OPERATION INTRUDE N313
DAY FIVE – 2042 HOURS
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT FACILITY – WEAPONS COMBAT TESTING ROOM
Snake's heartbeat pounded in his ears; his temples were throbbing as he felt like his skull was squeezing in on itself. His lungs were a raging inferno, his chest constricted as his limbs and reflexes catapulted him at speeds of which he didn't know that he was capable.
Snake ducked and rolled, narrowly avoiding a fist the size of a small melon embedding itself deep into the concrete behind where his head was with the speed and force of a freight train. As he rolled, he curled his legs tightly to his torso so he could pull his handcuffed hands around them and get his arms in front of him. Without looking back, he sprinted away as fast as his legs could carry him. Bullets trailed in the floor in front of him, forcing him to skid to a stop and change direction.
Every light felt brighter, every visual detail was thrown into a sharp focus with perfect clarity. His body moved faster than his own conscious thought as it struggled to keep him alive, vaulting him over kicks from legs as large as tree trunks, diving and rolling under the frames of the biomechanical demigods who wanted him dead.
It didn't take long for him to be cornered on all three sides once again, his back to the wall. Three pairs of glowing eyes sparked in rage as they approached menacingly. "While I appreciate the sport, Snake," Commander Gamba taunted, "running will not save you. Perhaps you should submit; lay down and die. You would suffer far less."
Snake remembered Big Boss's words to him. "Never give up…even when the odds are against you," he muttered to himself.
"What was that?" Cmdr. Gamba asked.
Instead of answering, Snake turned and rushed to the Bloody Brad closest to the wall, ducked the soldier's lunging and jumped up to vault off the thigh of the bioroid's bent left leg towards the wall. He then kicked off the wall to get some height and distance over the lunging BB's shoulder, allowing Snake to wrap his handcuffs around the super soldier's neck. Snake jumped from side to side along the Brad's back to keep out of the mercenary's reach, using legs as leverage as he pushed with his feet between the giant's shoulder blades and pulled with his handcuffs around the neck.
He could feel the neck muscles under his hands tightening as his victim thrashed about.
"Shoot him!" came the strangled digitized scream gurgling from the choking Brad. Gamba's other subordinate opened fire, and Gamba swiftly stepped to the side and disappeared. Snake ducked behind his victim for the armored protection and yanked back as hard as he was able. He wondered what would give first—the handcuffs, or the bioroid's windpipe. Just as he was beginning to feel the giant start to go limp, he received his answer as the small chain broke from the strain against the enhanced sternocleidomastoid.
Snake landed painfully onto the ground and quickly rolled out of the way as the bioroid fell back after him. He reached for the P90 strapped to the merc's thigh and just as he grabbed it, he felt the presence of Gamba looming over him, and the intense squeeze of Gamba's fingers around his skull.
This time it was Snake's turn to feel a painful strain in his neck as he felt Gamba lift him like a ragdoll and toss him across the length of the pit. His lungs emptied and he coughed for breath as he pushed up on his elbows and lifted his head and shoulders to look up. Miraculously, the fingers of his right hand still held the P90 in his death grip. He had just enough time to register Gamba's conscious subordinate checking on the one he'd just subdued before Gamba disappeared, boomed across the pit and flashed into existence in front of him.
To his credit, Snake reacted quickly, raising the P90 and blasting as many rounds as he could up Gamba's chest, pinging off of the Commander's armor. Snake rolled as Gamba cracked the ground where Snake's ribcage had been and tried again to fire on Gamba's head. The biomechanical titan flinched, and his form seemed to melt around the small projectiles as he dodged and charged Snake, pinning him to the wall with his giant hand around the operative's throat.
Snake flailed and struggled to keep gravity from choking him as he dropped his weapon and grabbed tightly on Gamba's fingers. Commander Gamba turned his head slightly in the direction of his subordinate, a lazy look in his eyes. "Captain Bolade," he said in a booming electric screech. "What is Lieutenant Ola's status?"
The giant called Bolade was pressing his fingers on the fallen one's neck. "Unconscious, sir," said Bolade, "but alive."
Gamba returned his attention to Snake. "First you kill Lt. Olivier, then you manage to best another of my men—while unarmed and restrained, at that! I truly am impressed, Snake. You are a worthy opponent."
Gamba dropped Snake onto the ground. The FOXHOUNDer dropped to his knees upon landing, coughing and wheezing painfully as he massaged his throat. Commander Gamba flash stepped ten yards away, clutching the weapon Snake stole.
"I offer you a choice, Snake. Surrender now and submit, and you will be permitted to join the ranks of Outer Heaven. You have proven to be a warrior more than worthy of us—if you come to us, we will embrace you as brothers and you will join a family that truly appreciates a soldier of your caliber. Accept our leader Ahab as your true father, as we once did, and climb to the heights of Valhalla alongside us."
Commander Gamba tossed the P90 onto the ground five yards in front of him with a careless, sarcastic flick of his wrist.
"Otherwise," he said, dragging out the word. "Pick up the weapon and arm yourself, and we will give you the greatest and most honorable gift that warriors such as we can receive: a glorious death."
Cmdr. Gamba stretched out his arms, beckoning. "Choose."
In the observation room, Jennifer watched the scene unfold with equal measures of horror and amazement. The death of her last spy came as a shock, and now she was so close to losing her last and final chance to get her brother out of this hellhole. As the American fought the enhanced soldiers below them, it stunned her at how he continued to fight in spite of the ever widening gulf between him and his enemies' capabilities.
Jennifer had been brought in to provide medical attention after the skirmish in the event that one of the Bloody Brads would be injured. When they had told her this, she didn't think it was a realistic possibility, and neither did the team she'd been brought in with. However, they were quick to be reminded that the American spy had already successfully killed one of the elites, so it was prudent to be prepared for anything.
Watching Snake fight, she was beginning to see the wisdom in this line of thinking. The man moved like something between a machine and a ferocious beast. Single-minded and focused in purpose, but exact and precise, almost analytical. There was no desperation or panic in his movements, just perfectly timed action and reaction.
It reminded her of the Bloody Brad unit themselves. She thought of their first meeting hours ago, the steel in his eyes, the wide-eyed predator's stare and inhuman detachment in his expression. To her, he appeared to be a carefully constructed instrument of death, a beast bred for war. Even when unarmed, he still gave the enhanced BBs a run for their money. But even Snake had his limits—he was injured, outmatched, and outnumbered, even with Lt. Ola temporarily incapacitated. The only out that Jennifer could see for Snake would be to either go down fighting or accept Gamba's offer.
"Magnificent, aren't they? The bio-augments, I mean."
Jennifer looked at the gray-haired bespectacled man in a lab coat standing ahead of her. The man had a rough Russian accent, a pencil-thin salt and pepper moustache, and a pencil behind his ear. He was the head of Outer Heaven's R&D division, Dr. Mikhail Petrokov. Jennifer didn't know much about him, except that he'd been with the company since before they arrived in South Africa when it had a different name, and that he was an expert in biomechatronics. He observed the scene below with the same fascination as Jennifer, but there was a gleam in his eye, a giddiness.
"Those boys are truly my greatest achievement—the true sons of Outer Heaven. Look at how they fight. It is sublime!" Dr. Petrokov exclaimed. He moved closer to the window, peering down at Snake. "Gamba has good instincts, trying to recruit the American. That man, the way he moves, it is so similar to Ahab. I wonder who trained him to fight like that?"
Dr. Petrokov smiled. "Oh, how I would love to have him come to me as a test subject! If he were to join us, I could make him even stronger than Gamba, perhaps even as good as Ahab himself!" He looked to Jennifer. "Wouldn't you agree?"
Jennifer nodded nervously, biting her lip. Regardless of whether Snake refuses or accepts Cmdr. Gamba's ultimatum, her brother would be lost in either case without intervention.
Jennifer looked around. There was a weapons rack on the back wall with a manual lift, meant to be delivered to the researchers and weapons testers in the pit for live-fire testing. The ammunition was kept separate in locked steel cases on the opposite side of the room from the rack on the opposite side of the long room from her.
Would the place be stocked with explosive weaponry, like portable rockets? That might be enough to give Snake a fighting chance and put down the Bloody Brads. Jennifer looked around. There were two guards accompanying her and the scientist posted at each of the doors, and she was unarmed. If she acted, she might be able to do something, but she might die in the process and even if by some miracle she didn't, she'd definitely be blowing her own cover.
Her lips tightened into a thin line. No, she thought to herself. I will save Wikus, even if it kills me.
She walked up to one of the guards by the door. "I'm going to step out for a moment and use the facilities. Please send for me if an emergency occurs in my absence," she said.
The Outer Heaven mercenary nodded, but otherwise said nothing. She stepped outside of the merc's peripheral vision just behind him, eyeing the sidearm holster on his right thigh as she passed. Just as she reached up to open the door, she quickly grabbed the pistol from its holster and blasted the merc in the head and then quickly shot the other mercenary several times in the chest before he had time to react.
Petrokov wheeled around, shouting and crouching low to the ground. He reached for the alarm button on the central console, but Jennifer shot the console and then quickly put the gun barrel to his head.
"Don't move," she warned.
"Another Resistance spy?" Petrokov said out loud to himself.
"Unlock the ammo container," Jennifer commanded.
The sound of gunshots echoed from the observation window above, muffled by the glass windows and stealing the attention of the pit's occupants. Shortly afterward there was a screech of metal followed by a boom as a metal equipment lift sped down and slammed into the ground. The metal scissor gate squealed open, revealing Jennifer holding an aging scientist at gunpoint next to a stack of metal crates. Jennifer kicked open a crate on the ground, revealing a Stinger missile launcher.
"SNAKE, OVER HERE!" she shouted.
Recovering his wits, Snake dove forward and scooped up the P90 mid-roll, unloading every round in the magazine into the two bionic giants. The Bloody Brads covered their faces as Snake laid down fire, moving backward to the lift as he did so. As soon as the magazine in the submachine gun went dry, Snake tossed it aside and yanked the Stinger from the foam in its metal case, punching the on button on its targeting display as he pointed at the bioroids.
At this range it would be difficult to miss, so he fired before the onboard display of the launcher could give a targeting solution. It hit Commander Gamba and narrowly missed Cpt. Bolade, who quickly recovered and flash-stepped into a lunge at the lift and its occupants. Snake barely had a chance to grab the other two people and fall back onto the ground to just barely avoid Bolade's fist above them.
Without conscious thought, Jennifer raised her pistol at Bolade's face and fired three times at the super soldier's head. She missed her first two shots, and her third glanced off Bolade's head, damaging his face mask. Bolade's eyes widened in panic, starting to reach with his off hand to clutch at his face. Siezing his opportunity, Snake reached up and grabbed at the mask before Bolad got his hand on it and pushing his boot up against Bolade's neck for leverage, Snake pulled at the mask as hard as he could.
The mask came free, but there was more to it than Snake had been expecting—he thought it was a simple gas mask or other breathing apparatus worn over his face. In reality, the electronic mechanism in the mask was connected to some kind of barbed cable that extended into Bolade's open mouth and down his throat. When the mask came free from Bolade's face, Snake's pushing with his foot and yanking hard on the mask caused the cable to be forcibly be pulled up and out of Bolade's throat, with the barbed cable covered in bloody chunks.
With the apparatus removed, Snake had nothing to brace for and his legs pushed the heavy soldier away. Bolade's mouth comically flopped open like a macabre puppet as he clutched at his neck, coughing and making horrific choking sounds as his eyes widened like a fish and his mouth spewed blood and stomach acids. Within moments, the giant fell over, having bled to death.
Snake pushed himself up, covered down his front in the cyborg's bloody vomit. He still clutched the strange gore-covered device in his hand, stunned. He looked down at it, whispering, "What the fuck…?"
Jennifer and the doctor stood up, both looking just as dumb founded as Snake did. Jennifer looked from Snake to Bolade before looking up and shouting, "Snake, look out!"
The smoke in front of them cleared, showing Cmdr. Gamba stooping over Lt. Ola's body. Gamba was clutching at a heavily bleeding shoulder; a huge chunk of his torso and his arm were missing. He put the bloody forefingers against Ola's neck before pulling back his hand and clutching his shoulder once more. Two red streaks were left on Ola's skin.
"He's dead," Gamba said. "He must have died while we were fighting."
Commander Gamba looked from Lt. Ola to the corpse of Cpt. Bolade, before raising his eyes to Snake. This time there was no rage in Gamba's eyes, like there was when Snake had killed Lt. Olivier earlier that day. Instead, there was a sort of glazed-over lack of focus, like his attention was on something far away. He glanced over to the doctor.
"It's just me now, isn't it, Dr. Petrokov? I'm the last one."
Petrokov nodded solemnly, paying no mind to the armed woman next to him who had had him at gunpoint just moments before. "I'm afraid so, son."
Cmdr. Gamba fell over onto his side. Petrokov ran over and got onto his knees to cradle the commander's head. Snake and Jennifer were too mystified by the situation to try and stop him.
"Do you think our leader, our…father…would he be proud?" Gamba's electronic voice crackled. It sounded like he was wheezing.
Petrokov's eyes filled with tears. "I know you did. You were Ahab's finest, after all."
"And you, doctor? Did we…make you proud?"
Petrokov gripped and squeezed Gamba's bloody hand. "You were my finest creations. You were my boys," he said. He lowered his voice and continued, "and you are the strongest, bravest boys I've ever had the honor to know."
Gamba sighed contentedly.
Snake stepped forward. "I don't understand," he said. "You're not going to regenerate and keep fighting?"
Gamba looked up at Snake with mild surprise, as if he was only just seeing him for the first time. He shook his head lightly. "No…no, I don't think so. Without my brothers, my friends…I don't see the point. Besides, I've known nothing but fighting my whole life. I am tired…ready to be done."
Gamba let go of Petrokov's hand to pull a sidearm from his thigh holster. Snake tensed for a moment before Gamba simply tossed it in Snake's direction. "You have won your victory, fair and square, Snake," he said. "I only have one final request. I want you to finish it properly. Send me along off this mortal plane, so I can see my brothers again in the real Outer Heaven."
Snake stooped over and picked up the pistol. He looked down wordlessly at the Beretta, then over to Gamba. "Why?" he asked, more to himself than anything.
"It's the only way I'll ever get to know if peace truly exists," Gamba answered.
Petrokov gently let Gamba's head down onto the ground and stepped away out of the line of fire. Snake felt lightheaded, like he was going to feel ill. None of this made any sense to him—it didn't feel right. Snake stepped closer to Gamba's prone form and raised the pistol to point at Gamba's face.
"You're sure this is what you want?" Snake whispered, hoping to hell that Gamba would try to talk him out of it.
Instead, Gamba only nodded. "I'm ready," he said simply.
Snake squeezed the trigger, and the glow left Cmdr. Gamba's eyes. Snake lowered his pistol, realizing just how tired he felt. Every inch of his body felt sore and broken, and he felt an exhaustion so thorough that he believed that if he sat down now, he would fall asleep instantly and maybe not even wake up.
Snake turned his head lazily to regard the Russian doctor, who was openly weeping. "You're the one who augmented these guys, weren't you? You called them your boys."
Petrokov said nothing, only nodded.
"They called Venom their father. Why?"
Petrokov looked up into Snake's dull eyes, and sighed. "They say war is hell, American. But it isn't true. Because hell only takes the guilty. War has no such discrimination—it feeds on the guilty and the innocent alike."
He looked over the Brads. "They were children when they were pressed into service. Victims of a war that wasn't theirs, forced to fight by the older men of their villages and by the private mercenaries after them. Once they were deemed no longer useful, they were betrayed and imprisoned…they were used as test subjects, guinea pigs by private mercenaries acting on behalf of an American intelligence agency."
Snake froze. "What were they testing?" he asked, dreading the answer.
"A biological weapon. A horrific disease based on parasites, not unlike malaria. It killed their friends and neighbors; it nearly killed them. It had an unintended side of effect of granting these boys increased muscle strength and inhuman speed and reflexes, but it came at the cost of their capacity for speech. That's why we installed electronic voice boxes into their throats and gave them masks to prevent the disease's spread. Once they had hit puberty, it was too late to free them of the infection, but with the help of the old man we'd met, God rest his soul, we were able to give the children a chance at life."
Snake's blood ran cold. Weapons testing on children? His fingers involuntarily curled and clenched into a fist. "And then you put the child soldiers right back on the battlefield, is that it?" Snake accused.
Petrokov shook his head. "They were rescued by Ahab. We tried to treat them and then find ways to give them an education. All they had known was war, almost since birth—we wanted to give them an alternative to that. But the children, they couldn't let it go—fighting was all they knew, and they were surrounded by people who had taken up that lifestyle willingly for themselves. They begged Ahab to become one of us, and then rebelled when Ahab refused.
"Though we tried to avoid it, there was some…violence. When the boys came of age, we could no longer refuse, and whether it be due to gratitude to Ahab for saving their lives or simply out of a desire to return to the only home they ever knew on the battlefield, the children joined Outer Heaven. Eventually, they came to think of Ahab as their father. And with the help of the dying old scientist we had met, I built them their exoskeletons to enhance their bodies even further than what the bioweapon had done to them, with the added benefit of giving them a way to join us without fear of spreading the disease to anyone else."
Snake looked to the bloody mouth of Bolade's corpse and the discarded voice box he had ripped from the corpse's throat. Snake wiped his bloody hand on his pants. Petrokov shook his head.
"There is no need to worry about further spread," Petrokov explained. "It's a parasite, not a viral macrophage or bacterial infection. When the host dies, the organism dies with it. The bioweapon was ultimately scrapped in its testing phase, and these boys…" He looked around sadly as he gestured to the bioroids' bodies, "These boys were all that was left of the infected."
Petrokov sighed and slowly walked over to the nearest wall, pressing his back against it and sliding down to sit on the ground. He curled up and grabbed his head in his hands, sobbing softly for a few seconds before looking up at Jennifer. "You're with the Resistance, aren't you?"
"That's right," Jennifer said, pointing her pistol at him. "Where are the other spies that Outer Heaven captured? Tell me, if you want to live."
Petrokov shook his head. "I'm dead anyway," he muttered.
"Do you even know?" Snake asked.
Petrokov looked up at Snake. "You. American. You're not a Resistance member, are you?"
Snake didn't even have the energy to be surprised anymore. "What gave it away?"
"The way you fight. It's not like the guerilla fighters here in South Africa. It's more similar to how the mercenaries here are trained. You fight like him, like…Ahab."
"I fight like your leader?" Snake asked.
Petrokov didn't answer. "You're looking for Dr. Madnar and his daughter, right?"
Snake nodded. "That's right."
A dark look of shame passed onto Petrokov's face. "Drago was my friend," he said. "We went to university together."
"I see," Snake said, thinking back to the briefing. It felt like a lifetime ago that he was sitting in that meeting room at FOXHOUND HQ. "So, you're the Outer Heaven scientist that had history with Madnar."
"It's my fault that he's a prisoner in this place," Petrokov said miserably. "I suggested that Ahab use his expertise to build his weapon. I thought he would convince him to work with us willingly like when Ahab had saved me from the Afghan POW camp following my defection, and that Drago and I would be working together hand in hand again, just like old times. I never thought that I would be putting Drago and Ellen into danger by dropping his name."
He got up onto his knees, gazing up with pleading eyes at Snake. "If I tell you where to find them, do you promise to get them out of this place?"
Snake shrugged his shoulders slightly, wincing at how much the motion hurt. "It's why I'm here," he said.
Petrokov nodded with a pathetic smile. "They're both locked in cells along the underground waterways beneath R&D," he said. He looked over to Jennifer. "Your comrades are being held down there too, in a separate interrogation chamber at the very end of the canal. They're being watched over by one of Ahab's specialists."
Snake looked over to Jennifer. "We should get your people out first."
"You would put my people before your hostage rescue?" Jennifer asked skeptically. "Why?"
"Because," Snake said, pulling his pack of Lucky Strikes from his pocket and tapping one into his mouth. "I gave you my word. And I always keep my promises." He fished out his FOXHOUND lighter from his pocket and lit the cigarette.
"That won't interfere with your mission?"
Snake took a drag, exhaled smoke, and shook his head. "On the contrary. I'm going to need all the help I can get to get Dr. Madnar and his daughter out of here safely. You and your men could be of some assistance." He pulled another drag and chuckled. "I'm an American, remember? Like you said before, help comes at a cost. And you already said you'd help me in return for the rescue."
"That I did," Jennifer said. Now it was her turn to laugh, though Snake could hear that there was no humor in it. "Alright, that sounds fair, Snake. We'll go get my people, and then we'll get your hostages out."
She looked down at Petrokov and thumbed in his direction. "What about him?" She asked Snake.
"I will raise no alarm, and I won't oppose you in any way. Like I said, I'm dead either way, regardless," Petrokov replied. "Once Ahab finds out I betrayed him by helping you find Drago and Ellen, that will be it for me. Ahab is a fair man who has done right by me and the others here, but even his mercy has its limits."
Jennifer scoffed at the idea of Venom having any kind of mercy, but Snake just nodded. "Fair enough. But I can't leave you here as a loose end, and I can't take you with me. You'd be a liability. So, we need to figure out what to do with you here and now."
"I could kill him," Jennifer proposed, a scowl on her face.
"W-wait!" Petrokov said, panicked. "I can still help! Please!"
"Oh?" Snake asked in a light mocking tone that combined with his stony face and dull eyes came across as less casual and more terrifying. "What did you have in mind?"
"I-I-I can secure your escape route! A way to get you and yourselves out of the building and off of the base safely! Provided you don't…what's the expression? 'Bring down too much heat on us' in the process?"
"I'm listening…" Snake replied.
OPERATION INTRUDE N313
DAY FIVE – 2212 HOURS
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT FACILITY – FIRST FLOOR
As soon as they stepped off the elevator and passed through the laser room, Snake immediately split off from Jennifer and Petrokov. Before they left, Mikhail had made a point of putting the camera footage for the weapons testing pit on a loop to buy them some time, since no alarm was raised when Jennifer killed the two guards and Snake finished his fight with the bioroids. This way Jennifer and Snake could maximize the amount of time they could reasonably stay under cover.
It was only a band-aid, though: eventually, someone would be sent to relieve the dead guards from their shift only to discover the bodies, so they needed to move quickly while the advantage of surprise was still theirs. Jennifer stayed with Petrokov as they headed to the transport hangar to secure a covered truck for the getaway. At first, they considered having Jennifer stay with Snake so they could perform the hostage rescue together, but neither of them wanted to leave Petrokov by himself to secure transport, as they still didn't quite trust him not to raise an alarm as soon as they were out of sight.
So, once again, Snake was on his own. That suited him just fine, though—he was getting used to performing as a solo operative. Donning his balaclava mask and straightening the work badge on the lapel of the clean camouflage jacket he'd lifted from one of the corpses back in the observation room, he made a beeline across the factory floor and down the metal grating steps of the stairwell descending into the waterways.
The canal stretched on down the length of the factory floor before turning and continuing underground. On each side were large open concrete pipes with metal gratings just inside their entrances through which water and safe chemical runoff would be deposited into the ditch for drainage. There was no significant smell, save for the generic smell of moisture like rain, along with a subtle hint of probable mildew. Snake guessed that this place probably wasn't meant for sewage or volatile chemical disposal, then. Outer Heaven must have separate irrigation and storage systems for that.
Above the concrete walls of the canal, the floors and walkways on either side were inlaid with red brick. Some of the bricks were slick from the regular pressure washers that come through here. In some places, there was evidence of moss among the mortar closer to the canals proper. Snake looked around. The waterways were patrolled on each side in pairs, but it wasn't crowded where he was, probably because the entrance here in the factory was open-air and exposed to the view of the factory workers and above-ground patrols.
Snake walked forward with purpose, trying to give off the air that he knew where he was going. He knew that people would be less likely to question your presence if you already give off the impression that you belong—ironically, it wasn't FOXHOUND that taught him that, but the public school environments he had grown up in.
As soon as he passed through the entrance into the underground, he took a second to let his eyes adjust to the new lighting from the electric lamps on the walls. The air started to taste a little staler. He glanced down at the ID badge he was wearing. Wherever this "Corporal Herzog" normally patrolled, it was a safe bet that he probably wasn't supposed to be down here, especially given that they were apparently stashing VIP prisoners underground.
Snake absent-mindedly brushed his hand against the pistol on his thigh. The enemy was already suspicious for the presence of spies. If he ran into anyone, he wasn't sure how far pretending to be lost was going to get him. He needed to be prepared for anything.
The underground waterway had multiple branching paths. Petrokov had said that the Resistance prisoners were housed "at the end…" Where was the 'end' of this tunnel supposed to be, if it turned out to be a maze? Snake started to turn a corner and then immediately turned back and put his back against a wall to avoid being spotted by an approaching patrol. The echoing sound of approaching footsteps began to grow louder. Within moments they would turn the corner and find him. Snake looked over the edge of the walkway down the sloped concrete surface through which the pipe emerged, depositing its runoff down the sheer 5-ft drop into the canal.
Snake slid down the slope and grabbed the extruded edge of the pipe's lip, careful not to lose his grip on the slick surface before swinging into the pipe and dropping himself inside, putting his back against the grating as the water flowed around his ankles and calves. He drew his gun, listening intently for any sign that the guards had caught wind of him. He could just make out the sound of the footsteps over the running water. They were right above him…
…And then they kept moving on, getting quieter and quieter as they moved away. Snake breathed a sigh of relief before holstering his weapon and jumping up to grab the top lip of the pipe and slowly pulling himself on top of it to walk back up the slope to the brick walkway and turn the corner.
With multiple branching pathways, it was hard to tell just which direction led to the "end" of the tunnels, so Snake resolved to simply pick a direction and keep following it, crossing the canals with the occasional metal bridges so that he could keep his direction relatively consistent. After a while of this, he peeked around a corner to see the canal sloping upwards towards a large metal gate. On the walkways on either side of this gate were two lit doors with guards posted outside. The water ended at the bottom of the slope just outside the gate itself. Could this be the destination Snake was looking for?
The guards didn't look like they were going to be moving any time soon. Snake looked and saw that the lighting wasn't as good at the bottom of the channel near the gate. Maybe he could sneak in under the guards' noses? The short bars lining the gate's bottom looked just far enough apart that a thin person could squeeze through. Snake looked both ways for any approaching guards before sliding down the slope, over the edge and into the canal waters, which were thankfully pretty deep with a current weak enough to swim through.
Silently, Snake swam toward the sloped end of the canal until it was shallow enough to wade through. He kept low, keeping as much of his profile under the dark waters as he could as he slithered up the sloped end of the channel, crawling up to the gate and through the bars at the bottom. He moved quickly and didn't waste any time looking over his shoulder, but when he had made it all the way through the gate with no sound of alarm, he knew he was in the clear.
Ahead of Snake, raised high above the drainage ditch he currently occupied, was some kind of freight elevator, with a thin narrow concrete walkway with guardrails leading out from the door behind Snake on his left, and the right side opening up into some large storage area with stacked crates and shelves and a high ceiling. The rungs of a steel ladder protruded from the wall just ahead of Snake on his right, which he used to pull himself up out of the canal and get a better look at the area.
The freight elevator was of a decent size, but the shaft wasn't terribly large—the elevator only went up to ground level. This must have been the storage facility for the R&D facility. Snake looked into the storage area, seeing metal shipping containers and wooden crates marked according to their contents. This was the place where raw materials were apparently stored before they were processed. The storage area extended outward by about half a football field in length. Snake wondered just how much material wealth this place was sitting on, and then thought about Outer Heaven's FOBs throughout southern Africa and Southwest Asia. Did all of their bases have places like these?
He looked around and spotted a janitor's closet. Tugging at the door, he realized it was unlocked. Just around the corner of one of the shelves, he spotted a guard with his back to him. Snake drew his pistol and crept up behind the mercenary before grabbing him in a headlock with his free arm and shoving the barrel of the pistol into the guard's face.
"Make one wrong move and you're dead," Snake whispered. "Understand?"
The guard nodded. Snake pulled the guard along backwards and awkwardly half-walked half-waddled to the janitor's closet. Snake pulled open the door and pushed the guard in before stepping inside after him. Snake kept his gun trained on the enemy as he pulled the door close after them and locked it.
"Hands up," Snake commanded.
The guard did as he was told. Snake grabbed the pistol from the guard's thigh holster and tucked it into his belt, then unslung the rifle from the guard's torso, pointing both the pistol and the rifle at him with both hands for long enough to keep the guard still while Snake holstered his pistol and switched his hands for a more comfortable grip. The guard simply watched silently as Snake pulled the bolt back for a brass check and then fingered the safety off.
"Now, I'm going to ask you some questions," Snake growled. "Failure to answer them honestly will result in your death. Indicate to me whether you understand."
The guard nodded nervously.
"You're holding prisoners from the Resistance somewhere down here. Where are they located?"
The guard waved his hand with a pointed finger. "U-up the lift," he stammered. "End of the tunnel, there's a door into a big room. That's where they're at. You can't miss them." His accent sounded East European, but Snake couldn't pinpoint the country of origin.
Snake smirked. "Good," he said. "Next question: there's an old Russian scientist. He and his daughter are also being kept down here. Don't give me that look. You know who I'm talking about. Where are they being held?"
"There's a cell here in the warehouse area. That's where the old guy is. I don't know where they're keeping his daughter."
Snake squinted. The guard could be lying. The fact that some random guard knew where all the prisoners were located was unlikely. Then again, if he did know where most of them were, chances were that he knew where the girl was too. None of what the guard says could be reasonably trusted. But Snake was on a time crunch here, so he could only work with what he was given.
"Fine," he said. "Get on your knees and put your hands on your head."
The guard nodded and proceeded to get down on one knee, before pulling his arm up to throw something at Snake's face. Snake ducked the projectile, looking up just in time to see the guard grab a small pistol from his boot and aim up towards Snake. Snake twisted the barrel of his rifle around the merc's arm and pulled the guard's weapon in a safe direction before punching him in the throat and pushing him to the ground.
Snake stepped on the hand clutching the pistol and put all his weight on it, causing the guard to yelp and let go. Snake kept his rifle leveled in the guard's face as he glanced over at the fallen projectile to see what the merc had thrown at him. A knife.
"Scout's knife behind the back…and a hidden gun?" Snake muttered. "You're full of surprises today, aren't you?"
The merc grunted his pain through his teeth as Snake dug his heel into the man's hand. The guard chuckled. "A little trick they teach in Spetsnaz. Seems I botched it, though. Too bad. Would've liked to see the look on your face when I put a new hole through it."
Snake kicked the pistol away and kicked the guard onto his stomach. There was indeed a knife sheath along his back, which Snake grabbed. Snake cursed himself for not being careful enough. He was in too much of a rush, and it almost cost him—he was supposed to be better than this. He resolved to search his captives much more thoroughly on the next opportunity.
Snake looked up to the shelves, saw some rope, which he started tying around the subject's hands and ankles. He also grabbed a shop rag and tied it around the guard's face, gagging him at the mouth. He then picked up the knife, sheathed it, and tucked it into his belt.
"Thanks for the souvenir," Snake said. "Only reason you're not dead is because it would be too loud. I'm going to lock this door behind me. Either you stay quiet, and somebody finds you later after I'm long gone, or you make some noise and it'll be me, back to finish the job. Your choice."
Snake stepped out from the janitor's closet, closing and locking the door behind him. He headed back to the freight elevator, and started climbing the ladder next to it, just in case there were more guards in the area that he hadn't seen. As soon as he climbed up and over, he saw a tunnel leading outside, which he made a beeline for. Just like the merc had said, there was a door at the end on the left-hand side. He opened it and pushed through, only to find himself lit by two massive spotlights.
"And here, we have the guest of honor!" shouted a boisterous Australian voice. "Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you the man of the hour, the intruder calling himself Snake! Say hello to the fans, mate!"
"Who the—!?" Snake squinted through the lights to see that at the middle of the large room was some kind of towering metal structure about thirty to forty feet in height, topped by a round flat surface with three poles around it in a triangular pattern. Hanging from the poles were chains from which three POWs hung by their wrists.
Standing in the middle between the poles was a brown-haired youthful man with a collared shirt, denim jeans, an Akubra slouch hat with the brim pinned at the side, and a dark brown leather duster long coat. Slung around his shoulders was a bandolier and slung on his belt was a revolver, a hunting knife, and a tightly coiled brown whip. On his back looked like some kind of quiver, where Snake could see what looked to be several boomerangs, three or four long boomerangs and one returning boomerang. The man was a walking stereotype of the Aussie bushman. The guy waved at the spy who acknowledged him. "G'day, mate!" he greeted jovially.
"Who the hell are you?" Snake shouted. He pointed the rifle up at the Australian, who held up a finger.
"Ah, ah, ah! I wouldn't do that if I were you!" the Aussie said with glee. Suddenly, the platform they were on began to rotate, and the POWs started swinging on their chains. The Aussie walked against the rotation of the platform so he could continue facing Snake. "Wouldn't want to hurt these poor bogans, would you?"
He waved his arms in a flourish. "In an old life, I used to be called Nathaniel Kingsbury, leader of the illustrious Egg Plant!"
"Egg Plant? The ecoterrorist group?" Snake vaguely remembered reading about them during training: an extremist faction of activists who started out protesting the deforestation of Australian land for ranching property, before switching to violent means by attacking the corporations directly when they refused to cease their activities. When Snake was still training at FOXHOUND, they had made the news for blowing up some logging facilities and an office building.
"The very same! Though that's not the term we would have used," Kingsbury said. "Unfortunately, freedom fighting doesn't pay the bills on its own, so I started working here at Outer Heaven, where I've been given the mantle of Dirty Duck, hunter and trapper extraordinaire!"
"So, you went from fighting big, destructive corporations to working for them," Snake taunted. "And on top of that you hide behind hostages. Coward Duck sounds like a more appropriate title to me!"
Duck waved his arm, and a spinning arc flew directly at Snake's head, forcing him to dive out of the way as it weaved between two of the POWs back to Duck's hand. "Who said anything about 'hiding?'" Duck retorted. "I can fight you just fine from here. No need to give up my territorial advantage. As for Outer Heaven, they aren't trying to kill our planetary habitat with deforestation and pollution. Their only export is warfare, and they don't much care who that war is fought against.
"So, I offer them my expertise as a warfighter, and they pay me enough to keep Egg Plant well-funded and well-equipped. And in the process, the war machine kills off more useless scum-sucking wastes of oxygen to keep our population down. Way I see it, it's a win-win."
"You hate humanity?" Snake asked.
"Nah, it's not like that," Duck shook his head. "I just recognize our species is part of the greater natural order—and just like any other animal, if you let us grow to large enough size without any natural predators, we'll eventually destroy ourselves, which'll have a negative effect on the rest of the system at large. It just so happens that us destroying ourselves also means taking our habitat with us which means once we're gone, life on the planet won't recover enough to bounce back, and then POOF! That's it, that's all she wrote."
"So, you think you're some noble warrior, preserving all life on Earth by sacrificing a few to save the rest? That's crazy."
"Crazy to you, maybe. But it doesn't really matter." The Aussie waved his hands at some unseen parties to the side and snapped his fingers, forcing Snake to actually look around and take stock of the rest of his surroundings.
The floor was covered in soft sand in every direction giving him unstable footing, with the tower and platform in the room's center. The walls were corrugated steel panels with thin windows high up on the side opposite Snake through which he could make out the filtered light of street light poles against the night sky. What the hell did they use this room for, Snake wondered? It didn't seem to make any sense.
Snake heard rumbling ahead of him, and saw a bulldozer roll out from an alcove on the far side of the room, its bucket lifted just above the sandy ground and pointed in his direction. A small six-man squad of Outer Heaven spec ops soldiers ran out to take positions on either side of the dozer, leveling their weapons at him. Snake raised his rifle, glancing up at Dirty Duck.
"Tell you what, Snake, as much as I love chatting about my motivations with folks, I'm afraid I just don't have the time. Got too much shit to do, y'see. Tell you what: if you can survive me, the dozer, and my men, we'll argue about my goals all you want." Duck turned his head to regard the men he called in. "Go get 'em, boys!"
Before the words had even left Duck's mouth, Snake had already opened fire on the squad, running over to the metal structure at the center to take cover from returning fire. A flash bang grenade flew out from behind the corner. Without thinking, Snake grabbed it and threw it back, squeezing his eyes shut.
The flash came shortly afterward, and he leaned out to take a few more shots. Three of the six-man team was already dead. The other half of the squad took up firing positions behind the armored dozer, which let them advance toward him. Snake turned right and followed the wall of the tower to go around the back side, hoping to flank the enemy.
A bullet impacted the wall just in front of him, stopping him in his tracks and forcing him to dive away from the tower. Snake looked up to see where it was coming from, seeing Dirty Duck swinging from one of the ceiling beams with his whip, aiming with his six-shooter and hooting and hollering like he was having the time of his life. Snake aimed down the sights of his rifle, but Duck had swung back onto the platform to take safe refuge among the hostages again.
Snake ran up to the corner, just in time to see the barrel of an enemy's rifle—they had the same idea for a flanking maneuver he did, and they hoped that their leader taking pot shots at him would have slowed him down enough for the sneak attack to be effective. Clever bastards.
Snake lunged forward and gripped the enemy's barrel shroud pushing it upwards as he lunged forward and drove the butt of his rifle into the enemy's stomach. As the merc doubled over, Snake let go of his rifle and let it hang from its sling on his torso to grab his pistol and fire four times over his enemy's back at the other two squad members, catching one in the head and another in the vest plate, forcing him to back off around the opposite corner.
The guard under Snake's arm gained his second wind, dropping his rifle and lunging forward to strike at Snake's midsection. Snake drove down the handle of his pistol on the back of the merc's neck as he drove his knee into the man's chin, sending him reeling back. He pulled the knife from his belt, hooked his pistol hand around the merc's neck and drove the knife into his gut six times.
Two more gun shots from overhead pinged the wall next to Snake's head and the merc's leg. Snake caught Duck swinging overhead once more, making another pass. Dirty Duck took another couple of potshots, and Snake swung the merc's body around to take the bullets in his back before watching Duck disappear once more onto the platform above him.
"Getting real tired of this Spider-Man bullshit," Snake growled, exasperated.
He dropped the carcass and fired his pistol around the corner, emptying the magazine. He tossed the pistol, put his spare into the thigh holster and then picked up his rifle as he dove forward, bullets whizzing through the air where his head used to be, aiming down his sights and peppering the last merc with bullets. As he watched the last squad member go down, the ground rumbled as he stood up right as the dozer started barreling full force towards him, the bucket angled so that the prongs on the bottom would bite into him.
Not having time to run back into cover, Snake sprinted forward towards the bucket to give him speed as he jumped up into the bucket. The air sped out of his lungs as the metal slammed into him and his body's inertia was caught by the momentum of the vehicle. Another bullet slammed into the metal next to him. Snake picked up his rifle and aimed it in the direction of the wannabe-acrobat, emptying what was left of his magazine. A couple of stray rounds severed the whip that kept Duck suspended, and he dropped his revolver and what was left of the whip in surprise, waving his arms in a comic pantomime of his namesake before slamming into the rotating platform, his legs dangling off of it.
"Clever dickhead!" Duck could be heard shouting as he grappled up onto the platform.
Snake, for his part, climbed up and over the lip of the bucket as the dozer lifted it to try and throw him off. He tumbled down and squeezed himself between the bucket and the dozer's windshield. The driver leaned out, opening the door and gripped the roof in one hand and pointing a pistol at Snake with the other. Snake answered in kind, and they both fired on each other, Snake getting grazed in the shoulder and the driver losing his weapon and the use of his left hand.
Snake swung into the open door of the vehicle and started grappling the driver, raining strikes onto his temple to discombobulate him. The driver tried to drive his boot into Snake's groin and missed, hitting him in the gut instead. Snake reeled backward, almost falling out of the dozer if not for his quickly grabbing the driver's shirt. The driver grabbed the door frame as hard as he could to keep them both from falling out.
Out of the corner of his eye, Snake saw an object rapidly approaching. He grabbed the doorframe and yanked hard on the driver, who fell over on top of him. A wet and meaty thunk was heard, and Snake looked up to see a long, gray boomerang wedged into the driver's head just moments before his body tumbled out onto the ground below.
Snake pulled himself into the dozer's driver seat, hissing through his teeth as he gingerly touched the flesh wound on his shoulder. The fabric of his shirt was torn and blotched with red. Seemed the bullet had only scraped off some surface flesh. Stupid, and lucky: just a few inches to his right, and Snake might have lost the use of his arm entirely, or worse.
There was a crash, Snake was thrown into the levers in front of him. The dozer had stopped moving, though the engine still rumbled. Snake lifted his head. Lucky—it had crashed right into the tower in the middle of the large room, the bucket still raised and digging into the sheet metal in the tower's side.
Snake stepped out of the door and climbed onto the dozer's roof, jumping up and into the bucket. Another hunter's boomerang came wheeling towards him and he quickly dodged to the side. He grabbed at handholds in the tower's side before swinging and throwing himself to a nearby ladder. The returning boomerang sailed over head and came around at a slightly lower elevation towards Snake's hands. Snake drew his knife and swung at the boomerang as it came closer, sending it careening harmlessly to the floor.
Snake ascended to the rotating platform, breathing hard. He was getting tired. He believed that was Duck's overall plan: support the men in killing him. If they didn't kill him, keep him from getting to Duck and the hostages. If that failed, make him tired, so it would be easier for Duck to kill Snake himself. Snake had to admit—it was a good plan. It's what he would have done.
When Snake hauled himself onto the platform, Dirty Duck was grinning jovially. The Aussie looked to be in good spirits. His last remaining boomerang was in his hand. He put it back into the quiver on his back, drawing his large hunting knife instead.
"I've gotta say, Seppo, you put a helluva fight," Duck said, laughing.
Snake switched his knife from his left hand to his right hand. No use drawing his pistol up here—it would endanger the hostages. "Right back at you," Snake said with a smirk.
They both lowered into combat stances, each waiting for the other to make the first move. The hostages swung around them like a macabre carousel, muttering their protestations through blood-caked lips gripping uncomfortably tight rags between their teeth.
Duck lunged forward, taking advantage of his extra two inches in height and longer reach to press the attack by slashing at Snake's head. Snake duck and stepped inside of Duck's swing, getting in close for a stab between Duck's ribs. Duck grabbed Snake's wrist and pulled his knife forward and to Duck's right so that he could get behind Snake.
Snake lowered his center of gravity to stabilize himself and keep from falling forward, then dropped lower on his left leg to raise his right foot for a side kick to Duck's shin. This was enough to loosen Duck's grip, and Snake put down his right foot to pivot, spin around to switch hands and slash at Duck's forearm with his left hand, forcing Duck to let go.
Duck stepped back, then lunged again towards Snake, who parried the opposing blade with his left hand before raising a knee towards Duck's gut. Duck checked Snake's knee before delivering a right cross elbow to Snake's head and rolling him forward to land on his back. Duck raised his knife, preparing to plunge it into Snake's chest.
Snake raised his legs to kick Duck away and rolled to his feet. He needed to be more aggressive and stop fighting defensively, he realized, but it was all he could do to protect against Duck's onslaught. Snake saw that his movements were too slow: Duck had the advantage of speed and stamina from being largely out of the fight, and he also was larger and taller too.
His lungs were on fire. His shoulder hurt like hell, too.
Snake switched to a reverse grip, the knife in his right hand. He pushed left with a feint to coax Duck into swinging. When Duck obliged, Snake ducked underneath the Aussie's arm, covering his right hand with his left to brace for a stabbing/slashing motion towards Duck's armpit, hoping to nick the axillary artery. Unfortunately, Snake had misjudged the distance, and succeeded only in cutting through the fabric of Duck's duster. He used his momentum to spin around for another chance, but Duck caught his hand and with a rotation of his wrist, sent the knife flying off the platform before throwing Snake into one of the poles. The hostage bounced off Snake's body painfully.
Dirty Duck threw his last boomerang from his back, and Snake kicked the hostage away from him as he threw himself off the ground so that the aboriginal hunting weapon bounced harmlessly off the pole and onto the ground several paces away. Duck sprinted to Snake, who scrambled after the boomerang, grabbed it, then felt into a power slide under and between Duck's legs. Snake grabbed at the duster, yanking as hard as he could while bracing against Duck's back with his foot.
"The fuck are ya doin'!?" Duck shouted, swinging his knife uselessly behind him in an attempt to get Snake to let go.
Snake kicked the back of Duck's leg to force him on his knee, then circled the boomerang around Duck's neck, rearing back to choke him. Snake thought of his fight with the bioroids earlier. Duck elbowed Snake, who lost his grip. Duck grabbed at his coat and flipped Snake over him, sending him flying and the coat fluttering down below.
Duck picked up the boomerang. "That was my favorite coat, you cheeky fucker!"
He threw the stick, which collided with and bounced off of Snake's injured shoulder while he tried getting up. Snake yelled in pain, clutching his shoulder before he was immediately winded by Duck's knee as the Aussie put his full weight on Snake's torso.
"Like I said, Seppo: a helluva a fight," said Duck, sniffing. "But I think that's enough out of you. Good game." He raised his knife and plunged.
Snake grabbed Duck's forearm, pushing as hard as he could against the downward thrust. He could feel his strength ebbing. Snake's eyes focused on the point of the knife in his face. He shook as he fought to direct the knife away from his face and neck. Slowly, the knife started digging into his chest. Snake yelled.
Good game. Snake thought of his first year of training at FOXHOUND, when he first went toe-to-toe with Black Mamba, how he'd forced a concession out of her. He thought of their second fight a year later. Just like back then, he was short a knife against a blade-wielding opponent. Both times, he won by redirecting the blade, and using his opponent's momentum against them. But now, Snake was pinned, unable to move except to fight against the combined forces of gravity and Duck's own impressive musculature. It seemed this time, he had found a fight that he would eventually lose.
Suddenly, there was a sound of chains. A grunt. A body flew into view and kicked Duck in the head—one of the struggling hanging prisoners. The blade thankfully left Snake's chest without going deeper than surface tissue. Duck reared back, his knee leaving Snake's stomach. Snake took his opportunity, swinging up to strike the larger man's groin. Duck dropped the knife. Snake grabbed it, climbing on top of the Australian, striking Duck twice on the jaw before plunging downward as Duck had tried to do.
Now it was Duck's turn to struggle against the impending doom of the knife. Snake braced against the knife with both arms, but Duck was strong enough to force him into an impasse. Snake raised his left hand and struck his right wrist. The knife jerked down into the Aussie's chest. Duck yelped in pain.
Snake struck the pommel again. The knife jerked downward, this time a little deeper. He felt Duck's grip on his forearm weakening.
Again. The knife was halfway buried in Duck's flesh. Duck's grip got a little weaker. One last strike, and the knife was stuck in Duck's chest. Duck raised his right fist to attack Snake's face. Snake held down Duck's arm, unholstered his pistol, and shoved it into Duck's mouth.
Snake squeezed the trigger.
Tinnitus. Shaking hands. Dropping the pistol. Lungs on fire. Snake rolled off of the fresh corpse, falling onto his back. It was all he could do to just lay there. And breathe.
A minute passed. Five minutes. Snake painfully pulled himself onto his knees as he quickly searched Duck's person, finding a ring of keys. Snake yanked the knife out of Duck's body, wiped the blood off on Duck's jeans, and sheathed it onto his belt. He stood up and walked over to a button control that hung from the ceiling by a wire and pushed the button to make the platform stop rotating.
He walked to each of the three prisoners in turn, opened their handcuffs and helped them down onto solid ground. He leaned up against one of the poles, pulled out one of his Lucky Strikes and his lighter, and lit the cigarette in his mouth while clutching at his chest and shoulder. He cursed.
"Thank you for saving us," said one of the prisoners, the one who'd kicked at Duck. "I didn't think we would make it out. I'm Wikus. Are you with the Resistance?"
"Nope," Snake grunted. "And save your thanks till we're out of here. Really, I should be thanking you. If not for your quick timing, I'd be dead right now."
"Seemed like the least I could do," Wikus said sheepishly. "So, if you're not a rebel, then who are you?"
"I'm nobody," Snake replied. "Your sister asked me to get you out."
"Jen is alive?" Wikus asked, astonished.
Snake nodded. "In return for my help, I was to get assistance on getting two more prisoners: an old man and his daughter. I know where the old guy is, roughly. Don't know about his kid, though."
Wikus looked to the other prisoners, nodding. The two others gave him a thumb's up. "I think we can help you there. We've been observing this place from the inside for quite a while. If you don't mind us tagging along, perhaps we could guide you personally, as thanks for helping us? How about it?"
"Music to my ears," Snake said. He threw down his cigarette and ground it out with his foot. "Alright, folks. Grab some weapons and uniforms from the bodies. We've got two VIPs to rescue."
A/N: This chapter was a lot of fun to write. I feel like for all the focus on realism I haven't had a whole lot of opportunity to pit Snake against the sort of freaky cartoon characters he normally goes up against, so it was fun to reinterpret the Bloody Brads and Dirty/Coward Duck in a way that I felt fit with the rest of the established Metal Gear lore.
I wanted to basically reinvent and reinterpret both boss fights in a way that both works for the goofy shenanigans of the rest of the franchise while still remaining true to the role both fights play in the original Metal Gear. In the case of the Brads, I used the super strength and heavy armor of the SKULL unit in MGSV as inspiration-this works for consistency in the original Metal Gear since in the old game the Bloody Brads were basically just nigh-invincible juggernauts. Giving them cybernetic enhancements and making them the same group of child soldiers that Venom rescues in MGSV also helps tie the lore of MGSV with the later development of MGS1's Cyborg Ninja. For Dirty Duck, I basically just combined his boss fight with the bulldozer fought elsewhere in Building 2. Since the boss originally used a boomerang as a weapon, I decided to imagine him as a bushman from the Australian outback. The whole deforestation thing was inspired by modern concerns with global warming, and of all things, the movie Ferngully, which takes place in Australia. The fact that Dirty Duck's actual origin is working for an ecoterrorist group (Egg Plant is mentioned in the original MSX Metal Gear's User Manual) made this plot element a no-brainer.
Next chapter will be the rescue of Drago and Ellen Madnar and the POWs' escape from the R&D facility. Chapter after that will probably be an interlude or intermission of sorts as the various players get set up for the endgame prior to Snake's going after Venom and Metal Gear. That won't be the end of the story, though. I still have quite a bit of material rattling around in my head for the denouement, similar to the stuff I wrote prior to Snake's insertion to Outer Heaven. Next week I'll get started on writing Chapter 15 for the Madnar rescue. Depending on how much time I need and considering the holidays are coming up and I have family to see, there's a pretty good chance that it won't be ready till January. Thank you for your continued support, and I hope you'll be looking forward to more of this story as much as I'm looking forward to writing it!