Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriot (32 page)

We barely had time to notice that the blizzard had ended before the impact struck us. A shock wave slammed into REX’s back and sent the massive machine lurching forward. The blast rocked Snake and the Mk. III, and for a second, I thought we’d be flung from the cockpit.

The throng of Gekko packed in the tunnel exploded in a chain reaction with ferocious energy. Sensing their attack, Raiden had separated himself from the leader of the pack as best he could before their self-destruction, but the brunt of the pressure wave pounded against his back.

Bathed in countless bits of shrapnel and the plasma from high-temperature gasses, Raiden was sent flying and landed just inside the tunnel entrance. I dug REX’s talons into the earth to keep the Metal Gear from tipping over.

But Raiden’s body, without REX’s weight or thick armor, had no way to evade or withstand the violent cascade of energy. He could only take it, and was sent rolling to the floor like a knocked-over bowling pin.

The simultaneous explosions produced the force equal to several cluster bombs. Each Gekko had been equipped with several explosives, and for the first second or two of the chain reaction the air inside the tunnel compressed. Then the squeezed-in energy pushed back, expanding rapidly, and burst the composite walls of the facility like a balloon.

Pillars of flame shot from the ceiling, and the supply tunnel collapsed. Broken beams and concrete crashed down on Raiden in a colossal mass. In an instant, he was gone, swallowed up by dust and debris.

“Raiden!” Snake yelled, but no reply came from the swelling cloud.

The passage had been completely buried by the rubble of the destroyed facility. Even if any Gekko remained active below, I didn’t think it could make it to the surface. We wouldn’t have to worry about any more self-destructing Gekko, but we had no way of knowing Raiden’s fate.

Snake called out to Raiden again.

Slowly the haze thinned. Raiden’s body stuck out from the rubble. His lower body and right arm were completely buried. Only his left arm was free, but his sword had tumbled just out of reach and wouldn’t be of any use.

Just as Snake moved his hand to release his seatbelt and go help his friend, he heard a noise. I heard it too and turned the Mk. III to face the sea. We were in a cargo port, with generators, a waterworks, and several smaller structures including a few warehouses and observation towers. Concrete piers provided space for large-scale cargo vessels to dock. The wide roadway linking the facility with the harbor doubled as a landing strip.

Trepidation coloring my voice, I asked, “What is that sound?”

The ground rumbled, carrying vibrations from the water. Something was coming—something gigantic, and approaching fast.

The ocean swelled, and a massive, streamlined form resembling a killer whale sliced through the water’s surface and leapt into the sky. And then it kept on going, until it was over the land and coming straight at REX.

This was no whale.

It possessed long, massive fins—more like arms, really—enough to make those of any killer whale seem miniscule. Besides, whales didn’t have legs and weren’t so ridiculously large as to be on par with REX.

RAY.

Metal Gear RAY had been designed by the US Marine Corps as a counter against Metal Gear derivatives built by the other nuclear powers of the world. RAY landed and braked by digging talons into the ground, breaking pieces of the runway as if the asphalt were a bar of chocolate. The Metal Gear was massive, yet graceful, and when it slid to a stop, tilting forward, the robot’s head opened to reveal Liquid Ocelot inside the cockpit.

“Brother! It’s not over. Not yet.”

Snake yelled back, “Liquid!”

RAY raised a piercing howl into the Aleutian sky—not an animal’s howl, of course, but a thunderous noise of metal parts clashing and scraping.

“Moses,” Liquid boomed, “where our fates were born. And where yours ends, Snake!”

I looked back at the rubble. Raiden still lived, but his right arm was pinned under the debris.

We’d have to rely on REX.

We faced an anti-Metal Gear Metal Gear. In a way, RAY had been built to destroy REX. Liquid’s machine was an apex predator.

Snake looked into the Mk. III’s camera and nodded. I faced the camera in my monitor and returned the gesture. With a glance at Liquid, Snake charged at RAY.

I noted that Liquid rode in a new model RAY. Unlike the clunky, tanklike REX, RAY looked alive, with a sleek appearance and components that glided with precision. This manned version of RAY had a long tail, much longer than the one on the AI-piloted version we previously encountered in the waters of the Big Shell. REX, in comparison, had no tail, and held a deep squatting posture to retain balance.

The unmanned RAYs were originally designed to protect the Arsenal Gear, a giant submersible missile carrier with access to the communications networks of all five branches of the US military. A commander on board could issue orders to all US armed forces across the globe. Despite the ship’s importance as a functional center of government, radar and threat-detection systems were absent, presumably left to accompanying Aegis cruisers and the air force’s AWACS sentry craft.

The Arsenal was equipped with few means of self-defense. Without its escort, the vessel was nothing more than a giant floating coffin packed with fireworks. The short-tailed RAY-class Metal Gears were built to protect the vulnerable Arsenal.

The RAY piloted by Liquid had been modified to be manually piloted, but its basis was the unmanned model. The machine would have a fairly short operational range. Was the big one nearby, underwater?

Bang!
went the staccato noise, like a starting gun, and a cluster of smoke trails rose up from RAY’s back.

“Missiles,” I shouted. “Snake, dodge them!”

But Snake kept advancing into the missiles’ paths. Then, at the last instant, he slid REX to one side in a maneuver so quick, had I been inside the cockpit myself, I might have gotten sick. Keeping REX pointed at Liquid, Snake moved sideways, using a water tower as cover. A missile struck the tower, destroying it and sending the tank’s contents pouring down on Snake.

We have a chance.

RAY had been designed to be unmanned, with the robot’s peak performance delivered through the orders of the Arsenal’s AI. Whatever the effects retrofitting the machine for human control might have been, the results couldn’t have been beneficial.

I designed REX knowing a human would operate it with human judgment. Perhaps such complex and unconventional machines were better off in the hands of an AI. That was why, for the Arsenal project, the navy moved away from the manned designs created for the Marines to autonomous robots, like the Gekko, guided by combat AIs.

But as far as I was concerned, for giant mechs, nothing could replace a human.

Again Snake charged ahead. RAY was clearly shaken. Occupied with trying to keep REX from falling apart with each step, I couldn’t offer any help with attacks or defense, but Snake skillfully piloted the robot and closed in on Liquid.

They were too close now for Liquid to fire a missile without risking damage to himself.

One reason I had designed REX to be manually operated was due to my inability to find a suitable AI among the currently developed autonomous weapons systems. But there was another reason: I loved Japanese anime, and with REX the realization of that passion, I couldn’t bear to see a giant mecha without a human operator.

The original RAYs might have been anti-Metal Gear weapons, but when the designers chose to go the unmanned route, that decision would have necessitated a great number of alterations from the manned design. Even if Liquid’s machine appeared similar to the other RAYs, the robot’s insides would have to be vastly different. AI command enabled an array of controls far more vast than a puny human brain could handle.

To put it another way, the unmanned RAYs could never truly be retrofitted for a human pilot. This RAY was being forced at great lengths to bend itself to Liquid’s commands. If REX had any chance against the superior machine, this would be the reason. REX had been designed from the ground up to be piloted by a human being.

I shouted, “Grapple him!” but Snake already knew what to do. REX crashed into RAY, the two colossal bodies colliding beside the water’s edge like giant monsters in a Japanese kaiju film.

With the two cockpits close together, the two men came face-to-face. Astonishment registered in Liquid’s eyes as he took in Snake’s confident grin. Liquid’s human command was REX’s curse. Snake fired the free-electron laser mounted beneath his robot’s chin, and the amplified energy pierced the surface of RAY’s armor. The light reflected off RAY’s specialized coating and left traces of an iridescent glow.

Liquid raised a war cry and fired a laserlike beam from RAY’s head.

“Otacon,” Snake said. “He’s using a water cutter!”

“Don’t worry, REX is a tank. Don’t lump it in with some puny whale-looking thing.”

Powerful enough to cut through metal, the pressurized water cutter was RAY’s primary close-combat weapon. The jet could easily cut through walls and would split a man cleanly in two.

But however strong the water pressure, no water cutter would so easily pierce the armor of the nuclear-armed bipedal tank. Before RAY’s jet could break through REX’s armor, REX’s laser fried RAY’s insides. The supposed Metal Gear killer, bested by its own prey, howled a death cry.

At the same time, REX had been pushed past its limits. The mighty dragon, engine shrieking, finally succumbed to the wounds Snake had inflicted nine years before. With the last of the robot’s power, Snake withdrew from Liquid. With a few dozen meters between them, REX fell silent.

Snake let out a moan. For the first time since the clash, I looked at Snake and lost all words. Blood flowed steadily from his mouth and his forehead. He breathed heavily, painfully, the frozen Alaskan air piercing his aged lungs like shards of glass.

“Liquid,” Snake panted. “Is he …”

Snake would be helpless were Liquid to attack. When RAY and REX collided, Snake had taken a terrible blow to the chest. The two giant metal masses had crashed into each other at tremendous speed. Had it been a traffic accident, I wouldn’t have expected any survivors. Snake tried to move his body and screamed in pain, his left shoulder dislocated.

RAY had collapsed, and from its cockpit Liquid’s arm reached out. He grasped at the machine’s surface to pull himself free.

Slowly, he crawled out of the Metal Gear. Like Snake, Liquid had been severely injured by the crash, but he had a gun grasped firmly in his hand, and he staggered toward REX’s wreckage.

This was bad. Somehow, I managed to free Snake from his seatbelt, but his wounds and fatigue left him in a stupor. Liquid was in a similar state, except he could walk while Snake wasn’t going anywhere.

Liquid, in Ocelot’s body. And Snake. The two old, worn-down, and wounded men confronted each other, each resolute in a shared goal: to put an end to their entwined fates. But one had taken his body to its limit and could no longer move.

Suddenly, Liquid grasped at his chest as if trying to gouge out his heart.

Snake had seen this before.

Nine years ago, when Snake escaped in a Jeep from the underground base and was trapped under that Jeep, unable to move, the original Liquid stood before him with eyes wide.

Snake’s own eyes said,
I know this. I’ve lived this.

As if it were a magic curse, Snake apprehensively uttered the syllable, “FOX—”

Then Liquid, delivering his own coup de grâce, finished, “—DIE!”

His knees hit the ground, followed by the rest of him. His hand clutched at his heart in agony, nails digging into skin.

Was it over? Could their lengthy battle have ended so abruptly?

Snake gaped at Liquid, forgetting his own pain for a moment. His foe lay alone before him. Once known as Ocelot, the man had taken Liquid’s name and regarded himself as Solid Snake’s shadow and the son of Big Boss.

“Think again!”

Liquid sprang up, and his face radiated delight, even more so than on that night in Eastern Europe when he had cut down the surrounding US forces.

Had his injuries just been an act?

“What?” Snake said.

“Sorry, but that won’t work this time. Behold!”

Liquid pointed to the sea from which he and RAY had emerged. A rumble filled the port, beyond comparison with the sound RAY had made. Snake and I watched in astonishment as the gunmetal sea rose up, erupting into pillars of spray as if in celebration.

What I saw next made me doubt my own sanity.

A giant mass split the ocean, seawater cascading off the front in waterfalls. The mist cleared to reveal the four granite presidential heads of Mount Rushmore rising from the frozen Alaskan sea, faces unperturbed. Snake and I were caught dumbstruck by the sight, absurd, utterly ridiculous, and oddly magnificent.

Moved by the brazen irrationality and sheer shamelessness of the display, I worried that the Naval Hymn might start playing in my head. Snake recovered his sanity ahead of me and began to struggle free from the cockpit.

Not only did his body not work as he expected it to, but age and injury strove to crush his consciousness. Biting down a cry of pain, Snake crawled from the pilot’s seat of the fallen REX.