Chapter 8- Discovery
"Raiden, what's your position?"
"I got in. I disguised myself as the enemy and snuck in one of their supply trucks. There aren't any sentries patrolling where I am now... yet."
"Lose the disguise immediately, Raiden."
"Why?" asked Jack.
"Only the sentries bringing in the cargo have the BDUs that you have on. They're not even supposed to stay in the building."
"Alright," said Jack, and did as he was told, taking off his disguise.
"Now, you must continue your mission, Jack. Assassinate those hostages."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then your wife and child die. Are we clear?" After not getting a response from Raiden, he spoke again. "Make a choice, Jack."
"I'll do it; you'd just better hope I don't make it back there," he said. You could hear the unwillingness and hatred in his voice, something he did purposely. He wanted him to know how much he hated him, how much he hated the Patriots, but how much he loved his family.
This is what I get for having a conscience, thought Raiden.
He was in a storage room, devoid of anyone. He seized the opportunity and went through every locker, crate and barrel, but didn't find much; a couple fragmentation grenades, and a standard military issue MRE (Meal Ready to Eat).
He grabbed the doorknob and opened the door slowly with his right hand, and kept his gun in his left hand, ready for any kind of threat that may wait on the other side. He peered around the door and looked up and down the hallway, only to find that it was empty. He went out into the hall, and closed the door silently behind him. He walked down the corridor, stepping lightly, careful not to make any sounds. The floor was made of very large tiles that were essentially working against him as he tried to walk silently. His gun was pointed on an angle at the ground, but his eyes searched in every direction for anyone or anything that could be considered dangerous. Coming to a left turn and finding nothing and no one so far, Raiden stopped and hugged the wall in order to see what was around the corner. He pointed the gun on a ninety-degree angle towards the ground and turned his head and neck to look down the next hallway. He spotted two guards, one stationary, facing him, and the other patrolling down the corridor.
"Damn!" Raiden yelled, obviously a bit frustrated with his situation. He was about to become more frustrated, as the stationary guard had heard him.
"What the hell was that?" the guard said to himself, as he walked over to investigate the noise. Raiden straightened up and was ready to engage the guard when he heard the door at the end of the guards' corridor open. Both guards turned toward the noise, their guns ready for whatever would come through the door. But after they saw who it was, they relaxed slightly, letting their guns hang from the strap on their shoulders. Raiden could not tell who it was, as he did not recognize the voice, but he knew that it had to be one of the terrorists. He moved over away from the three people, still hugging the wall, but he remained close enough to hear the conversation. He put his M4 away, but would be ready to use it if necessary.
"Status report, soldiers," the man demanded of the two guards. His voice was very stern and demanding; it had the unemotional tone of a well- trained, heartless soldier.
"Sir, we have reports that they've sent someone to stop our plans," said first guard. Raiden knew that he was the "someone" and that "they" were the Patriots.
"If you see the intruder, you have strict orders not to kill him, do you understand? Leave that to me. We know only that he's a thin, white-haired Caucasian man attired in a blue skull suit."
"Yes, sir!"
"Are the explosives in place yet?"
"Yes, sir, they are all planted and active," said the same guard.
"Sir, there are several anti terrorist teams on their way to the compound, ETA two hours and thirty-five minutes," reported the second guard, speaking up for the first time.
"Notify me immediately when they arrive. I'll be sure to take care of them."
"Understood."
Raiden then heard the door opening and closing, and knew that the man had left. This was his chance to get the jump on the guards. Both guards returned to their posts, readying their guns and looking for any intruders. The guard that was patrolling went back to his regular route. He walked past the stationary guard, and came down Raiden's corridor. After about three steps, the guard saw something out of the corner of his eye. Raiden instantly reacted with his incredible reflexes, knowing that he was spotted. The guard was only able to turn his head halfway, though it was enough to see Jack, before Raiden seized him. His move was unique, but he believed that it would work better than a normal chokehold. He hooked his right hand underneath the guard's right hand, putting him into a half nelson.
"What the-!" The guard was so shocked that he wasn't able to finish his sentence.
"Shut up!" yelled Raiden. He put one hand over the guard's mouth and dragged him back away from the other, stationary sentry. He stopped at the door of the storage room.
He took his left arm off of the guard's mouth. The guard breathed an almost silent sigh of relief... until he saw that Raiden was reaching for his knife. The guard's eyes widen, and at the same time searched all around him for a way out. He had found one; he was going to die anyway, so there was nothing to lose. He'd thought of something. He tried to use his free left hand to somehow escape, desperation getting the best of him. Raiden viciously elbowed the outside of the guard's arm, in his elbow region. He then bent the guard's upper body to the left. The guard's torso, neck, and head were now facing diagonally upwards, which undoubtedly must have been a painful position. Raiden then placed his knife only several centimeters from his neck. All of this was done in a time span of about one second.
"You're going to tell me where Solidus Snake is...right now...that is, unless you like the taste of cold steel."
By now, the guard was sweating profusely and breathing heavily. His left arm was broken most likely. It bent the wrong way slightly in a sickening way, an intensely painful injury. His arm was now limp at his side, utterly useless.
Needless to say, he didn't give Raiden the information that he wanted.
"NOW!" Raiden was starting to get frustrated. He pushed the knife in farther. The steel was now touching the guard's neck.
The guard let out a painful gasp, and a low groan, but gave up the information.
"He-he's upstairs. Two flights. On the south side." The guard felt rather disloyal; he had told that he would not give any vital information to the enemy under any circumstances.
"And the other hostages?" asked Raiden.
"Other hostages? There are no other hostages." The soldier was rather confused.
"Don't lie to me!" Raiden told him.
"No-there aren't. Really."
"Anything else I need to know?" Raiden asked.
"You'll have to get past a semtex trap at the top of the stairs leading to the third floor. And that floor is extremely well guarded. You'll never get through."
"We'll see about that."
Raiden then used the handle of the knife as a weapon, striking the guard in the skull with it, seeing no need to kill. He opened the door to the storage room and dragged his unconscious victim inside and stuffed him into a locker. He made sure that the door was securely closed so that it would not open at any given time. His presence would definitely be known if that happened, something he didn't want.
He pressed his ear against the door, listening for footsteps. When he heard none, he opened the door and left the room, his M4 in hand. He walked down the hall, but heard footsteps a little more than halfway down the corridor. Raiden cursed silently to himself and pressed up against the wall.
He was going to use something he'd thought of in his stealth VR Missions. He stood right at the end of the wall, still pressed up against it. The guard got closer to him as Raiden patiently waited. He had to work on his instincts alone, as he could not look around the corner without being spotted. He waited, only on his gut feeling, and leapt out from the corner. As he did so, he threw a left hook, which startled the guard and gave Raiden his window of opportunity. He ducked behind the sentry, and grabbed him in an ordinary chokehold. He jerked his wrist almost instantly, and from the guard's neck area came a sickening crack. His victim instantly went limp in Raiden's arms, but he held his grip on the sentry.
He dragged him back to where his first victim suffered his wrath, stopping in front of the door. Jack released the guard with one hand, only his right holding him up. He used his left hand to turn the doorknob and shove the door open. He then gripped his prey in both hands and walked in the room, right in front of the row lockers. He once again released his left hand from the guard's neck and gripped the locker handle, sliding it to the right, revealing a large empty space, just big enough to fit the guard's body into. He shoved the corpse in, back first, and slammed the door shut before the guard's body fell out.
He heard a low 'thud' as the corpse fell into the inside if the locker door. He thought nothing more of it, and walked out of the room, gun at bear in front of him. He walked down faster than usual, and when he realized that there were no more sentries around to pose any kind of threat, he relaxed, putting his gun down, now only holding it in his right hand. He walked toward the door leading to what he could only assume was a staircase; it was not labeled, just a blank off-white.
He pushed the door open aggressively and pointed his gun through the doorway, but found nothing but emptiness, just the stairs in front of him. He walked up the flight of steps and looked around once he reached the top of the first flight. Seeing nothing, he climbed the second set of stairs and saw a, once again unlabeled door. He remembered the guard's words: ...upstairs. Two flights. On the south side.
You'll have to get past a semtex trap at the top of the stairs leading to the third floor. And that floor is extremely well guarded. You'll never get through.
Remembering the sentry's last words, Jack turned the knob on the door slowly, and then shoved it open, forcing his gun through the open doorway, both his eyes and his gun fixated ahead of him. What he saw shocked, scared and amazed him all at the same time.
It was a long hallway... a corridor of death. It was riddled with bodies, more than one person should be able to take care of.
"This had to have been a team project," Raiden thought aloud. "No one man could possibly do all of this..."
He leaned over and examined one of the bodies. He checked the pulse, putting his index and middle finger together on the guard's neck area.
"No pulse," Raiden said to himself, surprised.
Jack had a good reason to be surprised, however. This guard, and all the others, had no typical death wounds; no bullet holes, cuts, bruises, no kind of evidence of who, or what, had killed them.
"Goddamn. What the hell happened to these people?" Raiden actually felt sorry for his enemy, laid out in front of him. He couldn't possibly imagine how anyone could have done this to them.
Suddenly, something startled Jack out of his crouch. A sound, like nothing he'd heard before, a stomach turning death rattle. It was inhuman; Jack almost threw up upon hearing the spine tingling noise. He threw his gun up towards the corner and, soon after, the hideous sound stopped abruptly, just as quickly as it had started. Then, a guard's corpse was thrown to the wall at Raiden's right. It was thrown with a great velocity, the sentry's back hitting the wall with a thunderous 'crack!' the guard's back breaking in two.
Raiden's first instinct was two help the sentry, who was still alive; he could tell by the fact that he was slightly moving, after falling to the floor. The guard fell on his side, and looked up at Raiden. There was a fear like nothing he'd seen before in the sentry's eyes, something indescribable, beyond explanation. The guard reached out with his left hand, towards Raiden, as if to say, "Please... help me..."
Raiden felt like a heel not helping out a person in need, but he was the enemy, after all. What could he do? Nothing. He could do nothing, except watch the guard die right in front of him. His arm dropped to the floor, and his eyes slowly closed... it was the end for him, but not for Raiden.
He turned the corner from which the guard had come, gun ready. He saw a tall, well-built man walking down the hall, the bottom of his long snakeskin vest slightly flapping up and down as he slowly walked down the hall. The man was easily seven feet tall, and a good three hundred plus pounds. His figure just screamed, "do not mess with me", like the red, black and yellow stripes of the coral snake that warned other predators not to bother it.
"Him? He did this? Holy..."
Nevertheless, Jack looked around the hall, and saw a door that was cracked open. He looked in the tiny gap between the door and the wall, and saw a man in a black trenchcoat talking to someone else, a man in copper colored armor, a man with graying hair and an eye patch over his left eye.
Raiden rushed in the room and attacked his mission target, Solidus Snake...
"Raiden, what's your position?"
"I got in. I disguised myself as the enemy and snuck in one of their supply trucks. There aren't any sentries patrolling where I am now... yet."
"Lose the disguise immediately, Raiden."
"Why?" asked Jack.
"Only the sentries bringing in the cargo have the BDUs that you have on. They're not even supposed to stay in the building."
"Alright," said Jack, and did as he was told, taking off his disguise.
"Now, you must continue your mission, Jack. Assassinate those hostages."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then your wife and child die. Are we clear?" After not getting a response from Raiden, he spoke again. "Make a choice, Jack."
"I'll do it; you'd just better hope I don't make it back there," he said. You could hear the unwillingness and hatred in his voice, something he did purposely. He wanted him to know how much he hated him, how much he hated the Patriots, but how much he loved his family.
This is what I get for having a conscience, thought Raiden.
He was in a storage room, devoid of anyone. He seized the opportunity and went through every locker, crate and barrel, but didn't find much; a couple fragmentation grenades, and a standard military issue MRE (Meal Ready to Eat).
He grabbed the doorknob and opened the door slowly with his right hand, and kept his gun in his left hand, ready for any kind of threat that may wait on the other side. He peered around the door and looked up and down the hallway, only to find that it was empty. He went out into the hall, and closed the door silently behind him. He walked down the corridor, stepping lightly, careful not to make any sounds. The floor was made of very large tiles that were essentially working against him as he tried to walk silently. His gun was pointed on an angle at the ground, but his eyes searched in every direction for anyone or anything that could be considered dangerous. Coming to a left turn and finding nothing and no one so far, Raiden stopped and hugged the wall in order to see what was around the corner. He pointed the gun on a ninety-degree angle towards the ground and turned his head and neck to look down the next hallway. He spotted two guards, one stationary, facing him, and the other patrolling down the corridor.
"Damn!" Raiden yelled, obviously a bit frustrated with his situation. He was about to become more frustrated, as the stationary guard had heard him.
"What the hell was that?" the guard said to himself, as he walked over to investigate the noise. Raiden straightened up and was ready to engage the guard when he heard the door at the end of the guards' corridor open. Both guards turned toward the noise, their guns ready for whatever would come through the door. But after they saw who it was, they relaxed slightly, letting their guns hang from the strap on their shoulders. Raiden could not tell who it was, as he did not recognize the voice, but he knew that it had to be one of the terrorists. He moved over away from the three people, still hugging the wall, but he remained close enough to hear the conversation. He put his M4 away, but would be ready to use it if necessary.
"Status report, soldiers," the man demanded of the two guards. His voice was very stern and demanding; it had the unemotional tone of a well- trained, heartless soldier.
"Sir, we have reports that they've sent someone to stop our plans," said first guard. Raiden knew that he was the "someone" and that "they" were the Patriots.
"If you see the intruder, you have strict orders not to kill him, do you understand? Leave that to me. We know only that he's a thin, white-haired Caucasian man attired in a blue skull suit."
"Yes, sir!"
"Are the explosives in place yet?"
"Yes, sir, they are all planted and active," said the same guard.
"Sir, there are several anti terrorist teams on their way to the compound, ETA two hours and thirty-five minutes," reported the second guard, speaking up for the first time.
"Notify me immediately when they arrive. I'll be sure to take care of them."
"Understood."
Raiden then heard the door opening and closing, and knew that the man had left. This was his chance to get the jump on the guards. Both guards returned to their posts, readying their guns and looking for any intruders. The guard that was patrolling went back to his regular route. He walked past the stationary guard, and came down Raiden's corridor. After about three steps, the guard saw something out of the corner of his eye. Raiden instantly reacted with his incredible reflexes, knowing that he was spotted. The guard was only able to turn his head halfway, though it was enough to see Jack, before Raiden seized him. His move was unique, but he believed that it would work better than a normal chokehold. He hooked his right hand underneath the guard's right hand, putting him into a half nelson.
"What the-!" The guard was so shocked that he wasn't able to finish his sentence.
"Shut up!" yelled Raiden. He put one hand over the guard's mouth and dragged him back away from the other, stationary sentry. He stopped at the door of the storage room.
He took his left arm off of the guard's mouth. The guard breathed an almost silent sigh of relief... until he saw that Raiden was reaching for his knife. The guard's eyes widen, and at the same time searched all around him for a way out. He had found one; he was going to die anyway, so there was nothing to lose. He'd thought of something. He tried to use his free left hand to somehow escape, desperation getting the best of him. Raiden viciously elbowed the outside of the guard's arm, in his elbow region. He then bent the guard's upper body to the left. The guard's torso, neck, and head were now facing diagonally upwards, which undoubtedly must have been a painful position. Raiden then placed his knife only several centimeters from his neck. All of this was done in a time span of about one second.
"You're going to tell me where Solidus Snake is...right now...that is, unless you like the taste of cold steel."
By now, the guard was sweating profusely and breathing heavily. His left arm was broken most likely. It bent the wrong way slightly in a sickening way, an intensely painful injury. His arm was now limp at his side, utterly useless.
Needless to say, he didn't give Raiden the information that he wanted.
"NOW!" Raiden was starting to get frustrated. He pushed the knife in farther. The steel was now touching the guard's neck.
The guard let out a painful gasp, and a low groan, but gave up the information.
"He-he's upstairs. Two flights. On the south side." The guard felt rather disloyal; he had told that he would not give any vital information to the enemy under any circumstances.
"And the other hostages?" asked Raiden.
"Other hostages? There are no other hostages." The soldier was rather confused.
"Don't lie to me!" Raiden told him.
"No-there aren't. Really."
"Anything else I need to know?" Raiden asked.
"You'll have to get past a semtex trap at the top of the stairs leading to the third floor. And that floor is extremely well guarded. You'll never get through."
"We'll see about that."
Raiden then used the handle of the knife as a weapon, striking the guard in the skull with it, seeing no need to kill. He opened the door to the storage room and dragged his unconscious victim inside and stuffed him into a locker. He made sure that the door was securely closed so that it would not open at any given time. His presence would definitely be known if that happened, something he didn't want.
He pressed his ear against the door, listening for footsteps. When he heard none, he opened the door and left the room, his M4 in hand. He walked down the hall, but heard footsteps a little more than halfway down the corridor. Raiden cursed silently to himself and pressed up against the wall.
He was going to use something he'd thought of in his stealth VR Missions. He stood right at the end of the wall, still pressed up against it. The guard got closer to him as Raiden patiently waited. He had to work on his instincts alone, as he could not look around the corner without being spotted. He waited, only on his gut feeling, and leapt out from the corner. As he did so, he threw a left hook, which startled the guard and gave Raiden his window of opportunity. He ducked behind the sentry, and grabbed him in an ordinary chokehold. He jerked his wrist almost instantly, and from the guard's neck area came a sickening crack. His victim instantly went limp in Raiden's arms, but he held his grip on the sentry.
He dragged him back to where his first victim suffered his wrath, stopping in front of the door. Jack released the guard with one hand, only his right holding him up. He used his left hand to turn the doorknob and shove the door open. He then gripped his prey in both hands and walked in the room, right in front of the row lockers. He once again released his left hand from the guard's neck and gripped the locker handle, sliding it to the right, revealing a large empty space, just big enough to fit the guard's body into. He shoved the corpse in, back first, and slammed the door shut before the guard's body fell out.
He heard a low 'thud' as the corpse fell into the inside if the locker door. He thought nothing more of it, and walked out of the room, gun at bear in front of him. He walked down faster than usual, and when he realized that there were no more sentries around to pose any kind of threat, he relaxed, putting his gun down, now only holding it in his right hand. He walked toward the door leading to what he could only assume was a staircase; it was not labeled, just a blank off-white.
He pushed the door open aggressively and pointed his gun through the doorway, but found nothing but emptiness, just the stairs in front of him. He walked up the flight of steps and looked around once he reached the top of the first flight. Seeing nothing, he climbed the second set of stairs and saw a, once again unlabeled door. He remembered the guard's words: ...upstairs. Two flights. On the south side.
You'll have to get past a semtex trap at the top of the stairs leading to the third floor. And that floor is extremely well guarded. You'll never get through.
Remembering the sentry's last words, Jack turned the knob on the door slowly, and then shoved it open, forcing his gun through the open doorway, both his eyes and his gun fixated ahead of him. What he saw shocked, scared and amazed him all at the same time.
It was a long hallway... a corridor of death. It was riddled with bodies, more than one person should be able to take care of.
"This had to have been a team project," Raiden thought aloud. "No one man could possibly do all of this..."
He leaned over and examined one of the bodies. He checked the pulse, putting his index and middle finger together on the guard's neck area.
"No pulse," Raiden said to himself, surprised.
Jack had a good reason to be surprised, however. This guard, and all the others, had no typical death wounds; no bullet holes, cuts, bruises, no kind of evidence of who, or what, had killed them.
"Goddamn. What the hell happened to these people?" Raiden actually felt sorry for his enemy, laid out in front of him. He couldn't possibly imagine how anyone could have done this to them.
Suddenly, something startled Jack out of his crouch. A sound, like nothing he'd heard before, a stomach turning death rattle. It was inhuman; Jack almost threw up upon hearing the spine tingling noise. He threw his gun up towards the corner and, soon after, the hideous sound stopped abruptly, just as quickly as it had started. Then, a guard's corpse was thrown to the wall at Raiden's right. It was thrown with a great velocity, the sentry's back hitting the wall with a thunderous 'crack!' the guard's back breaking in two.
Raiden's first instinct was two help the sentry, who was still alive; he could tell by the fact that he was slightly moving, after falling to the floor. The guard fell on his side, and looked up at Raiden. There was a fear like nothing he'd seen before in the sentry's eyes, something indescribable, beyond explanation. The guard reached out with his left hand, towards Raiden, as if to say, "Please... help me..."
Raiden felt like a heel not helping out a person in need, but he was the enemy, after all. What could he do? Nothing. He could do nothing, except watch the guard die right in front of him. His arm dropped to the floor, and his eyes slowly closed... it was the end for him, but not for Raiden.
He turned the corner from which the guard had come, gun ready. He saw a tall, well-built man walking down the hall, the bottom of his long snakeskin vest slightly flapping up and down as he slowly walked down the hall. The man was easily seven feet tall, and a good three hundred plus pounds. His figure just screamed, "do not mess with me", like the red, black and yellow stripes of the coral snake that warned other predators not to bother it.
"Him? He did this? Holy..."
Nevertheless, Jack looked around the hall, and saw a door that was cracked open. He looked in the tiny gap between the door and the wall, and saw a man in a black trenchcoat talking to someone else, a man in copper colored armor, a man with graying hair and an eye patch over his left eye.
Raiden rushed in the room and attacked his mission target, Solidus Snake...