The River Red

by SSJ-Alhazred

Patriots-verse; prequel to "One True Patriot." As far as MGySgt Colbert and SSgt Person knew, the op to catch Liquid Ocelot in Eastern Europe should've gone off without a hitch. It didn't. Colbert/Fick.

Warnings for violence (somewhat explicit) and slash (not all that explicit.) This is a prequel to "One True patriot" and is set during Guns of the Patriots, at the end of Act III.

---

The River Red
Alhazred - alhazred(DOT)livejournal(DOT)com

Not For Profit work; Metal Gear Solid © Kojima Productions/Konami, G-Kill © HBO/Evan Wright et al. This work of fiction should not be considered a prediction of nor an insinuation about the lives of any real person.

Eastern Europe isn't such a bad place, Brad thinks. Then again, the curfew on the local populace probably has a lot to do with it. The weather could be better, too; even though the rain is little more than a drizzle, it's been drizzling since he arrived.

"Yo, Brad." Ray is nearly shouting as he approaches the Humvee, waving an arm up obnoxiously. There's a part of Brad that wishes Ray would stop being so loud, because he tends to be self-conscious of the single entity their friendship and working relationship has merged into over the years. It's always a problem when more than a few Marines get transferred elsewhere for any number of reasons and he has to deal with a bunch of new faces at once. They start thinking their relic of a Master Gunnery Sergeant - and for fuck's sake, Brad's not forty yet - is either senile or apathetic.

The other part of Brad thinks the trade-off is worth it, just like it's always been with Ray. As much as it was nice having the best RTO anyone knew right by his side, mouth notwithstanding, it's nice having someone who doesn't need SOP to read his mind, and someone who earned his experience on the battlefield instead of through a needle. Not that Brad is really judgmental about SOP; what the acronym even stands for may be classified at god-knows what level, but it does work, and it's pretty cool, too. Still, combat veterans from before the System's implementation are getting few and far between these days.

"Good news, Ray?" Still leaning over the hood of the Humvee, Brad doesn't take his eyes off the map he's got spread out. It's old, the paper is a little frayed at the edges and where the folded lines meet, but it's accurate.

"If by 'good news,' you mean, do I have the PMC's deployment information? When have I ever brought you anything but good news, Brad?" Ray holds up what he's carrying, little more than a rolled up sheet of clear plastic, like it's made of gold. "Well, I guess there was that one ambush in Iraq when I had to keep telling you we couldn't move. And when your girlfriend Dear Johned your ass, I had to tell you it wasn't a nightmare. Hey, that shouldn't count, I mean, it turned out alright."

Taking the piece of plastic without ever looking up, Brad unrolls it out over his paper map. "It still counts, Ray." It's a fancy little toy in and of itself, technically just expensive plastic with an ID chip embedded in one corner, but its expensive plastic nanomachines can recognize. They draw the map right onto the eyes of someone looking at it. There isn't even a delay; clear black lines are visible as soon as Brad looks at it, matching the layout offered by the paper map underneath. It's not only easier to read, but every single one of Brad's Marines are marked as well. Commander Silverburgh's Army detachment is a lighter shade of green, and the PMC units across the city are dotted with red. "That's strange."

"What is?" Peering around Brad, Ray has a wide-eyed look on his face as he tries to figure it out.

"Raven Sword's deployment doesn't match the local war price," Brad explains. He traces a finger across the red dots, mentally tallying each unit type. There are only a handful of Gekko, almost nothing in the way of air support, and the closest thing to armor they have are some APCs. The men on the ground are spread very thinly through the city. "They're actually under-manned."

"Well, it doesn't really take that much effort to hold a place under curfew," Ray shrugs. "Especially when you're the only thing in town with working firearms. Save the local rebels, of course."

"Point, Ray." Brad doesn't quite accept that explanation, though. It's not that it doesn't make sense, it just seems hard to believe that one of the five largest PMCs in the world would risk it's stake in the war economy to save a few bucks on deployment costs, especially when the guy in charge of the company that owns those five PMCs is in town. The Paradise Lost group may not have large numbers or high-tech gear, but if they weren't a threat, the local government wouldn't be contracting a PMC to make them go away.

"What do you think this is?" Reaching around Brad, Ray taps at a spot in the map where a few red dots are clearly sitting on the Volta River. "Right here?"

"That's him," Brad says. "That's what Commander Silverburgh told me, anyway. She has higher clearance than I do, so she can get tracking information sent right to her. That's Liquid. They've even got eyes in him from a chopper; he's been there for hours."

Ray answers, "Weird. Raven Sword is deployed like they don't care he's there."

Indicating a nearby spot, Brad says, "Commander Silverburgh wants us on this road. It's a clear line of sight to the target, and however far he makes it before the attack boats cut him off, we can just follow him along the river. He'll be right out in the open, no place to hide."

"Huh," Ray nods. "So...why the hell are we here when a sniper in a window could do this with his eyes closed? I could be finding a brothel right now."

"We're here for insurance."

Both turning at the same time, Brad and Ray are greeted by the sight of Commander Silverburgh approaching them, her own team fanned out around her. Naturally, Ray starts talking. "Hell of an insurance policy. Ma'am."

"Yeah, it's a hell of a target," she says. "We still don't know what he pulled in the Middle East or South America, but we're not taking any chances. The second he sneezes, Raven Sword gets their IDs revoked and if Liquid doesn't want to come quietly, we shoot to kill."

Part of that makes Brad wonder. "South America? I didn't know anything happened in South America...I don't even know what happened in the Middle East, just that something did."

With a sigh, Meryl admits, "Well, that's because we don't really know, either. All I know is, Liquid was doing something, and his own PMC troops just lost it. Practically a whole battalion just went nuts. Some of them laid down and just died, like they'd been switched off."

"Oh, well." Clearly not encouraged, Ray tugs his helmet and ski-mask off, sitting down on a nearby cardboard box someone must've put down and forgot about. "Good to know our briefing was thorough and accurate. I guess it's asking too much that SOP ever gives our superiors half a brain." He bounces up and down on the box a couple of times, "Damn thing just won't settle."

Brad's about to yell at him, until he realizes that Commander Silverburgh is staring intently, her eyes squinted as if she's trying to figure something out. When she turns around abruptly and drops her face into one hand, she sighs, "Oh, for...the more things change, the more they stay the same."

It bothers Brad a little; his impression of Commander Silverburgh so far has been positive, unlike some of the officers Brad and Ray have had to deal with over the years, she actually seems to have a clue, and he's hoping this isn't some indication that she has a screw loose. Ray may be slightly unprofessional, but not to the point where it should be a distraction.

Then again, once he thinks about it a little more, he's pretty sure that he'd be even more worried about grunts who don't have a screw lose, especially the ones like Meryl and Ray who've seen combat before SOP.

Ray is, instead, bothered by Akiba, the awkward tech who keeps tripping over his own feet. "Um...why do you have an ACOG on your shotgun?"

"To spy on your mom with," is Ray's answer.

Brad keeps his laughter in check. He's a little nervous, too, as he is whenever someone eyes Ray's shottie; it's a naked gun with no ID lock, Ray would get his ass court-martialed if the wrong person knew he bought a gun off the black market after requisition just wouldn't send him one no matter how many times he filed for it.

Brad's own sidearm is less dangerous; smaller illegal guns are less illegal than larger ones. It's been with him since Afghanistan, and he plans for it to stay that way.

The rest of the meeting is all typical planning: who's going where, which teams are going on the boats, if the Marines and the Army grunts are going to mix on the boats or split them (they're going to mix because Brad's Marines are better trained for it, although it's not saying much these days,) and some miscellaneous information.

The most substantial part of that information comes in the form of some decently clear photos taken from local closed-circuit cameras. Commander Silverburgh spreads three out over the map once they're done with it for the time being. "This man's kept close to the PMCs since he arrived with Liquid. We don't know much about him, calls himself 'Vamp.'" The long hair, terrible complexion and the ankle-length trench coat explain the nickname. "Supposed to be good with knives."

"Gee." Ray's sarcasm is grating, but he's only saying what everyone is thinking. "And here I thought the way we're good with guns actually meant something."

From the way Commander Silverburgh doesn't seem to mind Ray's personality, as it were, it seems that she's thinking the same thing. She is, however, a little more apprehensive about it. "That may be, but we'll still have to take him down if Liquid doesn't come quietly."

Looking down the line of Humvees parked around the train station, and the Marines putzing about each one, Brad tries not to think about eleven years ago. It's just pointless; nostalgia doesn't mean all that much at a time like this. What he thinks about instead is how many Marines he has under him right now, the ones he can see here and the others going through similar motions on their attack boats, and he wonders if anyone seriously thinks their target is either not trying to pull something, or that he'll lay down and surrender just because someone is pointing a gun at him. "Ray...keep everyone on their toes."

Unceremoniously throwing his helmet back onto his head minus the ski-mask, Ray nods and sets off.

---

"Sergeant Polonski, you and your team need to get your shit squared away." Having authority over men is something that's never gotten old for Ray. He considers it a game; not in the sense of giving orders, but in the sense of trying to do so without being like every dumbass superior he's had to deal with over nearly a decade and a half. It's not even that he doesn't want to be an asshole, being an asshole is kinda fun. He just doesn't want to be a retard, and he has yet to threaten anyone with a grooming standard. Besides, he's only a Staff Sergeant, even if he acts like a Gunny during more normal ops when Brad isn't always right next to him. "Fucked if we know when we'll be going for this nutjob."

"Yes, Staff Sergeant."

Polonski's a good kid, Ray thinks all the team leaders are, really. Unlike Brad, he enjoys likening his current mission back to Iraq whenever possible just to be reminded that things don't always turn into a clusterfuck for the most inane reasons, or because of the most inane people. Really, half the reason he goes out of his way to keep being Brad's lackey instead of doing something that might actually advance his career is Brad's competence. Besides, it's not like any branch of the United States military is looking to move people who are good in the field away from the field right now, what with recruitment dropping as the major PMCs raise their payrates and, even worse, the amount of money they spend on advertising.

The problem isn't isolated to potential recruits, as Ray is reminded when he saunters down to the next Humvee. The team is standing next to it, and Ray actually thinks they're discussing something serious until he's in earshot. He stops twirling the SOP scanner-syringe he traded anti-diarrhea medicine with Akiba for around his fingers and clips it to his vest.

"Fuckin' Person. Guy's got a scope on his shottie so he can get a better look at what he's gonna miss."

That gets Ray's attention; shit is on now.

"I'm telling you, this bullshit is just one long training course; when I get out, I'm gonna sign on with a PMC and actually earn some bank."

"Yeah," one of the other Marines chuckles, "But I hear the major PMCs tighten SOP a lot more than the military does. What the fuck's the point if my nanomachines won't let my dick get hard when I want it to?"

Ray, it turns out, is the 'he' in the old 'he's standing right behind you' gag. He stops and crosses his arms as soon as he can clearly hear the Marine whose back is to him, his buddies trying more and more obvious hand signals to get him to shut up. He just keeps going, though. "Hell, I'll be living in a goddamned condo when they finally put the Master Guns and his Staff Sergeant dick su-"

Ray waits just long enough for one of the other Marines looking over their team leader and right at him to turn white. His voice pitched up into a sing-song, he interrupts with, "I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you." It's just like it is in the movies, to the point where Ray almost laughs when the Sergeant spins around, exhales like the wind was just knocked from his lungs, and stands rigidly in Parade Rest like the others do. "You know, you're lucky I'm not Master Gunny, cause he really does suck dick, so he's naturally a lot angrier than I am when it's suggested he does it for brownie points." Walking closer, Ray gives him a good glare; he's not a scary person, but he can make sure someone feels like they're being talked down to, and it's even better that he's usually smaller than the people he talks down to. "In any case, if you have a problem with your pay grade, Sergeant Anslo, you can write human resources a complaint, and file it in triplicate. Or just photocopy your ass, for all the good it'll do. Otherwise, you can get that ass in your vehicle and make sure your team is actually ready for combat. Don't think I won't haunt you if your bullshit gets me killed, you got it, homes?"

"Yes, Staff Sergeant!"

The level of fright in Anslo's voice is good enough for Ray, so he starts to walk away. He double-takes back to the four Marines wearing balaclavas and, he realizes, nothing over them. "Where the fuck are your helmets!"

Ray's eventual destination is the second-to-last Humvee, wherein he unprofessionally flops into the passenger seat and throws his legs up into the windowsill of the open door. Letting out a sigh of relief, he turns his head to look at the lone Marine sitting in the back seat behind the driver's chair. "Everything good, man?"

"Good as gold, Staff Sergeant." Sergeant Jankowski is adjusting the red-dot on his XM8, occasionally even looking down it as if he intended to slap a magazine in and squeeze off a few rounds. There's something in his voice that sounds off, though.

"I assume you've known me long enough by now to realize sarcasm doesn't escape me," Ray twists his head around for the sake of giving Jankowski eye contact, "What's on your mind?"

"Thinkin' about lizards, Staff Sergeant." The cheeky little grin on Jankowski's face notwithstanding, his concern is still valid. "Not that the fifty-cals can't handle a few Irving, but going toe-to-toe with a major PMC? Just wish we had a little armor to go with our jeeps and speedboats."

"I have so been here before," Ray says to himself, glancing around the Humvee's door frame. Jankowski isn't spazzing out, though, Ray can actually understand the concern. "I wouldn't worry too much about it. Brad just told me five minutes ago, Raven Sword is undermanned." Glancing outside, Ray lets his eyes slide over the buildings on this side of the street; very few lights are on. He has yet to see a civilian, the curfew and martial law seem to be doing the trick. "I saw like, three lizards on the map. And they'll just get locked down anyway."

It's not long after Ray opens his mouth that a sound other than his voice rings out in the street, a cry of "Rage! Show me your rage!" coming from above. It's faint, but only because of distance. Ray pulls his legs down, leans out and looks up just in time to see something vaguely humanoid with rocket-propelled wings soar by, high in the air. It's followed by smaller things, just flying wings without a person wearing them.

"Well," Ray says, "That's something you don't see everyday. What a lame-ass cadence."

"Cadence?" A bit more grounded in reality, Jankowski says, "Since when do UAVs need a cadence?"

---

Brad's old map of the city pisses him off when he tries to fold it back up; it's been folded wrong so many times that the folds don't go in the right direction anymore. Incensed at being defeated by a map's refusal to store properly, he decides to just be rid of it. As such, when he finds Ray sitting in Jankowski's Humvee, legs out on the ground, looking up at the clouds, the first thing he says is, "Ray, I need scissors."

"61," Ray answers.

Blinking all of twice, Brad says, "...what?"

"Sixty-one," Ray points a finger up, and Brad sees the flying machines for himself, their wings flapping as they go, light from the city putting them in silhouette against the night sky. "UAVs. Counted sixty-one so far. Well, sixty-three."

"Huh." Tossing the paper map onto the hood of Jankowski's Humvee, Brad yanks the plastic one out from under his arm and unrolls it again. "They're not marked off with Raven Sword's units, but what else could they be?"

"Hopefully not air support," Ray offers, peering up through a pair of binoculars. Shaking his head, the look on his face showing frustration even before he lets them down, he adds, "I can't tell if they're weaponized or not."

"They're not heading for our objective," Brad answers. "Gotta be the PMC's, probably trying to get eyes on Paradise Lost."

"Well, that is what they're technically being paid for," Ray doesn't sound convinced. "I guess it would explain why the rest of their deployment comes in under the local war price." Standing up and moving close to Brad, Ray lowers his voice, not wanting to cause a ruckus or rumors of any 'Charge of the Light Brigade' shit going down. "Not to be the doomsayer, Brad, but, uh...we're here because someone's assuming Raven Sword is gonna use their expensive guns to defend their boss when push comes to shove, right? Doesn't that include their air support?"

"Ray, we're in an urban environment with streets more narrow than your dick." Glancing up again, Brad notices the UAVs have stopped flying by. "What are they going to do, crash into buildings so the debris rains down on us?"

"Point," Ray nods. "Hell, I shouldn't complain. I get to be one of the guys who kills Liquid fucking Snake."

"Ray," Brad says, "It's an alias some dipshit corporate hack took so he could sound badass while he runs his PMCs. Christ, you're always telling me I should've had a more open mind about In the Darkness of Shadow Moses, didn't Liquid Snake die at the end?"

Ray only pouts over this, because he knows any answer will give Brad fuel to call him a conspiracy theorist nutjob, as he does whenever he defends Solid Snake against his obviously bogus, post-Shadow Moses rap sheet. When they have that conversation, Brad is quick to point out that Snake's accomplishments and crimes are all obviously exaggerated to the point of lunacy, and the whole nonsense about cloning is just to make it more believable when one man is credited with all of that stuff instead of the many faceless people who likely share the actual guilt for everything attributed to Snake.

Instead of continuing the debate, Ray leans to the side so he can look around Brad and peer through his binoculars again, this time at Commander Silverburgh further down the street. "You know, I can't remember where the fuck she is in ranks, man. The Army's bullshit structure doesn't make any sense since they changed it."

"Ray, she'll never sleep with you."

"You don't know that," Ray answers, watching Meryl smacking Akiba over the head for doing something silly. "Oohhh."

"Yes, Ray." Rolling his eyes, Brad adds, "I do."

The explosion comes soon after.

It's not apocalyptic, but something's clearly going on further downtown. Another follows, then another, all in different places, but each one close to the last. The densely packed buildings hide the flames, but smoke rises in the sky against the moonlight.

Ray says something before Brad does. "The fuck? Is that where those UAVs were headed?"

"Close to it," Brad answers. "I'm guessing they found Paradise Lost."

"No way," Ray answered, "Those things didn't fly in a straight line and get lucky. They found 'em ten minutes ago, that's the attack."

Commander Silverburgh is approaching while Brad checks the map again. "Colbert, what do you make of it?"

According to the map, even though its still not showing the UAVs, Raven Sword isn't even moving. Their units closest to the area are re-arranging themselves, but it's as if they don't know what's going on. Brad's response comes after another explosion goes through the air. "I don't know. Doesn't look like the PMC has anything to do with it."

"Maybe the freedom fighters they're after just upped the terror alert?" Ray offers. It's not a bad thought, really.

Still, there's nothing of great import in the area the explosions are coming from, as fas Brad knows. "Commander, you've got helicopters in the air..."

Reading his mind, Meryl answers before he even asks. "One diverted away from the river to get a closer look, but the only thing they managed to see were some vans hauling ass down the streets, one's heading for the old town clock tower, but that's not even near the river."

Glancing back at the map, Brad starts to wonder. He turns to his side. "Ray, pick yourself a vehicle; check it out."

"Colbert." Meryl puts a hand on Brad's shoulder to get his attention, and he turns around. Ray is already gone, though. "For all we know, this doesn't have anything to do with why we're here."

"I understand that, Ma'am." Flipping the map over so she can see it, he adds, "But the PMC's deployment we know of is inadequate; what if they have naked equipment to cover their numbers? If they do, they're breaking international law and we don't have to wait for them to try anything on us before we move in. Even if I'm wrong, to put it simply, there's shit exploding one, maybe one and a half klicks from us and from our objective, I'd really like to know exactly what's going on in our area of operation."

She holds eye contact with him long enough to make Brad think she's going to argue, but the opposite happens. "Alright, you sold me. Run your recon, make sure it's only recon; your men get a look at what's going on and they get back here. I'll make sure we're set to move out, just in case."

"Yes Ma'am." Thrilled that the person in charge doesn't argue just to be right all the time, Brad jogs off after Ray. He needs to make sure his Marines are just as ready, but he wants to talk to Ray face-to-face before he drives off. "Ray!"

Ray, it turns out, has just informed Sergeant Jankowski that he's going to be usurping his Humvee for a little while; Jankowski is migrating to a back seat, and Ray has one foot in the door when he looks up at Brad. "S'up?"

"Stay frosty."

The look on his face turning serious, Ray just nods once. He stops himself from getting all the way into the Humvee and looks back out at Brad, though. "Oh, Brad, I uh...I kinda outed you to team three a few minutes ago? Probably shouldn't set up with them, you know, they'll just stare at you the whole time."

The humor isn't lost on Brad when it turns out to be Sergeant Anslo and team three in general who lean halfway out of their Humvee and cheer as they drive by, someone rather distinctly shouting, "Get some, Staff Sergeant!"

It amuses Brad to know that Ray is probably horrified at their moto sillyness.

---

"No singing, Ray."

"Oh, fine."

Ray's rendition of 'Country Roads' being absolutely terrible notwithstanding, Brad isn't going to tolerate country music just because he isn't in the Humvee. Hunkered over a table with his map, watching the little dot inch down the road, he just hopes everything goes alright.

He's not sweating, not tapping his foot or cracking his knuckles, not even tensing up. He knows he could be sending Ray and his Marines into a deathtrap, but SOP is good at what it does, keeping his body calm and cool and as combat-ready as he would be after a good night's sleep.

"You know, Brad, I don't see why you stop me from expressing myself all the time. I mean, I'm still here because I want to be, you know? Well, mostly. Okay, so it's the best paying gig around without joining those gay-ass PMCs, but we're both La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo here..."

Tuning out Ray's retard-hick gibberish, Brad wonders if he's, of the few pre-SOP combat veterans left, alone in noticing that disconnect. Ray's never said anything about it.

Holding the comm button on the side of his helmet, Brad says, "Ray, you should be close, give or take a couple blocks."

"Yeah, I can see smoke from around the corner. Yo, make a left. Shit..."

Brad's response is academic, he knows Ray will say something, but he just wants him to say it faster. "What do you see?"

"Well, something went down here, that's for damn well sure...looks like a couple motorcycles and an APC still burning. Plenty of bodies, couple in civvies, the rest are definitely Raven Sword. Jesus, APC's on its side, too. Hang on, I think we can get around it."

Reports like this come twice more. Brad asks, "Any sign of what's responsible, Ray? Any civilians outside you can see?"

"Naw, just the dead ones. Curfew's keeping 'em in good, haven't seen a single local since we landed, aside from these. This had to be a roadblock, there's debris everywhere, looks like one of the APCs didn't get scratched, but I don't see anyone around, no one's on the gun. Maybe they're...wait a minute. There's dudes in the windows."

That's about all Brad hears before he's sure something's going to go wrong. "Give me SOP, Ray."

"SOP uplink online," Ray doesn't skip a beat. He even pronounces it 'sawp' instead of 'S-O-P' to save on syllables. "Those are definitely PMCs."

When what Ray sees turns into a picture-in-picture inside Brad's HUD, he realizes pretty quickly that Ray is right. Raven Sword troops are half-hiding in windows wherever Ray looks, no higher than two stories up in the old buildings. He notices some camped out behind the wrecked APC Ray mentioned earlier, too. None of them are making an attempt to move, and at the same time, all of them seem like they're trying to avoid notice.

None of them are marked on Brad's map, either.

"Ray, look up, at your ten." Complying, Ray gives Brad a perfect view of a pair of PMC troops in one particular window; one's got his eye on the scope of an M82, the other is his spotter. When the spotter taps the sniper on the shoulder and points down towards Ray's Humvee is when Brad knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it's about to hit the fan. "They're sighting you."

"They're sighting us," Ray says it exactly when Brad does, but the realization comes just as the shot rings out.

The sound is audible, but Ray isn't looking at the turret gunner when his head explodes. Brad is on his feet when he hears the Barret fire. He's headed for the door as his HUD notifies him of the casualty. "Get out of there, Ray."

Ray doesn't need to be told twice, he doesn't really need to be told once. "Return fire! Fucking floor it!"

The rest of the PMCs start firing in due course. They have SOP too, it gives them the same advantages, but the Marines are better trained. The PMCs rely too much on the reticles their HUDs give them and they don't aim properly. It works well against local insurgents in whichever country they're operating, but against trained military infantry, they start taking casualties first after they've used up their element of surprise. Brad sees Ray's shotgun fire out his window twice, and at least the second shot brings down a Raven Sword SAW gunner at ground level.

Once Brad is outside, Commander Silverburgh and her team turn to him and he talks before they can ask. "Raven Sword is firing on my Marines."

"Fuck," Ray says, he's looking ahead and a PMC APC has pulled into the road from nowhere, probably hiding around the intersection, blocking them off. "Bail out!"

No one needs to say anything else. Commander Silverburgh and her team head out and Brad is in the lead Humvee seconds before they're rolling. He wonders why Ray would order that, why not just reverse, the pause it would require is still better than going on foot, he figures Ray doesn't think they can reliably get around the wreck back the way they came without getting stuck. The trap means there's no way, not even a breakdown in System networking, that this is accidental friendly fire, Raven Sword is attacking with intent. "Ray, we're on our way."

---

Ray's Humvee doesn't actually provide that much protection. "We need better cover," Ray turns his shotgun up, taking a shot at a window right above them. The PMC trooper falls halfway out, arms and gun dangling. They're so busy covering their front now they can't even return fire over the Humvee. Glancing to both sides and taking advantage of a lull while some of the enemy reloads, he motions forward and barks out, "Behind the dumpsters!" His HUD tells him there's a problem just as they reach the line of cover. "Jankowski, where are you hit?"

"Just my arm!" The Sergeant shouts over the incoming fire. Some of it puts holes in the wall right next to him. "Still functional!"

Ray takes the side closest to the building; his shotgun isn't terribly useful now that they're hiding at the edge of the killzone. There are two trash dumpsters; Jankowski takes shots out from in-between them, while the other rifleman crouches down at the other side, Corporal Kingston firing off his SAW over his head.

One particular PMC troop is just out of their line of sight, and Ray is thankful his aim is off when the shots dent in the metal he's leaning out from. The smell be damned, he's not going to complain. "Fuck that." His shotgun needs a reload anyway; he grabs one of the yellow-colored rounds from his vest instead of buckshot, shoving the slug in and taking aim. The ACOG does its job wonderfully, and once the crosshair is over the PMC's helmet, Ray pulls the trigger.

It's not the most powerful round in the world, but it works fine, punching a hole through the target's headgear and through his head.

The victory is short-lived; their Humvee goes up in flames on the other side of their dumpster, the apparent victim of an RPG, probably something a little more advanced. SOP notwithstanding, Ray is glad he doesn't see what happens to the body of their turret gunner on account of ducking back into cover.

To make matters worse, the sound of something heavy hitting metal sounds out close by; Ray looks up just in time to see the Raven Sword trooper regain his balance, having jumped on top of the dumpsters they're hiding behind from a window in the nearby building. Still facing the way he jumped, he has just enough time to lean over and blow their rifleman's brains out, his SCAR just narrowly missing Corporal Kingston as Jankowski takes a step back, getting the angle he needs to take him down with a burst from his XM8.

Half the PMC's leg is torn up right to the knee, and at least one shot goes into his torso; he falls over, not screaming because SOP is still blocking the pain even though he's mortally wounded and bleeding excessively, but he's in no condition to put up a fight when Ray grabs him and throws him onto his stomach. Yanking the scanning plug off his vest, Ray crouches down and jams the syringe into his neck, not hearing the low hiss of the injector but seeing the results on his HUD. "SOP scan coming up. Brad, you got it?"

---

Dismissing his view through Ray's eyes, Brad focuses on the new information. The enemy's SOP data is forthcoming and more than enough of an advantage. They're almost there, the gunfire is getting louder and louder, and Brad can see everything superimposed onto his HUD, showing him where his Marines are and now, where the enemy is right through the buildings, each of them drawn in bright, easy-to-see red. "Copy that, Ray; I've got eyes on your position."

"I'll be happy with your ammo on my position," Ray sends back.

They have about ninety seconds before Raven Sword's nanomachines realize they're being hacked and adjust accordingly. Brad figures its about another thirty seconds to get there at the speed they're going.

Just before they turn, Meryl's voice comes over Brad's comms. "Colbert, here's a heads-up; the PMC is jamming our long range communications, I can't raise HQ to have their IDs locked out of the system."

"We still outnumber them," Brad answers, "We'll get it done the old-fashioned way."

He's completely correct in the assumption that one minute is adequate to get the job done. The Marines are firing the instant they roll around the corner, into the windows first. Lit up like Christmas trees for every Marine, the PMC troops are robbed of their concealment, and one by one, Brad watches as the red markers in his vision blink out. Anything the fifty-cals and Mark-19s are too slow to get to is taken care of by someone with even a halfway decent shot, and he only gets the chance to fire once, at one of the PMCs on the ground, before it's all over.

He gets out and meets Ray halfway, next to the smoldering ruins of Jankowski's Humvee. Ray is reloading his shotgun as he walks. "We lost two. Fuckers just opened up on us."

Giving him a nod, Brad lets his eyes glance at one of his Marines, dead on the ground, half of his head splattered out of his helmet. "So let's go get some payback."

---

The shit is already hitting the fan when the convoy screeches to a stop on the bridge and the Marines pile out, many, many guns pointed at one loan boat on the Volta. One loan boat surrounded by other boats shining light at it, each carrying more Marines and their Army co-workers with even better shots all poised to fire.

The Army helicopters cycling overhead is a nice touch, too.

Ray takes a place at Brad's side. He's not going to bother firing with his shotgun if the order comes, but that doesn't mean he isn't thrilled. If his tone of voice as he gives Brad a sitrep is any indication, he's going to enjoy watching the massacre. "All units have eyes on the target. We are ready to fuck this guy's shit up."

Crouched on one knee, Brad uses the bridge's railing to balance his XM8 on. He doesn't verbally acknowledge Ray as he crouches down next to him, but he doesn't really need to; he just talks over the radio. "All units, hold fire. Shoot to kill on Commander Silverburgh's order."

As seconds tick by, Brad takes on hand off of his gun and grabs Ray's binoculars from their place hanging on his neck. He doesn't bother pulling them off, he just drags Ray a little closer and looks through. Ray, meanwhile, is taking advantage of his SOP link with Brad to get a look as well. "Man, he's smiling."

"That's 'cause he's crazy," Brad responds. As much of a large ham as Liquid is, the fact that he's fed by the doubtlessly exaggerated tales of the twin Snakes and all that Metal Gear stuff probably just make him even more insufferable. No one needs a radio to hear Meryl order Liquid and his troops to drop their weapons. She's yelling at him through a megaphone that the people hiding in their apartments nearby can probably hear clearly. Glancing around through Ray's binoculars some more, Brad makes out a woman in civilian clothes on the boat, plus a man with long hair and a trenchcoat he's seen before. "Ray, right side, behind the primary target. That guy look familiar?"

"Oh, what the fuck's his name," Ray says. "Vamp. He's that PMC higher-up the Commander told us about."

"You know, you were right." Giving Ray his gear back, Brad says, "Look at him try to hide from the searchlights. Totally fucking emo."

When Commander Silverburgh gives the order to aim, Brad puts his eye back to the red-dot on his rifle. Ray, content to watch, looks through his scope again...but what he says isn't terribly confident. "Brad...this isn't right. What the fuck's he waving at?"

"It'll all be over in ten more seconds, Ray," Brad says. "Don't sweat it."

"No, this feels wrong. Crazy is one thing, he's either seeing us all holding bananas instead of guns, or..."

The truth of the matter is that Brad agrees with Ray, but he can't figure out what 'or' is anymore than Ray can. There's nothing Liquid could possibly have up his sleeve, and the way he points at everyone in general doesn't change that, nor does it change Commander Silverburgh's order to fire.

Brad echoes it, not even noticing the way all the searchlights pointed at the target suddenly switch off. "Light 'em the fuck up!"

When he pulls the trigger...there's nothing.

He tries again. And again. On the fourth time, he realizes he's not actually pulling the trigger, his finger is stopping short. "What?"

That sentiment is echoed by every single Marine within earshot.

No one's firing.

No one can.

Brad stands up, totally, utterly, bewildered.

"The System is mine! Your guns and your weapons are no longer your own!"

"The fuck!" Ray starts looking around, as if expecting a loudspeaker to be floating in the air. Many of the Marines are doing the same; Liquid is coming in right over their comms.

And it gets worse; Brad watches as his SOP link switches off, one by one, the names of his Marines superimposed on his HUD as he looks at them vanish. His team status returns a signal error. Anything on his display not related to his own condition flickers away into nothingness, leaving his vision much emptier. It's disconcerting. "Can," his mouth his dry, he stumbles on the words, helplessness fighting with his nanomachines as they keep him calm. "Can anyone fire," he raises his voice. Either no one hears him or they're too scared to answer, many of them still trying, and even from this far away he can see his Marines on Liquid's far side, on their boats, struggling the same way. "Anyone?"

Yanking his rifle off, Brad tosses it down. He doesn't know what to do, short of finding a stick to pull the trigger with. They're on an old-ass stone bridge in an old-ass neighborhood in Eastern Europe; god knows how long a walk it is to the park where there are actually trees.

"Behold...Guns of the Patriots!"

"Brad, he's...I don't know what the fuck..."

Taking Ray's binoculars again, Brad is just in time to watch Liquid point his fingers at the sky like he's playing cowboys and indians.

"Bang! Bang!"

Looking with his own eyes, Brad realizes he's pointing at the choppers. And it doesn't take long to figure out why; he can hear the change in pitch their engines make as they turn off in mid air.

"Oh, god." And he really wishes God was real right now; he's watching one man rob them of their guns, and now he's robbing everyone in those helicopters of their lives. With one word.

It's actually Ray who realizes one of those helicopters is falling towards the bridge as it loses altitude, it's Ray who shouts, "Take cover!" so loud and so drawn out it tears his throat raw. Brad dives behind the guard rail, many of the Marines diving behind the Humvees, going flat on the ground. There's really not much else they can do.

The chopper misses by just few feet and hits the wall of the riverbank; another hits the water and kicks a ton of it into the air before it stops moving. Gunfire is already sounding through the air by the time any of them pick themselves up, and it stops just after Brad looks and sees two of Liquid's troops firing on Commander Silverburgh's boat. He thinks he'll tell Ray to put a slug in that fucking shotgun, the only other naked weapon he knows is here...he knows they're too far away, but they've got to try...

He doesn't get the chance. This time, Liquid points at his own head.

"Bang!"

It's instantaneous. Something feels wrong, not just the obvious, but Brad can't think straight, he's taught himself to stop wondering what Nate would do in any given situation, but it's all he can think about right now. Next to him, Ray has gone silent, he's pressing a hand to his stomach, leaning on the guardrail with the other as if he's in pain...

If Brad had felt helpless before, looking around makes him feel absolutely hopeless. It doesn't even build up, it's all of his Marines at once. He doesn't know how to parse what he's seeing, his men completely losing their minds, some drop to their knees and bang their heads off the ground, some throw punches at others, some just hold their heads in agony, all of them are crying out but it's a mishmash of emotions and none of it matches what they're doing. He sees one jacking another up against a Humvee over and over, laughing hysterically the whole time. One is on the ground, curled up into a ball and crying out in rage, one is sitting with his arms around his knees, just screaming, one of the Marines beating on another is crying...

It's like a bad episode of the Twilight Zone...but it's real. It's as real as it gets. Ray seems to snap out of it and he sees the same things, rushing over to someone he knows. "Jankowski! Hey, Jankowski! Wake the fuck up, man! What's wrong!"

Sergeant Jankowski goes from cradling his injured arm to snapping completely and wrapping his hands around Ray's throat. Ray has to hit him in the bullet wound to make him even loosen his grip, before he can throw him off.

One of his Marines lunging at him from behind, Brad's response is similar. The man is laughing like one of the others he noticed before, completely out of his mind even flat on his back, convulsing from it like a fish on land.

Even after that, Brad is so spaced out that when the P90s on Liquid's boat start firing again, all he can do is wander over to the guardrail, put his hands on it, and watch the slaughter. The boats, closer to the gunners, have men toppling off of them before anything. His attention snaps to the far end of the bridge when a different kind of screaming reaches his ears, bullets ripping through his defenseless men at the end and moving down the line, thank god Nate hasn't been active duty for years because what if he was here, he's be dead already...

Brad finally returns to reality when Ray, dying men just behind him, tackles Brad clear over the guardrail. That small, small amount of time they're falling is an eternity, but the water, cold and unforgiving when they hit, is what finally snaps him back to reality, it's what finally causes him to accept that everything he just saw, as surreal and terrible as it was, actually just happened.

And now that he accepts that, he has to accept that he's underwater, sinking, the world is going black around him, what's left of his HUD fades out and all he can imagine are the hands coming up from the bottom of the river, his men dragging him down to join them...

---

...the dead...are not...SILENT...

Nate's back pressed to Brad's chest is comforting warmth compared to the cool night air, Brad's arms circled around him like a vice. He's halfway tempted to close the window, but he's too comfortable to move. He likes feeling Nate breath under his arms, and Nate is just plane comfortable to lay against.

"I'm really not tired." Nate sighs, "Sore, but not really tired."

"Me neither," Brad admits.

When Nate starts shuffling around, Brad loosens his grip and lets him roll over. "I am never surfing again. You can be satisfied just having me watch."

"Oh, come on," Brad smiles. "Everyone wipes out a few times when they start."

"I wiped out every time," Nate answers. "Besides, what kind of track record is 'a few times,' anyway? You think I'd get on that death trap you call a vehicle with you if you 'wiped out a few times' learning how to drive it?"

Shrugging, Brad nonetheless has no argument. "Point."

Rolling on top of of Nate, Brad kisses him slowly, teasingly, until Nate rolls them over again...suddenly, it's earlier in the day after one of Nate's failed attempts at surfing, Nate's tackled him on the beach where the water is washing up as revenge, because sucking face is such a vengeful act, Brad thinks...

They're not alone, there's another couple sitting in the sand in each other's arms not far away, a middle-aged woman horsing around with a middle-aged man who's dressed wrong for the beach, cammie pants and a hooded jacket, goofy eyeglasses...he's smiling as he wraps his arms around his girlfriend but all Brad can see is a blood-colored tear rolling from one of his eyes...

Ignoring them, Brad turns his attention back to Nate, both content with this, until Brad realizes as Nate lies on top of him that the water isn't receding, it's like the tide won't stop rising six inches every second, he can't make his eyes open, can't see Nate anymore...

...this is an affront to your warrior spirit...

Brad's eyes finally open as he wakes up. He's not submerged, he's not on a beach wearing board shorts, and Nate isn't kissing him. He's in a wet uniform laying on the ground next to a river in Europe, and Ray is kissing him.

Ray is kissing him.

Regaining control of one arm in addition to his eyes, Brad balls his hand into a fist on Ray's sleeve and yanks him off and opens his mouth to yell at him...

...and then he starts choking up water. Quickly, Ray rolls him onto his side. "C'mon, Brad, cough it up! Fucking inhale, god dammit!"

Coughing, spitting and gagging, Brad collapses flat into his face when the water is done coming out of his lungs, and air is going back in, and he realizes Ray was giving him CPR.

Figuring he almost drowned, Brad tries to talk, his voice coming out better than he expected, broken only by his gasps for breath. "Ray..."

To his surprise, Ray starts giggling with relief. "Shit, man, you had me scared. I was gonna start doing chest compressions hard enough to break your damn ribs, if you hadn't woken up right then."

The memory of what just happened rushing back, Brad tries to get up, but he can't, he only has the strength to roll over onto his back and try to sit up, but he fails at that, too. "Oh, god. Ray, everyone...is everyone..."

"Not everyone." His tone of voice not encouraging at all, Ray continues. "I think...maybe ten or so got up after the gunfire? A few who weren't even hit died anyway, while they were freaking out, they just...switched off, I think." There's a weird kind of disconnect in Ray's voice, his sarcasm is sneaking in even though he's not joking, because he doesn't know how to say any of this seriously, it's so unreal. "Everyone's gone, though, everyone's either dead or...I didn't try to link up with anyone, I had to take care of you. I think you must've hit the water badly or something, you were out cold as soon as we were in. Just...bad fucking luck, I guess."

"My head hurts," Brad acknowledges. "Not too bad, though."

Trying to sit up again, Brad has more success. He ends up facing the wall and he glances up, realizing they're under the bridge, right next to the water. "We need to get out of here..."

"Alright. Yeah," Ray starts to pick himself up. He's clearly exhausted himself. "Yeah, you're right. C'mon..."

Before Ray starts pulling Brad up, Brad thinks to grab his helmet from the ground and he drops it onto his head while Ray slips under his other arm; he leaves the ski mask where Ray tossed it. Looking at himself for the first time, Brad realizes Ray yanked off his vest and his jacket, too; he just puts the vest back on. His sidearm is still in its holster, his combat knife is still on his belt...Ray's shotgun is slung over his back...it'll have to do.

It takes them forever just to make it up the stairs and to the street. Brad is larger than Ray and Ray is supporting half of his weight. Halfway up, Brad finally glances down at the river...and he does a double-take. "Fuck me."

There's helicopter and boat wreckage still on fire further upstream. He can see bodies caught on debris, at least one that's just not moving as fast as the current, and the water...the water is red. It's not a dramatic religious event like a movie special effect, it's not even solid from one side to the other, just a tint flowing down its own paths like separate currents. Further down the canal, Brad thinks he sees something moving, black and ball-shaped, almost waving at him, but if it's even really there, it's gone before he can focus on it.

Tugging Brad to get him moving again, Ray says, "Only in your dreams, Brad...you can imagine it's me the next time Fick pegs you, if you want."

Despite everything, Brad laughs. It doesn't last; when they reach the top and Ray helps Brad hobble onto the bridge, the sight is even worse. They may very well have been the only ones here who fell off. "Oh, this is not okay," Ray mutters, his boots squelching when they pass by bodies and the blood from them. Ray's turn to pause comes soon enough. "Shit, that's Jankowski...and Kingston..."

They pass that Humvee and go for the next one, neither saying why, both in silent agreement; the first one has dead Marines slumped up against it.

Free of Ray and leaning on the hood, Brad suddenly has a thought. "Ray, why did we come across the bridge? The Humvees are ID locked just like our guns." He watches as, opening the driver-side door and pulling tools off of his vest, Ray lays down across the seat. "Ray...what are you doing?"

"Duh, Brad. I'm hotwiring it." He sounds strained, even though he isn't exerting himself all that much. "IDs are one thing, but really, they haven't even bothered to change the basics." When the engine turns over, Ray spreads his hands as if to ask if there was ever any doubt. "Who's the man?"

Maybe it's having moved around a little, maybe it's just not wanting to stand in a pile of his Marines' bodies, but Brad is feeling his strength return little by little, and he has no trouble getting himself into the passenger's seat without Ray's help. He does it as quickly as he can; the sooner he can stop looking at the dead, the sooner he can get past it. Grieving and sorrow and self-blame come later on his own time, not while he's on the clock. He thinks he should be walking one end of this bridge to the other, collecting dog tags, probably what Nate would do...but then again, he and Ray are alone, with two meager weapons that will absolutely not cover every possible problem they could have. This entire situation is the kind of wet dream a SERE instructor gets inspiration from, and Brad has little trouble getting himself disconnected from it right now. Whether he likes it or not, getting the fuck out of hostile territory is the highest priority.

Putting the Humvee in reverse, Ray backs it up a few feet so he can drive around the one in front. He takes them around the sides of the vehicles that weren't facing Liquid's boat, so they don't drive over the bodies; it doesn't work entirely, though. Some of the Marines dived behind their vehicles when the helicopters came down, some wandered around them and just dropped dead after they started freaking out. Even Ray is silent as their Humvee thumps over one bump after another; mercifully, it's over soon enough. Just when Brad expects another bump, Ray gives it more gas out onto the paved road.

"Back to the train station?" Ray asks.

Nodding, Brad says nothing, but he considers their options. Logically, any survivors would've tried to make it back there. Raven Sword would realize it, too.

"Brad. Yo, Brad."

Forcing himself back to reality, Brad turns his head slightly. "What is it, Ray?"

"They played us." There is no humor in Ray's voice as he drives, no anger, either. He's stating facts, revelation he is drunk with as it starts to make sense to him. He's leaning forward in the seat, hands on the wheel like an old lady as he turns it to get them around a corner. "They fucking played us. That fucking lunatic, he did this before we even got there, that's why we didn't see those fucking PMCs that ambushed me in the road, he was already fucking with the system and hiding them."

And Brad, in turn, does not tell Ray to shut up, does not tell him he's crazy. It's like listening to Ray when he takes In the Darkness of Shadow Moses at face value, except this time, there's logic behind what Ray is saying, and Brad follows it to its natural conclusion. "He wanted us to point guns at him just so he could prove he had control...Jesus-fucking-Christ. Practically even gun in the world is a toy he can yank the batteries out of."

All he can do is reflect on his stripped-down HUD, looking at what it still gives him compared to what it won't now. His overall health has dropped and his stress is up, he doesn't need nanomachines to tell him this. The compass still works fine. He has a readout on how much ammunition he has for his sidearm, because the nanomachines don't get that information from a gun's ID tag, they take it from the user's own knowledge and display it so they don't have to think about it.

He has no link with Ray or anyone else, no external data at all.

Ray seems to be thinking about a different part of the same thing. "Brad...can I ask you something?"

Ray saying this scares Brad shitless. Glancing at the lampposts as the Humvee passes by them, he's really not sure he wants to hear the question Ray Person, of all people, thinks he needs permission to ask. "What is it, Ray?"

"When all our buddies started to lose it, did you, I don't know...did you feel anything?"

Unable to answer that question, Brad can't really put his finger on it. Compared to everyone else, he and Ray may as well have gone unaffected. Still, there was that lingering weight, the feeling that something was off besides the serious shit going on all around. Part of him feels guilty that he wasn't reduced to a gibbering wreck while good men around him suffered, but he can tell that's not what Ray is talking about. He doubted he could answer even if Nate asked him this. "I felt...off. Something was wrong, just...I don't know, I stopped trying to figure it out when I noticed everyone else. Why, did you?"

"I remembered getting shot." One hand going off the wheel and rubbing at his stomach as if he doesn't realize he's doing it, Ray says, "Remember that, few years back? Fucker nailed me right in the gut, I thought I was going to bleed out."

Brad remembers clearly. He also remembers that, at the time, Ray hadn't been concerned with bleeding to death even if he thought it would happen, because SOP blocked the pain and let him function normally. It was probably why he was still alive, if he'd been incapacitated, there was no way anyone would've been able to carry him out of the kill zone. He'd lost consciousness anyway, but he'd lost consciousness close enough to the Casevac to start getting blood pumped into him before it was too late.

The pieces start coming together, though Brad doesn't say anything. He doesn't want to be speculative right now, he wants to focus. He wants to stay frosty.

It is, thus, disconcerting when he hears Ray say "What the fuck?" before he ever notices what Ray is actually talking about. When Brad focuses on the road directly in front at the spot of green much further down, he grabs Ray's binoculars.

It's a tall man in a green trenchcoat, long hair, smiling. Ray doesn't even need the binoculars. "It's that fucking PMC goth-boy!"

Dropping the scope, Brad draws his sidearm and flips the safety off, just in case. In case of what, he's not really sure, considering what he says next. "Staff Sergeant," Brad doesn't even realize he's talking through clenched teeth. "Run it...the fuck...over."

"Yes, Sir." Ray replies in kind, and he floors the gas.

Vamp never so much as twitches as they speed ahead. There's an instant right before the Humvee would've hit where Brad makes eye contact with Vamp. Time slows down as he watches Vamp draw a combat knife from under his coat, his smile never faltering as he shifts weight and dances off to the side with grace ill-befitting someone who looks like a comic book villain.

His eyes barely fast enough to follow, Brad only catches a glimpse of Vamp as he spins into a crouch next to the passenger's side as they pass, his knife unseen by the Marines, cutting through the wheel like its butter, repeated as the rear wheel passes.

Ray's instincts guide him into the absolute worst course of action. He sees that Vamp has moved and he slams on the breaks, throwing the wheel all the way to the right, but the damage done makes the Humvee behave far differently than Ray is expecting, and instead of the powerslide Ray intended, they just keep down the road as the Humvee turns, eventually flipping over spectacularly and coming to a halt with the vehicle resting on its left side, the front end on top of the sidewalk.

"How the fuck," Ray starts. Brad is already hauling himself out the passenger side window, and he quickly throws an arm back down to pull Ray out. Once they're both on the road, their vehicle wrecked right next to them, Ray states the obvious question. "I can't believe that just fucking happened! Where'd he go?"

"Over here!"

They both turn, Ray firing his shotgun at the shape dashing away from the lamppost, not even hitting Vamp's coat as it billows out behind him. He's gone into the shadows, and Brad steps behind Ray, putting his back to him with the Humvee to his right as he surveys the far side of the street.

Vamp comes over their vehicle, jumping clear of it from the other side, and Brad doesn't know how in the world he managed to get over there in the first place, he'd been going in the opposite direction...

Ray tries to tag him in the air but he's not quite fast enough, and Vamp lands in-between them. He has just enough time to bring his pistol halfway up before Vamp lands and keeps moving, spinning around and kicking him right in the face so hard that he goes down to the ground. Ray doesn't fare much better; unwilling to shoot with Brad right next to Vamp, he's wide open when Vamp grabs his shotgun, pushes his aim off to the side as Ray fires, spins closer, and elbows him in the face.

Stumbling off balance, Ray nearly falls over as Brad takes aim from the ground. Looking at him just before he pulls the trigger, Vamp jumps backward, away from the single round Brad squeezes off, and launches himself off the Humvee, sailing through the air over Brad and landing further down the street. Brad is on his feet by the time Vamp is running at him and he thinks he's caught Vamp in a terrible error, a comic-book freak with above-average physical prowess who nevertheless thinks combat works like it does in the movies. He pumps off the whole mag at Vamp, running at him clear as day...and nothing happens.

At first, Brad thinks he's somehow missing, fatigue getting to him, possibly, but the last few shots visibly land, red splotches staining the green of Vamp's trenchcoat. He either doesn't feel it or doesn't care, and as Brad shoves a new magazine in, wondering what he's doing wrong, how he's messing up the simple action of killing someone by pointing a gun at them and firing, Vamp reaches him.

He has no time to fire off another shot, Vamp spins on his heels and throws an arm out as he comes around, smacking the gun clear out of Brad's hands. It bounces once on the road and falls right into a sewer drain, giving Brad just enough time to realize how big of a loss that really is before he throws his weight backward to avoid Vamp's arm coming in for his face.

True to his bizarre combat dancing, Vamp just keeps going, spinning down onto one knee as Brad throws a punch for his face, going right under Brad's arm and gracefully sending an elbow into the Marine's stomach.

Tired of being toyed with, Brad pulls his combat knife from his belt and brings his arm up, lunging down at Vamp's neck, expecting to slit his throat. This doesn't happen; Vamp catches the blade in one hand, holding it tightly as if it wasn't sharp at all.

Seeing this as more of an opportunity than anything, Brad yanks it back hard, feeling the serrated edge tear fabric from the glove and flesh from Vamp's hand. Hardly phased, Vamp catches it again when Brad tries to stab him through the eyes, this time clapping both hands around it like a character in some sort of twisted Samurai movie.

"I know you won't kill me," he says, voice thick with a Romanian accent, "But...keep trying."

Ganking the knife from Brad's hands, Vamp is still holding it with both hands on the blade as he gracefully dances to the side, both arms swinging up and then down, hands twisting so the tip of the blade cuts Brad down the side of his face. Not stopping, Vamp spins around once more, delivering a swift kick right into Brad's gut.

Unable to stop himself from doubling over, Brad lands on one knee, looking up to see Vamp's devilish smile turn into a look of confusion.

Ray's weight as he uses Brad like a pommel-horse to vault over pushes him further down, hands hitting the road. It's the precision that concerns Ray, getting this right, because he knows he's only going to get one chance to be this close, one chance to catch Vamp off guard. He lands on his back between them, Brad not even processing what's just happened yet, his shotgun held up with one hand, the barrel poking Vamp in the gut. "Pirouette this!"

The last round of buckshot in Ray's shotgun fires off straight into Vamp's stomach; meanwhile, Vamp's lower back explodes in a cloud of mist and chunks of flesh. He's pushed off of his feet and falls backward, arms out in the air before he lands unceremoniously. Half a second later, Brad's knife clatters to the ground.

As Brad pulls himself to his feet, gasping for breath, he looks over the now-dead PMC elite and blinks. Feeling revenge doesn't even enter his mind, only because the entire thing is so weird. He helps Ray up, and once Ray is standing, he stares at him like he's glowing. "Ray...that was fucking awesome."

Taking a moment to survey his handiwork just as Brad did, Ray looks at him with a cheeky little grin, ganking the shotgun's pump back to eject the last empty shell. "I know! I am good!"

Chuckling, Brad pats him once on the shoulder, turning to get his knife back from where Vamp dropped it. It's his only weapon now, after all. As he takes a step forward, however, the sight before them starts to change.

The sound made when flesh wet with blood starts convulsing is straight out of a horror movie. Broken bones supporting weight only add to the sickening noise, and despite the sound Vamp's body makes as he stands up, the sight of it is not at all natural. Dead men don't stand up. Men with point-blank shotgun wounds to the abdomen don't stand up. He's grunting as though he's exerting himself, like this is nothing more than a warm-up before working out.

It's made even worse because of the way he's doing it, feet rooted to the ground like they're glued, legs doing all the work in pulling him up off his back, arms spread out and coming down to his sides as he rights his posture. It's not until Brad and Ray are staring him in the eyes that Vamp smiles at them, just like before, like nothing even happened.

Ray says "What the fuck?" but Brad only knows it because he sees his lips move out of the corner of his eye, Ray's voice robbed from him by shock. 'Surreal' doesn't begin to describe it.

"That was fun," Vamp, on the other hand, is easy to hear, his accent turning everything he says into something slick and scary. Reaching one arm out, hand open as if he's giving a gift, he adds, "Shall we continue?"

Quickly, Ray reaches for the shotgun shells on his vest. Vamp has a hand on one of the throwing knives at the end of his sleeve as Ray wraps his fingers around a shell, though Vamp is quicker, the knife flying before Ray gets any further.

The scream is instant. Ray doesn't suffer shock or disbelief, he doesn't stare at it for a few seconds, he just screams when the knife goes through his hand and stops in his vest, the tip poking at his undershirt through the fabric but he doesn't really care because his hand is pinned to his vest by that knife. He drops to his knees like a sack of bricks, the shotgun falling out of his other hand as he grabs at the injured one, the strangled cry from his throat ending in "What the fuuuuuuuck!"

Brad doesn't have time to do anything. Vamp is faster than his reflexes, faster than the time it takes for Brad to compensate for the natural urge to look and he's thrown his ruined trenchcoat at Brad's face by the time Brad turns back at him.

Tossing it to the side, Brad is just in time to see Vamp jump at him, having picked up Brad's knife again from where he dropped it earlier. Brad tries to fight, he gives it his all, and against anyone else, he would probably win. Vamp knows how to beat him, though; his dancing is something that shouldn't work, something that should only happen in cheesy martial arts movies, but he not only makes it work somehow, it completely destroys Brad's ability to defend himself. Every time Brad throws a punch, Vamp's arms come up in turn, pushing his away. He gets close only for Vamp to bend like Olympic gymnasts can only dream about and kick him anyway. He brings his own leg down over Vamp's and stop him from kicking, and Vamp just spins around the other way.

Brad knows how to fight someone in the real world, he knows how hand to hand combat works for normal people of any level of training. He doesn't know how to deal with a man who can make movie bullshit work. The third time he tries to punch Vamp in the face, Vamp wraps his arm around Brad's instead of twirling around it or pushing it out of the way. When he yanks it back, he drags Brad's knife over his forearm, drawing blood.

Ray is actually leaking less blood from his hand. Realizing he has no other option, he wraps his free hand around the handle of the knife and pulls, gnawing on his lip the entire time to bite the scream back, but he cries out when the knife comes free all at once. He picks up his shotgun, still not loaded, holds it tight, the injured hand hurting like hell but working well enough, and charges Vamp, shouting the whole way.

Unprepared, perhaps because of Person's sheer ridiculousness, Vamp is caught in the face by the shotgun's stock when Ray swings it. Brad finally lands his fist to Vamp's face as he recoils, sending him sprawling.

Even this is something Vamp turns into his favor. As soon as he hits ground he pushes off it, sliding towards Ray and hopping to his feet, spinning around Ray as he tries to hit him again, throwing one of his knives straight down at the ground. It sticks into the blacktop as easily as it does flesh. "Can't run from your shadow?"

When Ray tries to step farther away from Brad, he nearly falls flat on his face instead. "What the hell?" Trying to move, he looks down only to see that he can't, that his feet won't budge, like his boots are stuck in mud that isn't there. He takes one hand off his shotgun to tug at one leg, and then the other when that doesn't work, but it's no use. "What the fucking hell! Brad!"

Having other things to worry about, Brad takes one last swing at Vamp when Vamp jumps at him, away from Ray. Grabbing Brad's arm as he lands, Vamp just moves behind, shoves his legs against Brad's, and holds him in an armlock. His other hand still holding Brad's knife, he puts it to his throat.

Ray still doesn't have a clear shot because Brad is between them with his own knife held to his face, his head leaning awkwardly to the side but their eye contact is instant. Ray hardly sees Vamp's face as he presses against Brad, smiling and letting out a sound much like a hiss. "Fancy yourself a surgeon with buckshot? No?"

"Ray," Brad breathes out, his knife nicking him as his jaw moves, he's shaking, struggling against Vamp's hold but he barely causes Vamp any exertion.

Ray is trying hard, so very hard to think of something, but buckshot won't hit Vamp without hitting Brad, and he would just get back up again anyway, if what they'd seen so far was any indication, but Vamp just shifts his weight, leaning around Brad's other side.

Ray has to re-adjust the grip on his weapon when Vamp drags his knife down, the slight, slight sound of it slicing Brad's face open is the only thing he can hear, but the cut actually isn't that deep, just enough to draw blood before Vamp jerks his hand forward and throws the knife from his grip, letting it land uselessly on the ground. It criss-crosses the cut Vamp gave him earlier, making an off-center 'X.' He runs his tongue up the cut and it's the scariest fucking thing Ray has ever seen in his life when Brad shakes, his hands balling up into useless fists, his breath coming ragged through gritted teeth.

Brad doesn't blink, he focuses on Ray, right on his eyes, because he's scared out of his mind that if he closes his eyes he'll think it's Nate touching him, Nate cutting him even though they're not into that sort of thing...it's so obvious now, when Vamp's grip relaxes and his hand, no longer occupied with Brad's knife, cups his chin. The other hand lets go of Brad's arm; Vamp shifts forward, keeping it pinned between them and that arm snakes up Brad's chest in a twisted form of embrace. It's obvious what Vamp is doing, why he's toying with him, and Brad can't imagine feeling more violated over anything than he does right now.

Lapping his tongue at Brad's blood one more time, he lowers his voice, still loud enough for Ray to hear, but soft enough for Brad to feel like he's being whispered to, breath hot on his skin compared to Vamp's ice-cold touch. "Yes, that's it...all of you, every one...I can taste him on you, just barely. It's so easy to pretend..."

Brad doesn't see the way Vamp closes his eyes as if he's savoring the moment, but he feels it when Vamp leans his weight in, running the side of his face on Brad's, smearing himself with blood, he sees Ray adjust his grip on his weapon, the only thing he can do, without a clear shot. All the while, Vamp just keeps talking. "How many years have you done this, to still be sane without SOP right now? Five? Ten? How many times have you shared the experience of staring death in the face?"

"Fuck you!" Ray yells, struggling against his invisible bonds, with predictable results. "Fucking freak!"

"Do you wish you shared more than combat?" Vamp smiles at Ray, the accent in his voice making him every bit the image of a vampire he aspires for, his words chosen to aggravate rather than expressing his actual belief. "Do you wish it was you, touching him like this?"

"Ray," Brad says, louder than the first time. He forces himself to speak clearly, to make that effort despite everything, despite feeling violated to the core. He means what he says next, it's not really a decision so much as the only course of action he can think of, because there's just no way he can see out of this and it might, might give Ray a chance to get away. "Ray...shoot through me."

He finally closes his eyes, just after he sees Ray gingerly take a yellow shell from his vest with his wounded hand, he hears Ray shove the pump forward, he hears Vamp's smug little chuckle and he realizes it will probably be for nothing, unless Ray can blow his head clean off he won't get away, he'll stay stuck where he's standing, Brad will die and Vamp will get right back up for more...

Five seconds pass, then ten, and he hears Ray shaking, hears him whimpering and that's how he knows he's fucked, because Ray always saves that shit for later, once the shooting's done and the shock isn't dangerous, it's just that bad. The shotgun fires, and...

Vamp lets go, falling backward. His eyes opening, Brad turns and looks down, seeing the large hole in the center of Vamp's forehead where the slug Ray loaded hit. Ray is still looking through the ACOG on his weapon, and he's still shaking. It's a miracle he shot straight.

And it's a miracle that despite being shot in the head instead of the gut, Vamp gets back up, laughing the entire time, the hole in his head closing before their very eyes. It doesn't even take as long as it did before. For the first time in his life, Brad gives up. He won't let Vamp slit his throat without a fight, but he knows the fight will last all of one second, he accepts that he's going to die because there's just nothing they can do to stop him. They've given it everything they have, and it isn't enough.

Instead of attacking, Vamp pauses mid-stride when cellphone starts ringing. Answering the phone like the Marines aren't even there, Vamp actually paces back and forth. They can hear it, barely, the voice on the other end sounding old. "Vamp, what is taking you so long?"

The gruff noise Vamp makes is the first sound he's made over something that doesn't excite him. "Just having some fun, boss."

"We don't have time for your jarhead fetish, Vamp! Forget them and get back here!"

It's not until Vamp pays attention to them again that Brad dares to wonder if that means what he thinks it means, and the disappointed, halfway to apologetic look on Vamp's face isn't nearly as good, or as terrible, as what Vamp says. "It was just a bit of fun."

Just like that, Vamp is jumping over them, over their rolled Humvee, and he's gone into the night.

This still leaves the problem Ray has, of being unable to move. He's strangely silent, just staring at Brad the entire time Brad tries to puzzle it out, before he notices that the knife Vamp threw on the ground earlier is embedded right in the middle of the shadow Ray is casting from the lamppost they're under. The idea is ridiculous, but it's not worse than anything else that's happened tonight. He walks up onto the sidewalk, bends over, and pulls the knife out.

Ray almost falls forward. He simply forgets about the shadow thing, though, and covers the gap between himself and Brad silently, in long steps.

"You fucking asshole!" Naturally, Brad is more than a little surprised when Ray drops his shotgun and decks him right in the face, Brad stumbling back against the Humvee while Ray shouts at the absolute top of his voice. "'Shoot through me?' 'Shoot through me?!'" Grabbing Brad by the vest, Ray mashes him up against the vehicle once for every word he says next. "Are - you - fucking - stupid?"

Brad doesn't feel any of it, not even the shiner forming on his face. He's numb after everything else, whether it's a toll taken on his sanity, the simple exhaustion, or both, he doesn't know. He can see tears starting to well up in Ray's eyes and that scares him, because Ray has always, always kept it together until it's actually a good time to fall apart. Slowly, he puts his hands on Ray's arms, and he tugs them down. "Ray...breathe."

Ray just lunges again, but he doesn't deck Brad this time, he throws his arms around him and hugs him tight. "Oh, god...oh god, what if I missed..."

It's strange for Brad, because he'd like nothing more than to have Nate hold him right now, and this is so much different than it is with him. Ray isn't his lover, he's his brother, especially after all this time, and that's why Brad returns the gesture even though it's awkward as shit. "Ray." Not for long, though, since they're not really out of the woods and he starts feeling drowsy, probably from blood loss. "Staff Sergeant Person."

"Right." That almost doesn't work either, but Ray finally lets go, and he's not shaking anymore. "Okay. Better now."

"Let's get the first aid kid out of the Humvee," Brad says. "We need to dress your hand...how is it?"

"Hurts like a bitch," Ray admits. Holding his hand up, he slowly squeezes his fingers inward, wincing the whole time. His fingertips have blood on them when he lets the fist go. It actually doesn't look very bad, there's no gaping hole, just a cut on both sides. "Still works, though, I think he missed the tendons or some bullshit."

"Small blessings," Brad says.

---

Brad's dreams are anything but a refuge from reality. Half the time, he's back on the Volta and the scene is replaying itself in front of his face, but he knows what's coming and can't change it, no matter how much he wants to. The other half is spent back home on the night he and Nate first moved in together, but in the dream, when he opens his eyes, it's Vamp instead of Nate.

When he finally wakes up, Brad is slow to come to. His entire body hurts, and he can feel bandages in a few places. Once he opens his eyes and sits up, he vaguely remembers hobbling back to the train station with Ray, how Rat Patrol were the only ones there and even they were in bad shape. He remembers falling not long before getting there, blood loss finally getting to him, and making it the rest of the way with an arm over Ray's back.

This isn't the train station, though. From the engine noise, the confined space, and the helicopter in back, Brad guesses he's in the cargo bay of a plane. He doesn't remember getting on it, and it's decked out with all manner of computers and monitors at the front. What sounds like singing is making it's way, muffled, down the stairs from the upper deck. Hunched over on a nearby chair is an ordinary looking man wearing a sweater that makes him seem like a pretty big nerd, and he doesn't react at all to Brad sitting up.

There's an IV running into Brad's hand, he soon notices. Following the line up with his eyes, he sees it going to a saline pack, and he wonders how much blood he'd lost when Vamp cut him up. His arm has a new dressing on it, and it's nicer than the one Ray did. Putting a hand to his face, Brad feels the dressing over the gash there, as well. That's completely new, there wasn't enough gauze in the Humvee's first aid kit after everything else.

Before he can really process anything else, the sound of boots walking down the stairs from the next deck up, that vague singing mixed in with it, makes its way down. Ray, barefoot, sans shirt, and looking a lot less dirty than Brad feels is carefully trudging down the steps, holding plates in each hand, singing way off key and not at all caring. "'Cause I can keep a rhythm with no metronome," he drawls out, bobbing his head, decidedly not in rhythm, "'No metronome...'"

Much to Brad's surprise, there's a little girl holding another plate behind him, taking each step one at a time, her little legs barely long enough for it. She heads right for the other guy in the room, who still pays the Marines no heed. The more Brad looks at him, the more he thinks the man has either just finished having or is a few minutes away from a nervous breakdown.

Brad doesn't hear them talk; Ray has to snap him out of staring at him, since he's half staring into space. "Back to the land of the living, Brad? Here, eat something." After Brad takes the plate and starts looking it over, Ray sits down on one of the nearby jump seats and adds, "Your dearest friend Ray-Ray has prepared for you a well-balanced meal of scrambled eggs, eggs over easy, and eggie-in-the-basket, a wonderful delicacy taken from Europe. All the major food groups."

Brad stares at the plate for all of five seconds before he attacks the toast containing an egg. He doesn't need the fork for it, it's the easiest thing to inhale, and his stomach has made it quite clear that inhaling food right now is entirely acceptable. Somewhere, as he swallows, he manages to get out, "Thanks." It doesn't really sound like a word.

"Geez, Brad. Chew your food," Ray feigns disgust, but he's no less ravenous.

The other guy stares at his plate for a second before taking it, giving the little girl a depressed "Thank you, Sunny." In contrast to Brad and Ray, he just barely picks at his eggs, glancing up at the helicopter stored in the cargo bay when the sound of someone snoring from inside its cabin filters out into the plane.

"Where are we?" Brad eventually says to Ray, once his mouth isn't full.

Ray's mouth is full when he answers. "Probably over the East Coast by now. You slept over the Atlantic. This here is some UN-funded jobbie; they're headed for Alaska, I guess; gonna drop us off on the west coast when they land to refuel. Apparently, some some green-ass Marines fresh out of basic will get there just after we do."

This sounds strange to Brad; there's no way they got on this plane unless someone arranged for it, which means their destination was part of the arrangement. Who above him would be interested in sending a Master Gunny and his personal lackey to share air with recruits isn't something Brad can figure out, but he remembers the revelation he shared with Ray back in Europe, about why the two of them didn't lose it when SOP cut out.

Apparently reading his mind, Ray is still eating even when Brad pauses to think. "It's all gone crazy out there, Brad. That whacko didn't just spank us like bitches, he cut out SOP everywhere. Only reason what's left of the militaries everywhere aren't getting blown all to shit right now is 'cause all the PMCs that aren't his are in the same boat."

"Jesus." The implications are nothing short of apocalyptic, and all Brad can think about is Nate. Everything else, even the Marines be damned, he wants to know if Nate's okay. It kills his appetite pretty quick.

Seeing this, Ray jerks a thumb back towards the stairs he just walked down. "Our clothes are in the dryer; there's a shower upstairs that our gracious hosts don't mind us using. In fact, our gracious hosts would probably appreciate you using it, at this point."

If nothing else, Brad wonders if a hot shower might actually make him feel better. He tugs the IV out himself, and is more than a little surprised when the little girl trots over and, without a word, clearly nervous around him, starts taping a fresh piece of gauze to the back of his hand. She spares his face a glance and quickly looks away when they make eye contact.

"Sunny here does seem good at just about everything," Ray chuckles. "She dressed your cuts, too, while you were sawing wood."

"Well." Brad has to bite his tongue before a pedophile, bestiality, or even a general inbred-hick joke directed at Ray slips out. Given that the geeky looking guy in the cargo bay with them, still immersed in his laptop, is probably her father, Brad really doesn't want to cause a scene. He tries to put on the dealing-with-children face he's never really been able to do right, even when he was a child. "Thank you, Sunny."

Sparing him another nervous glance as she finishes, she managed a small smile and stutters out, "Y...you're welcome."

It's kind of sad, Brad thinks, that he can't handle talking to a little girl like a normal person who doesn't scare her half to death, while Ray was just cooking with her. This thought is on his mind as he plods his way up the stairs without another word, along with various hypothetical situations involving Nate telling him he wants a kid. All of those trains of thought end in the same abject horror of the Iceman coming to the conclusion that he would handle it about as well as Ray Person handles tact, if not worse.

Really, it's the thought of Nate, just Nate, that gets Brad into the shower without beating himself up over something so silly. He really doesn't get it; it's not like he and Nate haven't had fights. Nate almost left him when he'd made it abundantly clear that he wasn't planning on leaving the Marines anytime soon. Hell, Brad can vividly remember his response to that, looking at Nate with a straight face and saying calmly, honestly, "I understand."

They're still together, though. If they have one thing to thank the Marine Corps for, it's the profound lessons in adaptability.

Adaptation certainly doesn't help Brad with the raging hard-on he realizes he has once he's letting the hot water run down his back; turning it cold does absolutely nothing. He fixes it the old fashioned way, not even conscious of the fact that he's standing in someone else's bathtub. It's the most intense orgasm in a long time he can remember, longer than it's been since he's seen Nate, to the point where he ends up bracing himself against the wall trying to breathe, water running down the top of his head and into his eyes, but he doesn't care.

It's a good five minutes before he straightens up and grabs the soap off the shelf, finally scrubbing off blood and grime and god only knows what was in the Volta that stuck to him. The spray from the nozzle is a calm one, hardly a spray at all, probably because the plane doesn't carry a very big water supply; the only dressing Brad can't save is the one on the side of his face, covering the cuts from Vamp's knife; the one on his hand and arm barely get wet, though.

He can still smell the river on himself, even after he's done. This thought pushed away, he's glad that he remembers he's not in barracks or on deployment with fifty Marines sharing a bucket, and thus takes the time to reach out for a towel hanging nearby and wrap it around his waste before he steps out.

This proves to have been a good idea, because Sunny is waiting for him, holding his clean uniform in both arms, barely able to peak over the boots perched on top. It's plainly obvious that she even polished them. "Um, your...c-clothes are all done."

It's a simple thing, really, but the gesture floors Brad into standing there with his mouth open. After everything that happened during the last few hours he'd been conscious, this little girl who is quite obviously terrified of him doing something nice is just too much for him to handle.

"I, uh." He really doesn't know how to talk to her. "It's...fine if you just put them down right there."

Obliging, Sunny runs off to the other end of the deck, apparently her own personal work area where she's putting some kind of mechanical thing together. Deciding to give her some privacy, Brad stuffs his uniform under one arm and walks downstairs again.

Ray is already dressed and tying his boots. The geeky guy is still at the computer, but he's sitting at one of the larger systems now, still ambivalent about them. Ray motions Brad to come closer, so Brad sits down next to him to put his clothes on. Fortunately, Ray has the decency to wait for Brad to have his pants on the towel folded nearby before he leans in and starts whispering. "Hey. Brad. That guy?" He subtly makes a gesture towards the computers, "That's Hal Emmerich."

"Who?" Brad pauses, tugging his shirt on when Ray starts his answer by staring at him with wide eyes. The name sounds familiar, he just can't quite place it.

Torn between being excited and being quiet, Ray actually manages the latter. "You know, from the book? That book?"

Ray mouths the title, and Brad, one eyebrow raised, glances over for another look at the unassuming man. This is supposed to be Otacon, the genius otaku who designed a bipedal tank? Then again, Evan Wright used to say he often had to tell people that most of Bravo team didn't look like the Marines on recruiting posters. Well, Nate did. Nate's smile could melt ice, and his eyes could do even better cliches.

Brad really wishes Nate was here to hold him. He could go for some of that romantic mushy stuff right about now, and he can't even remember when, exactly, the last time they were in the same room together was.

The revelation and the idea that Ray's wild fanboyism over legendary soldiers might have some basis in reality notwithstanding, Brad doesn't see any current relevance once he thinks about it. "And?"

Sighing, Ray slouches backwards and changes the subject. "God, you're no fun at all...two of your team leaders survived, by the way. Anslo and Polonski? They're meeting us in California. Bastards caught a C-130 out 'cause they thought they were the only survivors...We missed the boarding call."

Eventually, Ray notices that Brad has stopped paying attention. Brad is, in fact, leaning forward, head in his hands, his breathing irregular. He wants to cry, but he's so overwhelmed he just can't parse any of it. "Great...that's great, Ray..."

"You alright, man?"

Hardly noticing when Ray scoots closer to him on the bench, Brad finally looks up, staring straight ahead at the front of the helicopter, listening to whoever is inside still snore. "I've just watched nearly all my men killed by a few guys with submachine guns, I've been attacked by I don't even know what that thing was, you told me a few minutes ago civilization as we know it is teetering on the brink of collapse...and all I can think about is my boyfriend."

Making a disapproving noise, Ray says, "That's...that's not illegal, Brad. I'd be kinda worried if you weren't. Frankly, I'd be thinking you're Trombley in a Brad mask if you weren't. Nothing wrong with missing your significant other."

Shaking his head, Brad replies, "It's...it's not just missing him, I...it's like I can't stop thinking about him. Wondering what he's doing now. What he's doing without me. What we'd be doing if I didn't re-up and just did an honest day's work for a change. I feel like...like I've never even been in the same room with him."

"Sounds like you're homesick," Ray sighs. "Of course, you having emotions is always pretty weird, but you're still human, I guess. And you're both big fucking patriots to the point where you never put yourselves first...you moreso than Fick, gotta say."

"La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo?"

Brad knows he's heard that before. He and Ray both look up at Otacon, who has finally turned away from his computer screens. Nudging his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, he keeps talking. "I mean, not that...you can actually say 'Patriots?' The System really is down."

"Wait," Brad starts wondering. "What's that mean?"

Apparently unprepared for his sudden observation to be interesting, Otacon has to swivel his chair back around to face them after trying to go back to the computers. "It's a language restriction. It's part of the programming in your nanomachines; if the system was still working, the nanos don't let you say or hear the word 'Patriots.' So people like me can't tell you about them."

"Them?" Ray asks.

As weird and interesting as this sounds, Brad's mind starts wandering back to the conversation he and Ray were having in the Humvee before Vamp interupted them. "What's wrong with the military?" He asks, hoping for an answer, praying the answer isn't as bad as he thinks it is. "Why did my men just lose it like that? Why can't I think straight?"

"It's SOP withdrawal," Otacon says. Finally, he turns back to his screens, but he keeps talking to them. "No, that's not quite right...you don't need SOP itself to function, but it keeps you functioning without battle fatigue getting in the way. Now that it's gone...well, you guys were on battlefields since before the System was implement, right? So you don't have it as bad. You know what being a soldier in combat is. All your friends, though...the ones who don't have any experience without nanomachines in their heads..."

"That's fucking twisted," Ray says. "No wonder I keep thinking about getting shot...hey, that's why you feel homesick, Brad. Your nanomachines stopped you from worrying like that so it wouldn't distract you."

"And now they're shipping us off to take charge of a bunch of guys with no combat experience," Brad says to himself.

Ray feels the uncomfortable silence as Brad shifts his weight around, trying to find a good way to settle without aggravating various bruises and cuts. Being Ray, he feels a need to break that silence. "Freak really did a number on us, didn't he?"

"Yeah," Brad says. Turning, he sits down next to Ray for lack of anything better to do, and if he's honest with himself, his legs are killing him, too. It's a flashback to years gone by when the System wasn't there to handle these things, and Brad is glad it's not the first time he's had to deal with fatigue. It just brings back memories. "Yeah, he did."

They're both mildly surprised when Otacon seems able to guess what they're talking about, turning away from his screens with a sudden seriousness. "Freak? What freak?"

"Uh," Ray starts, holding one hand up. "Guy about yay-tall, needs some sun, likes knives, tends to get up after you blow his guts out with buckshot, calls himself-"

Otacon does know what they're talking about. "Vamp." It's even more surprising when he actually stands up in a huff, so fast he actually has to fix his glasses again as he starts pacing away from them, his chair swiveling around a couple of times. What he says next is depressed, the voice of a man who's given up on something. "It never ends. I...guess that explains all the cuts."

Brad keeps letting Ray do the talking. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't curious, but he can tell Otacon has serious issues about this subject matter, and Ray seems to be getting it out of him pretty well so far. "So, wait, you know him? How do you kill the motherfucker?"

"You don't," Otacon says. He walks back and sits down again, shoving his glasses far up so he can rub at the bridge of his nose. "At least, I wish I knew. Maybe the nanomachines can't fix him if he's not in one piece?"

Just like that, Vamp isn't so mysterious and creepy anymore. "Nanomachines," Brad repeats, wondering what miracle of technology could do something so wonderful for someone so depraved. If 'depraved' is even a strong enough word.

"You're lucky to be alive," Otacon adds. "Honestly, it's surprising."

"Don't think he ever even wanted to kill us," Ray looks down at his bandaged hand, turning it over a couple of times. There's a small dot of red on both sides. "He just played with us the whole time, in hindsight. It's not like he had anything to be scared of. He," Ray starts getting into the whole bit where it seemed like Vamp had every intention of bending Brad over the nearest bench on the street and having his way with him, but he thinks better of it. "Yeah. He had us dead to rights, just doesn't make sense."

Sitting down again, Otacon seems intrigued, as if he has some idea where Ray was going to go. "You're Marines, right?" At their nodding, Otacon asks, "How long?"

"More than ten years," Brad shrugs.

Otacon's next question seems pretty random. "So, long enough to remember Scott Dolph?"

"Scott who?" Eyebrows going up, Ray turns to Brad.

Brad knows exactly what Otacon is talking about. "He was Commandant back in oh-seven. Remember, he was killed when..."

"Oh, the tanker," Ray cuts him off. "Jesus, that Scott Dolph. Man...you know Stafford went down on that too? Fuckin-A."

Waiting for Ray to stop, Otacon continues. "Awhile back I...well, let's just say it's not the first time Vamp's turned up. I dug up a lot of information on his old SEAL unit..."

"Wait, SEAL?" Ray cuts him off, "The goddamn freak's a SEAL? What the hell was his instructor in boot camp, Dracula?"

"Ray," Brad shushes him.

Apparently not minding, Otacon continues, "Anyway, I never found any direct evidence, but there were rumors going on a long time between the officers around Commandant Dolph that he and Vamp were...well, together."

Brad's head tilts a little to the side. Now that he's had some time to breathe, he doesn't shudder involuntarily or feel like he's going to lose it as he remembers Vamp's arms around him, or his tongue going up his cheek, or...Iceman or not, he really doesn't want to remember it, period, but the sheer level of wrong this entire thing is turning out to be just won't let him forget. "No shit."

Ray is quite speechless. When he finally picks his jaw up off the floor, he ends up shuddering and squeaking on account of a mental image he just can't stop imagining. "Ew! Just...ew. No offense, man," he slaps Brad on the back, "But ew!"

"Maybe," Otacon offers, eying Brad strangely until the meaning of Ray's words click. "Maybe he just won't kill Marines himself out of respect for Dolph...it doesn't sound all that likely, but...I don't know, it's just hard imagining anyone can be like he is from birth. Not that it excuses that monster of the things he's done, but...it's a reason, at least. It's nice to have reasons for bad things."

Brad's had just about enough of vampire freaks with a thing for men in uniform. He wonders if it was better not knowing any of this, just burying Vamp far, far away into the same place he keeps every other war wound. He's going to do that anyway, only now there's more information to file away.

Standing up, his mind goes back to Nate, and how much he would really like to be with him instead of thinking about being cut open with his own knife for Vamp's kinks. "Can I make a phone call from here? I mean..."

He's about to offer pay for long distance charges before he remembers they're in a plane, and Otacon doesn't seem to care anyway. He just pushes his glasses up his nose again. "Well, the telecommunications networks are all being overwhelmed from panic across the world...I should be able to get a line out through the UN, though. Where's the call going?"

"ArmsTech Security," Brad starts.

He's about to say where the corporate building is, but Otacon is visibly shaken just by the name. "Really?" After a pause, he calms down. "Uh...right. To who?"

He's already typing when Brad answers. "Nate Fick, he'll either be in accounting or with the military advisors...he's been trying to keep human decision-making in the System since they started developing it."

"Small world," Otacon mumbles. "This'll just take a few minutes."

While Otacon gets to work, Ray stands up and hits Brad on the shoulder again. This time, it's just to get his attention. "Yo, Brad."

Brad's acknowledgment comes out in a sigh. "Yes, Ray?"

Much to his surprise, Ray makes a face and looks around, eyes shady as if he's expecting someone to eavesdrop from the bulkhead they're sitting against. He even lowers his voice, but the idea Otacon can't hear him is wishful thinking. Considering that Otacon hasn't said anything even remotely judgmental about anything except Vamp. "You, uh. You know that stuff the freak said, about me...you know. And you. You know he was just bullshitting, right?"

The fact that Brad never thought Ray would assume he'd have taken Vamp's words seriously sends his eyebrows straight up to his hairline. "Staff Sergeant, are you feeling insecure about your masculinity?"

"Oh fuck no." Rolling his eyes, Ray says, "I just, you know. I don't want you to start wondering if I'm still here because I want to get into your pants or something. I'm here because I'm your damn sidekick. And...you know, what I said before, 'cause it's a steady paycheck."

"First of all, Ray," Brad says, his voice and expression both completely neutral, "You're not my sidekick, you're my minion. Second, yes, I knew he was full of shit. Third, I guess, on some level, I should admit I actually do enjoy your company. When I'm not babysitting you in the presence of your female relatives and barnyard animals."

At Brad's utter refusal to express the bond they've built over the years as Marines with words, Ray zings him right back. "Well, yeah, I am basically your male fag hag," Ray grins, until he repeats the words in his head. "I can't believe I just called myself that."

"Neither can I," Brad says, shaking his head.

Otacon has good timing when he turns to them again. "There, got a line."

After gesturing to the large TV screen hanging off the wall to the left, Otacon goes back to what he was originally doing, giving Brad some privacy in mental state, if not letting him be physically alone. The screen changes to a fancy keypad simulating a phone, the ring-tone coming through clearly.

The picture isn't entirely what he expected; Nate's hand is the most visible thing; he's standing up off-center of his desk and his voice clearly comes through, "Hold on a second," before he talks to someone Brad can't see.

Paperwork exchanged and nervous words spoken to Nate from whoever is bothering him, Nate sits down ready for business. He doesn't even get one word out before he looks at the video feed and yanks his chair as close to his desk as he can, practically diving over it. "Brad, holy shit. Where are you? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Brad says, after a delay. He really hadn't figured out anything to say beforehand, and since he doesn't want to tell Nate about what happened to him in Europe, it leaves him with few topics. "What about you?"

"It's crazy down here," Nate sighs. "Nobody can really do anything, though. It's like being back in the military, whole lot of hurry-up-and-wait. Company's stock is dropping like a rock, it's the same for anyone with any stake in the war economy. I'm spending most of my time charting how much money the company is losing, and the rest of it answering phones and telling people we're working on the problem."

Brad doesn't think it's a lie, he just has no faith in ArmsTech being able to fix the problem. Whatever Liquid did, he did it pretty well. "I, uh...I don't know when I'll get the chance to call again, I just..."

Brad hasn't felt awkward about losing his closet status among anyone he happens to be around for a long time. He doesn't lie if he's asked, he doesn't switch pronouns when someone asks if he has someone waiting for him back home. As such, it isn't Otacon being in the room that bothers him so much as seeing Nate in and of itself does. There's so many things he wants to say, things he wants to tell Nate about, even just how much he can't wait to come home...he's just rendered speechless when faced with it all.

Nate picks up on it, and he lets Brad off the hook. "Well, I appreciate it...not knowing what's been going on wherever you are was driving me up the wall...where are you now?"

"Flying back to the states." Before Nate can assume that means he's coming home, Brad explains further. "Someone up top wants Ray and I to take on a bunch of guys right out of boot camp...I guess they're more dependable than soldiers with combat experience right now."

"I'm not surprised...I always wondered about possibilities like this since they first started implementing the System," Nate says, "Truth be told, even though I've always hated a lot of what it does, I never imagined anything this bad...there's more rumors about how this guy, whoever he is, took control going around than celebrity gossip right now."

It's a sad thing about American media and attitude that this actually says quite a lot.

"Nate, I," Brad trails off again. He assumes the camera must be mounted in the screen, he can't see one anymore, and he takes a step closer. "I, uh...I know this isn't what you want to hear, but...in case something happens..."

"Brad," Nate tries to cut him off, but Brad won't have it.

"In case something happens to me...I'm gonna try my damnedest to make it home, but if I don't...I love you, alright?" They don't say it very often, they're just not the type of people to be hung up on words. Right now, though, the words mean more than usual, and Brad can't think of any other way get the point across. He puts his fist to his lips and half-heartedly hits the top of the screen with the side of it. "I just...I can't go without you knowing how important you are in my life."

Nate very nearly breaks down at his desk. He has no idea what to say to that. He returns Brad's gesture, though. Returning the words would just send him over the edge. "Be careful; watch yourself."

"I will," Brad tells him.

Otacon's been eavesdropping again, his own lovelife being anything but normal these days. Or, for that matter, ever. Going back to his old schematics of Metal Gear REX, he spares Ray a glance. "So how long have those two been together?"

Mildly surprised at Otacon's interest, Ray answers, "Uh...they hooked up when we invaded Iraq back in oh-three...what's so funny?"

"Nothing," Otacon tries to stop chuckling, and he pushes his glasses back into the proper place. "I know I'm being silly, it just...gives me back some faith in humanity when love blooms on a battlefield."

"You know," Ray kicks back, throwing his feet up on the next jump seat down, "I'd settle for a working weapon on the battlefield."

Watching Brad as he he and Fick say their final goodbyes, listening to every word, Ray snorts at their romance; even a pair of Marines can't entirely put away their romantic cliches or their warm and fuzzy feelings all the time. Brad's motto about marriage, the one he still gives when their men brag about their wives, comes to mind.

Staring up at the ceiling and counting the lines in the grates, holding his arm up so he can look at the bandages around his hand again, Ray listens to Fick worry about Brad one more time, and he says to himself, "No faith in your dearest pal Ray-Ray, El-tee. I'll bring 'em home like I always do."

As far as Ray is concerned, Fick can be assured of that.