Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this fic except for Ebony who is my creation. All others belong to Konami and Mr. Kojima who came up with Metal Gear.
Desert Roses Have Thorns.
Chapter 1.
Snake couldn't help but smile when he heard Meryl's laughs as he watched her from the backdoor. The huskies charged after her barking and howling their welcomes, ignoring Meryl's drowned shouts that she had no time and was too tired to play. Snake turned to leave Meryl outside as she battled her way, wading through them to the enclosure gate.
"Better change…" Snake reminded himself looking down at the sneaking suit. It had been rendered useless now, all torn up by bullets, stained with blood, reeking of burned cordite, sweat, and death.
"It would only remind me of Shadow Moses anyway." He mumbled to himself, trudging into his room, hunting for the zip at the collar. Snake breathed with a sigh as he removed the garment, glad to get out of the tight fitting uniform. It was almost like shedding skin the way an insect or reptile does to reveal a new one underneath. Instead, Snake was casting off fighting and war from himself. Maybe there would be a new him underneath, somebody who didn't have to fight anymore? Then again, bitter experience from the past told him not to be quite so hopeful.
He looked up, back into the mirror. He hadn't quite got rid of combat yet. Meryl was standing in the doorway behind Snake, observing him and his reflection as he searched around in himself for the new Dave he was expecting. Snake was startled for a moment when he saw her in the mirror, peered down at himself not sure if it was playing tricks on him and not telling him the truth. It was perhaps tiredness that was inducing the feeling but the whole mess he'd just returned from felt like one sick dream.
The scrapes and bruises were all there. It hurt when he touched a darkened purple patch on his skin; the pain was real enough to not be a figment of his imagination. Battered all over and shot, the bandages clinging onto him spoke their own part of Liquid's drive to kill Snake.
"They'll heal…" Snake smiled back at Meryl over his shoulder. Meryl shook her head and walked up to him slowly, raising her hands up, stopping hesitantly and began to put them down to her sides again, finally deciding to carefully and delicately rest them on his shoulders. She deliberately kept a little distance between them as Snake turned around to face her.
"I don't know how you do it. Liquid could have…" Meryl was silenced as Snake gently put his finger against her lips.
"He could have but he didn't." Snake answered softly and lowered his hand. Meryl took hold of it giving him a serious look, examining the black bruises over the knuckles and gently rubbed around where the skin had burst open from his fight against Liquid.
"He came pretty close to it…" Snake finally confessed, slipping his free arm around Meryl.
She let go of his hand.
"C'mon, let's fix you up properly." Meryl forced a smile. "He never gave me much time to patch you up and I'll make a better job of it without shaky hands!" She laughed as they both made their way to the kitchen where the first-aid kit was kept. Snake sat down in a chair he pulled back from the table.
"Not that one." Snake called over to Meryl as she pulled open a cupboard door. "It's that one…there…" Meryl turned her head to look at him.
"This one?" She pointed to the cupboard beside the one she had just opened.
"Spot on. Everything is in there. I had hoped not to ever use it, but it was a good idea to stock up for the Iditarod."
"I guess that's on hold for this year, huh?" Meryl asked as she filled up a basin with warm water, pouring a generous amount of antiseptic into it.
"It's disappointing but there are more important things to do now." Snake continued as Meryl put everything on the table and sat down by his left-hand side.
"It was okay when you were knocked out; I knew you wouldn't feel anything…" Meryl told him as she rooted around in the box and placed some bandages and scissors out on the table ready for her to use.
"But it's gonna hurt this time?" Snake finished for her and smiled.
"Well, maybe." Meryl grinned back.
"Look I know I'm not your regular soldier but they did remember to give me a pain threshold." Snake chuckled lightly as Meryl began to unravel the bandages around his left arm. He watched on as the deep gash the bullet had torn out was revealed, still weeping, and tender. It brought back memories when he had been hit in a training accident, the first time he'd ever been shot. That had come as something of a shock to him back then, but now dodging bullets was just something he did when fighting.
Meryl splashed about in the water with a wedge of cotton wool, a warm scent rising up each time. She turned back to clean the dried blood around the wound, slowly working her way onto the wound, stopping every time she noticed Snake's eyes beginning to water or the muscles in his jaw moved with him gritting his teeth. Neither spoke to each other, Snake decided it was just best to let Meryl get on with it, without him distracting her. Meryl only asked if the dressings and bandages were on comfortably, and Snake simply grunted his answers.
Meryl sat back after finishing bandaging his right arm, pushing her red hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand.
"He really hated you, didn't he?" Snake was too distracted for a moment, fidgeting with the new white dressing on his side.
"Yeah." He simply answered, assuming it was Liquid she was talking about.
"Y'know…" Meryl began again putting the first aid box on her knee, throwing empty wrappers onto the table and sorted the contents so all the sterile packets were grouped together. "…he told me why he hated you. How you two were…" She faltered looking for the right word to say.
"Conceived?" Snake suggested, raising his eyebrows. Meryl nodded. "I don't think that's even the right word to describe how Liquid and I came to be. Maybe he was right. Maybe we were a joke to the scientists who made us. Make one better than the other, give them the same face, sit back, watch them grow up and see what happens when you put them in a battlefield together."
Snake sat holding his head trying to overcome the realisation. He'd never had much chance to see what it meant. Created in a laboratory and on the notebook of a scientist, made to requirements, the blueprint for a soldier held inside each and every one of his cells.
"It… it makes me feel like…" Snake stopped to mutter to himself a second. "…like I'm unreal. Artificial. A freak." He blurted aloud.
"Freak?" Meryl frowned at him. "Don't say that about yourself! The fact that you started life in a lab doesn't mean I think you're any more or less human. It doesn't change what I think or feel about you." She sat back and smiled at him as he peered up again.
"Now if you start growing extra arms or legs then I would change my mind and start thinking there was something not right about you!"
They both laughed for a few second, before quietening down once more. Meryl put a hand on Snake's shot leg getting his attention. The bandage poked out of the tear in his trousers, blotched with dull red.
"One left. It shouldn't take long, okay?" Meryl said and carefully lifted his leg up onto her lap, unwinding the layers of flimsy gauze wrapped around a pad of cotton wool over the ripped flesh.
Snake leaned forwards to have a look, wrinkling his nose up at the mess. He'd seen things like it before. Seeing this on other people didn't bother him so much, but when he saw injuries like it on himself or his friends, it was a different story entirely. Meryl was hunched over paying closer attention, delicately dabbing away with a ball of soaked cotton wool. Snake felt warm drops splash onto his skin around the wound. He didn't notice at first thinking it was just moisture from the cotton wool Meryl had in her hand. Her head was hung over to see what she was doing; her hair hid most of her face from Snake's view. In the light shiny drops fell from her face. Snake reached over slowly to hold her hand and stopped what she was doing.
"Meryl? He asked soothingly and wrapped both hands around hers. Meryl sat up, glanced quickly at him, and looked down at some invisible spot on the floor.
"I'm sorry… it's just every time I look at you now. The bruises on your face. The gun shots. I'm always reminded of him." Meryl spat out the words. "Kidnapping me, telling me how he always thought about what he would do to you, the things he said. I hate him!" She finished with a shout. Meryl took a breath. "Liquid's gone now." And rubbed her eyes with her knuckles, the rest of her hands were messy with dissolved blood and tore off a fresh wad of cotton wool, soaking it in the water.
"Ready?" She asked Snake.
"Huh?" Snake looked up at her as she held the sodden cotton wool out to him.
"I don't know… this might hurt more so do you want to do it yourself?" Meryl asked softly.
No, no. Go on ahead. It'll be okay." Snake insisted and shuffled around in his seat. Meryl carried on to clean where the bullets had gone in. Snake clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white, closing his eyes against the water that ran into them.
"You alright?" Meryl asked.
"…Yes…" Snake finally answered, still with his eyes shut tight.
"You won't admit it hurts!" She teased with a faint mocking smile.
"Meryl…" Snake growled at her opening one eye.
"Sorry!" Meryl smiled and began to wrap clean bandages around his leg, holding the dressings in place.
"There, I'm all done." She said sitting back up.
Snake slowly stood up, testing his shot leg and put more weight on it. By the way he limped around, it was clear that it was still very painful to walk or even stand on. He didn't intend on doing much for the next few weeks so there'd be plenty of time for recovery. He had got rid of fighting for now by retreating back home, but it would leave its mark on him. The scars he'd have after the healing would still remain, and the memories would come back later. They would not ever completely disappear. Snake had only just started to leave battle.
Meryl started to clean up as Snake hobbled away to change into other clothes.
He reappeared in jeans and a shirt walking further down the hallway with a shiver to the boiler stored away inside a closet. A quick examination made Snake furrow his brow and hit the boiler with his good hand.
"Damn. No wonder it's freezing in here…" He growled softly to himself.
"What's that?" Meryl asked and peeked over his shoulder, standing up on tiptoe.
"Oh. Bad, right?" She asked him.
"Yeah, no heating now I'm afraid. I can't fix it just now, I don't think I've got everything I need. Real smart of me to not check before winter set in." He sighed and turned around to face Meryl.
"Are you still wearing that?" She laughed and reached up to untie the bandanna around his head, running her fingers through his hair.
"Do you want to keep it?" She asked him holding it out to him.
"Yeah… please." Snake said taking it from Meryl and folded it up carefully. "…It's kind of special."
"If it's so special, why do you wear it when you go to fight?" Meryl questioned him.
"Why not? I like it and I guess it's like a lucky charm too." Snake said quietly.
Meryl stood back a little, somewhat surprised at what she'd heard him say.
"Lucky? Don't tell me that the man who's now stopped three Metal Gears thinks that a little thing like that has helped to make it possible!" She laughed. Snake rolled his eyes.
"It's just special okay. Don't give my secret away!" He hissed and smiled jokingly.
"And who's around to know?" Meryl smiled again as Snake put an arm around her waist.
"Just you…" He whispered.
"Only us…" Meryl added. Snake nodded, a faint grin spread across his face. Meryl shivered with the cold.
"Come on, I'll get a fire on and it won't be so cold." Snake walked past her and turned around. "Just wait in the sitting room, I won't be a minute."
Meryl sat herself down in the living room down in front of the fire hearth. Snake went back through the kitchen and into the back porch. He returned minutes later carrying armfuls of kindling, logs, and old newspapers.
"Thanks." He muttered as Meryl grabbed some of the logs and put them in a heap beside the fireplace
They both crouched down, scrunching up paper, placing kindling in amongst the papers. Meryl reached round Snake's back from where she was kneeling next to him, slipping her hand into his back pocket for his metal cigarette lighter.
"Hey!" He laughed. Meryl grinned cheekily at him holding the lighter up and lit the paper. She put it back in his pocket and sat back.
"Any excuse huh?" Snake grinned back at her sitting next to her. Satisfied that the fire was not going to die out, he threw on a couple of logs and waited for them to catch fire.
Meryl stretched out her legs, wriggling her toes while she warmed them in front of the fire. Snake had slinked off into the kitchen, noiselessly. It wasn't until Meryl heard cupboard doors being opened and shut, the click of a kettle after it boiled away that she noticed he'd disappeared.
"One sugar, milk." Meryl called to Snake, as she looked through the door to the kitchen.
"I remembered." Snake said to her when he returned and held out a mug. Meryl answered with a soft 'Thank you' and closed both hands round its sides taking a sip.
"Better?" Snake asked as he sat back down next to her putting his arm around her shoulders. Meryl relaxed and leaned into him, taking another mouthful of coffee.
"Yeah."
The next time Snake peered into his mug, it was empty. Neither had spoken for a while, but it had not been an uncomfortable silence, just peacefully enjoying each other's company.
He placed the cup down to one side, put both arms around Meryl, and noticed something that he had not seen in her a few minutes ago. A sad mournful look in her eyes. Right at the back, deep in her green irises.
"Hey." he whispered. "Still thinking of what happened back there?" Snake tucked Meryl's hair behind her ears and out of her face. She nodded a little and looked up hopefully. "Liquid's gone remember?" He added.
"No more fighting?" Meryl asked gently.
Snake was stung by the question and swallowed nervously. He had feared that she would ask him that question but never so soon. He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. It was something he hadn't really thought of yet and wasn't sure of what to say.
"I…I…" He started off slowly.
"What do I say?" He thought to himself.
Meryl waited expectantly holding both of his hands.
"I… I really don't know." Snake finally gave his answer, slowly and quietly. He let his head fall to avoid Meryl's gaze.
"After Zanzibar I had made that promise to myself that I would never fight again. I had really thought that I'd escaped war. But it found me again and it took me into Shadow Moses." He looked up again to see what Meryl's reaction was. Her face remained blank.
"I'd love to say that there won't be anymore for certain, but I really do not know. Meryl…I'd rather make a promise I know I can keep than lie to you." He halted for second. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay." Meryl replied softly as Snake rested his cheek on top of her head, hugging her a little tighter.
"Dave?" Meryl's voice broke the sound of the fire as it crackled and sparked away.
"Yes?" It seemed like a long time since he'd heard her use his real name.
"Will you…still protect me?"
"Of course I will." Snake laughed. "That promise I can keep."
"I promise I will protect you." He said firmly. "Always."
"Meryl." He called after a while. She looked round at him with a smile. Snake waited, inwardly thinking what it was he had to say to her but decided to leave it for another time. For him it was too soon and instead he leaned over and kissed her gently.
"I don't mean to sound dull…" He yawned and got up onto his feet with a stretch. "…but quiet night tonight, please?" Snake asked her. He knew that the next few days would be the worst; everything he took in the fight would show up. Meryl eyed him up and down, an understanding expression on her face.
"Yeah, I know." She answered quietly and threw another log onto the fire. "I'm staying up a little longer."
Snake stood looking out the window.
"It's going to be a cold night though." He muttered to himself as the snow came down in a blizzard.
"Goodnight Meryl." He called to her, limping away to bed.
"Oh yeah. Night."
§§
"This is it then? Shadow Moses Island." A small figure muttered to herself, stopping for a moment at the top of the island to survey the area. The woman was wrapped in several layers of white arctic combat gear, padded out to keep the biting wind at bay. The buildings were all floodlit in the blizzard, white light slicing through the darkness. What puzzled the new arrival was the absence of heavily armed patrols; there was nobody like that anywhere to be seen.
"What if I'm on the wrong island? I wouldn't be surprised at all. That man I questioned about this place probably wouldn't be able to tell me his name after I'd finished with him."
But how many islands in Alaska had facilities like this on them? Not many she imagined. So what had happened?
"No this isn't like him at all. He would never be so lazy and even with this snowstorm he would put guards on patrol. Never too many so that it would like he was using them to hide any paranoia. FOX-HOUND only demands the best from their members and they would have nobody like that leading the unit." She thought to herself and went on searching for a way inside.
All she knew about his latest mission was that his unit had been called in on the development of Metal Gear. Despite it being a secret and forbidden project, Ebony couldn't think of one mercenary who didn't know something about Metal Gear, Big Boss or the legend that had brought both of them down. The man called Solid Snake. Like a game of Chinese whispers, the facts had been mixed with myth making it impossible for anybody to decide which stories were true.
"Liquid talked about him didn't he?" She paused for a second trying to recall the moment he'd told her.
"He was… Liquid's brother. His twin brother." She murmured to herself and remembered a mission she and Liquid had been on together in the Middle East, where the issue had popped up in a conversation before Liquid had been recruited into FOX-HOUND. All Ebony could recall was that Liquid had kept his words short and sharp about Snake before moving onto something else. He was funny like that sometimes.
Ebony shivered at the cold, watching for even a single soldier to tell her she was in the right place.
She had never been in such a cold place, had never seen this stuff called snow before. She was more accustomed to the hot and dry climate of the Middle East where she'd been born and raised, fighting along with her mercenary father and where she met Liquid Snake right in the middle of a gun fight.
The enemy had pinned down Ebony, her father, and a few of their other fighters. Suddenly this man had just appeared out of nowhere, picked up the AK rifle from one of Ebony's dead companions, and started to fight back. The blonde-haired man had not asked whom it was they were fighting, why they were fighting and never spoke a word until most of the shooters had been killed. Ebony's father never made it to thank Liquid. The last surviving enemy sniper had killed him. Ebony never asked Liquid to do it, but he spent days hounding down the sniper in her place. Ebony had been hurt too much to do the deed herself and waited for him to return and help her back to base.
"And he wasn't even in a healthy state to fight." Ebony sighed to herself. The image of the skinny, British SAS soldier that had been Liquid on that day, was in her mind. It had baffled her at the time why he did not return home and stayed with her to work as a mercenary. Back then, Ebony had thought Liquid was bound to have a family, but as he had explained, he had no family he wanted to be with and was very much out on his own in the world.
Ebony pulled her coat tighter around herself and entered one of the buildings, creeping down shady corridors. Her hand fell down to her guns side and unlatched the catch on the holster. Lights flickered on. Off. On. Off, like strobe lights.
She peeked into the mess hall, brightly lit revealing the shambles it was in. Food supplies had been knocked over and spilled from open cupboards, across tables and onto the floor. Dorms for resident soldiers had bunks lined up like troops on the yard for drill were further in the building, and deeper inside Ebony found individual rooms separate from the rest. Most of them were quite vacant and bare with nothing in the drawers or closets. The beds were all made.
However, the last one she went into was different. It had been used. Recently.
The sheets were crinkled and pulled back on the bed. In the middle of the bed was a heap of small memoirs. She sat down to have a nose about in them, finding bullet cases of all kinds, some were complete bullets shiny as new. Tattered and dog-eared photographs of desert landscapes that Ebony recognised seeing herself. A photo of a glorious sunset over the mountains caught her eye and she slipped it into her pocket. It looked as though the rock has been set afire and the sun had melted into them.
"Let's see what's in here…" Ebony thought seeing that the top drawer of the little cabinet next to the bed was open a crack. She dipped her hand in and found a book, bound with a leather cover like the old tomes you would find gathering dust in a library. She opened it slowly, scanning her eyes over the neat and rather elegant handwriting and smiled to herself.
"He still keeps a log of his missions." She laughed. Ebony had seen Liquid write entries in his mission log, and had once or twice read what he wrote out to her. In the books, Liquid kept detailed accounts of each job they went on, his thoughts and impressions of what went on each day, whatever he felt like writing down. Finding this book gave Ebony a little more hope, it looked as though her journey half way across the world wouldn't be a wasted one.
"I wonder… what will he be like now?" Ebony mused as she put the book in a pocket. She suddenly felt nervous about seeing him again; they had been in each other's company for six years and knew each other very well. However, since Liquid had not remained in contact with Ebony for her protection, neither of them had been able to see or hear what went on in their lives. Nonetheless, Ebony looked forward to seeing how he was now and catching up with him.
Ebony left the sleeping quarters and continued through the building until she reached the other side, back into Alaska's freeze. There was nothing but white. Just white snow with lights glowing on a heliport and further away beyond it, floodlights lit up a building wall. She could see nothing but dark night on either side and decided it was not worth the risk of wandering around with nothing to guide her.
Ebony took a step out into the snow and found herself wading in the soft flakes half way up her calves. It sucked her feet back every time she took a step making Ebony put in twice the effort.
She paused for breath, hot with her trip through the snowdrifts and looked to see where she was. The floodlights were much closer with not much further to go before she was finally there. The thought of eventually seeing Liquid again helped her to pick up her pace and she hurried along.
"Phew! I hope I don't have to stay here much longer. I hate this place. I don't see what is so fun about snow. Honestly." Ebony breathed leaning against the building she'd now reached. She watched as her breath turned into a misty white cloud of vapor, the wind sweeping it away and slowly walked round, following the walls closely. Moments later and she found an entrance. There was a crack as the ice on the hinges split and let her inside to another door down a short flight of stairs. Ebony struggled to heave it open and was rewarded by a rush of hot air. She closed it behind her and turned to take in her surroundings.
Criss-crossing walkways wrapped around the interior and reached over to either side, lifts and pulleys, platforms jutted out of the walls over the source of the heat, a red pit of molten metal part of a blast furnace. Whatever it was called, Ebony didn't care; it was nice and warm here.
"Nothing on this level so I guess the only way is down." She whispered taking off her gloves and stuffed them in a pocket. Ebony creeped along noiselessly. She couldn't explain why, but she didn't like the place. An atmosphere, a vibe, whatever it was there was a feeling of unrest and disturbance, which had alerted her instincts.
Down on the third level Ebony spotted some thing down on the ground floor. It wasn't very clear what it was; vaguely human in shape but she still wasn't sure. Leaning over the railings was also not going to help her decide; Ebony was already over them a dangerous amount and loosing her balance would cause her fall to join whatever that thing was. She moved back away from the railings and took her gun in both hands, her soft footsteps echoing in the still sound.
Reaching the ground level Ebony watched the shape and discerned it was a person. She pointed her gun at it even though it had not moved.
"I have to get closer." She sighed after squinting. The glow from the molten metal threw out odd and peculiar shadows and made it difficult to make out the person lying there. Ebony slinked forwards to stand right next to it. Many of the lights didn't work and it was still difficult to see. Ebony could tell by the sound of her boots that there was blood underfoot around the body, still wet and glossy red. She casually tapped the corpse and rolled it over with one foot.
"WHAT THE…?" She sprang back, dropped her gun, and tripped over her own feet to land with a thud on her back. She sat up slowly and grabbed her gun, creeping back to have another look. She felt herself shake all over.
"I really hate this…" Ebony muttered in Arabic as she bent down to brush the hair out of their face. She opened her eyes, looked into theirs, and screamed out, throwing her hands up over her face.
It didn't matter how many lives she'd taken in her lifetime of fighting, nothing had prepared Ebony to find her one and only trusted friend dead, all on her own in a foreign country. She couldn't remain standing and collapsed down onto her knees at Liquid's side, covering up her eyes with her hands and spouted out a rush of random Arabic. Slowly, Ebony stopped and uncovered her eyes.
"What…what happened to you?" Her voice trembled as she slipped back into English. She reached over to close his eyes. It explained why there was nobody left on the island, without a leader what would they do.
Ebony softly spoke to him. It didn't matter to her that he would never hear her words again. People talk to their loved ones resting in graves deep in the ground, or when they are unconscious in hospital, so why would it be wrong for her to speak to Liquid?
A minute later, she fell quiet and carefully pushed more of Liquid's blonde hair out of his face. He hadn't changed much from the last time she had seen him. There was a tattoo on his left arm that Ebony didn't remember him having when they last met. It was a snake coiled around a blade.
"Why couldn't I have been here sooner?" Ebony cried out. "I might have stopped you from dying…"
She shook her head at him. He was all beaten up, shot twice in his back and once in his head, left to die where he had fallen. Ebony struggled to keep cool, saving up her anger until she found out who it was that had murdered Liquid.
Something glittered around Liquid's neck and Ebony leaned closer to have a look. Gold dog tags on a gold chain…she never saw him without them.
"Sorry but I think you'll understand…" She muttered quietly as she undid the catch and slipped one of the tags off the chain. She reached up to take off the necklace she had on, a gift from her father when she was just a girl, and put the tag on her chain. She popped it back down her shirt close to herself and replaced the remaining tag back on its chain around Liquid's neck.
Ebony wanted to give him a decent final goodbye right now but it was impossible to do it in Alaska. The cold weather and the frozen perma frost would make it difficult to dig a grave. She did not wish to throw his body in the furnace to burn unceremoniously. Her only choice was to take him with her when she returned to base and bury him there.
She'd had enough of mourning in silence and got back on her feet. Her mind had been made up.
"He tracked down and killed the sniper who reduced my family to zero even though he had no idea of who I was and what I was fighting for. The least I can do is to repay him." Ebony thought to herself. "I would have preferred to do something for him when he was alive but I will find his killer. I will find out everything from them and I will make them pay."
She turned away and began to walk back to the stairs that led her down to the platform. Her foot kicked something across the concrete and into a wall with a soft clang. Ebony bent down to pick it up.
"A combat knife?" She frowned. The weight felt so familiar in her hand and her heart leapt at the realisation.
"This is the one I gave you!" She called out turning back to Liquid with a smile. "You kept it!" She ran back to retrieve the case attached to his belt and replaced the blade back inside, clipping it to her own belt. She bowed her head a little before heading back upstairs to leave the building. Her plan was to return to his dorm, somewhere at least more familiar and comfortable to begin her search. The journal she had would also be a door to revealing what had brought Liquid to his end.
However, Ebony found it strange that she didn't feel much except this hollow nothingness inside her. She had no real reason to feel angry, she had nobody to blame yet and nobody to start hunting for. The only thing she could do is store it away until she found them.
Ebony soon arrived back in barracks. Retracing her path through the building back to Liquid's own room, Ebony removed her coat and gloves and hung them on the back of a chair. She sat down on the bed and sighed.
"Let's see what a dead voice has to say then." She said aloud and took out the logbook from her pocket to start reading.
An hour or two had passed and Ebony was lying down, her face pressed into the pillow. It smelled faintly of him but was quickly becoming soggy with her cries. She picked up the book and threw it without looking. It bounced off a nearby wall with a flutter of paper and landed opened out on the floor. At least now, she knew who it was that had killed him, everything that had happened since Liquid had set foot on the island.
At first Ebony believed that Liquid was lying about his origin, but could think of no reasons why he would lie and write about it in his own private logbook. She had known that Snake was his brother and now it was starting to come together, she could begin to understand what had happened to him. Wiping her eyes Ebony sat up and retrieved the book.
"I suppose that was why you didn't want to speak about him. You didn't want me to think that you were weak or know about your real past…" She murmured into the air. Ebony could only imagine Liquid's fury. His situation had been a unique event and one that would never be allowed to be repeated or experienced by anybody else. She remembered the thing that had kept them together all the years they spent working with each other. Both of them had dreamed of founding a country, fighting, and living on as mercenaries. And here he'd found the perfect opportunity to do it. The only thing that had stopped him from visualising his dream was his twin brother.
Ebony smiled. There was one thing she had to be pleased about in his mission log. Liquid had given clear details about what he did after waking up on the island and went after Snake again. The map he used was still lying spread out on the floor on one side of the bed, a red line of ink traced along the path he took, he described what the house looked like, what happened, and it was all down in black and white in his journal. The only thing that Ebony was missing was something to show her what Snake looked like. Liquid had said that they looked alike, but Ebony had to see for herself with her own eyes, the legend everybody talked about.
"I wonder if the cameras are still working." She muttered aloud and swung her legs over the bed so she was sitting down on the edge. "Maybe Snake will be on the recordings somewhere." She stood up and held the book in front of her.
"But this I'll keep. It is all I have to remind me of him. I can't forget Liquid. Never." She sighed. Ebony knew herself that it was hard to keep the memories. Memories often fade quicker when other things occupy one's mind. Ebony had felt it herself what it was like; she began to forget about her father a few years after Liquid joined her.
"Oh!" She exclaimed in surprise at something lying on the floor and bent down to pick it up. It was an instant photograph but she was distracted from it by something else.
"Who's there?" She called out loudly and drew her handgun stepping quickly to stand next to the door.
The noise came from down the corridor. A quiet clink, chink, clink, chink ringing with each footstep, steady and unhurried. Ebony continued to listen and sprung out as the door opened.
"DON'T MOVE!" She shouted and pointed her gun at the intruder.
"Who are you?" The intruder asked as he turned to face her and lowered his gun. A FOX-HOUND badge on the white-haired man's sleeve of his long coat caught Ebony's eye. The man sighed and holstered the antiquated weapon, a revolver that would not look out of place in a Western movie although when Ebony had a good look at him she agreed that the owner could also be the star.
"Are you FOX-HOUND?" She asked him again.
"I was at least while they were still around." He answered coldly.
"Which one then? Revolver Ocelot." Ebony said pointing to the revolver he had holstered at his belt.
"That's right, but what do you know about FOX-HOUNDs activities on Shadow Moses?" He asked pointedly. Ebony took out the journal from her pocket and held it up to Ocelot.
"The man who wrote this was on this island and in command of the unit. You would know him as Liquid Snake. I came looking for him." She explained slowly.
"For what purpose?" Ocelot scoffed.
"I'm an old friend of his and that's all you need to know." Ebony replied simply and put the book back in her pocket.
"Oh well." He laughed. "I'm afraid you've wasted your time coming here. Liquid's dead."
"I know that already!" Ebony shouted back. "I found his body."
"FoxDie got him then?" Ocelot asked hopefully.
"No, he was shot. He survived FoxDie."
"Shot? By who?" Ocelot asked and looked as if a wasp had stung him.
"Look…" Ebony began to flick through the pages of the logbook. "I read it here…"
She lifted the book up and let Ocelot read it. A smile slowly crept onto his face, spread out into a grin and he started to laugh.
"Still chasing after his revenge? Ah, the stupid fool didn't learn, did he?"
"Don't talk about him like that!" Ebony threatened and drew her gun. She quickly found herself staring down the barrel of Ocelot's revolver.
"Don't be so quick to judge!" He hissed.
"Or you." Ebony shot back. "He wasn't always so foolish." She defended. "Vengeful of course but he always had his reasons."
Ebony put her gun back in her holster and remembered the photo she was still holding onto. She lifted it up and looked. Then smiled.
"What's so funny woman?" Ocelot asked.
"That's Ebony to you. I have a name so please use it." She turned the photo around for Ocelot to see.
"Him!" He gasped. "That's Solid Snake."
"My target." Ebony grinned and took another look at it before slipping it in between the pages of Liquid's journal.
"But that is none of your business… Thank you Ocelot. Maybe I will see you again some day." Ebony spun on her heel and began to walk away down the corridor. The ching of Ocelot's spurs chased after her.
"Just wait a minute!" Ocelot called firmly. "If what Snake has done in the past, killing Big Boss and destroying Metal Gear isn't enough, then Liquid's death should be."
Ebony stopped and turned around. She looked at Ocelot with a confused frown.
"Liquid had the strongest genes." Ocelot finished.
"But…that isn't what he said!" Ebony gasped.
"He had been told otherwise and made to believe that he was weak." He stated coolly.
"And why should I believe you?" Ebony frowned and folded her arms across her chest. "What are my reasons for trusting you at all?"
Ocelot pulled out a disc and held it up.
"If it's Snake you're after, this disc contains all you need to give him enough headaches." He smiled thinly.
"What's on it?" Ebony reached out a hand to grab the disc but Ocelot drew it back out of her grasp.
"Ahah! This, my dear has all the data for building Metal Gear." He smiled again. Ebony looked at him sideways. She had an idea but had her suspicions about Ocelot from Liquid's warnings in his journal.
"What are you saying?" She asked softly.
"You can chase after Snake through these frozen wastes all you want and may never find him. But with this, you can save all your troubles and bring him to you instead right into a trap." He said raising the disc up again.
"I still want to find him myself though." She turned back to face him. "What do you want for that data?"
"Oh, well let's see…" Ocelot looked round as he thought of his price. "Several million dollars at least…maybe more…"
"But… what if Metal Gear was to return and Snake was not there for them to call back and destroy it?" Ebony began slowly, an idea starting to form in her mind. She knew she had nothing like the amounts that Ocelot was going to charge for a copy of the data and there was always the risk that he would alter it or render it absolutely useless.
"How about you build you own Metal Gear?" Ebony asked him.
"Build my own one?" Ocelot laughed. "And where will I find somewhere to do that?"
"What I don't have in money I can make up for resources. I have a base a little smaller than this island in the desert, an army of guerrilla and mercenary soldiers, some money and weapons…" Ocelot shook his head and began to walk away.
"Wait!" Ebony called. Ocelot stopped. Ebony sighed. She knew deep inside that making such an offer to Ocelot was foolish and dangerous but she wanted to keep the promise she had made to Liquid's soul for retribution. She had no idea of what Ocelot was planning but she could see no way out.
"I…I will give you control of my base and all my men for whatever you need." Ebony eventually offered.
"You will let me use your base to sell the data for Metal Gear to the highest bidders? And construct my own?" Ocelot looked at her and an expression of amazement passed over his face before disappearing just as quickly. "But you can deal with Snake. I'll let you have that."
He offered Ebony his left hand, she widened her eyes at the bandaged stump that had been his right hand, and smiled wryly at her. Ebony cringed inside as she shook his hand to seal the trade.
"Far more generous than what my comrades would offer I admit and it releases me from loyalty to Russia." Ocelot smiled again.
"I'm giving control of my base and my troops freely. My money and my weapons…" Ebony told herself. She was used to selling herself out for those who needed her combat skills... it was something she had done all her life. Ebony had hoped to take revenge for Liquid by herself without putting her name to an agreement.
"Why do I feel like I've failed already?"
"So?" Ocelot asked.
"One thing, I will find Snake, we won't have to wait for him to come to us. I still want to see what would happen if he suddenly disappeared." Ebony announced.
"Even if it means spending more time here, it's better spent in Alaska than in the company of this man." Ebony closed her eyes. "Liquid tell me I'm doing the right thing!"
Chapter 2 coming soon…