I OPENED THE Mk. III’s storage port and withdrew a modified video game controller. I had already revised REX’s control programs, discarding any functions not immediately required, and mapped the rest to the controller’s limited inputs.
“Let’s go,” I told Snake.
Gekko swarmed below, their heads packed with high explosives. We didn’t have time for a leisurely explanation of the controls.
“I’ll fill you in as we go,” I said, and Snake faithfully took the controller in his hands.
At the push of a button, REX sprang to life, bypassing any typical warm-up maneuvers, and the sudden acceleration slammed Snake’s back against the pilot’s seat. Considering its massive size, the Metal Gear moved with incredible speed. REX, the slain dragon now ridden by the hero who had vanquished it, steadily ascended the slope of the supply tunnel.
REX continued to gain speed, trailed by the pack of Gekko, with one particularly impetuous machine leading the rest of the herd. Raiden leapt from the Metal Gear’s back, and his sword flashed in midair.
The leading Gekko’s head slid to the ground and exploded amid the trailing swarm. The robot’s legs, seemingly unaware they had lost their head, continued to run for a few seconds, then faltered, and finally went limp and fell.
With a laugh, Snake said, “Not exactly an intelligent bunch.”
From the other end of the tunnel more Gekko appeared in small groups. I fired missile salvos from the Metal Gear’s knees while Snake used the twin XGAU-8R rotary cannons to dispatch the distant foes. I wished I could do more, but I had my hands full keeping the wrecked robot together. To keep REX operational, I had to coax cooperation out of components that either kept breaking down or would cease to function altogether.
As REX rushed onward, Raiden and his sword managed to stave off the Gekko behind us. He leapt from one charging machine’s back to another like a ninja, sinking his blade into sensors and core systems.
“Otacon,” Snake shouted, “help!”
I looked at the monitor to see that one Gekko had slipped past Snake and Raiden’s defenses and was nearly upon us.
The machine was so close it had evaded the field of fire of the twin cannons. REX had a single weapon suited for close-range combat, and I had chosen it: the free-electron laser, which had caused Snake considerable grief nine years ago.
The self-diagnosis program reported that the weapon, my version of a lightsaber, was still operational. Whether I believed that to be the case or not, I didn’t have any other options.
I fired the laser.
The beam of amplified energy pierced through the head of the suicidal Gekko, and REX stomped on the robot to finish it off.
Each of us faced a challenge. Snake urged the faltering Metal Gear forward at full speed, while simultaneously operating the twin cannons to deal with the Gekko ahead. Behind us, Raiden leapt from back to back amid the stampede, dispatching one machine after another.
And while I wasn’t there with them, I was glued to my monitor, struggling not to get washed away by the waterfall of data streaming from REX.
We were like pieces of an airplane split apart midair yet still somehow managing to fly. As the self-diagnosis program squawked at me every few seconds, I sorted through the torrent of damage reports, closing off circuits and rerouting systems to mitigate the damage.
I wouldn’t be able to keep up like this. Bookkeeping can only do so much.
About to exhaust the very limits of my ability to sustain concentration on the data and to keep my fingers flying across my keyboard, I heard Snake shout, “The surface!”
At the top of the ramp, I saw sky and the gray clouds of the Aleutian Low.
Snake squeezed even more speed out of REX, sending the Gekko scattering. Two clawlike appendages at the base of each foot dug into the metal floor, providing the Metal Gear’s giant-sized legs purchase on the incline. Leaving a trail of pockmarks in the supply tunnel ramp, REX scrambled out into the open.
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.