back to
| Miller.
| "What were you saying about Dr. Hunter?"
| "All right. Maybe it's better that the Colonel
| hears about this now." Miller said resignedly.
| "Go on," urged Snake.
Page 146| "That's not the real Naomi Hunter you're
| working with, Colonel."
| "What!?" Campbell raised his voice,
| astounded. Miller continued coolly.
| "Naomi Hunter does exist. Or rather, she
| did. She went missing in the Middle East some
| time ago. This impostor must have gotten a
| hold of her identity somehow."
| There were a number of ways to obtain
| someone's Social Security Number and commit
Page 147| an identity theft, certainly. But Dr. Naomi
| Hunter an impostor -- !
| "Who is she really then!" Campbell was
| agitated, but Miller remained cool as ice.
| "Probably a spy."
| "A spy!"
| "Yes -- sent in to ensure this mission's
| failure."
| "Are you saying she's one of the terrorists?"
| Campbell's tone was disbelieving, but Snake
Page 148| backed up his former instructor.
| "I don't want to believe it either, Colonel.
| But it's true that she's a FOXHOUND
| personnel..."
| "...So it would not be surprising if she took
| part in this insurrection." Campbell finished
| dully, as though Snake's words had crystal-
| lized his own doubts.
| "Or she could be working for another
| organization," Miller suggested.
Page 149| "Another -- ? No, that's not possible..."
| As Campbell trailed off, Miller spoke up, his
| tone ruthless.
| "Take her into custody, Colonel."
| "What!"
| "It's clear that Naomi Hunter is working
| against us. Interrogate her and find out what
| her objective is."
| "If she really is their spy, we're in serious
| trouble..." Campbell murmured.
Page 150| Miller pounced on the gravity of the
| Colonel's tone.
| "What are you talking about?"
| "N-Nothing in particular..." Campbell tried
| to recover himself.
| "Campbell, did you give her access to some
| other line of classified information?"
| "..." Campbell remained silent, but Miller
| pressed on.
| "Does it have anything to do with the way
Page 151| the DARPA chief or the ArmsTech president
| died?"
| "Look, I don't know what you're talking
| about."
| Clearly, Campbell knew something. It was
| equally obvious that he had no intention of
| revealing what he was privy to. Perhaps
| sensing that fact, Miller dropped the pursuit
| abruptly.
| "In any case, it's too dangerous to retain
Page 152| her in the mission."
| "H-hold on a minute. She is an integral part
| of this mission. In fact, we can't afford to
| proceed without her," Campbell was being too
| insistent about Dr. Hunter's value. I had to
| wonder if it was indeed the case that he had
| trusted her with highly classified information.
| Snake was also suspicious.
| "More secrets, Colonel?"
| "Give me time. I'll have her background and
Page 153| movements re-checked..." That was all
| Campbell could say.
| "Hurry. Find out what she wants as quickly
| as possible," Miller was unrelenting.
| "...Of course." Campbell agreed reluctantly.
| "Snake, just give me some time."
| "Time is something I wasn't give a lot of."
| Snake growled bitterly.
|
| "What's the deal?" I said to Richard.
Page 154| "Is Miller right about Naomi?"
| "I don't know, to be honest. It's obvious
| there were things in Dr. Hunter's past that
| I didn't know about. I'm having them go over
| her background again."
| Richard was visibly upset, a rare
| occurrence. I suddenly wondered there had
| been something between him and Naomi.
| Richard lit a cigarette and continued in a
| more composed tone.
Page 155| "But if what Miller said about Naomi is true,
| it raises questions about him in turn."
| "Why do you say that?"
| "He's supposed to be in his cabin in
| Alaska."
| "So I hear."
| "How did he manage to find out so much
| about Naomi -- by himself and from the
| middle of nowhere -- when the DIA investi-
| gators couldn't?" Richard called one of his
Page 156| men over and ordered them to look into
| Miller's activities.
| "You check up on even one of your own?"
| I asked as the agent hurried away.
| "How do you know he's one of our own?"
| Richard shot back, blowing a stream of
| smoke.
| "Should I assume you don't trust me
| either?"
| "You're the one who doesn't trust me. Never
Page 157| have." He said quietly, and ground his
| cigarette into the ashtray.
|
|
| Snake had finally reached the Metal Gear
| hangar, and stood in the shadow of the
| machines fifty-foot-tall bulk. But considering
| Metal Gear's state-of-the-art composite
| armor and Snake's limited arsenal, it was
| improbable that he could destroy the tank
Page 158| while evading enemy patrols. The most
| practical avenue of attack was to re-enter
| the launch code using the override key and
| thereby cancel the scheduled nuclear strike.
| As Snake methodically searched for the
| code entry interface, Emmerich radioed in. He
| had been making himself useful by breaking
| into Baker's protected files. From these, he
| had pieced together the true nature of Metal
| Gear and its prototype warheads.
Page 159| According to Emmerich, the weapon used a
| built-in rail gun to fire the ballistic missiles
| clear of the atmosphere. The missile would
| then automatically realign itself, and reenter
| the atmosphere on its designated trajectory
| toward the target.
| I understood exactly what all this meant,
| and the knowledge left me cold.
| Normally, ballistic missiles go through four
| phases from launch to impact. The first is the
Page 160| boost phase, which consists of the time
| between the missile's launch and the point at
| which it leaves the atmosphere and exhausts
| its supply of rocket propellant. Following the
| burnout, the rocket enters the post-boost
| phase, which concludes with the separation
| of the reentry vehicle that contains the war-
| head. The third stage is the midcourse phase,
| in which the reentry vehicle separates and
| achieves a controlled descent back into the
Page 161| atmosphere. The warhead's reentry into the
| atmosphere and its arrival at the targets mark
| the fourth and terminal phase.
| Current missile defense systems detect
| incoming ballistic missiles by scanning for the
| rocket burn that takes place during the
| missile's boost stage. However, Metal Gear's
| missile technology employs a rail gun rather
| than conventional rocket propulsion to achieve
| boost-stage acceleration. As a result, there is
Page 162| nothing for existing missile defense systems to
| detect.
| The rail gun's effectiveness is nothing short
| of amazing, with a range of over 3000 miles,
| rivaling that of mid-range ballistic missiles. It
| reliably homes in within 170 feet of the target
| 50% of the time, placing it in the same class
| as high-end ICBM's. The ability of a Metal
| Gear to conquer virtually all terrain means
| that the rail gun can launch a stealthy
Page 163| nuclear strike from almost any spot on the
| globe.
| This invisible attack would make it
| impossible for anyone to pinpoint the origin of
| a given missile even in the event of a strike.
| Without a clear aggressor to retaliate against,
| the concept of mutual assured destruction falls
| apart. Without the fear of MAD, the existing
| rules of nuclear non-engagement would no
| longer apply, and the world would fall into
Page 164| chaos.
|
| Snake had a few things to say to Campbell
| after learning the truth. He knew as well as
| anyone that if the fact that the U.S. had been
| developing a new breed of nuclear weapons
| were made public on the eve of START3,
| negotiations would break down and U.S. would
| suffer a devastating embarrassment.
| "Did you know about this, Colonel?"
Page 165| "I really am sorry, Snake."
| "You really have changed..."
| "I won't offer any excuses..."
| "Snake, you've got to hear this,"
| Dr. Emmerich broke in, ignoring Campbell.
| "The new missiles were complete in simulation
| only. That's why they had to perform this
| exercise -- to get field data that would back
| up their simulation results."
| "How did the exercise go?" Snake asked.
Page 166| Emmerich's reply was discouraging. It seems
| to have gone better than they expected, but I
| can't find any of the data. There isn't a trace
| of the thing on the entire network. You'd think
| it's backed up somewhere, but zilch."
| "It's on the optical disc that Baker gave
| me."
| "You mean you still have it!" Campbell
| exclaimed hopefully.
| "No, Ocelot took it." Snake replied bitterly.
Page 167| It must have happened when he was a
| hostage. Did this mean that Ocelot had known
| of the existence of the exercise data before-
| hand?
| "This doesn't look good..." Campbell
| murmured, deep in thought.
|
| I glared at Richard.
| "You knew about this too, didn't you?"
| "Knew what?"
Page 168| "The small matter of this new nuclear
| weapon technology."
| Richard shrugged.
| "If I'd told you, would you have
| cooperated? You probably would have tried
| to leak it to some media contact. And that
| would have forced out hand..." He left it at
| that. Would he have had me killed "in the
| interest of national security"? Something
| like that, I supposed. In the world Richard
Page 169| inhabited, preserving secrets always merited
| higher consideration than human life.
| But I was a privy to that secret now. What
| would happen once the mission ended? I left
| a chill go down my spine as I considered the
| possibilities.
| Richard was quietly puffing on his cigarette.
| He had too many men with him, working for
| him every moment. There was no way I could
| simply walk out of this house.
Page 170| But I had something up my sleeve as well,
| and I was not about to let myself be exploited
| without a fight. I looked over at my PC. The
| screen saver had kicked in, and geometric
| patterns flitted across the dark monitor.
| I slipped my PDA into my pocket and
| headed for the bathroom to send some mail.
|
| One of Richard's men trotted over with a
| slip of paper. Richard studied it, and after
Page 171| some consideration, raised Campbell on the
| radio.
| "What can I do for you, Major Ames?"
| Campbell's tone was openly hostile, but
| Richard paid no heed.
| "Colonel Campbell, I'd like you to start
| interrogating Naomi Hunter."
| "Interrogate her? What are you talking
| about?" Campbell said sharply.
| "There are suspicious points about
Page 172| Dr. Hunter's background, as you've heard. I've
| therefore sent one of my men over there to
| talk to her, but she seems reluctant to
| cooperate." Richard lit another cigarette.
| "But she's taking a nap." The Colonel
| insisted.
| "Actually, she's not."
| "What?"
| "In reality, she's been taking into my agent's
| custody."
Page 173| "How -- dare you!" Campbell barked
| angrily. Richard was unfazed.
| "If, as Master Miller charged, Naomi Hunter
| has falsified her identity and is in communi-
| cation with the enemy, there are serious
| repercussions. I trust you understand."
| "FOXDIE..." Campbell groaned.
| FOXDIE? This was something new. This
| mission was like an onion, with layer after
| layer of secret intent.
Page 174| "She won't talk to my agent. She may talk to
| you. Find out from Naomi who she is and what
| her objective is."
| "Absolutely not. I don't take orders from
| you. And I'm having Dr. Hunter freed
| immediately."
| "What makes you think you can do such a
| thing?" replied Richard, exhaling a cloud of
| smoke.
| There was a long silence.
Page 175| "Who exactly the hell are you?" I could head
| the barely suppressed rage in Campbell's
| voice. "The DIA wouldn't have the authority to
| send a man into a Navy submarine and hold
| someone prisoner."
| Richard did not answer. Campbell
| continued.
| "And that's not the only thing. Nothing has
| been done through the usual channels,
| including the way you induced Snake and I to
Page 176| cooperate. This mission isn't even official
| business, is it? So who else can mount such a
| major operation..." Campbell suddenly broke
| off, as though struck by something. "Is it
| possible that -- the Patriots?" He murmured.
| Richard ignored Campbell's outburst.
| "Does it matter what I am? It doesn't
| change the fact that your life, not to mention
| your precious Meryl's life, is in my hands.
| Isn't that right?"
Page 177| This time it was Campbell's turn to be silent.
| I had never suspected that his participation in
| the mission had been arranged by force. The
| Colonel was literally fighting for his, and his
| niece's, life.
| "Think it over carefully, Colonel," Richard's
| voice was the coldest I had ever heard.
| There was no reply from Campbell.
| "And Snake has no need to know about any
| of this; we need his full cooperation at this
Page 178| point. Just tell him that Naomi was a terrorist
| spy and was apprehended while sending them
| a coded transmission."
| "Do you expect me to betray a friend, keep
| him in the dark?" Campbell objected
| furiously.
| "A friend? Are you referring to Snake?"
| Richard smiled coolly. "Do you really think he
| considers you a friend anymore?"
| He had hit a sore spot; Campbell had no
Page 179| answer. Richard moved in for the kill.
| "You've already lied to him too many
| times."
| "Against my will, under your threats!"
| Campbell was roaring, but Richard barely
| seemed to register his anger.
| "Certainly, but that's not an issue. You
| were, after all, giving him false information
| and relaying false orders to him of your own
| accord. Then there's FOXDIE..."
Page 180| I could almost see Campbell grinding his
| teeth in frustration and rage.
| "Do you still have the right to call yourself
| his friend?"
| There was nothing Campbell could say.
| "You will cooperate with us. Understood?"
| "Understood..."
| The transmission ended.
|
| "Who are the 'Patriots'?"
Page 181| Richard looked away towards another
| direction at my query.
| "What are you talking about?"
| "Don't B.S. me."
| He turned towards me. His gaze was icy.
| "Nothing you need to know about. By the
| way, not that I need to remind you, but don't
| mention to Snake things that don't concern
| him."
| "And if I do...?" Richard's stony silence
Page 182| answered my uncompleted question. I was too
| far into this business, and suddenly seemed to
| sense danger everywhere.
| "What do you intend to do with me once this
| mission is over?"
| "Nothing."
| "Don't expect me to believe you."
| Richard allowed himself a brief, oddly said
| smile.
| "I suppose I can't."
|
Page 183| In the meantime, Snake was inching towards
| the launch code entry interface. At that point,
| he received a call from Master Miller.
| "Snake, we need to talk about Naomi
| Hunter."
| "The Colonel's looking into that."
| "Turn the monitoring off."
| "All right, it's off. Mission control is out of
| the loop. You want to tell me what this is
| about?"
Page 184| Snake believed that he had switched us off,
| but I could still hear everything. Radio
| malfunction? I guessed not. Someone had
| made sure that nothing could get past mission
| control, ever. I had a more than good idea
| who that someone was.
| But Master Miller obviously did not.
| "Sorry about that. I didn't want Campbell to
| overhear."
| "What is this about?" Snake repeated.
Page 185| "I have a contact at the Pentagon. He told
| me that a new -- assassination tool had been
| recently developed under DIA guidance."
| I looked over at Richard, but he pretended
| not to notice.
| "Assassination tool?" Snake was asking.
| "Snake, have you ever heard the term
| FOXDIE?"
| I tensed. There was that word again. First
| Richard, then Campbell, now Miller.
Page 186| "It seems to be a virus that can target
| specific individuals. I don't know the details."
| Miller continued.
| Richard remained expressionless next to
| me.
| "So? What are you getting at?" Snake
| raised his voice slightly, sounding annoyed by
| Miller's roundabout methods.
| "They share common features."
| "What shares common features?"
Page 187| "The deaths. The ArmsTech president and
| the DARPA chief -- or I guess I should say
| Decoy Octopus. They both died of what looked
| like a heart attack, right?"
| "Yeah?"
| "Well, it seems that a death by FOXDIE
| virus looks like a case of heart attack."
| After a moment, Snake spoke up.
| "Are you saying that Naomi was the one
| who set this up?"
Page 188| "Snake, think. Did Naomi give you any kind
| of a shot?"
| "The nanomachines..." Snake murmured.
| Snake had in fact been injected with nano-
| machines and anti-hypothermia compound
| before the start of the mission. Was Miller
| suggesting that there was a killing virus in the
| mix as well?
| "One thing's for certain: she's in the best
| position to perform this kind of sabotage. But
Page 189| we still don't know her motive or objective..."
| "What about the Colonel...?" Snake asked
| after a lengthy silence, his tone brooding and
| full of doubts.
| "I don't know. And I don't think he's interro-
| gated her yet either."
| "All right. I'll ask him."
|
| Once he was off the radio with Miller, Snake
| called up Campbell.
Page 190| "Colonel, any new developments with
| Naomi?"
| "I've -- just had her taken into custody."
| "What?" Snake said incredulously.
| "She was sending a coded transmission to
| an Alaskan location. I don't want to believe it
| but -- she's definitely one of the terrorists."
| Campbell sounded anguished.
| "Are you sure?"
| "There's very little doubt. She's being
Page 191| interrogated right now."
| "What kind of interrogation?"
| "I don't want to resort to force, but we
| don't even have thiopentothal on hand..."
| "Let me know if you learn anything."
| Unaware of the machinations behind this
| latest development, Snake ended the commu-
| nication.
| I longed to tell him the truth, but knew that
| Richard and his men would never allow that to
Page 192| happen.
|
| Despite his growing doubts, Snake
| continued to penetrate deeper into the
| hangar. He had almost reached the code
| interface when a call suddenly came in.
| "Snake, can you hear me? It's Naomi..."
| "Naomi!?" Snake exclaimed in surprise.
| "What are you -- !"
| Richard tensed and leaned forward.
Page 193| "I managed to get to another transmitter.
| The Colonel and the others haven't noticed
| yet." Naomi whispered rapidly.
| "Naomi, is it true? What the Colonel says?"
| "...yes. But not everything I told you is a lie.
| Some of it was the truth." Her voice was
| sorrowful.
| "Who are you really?"
| "I don't know. I don't know what my parents
| looked like even, or what they were called. I
Page 194| bought the name I use, the whole identity,
| with hard cash. Remember I told you why I
| was so fixated on genes? That was the truth."
| "Because you wanted to know who you
| were. That's what you said."
| "Yes... I don't know what I am. My ethnic
| background, age..."
| "Naomi -- "
| There was a pause before Naomi started
| speaking again in a rush.
Page 195| "I was picked up in Northern Rhodesia, in
| the 80's, I was an orphan."
| "Rhodesia? During all the guerrilla
| warfare?"
| "Zimbabwe used to be a British colony, you
| know. There was a sizable Indian population
| there then. Maybe that's where I get the color
| of my skin, but I'm not even sure of that."
| "Naomi, why dwell on the past? If you can
| understand who you are now, isn't that all that
Page 196| really matters?"
| "Understand what I am myself? No one
| could ever understand me, least of all myself,"
| Naomi's voice was suddenly defiant.
| "I was always searching for myself, alone.
| Until I met my brother and Him."
| "Your brother?" Snake asked.
| "Yes. Frank Yeager."
| "What did you say?" Snake was taken
| aback.
Page 197| "He was a child soldier too. He found me
| almost dead of starvation on the bank of the
| Zambezi and fed me from his own small ration
| of food."
| Child soldiers. It is not rare for children to
| participate in war as combatants in many of
| the most conflict-ravaged regions of the
| world. This is especially true for those
| developing nations where minors account for
| the majority of the entire population. A harsh
Page 198| regimen can and does turn innocent children
| into the most brutal of soldiers. In many
| cases, various drugs are used to numb the
| natural fear response. The result is an
| marks them out for posting to the frontlines of
| the fiercest battles and to scouting duties in
| the minefields.
|
| "Yes, the man you destroyed is my brother.
Page 199| Frank Yeager, my only family." Naomi said
| quietly.
| "That's impossible -- Gray Fox is your
| brother? Snake could not hide his pertur-
| bation.
| "We managed to survive hell together, all
| because he protected me. He was everything
| to me. He was the only witness to my
| existence, and the only one who made me feel
| like a real human being."
Page 200| "Gray Fox brought you to the States?"
| "No. We met -- Him in Mozambique."
| "Him?" Something seemed to click within
| Snake. "You mean Big Boss?"
| "Yes. He led us here, finally made us free.
| But Frank went with Big Boss, back to the
| wars. And when he came home to me, he
| was -- " Naomi broke off. The silence spoke
| of smoldering anger, of irreparable loss.
| "I promised myself that I would get you. You
Page 201| broke my brother, you as good as killed him.
| That's why I joined FOXHOUND. Because I
| knew that I would run into you sooner or
| later..."
| "Well, you've got your chance now." Snake
| seemed to be taking all this in stride. He was
| no doubt accustomed to being the target of
| the enmity of others.
| "Yes -- I've waited two years, you know."
| "Just for a chance to kill me?"
Page 202| "Exactly. Two whole years, waiting for you
| and no one else. Yearning for revenge. It's
| almost like being in love."
| "You still hate me?"
| " -- I wouldn't say that." There was a trace
| of hesitation in Naomi's voice. "There are
| some things about you that I misunderstood."
| "Was it -- did you kill your predecessor?
| That geneticist who was using Gray Fox for his
| experiments?"
Page 203| "You mean Dr. Clark? No, it was Frank that
| killed him. I covered up the whole thing, kept
| my brother safe."
| A uneasy silence fell.
| "Is the Ninja -- Gray Fox -- here to kill
| me?"
| "I don't think so. Frank is here to fight you,
| nothing more. I couldn't make sense of it at
| first, but I think I know now. A kind of a duel.
| He lives only for that, I think."
Page 204| "Fox..." Snake murmured, as though
| remembering the man who had once been his
| comrade.
| "Tell me something, Naomi," he said a short
| while later.
| "It's about FOXDIE, isn't it?" she said in a
| low, pained voice. It's a retrovirus. Kills only
| the designated person by first infecting the
| macrophage. FOXDIE is engineered with an
| oxygen chain that responds only to a specific
Page 205| DNA pattern."
| "The oxygen is what recognizes the target
| DNA sequence?"
| "Once the recognition oxygen responds,
| FOXDIE repurposes the macrophage's cellular
| structure to create TNF-alpha," Naomi had
| regained her old calm as she fielded Snake's
| question.
| "What does that mean?"
| "It's a type of cytosine -- a peptide that
Page 206| triggers cell death. The TNF-alpha travels
| through the blood stream to the heart, where
| it binds to the receptors of cardiac cells."
| "And that causes a heart attack?"
| "The affected cells undergo rapid apotosis.
| And then the owner of that heart - dies."
| "Apotosis -- I remember that. Programmed
| cell death for damaged cells," Snake
| murmured. The tense silence descended once
| again.
Page 207| "Naomi -- "
| "Yes?"
| "I know you programmed me to die."
| "Naomi remained silent.
| "Do I have any time left?" Still no answer.
| "Naomi, you have every right to take my
| life. But I can't die just yet. I still have work to
| finish."
| "You have to listen -- I'm not the one who
| decided on the use of FOXDIE," Naomi burst
Page 208| out.
| "Not -- you?"
| "It was a part of the mission plan to infect
| you with FOXDIE. I wanted to tell you that..."
| Naomi broke off, then suddenly made up her
| mind to continue. "I'm not being honest with
| myself."
| "Naomi?"
| "What I really wanted to tell you was --
| Snake -- I -- " Naomi was struggling for
Page 209| words when suddenly, a male voice barked
| behind her.
| "Freeze! Step away!"
| "No!" Naomi cried out sharply. She must
| have been spotted by one of Richard's toughs.
| I could hear the sound of a scuffle over the
| radio.
| "Snake..." With that last gasp, Naomi faded
| out of earshot.
| "Naomi!?" Snake called out but it was
Page 210| Campbell that answered him.
| "Snake, I can't permit you to communicate
| with Naomi."
| "What are you talking about!"
| "She's officially out of the mission!"
| "What did you do with her? How was
| infecting me a part of the plan? Colonel, let
| me talk to her!"
| "I can't do that, Snake. She's been
| confined."
Page 211| "Colonel -- you sold me out, didn't you!" I
| could hear the rage in Snake's voice.
| "Don't waste your energy thinking about
| things you can't change," Campbell said, his
| voice carefully guarded against any emotion.
| "Stopping the Metal Gear is your first priority,
| don't forget that."
|
| "I can't believe Naomi was Gray Fox's foster
| sister..." Richard murmured bitterly.
Page 212| "Are you happy? You know who she is now
| after all."
| "I wouldn't say that." Richard's expression
| was complex.
| "She said she wasn't the one who deployed
| FOXDIE." I decided to risk putting out a feeler.
| Richard said nothing, and that told me
| everything I needed to know.
| "It was you, wasn't it?"
| "Yes..." I was taken aback by his ready
Page 213| admission. "FOXDIE was one of my projects."
| "And Naomi?"
| " -- Was a top-notch professional. The
| FOXDIE research had hit a brick wall when
| she pitched herself to us. She'd somehow
| heard that we were looking for a genetic
| engineering expert. As soon as she joined the
| team, the project took off in a major way."
| Richard paused, then plunged ahead.
| "I assigned her to lead the development
Page 214| effort. When the virus was finally engineered,
| it was she that named it FOXDIE."
| "What I thought was dedication to the work
| was actually thirst for vengeance. She didn't
| let that slip, not once." He murmured ruefully.
| I knew what his relationship had been with
| Naomi when I studied his face.
| "You were seeing her."
| "She was using me." He corrected and gave
| a hollow laugh. At that point, one of his men
Page 215| came tearing over. After an urgent whisper,
| Richard's face grew grim.
| "What happened?"
| "Master Miller wasn't Master Miller."
| Richard was visibly shaken.
| "What?"
| "The man I sent to investigate Miller just
| reported in. He found Miller murdered in his
| home, up in Alaska."
| "Who was it that we were talking to
Page 216| then -- !" But there was no one who could
| provide an answer to that question.
|
| Around the same time on Shadow Moses,
| Snake had finally made it past the enemy's
| defenses and successfully re-entered the
| launch code. But something was amiss: as the
| code was accepted, an alarm was triggered.
| "Launch code entered," An electronic voice
| intoned. "All systems ready. Standby for
Page 217| missile launch."
| Snake stared around him, aghast.
| "No! I just overrode the launch authori-
| zation!" He cried. His questions were
| answered by an unexpected source when a
| radio call came in.
| "Thank you, Snake." It was Miller -- or
| rather, an impostor who had taken the
| murdered man's identity. "The launch prepa-
| rations are now complete. Nothing can stop
Page 218| Metal Gear now."
| "Master, what's going on!"
| "We're very grateful to you. Not only did
| you bring the key, you just entered the launch
| code for us as well."
| "What?"
| "We never did get his part of the code from
| the DARPA chief. Even Mantis' abilities
| couldn't break through, and Ocelot managed
| to kill Anderson off before we could try
Page 219| anything else..."
| As Snake listened in horror, "Miller"
| continued.
| "You see, we couldn't launch the missile.
| Not even a warning shot. We were dead in the
| water, with nothing to back up our demands."
| "Master, what are you saying?"
| "With the launch code out of our reach, we
| had to fall back on another plan. We decided
| to have you work for us, Snake."
Page 220| "What?"
| "Having Decoy Octopus impersonate the
| DARPA chief was a part of it. We were trying
| to extract information from you but -- FOXDIE
| got to him first." "Miller" said savagely.
| "Are you saying this whole thing was
| fixed?" Snake asked through clenched teeth.
| "And it was all to get me to unlock
| the launch sequence..."
| The terrorist's mocking laugh rang out.
Page 221| "Did you think you got this far thanks to
| your own abilities? Think again."
| "Master, what about you? Are you a spy?"
| The other continued as though he had not
| heard Snake's question.
| "But everything is ready for the launch now.
| Once they get a taste of the new warhead, the
| White House will have to hand over the
| antidote. And they'll have nothing on us any-
| more, ever again."
Page 222| "Have nothing on you? What do they have
| on you now?"
| "The Pentagon's already accomplished what
| it set out to do with you. It happened right
| there in that torture chamber. You're the
| only one who's in the dark. It's not fun, is it,
| Snake?" He sneered.
| "Who are you!?"
| "I'll tell you -- if you manage to get to me."
| "Where are you?"
Page 223| "Very close, Snake. Very close."
| Campbell suddenly broke in.
| "Snake, that's not Miller!"
| "Hello Campbell. It's a little late for that,"
| the impostor said mockingly.
| "Master Miller's body was discovered at his
| home. He's been dead three days. We didn't
| know sooner because the communication was
| down. According to Mei Ling, the transmission
| is originating inside that base."
Page 224| "Then who are you?"
| "You've been talking to me all along -- "
| The man responded. " -- Snake." His voice
| suddenly changed, and I knew who it was. So
| did Snake.
| "Liquid" Snake broke off communications,
| and started to run.
|
| Metal Gear had already been activate by
| the time Snake reached it. Liquid was about to
Page 225| climb into the pilot's seat when Snake called
| out to him, the barrel of his SOCOM pointed
| straight at Liquid.
| "Liquid!"
| "Are you going to shoot your own brother?"
| Liquid remained languid.
| "Why did you impersonate Miller?"
| "To manipulate you, of course." Liquid said
| conversationally as though the two were
| discussing the weather. "It worked too. You
Page 226| did exactly what we needed you to do."
| Snake's indignity was compounded by
| Liquid's next comment.
| "I'm sure your master at the Pentagon
| agree."
| "Why do you keep mentioning them?"
| "You don't even question the orders that
| you're given any more, hm, Snake? Where's
| your pride? A warrior, reduced to a pawn."
| Liquid sighed exaggeratedly. "All this --
Page 227| stopping the nuke, rescuing hostages --
| it's a charade."
| "Charade?" Snake was taken aback.
| "All the Pentagon wanted was to
| effect a meeting between us." Liquid
| explained, obviously enjoying Snake's
| reaction. "That's how the ArmsTech
| president and Decoy were gotten rid of."
| "Can't be..."
| "Actually, it can be. The point was to
Page 228| selectively kill us off and retrieve our
| extremely expensive genetically engineered
| corpses along with Metal Gear. You were sent
| in by the Pentagon merely as a FOXDIE
| vector!"
| Snake was in shock.
| "That's -- insane. And Naomi -- was she
| working with the Pentagon all along...?"
| "That's what they thought. But she it seems
| she wasn't quite as soft as they read her to
Page 229| be."
| "What do you mean?"
| "I have ears at the DOD. Naomi apparently
| managed to make some tweaks to the virus
| right before the mission. Her motive and
| objective are unknown."
| I heard Richard's impatient grunt beside
| me.
| "Is that what you had Naomi arrested for?
| To discover why she did what she did?"
Page 230| Snake challenged.
| "Very good. It's disappointing that it was
| nothing more than a run-of-the-mill revenge
| scheme. But we still don't know what kind of
| changes she introduced to FOXDIE."
| Liquid fell silent for a moment, then
| continued.
| "But enough of that. I've already added
| FOXDIE antidote to my list of demands to
| Washington."
Page 231| "There's an antidote?" Snake asked in
| surprise.
| "There should be. Hunter would be the only
| one to know but even that may not be
| necessary."
| "Why not?"
| "You've successfully infiltrated the facility.
| We've all been infected with the execution
| virus according to their plan. Octopus and the
| ArmsTech president died of it for certain. But
Page 232| neither myself nor Ocelot -- not to mention
| you -- have shown any signs of infection..."
| "You're saying there may be a flaw in
| FOXDIE's targeting program."
| "Who knows. But as long as you're healthy,
| I'm safe. We share the same genetic code
| after all."
| "So we are -- "
| "Twins, yes. But not in the ordinary sense.
| We're the flip sides of a counterfeit genetic
Page 233| coin. 'Enfants terrible'..." Liquid's voice grew
| hoarse with anger. "You lucked out. They
| handpicked all of our father's superior traits
| for you."
| Snake was silent. His father, Big Boss, was
| a part of the past he wanted to leave behind,
| a past tainted by the crime of patricide. But
| Liquid was not finished.
| "Everything that was undesirable, I got. Or
| should I say that I was everything undesirable.
Page 234| Left over -- from the creation process that
| was designed to produce you. The only
| reason I came into being was so that you
| could be born."
| "How could I be the superior --
| specimen?"
| "Oh, but you are. And I'm the dregs. You
| couldn't begin to understand what it was like
| starting out life as genetic garbage!" The
| hatred and rage in Liquid's voice shook us,
Page 235| and left Snake speechless.
| "But it was me that out father chose."
| Liquid said slowly and purposefully.
| "Is that why you're obsessed with Big
| Boss? Some kind of twisted love?"
| "Love? Hatred, my brother. He chose me
| knowing that I was biologically inferior. Now
| I'm about to pay him back for that crime!"
| Liquid laughed, mocking Snake's
| bewilderment.
Page 236| "You couldn't understand that either.
| Someone who got the chance to kill his own
| father wouldn't! You managed to deprive me
| even of that revenge. But I will accomplish
| what our father dreamt of and never achieved.
| That's how I'll kill him -- by surpassing him."
| Liquid ended his proclamation by leaping into
| Metal Gear's cockpit. Snake fired a burst from
| his Socom, but the bullets ricocheted off Metal
| Gear's armor.
Page 237| "Damn!" Snake gnashed his teeth as Liquid
| called out mockingly from the cockpit.
| "Snake, count yourself lucky. You get to die
| by the greatest weapon the world has ever
| seen. It's the least I can do for my brother."
| Metal Gear, already in activation mode,
| started to stir. A high-pitched noise, like the
| whine of a turbo engine, began to sound as
| Liquid's voice boomed out of the amplifier,
| "I'll give you an advance showing of what
Page 238| the rest of the world will learn soon -- that
| the 21st century will belong to a devil they
| don't know!"
|
| Metal Gear struck at Snake like a living
| thing. Its state-of-the-art composite armor
| was virtually impregnable to all but high-yield
| explosives like HEAT (High Explosive Anti-
| Tank). But Dr. Emmerich had advised Snake to
| take out the radome and knock the sensors
Page 239| offline in a bid for survival.
| Snake struck again and again, but he was
| fighting a difficult battle, given Metal Gear's
| immense firepower and agility. Finally, one of
| Metal Gear's huge feet lashed out towards
| Snake in a crushing blow.
| "It's time to die, Snake!" Liquid called out.
| The foot hit the floor with a deafening crash.
| Snake, however, had escaped. Someone had
| pulled him out of the foot's path at the last
Page 240| second.
| "Get out of here now!" The voice was a
| familiar one.
| "Grey Fox!" Snake cried out.
| The Ninja -- or rather Gray Fox --
| launched a fiery arc towards Metal Gear,
| destroying the radome. The tank froze in
| confusion for a second, and Snake and the
| Ninja found cover during that brief lull.
| "Why, Fox? Why are you helping me?"
Page 241| "I'm a captive, Snake. Death is my prison
| You're the only one who can release me..."
| Gray Fox replied, his voice clear and sane.
| "Fox, don't involve yourself in this business
| anymore. Think about Naomi. She's destroying
| herself trying to avenge you..."
| "Yes... Naomi..."
| "You're the only one who can stop her,"
| Snake urged, but Gray Fox's reply was
Page 242| discouraging.
| "No, I can't..."
| "Why not?"
| "I'm the one that killed her parents." Gray
| Fox's stark words stunned Snake. "I was just
| a child myself, and I couldn't stand to kill her
| too. I took her with me because it was the
| only way I could think of to assuage the guilt.
| I raised her to satisfy my half-baked
| conscience, but she gave me the love and
Page 243| respect I didn't deserve -- called me her
| brother."
| "Fox -- "
| "We may have looked like a happy little
| family, but I was terrified every time she
| looked me in the eye -- that she would see
| the truth. Tell her for me, will you? Tell her
| that I'm the one who took her family from
| her, not you."
|
Page 244| Many former child soldiers are permanently
| traumatized by their horrific war experiences.
| It was possible that Gray Fox's compulsions --
| whether it be taking in his victims' orphaned
| child or returning again and again to the
| battlefields with Big Boss -- had its roots in
| his childhood scars.
| "There you are!" Liquid called through
| Metal Gear's speakers. A concentrated volley
| of Vulcan cannon fire followed, the rounds
Page 245| closing in on Snake and the Ninja.
| "It's almost time to finish this," Fox cried.
| "I'll slow him down!"
| "Fox!" Before Snake could stop him, Gray
| Fox leapt out into the open and went for Metal
| Gear. We could hear the roar of Metal Gear's
| Vulcan cannon.
| Gray Fox's reinforced skeleton gave him a
| faster reflex, and he dodged the volley. But
| the next second, his body had been plucked
Page 246| up by Metal Gear's massive jaw.
| "Fox!" Snake's shout reverberated
| throughout the hangar.
| Metal Gear's engine revved louder and Fox's
| reinforced skeleton creaked audibly.
| "How long will his bones hold out? Hm,
| Snake? Are you going to abandon him?"
| Liquid taunted. But Fox was far from dead.
| "A cornered fox is one of the most
| dangerous animals!" Laser fire burst from
Page 247| Fox's right arm and Metal Gear's radome
| exploded. Liquid was now blind, since Metal
| Gear's cockpit was completely sealed from the
| outside.
| "They didn't give you a Fox rank for nothing,
| old comrade. But this is where it ends!"
| Liquid's unamplified voice called out. He had
| apparently discarded the cockpit hatch to use
| his own eyes and ears in lieu of sensors.
| The next thing we heard was an explosive
Page 248| crash. Was Gray Fox now under Metal Gear's
| foot? My fear was confirmed by the ominous
| and unmistakable sound of Fox's reinforced
| exoskeleton creaking under pressure. At the
| same time, we heard Fox's gasping voice.
| "Finally -- I can finally die, and with you
| as my witness. After Zanzibar Land they took
| away the fight from me... I wasn't dead but
| didn't... didn't feel alive. So futile... for such a
| long time. But finally it's over..."
Page 249| Fox's voice was down to a whisper now.
| "Snake! We're not just tools for politicians
| and generals! All I did with my life... was
| fight... but at least it was my choice...
| Goodbye, Snake."
| With a dull crunch, his reinforced skeleton
| finally gave away.
| "FOX!!" Snake screamed. Liquid laughed.
| "He was a fool. It was over the moment he
| begged for death." He ground Fox's battered
Page 250| corpse underfoot with Metal Gear, then
| bellowed.
| "Do you get it now! You can't protect
| anyone, let alone yourself! Die!" Metal
| Gear's Vulcan cannons roared into action.
| But with all sensors offline, the fire lacked
| it's previous accuracy.
| Robbed of his old friend and comrade,
| Snake gave free rein to his rage. Taking up a
| Stinger missile launcher, he fired at Liquid,
Page 251| sitting exposed in his cockpit. It was a direct
| hit; even the composite armor could not
| protect against a shot that penetrated into the
| cockpit itself. It's piloting system destroyed,
| Metal Gear abruptly spun out of control and
| pitched towards the ground with a deafening
| screech. A massive explosion followed
| seconds later.
| Snake, caught in the blast, was bodily
| thrown across the hangar and knocked
Page 252| unconscious.
|
| Snake was still out cold, but his radio was
| was online. We could hear smaller explosions from
| the wreck of the Metal Gear, and the sound of
| flames greedily sucking up the leaking fuel.
| Snake showed no signs of coming around.
| A few minutes later, a sound of footsteps
| emerged from the general chaos. It was
| moving towards Snake. There was a faint
Page 253| murmur.
| "Snake -- it's not over yet." It was Liquid's
| voice.
| "Snake!" I yelled into the radio, but Snake
| did not stir. "Isn't there anyway to wake
| him?" I asked Richard, but he shook his head.
| Liquid had reached Snake's side, and to our
| surprise, picked up Snake's limp body. He
| started to carry Snake, heading in the
| direction of Metal Gear's prone form.
Page 254| We listened, helpless, in a tense silence. It
| was Snake's battle; there was next to nothing
| we could do.
| Liquid had now climbed onto Metal Gear's
| back, where he carelessly laid Snake down.
| He apparently planned to simply wait for his
| adversary to regain consciousness.
|
| "So -- " Liquid said. Snake was still out of
| action.
Page 255| "I know you're listening. You have a radio
| implant in this one." It was clear that Liquid
| was talking to us.
| "You think you've pulled off FOXDIE. Think
| again. You're never going to kill me with a
| thing like that. Never."
| The knowledge that he was already infected
| with the killer retrovirus made no difference to
| Liquid Snake. It was a force of will that
| commanded respect.
Page 256| "You have no idea how excited I am --
| knowing that you're still out there. Revenge is
| a candy I've been deprived of too many
| times..." The hatred in Liquid's voice was
| chilling. "You -- 'Patriots'...!"
| At that moment, Snake let out a groan. He
| was starting to surface.
| "He's almost ready. Listen, all of you. When
| I've settled the score with this one, I'm
| coming after you next. I'm going to end your
Page 257| miserable lives in a way that'll make even the
| Reaper's stomach turn..."
| "I'll look forward to it," Richard murmured
| starkly.
| Snake groaned again. He was apparently
| awake.
|
| "Still a light sleeper, huh?" Liquid said to
| Snake conversationally.
| "Liquid -- you're alive?"
Page 258| "You won't get rid of me, not as long as
| you're breathing."
| "Sorry your insurrection was a bust," Snake
| commented.
| "Do you think that I'll give up my fight just
| because we've lost Metal Gear?" Liquid had
| lost none of his confidence.
| "Your fight? Snake shot back. "What's
| your real objective here?"
| "To make sure that the age of warriors
Page 259| comes again. Warriors like us, Snake."
| "That's Big Boss's pet delusion all over
| again."
| "No, his legacy!" Liquid exploded at
| Snake's words. "All throughout the Cold
| War -- during the times of turbulence -- the
| whole world wanted us. Gave us our due. We
| were needed!"
| He fell silent, as if to mourn for the days
| that were no more.
Page 260| "That's all changed. Hypocrisy and
| fraudulent peace are replacing warfare. There
| is a terrible emptiness that comes from losing
| and arena for your gifts. And the terror that
| you will become a dinosaur, no longer useful.
| You must know that fear better than anyone."
| Snake had no reply to Liquid's entreaty. I
| wondered whether Liquid's words had found
| their mark.
| "The prototype nuclear warheads will
Page 261| provide me with the leverage to acquire my
| campaign funds. The funds will make more
| global acts of terrorism possible. Violence
| begets violence, and this complacent world
| will erupt into confusion. Violence, mistrust
| and conflict will compound each other and
| create more hatred -- and our sphere of
| usefulness, the ecosystem of war, will grow
| larger and larger."
| "As long as human beings are around, there
Page 262| will always be war, somewhere in the world."
| Snake argued. "There's no need to create
| more."
| "It's a question of balance," Liquid
| responded in a flash. "The balance that our
| father fought for..."
| "And that's the only reason you need to do
| this?"
| "It's more than enough for me. And for you
| too."
Page 263| "That's not the kind of thing I want. Not
| now, not ever!"
| Liquid laughed at Snake's dogged refusal.
| "You're lying. Why do you think you're
| here? You've been lied to, betrayed by your
| own team. But you still wouldn't abandon the
| mission. Why?"
| Snake could not answer.
| "I'll tell you why," Liquid continued.
| "Because you enjoy it. The thrills. And the
Page 264| kills."
| "No, that's not -- !" Snake was struggling
| for words, but Liquid cut in.
| "Are you going to deny it? You've killed
| dozens of my men today."
| "But that was..." As Snake faltered,
| Liquid laughed in contempt.
| "Every time you delivered the kill shot, your
| face brightened up."
| "No!"
Page 265| "There's no reason for you to deny your own
| killer instincts. That's what we were created
| for, after all."
| "What we were -- created for?"
| It was all the encouragement Liquid needed
| to reveal the details of a secret project known
| as "Les Enfants Terribles."
|
| It was the 1970s. The U.S. had not yet
| awoken from the nightmare of Vietnam War
Page 266| when a plan was hatched by key figures in the
| government to artificially create the ideal
| soldier. The man selected to serve as the
| genetic template for the project was the most
| famous living mercenary of the time, Big Boss.
| Big Boss was, however, incapable of
| reproducing, a result of past war injuries. As
| a result, his body cells were harvested for a
| cloning attempt. In addition to the existing
| "analogue" cloning protocol, the program
Page 267| incorporated the so-called "super-baby"
| technique.
| The super-baby technique involves carefully
| dividing the fertilized egg who's nucleus had
| been switched with that of the donor cell. The
| result is usually eight zygotes which are then
| implanted in a surrogate's uterus. Six of the
| embryos are strategically aborted over a
| period of time in order to boost the growth of
| the remaining two.
Page 268| "We started out as octuplets." Liquid
| relfected.
| "Octuplets..." Snake was clearly taken
| aback.
| "Six of our brothers were killed so that we
| could be created. We've been causing death
| and destruction even before we breathed
| outside air."
| "That left the two of us. Two zygotes that
| shared the same DNA. But there was one
Page 269| more sacrifice to be made. One of the
| embryos was engineered to manifest the full
| potential of its genetic makeup -- at the
| expense of the other one, which was purpose-
| fully relegated to the bottom of the curve. You
| are what you are, Solid Snake, thanks to the
| death and deprivation of your brothers!"
| Liquid surveyed the stunned Snake and
| smiled.
| "But if you think that I'm the only sibling you
Page 270| have left, think again."
| "What?"
| "The genome soldiers. They were bred from
| our father's DNA too. The only difference is
| that they're not analogs of him like we are."
| Liquid went onto tell an astonishing story.
| The Human Genome Project, concluded late
| last century, the "Les Enfants Terribles"
| Project and the intensive study of Big Boss'
| genetic samples had led researchers to many
Page 271| of the secrets of the so-called "soldier genes."
| The isolated traits for initiative, discipline and
| other tactically desirable characteristics had
| been secretly integrated into the genetic
| structure of next-generation special forces
| soldiers.
| "All those commandos you murdered on this
| base were your brothers."
| "The genome soldiers -- !"
| "Incomplete creatures, certainly, forcibly
Page 272| grafted with a piece of Big Boss' genetic
| sequence. But still family. They share in the
| family dysfunction too - their lives also cost
| someone dearly."
| "How so?"
| "Human experiments." Liquid hissed angrily.
| According to Liquid, the military had
| secretly started "treating" its men with the
| soldier gene when the 1991 Gulf War broke
| out. The unexplained "Gulf War Syndrome"
Page 273| among the returning personnel was apparently
| one of the gene therapy's unfortunate side
| effects.
| "That means that those Gulf War Babies born
| to vest are -- ?" Snake asked, stunned.
| "Exactly. Our earliest siblings."
| "And the next-generation special forces
| were the finished product?"
| "Finished?" Liquid sneered. "Hardly.
| They're defective. We all are. On a path to
Page 274| extinction, if you will!"
| "What did you say?"
| "You ever heard of the law of biological
| asymmetry? There's a natural tendency
| towards left-right asymmetry. On the other
| hand, species that ran out of genetic diversity
| and are on path to extinction start showing
| complete symmetry. That's what's happening
| to the genome soldiers. And to us."
| Snake stared at Liquid in bleak shock.
Page 275| "Every one of us is dying on a genetic level.
| The question is when the decline will start.
| That's why I need out father's body, to get
| some answers."
| "You expect me to believe," Snake asked,
| "that you demanded Big Boss' body so you
| can save yourself and the genome soldiers?"
| "Siblings start out life competing, but they
| always band together against outside threats.
| Why do you think that is?"
Page 276| Liquid waited for Snake to respond, but the
| latter said nothing.
| "It's because they share your genes, and by
| helping them, the chances of your genes
| making it to the next generation are bettered.
| Natural selection favors nepotistic species.
| The instinct to help our own kind is an
| inherited trait."
| "Your DNA is ordering you to help these
| genome commandos?" Snake said skeptically,
Page 277| but Liquid agreed in reverential tone.
| "No one can go against their genetic
| destiny. We were born for the sole purpose of
| recreating our father's DNA in its basest and
| most ideal incarnations. I will follow my
| destiny -- and surpass it. I can break my own
| biological curse, and that's why I'm going to
| kill you, Solid Snake..." He spoke quietly, but
| it was clear that he meant every word.
| He suddenly called out in a different tone.
Page 278| "Look behind you!"
| "Meryl!?" Snake exclaimed. Meryl was
| apparently lying behind Snake. I guessed that
| she had been brought there before Liquid had
| carried Snake onto the roof.
| "Is she alive?"
| "I wouldn't know. She was definitely
| breathing a few hours ago, though. She kept
| calling your name, over and over again."
| Liquid said coolly.
Page 279| "Meryl..."
| "She's a fool to fall for a man who doesn't
| even have a name."
| "I do have a name."
| "No, you don't. And no past and no future!
| That's the way it is for us!" Liquid shouted.
| "The only thing we do have are instructions
| written in our father's genomes!"
| "Liquid, let Meryl go!"
| "After we settle things between us. We're
Page 280| just about out of time."
| "Are you talking about FOXDIE?"
| "No, then Pentagon. It seems that the DOD
| came to a decision when they heard about
| Metal Gear's destruction. They're not even
| interested in a Bondar report at this point.
| Ask your shadow Campbell if you want. He
| likes to listen, doesn't he?"
|
| Snake raised Campbell on the radio.
Page 281| "Colonel, can you hear me?"
| "I'm here."
| "What's the Pentagon up to? You'd better
| tell me, Colonel."
| "The Defense Secretary's personally taken
| control of the mission. He's on a AWAC
| heading your way."
| "For what?"
| "An air strike." Campbell replied bitterly.
| "WHAT?"
Page 282| "That's not even the bad news. A bomber
| just took from the Galena AFB. It's carrying
| the B61-13 surface-piercing missiles."
| "Christ, Metal Gear's already been
| destroyed." Snake raised his voice. "Doesn't
| the Defense Secretary know that?"
| "He knows. But because of Naomi's
| betrayal, he no longer has any faith in
| FOXDIE's effectiveness. Your taking out
| Metal Gear means that the threat of nuclear
Page 283| strike has been removed, and he's free to
| ensure a direct and complete cover-up of
| the whole affair."
| " -- By blowing up all the evidence and
| everyone who knows anything sky-high with
| a nuclear bomb." Snake finished angrily. But
| Campbell's next words were unexpected.
| "Don't worry, Snake. I'll halt the air strike."
| "What?"
| "It may be a technicality, but I'm still the
Page 284| field controller for the mission. If I call in an
| order to halt the strike, it should wreak
| enough havoc with the chain of command to
| buy you some time. Use it to get out of there."
| Richard called one of his men over and
| muttered an order. There was little doubt that
| it was for Campbell's arrest.
| Snake and Campbell, ignorant of the
| roomful of ears who were listening in on their
| exchange, were still talking.
Page 285| "Colonel, you know what would happen to
| you... ?"
| "It's all right, Snake. But you should know
| something. There was a top-secret internal
| investigation being conducted into FOXHOUND
| these past few months. Meryl was transferred
| out to Shadow Moses the day of the
| insurrection -- as a hostage to ensure my
| cooperation."
| "What a -- " Snake broke off in disgust.
Page 286| "Now, go Snake."
| "Are you sure about this? You'll lose
| everything you've worked for."
| "I'm sure. And this way, I get to keep the
| things that are really important -- and that I
| would otherwise lose."
| "Colonel -- "
| "All right, I'm putting in an order to halt the
| strike. This is the point of no return... What
| the hell!?"
Page 287| Campbell gasped. It seemed that Richard's
| men were trying to restrain him. The only
| thing we could hear over the radio were gun-
| shots and unintelligible noise. I was once
| again a helpless spectator of a life-or-death
| struggle.
| Mei Ling burst in abruptly, as though she
| had seized the microphone.
| "Snake!!"
| "Mei Ling, what happened to the Colonel!"
Page 288| "I don't believe this -- !"
| "Tell me what's going on!"
| "Snake! The Colonel!" Mei Ling's voice
| was lost in the shower of static before she
| could reveal more. Instead, an unfamiliar
| male voice started to speak.
| "This is Jim Houseman, Secretary of
| Defense. Roy Campbell was just relieved of
| duty."
| "Let me talk to Colonel Campbell!"
Page 289| "He's been arrested for compromising
| national security. He'll be charged with
| treason."
| "That's insane!"
| "No, it was Roy Campbell who was insane
| if he truly believed that he had any real say in
| this mission."
| "You -- !" Snake was seething, but
| Houseman went on nonchalantly.
| "The nuclear strike will go forward as
Page 290| planned. The sea will take care of what little
| there is left. It's what the President wants."
| "So this an executive order?"
| "The Presidency of the United States is a
| very, very busy job. Let's just say that I take
| full responsibility for this strike."
| "How are you going to explain to the media
| why you dropped a nuke on American soil?"
| "Don't worry, there's a cover story ready. A
| band of terrorists took over the Shadow
Page 291| Moses facility, and were extremely careless
| with their nuclear missile."
| "You'll be killing your own genome
| commandos -- all the researchers too."
| "Donald is already dead..." Houseman
| suddenly said with genuine sorrow in his
| voice.
| "So you didn't plan on killing the DARPA
| chief after all." Snake asked.
| "He was my closest friend."
Page 292| "And the rest of the poor bastards stranded
| here aren't, so to hell with them, is that it?"
| "That depends. If you transfer the contents
| of the optical disc over to me, there may be
| room for negotiation."
| "What disc?" Snake feigned ignorance, but
| Houseman was not so easily put off.
| "The disc that contained the full exercise
| data. Donald was supposed to personally
| bring it back."
Page 293| "I don't have it..."
| "Hm. That's unfortunate." Houseman said
| calmly. "The fact remains that the two of you
| are a liability. You belong to an age no one
| cares to go back to, and you have the
| potential to needlessly embarrass this great
| nation. No, you cannot be permitted to ever
| leave that island. Take the time until the air
| strike to catch up. Then rest in peace -- you
| are a ghost of the Cold War, after all."
Page 294| The transmission ended.
|
| "So there's no way out for either of us," O
| heard Liquid laugh as he approached Snake.
| "We'll settle the score before the cavalry
| arrives."
| Snake rose to his feet.
| "You've taken everything from me," Liquid
| said. "And I will reclaim it all -- including my
| rightful biological heritage -- right here."
Page 295| The two Snake's closed in on one another.
| The final battle was about to begin.
|
| Snake and Liquid had engaged each other in
| a fierce hand-to-hand combat, but Richard
| had other things to attend to. He had one of
| his men open a radio channel.
| "Yes, what is it?"
| I realized with surprise that the person he
| had called was none other than the Secretary
Page 296| of Defense Jim Houseman.
| "An air strike was an unwise decision."
| Richard sounded displeased. "With a nuclear-
| armed Stealth bomber airborn, a complete
| cover-up is no longer an option. 'They' are
| not happy with this."
| "It's the only way to destroy the evidence.
| The results will bear out the correctness of
| my decision."
| "There will be no results. I've already
Page 297| aborted the air strike."
| "How -- dare you...!" Houseman started to
| roar, then suddenly petered out. He no doubt
| had remembered the powers-that-be that
| stood behind Richard.
| "What do you intend to do then?" He asked
| with barely suppressed rage.
| "There is another viable way to salvage the
| situation."
| " -- Make me take the fall? I don't think
Page 298| so!" Houseman's voice shook with fury.
| Richard sighed exaggertedly.
| "You don't think so? It seems, Mr.
| Secretary, that Colonel Campbell is not the
| only one who 'truly believed that he had any
| real say in this mission.'"
| "What are you saying?" I heard the sound
| of scuffling on the other end. "Hey, what do
| you think you're doing! Get your hands off of
| me!"
Page 299| Houseman had apparently been restrained.
| It was exactly the same scenario that had
| played out during Campbell's arrest.
| "You have several choices," Richard
| explained with something resembling pity.
| "It's up to you which ending this particular
| story has. I myself would suggest a quiet
| retirement from public life..."
| "You'll pay for this, Ames. I swear to God..."
| Houseman spat out as he struggled vainly
Page 300| against his captors.
| "Personally, I don't condone rough
| measures. I hope you'll come to the same
| decision." Richard ended the call.
|
| The transmission from Shadow Moses
| was still active. Liquid's dying scream
| tore through the speakers.
| "Looks like things are wrapping up
| nicely over there," Richard murmured.
Page 301| Richard cleared all of the personnel
| out of the study. We were now alone. I
| could hear Snake and Meryl over the wires. It
| seemed that he had succeeded in rescuing her
| in time.
| "Now the question is, what am I going to do
| with you?" Richard said as he turned away
| from the radio.
| The time had come for me to make my
| movie; I walked up to my computer.
Page 302| "This machine has been recording every-
| thing that went on in this study and relaying it
| out to a remote location. Once there, the data
| was immediately back up on an optical
| disc.
| It was no bluff. It was just a more covert
| version of a real-time remote conferencing
| system. Because of my work, I frequently
| must acquire information from such unsavory
| types as black-market arms dealers and Mafia
Page 303| members who specialize in plutonium
| smuggling. The recordings were my standard
| insurance policy.
| "I've already sent a message to the collo-
| cation administrator. He'll give the disc to my
| media contact if he can't get in touch with me
| by a certain time." That had been the mail I'd
| secretly sent from my PDA earlier.
| "If anything happens to me, the contents of
| the disc will be all over the world."
Page 304| But Richard was unfazed. I started to feel
| apprehensive as he calmly lit another
| cigarette.
| "You mean this disc?" He took out a
| shining optical disc from his inside jacket
| pocket and slid it into my PC's drive. A few
| quick clicks of the mouse and the playback
| started. I stared at the slightly grainy footage,
| horrified. The audio seemed overly loud in the
| silent room.
Page 305| "You should be hearing from him soon.
| You're clear on how to use the radio?"
| Richard's voice was raspy in playback, but it
| was definitely the data I had secretly collected
| and sent out.
| "How...?"
| "You shouldn't underestimate me," Richard
| said as he ejected and pocketed the disc.
| "Everything in this house has been vetted
| and monitored since the operation started.
Page 306| Nothing got in or out without my knowing
| about it -- including electronic signals. That
| e-mail you sent from the bathroom never got
| to its destination."
| He'd seen right through me. With that
| realization, I felt strength leaving my body.
| The game was up.
| "But even if you had managed to get this
| data out into the world, that wouldn't have
| guaranteed your safety. No one would have
Page 307| believed yet another conspiracy theory, least
| of all the press."
| "Your -- people would have made sure of
| that, I'm sure."
| Instead of answering, Richard stubbed out
| his cigarette and slid his right hand inside his
| jacket. There was an awkward bulge there, in
| the clean line of his tailored jacket. It was
| where he kept his gun holstered.
| Cold sweat trickled down my back. I was
Page 308| slowly backing away from Richard, and I did
| not even realize the fact until my back hit the
| wall. There was no way out.
| "Are you really prepared to kill me?" I
| could not hide the tremor in my voice.
| "You should know the answer to that." He
| said quietly, looking me straight in the eye.
| The he pulled his hand out from under his
| jacket, and I instinctively shut my eyes.
|
Page 309| But even after what felt like an eternity, the
| muffled shot and the pain I was expecting did
| not come. I warily opened my eyes, and saw
| what was in his hand. It was not a gun, but a
| disc.
| "Everything you ever wanted to know about
| FOXDIE." Richard walked up to me and placed
| the disc in my hand.
| "As I said, a recording of what took place in
| this room won't guarantee your safety. There's
Page 310| no solid proof, just talk. It can easily be
| denounced as a fabrication and covered up."
| "But the FOXDIE data is a different story,"
| he continued. "This disc contains everything
| about that project, from its origins to the
| names of every individual involved. As long as
| you have this as an insurance, they won't be
| able to touch you."
| "Why, Richard?"
| He did not answer my question.
Page 311| "You'd better get out of here quickly. Your
| car's just out back."
| "What about you?"
| "That's not something you need to worry
| about."
| "But -- "
| "You don't need me, Nastasha. And I have
| things to take care of."
| "Why are you doing this?" I asked again.
| "You'll figure it out someday. Do what you
Page 312| have to do all right?" He suddenly held me
| close and put his lips on mine.
| As we broke apart after a long kiss, he
| whispered in my ear, "I wanted to do this
| again, just one last time." Then he gently
| eased me away.
| "Now go. Hurry." There was gravity in his
| voice that allowed only one response. I
| nodded, and sped out of the room.
| That was the last I ever saw of Richard
Page 313| Ames.
|
| After I fled from California, I went into
| hiding. There has been no sign of pursuit, for
| now.
| The terrorist incident on Shadow Moses
| Island came to a conclusion with the
| destruction of Metal Gear and the death of
| Liquid Snake. The United States government,
| however, has not yet officially acknowledged
Page 314| the incident. The roster of the dead included
| Liquid Snake, Psycho Mantis, Sniper Wolf,
| Decoy Octopus and Vulcan Raven. Revolver
| Ocelot's body was never recovered, but his
| personnel file was closed with notation,
| "Missing in action." FOXHOUND had, in effect,
| been decimated. The survivors from the next-
| generation commando unit were all removed
| to the Peace AFB in New Hampshire,
| ostensibly for training. As far as I know, they
Page 315| remain prisoners there to this day. The
| government has repeatedly denied allegations
| of genetically engineering super-soldiers, but
| rumors that the research continues remain
| persistent.
| The deaths of Donald Anderson, the DARPA
| chief, and Kenneth Baker of ArmsTech ended
| the development of a new Metal Gear. The
| Metal Gear REX unit itself had been all but
| completed under Hal Emmerich's leadership,
Page 316| but my source at Lawrence Livermore
| indicated that the rail gun warhead delivery
| system had not been fully operational.
| Apparently, there had been some serious
| issues with the rail gun's targeting accuracy.
| This was no doubt the reason Baker had
| entrusted Snake with the exercise data, and
| Jim Houseman, the Secretary of Defense, had
| so aggressively pursued its whereabouts. The
| data is now lost, and the development
Page 317| program has been closed down. I dare to
| dream that the new nuclear delivery system
| will never see the light of day.
| A few days after the incident, I heard on the
| news that Houseman had shot himself. The
| suicide was attributed to a temporary nervous
| breakdown related to job stress. Supporting
| statements from family and subordinates were
| widely aired. The air strike order for Shadow
| Moses was glossed over as an unfortunate
Page 318| evidence of the late Defense Secretary's
| unraveling mental state. I remembered
| Houseman's words from the final hours of the
| mission, and thought I knew what had really
| happened. He had refused to take the fall, and
| paid for the defiance with his life.
| The record of the Shadow Moses Incident
| and the FOXDIE data disc that Richard gave
| me are still under my vigilant guard. The FOX-
| DIE program data covers Naomi's careful
Page 319| analysis of the unauthorized reconfiguration
| she had made to the virus. The information
| showed that Snake was indeed one of the
| targets for the deadly retrovirus, but the
| incubation period had been changed to a
| wildcard value. Even Naomi herself did not
| know when the virus would awaken within
| Snake. It must have been the best revenge
| she could think of, condemning him to live in
| this fearful limbo.
Page 320| Colonel Roy Campbell was released after
| the Defense Secretary's own arrest, and is
| once again enjoying his retirement.
| Mei Ling also made it safely out of
| the mission, and is back in academia.
| Dr. Hal Emmerich did not return to
| ArmsTech following his rescue from Shadow
| Moses. His whereabouts are unknown, but
| there is some indication that he made his way
| to England where he has family members.
Page 321| Snake and Meryl appear to have success-
| fully made it off Shadow Moses Island. I could
| however find no traces of them; I hope that the
| same is true for those who have an interest in
| seeing them silenced.
| Naomi Hunter was formally taken into
| custody after the incident's conclusion. Three
| weeks later, as she was undergoing debriefing
| in a certain facility, she escaped. She has not
| been heard of since. Official were closed-
Page 322| mouthed about the circumstances of the
| escape, but inquiries into other quarters
| elicited the fact that someone had broken
| Naomi out of the base. I know of only one
| person who could have breached the base's
| tight security and successfully led someone to
| freedom.
| And then there was the matter of Richard
| Ames.
| I called in a favor and had an inquiry made
Page 323| to the DIA about one Major Richard Ames. The
| Agency's response was that there was "no
| DIA personnel fitting that name and des-
| cription." Buying my safety and freedom
| had been a costly act for Richard.
| It was then that I decided to go public with
| what I knew.
| By exposing the conspiracy, I may be
| putting myself in renewed danger. But I am
| through with being a spectator, and objective
Page 324| bystander. The powerlessness I felt watching
| Snake's solitary war on Shadow Moses has
| been a bitter wake-up call. This time, I am
| determined to make a stand. This is my war
| now -- to tell the truth about what happened
| on that island. That is my responsibility and
| privilege as a survivor, and a cause for which
| I am prepared to give my life.
|
|
