Author's Note: 13 chapters and still no reviews! Come on, people, give my story a chance! Well, if you've read up to this point, you obviously have.
Chapter 13: Influence
Because of the hectic night, Otacon had stayed out of everyone's way. And also, as a result of the hectic night, mostly everyone slept in until evening the following day; except for Raiden and Lynn. Raiden had come out into the living room at about noon that day to see Lynn doing push-ups on the floor.
"So tell me something," Jack said, going into the nearby kitchen to make himself some lunch, "what have you gotten yourself into?"
"Snake will explain that," Lynn said, huffing through her push-ups.
"Does this have to do with a Metal Gear?" Jack asked carefully. Lynn stayed silent. He eyed her suspiciously. "I thought so," he mumbled to himself.
"You've had an experience with Metal Gear before," Lynn guessed.
"If you could call it that," Jack answered from the kitchen. "It was more like a fateful meeting."
"There is no such thing as fate," Lynn huffed. Jack laughed.
"People can believe whatever they want to believe," he said. He became more occupied with his doings in the kitchen, and it was at that moment that Andrea hobbled up the stairs with some help from crutches Rose had given her.
"M-morning," Andrea said abashedly when she saw Lynn. The tough chick gave no response; she kept exercising. Andrea hobbled over to the couch and sat down, watching Lynn exercising.
"Come here," Lynn said, stopping and lying flat on the ground. "I need your weight." Curious, Andrea hobbled over to Lynn, her face pink.
"W-what do you need?" Andrea asked.
"Sit on my back as well-balanced as you can," Lynn instructed. "I need extra weight. Normal push-ups don't cut it any more."
"Um…okay," Andrea replied, and sat down nervously on Lynn's angular back. She laid her crutches against the nearby coffee table. Lynn started doing pushups, with a lot more stress than before. Andrea squeaked and tried to keep balance.
Jack was in the midst of eating some noodles when he started watching the two girls.
"They look cute together," Rose said from behind Jack, slipping her arm around his.
"Look out, I'm holding hot noodles," Jack warned, showing her the steaming bowl. The two stood there for a second, watching Lynn doing her pushups.
"They're the perfect two for protecting each other," Jack mentioned, as he diddled around with the noodles. "One's meek and shy, the other's cold and strong, both able to protect each other."
The rest of the day passed by, and it wasn't until the latter evening that the rest of Jack's guests woke up. Rose had prepared a large scale meal; it looked delicious to everyone who surrounded the table. Snake and Otacon hadn't eaten a good home cooked meal for a long time, Lynn basically survived on rations, and Andrea was very appreciatory.
"After this," Snake said, sitting down lastly, "things get explained." Everyone said thanks for the meal (Snake had to prod Lynn a few times to get her to) and dug in.
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Gagarin had been waiting impatiently for his two hit men to return. It was evening by the time he got a call from Yuri.
"Yuri, did you get them?" Gagarin inquired forcefully.
"No, Boss," the strong-accented man replied. "No one was home."
"DAMN!" Gagarin yelled, nearly chucking his cell phone across the room but realizing the stupidity of it. Ever since he had been told the news of the fourth Les Enfants survivor, he had been extremely on edge.
"Boss, we no mean for failure," Yuri consoled him. "We look around more, yes? They could not have gone far."
"Find them," Gagarin demanded simply. "If you don't…"
"We won't fail again," Yuri replied. "It's promise."
"Don't promise, get your incompetent asses out there and do your job!" Gagarin shouted, and slapped his phone shut. Useless fools, he thought. And so was Ocelot, now that he thought about it. The fool still hadn't managed to break into the PDA, and was scheduled to phone back with a progress update that very same evening.
Much to Gagarin's surprise, the phone rang three minutes after talking to Yuri. And, lo and behold, it was Ocelot.
"Please tell me you've decrypted that piece of techno-junk," Gagarin pleaded. "I can't handle any more failures today."
"You're in luck then, my friend," Ocelot answered intensely. "We've gotten past the PDA's lockouts."
"Then you have the location of Shadow, I presume?" Gagarin asked hopefully.
"Northern Canada," Ocelot replied drawn-out. "Gagarin, looks like your men are going across the border."
"I have friends high up in the Canadian government," Gagarin mused. "Getting in should be easy because of that."
"Good luck, my friend."
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"No," Jack replied bluntly.
"Come on, we need you!" Snake begged.
"I'm trying to build a new life for myself," Jack said in response. "Jack the Ripper is no more."
"Metal Gear might have a lead to Olga's child!" Snake tried. This caught Jack's attention. He considered it for a minute.
"I would, but, Rose comes first," Jack argued.
"Raiden, back when you killed Solidus--" Peterson noticeably stiffened "--weren't you the one that told me you were 'in?'" Snake demanded. Jack stayed silent.
"Go," Rose said from the side. "Jack, I know Olga's child means a lot to you, so I think this would ease your mind…"
"Rose, you're supposed to be stopping me from going!" Jack exclaimed. She smiled at him.
He punched the wall lightly. "Damnit. Fine, you have me. I'll go."
"All the help the better," Snake said.
"The most obvious place to try is the facility far north in Canada," Otacon spoke up. "We should get going tomorrow, and get the drop on them."
"Not much recovery time for you, huh?" Jack said to Andrea.
"M-my injury doesn't matter," Andrea replied softly.
"Anyways," Otacon continued, "We'll catch an early flight tomorrow, and once we hit Pearson Airport we'll find 'a way' to get to the facility."
"How do we do that?" Jack interjected. "I thought you said it was in the northern parts of Canada? The only way to reach it would be by plane."
"Otacon, are you suggesting we hijack a commercial airplane!" Snake exclaimed.
"Not a commercial one," Otacon corrected him wryly. "A small jet that can carry our small group."
"Otacon, you amaze me sometimes," Snake muttered.
"Who's going to pilot it?" Lynn asked.
"Me," Otacon answered simply. "I'll fly us right into that facility's runway."
"So that's our plan?" Jack confirmed, half-sarcastic.
"It's actually pretty good," Snake spoke up. "Getting the plane will be the hardest part."
"Well, you have a long day ahead of you tomorrow," Rose chirruped, so I'm going to start getting some things ready for you guys."
After an early bedtime and early rising, Jack was already packed up to go (thanks to Rose). Snake chanced a quick run to Otacon's apartment to retrieve some clothes for himself, Otacon, Lynn, and Andrea. Raiden and Peterson were waiting impatiently for Snake to return.
Alas, the six were on their way. The stealth suits would pass as normal clothes, but the weapons had to stay behind. Customs would have a freak show if they tried to carry weapons over the border.
Luckily, everyone had their passport, including Snake's doctored one. But it had passed before, so there was no reason why it wouldn't now.
O'Brian's van was jam-packed with six people riding in it, but somehow he managed to make it to the airport with little incident.
Snake laughed inwardly when he saw Lynn glancing around the airport. She had obviously never been on a plane before. Neither, as Snake saw Andrea hanging close to Lynn and slightly shaking from nervousness, had Andrea.
The six of them must've looked suspicious as they went up and bought their tickets; a lot of people were staring at them. Snake tried to ignore them as Lynn paid for the tickets with her seemingly-limitless credit card, which, now that Snake thought about it, was ultimately paid for by Peterson.
The six of them had their tickets, and waited around for an hour or so in the airport. Their flight arrived right on schedule, and they all piled in. It ended up it was a small 737 200-seater aircraft. Everyone took their seats; luckily the six of them had received two sets of seats paired together. In the one 3-seat section, Snake had window seat, Otacon sat in the middle, and Peterson ended up as the last man in that row. Behind them, Andrea unluckily received window seat but switched with Raiden (so was now in the aisle seat), and Lynn sat in the middle.
"You seem a little shaky," Jack mentioned as he noticed the small medic girl's arms clasped to the armrests. The plane hadn't even moved out of its loading bay yet.
"I-I've never flown before," Andrea admitted meekly.
"Thank god I have macho chick here beside you," Jack remarked. Lynn was also keeping a watchful eye on things too, so he had a sneaking suspicion that Lynn had never been on a plane either.
The plane finally started to move away from the loading bay and edge towards the runway. Andrea unconsciously tightened her grip on the armrests.
Then, things got really interesting.
The plane sped up at an abnormally fast pace, the feeling of vertigo evident on the small girl's face. She accidentally squeaked and closed her eyes as the plane's front end lifted off, causing even more vertigo.
The plane took a while to reach it's 36,000 feet cruising altitude, and leveled out. Andrea was breathing quite heavily.
"You seem a little more freaked out about this than most people," Jack mentioned to her.
"I-I'm af-fraid of h-heights," she admitted.
"Lynn, she's your girlfriend, talk to her to take her mind off her fear," Raiden suggested. Andrea didn't even notice what Jack had said.
"Why do I have to?" Lynn queried.
"Just be nice and do it," Jack answered simply. "Like, for example, tell her how her performance was during your mission in Manhattan."
"I d-didn't do al-ll that g-great," Andrea stammered. "I f-failed…"
"No, you actually exceeded expectations," Lynn corrected her evenly. Andrea's eyebrows shot up and her face regained some of it's color (her face had drained to a whitish shade).
"R-really?" Andrea inquired exasperatedly
"Expectations were that you would barely remember anything you were taught, and you would lose self-control on the battlefield. But you didn't, and I was wondering why that was," Lynn replied. "Where did your courage come from?"
"It was because…" Andrea began, but reciprocated from a light color all the way to red. She tried to pick up the courage to say what she was about to say. "It was because…I…I fought for someone….I….loved…."
Lynn's mind was confused. Was what that 'Rose' woman said true? Were feelings for someone a source of willpower? She certainly hadn't expected Delintoro to pull through, yet she had seriously startled Lynn with her usage of skills taught in the time of a week. Maybe the woman was right…but it had no bearing on Lynn, because she knew better than anyone else that she was completely emotionless.
But there was something, when she saw Delintoro, that she felt. Having never felt an emotion before in her life, she was very confused…she felt like she had to protect the girl because she was so powerless. The recruit had said back at the base that she didn't have a purpose for being there; yet a few minutes later she had made up her mind to protect Lynn from harm.
Now, was she empathetic about the young girl being so helpless, that these 'needs' to protect had been reciprocated?
Or was the girl starting to tear away at the barrier of loneliness and emotionless that had been build around Lynn since her birth?
Andrea had fallen asleep from exhaustion, and her head fell onto Lynn's shoulder. Her immediate reaction would've been to shove the girl's off her shoulder, but…for some reason, she just let it rest there, like she didn't care.
Author's Note: Whoa….that got real philosophical. The effects of love are stronger than most people think…