Chapter TWENTY-TWO: Dead
"One of Snake's greatest flaws was his inability to detach from his emotions on the battle field. After a time, he came to realize that it was also among his greatest strengths. He found that nothing so terrible as the things he went through could be weathered without love or without friendship. And that's what made him who he was. It was most certainly a shame that in just the next two hours he would lose more than he had ever imagined. He would die."
~*~
Snake began unloading his magazines immediately, squeezing the trigger each time his flashlight illuminated the black suits of the enemy soldiers. He had to keep moving all the while, spinning and dashing this way and that, doing cartwheels around the room to avoid the oncoming fire. The light of his flashlight gave away his position exactly. But, little more than a minute into the assault he was pretty sure he'd killed one and injured at least two more. He was sure neither of those hit were Big Boss or Sears, though, as he could hear them shouting and hollering the entire time that the battle raged.
"All units report to Primary Control!" one soldier wailed over the radio. "One known target has – " That very moment Snake pulled the trigger again, a bullet striking another body, and the soldier's voice failing as he began to choke and tumble onto his knees before disappearing from the path of Snake's flashlight.
"What's happening there?" There came another voice over the radios. "Have KING and Sears all ready been moved to the second wing?"
"Negative!" one soldier replied as Snake clicked off his flashlight and dodged a blindly aimed bullet, backing against a wall and then crouching. "We have one enemy target at Primary Control! Repeat – one enemy target at Primary Control!" The soldier switched off the radio and went on: "Whose hit? Whose down? Where the fuck is this guy?"
"Richards here," one soldier struggled to say. "I've got a bullet in the leg – can't stand." But, besides that, there was only silence. Even Big Boss and Sears ceased to answer. Customarily, the soldiers would use their flashlights but that prick of light would alert Snake to their presence. And for the time being, the risk was too high, so long as only two soldiers were there in protection of Big Boss and Sears, one of which couldn't walk.
"Shut up, you fools!" King answered, bewildered at the fact that his soldiers were acting so poorly in the situation. "Keep moving and keep quiet!" he hissed.
"KING, Sears – are you – " There was a silenced gunshot and the soldier cut-off mid-sentence, his body slumping to the floor. The other soldier left alive, Richards, flicked on his flashlight immediately in the direction of his comrade's voice and saw a heap silhouetted on the floor – dead – and a figure standing tall before him, gun now aimed at Richards.
There were two shots to follow – the first, silenced, that bit through Richards' jaw, shattering it to specks of bone and blood, and the second, not silenced, that seemed to slow down time, whizzing toward Snake and digging deep into his left thigh.
Richards' flashlight rolled to the floor, its beam going back and forth before it stopped still, and Snake disappeared, blood running down the back of his leg, both Big Boss and Sears firing at him through the dark.
"Primary Control, we're moving to your position. What's the situation?" Silence. "Primary Control, come in!"
Big Boss snagged a radio that sat on one of the desks in the room and clicked down on the button before kneeling behind a computer terminal for cover. "This is Big Boss," he said, hearing Sears' magazine turn up empty, "send back-up units to Primary Control this instant." He listened for a time and heard no returning fire from Snake. And, just then, the doors to the second wing swung open, four figures stepping into the room, flashlights shining bright, and one seeming to glide behind them all.
They moved quickly over to where Big Boss knelt, the figure in lead setting down a flashlight on one of the desks and smiling briefly. "You called," she said.
Tintern.
She turned swiftly away and addressed the four behind her without wasting any time at all – the last figure still standing apart from the rest. "The whole wing's power is out. We have intelligence on two intruders. One is Solid Snake and the other calls himself Raiden. The second has one of our investors with him. The intruders are fair game, but you mustn't harm the other.
"Turkish, set up a link with Carson immediately, and install a new bug," Tintern continued as one of the other four figures nodded and disappeared in the direction Snake had escaped, that which would lead deeper into the wing and take him, eventually, to the computer lab where he could further investigate the damage to the wing's power network. "Crais, you go with him and try to switch the emergency power on. We need cameras up and lights on in ten." Another of the remaining three departed, following after Turkish. "Red, escort Sears and KING to the second wing and take them to see Kelmar." Tintern turned to the two – father and son – and stared at them as blankly as ever. "You will find he has all ready been given the necessary tools for the procedure." KING smiled gratefully and, along with Sears, went to the second wing, a woman called Red leading the way.
When they had left the room, the door swinging shut behind them, Tintern spun around on the heel of her boot and looked pityingly at the man who remained floating there, just above the floor, eyes shut tight. "You are looking for them again, now?" she asked and the man nodded absently, his mind obviously elsewhere. Taking a seat at one of the nearby desks, she sat back in the chair and smiled at the blank ceiling – far too high to be seen in the crude light (the only light being a single flashlight sitting up on a desktop).
"You know, May," Tintern began, pausing for a moment just to admire the silence and the darkness of he room around her. In all the vastness only a single table, her own front, and the curls of her comrade's clothes were lit, seemingly floating there in the silence, no body to support them. "I often wonder if you really hear me during these times."
The man did not stir.
"Or if you hear me when we speak," she hesitated, but seeing he was not answering she went on. "You see past my words."
"Past life and death," he muttered just loudly enough for her to hear. She shifted slowly, sitting up in her chair, and leaned forward, trying to be closer.
"Do you know that I am here now?" she asked, and she saw the tip of his nose move in and out of the light as he nodded in response. "But, you are also watching the others?" He nodded again and she went silent for a time, after which she stood. Cautiously, she passed around the desk and stepped up before him, raising on her toes to kiss his lips.
Reaching a hand out of no where, he grasped her wrist and she bowed her head slightly before withdrawing uncomfortably and turning her back on him. "I'm sorry," she admitted as she walked toward the door that both Crais and Turkish had entered.
"The boss is sorry," May said, stopping Tintern in her tracks. "He is not proud of what happened…or of the losses you suffered."
All remained silent.
"Contact me when you find Snake," she said briefly, and she passed through the door.
~*~
"When was Snake ever smuggled into Russia long enough to get his DNA mapped in a war-prep facility?" Brant whispered to Fox in the hall, Norman Keys on the phone in the next room. "It doesn't make sense."
"No," Fox breathed, peering over Brant's shoulder to see if Keys was off the phone yet. He wasn't. He'd moved over to a smaller desk and had begun punching keys on a laptop, the phone receiver pinched between his ear and his shoulder. "He'll be all right on his own. We can't help him right now. We should think harder on Lexus for the time."
Mention of that foul murderer's name lit a new interest in Brant's glassy eyes, his face looking more worn that it ever had, his whole body seeming weak in his growing age. But, with all his pain and soreness, he seemed more than ready to act against Lexus, that bastard.
"Think of motives - Where did he come from? You said he was assigned to FOX-HOUND before you. Who assigned you?"
Brant tried to think back, but no names came to mind. "I don't recall, but I know that he had some sort of background with the NSA. It was nothing long-term so far as I can remember, but he was looking to strike a more substantial seat with them before he was sent to our division. He warmed up to the director quite a bit, if I remember our conversations."
"Passed up by the NSA?" Fox thought on it for a moment. "You'd spoken to Desperado about Beck once, I remember him telling me you'd mentioned him. Did you have any closer relations with the agency before today?"
"I'd looked into working there a couple years back, but I took the FBI instead," Brant answered. "I can't see what that has to do with anything, though. The NSA never took him in."
"But, he went to them just before he came to FOX-HOUND…and now you are at odds with the director of the agency. You two met this morning and he denied you more information on Trinket. Desperado knows where it may be hidden, the rest of the information…so Beck is hiding it from you." He waited a moment before continuing, quite good-humoredly. "It sounds like the NSA doesn't really like you. And when the government doesn't like you – you don't get your phone call."
"You get a bullet in the head," Brant finished, recalling the barbaric image of Mei Ling with a prick of blood on her forehead.
"And it's not the director who shows up," Fox paused, "it's his lapdog."
"Lexus."
~*~
Snake stumbled through the halls, footsteps clapping behind, heart racing within, pain throbbing in his leg. Crais and Turkish were going calmly down the hall, flashlights in their hands. They shined them ahead, but Snake was around a corner, still staggering forward, trying to escape them, trying to avoid capture or confrontation. He couldn't fight like this. He could hardly walk. And, checking his guns, he was out of ammunition. He had no weapons against them, and from what he could tell, they were the cream of the crop. They were the elite, comrades of Tintern's and close devotees of KING.
He went around another corner just as the flashlights turned down the hall, catching the back of his leg and alerting Crais and Turkish to his position. They stopped for just one moment to examine their weapons before quickening their pace, nearing a run. Snake heard them coming, heard their footsteps come louder and faster, and he tried to run himself, but his leg gave way and he slipped forward, his face falling helplessly against the floor, head smacking against the cold concrete and the lights turning out, eyes rolling into the back of his head.
When Crais and Turkish turned into the hall they found him sprawled there, blood still flowing from the wound in his thigh, and his guns scattered across the floor. A small trickle of crimson snaked from his hairline, a result of his fall. Crais pulled his radio from his waist and clicked it on. "We have the Snake," he said, his voice ominous and chilling. "Should we kill him?"
There was a pause, no answer on the radio, and then footsteps began to echo from behind. They readied their flashlights, pointing them back down the hall, but stopped when Tintern came into view, caught in the spotlight, her walk steady and slow. Turkish smiled at her and said, his voice harsh and raspy, very unlike Crais' and almost maniacal: "Shall we kill him, Miss Abbey?"
She walked on, stopping before them and kneeling down beside Snake. Slowly, she ran her hands through his short hair, traced his cheekbone down his face, and went so far as to drop and kiss his lips. Licking her own as she stood again, she tasted the sweat and the anguish. Smiling to Turkish and waiting a moment, she shook her head. "Yes, go ahead with it," she said, and the eerily pale and translucent figure of May appeared out of nowhere in front of her.
"Tintern," he began, his ghostly jaw moving, his grayed skin taut about his face, "what do you intend to accomplish killing him?" Snake was stirring at her feet, slowly returning to consciousness.
"We will bring him back…just like the others," she said coolly, "but for now – he has dealt death to so many. He should know how it feels." Snake was moving his hands across the floor, trying to grip what was happening, trying to understand the voices above.
"Tintern, this is foolish," May said again. "The boss will not be pleased to hear what you have done." Snake was blinking his eyes, his sight slowly returning, his neck turning so that he could see the heels of Tintern's boots beside his face. Just if he could grab hold, use her to stand, to shield him from the gunfire the other two would, no doubt, hail him with.
Crais and Turkish noted his movement and looked apprehensively to Tintern. Snake's heart was racing his chest. He was without weapons. What could he do? "Tintern, I refuse to allow it," May repeated, but at that moment Tintern pulled forth her own gun, brandishing it to the others, and aimed it down to the back of Snake's head.
"Tintern!" May roared and his ghostly image sprang forward, Snake's heart skipping a beat, and the two others watching anxiously. Everything froze: May in mid-air, Tintern's finger on the trigger, Snake's eyes helplessly near-shut...and then, Trinket forced her finger upon the trigger and a loud shot rang out, a bullet sprang to life, and Snake felt all his life fade in an instant, all his memories escape through his fingers.
And he crumpled into a heap on the floor. Dead.