Solitary (for The Cobras)

[nagaya-zmeika.livejournal.com]

Snake had been thinking. Not much else to do, when you were the lone American on a Russian base with a murderer on the loose, and every time you showed your face you could hear the tension level ratchet up one more click. He was the obvious choice for scapegoat, but after meeting the investigators from Moscow, Snake didn't think that was what they wanted. Neither of them had approached him since the interview, aside from the time the quiet pale guy asked him if he'd seen any crickets around. As far as he could tell, he'd been dismissed as a suspect. Maybe The Boss had something to do with it, before she left, without ever telling him what she was doing there.

What he was doing there.

If the Shagohod was the main objective, Snake had it covered. It was the most blatantly destructive thing on the base, after Colonel Volgin, and all the information commonly bandied around about him was, while interesting in its own way, probably not of high strategic importance. Snake had been lucky no one spared attention to wonder how he knew about the tank. No use pushing his luck by snooping around it. Besides, at this point, the only way he was going to learn more was by taking a socket wrench to the thing. It wouldn't do much for his cover.

Whatever that was.

Snake kept out of sight and wondered if he was the only one around here who was exactly what he seemed.

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A huge, fluffy white cat barrelled past Snake like a squat missile on waddling legs. He wondered how it would...nah.

He watched The Fear grope the German, establishing their alibi in the process. Cute couple.

Everyone was on edge lately. The Fear didn't seem to be. In fact, as Snake climbed the staircase behind him, he thought he was enjoying himself. Stood to reason. If fear was his emotion, he took to an atmosphere of it like a crocodile to swampwater.

[the-cobra-unit.livejournal.com]

At the top of the third flight of stairs, two armed guards stood motionless near a door that simply read ‘307’ in black letters on the frosted glass. There was nothing extraordinary about sentries, but the ones watching the pair of soldiers from behind smoked goggles were the variety that went around in fireproof suits and carried flamethrowers.

Hearing the disturbance, their weapons were drawn and ready to fire, literally.

“Phobos, Deimos!” The Fear exclaimed with undue glee as he rounded the banister and approached the pair of flame soldiers. “How are things going for you?”

“I found a shiny thing in the caves.” The lithe redhead replied, nodding, allowing the spider soldier to lower his flamethrower with a casual hand. “A little English woman lives inside and paints rainbows everywhere.”

“A crystal quartz.” the Cobra soldier agreed with a knowing nod. “Very nice. Those drive away nightmares, you know.”

“You would like to see?”

“After the meeting.” The Fear answered with a friendly nod to the silent sentry.

“What about you, strange American?” He tilted his head at Snake, trying to get a better look at the stranger in the dark hall.

“After.” The Fear repeated, grabbing Snake by the sleeve and half-dragging him through the doorway and into the disheveled mess of the laboratory.

Everyone looked up at the pair, the Pain and the Joy, seated at a table, seemingly discussing something important before the interruption. The Fury, who paced back and forth, poking at a small handheld device with a screwdriver. Even the End stopped snoring, if only for a brief moment.

The spider soldier looked around, flicked out his tongue, and gracefully stepped over something that resembled half a hovercraft engine.

The silence under the fluorescent light was awkward.

Finally, Voyevoda stood. “Welcome, Jack. It’s good that you agreed to join us tonight.”

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The sight of the woman in white stopped him short.

She looked in place, among all the men who had once been called her sons.

"Boss," Snake said. The word came out hoarse. He swallowed. "I thought you were...gone."

Again.

He came forward. The seed of an anger he hadn't known he possessed shot out tendrils in the new light.

John was sick of being used at best and ignored at worst, left in the dark or left behind. He was sick of thinking about the bridge that day, and how close The Boss might have been to snapping his neck and tossing him over the side.

His hands slammed down on the table.

"Just what the hell is going on here?"

He never would have talked to her like that while they were on a mission, but this wasn't a mission. He didn't know what this was.

Forcibly, Snake reined in his tone. He leaned closer.

"I think it's time I knew."

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The Fear was the first to react to the outburst; in an instant the congenial spider was deadly serious; bow drawn, poison-tipped bolt aimed at Snake’s heart. His weapon was drawn and ready to fire before the others had time to draw breath.

The old man opened one bulbous eye, but couldn’t be bothered to move for something so trivial as a child throwing a temper tantrum.

“Sit down.” She ordered calmly, gesturing to an empty chair on the side of the rectangular table. “You have every right to be angry with me, but I will not tolerate your tone.”

Over head, a pale milky moth flittered around the light. It was the only creature in the room that dared disturb the tension thick as blood in the air.

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Snake released his breath like a hostage.

"Sorry," he muttered, looking down.

Calming himself, Snake sat, met The Boss's eyes, and waited.

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“You tremble like the last leaf of autumn.” The Fear hissed, raising his crossbow vertically and discharging the bolt in the ceiling. Scowling, he brushed away the white plaster that fell on the shoulder of his mottled jumpsuit.

The Fury stopped fiddling with his piece of machinery, and looked up. He stared for a long moment at the arrow lodged in the tile, mesmerized by it. “You put a fucking hole in my ceiling!”

“Goes nicely with the scorch marks.” The other Cobra retorted with a taunting grin, daring the cosmonaut to do something about it.

“That’s enough. Both of you.” The Joy glared at each of them in turn, then took her seat. She took a moment to compose herself, then looked up at Snake once more. “We were both sent here with a mission. You were to escort Nikolai Sokolov to the other side of the Iron Curtain.”

The cosmonaut turned, staring down at Snake from behind his helmet, incredulous. “Sokolov?”

“My mission here, that is a bit more complicated.” She looked away, searching for the right words. “I was given three main objectives: return the Philosopher’s Legacy to American hands, destroy the Shagohod, and eliminate the reaming soldiers of the Cobra Unit by any means necessary.”

The Pain looked away, obviously disturbed and injured by her words, but she sought out his hand, deliberately.

“It was nothing personal, my son. It was an order.”

Slowly, he Fury sat down beside the hornet keeper, and the Fear was next to follow, near the End.

“We’re still alive.” the cosmonaut muttered, unsure of what that meant, laying his gloved hands out on the table to be certain he was, indeed, still among the living. “Why?”

“An order I choose to disobey.” Voyevoda continued, shutting her eyes. For a moment, all she could see was the lifeless body of the Sorrow, the thick red blood pouring from him, diluted and muddled by the torrential rain. The raindrops hid her tears, that mournful day.

She looked to Snake, her pale blue eyes marked with desperation of a mother’s broken heart. “Jack…what do you see here, in this room?”

[nagaya-zmeika.livejournal.com]

"Sokolov," Snake said, the name of his mission objective causing primal parts of his brain to snap to attention. "Do you know where he is?"

He shut up and listened to what The Boss was telling him. Too many questions. The Shagohod, for one, was no surprise. As soon as Snake had laid eyes on the gargantuan, nearly indestructable thing, he'd had a feeling somebody was going to want it blown up. Everything else was new to him.

"The Philosopher's Legacy?" John's brow knit. She said it as though it were something he should know of, and it must be, to be in the same company as the Shagohod and...

Eliminating the Cobras.

"Disobeying orders," John said, his voice low, almost with reverence.

He didn't know if he understood The Boss's question, but it gave him his answer.

He began to discover how deep the roots of that anger could go.

"I see soldiers who saved their country, and the world."

The same country whose whims now wanted them dead.

It didn't need to be said.

"And I see the commander I'd follow to Hell and back."

Abruptly, Snake's mouth acquired a rueful twist.

"That is, if you'll let me."

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“Very good. That is a choice you must make for yourself.” Even so, Voyevoda was pleased with his answer and his loyalty. It was not blind loyalty to governmental rhetoric, but loyalty forged of loyalty itself.

“Choose wisely.” The Fury intoned, “because you’re either with us, or against us, and you don't realize just how hot Hell really is, until you’ve been there for yourself.”

“I took a long walk in the woods to think things over. A very long walk.” That was putting it lightly, she knew, but the best explanation she was willing to give for her absence. “I spent time at Tselinoyarsk and there I realized that if any of you are to understand the decision I have made, you must first know my darkest sin.”

The Boss looked to each of her sons in turn; the Pain, with compassion that only came through great suffering, and he spared none of it for his enemies. The Fury, who pursued everything with the burning passion of a thousand suns. Snake, who lacked an emotion for battle, but fierce loyalty and determination. Then to the Fear, vicious and feral but not frightening, no, not under the bright light as he regarded her with concern. Last, the End, beside her, completing the circle. The Great Sniper, wise beyond wisdom and patient beyond time.

Voyevoda looked down at her hands, and realized they were trembling.

“The Sorrow is dead, and I was the one who took his life. Several years ago, I was sent here with two mission objectives: escort a defector to the other side of the Iron Curtain, and eliminate a Soviet psychic who supposedly posed great risk to the United States. The defector was Sokolov, the dangerous psychic was the Sorrow.”

She swept her hands through her hair, pulling her black bandanna free and tossing it aside.

“And now he’s dead, and for what? Nothing. Sokolov was given back to the Soviet Union by my country, in exchange for the Russians removing their missiles from Cuba. The Sorrow was never a threat to American security.”

Voyevoda sighed, “so here I am again. I cannot…will not…serve a country who barters the lives of its innocent citizens. A country so quick to search for enemies that it has its comrades murdered in cold blood. A country that would misuse the Philosopher’s Legacy to further its own political agendas to wicked ends, and I suspect, launch full-scale nuclear war on Soviet Russia. This is a mission I cannot complete.”

“Boss… this country is no better…” The Fury offered, leaning back in his chair to offset the weight of his jetpack. “Wrought with the same evil you speak of. It sends its sons to die in prison camps, while…”

“Your mission is purification.” she interrupted. “You told me. To purge the Earth of impurities with fire. And you…” The Boss pointed to the Pain, “said you’d give your life if only to see this world whole again. And the Fear as well, to see an end to the terror inflicted on innocent civilians by their own government. We saved this world once, and now we’re being called upon to do it again.”

The soldiers of the Cobra Unit were silent for a long moment; the hornet keeper took interest in the floor, the Fear shut his eyes.

“If there is anyone in this room who does not wish join me… this is your one and only opportunity to walk away.” Her gaze settled on Jack, and offered him a smile.

[nagaya-zmeika.livejournal.com]

There was no need to ask.

"I'm with you," said Jack.

Behind The Boss's shoulder, a man in grey smiled.

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“What’s the plan, Boss?” The hornet keeper asked, meeting her gaze.

She turned suddenly, looking over her shoulder, scanning the empty laboratory for any sign of life. It must have been a cold draft, she convinced herself, only a cold draft that made her skin crawl.

“We wait.” The Joy answered at last, turning back to the group.

“Wait?” The Fury growled, leaning forward, “what is there to wait --”

“We are not alone here. As we speak, there is a group of soldiers, three, maybe more, camped half a day’s walk from the base. They’re not GRU. They’re not KGB or SPETSNAZ or anything else I’ve ever seen.”

“How did you find out?”

“I saw one of them taking a piss in the stream.” She smirked. “So I followed him.”

“Did you find out why they’re here?”

Voyevoda shook her head. “That is why we will wait.”

The End opened an eye just long enough to mumble, “patience…virtue…”

The cosmonaut stood abruptly, and began rummaging through a cardboard box near the wall, tossing out papers and half-finished gadgets. “Fucking hell, where is it?!” He tipped over the box and kicked it across the room. It’s contents left a colorful comet tail behind.

“What are you looking for, Vladik?” The Pain asked, watching his comrade curse and flail.

“The tape!” He snarled, flinging a black binder at the wall.

The Fear and the Pain exchanged bewildered glances.

“That machine, there.” He pointed to a device on the counter, it was something like the bastard love child of a tape recorder and a television, with three aluminum antennae growing out of the top and an innumerable rainbow of wires keeping it all together. “It’s a primitive CODEC interceptor. My lieutenant built it for fucks and giggles one rainy day last fall.”

The Fury pulled out a desk drawer and dumped its contents onto the floor, scowling at resulting mess: three paperclips, a stapler, a ball of rubber bands, and something that looked like a wind up scarab beetle with a phonograph on its back.

“A few nights ago, he brought me a tape recording of a conversation overheard between Major Ocelot and one of his men. Something about Volgin being assassinated by a sniper. I told him to forget all about it, forget he ever heard anything.” The Fury paused his frantic searching, surveying his laboratory. “Do you think it has anything to do with anything?”

“It has something to do with something.” Voyevoda nodded, a hint of a smile pursing her lips. “When you find it, bring it to me.” Ocelot, and that reminded her…

“Snake, have you been in contact with ADAM and EVA?”

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"Tell me one thing," Snake said. "Whose side are we on?"

It wasn't a demand. Just a question. The old, 'tell me where to aim.'

"ADAM I've met," Jack added, leaving out the circumstances of how he'd found out the agent's identity. The kiss stolen from the smirking, irrepressible kid, while his lover waited somewhere, hidden in the greater maze of Groznyj Grad. Stick to neccessary information. It was a good doctrine. "EVA, no."

His face set, focused.

"Are they with us, or still with the US?"

It was odd to say the name of his country - former country, he suppossed - as an enemy. Another thing he'd have to get used to.

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The Boss laughed at her student, not so much for his naiveté, but because she found his question genuinely funny given the circumstances. “We don’t have a side. We fight for ethics, not countries.” He laughter faded, but her warm smile remained. “For now, I want you to assume that ADAM and EVA are still working for the US and act accordingly. This meeting never happened. You don’t know anything, other than the mission objective given to you. Your only concern is Nikolai Sokolov.”

The Fury turned from the empty desk drawer, threw a stapler across the room as an afterthought, and finally rejoined the group at the table. “Who the hell is ADAM?”

“A secret agent installed here by the American --”

“I didn’t ask what.” He growled, “but who?”

Voyevoda smirked, “you’ll learn his true identity when the occasion calls for it.”

The cosmonaut sat back in his chair, knowing there was nothing left to argue about. Defeated, he sulked. “Supposing what Io overheard is true. The sniper…” he watched the End carefully through his smoked helmet, an inkling of suspicion tickling at his brain, “that attempted to assassinate Volgin obviously did not succeed. What if he does next time? Then what will we do, find the bastard and thank him for making our job easier?”

The Boss nodded. “Dead or alive, Colonel Volgin is only a pawn. A path to the Philosopher’s Legacy.” She entertained a thought for a long moment, before nudging the hornet keeper sitting next to her. “What information have you gathered on the vault where it is kept?”

“I sent three separate drones, and all three gave me the same report. It doesn’t exist.”

The Joy nodded, rubbing her forehead.

“It’s not on any blueprint.” The Fury offered. “I have a map of every tunnel, crack and crevice that runs under this base, and it’s not on any of them.”

“Is there anyone on this base that might know of its location?”

“Krauss!” The Cobra soldiers replied in union.

“Very good. Very, very good. The Fear, first thing tomorrow night, I want you to pay the German a visit. I trust you have something in reserve to make him…social?”

The spider soldier grinned a sadistic smile, suppressing a giggle. “SP-17, opium, and the venom of a particular Peruvian tarantula. He’ll spill everything he knows to me, remember nothing, and feel all together giddy about it in the morning.”

“Good. Do it.”

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"Hold on a minute," Snake interjected.

The Cobras seemed to have forgotten he was there, but he couldn't fault them much. His mind kept wandering back to that night.

It was hard to get used to the idea. The mysterious ADAM had been Ocelot all along. Probably had as many names as he had faces. Like that look of shock trampling across the fine, sharp features, until the customary chill calculation shut them down again. Slowly, deliberately licking his lips.

In any case, it was interesting that Snake knew something the Cobras - some of them, at least - didn't.

"So we're on our own." Snake made it half a question. That was what 'no side' tended to mean, in his experience. It wasn't a good place to be.

"The...Philosopher's Legacy," Snake said. "You've said that before."

Which brought him to other unanswered questions. He was tired of diving in blind.

Liking what The Boss said was no prerequisite to doing it, but unthinking obedience wasn't going to do any of them any good.

"I haven't found anything on Sokolov. Not even a location."

Of course, that might be for the better. If they weren't planning on handing Sokolov over, having him already alongside would make things difficult. But that wasn't the point.

Snake shook his head like a grizzled bulldog coaxing a fly out of its ear.

"Boss. I can't keep this up forever. I've got no cover but your word. People are already asking questions. It's only held up this long because there's more important things going on."

The long, level looks the investigators had given him had practically said as much. The sleek MVD in particular had a smile that said Uncle, if I felt like it I could lift a finger and have you fucked six ways from vosskresseniye, and aren't you lucky I don't?

"Right now, Colonel Volgin's got too much in front of him to waste time worrying about me, but if he's got any sense at all, before the Shagohod rolls out, that'll change. Playing dumb won't cover all the cracks."

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“First things first. I never said it would be easy. I also never said we were on our own.” Pursed her lips, fighting back the urge to scold Snake for making such unfounded assumptions. Such miscalculations were lethal on the battlefield, but she suppressed the urge to scold him, at least in front of the Cobras. “My word is the only cover you need.”

“Let me tell you something about how Groznyj Grad works.” The Fury offered, leaning to the side just far enough that one of the boosters of his jetpack nudged Snake’s shoulder. “The guards you saw in the hall? My men. I found one of them in an asylum outside of Murmansk, huddled in the corner of his cell, wailing about extra-terrestrials reading his thoughts. The other comes to us from the Magadan GULAG. He had a nasty habit of butchering whores and leaving their pieces all over Moscow. My First Lieutenant devised a beautiful plot, albeit fatally flawed, to blow up the Kremlin.”

“You sure know how to pick ‘em.” The Pain mumbled, fumbling with the zipper on his vest.

“Fuck you. What do you know? You talk to bees.”

“Fuck you. They’re hornets. Your mother was a petrol pump.”

Ignoring the hornet keeper, the Fury lowered his head, to be sure Snake could see his eyes through the smoked glass of his helmet. “The flame soldiers are given the job of guarding one of the most vulnerable and remote routes into the base. Not only because they are qualified, but I am their commander, oversaw every bit of their training, and I am a member of the Cobra Unit. But you?” he laughed, “you have nothing to worry about! You are a disciple of Voyevoda!”

The Boss sighed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and brushing her hair back from her face. “In fewer words: the reputation of this unit, its members, and myself lends you great credibility. Let them ask questions, and then you will tell them how happy you are to have defected to the Soviet Union, how glorious this country is, and what an honor it is to have become a part of such a great state. You defected because Russia is by far superior to the United States.” She looked up at him and shook her head. “I’m telling you, no matter what you think or feel, put on your best smile and lie.”

“You might not have so much trouble if you were friendlier with the locals.” The Fear suggested, tilting his head and regarding Snake like a cat that just spotted an interesting insect. “Like the Pain. He’s an American, and no one gives a damn.”

“Was an American.” he interjected. “Renounced my citizenship in ’59.”

“Still.” The spider soldier shrugged. “I’m just throwing it out there. People won’t have a reason to ask questions if you fit in a little better. Camouflage, you know.”

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Oh, good. So there were more homicidal lunatics running around this place. Snake was about to ask how this was supposed to be reassuring when he realized there wasn't going to be a good answer.

There was something different about The Boss. She seemed...happy. Back with her old comrades. Not even bothering to dodge his questions. Just letting them fall.

"I can only lie," Snake said, delicately, "if I know what the truth is."

'Getting friendly with the locals' was a little awkward, in these circumstances, but Snake couldn't quite say he was averse to the idea.

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The cosmonaut looked from Snake to the Boss, then back again. “Is he --”

“Don’t say it.” She warned, narrowing her eyes at the Fury.

“What--”

“Whatever crude comment you’re getting ready to make about my student. Keep it to yourself.”

He laughed to cover his frustration, turning to the Pain. “How does she do that?” He mumbled, gesturing to the Boss. “Telepathy?”

“No, you’re just predictable. We’re all thinking it, but you’re the only one willing to say it.”

Voyevoda watched the pair for a moment. The Pain was right, everyone was thinking the same thing, including herself. She deliberately lingered, hoping Snake would start to figure things out on his own. It soon became apparent that was not the case.

“The truth is,” she began, “the world that the Cobra Unit saved all those years ago is slowly dying, tangled in choking vines of greed, corruption, and hate. A third world war is looming on the horizon, but instead of picking sides, our mission is to prevent it before it happens.”

The Boss let him ponder that idea for a moment before she continued. “If it’s truth you’re after, consider this: the U.S. had plans to build weapons similar in design and function to the Shagohod. I say had, because they lack the most important element: Sokolov. You honestly didn’t think they would send you all this way and go to all this trouble just to let him to lead out a peaceful civilian life, did you Snake?”

Voyevoda shut her eyes, contempt obvious on her visage.

“We’re better off having him here, having such weapons on Soviet soil.” The Fury offered with a dismissive gesture, as though there were no questions about it. “Isn’t it strange that the country most worried about Russia’s nuclear program is the only country to ever use such weapons in combat? And moreover, use them against civilians?” His tone suggested that the very idea was an unforgivable sin.

“It never should have happened.” Boss replied solemnly, casting her gaze downward. “If they only would have listened to me…”

“You can’t blame yourself. They wouldn’t listen to any of us. It wasn’t an act of war, it was about revenge.” The Pain laid a hand on her shoulder and numbly, the Boss nodded, grudgingly allowing herself to be comforted.

In the silence that followed, the Fury pulled off his helmet and set it on the table. He studied his reflection in the tinted glass, thoughtful, tilting his head and scowling behind his respirator. “Your mission is Sokolov. Our mission is to save the world from itself. A bullet in Nikolai’s forehead would solve all our problems. But he is the catalyst, not the problem. It would be wrong…” He folded his hands together, reminiscent of prayer, and narrowed his dark eyes at the empty space between the table and the wall. Then, the cosmonaut laughed for no reason at all. “Sokolov and I… you could say we were colleagues once.”

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So she meant what she said. Snake was used to rhetoric about being on the side of good as a prelude to the details of what was really going on, not the meat of the mission itself. It sat uneasily in his stomach like that poison dart frog the other day.

There had to be something they weren't telling him. Well, if that was what they'd decided, nothing he said was going to change their minds. He was used to being kept outside of what was really going on, and The Boss had never pretended this would be any different. To her, Jack was still the student, kept in the dark unless he could be made useful.

In the back of Snake's mind, it rankled, in a way it never had all those years ago.

"When I was sent after Sokolov, I didn't think about why," he said, in response to The Boss's question. "Not part of my job."

Funny, how little it had occurred to him to wonder about that before. It was just what good soldiers did. What they were told.

Right now, Snake was being told to do exactly what he had been doing; nothing. He could live with that.

He looked around at the assembled Cobra unit, and saw, without bitterness, a place where he was unnecessary.

Snake drew himself up to attention and looked at The Boss.

"Will that be all?"

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Like a feather from a white dove, slowly drifting towards the earth from the clear blue summer sky in lazy spirals, an idea lit on the surface of her consciousness and her blue eyes went wide. “From this moment on, your mission is to concern yourself with the why, not the how. I have taught you everything there is to know about how to eliminate an enemy, now you must learn for yourself how to tell who the enemy is. It isn’t about countries or borders, Snake.”

It was never about countries or borders. The others understood it so well: it was about what was right and what was wrong, something that was impossible to draw a border around or label.

She stood, turning to the window and the darkened base beyond, watching a search light wander about the side yard.

“I will speak with Volgin as soon as his schedule allows for it. With the state of panic the whole base is in, I should have no trouble convincing him that the Shagohod and Sokolov would be better off under our supervision.”

“You.” She turned, pointed to Snake, “and you,” then to the Fury. Since you’re both concerned with Nikolai Sokolov’s well being, you’ll be working together from here on out to ensure nothing unfortunate happens to him.”

Perhaps the best way to open Jack’s eyes was to put him on assignment with someone who fought for a cause, not for a country.

The cosmonaut glared at Snake in contempt, but said nothing.

“The Pain: I want eyes and antennas in every corner of this base. Starting tomorrow, if anyone so much as sneezes, I want to know about it before they wipe their nose. Fear, you will pay a visit to Johann Krauss. Find out exactly what he knows.”

Voyevoda nodded. “For now, we gather information and wait. It is all we can do, until the panic dies down. If there are no other questions… you are dismissed.”

The old man stopped snoring and opened his eyes, wincing at the bright light. “What…about the seventh son?” The End rasped.

The Boss winced visibly, narrowing her eyes at the ancient sniper. “He is dead to me. My only sons are here in this room.”

“He deserves to know…”

“It would not change anything.” She turned away, biting her lip to keep from saying any more on the subject, crossing her arms to keep from trembling. “Does anyone have anything relevant to add?”

[nagaya-zmeika.livejournal.com]

Snake nodded.

"Understood."