Day 23: Sun Room, Evening Shift
Miles Edgeworth had quietly snuck off to a corner of the cafeteria during lunch, avoiding making conversations. He knew other people would probably lecture him later or accuse him of avoiding them, but that hadn't been true at all. He'd just wanted some time to work quietly by himself for a while
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He found himself remembering Natasha... The bridge...
Fox had been piloting Metal Gear D... it was always strange to be in the cockpit of the massive, bipedal machine, the lurching feeling of it moving. He had to destroy the bridge, Snake was about to get across, and it was time to recapture Dr. Marv...
Natasha was on the bridge already, he had no choice but to kill her. She was with the enemy. Fox had always resented the American Government for keeping them apart because she was Russian.
Natasha skated so beautifully... but she became a soldier because of me... and I had to kill her because of it. Fox wondered if Lyta could hear his thoughts. He had avoided thinking about Natasha's death for a long time.
In the end it really came down to one thing. Fox had loved Big Boss more than anyone else, that man had been the most important person in his life, and he wasn't even entirely sure why. That was why it had been so easy to press the button, to launch the missile to destroy the bridge and kill Natasha.
Fox forced the memory aside finally, not wanting to watch the destruction of the bridge again.
The path through the fortress was open, and but the trail of bodies continued, the bodies of children occasionally mixed in with the dead soldiers. The soldiers all wore the same uniform now, and the bodies appeared mostly undamaged.
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Swallowing hard, Lyta stayed her course. It all felt so real, it was easy to forget she was really on a couch in some mental home, with Fox's head in her lap. It was all too easy to forget this was just his mind. He was so strong!
She ignored the bodies. She'd seen plenty of dead bodies before - hell, she'd made dead bodies. She just needed to keep going.
But it was getting harder. She was tiring already.
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It was strange to go from thinking about Zanzibar Land to Outer Heaven, but it was progress, even if that mission had been a disaster. To learn that Big Boss had been running Outer Heaven, and sent Fox out there to get captured... Big Boss... that was the first time he met Snake...
He'd been trapped in a dark room, not mistreated, or tortured, the way he had been when captured in other places. When the wall collapsed and there was a man standing there, and that voice! That voice that had belonged to Big Boss once.
Only it hadn't been Big Boss, it had been Solid Snake standing there, saving him from the darkness of his prison. He had looked too much like Big Boss, they had to be related, only Big Boss couldn't have children of his own...
He always liked children...
There had been lots of Children at Outer Heaven, war orphans, the same as Zanzibar Land, but then Outer Heaven had been bombed after and most of them had died.
War orphans, like Naomi...
The fortress was quickly being replaced by an open landscape, a large river running across open plains, a single small child crouched next to the river among all the bodies.
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Once things had settled, Lyta took in her surroundings. She was breathing heavily now, and sweating slightly. This was harder than she'd thought it would be. Much, much harder.
She approached the child, wiping her red hair out of her eyes. How deeply inside Fox's mind was she?
"Hi," she said, wondering if she was deep enough that she could interact with the man's mind.
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The young girl had dark hair and dark eyes, while she had been staring intently at the water, she did glance up briefly at Lyta ,giving her a shy, british accented "Hello," before turning her attention to a young man who was approaching.
There was really no mistaking him, it was Fox, younger and with no where near as many scares. Dog-tags hanging around his neck outside the olive drab t-shirt. His machine-gun was held in one hand, and a large machete was in a sheath at his waist.
"Frankie!" The young girl ran and jumped at him, and the young man caught her and held her up with one arm.
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"Hey!" she called, waving some. "I need a little help. I'm lost and I don't have much time..." At least she was deep enough in to connect. If she could just get to the place where the memories were....
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"Where are you trying to go?" It was the little girl again with her strange, almost british accent, the man remained silent, merely holding the girl carefully.
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"I'm looking for something that's hidden. Very, very deep. Can you show me where I can find something like that?"
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The bodies were piled thicker on the ground, and all of them had wounds that were obviously inflicted by some sort of large knife, practically paving a road of corpses to the deepest, darkest parts.
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Lyta sighed. Well, she hadn't expected this to be easy.
"Thanks." She tucked back her sweat-dampened hair and took a deep breath. She didn't have any choice. She started walking once more, heading towards the darkness.
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"I didn't hear anything about using the Perfect Soldier, did you? He's suppose to be undergoing readjustments!" The sound of gun-shots, and a fast moving shape wielding a machete, deflecting the machine-gun fire with the broad blade of the knife and cutting down the soldiers, even though they were on the same side.
"Where is he.. where is that man..."
"Null," It was Snake's voice, Big Boss' voice.
"I found you... tell me, why won't you die?" Fox, when he'd been younger, halfway through his teenage years, standing there with the bloody machete.
"When I wake up from the darkness, all I see are the bodies of men I've killed, lying in front of me. My memory is riddled with corpses. I know, everybody dies, crime, disease, accidents, war. No matter how noble a person you are, no matter how good a soldier, there are no exceptions. Even if I don't kill them, they die. This world is full of death, yet you won't be killed, Snake. Why, why do you still live? What do you hope to accomplish by living?"
Big Boss had just stared at him for a moment, "I know your name."
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In her own body, she was sweating and shaking, though she didn't realize. She grabbed for the memory before her, hoping she was strong enough....
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"Frank Jaeger... my name," He hadn't remembered then, they'd erased his memories after each mission, "No, I am the Perfect Soldier, where I exist, there are no other soldiers, so I don't need a name." But he could remember it now, "I am Null, and when you're dead, I can go back to being Null."
Big Boss had defeated him that time, fought him and made him remember, just like he'd beaten him in Mozambique... the Perfect Soldier Project... Frank grabbed that memory and held onto it, opening his eyes and pushing against the pressure in his mind.
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That had been much, much harder than she had expected. Was she even going to be up for anything tonight? She really didn't know. All she knew was that she was weak, very weak.
"Did...I get it?" she panted, leaning back against the couch and trembling.
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"I... yes... Those were the memories I wanted." Perfect Soldier...
This wasn't the first time he'd been in a mental hospital...
The Cyborg Ninja experiment.. hadn't been the first time he'd been part of an experiment.
"Thanks..." He made no move to get up, especially with Lyta's hands tightly gripping his silvery gray hair.
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She just leaned down, her hands threading through his hair, and pressed her cheek against his. Was this something they all shared? How many people here had been turned into weapons, into things to destroy? How many of them had been experiments, things?
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