"Pack your bags, Otacon. We're out of here." The urgent
undertone in the voice belied the light message.
"Copy that, Snake."
Otacon, a lanky man with an unruly mass of brown hair and thin-rimmed
glasses in his late twenties, was sitting on an old sweater on a ridge lined
with pine trees. The ridge offered a prime view of a concrete and chain fence
compound, complete with large, nondescript concrete buildings. As soon as the
codec signal cut out, he began dismantling the complex electronic mass in front
of him, at the centre of which was a slim laptop. On the laptop's screen two
windows were open. On the left, a small green dot moved south between two long
parallel blue lines, towards a thicker glowing blue line. On the right, a
yellow dot moved through a similar set of blue lines, past a pair of glowing
blue bars again to the one at the bottom of the window. Behind the two dots,
further up in a complicated map of blue crosshatches, several red dots were
moving at speed in a southerly direction.
Otacon, known as Hal Emmerich when not in the field, finished stuffing
peripherals into a reinforced backpack, and then began shutting down the
laptop, eyes down at the complex below as he did so. Surrounded by a thick
forest of pine trees, the complex would have been effectively cut off from a
city, had it been near one. It was, as a matter of fact, in the north-west
corner of Oregon, and so several hours' drive on bad roads from the nearest
reach of civilization.
The complex itself had a high level of security, for a set of buildings
in the middle of nowhere. Its north exit had been blocked before his arrival;
as the main entrance to the complex it was heavily guarded. The south exit,
towards which both dots displayed on his laptop were moving, was less well
guarded and led out into a gravel parking lot, occupied by two rusting army
jeeps. The compound itself consisted of three long warehouses, each with a
north and south exit as well as several windows on both sides, two smaller more
residential buildings complete with wooden siding, and a guard house at each of
the two compound exits.
Slinging his now closed pack over his shoulders, Otacon tied the sweater
around his waist and began scrambling down the incline on which he had been
sitting, eyes on the complex ahead rather than his path. He stumbled several
times on buried tree roots, once on a heap of earth, and once on his own feet.
"I've got at least six on my tail, possibly more. And that klaxon's
getting on my nerves." Raiden's voice cut into his head, pre-mission
injected nanomachines causing his eardrums to vibrate in order to create sound
which was not actually present. "Exit in five, four, three"
"Otacon, you sure as hell better be ready." Snake's voice cut
in on the same frequency, drowning out Raiden's countdown.
"I'm on the edge of the parking lot. And keep to your own
frequency; you'll confuse the feed."
There was a burst of noise as the door to the western-most building
slammed open and a person with longish silver hair in a grey body suit pelted
out, making for the exit. Almost at the same time, a window broke in the centre
warehouse's western wall and as a second man, this one with dark hair, burst
out of it, rolling as he hit the ground and came up running. He wore a grey
suit as well, although of a different design than his companion.
About three seconds, by Otacon's count, after the two of them exited the
warehouse, they were each followed by several uniformed, shouting men carrying
automatic weapons.
The two runners passed the black-striped strip of wood blocking the
exit, silver-hair rolling under while dark-hair vaulted over, and shot out into
the parking lot, gravel crunching under their feet. Dark hair took the lead,
Otacon breaking into run to match their pace as they went past, and indicated
one of the two jeeps, the one parked closer to the dirt foresting road.
"Raiden drives, Otacon in the back, on the floor." Dark-hair, whose
voice was Snake's, angled himself for the passenger seat.
"I can't drive stick." Raiden, light hair currently ripping
behind him in the wind, looked over his shoulder in time to begin to swerve as
the guards started firing.
"Otacon driveskeep your head down, Raiden in
the back, and what the hell's wrong with you, not driving shift?"
Otacon tripped, caught himself mainly with his own forward momentum, and
pulled himself up into the jeep so fast that it jerked when he slammed to a
halt in the driver's seat. The keys were, predictably, not in the ignition. He
ducked down and tore the wires out from under the dash. "No keys,
hotwiring," he shouted, for the benefit of Snake and Raiden who were
facing away from him, returning fire. A few seconds later he coaxed a spark out
of the wires, and the car roared to life. He slammed it into gear and the car
tore out of the parking lot, gravel flying behind it.
The road curved almost immediately, putting a bank of fir trees between
them and the complex. In the relative quiet of the forest, the sound of the
second jeep's engine turning over was easily audible. Otacon shifted up into
forth.
"Don't gun it too hard, I shot the tires out." Snake turned to
face forwards, relaxing slightly as he did so, SOCOM still held ready in his
lap. Otacon relaxed his pressure on the gas, slightly, and slipped his backpack
off, switching hands on the wheel to do so. He handed it to Snake, who dropped
it down into the space in front of his feet.
"How did you guys manage to trigger the alarm? The patrolling was a
joke, all you had to do was watch the cameras and beams." Otacon glanced
at Snake, who half-turned in his seat to look at Raiden. Otacon shifted his
eyes to the rear-view mirror.
"I wasn't expecting them to keep cameras in the bathroom. No one
does that!"
"You stopped to take a piss during a mission?" The disdain was
evident in Snake's voice.
"What do you take me for? I ducked in to avoid a guard. If I had
known, I would have taken my chances in the hall, or tried for one of the
storage rooms."
"It really never occurred to me that you might go in. When you did,
I assumed you knew. Sorry." Hal shifted down into third to take a turn,
and stayed there. "You two realise that we passed the car, right?"
They had parked their ride, a battered old Ford truck, by the side of the road
in some bushes a half-mile from the complex.
"Too late to go back for it now. They'll be after us in their own
cars by now. Speed up."
Otacon obediently did so. In the back, Raiden settled down with his back
to Otacon's seat, feet braced against the back of the jeep, reloaded his own
SOCOM, and watched.
"We'll have to ditch the jeep as soon as possible." Snake
pulled open the glovebox and began rooting around.
"How long do you think they'll chase us?" Another glance in
the rear-view mirror revealed only empty road behind them.
"Considering the damage we did to their systems? Probably through
to Iowa. If they don't catch us by then, they'll start looking for us in other
ways. If they had any brains, they would stop by the time we cross the border
into Idaho."
"Won't make any difference, they'll never trace us." Otacon
may have been crap at sneaking, but he knew computers much better than the back
of his hand, and he was in charge of erasing any trace of their existence from
electronic record. Well, his and Snake's, in any case. And, as Raiden was along
for the mission, he was included in Otacon's technological protection. Snake
was in charge of not being followed home.
"Found a map." Snake pulled a crumpled, coffee-stained mess of
paper out of the glovebox and spread it open across his lap.
"There was one in my pack." Otacon glanced over. "It's
cleaner, too."
"Whatever. We need to head North and pick up the 26. We can swing
through Portland and shift West onto the 84."
"Fine. Where's the nearest town? I remember passing through one on
the way here, just before the turn-off onto this road."
"We came up from the South, Hal. We're not making any detours. But
it looks like after we turn off onto the main road, there's something a few
miles along."
"You sure?" shouted Raiden, from the back, over the sound of
the wind and the jeep's straining motor. The other two men glanced at each
other, then back at him.
"Why?" asked Snake.
"I've been up and down this coast a few times before. Mostly
there's crap-all for miles. Seems odd there'd be two towns a few miles
apart."
"Map says so," said Snake.
"Are you sure?" echoed Hal.
"Yes, I'm goddamned sure. What's the problem?"
"It's just, there's not a lot of gas left in the tank. Maybe about
half an hour's worth. That'll take us to the main road and a little further,
I'd bet."
Snake leans over to glance at the dashboard "There's enough. Keep
to a steady speed."
"Right, right. I'm not a complete idiot, you know." The road
was narrow and, while not overly curved, it wasn't very straight either, and
filled with potholes and long uneven stretches. The poor suspension in the jeep
did nothing to soften impacts, leaving all three men frequently grimacing and
Raiden, sitting in a flat bed with no seat, grasping for a grip. He ended by
wedging himself into the corner between Otacon's seat and the wall, skullsuit
boots pressed firmly against the back of the car. They travelled in silence,
each frequently looking back..
"How much longer to the main road?" Raiden asked