Small update today. I’ve decided that I’m going to go from boss to boss for the update. Though I’m still trying to figure out how to deal with Mantis and the awesome way to finish him. I’ll worry about it when the time comes. For now, let’s just focus on the story at hand. This update should be 56k friendly. I’ll see after it uploads.
I’m leaving the story for you to figure out. It’s better this way. I’m not even going to say when there’s going to be spoilers, since it would ruin the story.
Hm. The wall’s a different color here.
Does that say what I think it says?
OHHHHHHHHHH YEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! Time to go blow random shit up!
Eeeeeee hehehehe!
Another off-colored wall. C4 TIME!!!!!!!
Am I too late?
Baker : Oooooo….. Huhuuhuhuh…..
He’s alive. You’re the ArmsTech president Kenneth Baker, right? Don’t worry, I’m here to save you.
Remember what happened the last time you said that, Snake?
Baker : Noooo! Don’t touch it…
C4!
Well, this is a wonderful situation. Shit.
Ocelot : Right. Touch that wire and the C4 will blow up along with the old man! So you’re the one the Boss keeps talking about.
And you?
Ocelot : Special Operations FOX-HOUND.
Not pictured, gun twirling.
Ocelot : Revolver Ocelot. I’ve been waiting for you, Solid Snake. Now we’ll see if the man can live up to the legend! This is the greatest handgun ever made. The Colt Single Action Army. Six bullets. More than enough to kill anything that moves. Now I’ll show you why they call me… “Revolver”.
Hint: It’s because he can shoot shit well.
If I touch those wires, the C4 blows, and Baker dies. Not the most optimal situation.
Ocelot : Just what I’d expect from the man with the same code as the boss. It’s been a long time since I’ve had such a good fight but I’m just getting warmed up.
Wait, you’re not an end boss, you don’t have multiple forms.
Ocelot : What! My hand!!!
Baker : Aaaaaaahhh!!
Huh? What’s going on with his hand? Ocelot’s hand just sorta fell off.
Ocelot : Uuuunnhh! Ooooof! Stealth Camouflage, can’t you even die right!? You were lucky, we’ll meet again!
Who are you!?
HOLY SHIT!!! NINJA FROM NOWHERE! NOT GOOD ABORT ABORT ABORT!
Ninja : I’m like you… I have no name.
Baker : Ohhh… ohhhh! That… that exoskeleton…!
Ninja : Ggggyyyaaaaaaahhh!!! Ggggyyyyaaaaaaaahhh!!! Gggggyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!
(The Ninja spazzes the fuck out here.)
Who the hell!?
What’s even better? The ninja has stealth camo and can be literally anywhere.
Can you talk?
Baker : Who are you?
I’m not one of them. The DARPA Chief told me he gave them his detonation code. What about yours?
Baker : Oh, I get it. Jim sent you… You… you’re from the Pentagon.
Answer my question! What about your code!? There’s no time!
Baker : I… talked.
DAMNIT!
What! Now the terrorists have both codes and can launch anytime!
Baker : It’s not like I didn’t fight. I managed to resist Psycho Mantis’s mind probe.
He couldn’t read you? How’d you do it?
Baker : Surgical implants in my brain.
Surgical implants?
What the hell is going on here?
Baker : Kind of like a psychic insulation. Everybody who knows these top-secret codes has it.
Even the DARPA Chief?
Baker : Of course.
But the DARPA Chief said Mantis got his code by reading his mind.
Baker : Are you sure you heard him right?
Yeah, I’m sure. In that case, how did they get your code?
Baker : I never had any training on how to resist torture…
It looks like he had some fun with you all right.
Baker : He’s not human. I tell you, he loved every second of it.
What happened to your arm?
Baker : He broke it.
Looks like you’re more than even now. His was sliced off.
Wait. What? The DARPA chief has them too? Yet Mantis could read his code? What’s going on here?
Baker : Ha. You’re a funny man. …So… the DARPA Chief… is he okay?
Dead.
Baker : What!? It can’t be! You know that’s not what you promised, Jim! Now you want to shut me up!
Who in the hell is this Jim person?
Calm down! What’s wrong with you? I just told you I was here to save you! I didn’t kill the DARPA Chief. He had a heart attack or something.
Baker : A heart attack? Oh, don’t be a fool.
Anyway, the terrorists have both codes now.
Baker : Those boys are totally insane. They wouldn’t hesitate to launch.
I agree. But what do they really want?
Baker : Who knows. Maybe they’re like us in the arms industry… always looking forward to the next good war.
They probably want to blow things up with that Metal Gear thing.
Well I’m not going to let these maniacs start a war toady. Do you still have the card keys.
Baker : Card keys?
To override the detonation codes! I heard you had them…
Baker : No, not anymore.
What!? Who does then!? Not the terrorists!?
Baker : No, that woman.
Woman!? Who!?
Baker : A soldier that was thrown in prison along with me.
A female soldier? It must be…
Baker : She said that she had just joined up as a new recruit. She said they threw her in prison because she refused to take part in the rebellion.
A new recruit? Could that be the Colonel’s niece!?
Baker : I gave her the key. Looks like she managed to break out of here though. I hope she’s okay.
Who’s tired of the word “terrorists” yet?
I’m sure she is. She’s green… but as tough as they come. But how did you know she escaped?
Baker : I was in contact with her by Codec. Until I was tied up here that is.
Codec?
Baker : Yes. She stole it from the guard. If she still has it, you should be able to contact her.
I’m sure she still has it. What frequency was she at?
Baker : Oh yeah. Let me tell you. It’s…
Huh?
Baker : …Oh… sorry… I forgot…
Damn!
DAMNIT!
Baker : Oh that’s right! It should be on the back of the CD case. Try to contact her.
I’ll contact her right away. But tell me… If this doesn’t work, is there some other way to prevent the missile launch?
Baker : Hmmm. You need to find Hal Emmerich, one of my employees.
Who’s that?
Baker : The team leader of the Metal Gear Rex project. A genius at engineering, but a little bit of an oddball. If there is anyone who can figure out how to stop Metal Gear from launching, it’s him.
What if he can’t come up with anything?
Baker : You’ll have to destroy it. Emmerich knows how to destroy Metal Gear.
Where is this Emmerich?
Baker : Well… he’s probably being held somewhere in the Nuclear Warhead Storage Building. It’s north from here. That’s where he worked.
I understand, but… why Metal Gear? The Nuclear Age ended with the turn of the millennium.
The back of the -what-? Why does Snake not question this? (Hint: We’re breaking the fourth wall. You, as the player, have to find out Meryl’s codec frequency from a screen shot on the, wait for it, back of the game’s CD case.)
Baker : You’re wrong. The threat of nuclear war isn’t gone… in fact it’s greater than it’s ever been. The amount of spent nuclear fuel and plutonium is increasing even today. Listen, have you ever seen a warehouse full of nuclear material?
…No.
Baker : Drums and drums of nuclear waste stacked this high. As far as you can see because there’s still no real way to dispose of the stuff.
So they just close the lid and pretend like it’ll go away?
Baker : Essentially, yes. And they’re not even doing a good job of storing it. Many of the drums are corroded… with nuclear waste seeping out of them.
Unbelievable.
Baker : Not only that, several pounds of MUF are reported every year.
MUF?
Baker : It stands for “material unaccounted for”. It proves that there is a large and well organized black market in nuclear materials. Furthermore, since the end of the Cold War, Russian nuclear engineers, in particular, are out of work with nowhere to turn.
What’s scary: Is this could actually be happening. I’ll bring this point up several times during the course of this.
Baker : In other words, there is plenty of nuclear material and scientists for making a bomb. We live in an age when any small country can have a nuclear weapons program.
What about the other superpowers?
Baker : Russia and China still maintain a signifigant nuclear presence. Complete nuclear disarmament is an impossibility. To maintain our own policy of deterrance, we need a weapon of overwhelming power.
Oh, fuck that noise.
You mean Metal Gear.
Baker : You know our industry suffered quite a blow as a result of the cut-backs in military budgets, due to this so called “peace”.
I remember hearing a lot about mergers and take-overs among the big weapons makers.
Baker : Yes. And after my company lost their bid to produce the Air Force’s next fighter jet, the Metal Gear project was out last ace in the hole. That’s why we pushed to have Metal Gear developed as a black project.
Black project?
Baker : Secret projects paid for by the Pentagon’s black budget. You can avoid a lot of red tape a get a great lead-time on your weapons production. And no one can bother you. Not even those bleeding heart liberals on the military oversight committee.
Again: What if this was actually happening.
Bribes.
Baker : I prefer to think of it as good business. Anyway, Metal Gear was going to be formally adopted after the results of this exercise were analyzed.
I don’t give a crap about you and your company.
Baker : Yes, that’s about what I’d expect from a grunt like you… Here, this is what you came for, right?
What’s that?
Baker : An optical disk. It’s all here. The main hard drive was destroyed by gunfire. This is the only remaining copy of the data.
What kind of data?
Snake tells it how it is. Right to the point.
Baker : All the data collected from this exercise. Don’t play dumb. I know you were sent to get this. I hid it from that sadistic maniac while he was torturing me. They don’t know that this disk exists. Make sure that you report this to Jim… to your boss. I’ll give you my card too. It’ll open up all level two security doors.
Can you walk?
Baker : …No …You go on without me. They got my password… they don’t want anything else from me.
I have one more question. Who or what was that ninja thing? It looked like you knew something.
Again, who is this Jim, and what the crap is going on here?
Baker : That ninja? That was FOX-HOUND’s dark little secret.
Dark little secret?
Baker : An experimantal… genome… soldier…
You know him?
Baker : You should ask Dr. Naomi Hunter from FOX-HOUND. She knows better than I.
Naomi?
Baker : You’ve got to stop them. If it goes public, my company and I are… finished.
What in the hell? How does Naomi know that ninja-thing?
What? Doesn’t Metal Gear use currently existing technology?
Baker : Metal Gear itself does, but…
Baker hunches over in pain.
Huh!?
What the hell?
Baker : What… what did you do to me!? Uh… oooh…no! …Ooh. Oh no, it can’t be! …those Pentagon bastards! …So they…they actually went ahead and did it!
What are you talking about!?
Baker : They… they’re just… using you for… uuuhhh…
What the hell?
What’s going on here? It happened again! And what did the Pentagon do?!
Colonel! Are you listening? Now he’s dead too!
Campbell : …I have no idea!
Don’t lie to me!
Something’s going on. But what?
Naomi : It looked like another heart attack but…
Some kind of poison!?
Naomi : Well, there are a lot of drugs that can cause a heart attack in large doses. For example. potassium chloride or dioxides… But… we won’t be able to tell without doing an autopsy.
Damn!
If you could hear her voice, you’d be able to tell that she knows something.
Campbell : Snake, I want you and Meryl to work together!
Can I trust her?
Campbell : …More than you can trust me.
……
Campbell : Get in contact with her.
Somebody has trust issues.
Mei Ling : Snake, there is a lot of electrical interferance coming from there. It should be okay if you do burst transmission like us but normal transmission is probably impossible. Try moving away from that area.
Naomi, what the hell was that ninja thing?
Naomi : …..
A member of FOX-HOUND?
Naomi : No…
Are you sure?
Naomi : Yes, we have no one like that in our unit.
Is that right?
What’s going on here? Baker just said that she knew. What?
And this is where we stop for today.
That was a hell of a lot of text. The next update should be slightly shorter. Probably not. And, it’s still alright if you don’t know what’s going on.