chapter NINETEEN: Still Flying

"Big Boss was dead. At least, that was the official statement from the U.S. government. Whether or not he really died, few people know. His death was described as 'self-induced.' Apparently, while being held in high-security solitary confinement, much like his ally/nemesis 'Revolver Ocelot' (deceased) after the Manhattan showdown, he took his own life after unarming a guard on patrol. Witnesses of the scene said he took time to recite a line from the Bible as he rested there on his knees, gun to his head. And that is one of the greatest reasons people believe he's still alive today. When did Big Boss, mastermind of government conspiracies and terrorist plots, ever read the Bible?"

~*~

Snake noticed the one who'd slid forward and asked his name. He hadn't ever met him, so far as he remembered, but he knew his name and had seen his picture. "Dr. David Kelmar," Snake grunted. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Kelmar had been abducted two years ago during the second Discovery incident. After the three men had disposed of Ocelot in his look stinking prison they'd fled to a small government-funded science complex on the outskirts of Connor, New Hampshire and taken Kelmar hostage. Since then, Snake hadn't heard anything about him. But, since then, Snake hadn't heard anything about the Discovery incident at all.

He was in the dark about a lot of it.

"I've been here for almost a week now," Kelmar answered. He was shaking, his clothes tattered and soiled, and he stank. Snake slid one of the plastic chairs nearer to the cell and sat down.

"Where have you been since the Discovery incident?" Snake asked. This was his chance to get some information. He'd never been properly debriefed on the mission. He'd woken up in a room that looked like a hospital, what he later learned was a jail cell with white walls and some IVs and medical things around him. No one told him much of anything.

"I got dropped off early on," he said, "before the others even got to the tanker." His voice was shaky, but he seemed familiar with this place, comfortable with it and with the dead bodies all around. The other two men were keeping their distance from Snake. They didn't want to turn out like the three men face down on the floor.

"Dropped off?"

Kelmar nodded. "And picked up by NSA officers. They took me in for questioning and held me in a prison for a year and a half before they shipped me off to this place."

"What were you questioned for?"

"A few years back I had been providing a patient of mine with a serum to suppress a rather strange condition. Apparently, he had suffered a somewhat unsuccessful arm replacement. He went by the name 'Shalashaska.' You know him, of course, as Revolver Ocelot. The Patriot."

"You worked for Ocelot?"

"Sure, but I had no idea he was the Patriot. How could I know? We'd met in person only once, and I'd been forced to send his medication through the mail. So, the big guys threw me in jail. Strangest part was – I don't think they even listened to my answers to all their questions. They transcribed a few things and tossed me in a cell. Then, just a few days ago, they threw open the door and dragged me out here."

"So, what are you doing here?" Snake asked, growing impatient with the long answers. Wanting just to get to the point.

"I don't know yet," Kelmar confessed. "It has to do with you, though. I'm sure of it. You and your brother."

Snake stopped, froze. Brothers? Solidus and Liquid…what did they have to do with all this? "What do you know about Liquid and Solidus? Which one is this about?"

"I heard Miss Abbey talking about the Cells and a project I'd been working on before the whole tanker thing," Kelmar said. Snake looked at him with shock in his eyes. "You know," Kelmar responded, "the Hell Cell and the Perfect Cell."

"You said Miss Abbey?" Snake began in disbelief. "You mean Worsdworth? Tintern Abbey?"

"That's the one," he said. "I think they used the Perfect Cell to –" Kelmar started, but at that very moment a PA system blinked on in the hallway. The voice running was muffled, not coming into the room, and Snake bolted to the door, opened, and listened to what he could: "- report to the South Entrance. Repeat: Mr. Sears has arrived at the South Entrance. All specified soldiers, please report to the South Entrance."

Snake couldn't believe it. Solidus…Sears…he was there. And so was Tintern, the traitor of the Romantics. Snake looked to Kelmar in urgency. "And you have no idea what you're here for?"

"None," Kelmar answered, and Snake cursed under his breath. He looked into the hall through the cracked door and then back at Kelmar.

"Who brought you here? Who's behind this?" he asked, hurriedly. "What is Solidus planning?"

"Haven't you heard?" another man chimed in, from the wide cell. "How could you not know?" Snake moved away from the door and nearly lost his temper with the man in the wide cell.

"What? What's he here for?"

"Metal Gear, of course!" The man exclaimed. "He's selling it to me."

"To you? Who are you?"

"Phillip Harte! The Chairman of Present Future. We've put down over a billion dollars for it! Big Boss has guaranteed it. It's ours at the end of the day." Snake froze again. This was all wrong. Big Boss? He was gone, long gone, a bullet in his head, resting in some federal morgue under heavy guard 24/7…wasn't he?

"Big Boss?! He was thrown in prison! He killed himself!" Snake growled. Harte shook his head, madly.

"Well, whatever the hell he did, he's here now!" Harte proclaimed. Sears and Big Boss – both of them, back from the dead? How in the hell had they done it? And, now, selling off Metal Gear? That didn't seem like them at all. "And in a matter of hours Present Future will have complete control of Metal Gear."

"You're paying them one billion plus dollars and they're holding you in a piss-stained jail cell? So much for 'the customer counts.'" And Snake was gone, out the door. Heading for the South Entrance.

~*~

"Stop here," Fox directed Brant to the curb about two blocks from the safe house. "We can walk." Brant pulled over to the curb, put the truck in park, and pulled the keys from the ignition. Fox had stripped himself of his mask, letting his hair fall freely over his ears, but had left the rest of his suit in tact. Pulling from his duffel bag as Brant slipped out of the truck was a long black trench coat. He slipped it over his suit, concealing it as best he could, and threw up the collar. Brant looked at him over the hood and smiled.

"So you were a Romantic, too," he said. He'd seen pictures from the Manhattan incident, and like anyone who had, he'd seen the picture of 'the Romantics' standing with their backs to the camera, the sun shining ahead of them, their bodies becoming silhouettes. Of all the pictures from the incident it had been the most famous and the flipped collar had been something everyone noticed. A trademark, one could say. "How'd you keep it from the public? How did you fool everyone into thinking you were dead?"

Fox looked up at him through shaded eyes as he stepped onto the sidewalk and passed up Brant. He drove his hands into his pockets and walked ahead, his trench coat curling in the warm breeze. The sun was low still. "Fox!" Brant called, coming to his side. "You didn't answer me."

"I didn't intend to," Fox said, plainly, a smirk on his face as he continued up the sidewalk, never looking left or right, never checking Brant's expressions. He just strolled up the sidewalk, not a care in the world as it seemed.

That was until he came to the safe house and walked through the front door – the unlocked front door.

Brant was at the foot of the front porch, looking over the two-story white-paneled ordinary looking house, a little rundown but not in shambles. It was nestled in the old neighborhoods and did a nice job fitting in. But, when he saw Fox turn the knob and push the door open – no key or anything – he was equally concerned. Fox didn't look back once, just slid the door slowly open and stepped cautiously inside. Brant grabbed his gun from its holster and hurried silently up the steps of the porch and into the house behind Fox.

Inside the shades were drawn, faint bars of orange and amber light slanting through the windows and piercing the gloomy blue glow of the place. There were desks and lamps and chairs, most covered with white sheets and cob webs. This didn't surprise either of them, though. The point of the safe house wasn't to draw attention. It was to detract it. And it didn't one hell of a good job, but as they moved through the front rooms they found no sign of anyone.

Mei Ling had set up her computer in the basement, Brant knew that, which explained why she hadn't shown, but the safe house wasn't considered quite. There were four other FOX-HOUND operatives working there that day, and two of them had setup base in an old master bedroom on the second floor. The two others – Fox stopped when he turned into the kitchen. On the kitchen counter, which wrapped around the wall under a row of hanging cupboards, was a laptop and a scanner, along with a whole mass of cords hooked up to another station setup on the circular dinner table nearby – all shattered and lying in fragments about the tiled floor.

Along with two bodies, bloodied and riddled with bullets. Fox drew his sword in an instant, its shimmering edge appearing out of nowhere, and turned on his heels as Brant knelt over the bodies. He was horrified at the sight of it. Turning a look back over his shoulder and then standing, he heard something shift in the next room. So did Fox, who started toward the archway to the next room.

But then: click.

Fox and Brant spun around, Brant aiming his gun and Fox holding his blade at alert. Standing at the entrance to the kitchen was a man, shiny black jacket falling just past his waist, light khakis swaying as he stepped just one foot closer, black hair appearing slightly blue in the strange haze, and eyes glinting wildly. His lips were pulled into a playful grin and he reminded Fox of the late Dante – a younger man, ambitious and confident.

To Brant he didn't remind him of anyone. He knew the face. Knew it well. It was a man on his own team – an agent who'd been working in this very house with the rest of the team all morning. "Lexus," he said aloud. The man smiled, took one more step closer, now actually in the kitchen, no longer in the doorway, and looked sideways at Fox.

"You're here too?" he began. "How convenient. But, I fear I can't take you both now. But Brant, you should have been more aware of your team's background! Look where your sloth got you! Four dead government agents in one day – all under your command." He clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth and waved his index finger through the air. And then, Brant got it. Then it hit him. 'Four' agents dead. Fox looked over at Brant and saw the horror on his face, Lexus seeing that Brant now understood.

"Well, boys," he said, smiling still, "I'm needed at a meeting in an hour or so. I will be seeing you again, of course?" he said, stepping backward out of the room. And then, with a twisted grin stretched across his face, he waved his hand and picked up a black briefcase resting beside him. "Tata, boys."

The moment he turned out of the kitchen Brant pulled the trigger, hoping the blind shot might catch him by some strange miracle. He didn't wait around to see, though. He ran into the next room and swung open the door to the basement. Bounding down the stairs, the world seeming to rock before his eyes, his heart racing in his chest, beating at his ribs and trying to break free, he jumped the last two steps and raced across the dark cement floor, the only light in the whole room coming from the glowing monitor of a computer.

And bathing in its light was a woman – hardly even that – sitting straight up in a chair. Brant fell on his knees beside her and ran his hands desperately through her hair, raising her chin and inspecting her face. Her eyes were frozen open, vacant but peaceful, and her lips were glittering red. But there, in the center of her forehead was a spot of blackness, of deep deep crimson.

His heart caved in, the world fell apart around him. Mei Ling…he had known her, had come to know her well over the past few months. Like everyone knew, she was the kindest, most peaceful spirit on this earth and seeing her there, so silent and so young…it was terrible. A dove caged…a light put out.

Fox stepped up behind him, his eyes sorrowful and pained. "Mei Ling is dead," Brant said, and Fox nodded. Touching his hand to her cheek and moving the hair out of her eyes, Brant smiled weakly. She was beautiful and had been unbelievably kind. To him. To everyone. But, she was gone. Taken.

And then, tears swelling in his eyes, he crumpled down beside her. Fox looked sadly across the cement floor, trying to divert his eyes from Brant and Mei Ling…poor Mei Ling. And then, he went to the stairs at the end of the dark room. Stopping briefly and looking miserably at the stairs he said aloud: "Five minutes."

And then, he left them – Brant on the floor and Mei Ling sitting in that chair, in that darkness, pierced only by the glowing monitor of a computer. But as Brant looked over her face, she was still Mei Ling. She was gone, but she had not changed. She was not caged, nor a light put out. She still flew, still glowed. In others. That was how it always was when someone died. They lived on. And Mei Ling was living on, too

Still flying.