(no subject)
So I dusted off Mirror Ocean and got back to work on chapter two. I'm having a few issues with it, mostly finding a good speaking voice for Fox and trying to decide how much exposition goes into the dialogue and how much into the narration -- they know all of this already! but sharing intel you both already know is a staple of MGS radio conversations! -- as well as a small plot hole I only just recently became aware of. Hopefully I'll be able to resolve it with handing Liquid Snake the idiot ball later. Anyway, here's the first five hundred words, so...I don't know, maybe someone'll get some enjoyment out of it.
Solid Snake stopped by the outer gates, standing in the lee of the wind-chilled stone for a moment to light his cigarette. The guards eyed him sidelong, but said nothing; as long as he didn’t loiter, they wouldn’t bother him. He moved off after a minute or so anyway, walking slowly down the street. No point in pushing his luck.
He walked until his cigarette had burned down to the filter, then tossed it aside. It took a conscious effort not to field-strip it; but he had a cover to maintain, even if he was confident he hadn't been followed. He walked on for a few more blocks, just to be sure, then ducked into a dead-end alleyway. After concealing himself behind a dumpster, he reached into his coat and turned on the small radio he'd concealed in an inner pocket, turning the dial to a pre-arranged channel and putting the receiver in his ear.
"This is Snake," he said quietly, speaking not in English, but in a code based on Inupiak, the language of the people native to the frozen north.
"Reading you loud and clear, Snake." Fox's voice was slightly distorted by the radio, but pleasantly familiar just the same. "How's it going?" As was the distinctly casual approach he took to radio procedure.
"The intel was right," Snake said, still keeping an eye on the alley mouth. "The woman I saw matches the photos exactly. And it looks like she brought her own personal company with her." Who knew what she and Sears were planning? Unfortunately security on the fortress was so tight that even Gray Fox had yet to find a way in. The third member of their team was working on finding an intermediary, probably at that very moment.
"Damn…" Fox quietly breathed. "And Shalashaska?"
"No sign of him." Snake didn't bother hiding his disappointment, as he knew Fox would pick up on it anyway. "And I'll bet it's too much to hope that he just stayed home."
"Not if it really is Olga," Fox said firmly. "If I know Sergei Gurlukovich, he'd rather cut his own arm off than put her through any risk." He made a quiet, thoughtful sound. "That's the part I still don't get, that he let her come at all…"
"But sending an imposter could be politically disastrous for him, if Sears found out," Snake reminded him. It was a debate that had gone on not just between the two of them, but throughout the entire upper echelon of the Havenite government and military - for in Outer Heaven, the two terms with synonymous - for months, ever since the news of Olga Gurlukovich's diplomatic mission had first reached them. By the time Snake and his team had left for America, the slowly growing consensus had been that there was a gap somewhere in their intelligence network: that the treaty between Sears and Gurlukovich was all but a done deal already, and that Olga's mission was just a formality. It wasn't exactly a comforting thought; if their spies had failed to notice this, what else had they missed?
Solid Snake stopped by the outer gates, standing in the lee of the wind-chilled stone for a moment to light his cigarette. The guards eyed him sidelong, but said nothing; as long as he didn’t loiter, they wouldn’t bother him. He moved off after a minute or so anyway, walking slowly down the street. No point in pushing his luck.
He walked until his cigarette had burned down to the filter, then tossed it aside. It took a conscious effort not to field-strip it; but he had a cover to maintain, even if he was confident he hadn't been followed. He walked on for a few more blocks, just to be sure, then ducked into a dead-end alleyway. After concealing himself behind a dumpster, he reached into his coat and turned on the small radio he'd concealed in an inner pocket, turning the dial to a pre-arranged channel and putting the receiver in his ear.
"This is Snake," he said quietly, speaking not in English, but in a code based on Inupiak, the language of the people native to the frozen north.
"Reading you loud and clear, Snake." Fox's voice was slightly distorted by the radio, but pleasantly familiar just the same. "How's it going?" As was the distinctly casual approach he took to radio procedure.
"The intel was right," Snake said, still keeping an eye on the alley mouth. "The woman I saw matches the photos exactly. And it looks like she brought her own personal company with her." Who knew what she and Sears were planning? Unfortunately security on the fortress was so tight that even Gray Fox had yet to find a way in. The third member of their team was working on finding an intermediary, probably at that very moment.
"Damn…" Fox quietly breathed. "And Shalashaska?"
"No sign of him." Snake didn't bother hiding his disappointment, as he knew Fox would pick up on it anyway. "And I'll bet it's too much to hope that he just stayed home."
"Not if it really is Olga," Fox said firmly. "If I know Sergei Gurlukovich, he'd rather cut his own arm off than put her through any risk." He made a quiet, thoughtful sound. "That's the part I still don't get, that he let her come at all…"
"But sending an imposter could be politically disastrous for him, if Sears found out," Snake reminded him. It was a debate that had gone on not just between the two of them, but throughout the entire upper echelon of the Havenite government and military - for in Outer Heaven, the two terms with synonymous - for months, ever since the news of Olga Gurlukovich's diplomatic mission had first reached them. By the time Snake and his team had left for America, the slowly growing consensus had been that there was a gap somewhere in their intelligence network: that the treaty between Sears and Gurlukovich was all but a done deal already, and that Olga's mission was just a formality. It wasn't exactly a comforting thought; if their spies had failed to notice this, what else had they missed?