SOVIET MILITARY POWER
The first time Adamska came to the USSR it was in an unmarked flight over the Arctic, and he was a week shy of sixteen years old. He'd been preparing for the defection since early childhood, learning codebreaking, shooting and Russian from his Philosophers' handlers even as he watched the organisation crumble around him. They'd given the NSA a taste of his talents, and now he was leaving, off across the great divide to start betraying someone else instead.
He felt like a chesspiece, a pawn marched out of one side and taken offhandedly by the other - yet he had no idea which side he was on, the black or the white. He was a move that had been meticulously prepared, poised to infect a new land with his skills, their scheming. He hoped that one day he would understand their purposes.
Mere military might was easier to fathom. He'd been part of America's war machine - a feted young genius, unravelling secrets ripped out of the air, or just making them up out of frustrated impulse, anything to impress or to cement his glowing reputation, anything to feign patriotic duty. And now he'd do the same across the icy sea. Except Soviet military power was different. Colder, harder, more likely to harness his innate aggression.
He didn't know if he was leaving home or finding it.
It was May 31st, 1960, and he was stabbing America in the back, and he had no idea what it was going to lead to.
OTACON AND GIANT ROBOTS
It was an escape from their family's legacy. He liked science; he liked machines, he liked imagining new systems with new possibilities. Robots were different from bombs, better - you could design them limb by sturdy limb, climb inside them where you would be safe and hidden, and then you could save the world.
His father had never asked why he liked the shows. He was just glad Hal had found an enthusiasm for science, and left it at that. No one had ever asked, so he was alone with his imagination. So when his stepmother did ask him just that, he didn't know what to say. He thought he'd been safe inside - but something about the way she asked, about the way she noticed him in there, made him wonder if he really was better off in there.
It felt nice to have someone see past the walls of gundanium and talk to the person inside.
So he opened the door, and explained. That he loved engineering, and the shows - the human dramas, the flashing explosions, the bright colours and the music - was a whole new world of design to him, where the good guys could use robots to fight evil and bring peace.
She asked what happened to the robots after the good guys had won the war.
They'd find peaceful purposes for them, right? They couldn't abandon them, he knew that.
The more she talked to him, the sillier it felt - caring about giant robots. He didn't want that shell any more. He could put it away in the back of his closet, because the war was over. It was almost the 21st century and there would be no nuclear war, and no need for robot armies either. People could trust each other now. He guessed he was still grateful that he'd had something to occupy his time for a few years, but that was as over as the Cold War now. Julie's gentle hands were welcoming him to a real, normal future. And his father wasn't asking why he'd stopped liking the shows - he only asked why Hal's grades were slipping, which wasn't the same thing at all. He had chosen to go on the shelf with the robot, Hal thought. He couldn't hide any more.
MORALE BOOST
Snake's work was secret. Even the fall of Outer Heaven had barely reached the ears of the public; most of the other grim tasks he'd performed for America over the years were completely unknown by anyone outside a handful of people in the intelligence community. That's what black ops were; an ugliness hidden only by its obscurity.
So how in hell was he getting radio calls from a so-called 'number one fan'?
He should be troubled. Operation Intrude F014 was a top-secret operation. No one outside FOXHOUND should have even known his transmitter frequency, let alone be monitoring his activities long-term. To a spy, having a watcher meant having an enemy. No one should know his identity, his codename, how to make contact with him, what he was, who he was.
But having a self-professed fan calling to help him through Zanzibarland and tell him, through a transmission fog and a voice scrambler, to keep up the good work?
It put a spring in his step, somehow. All the rest of his support team were just doing their jobs, but a stranger offering aid just because they claimed to like him, that was a real morale boost.
AMMO SHORTAGE
Jack couldn't believe it. He ran for the next corner and slammed another clip into his M1911A1, knowing it was going to be wasted, just praying to outrun the Perfect Soldier for long enough to come up with another plan. He'd barely dived behind the shed when he heard another hail of bullets; there was a ladder, and he pulled himself up it, needing to find a hiding place or a goddamn rocket launcher or at least some more ammo. More useless ammo to waste against that impossibly-fast knife edge.
Nothing. He threw himself flat on the roof and hoped the kid would be dumb enough to follow him. No. No rattling steps on the ladder. Footsteps receding then coming back and oh shit he'd found another way up there. He fired another shot - deflected - and jumped back to the edge, landing in a bone-jarring crouch on the ground. He rolled and ran for the maze of paths that lead back to the truck. He didn't want to pit his men against this bastard child but they might be able to toss him some more ammo.
He heard a thud behind, and turned, firing a shot on raw impulse. It hit. It hit. And another. His third missed. Didn't have to beat perfect reflexes if you could get him off-balance like that. He was running again before Null recovered, looking for somewhere new to climb or hide. If he could just draw the damn kid off another few ledges -
He had five bullets left.
frivolity arm paper grey
Gray Fox wasn't one for frivolity. On base, his time was mapped out to the minute, measured in snatches of music in his office or in degrees of exhaustion in training bouts, or timed transmission bursts, or orders carried out to tight schedules, or countdowns towards whatever tense and secret confrontations the world would throw at them next. If he had time for others, it was always mapped out to a purpose; advice to be given or taken, people to use or to be used by, never exchanging anything personal.
On the battlefield his life was less predictable and far more keenly felt. The world narrowed to nothing but his objective and his side-arm, and he approached others only to kill.
Frank Jaeger would go home on leave to spend time with his sister. Every morning he read the paper - the Washington Post, for old time's sake - to see what lies the government were telling their people, and they'd talk about it together and laugh, even when it really wasn't funny. They talked for hours, or he listened while she told him about her projects and people - if she asked about his own adventures, he wouldn't be pressed. She reminded him well enough of what he was. He took motorbike rides with her, holding tight while she rode up front, and he loved the feeling of movement, and the not having to look her in the eyes.