chapter TWENTY-ONE: Time to Make Art

"It took a long time for anyone to know exactly what was going on at Trinket that day. There was a lot of depth to the operation – always unexpected factors, unexpected guests, and other monkey wrenches that screwed it all up. But, it was around the time Fox and Brant finally got in touch with Snake again, after their long silence, that the pieces started coming together. It was also around the time the real bomb shells started dropping: Figuratively speaking, of course."

~*~

Fox looked sideways at Brant, knowing he was still hurting from back at the safe house, and decided against what was right – to keep silent. "I knew her far better than you," he said, plainly. "Grieve all you want for now, but I hope you remember how to fire a gun by the time one's being fired at you." Brant ignored him, didn't want to, but did. He wanted to twist around, grab Fox by the neck, and snap his spinal cord cleanly in half. Who the hell was Fox to say how he should feel?

"Where are we going?" Brant said, forcing the thoughts from his mind. The sun was rising higher now, the weak city skyline waving in the warm breeze. He felt elsewhere, not in the truck any longer, felt like he was watching himself, watching the truck go down the abandoned streets on the way to some place he had no real desire to know.

"We're going to meet a friend," Fox said. They were going to see Norman Keys. Fox had known him through past operations. They'd also spoken a number of times while he was still in FOX-HOUND. Ever since, Keys had proved a loyal friend and partner. He couldn't handle a gun if it meant his life, but he was a genius when it came to electronics. "He lives on the other side of town."

"Can he help us with Lexus?" Brant asked.

"Yea," Fox said, willing to say anything to satisfy Brant, "he can help. I got this suit from him." Fox tapped his fingers on his chest, still fitted with the blue cyber-suit he'd worn in the FACtion incident. And it still worked as good as new.

"You can trust him?" Brant asked again.

"Better than you could trust this Lexus character," Fox said. He was obviously making a point. It didn't matter who they trusted at this point. They had to call on all the resources possible if they meant to settle the score – or survive the day. "Here," Fox said, as they pulled into the parking lot of a tall apartment building.

~*~

Snake was still resting there on the catwalks when the radio blinked off, following Raiden's statement. A number of soldiers had entered the room, taking orders from Big Boss to search the entire east wing of the building and to intensify security in the west wing. "Safeguard Dr. Kelmar, Mr. Harte, and Mr. Wahkasi, and move them into the west wing immediately. Set up everything the good doctor asked for over there. I want his job done before we proceed. And I want Daves, now!"

The answer was expressed with a salute from every soldier present. Big Boss saluted in return and went off for the door that led to the path bridging between the east and west wings. Sears stopped him as he went and Snake shifted to see them better. "Sir," Sears began, "maybe it would be wise to call on Miss Abbey. Where has she been all this time?"

~*~

The room was dark and giant. A sub-floor beneath Trinket, dug in the cliff the main level sat upon. There were no windows, no cracks for light to dance through. Nothing but a musty blackness and a number of invisible figures slumped against the walls, resting.

"You saw him?" one of them said. A woman.

"In the lab, yes," another answered. A man. "He was surprised…but another is with him. He stole Mr. Daves. The Boss is upset. And there is another in the west wing…he is killing more, but I cannot see him. He is like a ghost. More so than I."

"So Solid Snake is back." The woman again. "I wouldn't mind speaking with him."

A radio, that which rested in the center of the floor, sparked to life. "Things aren't going well here," Big Boss said over the radio. "I had not intended to use you so soon, but it seems I have no choice. I'll meet you on the main floor – west wing."

The radio went dead again and there was an exchange of blind glances between five. "They need us," the woman said, and there was a subtle rustling of clothes and equipment as the invisible figures made to stand. Then, slowly and without passing any words between each other, they stepped through the abyss in a straight path to where a yellow light glowed faintly above two heavy doors. Pressing a button beside the doors, they pulled apart and a gray light fell over the compartment within, highlighting the five's sharp features as they entered and turned to watch the doors close again before them.

~*~

They took the elevator to the eighth floor balcony, that which encircled the entire floor, and walked around it until reaching a door, the brass numbers pinned on it reading '812' and rapped their knuckles on the wood. There was a moment of silence, then movement in the eye hole from beyond the door, and the undoing of what seemed to be no less than six different locks. Then, tugging the door open, they saw the face of Keys – plain, but unshaven, hair disheveled, eyes stunning and almost black, lips twisted grimly yet

"Where'd you get that from?" Brant asked as Fox passed a digital tape, the kind used to save computer settings in case of crashes, over to Keys. Fox ignored him while Keys looked it over and then waved the two inside his apartment. Sitting down at a desk covered with papers and burned or ruined CDs, Keys slid the tape into the drive and clicked on his monitor. Brant looked around the room, the otherwise green walls turning orange from water leaks and decay. It was a wonder he got along, living in that place. The shades had been torn down and replaced by wide slabs of wood, reinforced with ten-inch nails. The ceiling fan had once been wedged from its normal placement and refitted there after, what Brant assumed had been, cameras were installed to watch through its center. Posters hung on every wall, most likely covering audio and video recorders or secret vaults or anything.

"Can you work with it?" Fox asked Keys, who was sorting through folders and files to reach the data stored on the tape. When he eventually reached the tape's control directory and opened the first file – entitled 'Last_Save: 0225' – a black command screen blipped on. Two lines of text automatically sped across the screen:

'Last_Save: 0225 … … … Unlocking Secure Drive … … … First Encoded Layer Detected … … … Unlocks and Deciphered … … …

     F:// Tape Drive/ Last_Save: 0225/ First Layer UL … … … Security Lock Level 2 Detected…'

And then, there was a storm of seemingly random textual and numerical characters:

'H44 0K0D JH2TE NLRKA 20GHA1 JEU7AB UN UD726N…' The gibberish went on. Keys reclined in his chair, flipping a pen between his fingers as skillfully as a baton-handler, and touched it to his lip, thinking, concentrating. Fox stood over him, waiting for his response. 'Could he work with it?' The code Mei Ling used was deeply thought out and constructed. It was tough stuff. But Keys had dealt with something like it before – many times before. "It's no walk in the park," he said, pausing, "but I can work with it."

Then, Brant turned to Fox again and asked: "Where'd you get it from?" He'd been waiting for the answer the whole time they'd been standing there. But now, Fox turned his neck, in anticipation of answering.

"Mei Ling's computer at the safe house," he said. "She was working on something. Something important." And Brant faintly remembered the sight of a single strand of DNA twisting on the monitor as he lay by her side and mourned. The safe house…ravaged. And they were on the brink of something big. That's why Lexus had removed them. If Snake was going down today, like Brant thought, then he could have no help. His team had to be wiped out.

And then, he realized something. "Snake still doesn't know."

~*~

Big Boss and Sears remained in the Primary Control Room even after they had sent their minions out to do their biddings. They sat at the terminals, Sears leaning forward on the counter with his elbows, and Big Boss reclined in his chair, tapping his fingertips to his lips. They'd made conversation about unimportant things for quite a while. Snake was growing bored with nothing happening, but he was patient. He wouldn't move until he had something to move onto. And at the time, there was nothing.

Then, something. A ringing in his ear.

"Yea?" he said, touching his finger to his ear and suddenly blooming with interest. "Mei Ling?"

"No." It was Brant. Snake disregarded the sadness in his tone and went on.

"Where've you been? A lot's happened since we spoke last."

"Same here," Brant answered. "Listen, Snake, there's been trouble – a change of plans."

Snake seemed apprehensive the moment he heard Brant talking that way. "You're not screwing me over –"

"I've met with some of your friends. The Ninja and whoever he's working with."

"Fox?"

"Yes, Snake." Fox had connected to the line. "We've taken operational control."

"'We'?" Snake didn't sound particularly content with his generalizations.

"Desperado and myself," he said. 'Desperado,' Snake thought quietly.

"What the hell for?" Snake growled.

"Mei Ling is dead," Brant blurted suddenly. Silence fell over them all, shattering the conversation entirely. "And so are the rest of the operators. The safe house was compromised and by one of our own."

"Mei Ling?" Snake said, whispered. There was disbelief in his tone, a shuddering fury. "Who?"

"A man name Lexus," Brant admitted. "He was hired into FOX-HOUND as soon as it was reinstated. He was given a rank before myself, even. Snake, there's a bigger problem, though…bigger than the safe house."

"Your mission is corrupt," Fox interjected. "Compromised. You have been running on a track designed by officials higher up in the government."

"Brant," Snake hissed, "you knew about this?" Silence. And guilt.

~*~

"Snake," Brant said, looking over his shoulder to see that Keys was still at work on the tape, hacking through the multi-layered code and deciphering what he could. "It wasn't like that. I knew there was something wrong…something strange. Every operation our team has been assigned has gone through a grueling series of certifications and assertions or declines before reaching our department. That much I knew, but it wasn't until recently that I had any reason to question the methods of the higher departments. Now the pieces are coming together."

"A little too late for that, though, isn't it?" Snake cursed. "Dammit, Brant."

"It's becoming clearer, Snake," said Fox. "Trinket is your final destination. The road ends there."

"Then, who are the government's players? Who here is looking for me?"

A pause, and then Fox: "We're not sure yet. You'll have to keep an eye out for now." Snake nodded grimly and Brant watched Fox leaning over Keys and pointing at the computer screen as different commands ran across.

"Listen, Snake," Brant started, "do you know anything about a DNA strand?" Snake felt the words hit him hard in the chest. What did they know? He'd forgotten almost entirely about the seemingly automated terminal in the genetics lab, forgotten, even, that Mei Ling had been looking into it for him. "It was up on Mei Ling's computer when we found her. A friend of Fox's is trying to break through the computer records and take a look at the information she had recorded on it."

"I saw what looked to be DNA pop up on one of the computers around here," Snake explained. "Apparently, some technical feature in my sneaking suit recorded the image and Mei Ling was looking for an explanation. Do you have anything on it?"

He looked, again, to Keys and Fox. Fox shook his head. "No, nothing so far," Brant answered. "Do you have any idea what it means?"

Snake tried back-tracing into his memory, trying to dig up the details from a vault of seemingly more important occurrences. A lot had happened all ready. And only a few hours had passed. "Snake strand," Snake said. "It had those two words somewhere on it." They flashed in his memory, the blue lights falling overhead, the ominous glow of the computer screen and the windows pulling up on command from an automated cursor…"It said 'Snake strand.'"

Brant didn't know what the hell that meant. He was lost in all this just as Snake was. Nothing seemed to be making sense. Who was on whose side? What was all this for? Why did they want Snake? Why did Lexus take out the safe house?

Keys continued his typing, hunched over the keyboard and then reclined and then hunched, flipping his pen between his fingers, looking up code samples and deciphering methods in folders arranged haphazardly at his side. There was a run of green text, a few further commands, and a number of back-checks to assure he had put in the correct operation headers. He came to realize that a lot of the code was almost useless – just there to give a hacker a hard time. But, it wasn't long before Keys had deciphered the root of the code and then it was only moments more before he had the rest cleared and translated. And then: "We're in."

He said it quietly, not excitedly, knowing that the task of breaking the code was usually nothing to understanding what was inside. Especially in this case. None of the three in the room had any real idea of what the files on the computer were about. And the DNA strand specifically. What was it for? "So, we're looking for a DNA strand," he muttered, scanning a window of icons and applications.

"Snake," Brant said, moving nearer to the computer and feeling relief run through his veins, "we've got the records unlocked. Here we go," he said, waiting for Keys to rattle off some newfound data.

"Just maybe," he said, clicking twice on a nameless icon. Without any delay, a number of images blipped onto the screen – captures of a computer monitor, a strand of DNA glowing on its surface, arranged from dull-colored pixels and the words 'Snake strand' appearing as a caption. Then, working beside the photos on the desktop, he found another file and opened it. There was a run of words on a text document – something that appeared more like a report, but at its end was a rambling of thoughts Mei Ling had typed with her hands, alive and well, before she'd been killed. "'It looks to be a DNA strand, without a doubt. When searching the government database there were four matches, but they raise many questions. The codenames KING, Liquid, Solidus, and Solid appeared, but it doesn't seem right. Why would American DNA strands be stored in a Russian Cold War-multiple-purpose-preparations-facility? Especially if these computers haven't been accessed for so many years. This would imply a connection between the Snakes and the rumored Cold War Project.'" Keys stopped, looking up at Fox and then Brant. "That's all there is. Do anything for you?"

Brant turned away. "Snake, it looks like that strand belongs to you." There wasn't any answer. Either he'd gotten off the link or –

"No surprise there, eh? It did have my name printed right on it." He seemed disappointed, no doubt about it. The thought of his deepest, most untouchable, identity floating around Russian computer networks wasn't at all comforting. "How am I connected to Russia?"

"I guess it doesn't necessarily mean you hold a connection, but I think it's safe to say that one of your counterparts most certainly does," Brant said. "Snake, you'll need to tap back into that computer station to find out more. Get to the terminal and pull up whatever you can."

"I don't know that I can do that. I'm a little tied down, here. The whole base is under tighter security now, and it sounds like they're bringing in the elite. Some mercenaries, I'm assuming. Wordsworth is with them."

Fox stood straight, turning away from Keys who eyed him strangely. "Tintern," he muttered into the Codec, "she's there?"

"Yea, and so are some other old friends," Snake said. "It looks like Big Boss and Solidus are back. It sounds like they got the Perfect treatment. Just like you, old buddy." Fox found some disgust in this mentioning of the Perfect Cell. That part of his life, and the incidents of Shadow Moses, were gone. He wished they would stay that way. "And Jack's here, carrying the alias Raiden again."

"Do you suspect he is another clone?" Fox asked.

"I don't think so, though he has gotten more poetic…and he seems to be less of a rookie. Pretty bold."

"Who ever thought that would happen?" Fox dared to laugh, but passed the joke with only a smile. "Do you know where he is?"

"Still in this wing," Snake answered. "If I had his Codec transmission I could call, but –"

"Get a Codec listing," Fox said to Key over his shoulder. Finally something he understood. Then, going back to his keyboard, he minimized the windows regarding the Snake DNA and pulled up something that resembled an internet phone book. Entering a UN security-bypass password, a long list of government phone and other communication device numbers swarmed the window. Narrowing it down to PH1-UNIT – the UN's official title for Philanthropy – there came a list of twelve. Running location checks on all of them, he found two positioned in Russia. One, he could tell, was within Trinket, two asterisks by the record to indicate a limitation in communication. The other had no asterisks, and from that Keys knew that the walls, though crumbled and old, were giving the first record a damaged call link. That was the clincher.

"102.42," he read the record aloud and Fox relayed it to Snake on Codec.

"Give it a try," Fox said. "And get back with me soon."

"Will do," Snake said, and the transmission was ended. Brant, Fox, and Keys – they all went back to the computer and began sifting through other files and other reports, looking for any information they could find regarding the operation. Mei Ling had known about the DNA – there had to be more she knew.

~*~

They moved quietly through the halls of Trinket, though swiftly. Daves was not slow, but he didn't have the agility of his leader, Raiden. He did, though, have a whole lot more style. That much, he was sure of. And he didn't run like a pansy, either.

The halls of Trinket's east wing, the area Snake had moved through all this time, were narrower than those of the west wing. Raiden had moved through the building for a number of hours before Snake had even arrived. He knew it well.

Then, startling him, there was a ringing in his ear. Turning to Daves, his gun at his side, he grabbed his follower by his jacket collar and dragged him quickly into a side room – a small dark closet. Touching his hand to his ear, he answered.

"Otacon?"

"It's Snake." He was very precise in his pronunciation.

"Liked my speech?" Raiden asked. "I knew you'd get to hear it. I saw you."

"Loved it, but I don't really care to discuss your way with words. You're still in the west wing, right?"

"Yea," Raiden answered, grabbing Daves' shoulder as he tried to lose himself in the closet and maybe elude him.

"There's a computer room somewhere around where you are," Snake said. "Some equipment is sitting in the next room."

"Yea, that's where I saved your life," Raiden said, laughing.

"Listen, kid, enough with the crap! Get over to the computer lab and log onto the terminal in the back right! Contact me as soon as you do."

"Fine, Snake, but watch your back." There was sharpness, now, to Raiden's tone. "Otacon wanted me to keep you away from the east wing, but I'm not stopping you now." Snake looked perplexed. "Raiden out." And Snake's confusion disappeared.

"Come on, Daves," he said. "We've got places to be. Things to do." And Daves and Raiden slipped out of the storage closet and hurried down the hallway in the direction of the computer lab – a.k.a. genetics lab. They were there in only seconds, the hallway once lined with lasers now clear for the two of them to pass. And pass they did, straight through the double glass doors and into the cold lab, computers sitting atop the tables and blood stains streaking the floor, the bodies moved since Snake and Raiden had devastated the area.

But, when Raiden weaved through the cubicles, it was apparent that Snake had forgotten to mention one very important thing.

"Peek-a-boo," came a slithering voice, and Raiden and Daves both turned to see a figure, knobby and thin and repulsive, suspending in midair, hands stretched at its side, face grotesquely pale and sharply defined, one eye dug from its core but the other stinging with a foggy gray. Raiden pulled his gun at height with the floating entity, the 'ghost' as Snake had called it, and aimed.

~*~

The others had stepped out of the elevator on the main level, but when Tintern turned back she saw him sitting in the corner, eye shut tight, knees in the air, arms drooping sickly over them. "The one with the boss' new captive," he hissed. "I can see him now." Tintern walked back to him and sat beside him, waiting as he worked.

~*~

"What are you!?" Raiden cried, forcing his SOCOM at the floating creature, the shadow of another thing that rested in an elevator shaft somewhere on the other side of the facility.

"You should not be meddling with what belongs to the boss," the thing spoke. "Get out," its arm extended, index finger, spindly and long, pointing to the doors. "Get out…now!" And it lunged forward. Raiden stepped back once and stressed the trigger of his SOCOM – then again, twice more, when the thing didn't stop coming. But by the time it had passed straight through him and disappeared, a figment, a ghost, and Raiden had expended his entire magazine, the lights shut out, along with any hum of energy, and he heard only the last crackle of sparks ahead – where, he remembered only too late, the controls for just about every aspect of the east wing's operation was positioned. And he'd shredded it with metal.

~*~

'Damn, kid!' Snake thought, the lights shut off completely, and a sudden shuffle of boots going across the floor below. Sears and Big Boss remained in their chairs, Snake thought, and he instantly tried to picture where the guards had been positioned before the lights had shut off. "Team three, what's your situation?" Someone hollered across a radio channel. There was a little taste of chaos, the whole room coming to life with crackling voices over disconnected channels and yelling. "Sirs?" Someone said, and both Big Boss and Sears answered with an irritated "Right here."

Just then, Snake had the picture. There had been two men at each door – there were three – and the man, Becker, Sears' personal bodyguard of sorts, had been leaning against the column supporting the end of the middle walkway of the catwalk on which Snake lay. That made seven trained soldiers and two officers, reclined and irritated. 'But, what the hell,' Snake thought, and he hoisted himself onto his feet, grabbing from his holsters both a SOCOM and a silenced USP. 'Wish me luck, Otacon,' he thought briefly, and then, seeing only a few feet ahead, he sprinted forward and felt for the railing. Once he had a grip, he swung over the edge and fell whimsically through the air, the radio voices coming closer and closer.

And with a quiet shudder, he landed on the main floor, one knee tucked into his chest. Rising swiftly, he found Becker just inches away. Pulling him into a tight headlock, he reached at his waistline and grasped a flashlight just as the other soldiers clicked on their own in response to the sound of struggle. And then, clicking on his flashlight and snapping Becker's neck with a clean slice of bone, he smiled to himself.

"Time to make art."