by Project Itoh
“Hop on, Snake,” I said. “I’ll send ’er up.”
Snake lifted the Mk. III and set it on top of REX’s platform. The Metal Gear’s remains awaited at the lift’s destination, the supply tunnel entrance. I opened the cover to the floor access panel and inserted the Mk. III’s manipulator into the jack.
With a heavy shudder, the massive lift awoke from hibernation. Alarms reverberated through the chamber.
“If everything’s been left the same,” I said, “REX will be here.”
Snake watched the upper floor draw closer.
The weapon Snake destroyed. The weapon that stole the life of his mentor and friend, Frank Jaeger. The weapon I created, and my sin.
After another large shudder, the alarms quieted.
We had arrived. The platform fit neatly into the floor.
“REX,” I whispered.
The supply tunnel entrance was a dim space, roughly the size and shape of a gymnasium. REX’s corpse leaned against a wall, unmoved since Snake had destroyed the machine. The robot’s head was askew, like a confused puppy dog unsure of what just happened. Despite a massive frame, the Metal Gear looked small now.
As we got closer, I realized why REX seemed to have become so diminutive.
“Look,” I said. “The railgun’s been removed!”
I clicked my tongue. Had Liquid already left with the railgun? He didn’t need the whole REX to launch his nuke, only the naked cannon, free of the System’s control.
“Damn,” Snake said. “Have they already taken off with it?”
I said, “I’ll check,” and sent the Mk. III around the back of REX’s giant legs, to the maintenance port that would provide access to REX’s work logs.
Perhaps the railgun had been taken much earlier. The Patriots could have recovered it after the incident. But given the abandoned state of the rest of the facility, I didn’t have high hopes.
The voice came from above.
“I’m afraid so.”
Snake looked up to the second floor walkway to see Vamp standing there.
“Unfortunately for you,” Vamp said, “the railgun is no longer here.”
In defiance of the cold, the nosferatu discarded his jacket, exposing his bare chest. But more shocking was the hollowness in Naomi’s eyes. She stood behind him, wearing a dark brown coat. Then I noticed something about her mouth—and his—that gave me chills. Both were missing something in the below-freezing air: the white clouds of exhaled breath.
At the sight of her, Snake just said, “Naomi …”
I know this might sound fanciful, but after seeing Vamp killed so many times and yet remaining alive, the bloodsucker’s lack of white breath seemed only natural. Snake and I had come to expect his body to operate in ways beyond all reason.
But Naomi, there at his side like a vampire bride, deeply unsettled us. She and Vamp didn’t seem much different at all.
“This place will be your grave,” Vamp said, adding, “as Naomi wishes.”
The confidence in his smile was unnerving. If Vamp and Naomi had already sent out the railgun, why were they still here?
I routed queries to the security system via REX’s access port and found readings of a large number of entities headed toward the supply tunnel entrance at a great speed.
I warned Snake, and Vamp flashed us a satisfied grin.
“The Suicide Gekko are on their way,” he said. “We’ve rigged their heads with explosives. Soon, there’ll be nothing left of this place.”
“We’ve been had,” Snake said. “Otacon!”
Snake needed help. I initiated a scan of REX’s drive system. I ran the self-diagnostics and got back a full report of damage to each of the robot’s components. I didn’t have time to look at every detail, but drawing on old sense-memories of testing the Metal Gear, I managed a rough diagnosis of REX’s state.
“Snake,” I said, “I think I might be able to get it working!”
I disconnected the Mk. III’s manipulator, switched its wheels to magnetic mode, and climbed REX’s leg. If I could get into the cockpit on the front of the Metal Gear’s nose, I could put the robot’s knee-fired antitank missiles to use.
“Now,” Vamp said, “amuse me until they arrive.”
He leapt down from the second floor and stuck a four-point landing. He held in a crouch and stared at Snake, licking his lips. Snake cursed, raised his M4, and began to fire.
Vamp evaded the gunfire with astonishing agility.
Some of the nosferatu’s speed might have been from the US Army power-assist armor he wore over his legs. But the movements of his back and legs easily surpassed mortal limits, mechanical aid or not.
Snake needed to get close. He and I had come up with a plan on Nomad to handle the deathless man. If my conjecture were correct, Vamp’s immortality could be stripped away.
Snake could only succeed if Vamp remained unaware. My idea wasn’t a sure thing—far from it—but Snake understood that the fight’s outcome hinged upon a single moment. He fired the M4, shrewdly orchestrating the opening we needed.
The next crucial step came: Vamp wielded a knife.
The bloodsucker sent out a volley of throwing daggers. Snake twisted to the side, evading them by inches, save for the one aimed at his head, which grazed the burn wound on his face. The shallow cut into Snake’s scarred skin let out a trickle of blood. Seeing the line of red across Snake’s cheek, Vamp licked his lips—perhaps anticipating the taste.
Vamp pressed in on Snake. Our plan required luring the immortal in, yet the closer he got to Snake, the greater the danger.
Our sole chance of defeating the nosferatu would come at the moment of greatest risk. When the M4’s magazine ran out of bullets, Snake didn’t reload. Instead, he dropped the rifle to rest on its sling, brought out his knife, and took the CQC stance. Vamp accepted the invitation and closed the distance. The moment we’d been waiting for had finally arrived.
Snake’s knife was only a front.
Hidden in his other hand, the autoinjector was Snake’s holy sword and holy water—perhaps even the stake to drive into the vampire’s heart. Snake stuck the needle into Vamp’s exposed neck. Compressed air pushed the piston down, and the swarm of nanomachine inhibitors rushed into Vamp’s bloodstream.
Taken by surprise, the bloodsucker leapt back. He put his hand to his neck and, with agony in his expression, dropped to one knee and said, “What have you done?”
“There,” Snake said. “Now you’re a dead man too.”
He displayed the autoinjector to Vamp before putting it back in his pouch. Vamp didn’t seem to yet know what was about to occur within him—only that something was changing inside his body; something long asleep was awakening.
Could this be … life?
As the frozen life began to stir, Vamp looked afraid.
I took Vamp’s moment of confusion to slip the Mk. III inside REX’s cockpit, where I connected the robot’s manipulator arm to a data port on the side of the control stick. This could work.
The moment I initiated REX’s boot-up, the south wall crumbled like cardboard, and a Gekko lumbered like an elephant into view. The machine had crashed through the composite partitioning wall.
“Snake,” I said. “Look out! They’re rigged to self-destruct.”
Snake looked from the Gekko back to Vamp. Though Vamp had been momentarily discomposed when the nanomachines thawed his frozen life, now he slowly arose, ready to fight. He put his hands behind his back, then, after only an instant, they reappeared wielding knives.
Not even Snake could hope to stand against both Vamp and the Gekko. He was trapped. The muscles of his half-burned face tensed. The Gekko lifted one sausagelike bird leg and stepped over the rubble and into the room.
Then the robot’s head and legs split apart.
The cut was that of a master swordsman slashing through a bundle of straw. The Gekko’s head, packed with explosives, slid lopsided down its back. The robot, its sensors disconnected, inoperative, co
uld no longer determine when it should explode.
A figure alighted on REX’s back. His right hand grasped the sword that had split the Gekko in two.
Raiden.
“Snake,” he said. “Sorry to have kept you waiting.”
Raiden flourished his large sword as if it were a baton, then slid the blade into its sheath. No trace of confusion remained in Vamp’s expression—only rapture: If it isn’t the man I’ve been waiting for …
“You ready for this?” Snake asked with worry in his voice.
“Yeah,” Raiden said. “Sunny gave me the go-ahead.”
With a freakish cry, Vamp jumped to REX’s knee, then he was atop the steel giant with Raiden. He presented Raiden a heartfelt grin and said, “How about it, undying man? You want to die too?”
“Sorry,” Raiden said, his eyes locked on the vampire’s, “but I can’t die just yet.”
“Then … kill me!”
Vamp drew throwing knives from their holders at his forearm and thigh and displayed them, fanned out between his fingers like a magician’s deck of cards. Raiden grasped his sword sheath.
“Wait,” the nosferatu said. “They say you consider yourself some Native American scout. Knives, then? Let us duel with knives.”
Raiden released the hilt of his sword and, keeping his eyes on Vamp, withdrew his yoroi-doshi, a thick, straight-edged dagger. He held the weapon in a reverse grip and pointed the blade’s tip at Vamp.
“Snake,” he said, “this one is mine. You keep those Gekko at bay.”
From behind the Gekko destroyed by Raiden came reinforcements. Snake readied the sniper rifle he’d purchased from Drebin in South America, pulling back the bolt and sending the first round into the breech. If he could hit the Gekko in their comparatively weak armored heads and sensory equipment, he might be able to stop them.
“Otacon,” Snake said, “we’re gonna buy you some time.”
I went back to work. I needed to get REX’s systems back online to stop the oncoming Gekko.
“Kill me,” Vamp said. “Kill me!”
With a scream, Vamp unleashed a volley of knives from both hands. Raiden, unable to dodge or deflect, took the weapons into his body, the knives sinking into his sides, his shoulders, and his arms.
Raiden used his free hand to swiftly pluck out the daggers, returning them at Vamp with machine-gun speed. The bloodsucker dodged them with his characteristic ballet grace and unsheathed his finest and largest knife from its sheath on his thigh. He smoothly transitioned forward, and Raiden, reading the nosferatu’s movements, rushed in to meet him.
Their blades crossed. The sharp clang of metal on metal resounded through the space, their music reaching even Snake’s ears below.
Suddenly, the concert cut silent. Raiden and Vamp separated and stared each other down, ready to make their next clash the decisive one.
Now.
The two flung themselves forward as if propelled by magnetic force. Directly between them, their swords flashed one final time, and in each man’s chest, a blade sank deep into flesh. White blood dripped from Raiden’s wound, dark red from Vamp.
For a few seconds, neither moved.
Vamp’s lips formed a taut grin, no longer the hopeless smile of an immortal that might suggest, Not even this will kill me. No, Vamp felt pain now. He felt life pouring out of him.
This smile was from surprise, and from happiness.
The two men separated, and Vamp breathlessly pulled the yoroi-doshi out of his chest.
“This thing spouting from my chest—this, this is my life.”
As Vamp fell from REX and down to the floor, his thoughts ran to the life force flowing from his wound. Where have you been hiding? If you’ve been there all along, why have you denied me death and decay? Don’t you know how much suffering you’ve inflicted upon me?
I shouted, “Snake, get down!”
Snake dove away from the partitioning wall the Gekko continued to smash through. The next instant, missiles I fired from REX slammed into the top of the wall.
The concussive blast and debris rushed past Snake. He lifted his head to see the destruction, the mountain of rubble blocking any surviving Gekko from getting inside the supply tunnel entrance.
Surprised myself, I said, “This thing might come in handy after all.”
Snake had thought REX utterly destroyed, and sure enough, the radar dome and cockpit interior had been largely done in. But when the Mk. III ran a system check, I found the joints and support systems at nearly full strength. Even the cockpit’s manual controls appeared to be operable, provided I could reassign the control systems among any remaining functional input devices.
To give Snake room to fit inside the cockpit, I steered the Mk. III back down to the floor and found Naomi standing there, solemnly looking down on Vamp as he contorted in pain. Snake put away the sniper rifle and went to her side.
Through the Mk. III’s camera, I stared into the face of the monster who took my sister’s life. But the face was no longer that of a monster but of a human, fragile. No longer a nosferatu, no longer a monster, now a man once more. A mere man, as he had been born.
I had reviled him as a monster, but this ordinary man left me bewildered.
“Vamp was never immortal,” Naomi said. “His natural healing abilities were enhanced by the nanomachines inside his body. But after so many battles, he’s finally reached his limit.”
She didn’t have to tell us. We had already realized this when, inside the helicopter escaping from South America, she confessed her sins, saying, I’m responsible for Vamp.
That was when Snake and I knew. Vamp’s immortality was not innate but rather granted by Naomi’s nanomachines. If we could only inhibit them, we could restore the inevitability of death.
Raiden descended from REX and joined Naomi, looking at the man he defeated. After Snake had made Vamp human again, he was vulnerable to Raiden. Returned to his natural flesh and blood, Vamp would die now.
In turn, Raiden’s victory evidenced that he was no longer human. Perhaps Vamp had been transformed into a monster by technology. But Raiden was the same. Raiden was now a monster—as was Snake.
But, as with Vamp, Raiden had been the baby of a man and woman like any other. And Vamp, at the end, had been able to regain his humanity.
It shouldn’t be too late for Raiden, I thought. It mustn’t be.
Because Snake, born as a monster, wouldn’t be granted the same good fortune.
Raiden said to Naomi, “Sunny asked me to tell you something.”
White blood still flowed from where Vamp’s knives had cut him.
“What?” Naomi asked.
“ ‘I cooked them right.’ That was it.”
“I see.”
Naomi closed her eyes. Tears silently streamed down her cheeks as she seemed to reach an understanding. Whatever was going through her mind, I sensed there was more going on than satisfaction at teaching Sunny how to make fried eggs correctly. I could sense her emotions of fulfillment and relief, and they unsettled me.
“Good for you, Sunny,” she said. “You finally did it.”
At her feet, Vamp let out a painful moan. Naomi went to her knees and stroked his forehead with the scarred-over bullet wound.
“Doctor,” he said, afraid, “ease my pain.”
Faced at last by the real death he had so desired, Vamp now battled a terror that was hard to contain.
A pitiable sight; all too natural a response for any man.
I had been possessed by the notion that by defeating this monster, by killing this inhuman thing, I would be freed from my hate. But the figure on the ground before me was just a man, tragic in his normality, now nothing more than an inhabitant of a body on its way to death.
I wanted to scream. Why? Why do you have to be like that now? Why do you have to be human again? I reviled you as a monster, and I wanted to kill you as a monster. Why is your face so human with fear?
Naomi took out an autoinjector and said to
Vamp, “You must have been so lonely.”
Vamp reached for the syringe, his hand trembling, pleading for the promised land sealed within the cylinder. But Naomi’s hand also trembled.
“I can’t,” she said. “I haven’t earned the right to save you.”
His eyes yearned for help, but Naomi felt too much guilt to provide it. I stole his life, she thought. I robbed him of death. I destroyed within him the peace which no living being should be denied.
Can I grant him salvation?
Who do I think I am? That’s supposed to absolve me of my sins?
Naomi would not allow her hands to provide his mercy. Instead, she came to the Mk. III and said, “You have to trust me, Dr. Emmerich.”
She put the autoinjector up to the robot’s camera. I didn’t know how to react.
“Give this to him,” Naomi said. “Not for revenge, but to put an end to his suffering.”
For a time, I stared at the syringe, unable to move. This man killed Emma. This monster took her from me. Now, I doubted anything could rescue Vamp from his anguish. All that remained was a lonely sinner burning in the blazing flames that lay in the space between life and death.
Still in a daze, I operated the Mk. III’s controls. The next thing I knew, the robot held the autoinjector within its manipulator arm. The misery that had been propelling me was gone now; without it, I no longer knew what to do, bereft of my anger, of malice and the desire for vengeance.
Where had they gone—the anger and the hate? While I struggled with my confusion, Vamp snatched the autoinjector from the Mk. III and jabbed it into the side of his neck.
Vamp began to writhe in agony. The life—and death—long sealed away now raged within his body. He was at the opening of a new life. And with life came the possibility of death.
“Now you can return to your true self,” Naomi said. “You can be at peace.”
“I can … die?”
Though his body contorted with pain, Vamp exhaled in relief.
“Forgive me,” Naomi said.
The nanomachines washed through him and restored old wounds to their rightful places.
Here, he seemed to think. Here is the place I’ve longed for. Dark and painful, and warm.