Chapter Ten: Four Minutes
"Whose this?" Snake questioned, moving up in the chair and sitting as straight as possible. His face scrunched up and he sternly looked onward, awaiting the voice to return. It was a woman's. It was a beautiful voice.
"Good morning, Solid Snake," the voice called, and he put on a quick smile, one that easily displayed his sarcasm. The woman chuckled, or giggled rather. "The early bird catches the worm, Snake. It appears you are the worm, and I am the bird." Snake frowned.
"You're young," he said, judging his accusation off of her tone. It was just high enough, and just low enough to belong to a girl in her late teens, possibly. "19?" he questioned, and she giggled again.
"20," she replied, "nice try." Snake was surprised. A sniper? At age 20?
"You must be talented," Snake joked, trying to lighten the mood. The sun that hung over was like a burning light, put in his eyes as he awaited interrogation. Humorously, this woman – or girl – was the interrogator. It was amazing how the cards were dealt sometimes.
"I am, in fact," she answered, the heat on his forehead sliding down his body and to his chest. It moved to his heart and he looked down, about to try and swat it away. "So, would you like to come up to my place?" she asked, her voice seductive. Snake's eyebrows tilted in dissatisfaction and his mouth curved off in an odd way.
"I don't date minors," he replied, smirking. Quickly, the red dot returned to his forehead and his body grew tense again. He scowled, the sun touching off of the bench and reflecting ahead of him. Surprisingly enough, the sight of the woman's gun did not waver, even in the blinding glare of the sun overhead.
"Don't date minors?" she asked. "You wouldn't be…dating me, Snake. But instead…pleasing me." He could sense her smiling, but he simply stared ahead, his expression unchanging. "Wouldn't you rather be enjoying yourself with me than working so hard out there in that hot…burning sun?" Her voice was sensuous and tempting, but Snake wasn't one for romance, nor was he a traitor. And no doubt, becoming intimate with the enemy was treason.
"I think I might be a little to old for you," he commented, trying to put on a worthy smile – one that held no humor but perfectly portrayed how much he was enjoying the conversation. "Maybe next time?"
"Won't you only be older then?" she asked, and he cocked his head as if he had just realized their predicament.
"I guess you're right," he said sarcastically, "but you'd be older too. I'd rather a more stable relationship." There was no doubt that everything that he said was simply to stall the woman, but how long it would last wasn't clear.
"Stable?" she asked. "I can hold a sniper rifle on a single target for hours." He frowned, and she waited for a response, but none sufficed. "Just think about it, Snake. You'd be so much more comfortable here. You could enjoy all the pleasure in the world. Is there anything more a big, strong man like you could ask for in a woman?"
"A woman who is trying to kill me," he added, and with that she seemed to set aside the small talk and concerned herself with the true matters at hand.
"Stand up," she ordered, her voice not as calm as before, but taking command. "Stand up!" she hollered, and Snake shook his head subtly as he stood. His body ached with the added stress of merely standing and he waited in agony for the woman to continue. "Cross the street when traffic stops," she declared, and Snake examined the furious movement of cars, their engines roaring and their wheels crying as they ran across the scorching pavement.
The elevator doors slid open and Jack stepped inside, his legs weak and ready to collapse. He had not done too much walking or running, but he was feeling uneasy at the peculiar sight of an empty floor. Peering to the left and to the right, he moved into the elevator backwards as to get the best look of the first floor offices before making the situation more than it was. But, as the doors slid closed, he realized that the workers were certainly not hiding. 'Where is everyone?' he asked himself as the gears turned and the cables tugged, pulling him up the elevator shaft in a continuous motion.
In the elevator, he felt safe but vulnerable. Formal was waiting for him on the fourth floor – exactly where the elevator was taking him – and until those doors opened again, and until he sighed in welcome relief, he was in the hands of a machine. For that half of a minute, he controlled nothing, and Formal controlled everything.
The elevator stopped.
There was a lurch in Jack's stomach as a screen in the left wall of the elevator blinked on, and a familiar face appeared as the lighting adjusted. There was a sickening grin stretched across his pale face, and atop his head was a black top hat, it's bill turning to the sky around the edges. A soft cackle, and Formal stepped back, revealing a collar gripped in his hand, and a lifeless body dangling from it like a sopping-wet rag.
"Welcome to Formal's Fun House," his mouth opened wide with glee, and he expressed an odd humor, winking his right eye. "Well? You didn't expect for me to let you just waltz right in here, did you?" Jack's eyes moved to the body as its mouth moved this way and that. 'He's not dead,' he thought. 'Not dead.' "You have to work for it, Jackie boy! My time does not come without a price! I believe this is a reasonable assumption, don't you?" Jack sneered.
"I killed you," he stated, but Formal shook his head wildly, and raised his index finger before the camera as if he had pinpointed some grand idea.
"Ahh," Formal began, "you may have ebbed me off the brink of sanity, but you did not kill me! My knives stay truthful and loyal to the end. They would not have let me die there…not then. I had to stay there…in that freezing cavern of a storage facility. I had to sneak into a tiny nook to elude the Police. For three months, Jackie boy. Three months I spent in there! Wasting away! You would have enjoyed it so, Jackie. You would have been like me…and because of you I lost myself! All that I held dear was thrown into that bottomless pit of sorrow," he babbled. His expressions were terrible. He was nothing like he had been before. When they had last known him he was a very proper opponent, but over the course of a few months he had fallen into a deep state of insanity.
"Well then…let's play a little game, shall we, Jackie?!" Without answering, Jack displayed a discerning face, showing his disgust with Formal who jumped back as if something had landed at his feet. "Maybe if you know of the stakes, you will rethink that answer of yours." Pulling a radio from his belt and holding it to the man's face who was limp in his hand, he spoke. "You have him?" he asked, and there was a moment's hesitation before a voice returned.
"Aye aye," a woman's soothing sound came to him and he nodded, smiling at Jack with a cruel insanity about his face.
"Let us take a peek behind door number one!" Formal cried as he touched a switch on a small device in his free hand. The screen blipped to a black void, and after a few moments Jack could see a woman standing over a man, a gun pointed at the man's forehead. She smiled, her icy white lips glimmering in the light from above. Her long white hair trailed down her back, and ended at her waist. Around her waist was a sweater. She wore a black leather jacket and contrasting white pants, and as the fluorescent lights shined down on her she seemed to illuminate, sending a cool aura through the elevator.
"Snake?" Jack voiced, analyzing the man before her and realizing that he was indeed Solid Snake. He grunted in return, and the woman who stood over him grinned wide.
"So," Formal cut in, the camera returning to him, "interested?" Jack looked at him scornfully.
"What do I do?" With that, Formal's eyes lit up with joy, and he quickly continued with the instructions.
"This elevator shaft is lined with explosives: handiwork of a very skilled bomb expert," he began, his voice excited. "They are set to explode in…six minutes," he checked his watch and started the timer. Jack hurried for the doors, but Formal cried after him. "Ah ah ah," he said, waving his finger, "there is one more thing. In the corner of your compartment is a small bag. Go and open it."
Uneasily, seeing the twinkle in Formal's eye, Jack stepped over to the bag, and carrying it before Formal, he pulled the top loose – tied shut with leather – and looked inside. Suddenly, as his eyes adjusted and the light in the elevator struck the items within – making them glimmer – the bag split apart and eight gleaming objects flew this way and that.
Jack dropped the bag to his feet, and looked around to notice what was floating in the air around him. Four knives were above him, forming the vertices of a square, and at his feet were four more, mimicking the pattern. Running toward the wall of the elevator an invisible force stopped him midway, marked by the glinting knives. "Damn!" he yelled, slamming his fist against the solid air.
"Five minutes, Jackie," Formal said, throwing his head back like Jack had done and let out a cold, high laugh: one that could make anyone fall in horror. Jack fell against the box and looked around, breathing heavily. 'Nothing!' he thought. 'There is nothing! No way out,' his mind raced. "This does make things a little more interesting, does it not?" Formal smiled. "Compliments of Klaymore and myself. Quite an ingenious plan, eh?"
"Klaymore?" Jack questioned, beating on the walls with his palms. Nothing budged. It was thicker than cement.
"Edwin Klaymore," Formal began, "Former Australian member of the Universal Freedoms Activists Council. Involved in a bombing when he was a child, ever since escaping the flames he was fascinated with both the fragile structure of humans, and the intricate nature of explosives. He is a highly praised addition to FACtion's 1st Officers Unit." 'FACtion?' Jack thought, but before anything else had passed behind his eyes, something emerged from the right, blasting into the elevator and sending fragments of steel around the room.
Ducking even though the knives still guarded him, Jack watched as a figure climbed into the compartment and found stable footing on the floor. His identity was drowned out by a black trench coat – decorated with sparsely located red designs, it's collar tall enough to shield the face from heavy gazes – and a pair of sun glasses propped on the arch of his nose.
As he raised his right arm, Jack's eye caught the shotgun in his hand and he watched as the trigger was pulled, sending a blast of steel through the screen in the wall. With the quick explosion of glass and metal there was a wonderful silence, and a swift clatter as the knives fell to the floor.
The man nodded, and in a moment was gone: disappearing out of the hole he had created. Jack sat there for a moment, his mind racing again with questions. 'Who?' he though avidly, his brain searching for the answer but there was not one. He recognized those movements…and there was something about him, though he saw so little, which led Jack to think…led him to ponder.
'Four minutes,' he told himself, ripping his mind away. Four minutes.
"Whose this?" Snake questioned, moving up in the chair and sitting as straight as possible. His face scrunched up and he sternly looked onward, awaiting the voice to return. It was a woman's. It was a beautiful voice.
"Good morning, Solid Snake," the voice called, and he put on a quick smile, one that easily displayed his sarcasm. The woman chuckled, or giggled rather. "The early bird catches the worm, Snake. It appears you are the worm, and I am the bird." Snake frowned.
"You're young," he said, judging his accusation off of her tone. It was just high enough, and just low enough to belong to a girl in her late teens, possibly. "19?" he questioned, and she giggled again.
"20," she replied, "nice try." Snake was surprised. A sniper? At age 20?
"You must be talented," Snake joked, trying to lighten the mood. The sun that hung over was like a burning light, put in his eyes as he awaited interrogation. Humorously, this woman – or girl – was the interrogator. It was amazing how the cards were dealt sometimes.
"I am, in fact," she answered, the heat on his forehead sliding down his body and to his chest. It moved to his heart and he looked down, about to try and swat it away. "So, would you like to come up to my place?" she asked, her voice seductive. Snake's eyebrows tilted in dissatisfaction and his mouth curved off in an odd way.
"I don't date minors," he replied, smirking. Quickly, the red dot returned to his forehead and his body grew tense again. He scowled, the sun touching off of the bench and reflecting ahead of him. Surprisingly enough, the sight of the woman's gun did not waver, even in the blinding glare of the sun overhead.
"Don't date minors?" she asked. "You wouldn't be…dating me, Snake. But instead…pleasing me." He could sense her smiling, but he simply stared ahead, his expression unchanging. "Wouldn't you rather be enjoying yourself with me than working so hard out there in that hot…burning sun?" Her voice was sensuous and tempting, but Snake wasn't one for romance, nor was he a traitor. And no doubt, becoming intimate with the enemy was treason.
"I think I might be a little to old for you," he commented, trying to put on a worthy smile – one that held no humor but perfectly portrayed how much he was enjoying the conversation. "Maybe next time?"
"Won't you only be older then?" she asked, and he cocked his head as if he had just realized their predicament.
"I guess you're right," he said sarcastically, "but you'd be older too. I'd rather a more stable relationship." There was no doubt that everything that he said was simply to stall the woman, but how long it would last wasn't clear.
"Stable?" she asked. "I can hold a sniper rifle on a single target for hours." He frowned, and she waited for a response, but none sufficed. "Just think about it, Snake. You'd be so much more comfortable here. You could enjoy all the pleasure in the world. Is there anything more a big, strong man like you could ask for in a woman?"
"A woman who is trying to kill me," he added, and with that she seemed to set aside the small talk and concerned herself with the true matters at hand.
"Stand up," she ordered, her voice not as calm as before, but taking command. "Stand up!" she hollered, and Snake shook his head subtly as he stood. His body ached with the added stress of merely standing and he waited in agony for the woman to continue. "Cross the street when traffic stops," she declared, and Snake examined the furious movement of cars, their engines roaring and their wheels crying as they ran across the scorching pavement.
The elevator doors slid open and Jack stepped inside, his legs weak and ready to collapse. He had not done too much walking or running, but he was feeling uneasy at the peculiar sight of an empty floor. Peering to the left and to the right, he moved into the elevator backwards as to get the best look of the first floor offices before making the situation more than it was. But, as the doors slid closed, he realized that the workers were certainly not hiding. 'Where is everyone?' he asked himself as the gears turned and the cables tugged, pulling him up the elevator shaft in a continuous motion.
In the elevator, he felt safe but vulnerable. Formal was waiting for him on the fourth floor – exactly where the elevator was taking him – and until those doors opened again, and until he sighed in welcome relief, he was in the hands of a machine. For that half of a minute, he controlled nothing, and Formal controlled everything.
The elevator stopped.
There was a lurch in Jack's stomach as a screen in the left wall of the elevator blinked on, and a familiar face appeared as the lighting adjusted. There was a sickening grin stretched across his pale face, and atop his head was a black top hat, it's bill turning to the sky around the edges. A soft cackle, and Formal stepped back, revealing a collar gripped in his hand, and a lifeless body dangling from it like a sopping-wet rag.
"Welcome to Formal's Fun House," his mouth opened wide with glee, and he expressed an odd humor, winking his right eye. "Well? You didn't expect for me to let you just waltz right in here, did you?" Jack's eyes moved to the body as its mouth moved this way and that. 'He's not dead,' he thought. 'Not dead.' "You have to work for it, Jackie boy! My time does not come without a price! I believe this is a reasonable assumption, don't you?" Jack sneered.
"I killed you," he stated, but Formal shook his head wildly, and raised his index finger before the camera as if he had pinpointed some grand idea.
"Ahh," Formal began, "you may have ebbed me off the brink of sanity, but you did not kill me! My knives stay truthful and loyal to the end. They would not have let me die there…not then. I had to stay there…in that freezing cavern of a storage facility. I had to sneak into a tiny nook to elude the Police. For three months, Jackie boy. Three months I spent in there! Wasting away! You would have enjoyed it so, Jackie. You would have been like me…and because of you I lost myself! All that I held dear was thrown into that bottomless pit of sorrow," he babbled. His expressions were terrible. He was nothing like he had been before. When they had last known him he was a very proper opponent, but over the course of a few months he had fallen into a deep state of insanity.
"Well then…let's play a little game, shall we, Jackie?!" Without answering, Jack displayed a discerning face, showing his disgust with Formal who jumped back as if something had landed at his feet. "Maybe if you know of the stakes, you will rethink that answer of yours." Pulling a radio from his belt and holding it to the man's face who was limp in his hand, he spoke. "You have him?" he asked, and there was a moment's hesitation before a voice returned.
"Aye aye," a woman's soothing sound came to him and he nodded, smiling at Jack with a cruel insanity about his face.
"Let us take a peek behind door number one!" Formal cried as he touched a switch on a small device in his free hand. The screen blipped to a black void, and after a few moments Jack could see a woman standing over a man, a gun pointed at the man's forehead. She smiled, her icy white lips glimmering in the light from above. Her long white hair trailed down her back, and ended at her waist. Around her waist was a sweater. She wore a black leather jacket and contrasting white pants, and as the fluorescent lights shined down on her she seemed to illuminate, sending a cool aura through the elevator.
"Snake?" Jack voiced, analyzing the man before her and realizing that he was indeed Solid Snake. He grunted in return, and the woman who stood over him grinned wide.
"So," Formal cut in, the camera returning to him, "interested?" Jack looked at him scornfully.
"What do I do?" With that, Formal's eyes lit up with joy, and he quickly continued with the instructions.
"This elevator shaft is lined with explosives: handiwork of a very skilled bomb expert," he began, his voice excited. "They are set to explode in…six minutes," he checked his watch and started the timer. Jack hurried for the doors, but Formal cried after him. "Ah ah ah," he said, waving his finger, "there is one more thing. In the corner of your compartment is a small bag. Go and open it."
Uneasily, seeing the twinkle in Formal's eye, Jack stepped over to the bag, and carrying it before Formal, he pulled the top loose – tied shut with leather – and looked inside. Suddenly, as his eyes adjusted and the light in the elevator struck the items within – making them glimmer – the bag split apart and eight gleaming objects flew this way and that.
Jack dropped the bag to his feet, and looked around to notice what was floating in the air around him. Four knives were above him, forming the vertices of a square, and at his feet were four more, mimicking the pattern. Running toward the wall of the elevator an invisible force stopped him midway, marked by the glinting knives. "Damn!" he yelled, slamming his fist against the solid air.
"Five minutes, Jackie," Formal said, throwing his head back like Jack had done and let out a cold, high laugh: one that could make anyone fall in horror. Jack fell against the box and looked around, breathing heavily. 'Nothing!' he thought. 'There is nothing! No way out,' his mind raced. "This does make things a little more interesting, does it not?" Formal smiled. "Compliments of Klaymore and myself. Quite an ingenious plan, eh?"
"Klaymore?" Jack questioned, beating on the walls with his palms. Nothing budged. It was thicker than cement.
"Edwin Klaymore," Formal began, "Former Australian member of the Universal Freedoms Activists Council. Involved in a bombing when he was a child, ever since escaping the flames he was fascinated with both the fragile structure of humans, and the intricate nature of explosives. He is a highly praised addition to FACtion's 1st Officers Unit." 'FACtion?' Jack thought, but before anything else had passed behind his eyes, something emerged from the right, blasting into the elevator and sending fragments of steel around the room.
Ducking even though the knives still guarded him, Jack watched as a figure climbed into the compartment and found stable footing on the floor. His identity was drowned out by a black trench coat – decorated with sparsely located red designs, it's collar tall enough to shield the face from heavy gazes – and a pair of sun glasses propped on the arch of his nose.
As he raised his right arm, Jack's eye caught the shotgun in his hand and he watched as the trigger was pulled, sending a blast of steel through the screen in the wall. With the quick explosion of glass and metal there was a wonderful silence, and a swift clatter as the knives fell to the floor.
The man nodded, and in a moment was gone: disappearing out of the hole he had created. Jack sat there for a moment, his mind racing again with questions. 'Who?' he though avidly, his brain searching for the answer but there was not one. He recognized those movements…and there was something about him, though he saw so little, which led Jack to think…led him to ponder.
'Four minutes,' he told himself, ripping his mind away. Four minutes.