Author's Note: Due to the fact that school is about to start for me, new chapters will now be uploaded less frequently; however do not fear! The story shall continue!
Chapter 11: Occurrence
Andrea followed behind Lynn as they split up from Snake. Now, they were supposed to find someone with a security keycard.
Lynn slugged her sub-machine gun over her shoulder and drew her M9 tranquilizer. Andrea pulled hers out too, supporting the heavy metallic object with both of her hands. She knew how to use it (thanks to Lynn); she made sure the safety was on.
Lynn abruptly stopped, holding her hand out to signal for Andrea to stop as well. Andrea saw Lynn gingerly poke her head into a doorway. She looked around the room, and crept inside. Andrea followed.
The room was full of oddly high-tech stuff. A hologram was projected up high in the air, showing what was undoubtedly a new weapon revolving at a slow pace with some numbers. Andrea took a look at the rest of the room; there was some high-end computers, a few desks, a cold-storage fridge, but no sign of anyone.
"Should we search the desks?" Andrea whispered. Lynn nodded and looked around for any security cameras. Noticing none, she quietly shut the door and stood up. Andrea was temporarily awe-struck by how cool Lynn looked, but snapped back to her senses. Lynn had already started quietly ripping apart one of the desks' drawers, flipping through paper and junk. Andrea helped look through a different one.
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Snake snuck around, paying attention for guards or cameras. Strangely enough, for a facility that had initially seemed so suspicious, there was less security than Snake had expected. Unless they were missing something…
"Snake, come in," he heard Lynn say over the radio.
"Yeah, I'm here. What is it?"
"Me and Red Cross have come across something suspicious," Lynn replied.
"Did you find a keycard yet?" Snake asked hopefully.
"No," Lynn answered, "But I did manage to find some documents about the recent reduction of employees."
"What's strange about it?" Snake inquired.
"Eighty percent of the people fired are in the scientific field," Lynn responded. Snake thought about this for a minute.
"Why would a weapons facility that was aiming to reduce the number of employees fire only scientists?" Snake wondered aloud.
"I don't know," Lynn answered. "It has a list of names, though. Otacon, I need you to run these names through and tell me anything out-of-the-ordinary."
"Okay," Otacon replied. "Run 'em off."
Lynn recited about thirty names over the radio.
"Alright, give me a few minutes and I'll let you know if I find anything," Otacon said.
"Also, there's a hologram projector in here," Lynn added.
"So, nothing suspicious about that," Snake replied.
"It's a military-class projector," Lynn explained.
"Military?" Snake echoed. What was a military hologram projector doing in a civilian-run weapons lab?
"We're going to continue looking for a card," Lynn announced, and then there was silence over the radio. Snake took a quick glance around, and continued deeper into the room he was in.
The room, if it could be called that, was full of damaged or destroyed weapon prototypes. Handguns, rifles, automatics, they all lay stacked with some measure of neatness. Each stack had a note of paper denoting what their deficiency was, and tagged with a number for disposal.
Snake paused as he heard some movement, and pressed up against the wall. It was fairly dull in the room, so if someone walked by, unless Snake moved, they hopefully wouldn't notice him.
Instead of a person, though, a service robot came by on treads. It looked like a miniature tank, but without weaponry. It had a large platform on its top, and two 'arms' that it used to manipulate objects. It was a simple machine, that wasn't meant for security measures. It passed right by Snake to a pile of deformed weapons, and a small camera raised out of it. It scanned the note of paper attached to the stack, and proceeded to move some of the weapons from the stack onto its platform.
Snake used this opportunity to continue, and found a cleft in the wall; it was more than likely the service robot's access route. Snake made some mental measurements, and figured that he could fit in it, though it would be a tight squeeze. Snake waited patiently for the robot to finish it's duties and leave back through it's tunnel. Snake followed behind it, crawling silently and swiftly. The tunnel went for forty meters before opening up into a different room. Snake quickly scanned the area; he appeared to be in some sort of testing lab. It was quite large. Snake pulled out his M9 just in case, and stayed low and to the wall. Machinery was moving all around, and there wasn't any lights on except for the LED's on some of the machines. The result was just enough light so that Snake could make out the outlines of things in the room. Snake flipped the night vision goggles on his head down.
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Andrea and Lynn had been through some more rooms and labs, but each one was strangely devoid of people. It was like no one worked during the night; which was unusual for a major company to do such a thing.
"Why aren't there any people?" Andrea asked.
"I don't know," Lynn replied. She closed the door behind them as they went back out into a dark hallway. "Unless--"
"Snake, Red Cross, Night, listen up," Otacon said over the radio, interrupting Lynn. "I did a check on the names you listed. All the names…they're all the employees of the lower section!"
"What?" Snake said. "That would mean there's only the office employees left!"
"No staff left in the labs…" Lyn wondered aloud.
"That's not all," Otacon continued. "Every one of the people who've been fired have all either gone missing, or died somehow."
There was silence.
"What the hell!" Snake exclaimed.
"This is starting to look really suspicious, guys," Otacon said with a worried tone in his voice.
"How are we supposed to gain access to the computer?" Snake asked.
"Hold on, I'm looking at some personnel files," Otacon replied. There was a few seconds of silence. "There!" he exclaimed all of a sudden. "When all of the employees' contracts were terminated, they had to hand over their cards, which are currently scheduled to be destroyed."
"Otacon, where do you find out all this stuff?" Snake mused. "Actually, never mind, I don't want to know."
"Where are the cards right now?" Lynn asked over the radio.
"They're in a service bot's storage room," Otacon said.
"I just came out of one of their damn access ways," Snake whispered.
"Well, if I'm reading your position right, their storage room is at the other end of that room, and through another one of their service tunnels," Otacon explained.
"Alright," Snake said. "I'm proceeding. Red Cross, Night, head back to the computer. I'll meet you there in a few minutes."
"Roger," Lynn responded. "We're heading back to--"
"--Hey! What're you doing?" a voice said in the background. Some automatic weapons fired, and Snake heard Andrea shriek out, before the radio suddenly cut out.
"Night! NIGHT!" Snake yelled over the radio, the sudden turning of the situation sinking in. "LYNN, COME IN!"
"Snake, what's going on!" Otacon asked nervously.
"I don't know!" Snake rushed.
"Snake, we have it under control, get a keycard," Lynn's voice came in over the sound of gunfire.
"Otacon, I need to--"
"Snake, you'll never make it to them in time! Lynn can handle herself, get the card, or the mission is scrapped!" Otacon exclaimed. Snake crouched there, frozen, dread chilling his blood and sending a chill down his spine. He begrudgingly headed in the direction of the keys. He knew that it was ultimately the girl's fault if anything happened to them, but he couldn't help but feel fully responsible…
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When the heavily-armed security guards had come out of nowhere, Lynn didn't have anywhere to take cover before they spotted her and Andrea. The bullets started flying, and Lynn flattened against the wall. Andrea screamed, but did the same thing, creating a very small profile to which bullets could hit.
In one swift movement, Lynn holstered her M9 and unlimbered her sub-machine gun. She let loose a spray of bullets, downing one guy, but the rest dove for cover.
"Cover me!" Lynn shouted, and tried to ram her shoulder into a locked door. Andrea nervously pulled out her M9 and tried desperately to ignore the lethal projectiles that ripped into the metal walls as she dove for cover. Her hands trembled as she undid the safety on her weapon and turned on the laser sight, and aimed at one of the guards. She fired, and felt the gun recoil into her slender hands. The force was less than she had expected from the kickback, but it was still powerful. She pulled the slide back, and kept firing rounds randomly. A hostile fell to the ground as the drugs took effect, and Andrea heard Lynn shout from inside the room she now stood in. She poked her head out and sprayed some covering fire, Andrea rolled to the side and got up to run. She leapt at the open door--
--and felt a white hot pain stream up her leg. She screamed as she toppled to the ground inside the room. She shakily felt at the source of the pain, and her hand came away sticky with blood.
Lynn pulled a pin from a fragmentation grenade and tossed it out into the hallway. She shut the door, but the loud explosion and shaking of the room seemed distant to Andrea. She saw Lynn looking at her.
"W-what happened?" Andrea asked shakily as she felt herself losing strength.
"You were shot."
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Snake had found the service tunnel to the bot's storage room, and had received no further calls from Lynn. He started crawling through the tunnel after he had checked no service bots were around.
He was halfway down the tunnel when he received a call from Lynn.
"Snake, are you there? Come in."
"Girls, what the hell happened?" Snake inquired, a bit louder than he intended.
"Unexpected resistance," Lynn answered. "We've hit a snag, though."
"Snag?" Snake echoed. A 'snag' for Lynn was a very serious thing indeed.
"Red Cross was shot."
Snake's blood ran cold, a dark feeling spreading through his body. Snake had seen a lot of people die in his lifetime, some of them in very horrific ways, but the idea of pure young Andrea getting shot…
"Is she dead?" Snake queried.
"No, she was shot in her calf muscle. Though she's immobile and weak now, she's not in danger of dying."
"Thank god," Otacon said over the radio.
"Right now, she seems to be…doing something….to her wound. I'm keeping guard while she patches herself up." Lynn reported.
"I'm almost at the cardkeys, do you think that she can still make it to the computer?" Snake implored.
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"No," Lynn replied. Andrea felt her heart sink. She was scared, as she laid there in the corner, tears streaming down her face. She was shakily trying to treat the wound, but it hurt a lot. She felt weak.
Why did she get herself into this? Was she mad? She was a seventeen year old girl!
Andrea remembered that she had come here for Lynn. To protect her from death's grasp.
She noticed Lynn looking at her.
"I-I'm sorry," Andrea sobbed. "I didn't mean to weigh you down…"
"Pull yourself together," Lynn commanded. Andrea winced hard as she touched her own wound. She knew she had to take the bullet out, and she sat there, her hand poised above the red flower wound. She put some of her sleeve in her mouth and dug the pliers in. She bit down hard as pain took over what seemed like her whole body, so much that her leg felt on fire. Her hand trembled from the pain as she lifted the solid grey projectile from her wound, as a spurt of blood erupted, almost making her throw up. She quickly dumped the bullet aside and poured styptic into the bullet hole.
"Y-you don't have to wait here," Andrea pined as she continued her self-treatment. She had made up her mind. She had come here to help. She cried inwardly as she knew what she was about to say…
"I don't want to weigh you down," Andrea sobbed. "You were right, I never should have come…I'm sorry for making you mad. Leave me here, and go meet Snake…" Andrea really meant what she said. She knew what the repercussions would be, but she didn't want to think about them. More than likely someone would find her, and then she'd be… "Just go," Andrea cried. "I'll stay here…"
Lynn stayed silent for a minute, watching Andrea as she cried and whined.
"Go, don't stay," Andrea mourned, "I've already caused enough trouble."
"Are you done with your wound?" Lynn asked, obviously ignoring Andrea.
"Wha…I told you to leave me…" Andrea said pathetically, putting away the bandages. Lynn ignored her again; she shouldered her sub-machine gun, put her arm around Andrea's midsection (causing her to blush) and hoisted her up under her arm.
"W-why are you…" Andrea trailed off, as Lynn carried her quickly and silently out into the hallway and towards the computer.
"Leaving a comrade behind is something a coward would do," Lynn replied.
"Com…rade?" Andrea repeated, blushing a little more.
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Snake waited impatiently at the computer, keycard at the ready. He had radioed the rest of the team when he found the security cards and returned to the computer. It was a rather large computer, with a slot in the side for reading the card. It was connected to the main computer, and the little network was completely out of Otacon's reach.
A little motion was noticed out of the corner of Snake's eye, and he snapped his SOCOM up and aimed it in the direction.
He eased up when he saw Lynn with Andrea draped under her arm.
"She okay?" Snake asked, gesturing towards Andrea.
"She seems to have treated it," Lynn responded. She set Andrea down beside the computer. Andrea winced as her leg moved.
"How you holding up, Red?" Otacon inquired admirably.
"O-okay, I guess," Andrea replied. "A little weak, but I lost a little blood…"
"Don't worry about it," Otacon retorted. "Lynn lost a lot more blood than you, and she's still standing."
"But she's strong," Andrea protested. She watched Snake put the card in the slot, and a faint hum as the computer read the data. Snake held his breath as he waited for the result.
'Clearance Accepted' appeared on the screen, and the computer accessed the main database.
"Okay," Otacon said over the radio, "let me take over." Snake took out the little gizmo that Otacon had given him, and plugged it into the USB 4.0 port. Apparently, this thing had a wireless connection with Otacon's computer, so now he was able to search the whole computer. Andrea watched as some app launched on the screen, and scanned through the computer.
"How long is this going to take?" Snake asked impatiently after about a minute had passed.
"Have patience," Otacon responded.
"Lynn and Andrea were discovered, hostiles are probably scouring the area," Snake retorted. "Time is not something we have a lot of."
"There, it's done, happy?" Otacon replied. Files stopped scrolling across the screen.
"Well…?" Snake wondered aloud.
"Hold on," Otacon responded. "I'm looking…The database appears to be clean--hold on, what's this?"
Snake and Lynn looked at each other.
"Did you find anything?" Snake asked hopefully.
"There's a single encrypted folder," Otacon answered. "Hold on while I transfer it to my computer so I can decode it."
"More waiting," Snake mused.
Minutes passed, Lynn standing still, and Snake hunched over the computer.
"I'm looking at the file now," Otacon finally spoke up. "Wow…"
"What?" Snake diluted.
"There's a single paragraph in a text file…It says 'OC successful in integration to Shadow…'"
"OC? Snake repeated. "As in Optic Camouflage?"
"That sounds like it, and my guess is it's referring to the new Metal Gear…" Otacon deduced nervously.
"Metal Gear Shadow," Snake muttered. "If it had Optic Camouflage, the codename Shadow makes sense."
"But Snake," Otacon protested, "think about it--a Metal Gear with stealth capabilities? Large-scale integration of Optical Camouflage has never been done before on such a large object!"
Snake realized what this meant.
"So it's invisible to the naked eye, and can launch a nuke from any kind of terrain?"
"Oh, Jesus," Otacon announced. "I looked at the rest of the file. They've already managed to integrate other anti-detection gear as well."
"An invisible Metal Gear?" Snake choked. The thought chilled him to the core. Fighting a Metal Gear was bad enough--fighting one you couldn't see was even worse.
"Hold on, someone's at the door," Otacon interrupted. A large bang sounded, like a door being slammed open. Snake heard Otacon yell--
"--Snake! Someone's trying to--"
--The radio cut off.
"Otacon?" Snake yelled. "Otacon, what the hell just happened?"
Snake was now more worried than ever before.
Author's Note: Yes…the suspense left by this chapter leaves you wanting to know what happened, doesn't it? Well, wait for next chapter!