Rassvet

Mission Time: Day 2

0640 Hours

"Snake!"

The voice Snake snapped out of his reverie and he hunkered down. "Major?"

He heard Major Zero breathe a sigh of relief. "What the hell is going on over there?"

"We ran into a little trouble with the Ocelots," he said. "Nothing we couldn't handle."

"I see." Zero sounded a little wary. "In any case, you must proceed with the rescue of Sokolov. According to EVA, you should make your way to the crevasse in the north and-"

"Can we trust her?"

There was a pause. "What's that?"

"EVA is with the KGB, isn't she?" Snake reasoned. "Can I really believe what she says? How do I know she won't double-cross me?"

"There are no guarantees in espionage," Zero replied. "Only calculated guesses. You know that, Snake. At this point in time, the KGB stands nothing to gain by stabbing us in the back."

Snake threw a glance at the grooved trenches EVA's motorcycle had made in the dirt. "So you're saying I can trust her?"

"What I'm saying," Zero said slowly, "is the chance that she'll betray you is low."

Snake grunted. He'd thought the chances The Boss would betray her country, betray him, rested comfortably at nil until a week ago.

"Of course," Zero went on, "we checked the route she gave you against our data. It looked like a pretty solid infiltration route. It makes good use of weak spots in the enemy's defense. You shouldn't have any problems. Follow the route EVA showed you and proceed with the mission."

"Roger."

"But before you do," Zero added, "perhaps it's time you get acquainted with the newest person in your support unit."

Snake's brow furrowed as the codec squelched and a new voice sounded.

"Yo!" It was a young black man's voice, soft, with a measured lilt of a Southern twang buried there. "You're Snake, aren't you?"

"And you're Sigint?"

"None other."

"I heard you're an expert on weapons, equipment, and cutting-edge technology."

"Wrong."

Snake frowned. Had Zero misinformed him?

Then he heard Sigint chuckle. "I am the expert on weapons, equipment, and cutting-edge technology."

Snake sighed. My support unit's a bunch of comedians.

"I'm the guy who designed all of your equipment," Sigint went on. "You got a question about weaponry or technology in the field, you give me a holler."

"Roger that, Sigint." He paused. "Sigint... what's that mean, anyway?"

"It's short for 'Signal Intelligence,'" Sigint said. "You know, the part of intelligence that deals with electronic information. Things like intercepting and analyzing electronic communications, determining enemy force strength and positioning from radar emissions and radio chatter . . . you get the idea."

Snake did.

"Codebreaking is considered part of our auspices as well," Sigint went on. "Forty years from now, we'll be in the age of electronic warfare." He sighed wistfully. "It won't be long before information replaces firepower as the most valuable commodity on the battlefield."

Snake arched an eyebrow. "So you're saying they won't need guys like me anymore?"

"Sorry to break it to you, but that's not gonna happen. No matter how advanced our technology gets, there's still no substitute for human beings."

That's a ringing endorsement for job security.

"Anyway," Sigint went on, "the major is a man of foresight. He knew the electronic age was coming, and so he called out to me."

"And you responded?"

"Well, I didn't have anything else to do."

"You couldn't find a job?"

"Nope." Now Sigint's chipper tone sounded bitter. "Nope. None of the places where they do this kind of high-tech research would even let me in the door."

"Why not?" Snake was confused. If this guy was supposedly the best, why would they turn away someone of his talent?

Now Sigint's voice sounded indignant. "Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I'm black."

Nice one. "Sorry."

Then Sigint sighed. "The major, though, he doesn't care about what color you are. I've never met anyone like him before. He's . . . different, you know?"

Snake couldn't help but smile. "Oh, yeah. I know."

"I don't think racism's going to go away, even in the twenty-first century. But I want to work with computers and use them to bring people closer together. In the digital world, it doesn't matter whether you're black or white, American or Russian, or whatever. Everybody's going to be the same. That's what I think."

That's a helluva dream, Snake thought, but he had his doubts.

"If you two are quite finished," Major Zero's voice broke in, "can we allow for Snake to carry on his mission?"

"Ah, yes, Major," Sigint said. "In any case, Snake, if you need anything, I'll be here."

"Thanks, Sigint."

"EVA said the crevasse was to the north," Zero said. "So head that way."

Snake nodded and rose to his feet. The jungle around him seemed to boil with verdant life, an immense wall that seemed preparing to crash down on top of him. If he was going to be journeying into that unknown, he decided, it would be best if he made sure he was as fully stocked as possible.

He went back into the factory, found the bodies of the Spetsnaz troops he'd gunned down. He checked each corpse carefully, taking what equipment he could salvage. He hooked a pair of pineapple grenades to his belt, slung a Scorpion submachine gun over one shoulder and stuffed a pair of extra clips into his belt. He doubted he'd need this amount of firepower, but The Boss had always told him that if he didn't take what he needed, the enemy would.

The Boss. He doubted he could scrounge up the firepower needed to take her down.

"Snake?"

It was Para-Medic. Snake started back out of the factory. "Yeah?"

"Whatever happens to you, make sure you leave a descendant, okay?"

Snake couldn't suppress a chuckle. "Are you saying you want to have my baby?"

"No," Para-Medic said, though she sounded amused. "I'm saying that in the twenty-first century, the genes of soldiers like you are going to be in high demand."

"Genes?"

"Indeed. Remember when Watson and Crick discovered the double helix structure of DNA back in 1953?"

Snake stepped into the sunlight, held his .45 at the ready. "No."

"You know, they won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for it the year before last?" Para-Medic sighed. "Of course, you have to feel sorry for Pauling and Franklin. They were researching the exact same thing."

What the hell is she talking about now? "I don't follow."

"Inside every living creature are little blueprints called genes," Para-Medic explained brightly. "Through the union of the sperm and egg cells, these blueprints are transformed and inherited by the next generation. That's why parents and children resemble each other. The concept of genes was first proposed over a hundred years ago by Mendel..."

Snake listened to Para-Medic prattle on about things like chromosomes and DNA and things called polypeptides, then broke in, "This is all very fascinating, Para-Medic, but what exactly does it have to do with me?"

Para-Medic sighed. "The inherent characteristics of any given individual are determined by his or her genes. By duplicating a set of superior genes, a separate body with the same set of characteristics-what we call a clone-can be created."

Snake marked north, started towards the jungle. "But genes don't control a person's fate," he said.

"That's true. But having an offspring that's genetically identical to the parent is more efficient, right? You can expect better results that way."

"More efficient?" Snake was aghast. "You can't mass-produce human beings!"

"Maybe," Para-Medic said. "But now that we know the true nature of genes, human cloning is that much closer to reality. Nuclear transplanting is already theoretically possible. So one day..."

"What, my genes are going to be a valuable commodity?"

"Exactly."

Snake scoffed. "They'd never let that happen."

"Just think, Snake: even if your body dies, you survive and go on to bigger and better accomplishments. If you think about it, it's kind of an honor."

"Does that kind of technology seriously appeal to you?"

"Well, I am a doctor." She noted his silence, then said, "I can't condone it on moral grounds, but I'm fascinated by the possibilities. Especially when I see such an excellent specimen as yourself."

The compliment didn't ease Snake's mind on the subject.

"Don't be so glum," Para-Medic said. "It's not like it's going to happen anytime soon. We'll just have to wait and see." She paused, then said, "It's funny, isn't it?"

"What's that?"

"The temptation EVA was talking about," Para-Medic said. "Remember the story of Eve? How she was seduced by the snake into tasting the fruit of knowledge."

Snake couldn't help but smile. "Come to think of it, I did break a rib in the Virtuous Mission. Maybe that's where EVA came from."

"But Eve's the one who tempted Adam into eating the forbidden fruit," Para-Medic reminded him. "You may be working together, but remember: she's still a KGB operative. Don't let your guard down."

"I don't intend to." Snake secured his grip on the .45 and forged ahead into the jungle.

Before long, Snake was hot and sweaty and miserable, but he trudged along without complaint, stopping only when he heard any sort of sound that didn't sound natural. He pushed north, hoping that he hadn't bypassed the crevasse EVA had been talking about.

He couldn't get her out of his head. Her calm yet brash confidence seemed to blaze high, something he'd never seen in a woman before. She wasn't as eager as Para-Medic, but she lacked the glacial gravitas of The Boss. And yet, there was an allure to her, something he hadn't been prepared to encounter on the mission. That was the second time he'd been shocked by a woman, and he hoped it wouldn't end as badly as it had the first time.

He noticed that the ground underfoot was starting to get muddy, his boots sinking into the moist earth. The trees thinned out to a vast, mirror-smooth swamp of murky green water.

Snake tossed a pebble into the water, watching the ripples spread out like shock waves.

Shit, he thought, looking around. He didn't see a footbridge in sight. Nor did he see any way to skirt the marsh, not unless he wanted to wander way off course.

The Boss had taught him that when it came between personal comfort and the mission, the mission was always priority. And even though The Boss was now his enemy, her words were still gospel.

Guess I'm going for a dip, he thought sourly.

He tucked his handgun in his shirt to keep it dry, raised the Scorpion over his head, and stepped forward. He sank up to his calves in the slurry. He slogged forward, his boots making sucking sounds as he pulled them out of the mud. Moving only a few meters sapped his energy.

When he was waist-deep in the marsh, he saw the water ripple to his left. He remembered, quite vividly, the crocodile he'd seen the previous night. He lowered the Scorpion and fired a burst at the ripples . . . and the shredded carcass of a fish rose in a pink bloom.

You're getting jumpy.

He cursed himself and continued forward. If he'd panicked like that in front of The Boss, she would've given him a swift kick to the temple for his trouble.

It took him almost an hour to wade through the marsh. There were times where the muck felt like it was going to suck him down and swallow him whole, and there was one blood-freezing moment where he'd had to snag on a nearby vine to keep from being dragged under. If he managed to make it out of this, he'd be lucky if he didn't pass out from exhaustion before he made it to the crevasse.

When he finally made it to the other end of the marsh, he looked down at his fatigues. They were soaked, slick with mud . . . and something else. On his bare skin, he saw four or five dark blotches that he realized were leeches. He cursed again, reached for his knife . . . and then stopped. It wasn't going to do to cut them away, or even pluck them away. What was it the boys had said in Korea, whenever they'd found the little bastards clinging to their legs after they went wading through swamps? You had to burn the suckers off.

He reached in his shirt pocket, pulled a cigar out and clamped it between his teeth. He'd smuggled a half-dozen of them in this time, without the major's knowledge. They didn't do a damn bit of good on a sneaking mission, but as Zero had pointed out, this wasn't a sneaking mission anymore.

He found his Zippo lighter and sparked it, touching the flame to his cigar. He took a long, nerve-calming drag, then took the cigar out and looked at the burning ember carefully. He then tapped the fiery eye gently against one of the leeches. There was a hiss, a sizzle, and the fat leech dropped from his arm, leaving a bloody streak on his arm. He did this again and again until he was sure they were all gone.

He took another puff on the cigar, then looked at it sadly. There was no time to enjoy it. Shame. He flicked it away, watched it snuff itself out in the swamp. Let the leeches enjoy it.

He drew his handgun from his shirt, made sure no water had gotten into it, and then continued on.

After another hour of trying to slip like a thief through the jungle, Snake arrived at an obstacle he hadn't foreseen. It was an obstacle that, had he not been looking down at precisely the right moment, would have ended his mission as efficiently as any nuclear blast.

Parting the wide, slick leaves of a tree, Snake glanced down . . . and froze as if a magnetic field had locked him in place. There was something strung on the ground, about eight inches off the ground. A tripwire. Snake's eyes followed the almost invisible cord to the base of the nearby tree. There, he saw an amorphous-looking contraption plastered to the base of the trunk. It was a dull green color, and as Snake's eyes raked over the wire that was tautly attached to the device's gently curved casing. He recognized it immediately. He tapped the codec.

"Sigint," he whispered. "They've wired the place with claymores."

"Claymores?" The young engineer's voice sounded maddeningly cheerful despite the situation. "You sure?"

Snake was positive, and why not? In Korea, he'd seen soldiers on both sides torn apart by them. The claymores were loaded with hundreds of tiny ball-bearings that would explode outward in all directions when the mine went off. Anyone in the blast radius would be ripped to ribbons. "Definitely looks American," he observed. "How did they get a hold of them?"

"Any number of reasons," Sigint said promptly. "Could be leftovers from the Korean War, or they outright stole them from the West. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if that's a perfect duplicate. Claymores aren't that complicated. The Soviets must be learning a lot from them. It might not be long before we start seeing more 'Claymorasky' mines."

He chuckled at his little joke. Snake fumed sourly. He carefully crept past the claymore, his gaze fixed on every patch of ground, every strip of bark, every splash of foliage.

They just can't cut me a break, he thought.

He moved for what seemed like hours through the brush, taking great pains not to put his foot down unless he knew it wasn't going to be triggering any mines or traps. At one particularly agonizing part in his pathway, he spent a good thirty minutes trying to slip between two criss-crossed wires. And—

Snake froze in place as he heard a hum and a chirp—had he triggered one of the mines? He didn't move, didn't breathe until he realized the chirp was coming from his codec. He cursed himself. He was letting his nerves get the better of him.

The chirp came again, and a hushed voice followed: "Snake, are you there?"

Snake felt his breath catch in his throat—a feeling he was quite unused to. "EVA?"

"Did you miss me?" She sounded amused.

"Did you make it without any trouble."

"No one saw me," she assured him.

"So you're back with Volgin?"

A brief pause. "In a matter of speaking."

"What about The Boss?" Snake pressed.

"Yeah, she's here, too."

Snake suspected as much, and he felt a pang of regret and fear at EVA's response. If the KGB spy was found out . . .

"Better be careful," he warned her.

"Thanks, I will." EVA paused again. "The Boss and I get along pretty well, though."

"Why's that?"

"I don't know. I guess we traitors have a lot in common."

Snake reached forward and brushed away palm fronds, peering ahead in the dense jungle. "Why would anyone want to defect?" he muttered aloud. "Betraying your country like that . . ." He suppressed a shudder, choked it down. "I just don't get it."

"Are you talking about The Boss?" EVA asked softly.

"Why'd you do it?" Snake crept forward, imagining EVA standing before him. Those soft features, that knowing smile. That enigmatic and maddening smile. "Weren't you born and raised in America?"

"Yes. In a small rural town." Now EVA's voice seemed to soften, taking on a ruminating tone. "I never even knew there were other countries, other cultures, other ways of thinking. Until I went to work for the NSA and saw . . ." She trailed off, then sighed. "One day, I'd found I'd lost faith in the things I'd been taking for granted."

"What did you see?"

"What?"

"What was it that made you want to change sides?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Snake marked a claymore mine wreathed in moss on the forest floor. He sidestepped it nimbly. "Try me."

"I saw the universe."

Snake's brow furrowed. "The universe?"

"Not the actual universe," she said in a whisper. "The universe as the intelligence community sees it. I realized that the gravity in this universe is holding me back. That's all. People and their countries are both changed by the environment." She paused, then added, "And by the times."

Snake remembered what The Boss had told him, first during the Virtuous Mission and then the previous night in the jungle. "That sounds like what The Boss was saying."

"There's a world of difference between this country and America," EVA explained. "But it's only a difference of position. A difference of perspective. But coming here made me realize something."

"What?"

"Half of what I'd been told was a complete and utter lie," she said. "And the other half was a conveniently constructed lie."

Snake stepped carefully over another tripwire. "Where's the truth, then?"

"It's hidden in the lies."

"Are you lying, too?"

"Who knows?" EVA's response sounded both flippant and mournful. "I've been trained to make even the most severe falsehood sound like the God's honest truth. Weren't you?"

"No," Snake grunted. "I believe because I have to. Even if it is a lie. That's part of my mission."

"I'll have to remember that," EVA said. "I've got to get back soon, or Volgin will start to suspect something."

"He's a real piece of work, huh?"

"You don't know the half of it," EVA said. "Have you heard about the massacre that happened during the war in the village of Gnezdovo?"

Snake nodded. "The Katyn Forest Massacre, right?"

"During World War II," EVA explained, "the German army stumbled upon the bodies of four thousand dead Polish outside the forest of Katyn. Germany blamed the Soviet Union, but the Soviets denied it, blaming Germany in return. The truth is that Stalin ordered the NKVD to carry out the killings. And it wasn't just Katyn. In places like the Western Ukraine and Belarus, there must have been at least twenty thousand Poles in the prison camps."

Enough to make you wonder who your allies really were, Snake thought. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Volgin was one of the people responsible," EVA replied. "He was one of the vicious leaders behind it."

"Volgin?"

"He blamed it on a prisoner revolt to allay any fears, and requested that they be put to death." She hesitated, then added, "I've heard that Volgin even removed the blindfolds from each prisoner before he beat them to death."

Snake shuddered. "I knew he wasn't all there in the head, but this . . ."

"Not someone you could be friends with, huh?"

That's one hell of an understatement. Snake moved to switch off the codec, when a question that had been nagging him sprang to the forefront of his mind.

"There's something else I wanted to ask you, EVA," Snake said.

"What?"

"About Ocelot."

EVA chuckled. "Yeah, I know. He is pretty infatuated with you, isn't he?"

"That's not what I meant," he grunted. "Aren't the Ocelots supposed to be an elite unit?"

"Yeah."

"So how did he get to be their commander? He can't be any older than eighteen, nineteen at the oldest. And he's already a major?"

"I asked the same question myself," EVA replied. "And I heard the colonel say that he's been given special treatment."

"Special treatment?"

"Yeah. He's the son of some war hero or something."

War hero, huh? Even Ike couldn't make his own kid a major during the war. "So who is this hero, anyway?"

"Beats me. The colonel never said." She paused. "There was something odd, though."

"What?"

"He said that his mother was supposedly shot in the gut and that he was born right there, with bullets whizzing all around them."

"A pregnant woman in the middle of a battle?"

"It doesn't surprise me," EVA said. "There were civilians caught in the crossfire in all sorts of skirmishes along the Eastern Front. They say when they stitched her up, the scar was shaped like a snake."

Well, that's battlefield medicine for you. "What about his father? This legendary hero?"

"He didn't say. I don't think Ocelot's ever met his parents."

"Are they dead?"

"Maybe. I don't know. There were a lot of MIAs back then, during the final days of the war. Ocelot probably would've ended up the same way, but he was taken in and raised by GRU and Volgin."

"Because he was special."

"That's my guess. In any case, if you need to give me a call on the radio, my frequency is 142.52." A pause, then: "Be seeing you."

The codec squeaked off. Snake clenched and unclenched his hands as he moved on, wondering if at the end of this mission he would put them around EVA's waist . . . or her throat.