Desert Rose Have Thorns.
Chapter 7.
"Ebony!" A Russian accent wailed out across the hangar as she stepped out of an elevator. She turned around to see the technician running along carrying a notepad and tripping over his own feet. Ebony sighed and carried on striding across the hangar for the next elevator. The technician managed to catch up with her.
"Wait, wait, wait!" the short little man gasped. "Ocelot asked that we configure Gryphus for your use. Since you're here would it be any trouble to do that now?" He fumbled with a pen in his pocket. "Please?"
"Actually I was here to start the VR training." Ebony sighed putting a hand on her hip and glared down at the technician.
"Oh good, that's good. The sooner the better." He burbled happily and waited as Ebony summoned the lift.
"All we need from you is a retinal scan and a palm scan to activate Metal Gear and initiate the nuclear launch procedure. We had though of including a voice recognition system but…" He added as he flicked through his notes. Ocelot had scrimped on using laptops for the workers and saved them for the head engineers and designers. By the stack of papers the short and rounded Russian was battling to keep in his arms, he was not particularly important.
"Thank you, but that's all I need to know." Ebony silenced him as the lift doors slid apart. The engineer found a spot to put his work down with a sigh of relief then searched about in the control room, buzzing around asking his colleagues questions. He disappeared into another room and returned with a couple of pieces of unusual equipment.
"If you would just sit here for a moment…" He smiled and drew up a chair for Ebony. She sat down and waited for him as he linked the equipment into the control panels and booted up the software. She scanned her eyes around the control room. On one wall, there was a map of the world glowing and showed routes of something Ebony didn't know. The room was rammed to the ceiling with computers and there was a constant flow of engineers, programmers and technicians coming and going.
"Now this won't take long if we get it right first time…" The engineer picked up a device and coaxed Ebony to look his way.
"There…just look into that piece and don't blink. This is for the retina scans."
Ebony did as she was instructed and a few seconds later, the device was moved away from her eyes.
"You'll get used to it after a couple of times." He smiled as Ebony rubbed her eyes. "Now just put your right hand on this. This your palm scan. When you go in for VR training you'll need to give palm and retina scans while we keep record of your progress in the training and it gets you used to how it all works." He held out a flat piece of equipment something like a flatbed scanner and pressed a button once Ebony had her hand outstretched on the panel.
"Perfect! I'll make sure this is fed into the system. Wait here please while I talk to the programmers of the VR training." The technician waddled out of the room.
Ebony sat in the wheeled chair examining the computers and glowing screens. She was quite familiar with modern technology but the sight of all the computers and the sheer number of people working baffled her somewhat. It was a far cry from the kind of fighting that she was used to. Here the real minds behind the fighting weren't soldiers out on the field and in the line of fire. Instead, they were highly educated minds safely sheltered away from the battle that perhaps had never held a gun or killed a person in their lives. Still Ebony felt that people like her would have their place in the world, at least if she finished what she started.
"Funny, didn't Liquid say something like that once before? That he wanted to make sure that fighting would never end and that there'd always be a need for us." Ebony wondered.
"Excellent!" The small rotund Russian appeared once more. "Your data is in the system and ready to let you have complete access Gryphus and the VR training." He beamed.
"Complete access…" Ebony murmured and allowed herself a slight smile.
"Of course, it was what Ocelot ordered. All that you need to do now is complete your training. The booth is an exact replica of Gryphus' interior and layout. The training will take you through the basics of piloting it and more advanced manoeuvres, plus weapons systems, everything is covered and I would think that for somebody of your profession it shouldn't be too difficult to take in. Anyway, follow me next door please." He gestured to the doorway he was stood in. A large computer was in front of the booth with a programmer loading up files and programs for the training.
"He's letting me have total, unbarred access to Metal Gear?" Ebony reminded herself as she approached the booth for VR training and sat down in the open cockpit. She took a good look at the controls. So many dials, buttons and screens it all at first seemed more daunting than she had expected but Ebony consoled herself with the reminder that this would just be a small step to reaching her goal. There would be bigger obstacles to take on later.
"Are you ready to begin?" The programmer asked her from his chair. "Just follow the instructions that appear on screen. You can repeat the exercises as many times as you need and at anytime you need to."
"I'm ready." Ebony called back and closed the door on the booth, dipping it into darkness. The screens lit up and gave a peculiar glow to the interior, which lit it up enough for her to see clearly where everything was. Her time was getting closer.
≈≈≈≈≈≈
Meryl got up from behind the crate she'd crouched behind while she was on the Codec and softly made her way over towards the only door in the little storehouse. She pressed her ear up to the door listening out for any noise that could have been from the soldiers. Satisfied that she'd heard nothing, she pulled it back a little and peeped out to find her view was limited and opened the door fully. Hot dry air blew in with sand. Meryl put up one hand to her eyes while it calmed and she could see again. Right in front a few feet away was a concrete wall that ran away to her right to another wall. Left was a corroded chain-link fence. Beyond it was a small flat roofed building and further north a two-storey building surrounded by walls trimmed with coils of razor wire. There was nobody in sight from where she stood, but all around in the distance the sound of soldiers and vehicles could be heard. Between Meryl and the larger of the two buildings was just open sand and paved walkways for about three hundred meters giving anybody nearby a clear view. There were some abandoned metal drums left at the side of some of the paths but for the most of it, Meryl guessed that she'd have to stay close to the buildings and walls than risk running in the open.
"Let's take a look at that building." She muttered to herself and took the caps from off the binoculars. Meryl put them to her eyes and focused the lenses until the view of the two-storied building came into view.
"The moan door will be guarded for sure so I won't go near it unless I absolutely have to. That wall is going to be a pain too, but it looks like this building will be worth checking out." She lowered the binoculars and had a look at the building with her own eyes.
"Wait a second…" Meryl peered through them once more. "An open window up there on the top floor. Maybe I could reach it from the top of the wall?"
She pocketed the binoculars and closed the door behind her, taking a quick look round before following the wall up to the fence. There was a gate on the fence but it was held shut with a padlock and Meryl didn't think she had the time to try and break it, so scrambled up quickly and touched down softly on the other side. Still crouching down, she drew her M9 and began to head over quickly to the first small building, scuffing her feet to rub out her footprints. Finally at the building, Meryl paused for a few seconds before following the wall to its end and she could peep round and see the one she was heading for. The wall she would have to climb over suddenly looked much taller than she had first thought but for now she could see no other way without having to go into the open and walk around looking for another route. Taking one last look to see if it was all clear, Meryl darted out and made a run for the wall, stooping down a little so that she wasn't quite so visible, keeping watch for any soldiers coming close. The heat had started to get to her, being so used to the cold of Alaska, but the uniform began to do its work and helped keep her cool. A last sprint and Meryl was facing up to the wall that circled the building. Meryl ran her hand over the walls surface and followed it round to find footholds to allow her to climb. Most of it was almost completely smooth, coated in a layer of concrete and paint, but every so often, there'd be a block that would jut out or where the mortar between the blocks had crumbled and left a small gap. Meryl wasted no time in climbing up, digging her fingers into every available groove in the wall, slowly inching her way upwards and let her feet find footholds themselves. At times she was just gripping on with her fingertips and she put all her effort into clinging on to the vertical face. Near the top her arms and hands began to ache and just about to release their grip. The top was soon within her reach and Meryl let go of one hand, swinging up to the top edge and held on tight. Confident she wouldn't fall back down, she reached up with her other arm and pulled herself up just enough to peer through the razor wire and view what lay on the other side. There was more sand covering paving slabs and a few footprints where somebody had been.
What's that?!" Meryl gasped, just about loosing her hold and back into the dust. Voices that she couldn't understand came from over the wall. Meryl then decided it wouldn't be such a great idea to get up on top of the wall until she was directly in front of the window so shimmied hand over hand along the walls edge. The voices got closer to her until they were right in front on the other side.
"I can't wait for them to leave, what if somebody sees me or I loose my grip?" Meryl sighed to herself quietly. She'd have to go for it now soldiers or not. She pulled herself up and then pulled up her legs so she was balancing on top of the wall, trying to avoid being caught on the wire. The space between the wall and window was a couple of feet. Gingerly stepping over the wire, Meryl reached out with one hand for the windowsill. Sure she wouldn't fall Meryl pushed off from the wall and swung herself across, catching the window sill with her free hand and tucked her legs up ending up in the building and the pair of soldiers bellow unaware of her intrusion.
"Phew…" Meryl breathed as she landed crouching in the room and drew her M9. She felt her heart begin to race again.
"I made it, I sneaked in and nobody saw me!" She thought with glee. "So far, so good, but just watch you don't get too cocky and slip up." Meryl reminded herself and hid behind some cardboard boxes. Nobody was in the room with her but she could hear the noise of people moving about and chatter over radios. The realisation that she was in enemy territory was much stronger and Meryl was almost afraid to breathe in case it alerted them to her presence. It was very different from disguising herself in a soldier uniform and walking around the base, but it was something that Meryl did not want to repeat. If she was going to find Snake, she wanted to do it properly and prove that she was no longer the green rookie that she'd been on Shadow Moses. If anything, she had to prove it to herself.
≈≈≈≈≈≈
The screen in front of Ebony died down as she had enough of the training for the time being. She fumbled in the darkness for the door and pushed it open, blinking at the light outside of the virtual Gryphus.
"You did astonishingly well." The programmer exclaimed. "The next time you want to train perhaps I should make it harder?" He asked.
"Hmm?" Ebony wasn't paying attention, going over all that she'd soaked up about piloting Gryphus. "Yes, you could do that for me." She answered after noticing that it was she who was being spoken to. The radio in her pocket began to shake and Ebony knew that the caller meant she would have to go somewhere out of earshot from the scientists in the hangar.
Finding a quiet place, she took the radio out of her pocket to receive the message.
"Sorry Ayisha. I just finished the VR training for now and had to get out of their way before I could answer you." Ebony knew that while she wasn't near any of the engineers talking in English was dangerous so she had switched over to her mother tongue. At least that way, even if somebody did hear and could make out what she was saying, the meaning could be lost in a poor translation. Ebony always had the faint suspicion that what she said to soldiers and the other people on the base was being relayed to Ocelot, but still she held out trust to Ayisha
"The channel; is it secure?" Ebony continued.
"Yes I made sure and I am alone here. Anyway only you and I have these radios, and nobody else knows about them." Ayisha responded.
"What news do you have?"
"Nothing except that Snake is still alive but in no fit state when he left. That Ocelot..." Ayisha hissed. "I don't approve of him."
"What do you mean?" For a moment, Ebony was afraid that her last true ally was starting to loose faith in her cause.
"What he does. His 'hobby.'" Ayisha forced out after a second. "I know that Snake is our enemy, but did you have to hand him over to Ocelot for one round of torture?"
"If it meant securing the use of Gryphus, yes. I had to bargain with Snake. I know that your job is to save lives and heal people but I needed you there to save Snake in case Ocelot got carried away." Ebony explained.
"For you to punish more and to kill when you've tired of him?" Ayisha asked pointedly. "I know I've told you this a thousand times before but please be careful with Ocelot. I don't think he has anybody's interests at heart but his own in this. Whatever it is you're planning make sure he can't interfere because I'm frightened that it might be the end of you."
"I appreciate it Ayisha but I know what I'm doing." Ebony smiled.
"But he's given you free access to Gryphus. Don't you think that's a bit generous of him?" Ayisha asked.
"If it's a plan he's concocting then I'm ready to face it with my own. Believe me, I've thought about it." Ebony reassured her medic.
"Fine, I'll be in contact with you if anything develops." Ayisha said and closed off the connection.
Ebony sighed and rubbed her eyes, tired from staring at the VR screen for so long. Ayisha's words made her think as she made her way back to the barracks. Ocelot was after all an ex-member of FOXHOUND and the only last surviving one too. If that said anything, it told Ebony that Ocelot wouldn't be one to fade away easily.
"Why did I not get considered for FOXHOUND? Surely Liquid must have thought it better if we were both in it together?" Ebony wondered. "But he wanted to go alone and deal with his problems himself." She reminded herself. "And even if I was offered a place what would have become of this place?" Ebony stopped to look around. "I couldn't leave all the soldiers alone here, I could never let them free because some of them have no other future but what is here and I couldn't bear to sell them out to FOXHOUND too. This is where I belong and I'll fight anybody for it."
≈≈≈≈≈≈
Mei Ling was just about to doze off as she heard a familiar bleeping in her headset at which she sat up straight an opened the channel.
"Meryl, how is it going?" She asked.
"Huh, I'm inside what I think might be one of the barracks on this base. There are two upper levels to it and I'm going to check out and see if there's and underground level too. This place looked pretty secure. I was pretty lucky I found a way in through a window and didn't have to go round to the main door." Meryl replied. "I can't believe this, I've infiltrated the base." She grinned.
"I hope Snake is alright." Mei Ling said softly.
"Yeah…" Meryl agreed quietly. "Look I'll go now and check this place out and see what I can find out about Snake's location. I really want to find him quickly."
"Okay. I'll talk to you soon, Meryl." Mei Ling smiled again and they both signed off. She took off her headset and sighed, leaning on the control panel in front of her and all the data that was on the screens. She peered over her shoulder at all the other people in the room. The colonel was sitting talking with clerks. Naomi was probably in the medical room monitoring Meryl's readouts from her nanomachines and Hal was… well he'd been there earlier when she last looked around to see what was going on.
"Probably taking a break like I'm just about to do." Mei Ling thought to herself as she stretched and wheeled back from the controls.
"Colonel, I'm leaving for a break if that is fine with you. I won't be much more than 15 minutes and I've got a Codec link with Meryl on the same frequency if she calls." She told him before she left. He simply nodded and carried on with business looking at the satellite photographs she'd prepared.
She walked down the corridor to the small cafeteria and found Hal, sitting back in a chair, his nose buried in a manga comic book, a plastic cup full of steaming instant coffee from the vending machine on the table alongside his trusty laptop computer, no doubt plastered with the latest wallpaper of some anime.
"Ugh, Otacon, how can you drink that stuff?" She wrinkled her nose up at it as she went to find something, anything that would stave off tiredness that little bit longer except what Hal was drinking.
"What it lacks in taste it makes up for in caffeine." He smiled and put down his comic book. "Anything from Meryl yet?"
"I got a call before I left. She infiltrated some barracks and is on her way to find out the location of Snake. As yet she's made no mention of Metal Gear."
Hal sighed and Mei Ling could see that while he was relaxed for a moment, he was still very troubled deep down.
"I wish none of this had happened. It's not just this one, but it's all the others that might be out there that worries me. I mean, would that mean having to destroy them all?" He shook his head and took a drink from his cup.
"Snake isn't going to like that." Mei Ling added.
"No he won't and I bet he'll be less than overjoyed about having to destroy this one, if there is such a thing on the base he's in. I doubt they're lying though. That Ebony doesn't look to be the bluffing kind. If she was serious enough to capture Snake then I guess she'd be serious about getting hold of a Metal Gear."
"With what intelligence we have about her she's a successful mercenary known world-wide. However, this is what gets me. When I was looking up more information on her to pass onto Meryl and Colonel Campbell, I hit a block. She did have a partner who worked very closely with her but when I try to find out who it is I hit a block and their details are closed of to all but those with the highest clearance." Mei Ling explained. Hal frowned.
"Strange. But why keep something like that locked up when it could be useful for a mission like this?" Hal asked her.
"I don't know but if I learned anything from the last mission it's that nothing is ever straight forward and there's always something left out to surprise us and they use the 'need to know' excuse to cover their backs." Mei Ling whispered leaning close to him. "I can only hope Snake has found out something that we haven't about Ebony that might add to the missing piece in her file." Mei Ling got up out of her chair to help herself to something to drink and leave Otacon to his own devices.
"But that is between you and me what I think about this." She said to him. "I'd ask you to hack into the files but could you imagine what would happen if we got found out?"
"It's not worth it." Hal agreed. "I know that the information could help Snake and Meryl but if we got caught..." he shook his head as Mei Ling left. As much as he wanted to, Hal knew that it was too dangerous and above all else, was lucky that the mission had gone ahead, even though it was only because of Metal Gear. Until it was found out if Snake had learned anything new about Ebony, Hal resisted the temptation to stop his anime screen saver and get hacking.
Chapter 8 coming soon…