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Brothers in Arms	By : ktatters Category: +M through R > Metal Gear Views: 3912 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Metal Gear, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live. - Martin Luther King Jr.

"Would you stop eating those?"

With the labs closed, most of the scientists and engineers had very little to do. A few wandered through the courtyard avoiding the guards' eyes, but the majority seemed to have chosen the mess hall as a place to congregate. Lunch on the base was usually taken in twos and threes by the non-military workers, but today it seemed that everyone had, without any particularly conscious thought, decided that safety in numbers was a good policy.

It was here that Arthur Emmerich sat contemplating his future, and the future of the men around him. Geoff sat at his elbow casually setting up a map of the base using condiments while several of the others were standing watch. Every now and then, he'd put a set of peanuts in different positions, ostensibly representing the guards.

Arthur was having fun eating the soldiers.

"Look, I told you I can't commit to this. Do you know how far we'd have to walk to get to the nearest town? And once we were there, what would we do? Hire a bus?"

The frustrated look on Geoff's face didn't bother Arthur as much as it should have. "We could get out together. Once we get out and to that town, we can all go our separate ways if that's what you want."

"Geoff..." They'd been having this conversation for the past twenty minutes. Nothing Arthur had said so far had convinced Geoff that this was a fool's errand. "You still have to distract the guards. Are you willing to kill them? It was hard enough just trying for one person. I really only did it by chance. And almost thirty people?"

"But you did it! You know what that means to all of us?"

"I know." Arthur massaged his temples. Geoff's excitement was definitely not catching. "I just think... look, that new Colonel, he's a good guy. I promised him I wouldn't leave."

"Fine, he's a nice guy. We didn't promise anything." Geoff's hand banged down on the table. The soldiers around them looked up and the other scientist immediately lowered his voice. "Besides, since when do you worry about promises?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Arthur testily.

"Nothing, Arthur." He waved his hand to dismiss the issue. "That sabotage is making some of the hotheads angry. We need to-"

"No! I want to know what you mean by that!"

"How long do you think it'll be before they start shooting us for it? Your promise isn't an option. We can't stay here, Arthur."

"I asked what you meant," said Arthur through clenched teeth.

Geoff looked at him for a moment in annoyance, finally shrugging. "Remember you asked." He held a finger up. "We all signed the same papers when we got here. Those were promises that we wouldn't leave the compound without express permission from command." He held up a second finger. "Then there's the promises you made to the Lieutenant about deadlines- not that I fault you for breaking those, of course-" he held up a third, "and the ones you made to us," and a fourth.

"What promises did I make to you?"

He shook his head and put his hand down flat on the table. "Not me. Us. Like... Gregory Karenin. You said you'd help him get published."

Gregory Karenin? He'd been working on some sort of advanced polymers and applications to the design of next generation warheads. Of course, Arthur hadn't been able to get himself published since coming here, so getting someone else into a scientific journal was out of the question. "That's not my fault. I haven't been able to get anything off of the base. I'll help him as soon as I can."

Geoff gave him a look that Arthur couldn't quite unravel. "And how about Nikolai Pavlov? You said you'd help him with his work in thermal endocrine disruptors."

Now that was just unfair. "That was a dead end, and besides, you helped him before I could get around to doing anything."

"After a month where he could barely talk to you. There's always a reason, isn't there." Geoff shook his head as Arthur started to protest. "Look, Arthur, we all think you're a great mind. After you managed to get out of this place, we don't even think you're crazy for all those escape attempts. It's amazing. But you've got a tendency to be a bit... well... unreliable."

"Unreliable." Arthur looked at Geoff and then at the edible map he'd made. He shook his own head in disbelief. "You want an unreliable man to try to get you out of here? You want an unreliable man to rescue you?"

"Well... but you're the only one who can, Arthur."

The only one who can. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Arthur pushed himself away from the table a bit mechanically. "I'll think about it."

He ignored Geoff's protests as he walked away, his back straight and his pace quick. He walked out of the mess hall and then out of the hall and finally out of the building. For good measure, he walked to the other side of the building so that Geoff wouldn't follow him, and sat down with his back to the wall. The sun was painful where it touched his skin; the sand more so.

He wished there was a rock around, and maybe a lake. He'd have given just about anything to skip a stone. Instead, he looked up at the burning blue sky and sighed.

When had he become untrustworthy? He'd never meant to be... unreliable. It was just Big Boss' words coming back at him, that was the only issue, really. If Big Boss hadn't talked about loyalty that morning, he'd never have worried about others seeing him as... as what? Unreliable? A polite euphemism for a man who broke every promise he made. And the thing was, these weren't the meaningless words people said in old fashioned oaths to their countries. These were things he'd told people, colleagues and friends...

"Arthur?"

Arthur turned sharply to see Big Boss leaning over him. "What are you doing back here?" he asked.

"You're the one with the sunburn." Big Boss put a hand on Arthur's shoulder. "You shouldn't be out here, Arthur."

The younger man shrugged and closed his eyes against the sky. "Not like I promised you I wouldn't." Unreliable... Not that it made any sense anyhow, but what kind of person wanted an unreliable man as an officer? "Why do you want my loyalty?" Big Boss sighed and pulled off his jacket. His muscles gleamed in the sunlight. He tossed his coat onto Arthur. "What do you do, oil yourself before you go outside?" asked Arthur uncomfortably.

Big Boss looked at him in surprise, then flashed a half-smile. "Sunblock," he said simply. He reached down and pulled a tube off his belt. "If you're going to insist on talking outside, prevention is better than using the ointment later."

Big Boss put a bit of it onto his own hands and sat down beside Arthur. Arthur flinched back as Big Boss' fingers moved towards his face, but he forced himself still at the other man's raised eyebrow. His hands were far gentler than Arthur would have imagined as he traced around the bruises.

Arthur closed his eyes. This was nice. He wouldn't have thought he'd like the touch of someone's hands after the past few months, but... it was just like he'd said before. Big Boss was different. "Why do you want me?" The words slipped out before he'd had the chance to consider them.

"I told you before." Big Boss' hands continued to move on Arthur's face as he spoke. "You're officer material."

"I'm not, though. I'm unreliable."

Big Boss' hands paused and then moved down Arthur's right arm, pressing firmly until he began to put the sunblock on his arm. "Why do you say that?" he asked, his hands pausing over the finger Arthur had broken before his arrival at the camp.

"That's how they all see me. I can't keep my promises."

"Like what promises?"

"Little ones. Big ones. I don't know, just ones I never really meant to make."

"A man has to be careful with his word. He seldom gets a chance to start over." His hands moved to the other arm, this time pausing at Arthur's wrist, which he'd twisted several weeks ago. Or rather, which had been twisted for him.

"And you'll give me that chance?" Arthur shook his head. "I don't know if..." The hands patted his ribs and Arthur looked up in alarm, pushing them away.

"I'm just checking you for injuries." Big Boss' eye stared at him. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"I'm not unconscious. You can just ask, like any normal person."

"You took that hit really well, Arthur. I think you've lost track." Arthur pulled his hands away reluctantly and let the other man continue his physical inspection. "They've hurt you a lot."

Arthur shrugged. "My own fault," he said uncomfortably.

Big Boss shook his head. "You were saying? About your dishonesty?"

It was obvious the other man was trying to distract him, but Arthur was in the mood to be distracted. "I'm not dishonest. I'm unreliable."

"Your work has shown otherwise." Big Boss gave him another half-smile. "The work you did on SA-14, the Gremlin, was interesting. Pretty useful, too. A lot of scientists can't make anything that the common soldier can use."

"Well... no one ever said I was stupid."

"Anti-aircraft weapons are important. You were a pioneer in all-aspect missile development." Arthur smiled uncertainly. "And then there's the R-73. It might not be in production yet, but all the preliminary data shows it's important."

"I didn't think anyone was looking at that yet. I only just started."

"Hm." Big Boss finished with his scan. "A lot of your work is well regarded."

The compliments were nice. He'd been starved of compliments for such a long time. They were really important to him. He wasn't ungrateful. "But why do you want my loyalty? There have to be a hundred others who aren't..." Oh, this was painful to say. "Who are trustworthy. My promises aren't worth anything."

"They haven't been worth anything here. That doesn't mean they're worthless." Arthur shook his head, but Big Boss continued. "Your superiors are abusive. That doesn't mean they always will be. I am not the kind of man that lets that happen. Your word can be worth something, Arthur. But I don't have long to let you make your choice."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm only here for this one mission."

"Algeirs," said Arthur quietly. Big Boss nodded. "I don't like it. Fighting like that seems so wrong. Assassinations of politicians, killing hundreds of people who have nothing to do with anything..."

"I thought you didn't have a problem with the nuke."

"That stopped a war. You people are blowing up a peace treaty." Arthur looked away and pulled the jacket up over himself, blocking the sun.

"So the cause matters?" Big Boss tilted his head and smiled almost like he was laughing. "I thought you said your science should be available to the highest bidder! I thought you didn't believe in loyalty."

Arthur gave an exasperated sigh. "Maybe I don't know what you mean by loyalty. Do you mean... unquestioningly doing what you say? I can't do that. I don't want to do that!"

"Arthur, you would be wasted as just another soldier." He shook his head and laughed quietly. "No, Arthur, what I want is a lieutenant, in the old sense of the word. Used to be that lieutenants could step in for superior officers when necessary. I want someone who knows how to question. I want someone who can step in for others when he has to. I want someone who could set up a rescue effort if something went wrong." Another half-grin and a shake of his head as the smile faded. "I don't need people who say yes to me because they're afraid the imminent death is more painful than the one coming tomorrow."

"But I still don't understand. Why me? There's got to be men in the Russian ranks that fit that description!"

The smile reappeared on the other man's face. "If I told you that, I'd have to kill you." Arthur stared at him, trying to figure out if he was joking. "Accept that it's you I want."

Arthur wiped the sweat from his brow. "Okay. Say I give you my loyalty. What does that mean? What do you expect from someone who's loyal to you?"

Big Boss nodded. "We'd be working for common goals. I might set the goals, but you'd have input into them. I'd expect you to question me when it's appropriate, but in the end, when I make a decision, I'd expect you to carry it out. Loyalty means that you don't give your work to someone else. It means that if someone or something is bothering you, you come to me instead of working it out yourself. It's an oath that we give to each other."

Arthur nodded slowly. "I'm not sure I really understand."

Big Boss looked at him in thought. "Did you ever have a blood brother as a kid? Someone you could share... your secret clubhouse with? The two of you played together against the other teams, shared the good times and the bad, made up games and laughed and... all those things kids do."

"Maybe." Arthur leaned against the wall as the image of a blond haired boy flashed behind his eyes. "You want to build a fort and shout 'No girls allowed?' I was never any good at the whole 'stand back to back to ward off the bullies' part of it."

"Ward off the bullies...?" Big Boss raised an eyebrow. "I'll protect you, Arthur. I get you out of here, and I won't allow any country to harm you. I can't be with you all the time, so a part of it means that you will learn how to protect yourself, but you'll have my help all the way."

"My best friend back then tried to teach me a trick or two. Never really worked out."

"I'm probably a better teacher than a kid," he said.

"He wasn't a kid, he was almost a whole year older than me," Arthur said with a smile on his face. "But you know, he moved. Never an explanation or a letter afterwards... and then I was left alone. And the bullies are harder on you when you were once untouchable."

"I won't leave you alone, Arthur. I can promise you that."

Arthur paused. What was he doing? He wasn't seriously thinking of agreeing! Big Boss was a soldier, and Arthur most definitely was not. Big Boss was probably the most interesting person he'd met in a long while, but that wasn't a reason to pledge an oath of undying loyalty to someone!

Of course, he could just break the promise. Apparently, he was quite good at that.

The truth was, he should say no. He was an American, whether he believed in what the country stood for or not, whether he felt loyal to the country or not, he wasn't a Russian. Maybe it was part of what loyalty was, making uninformed decisions because something in you said that you belonged to something bigger than you.

He was going to say 'no.' "I..." Because 'no' was the right answer. "...just..." Even if the man in front of him was special, he couldn't be loyal to Russia. "...still need to think about it."

He looked away.

Big Boss must have had some sense of the inner conflict Arthur was experiencing because his next words were soft but unmistakably American-accented English. "It is the end that crowns us, not the fight.*"

"What?" Arthur asked in English.

"Speak in Russian," corrected Big Boss. He sighed. "Please think about it, Arthur. And go inside before you get hurt."

Arthur closed his eyes and shook his head briefly. When he opened them, Big Boss was no longer in sight.

Arthur didn't know where he'd gone, but a part of him knew it had to be inside. The sun was so hot, beating down on him as hard as any soldier ever had. But inside was problematic: the unreliable comment still burned. Arthur didn't want to go to the soldiers' barracks and the mess hall to see Geoff. The main building was off-limits for a decision on whether to be loyal to Big Boss, and he didn't much feel like finding his own bed. The truth was, he belonged in the labs. He'd always made his decisions there, or in some similar place. Labs were the same the world over.

Fume hoods that stole bad air away stood in one corner. Eyewash station and shower in case of an accidental exposure. Acids and bases for neutralization, eyeware and gloves and filters...

They were safe compared to the rest of the world.

He'd just sat down at one of the empty lab benches when he heard the banging in the ventilation system. "Is someone there?" he asked quietly. A large part of him didn't really want an answer, after all. The sounds from the overhead ducts stopped.

"Great. Some animal probably got in there," he said loudly. Arthur looked around quickly and picked up a broom. "I bet it's a cat. Lots of wildcats out here." He picked up a stool and placed it carefully near a vent. "Damned cats get everywhere."

He climbed up on the stool quietly near a vent, keeping his head below it. He reached out with the broom and hit the duct hard, then quickly peered through the slits.

Nothing but black.

Arthur rolled his eyes as he got down off of the stool. "Well, I am a fool," he said with a sideways smile. "No one would be crazy enough to sabotage the place and come back."

There was another noise from the duct. Arthur looked at it curiously for a moment, then sighed. Probably more damage than he'd noticed before.

He threw Big Boss' jacket over the bench and sat down again, but no sooner had he done that then there was another noise, this time from down the hall. "There is someone here," he whispered.

He was off the chair in a flash and pressed himself against the wall. He edged towards the door and out into the hallway, trying to go from shadow to shadow. How well he was doing, he couldn't have said. There wasn't anyone in the hallway to see him. The white noise continued as he moved towards Kayin's office.

He stopped outside it and peeked in to see the Lieutenant with a radio, turned towards the door. Arthur bit his lip and pushed himself back against the wall where he prayed that Kayin couldn't see him.

"Hello? Hello! Stupid radio frequencies..."

Arthur's curiosity rapidly overcame his fear when nothing happened. He crouched down almost to the floor and peeked into the room again. Kayin was alone, but his face looked as angry as it had when Arthur had last seen him that morning.

"Ocelot here." Arthur's eyebrows raised. Kayin had never, in all his memories, called a superior officer without his brother.

"Sir! This is Lieutenant Shet."

There was a brief silence at the other end of the radio connection. "Why aren't you using standard channels?"

"They're down, sir."

"Down?" Ocelot didn't sound particularly surprised. "And I suppose you single handedly got them back up?" Arthur grinned. The scientists weren't the only ones who doubted Kayin's scientific abilities...

"I made a radio, sir. So that I could contact you. This man you sent-"

"Which man?"

"The colonel..." Arthur bit his lip when the other man didn't respond immediately to Kayin. "Isn't he- he showed us his orders, but-"

"No, no, of course. I just didn't expect-" He sounded faraway for a moment before he spoke again. "It doesn't matter. What's the problem, then?"

"The labs were sabotaged, sir."

There was a long pause during which Kayin stared hard at the radio. "And? What were the damages, the delays to the project?" asked Ocelot, the impatience dripping off his voice. Arthur smiled slightly.

"We haven't been able to continue with any research since this morning, sir. Any problems in the lab are going to spread through the entire base. We haven't been able to develop or produce lighter explosives-"

"Lieutenant, I didn't really expect you to manage that. I'm not an idiot, weapons research takes time, even with quality scientists." Arthur's mouth dropped open. Since when did superiors actually have a clue about the time needed to research? He closed it quickly as Ocelot continued speaking. "Now, Habil, I want to know how the soldiers are doing."

Kayin shook his head and bit his lip. "Habil's not here, sir. I had to call by myself. I needed to tell you about the colonel. I think he's a traitor, sir. He's got Habil hoodwinked, but I can see it." Kayin leaned closer to the radio as though trying to prove the truth of his words to Ocelot. "He won't even let me question the scientists to find the traitor."

"What do need to question for? Don't you know who it is?"

This caused Kayin to sit back in his chair. "Sir?"

"You're their immediate commanding officer. If it was one of them, surely you know them well enough to know which one did it."

"I have suspicions about who it is, or rather, who they were, but I can't just act on that, sir!"

"Are you a leader or not? You act on it if that's what the situation requires."

Arthur froze. Kayin looked at his firearm. Ocelot had given Kayin permission to... to kill... everyone... Geoff had been right. There was suddenly so much to do, and there was absolutely no time to do any of it properly.

"I understand, sir." So much to do. Arthur pulled himself away from the door so quickly that he stumbled, his foot making a terrible rapping noise on the floor as he caught his balance. "I have to go," said Kayin abruptly.

Arthur could hear the radio being switched off and the other man moving quickly to the hallway. He ducked into the adjacent office and quickly hid himself under the desk. The footsteps got closer and closer, and Arthur's held his breath as they paused. He didn't let out the breath even after the footsteps had continued on their way, holding it in for almost a full minute afterwards. When he started breathing again, his breaths were shallow and quick.

He carefully got out and crept to the door, his heart pounding in his throat. He peeked out the door and was relieved to find Kayin was not in the hallway, nor in the next office down. He continued his quiet walk, peeking into the doors, until he reached the lab. He could hear the pacing.

He pressed himself against the wall again and put his hands on his forehead. He could hear the murmuring inside. "... his jacket... but he wouldn't hide, would he..."

Kayin's voice was preternaturally loud to Arthur's ears. Arthur shouldn't have been able to hear the soft murmur. He most definitely shouldn't have heard the sound of glass breaking. "What the hell- There!"

The pacing stopped and the footsteps rushed farther into the lab. Arthur didn't have time to peek around the door. He ran.

He ran through the hall and out of the building. He ran through the desert courtyard, the sun blazing down on him. He ran into the soldier's barracks, stopping to catch his breath outside the door of the mess hall. He walked relatively calmly into the mess hall and sat down next to Geoff.

"I never left," he hissed to Geoff. A second later, sirens on the base started blaring. Geoff's shoulders pulled back against his chair and the tension was obvious in his bitten lip, but he nodded shortly.

Arthur looked between the guards and the scientists, his face setting into a determined scowl. "The escape is tonight," he said quietly. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He couldn't afford to be unreliable anymore. "Tonight."

Notes

* Quote from Robert Herrick

I'm wondering if anyone would be able to help me with beta-ing the next 30,000 words or so? My beta seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth... If someone on ff-dot-net would like to be, just be aware that parts of it would be with a higher rating. I'm writing separate scenes and wordings in a few places.
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Brothers in Arms