I was now even more puzzled than ever. If Metal Gear was being developed on Shadow Moses, surely the research data was backed up somewhere outside of the ArmsTech Lab. Not only that, but why would the president of the company have been carrying the data himself? I was apparently not alone in my disconcertment. Snake took the disc, obviously uncertain. It was clear that he, like myself, had not been briefed on the existence of the disc. The disc safely out of his hands, Baker’s tones became pleading.

"You have to stop them. If the truth got out, AT would be finished - I would be finished!"
"But Metal Gear technology is already a known factor."
"The core technology is, but that’s not -- " Baker trailed off, suddenly pale with pain. "Oh God, what did you do to me?" We could hear his labored coughing as he gasped out.
"It can’t be. That thing! Damn Pentagon bureaucrats! I get it now! You son of a -- !" He tried to lunge at Snake, but reeled back in a fresh wave of pain. Still clutching his chest he fell down, dead. It was too similar to the last moments of Donald Anderson’s life, and the fact had not escaped Snake. He was immediately on the radio with Campbell.
"Colonel, you’d better be listening real well. This one dropped dead too."

Snake demanded an explanation, but neither Campbell nor Dr. Hunter could provide an adequate one. Snake was clearly dissatisfied, but Campbell directed Snake to cooperate with his niece, Meryl. The only way left to prevent a nuclear strike was to obtain the emergency override key, and the key was in Meryl’s hands. Snake walked away from Baker’s body in search of the elusive commando. Kenneth Baker had been colluding with Donald Anderson, the DARPA chief, to secretly develop a new Metal Gear on the government’s so-called Black Budget. My later investigations revealed that regular payments in the tens of thousands of dollars had been made to the cooperate account of a firm for which Anderson’s wife ostensibly acted as a consultant. The ArmsTech payoff into this dummy company had started several years ago. The total amount is difficult to estimate, but there is little doubt that Anderson had been bribed to the tune of an astronomical sum. Even the government's Black Budget had limits, however. I recalled a rumor from some years before the Anderson payoff started. The CNO (Chief of Naval Operations) at the time had a classified pet project, and the scuttlebutt was that it involved the construction of a completely new type of battleship. Just what kind of a ship was never revealed, since the entire program fell apart after the CNO suddenly passed away. The unexpected death coincided with ArmTech’s launch of the Metal Gear development program. The Black Budget earmarked for the CNO’s little project must have been freed up by his death; the question was whether it had been freed up for allocation to the new Metal Gear development. The manner of the CNO’s death was officially ruled a suicide, but I could not help recall the theories to the contrary that had made its rounds back then. Whatever the background, Anderson and Baker’s deaths could not be a coincidence. Anderson’s dying words included a reference to the Pentagon, and I was certain that there was more to it than met the eye.

"So now Baker is dead as well. Are you looking into his medical records too?" I asked Richard.
"We’ll do that. Just as a precaution." He did not seem particularly disturbed. It may have been for the best, anyway, Having to babysit a senior citizen with a broken arm sure wasn’t going to help Snake with his mission.
"You haven’t changed a bit, I see."
"What?"
"That bad-boy act of yours. You only talk like an insensitive jerk to divert attention from something. I wonder what you’re hiding?" Richard turned away.
"Nothing. There’s nothing to hide."

Having successfully made radio contact with Meryl, Colonel Campbell’s niece, Solid Snake agreed to put off a rendezvous with her in favor of rescuing Dr. Hal Emmerich, the chief of Metal Gear development. He reached the lab just as the Ninja was attempting to attack Dr. Emmerich, and the two fighters immediately squared off. Snake and the Ninja launched into a silent hand-to-hand combat, a balletic exchange of blows that seemed almost to serve as a private dialog. The fighting seemed interminable to us as we followed over the radio, but just as in the last encounter, the Ninja suddenly let loose an inhuman howl, and vanished in the maelstrom of its ragged echo. It was our second encounter with the Ninja, and we were as in the dark about him as ever. But Snake had recognized something during their battle, and he raised Campbell on the radio.
"Its Gray Fox - the Ninja is Gray Fox. I’m 100% sure."
"That’s impossible. You took him in Zanzibar Land." We could hear the perturbation in Campbell’s voice. Naomi Hunter suddenly cut in.
"Yes, he was supposed to have been killed. But he wasn’t."

Dr. Hunter revealed that her predecessor at the helm of FOXHOUND’s genetic treatment program, one Dr. Clark, had been conducting human testing. Gray Fox, the alpha soldier of FOXHOUND and the only member allowed the FOX designation, was the subject. After he had been shipped back from Zanzibar Land mortally wounded, his superior physical abilities and combat skills had marked him as an ideal test subject for genetic manipulation and skeletal reinforcement experiments. He was listed as killed in action, but kept alive in a lab. I could not help but note with some surprise the emotional tone in which the normally collected geneticist described these events. When Snake asked why she had not volunteered the truth of the Ninja’s identity earlier, Naomi had only a terse reply. 'It was classified information. According to records she had seen, the subject "Gray Fox" had died in an accidental lab explosion two years ago. I turned to Richard.

"Is this true?"
"What’s true?"
"The accident in the lab."
"It’s true. The cause of the explosion was never determined. Dr. Clark died in the accident, and the only remains they could find of Gray Fox were fragments of the reinforced skeleton."
"So Naomi wasn’t the only one who knew about this and didn’t say anything."
"It was classified information." Richard mimicked.

Snake secured Dr. Emmerich after the Ninja’s departure. Amazingly enough, the engineer had believed Metal Gear to be a portable tactical missile defense system, rather than a nuclear-capable tank. It was a peculiar irony that the chief developer himself had been unaware that the project was one of offense, rather than defense. On discovering that he had been deceived, Dr. Emmerich volunteered his expertise to Snake. He mentioned his grandfather’s involvement in the Manhattan Project, and the ethical turmoil the man had carried with him to the end of his days as a result. Ironically enough, the older scientist’s son, Hal Emmerich’s father, was born on the day the atomic bomb had found Hiroshima.
"Three generations - sometimes I wonder if nuclear warfare is our personal albatross, an inherited pathology."
We could hear the pain and the regret in Dr. Emmerich’s voice. He seemed genuinely upset that the technology he had developed purely for the furthering of knowledge and betterment of mankind had been exploited for weapons development. You may call me harsh, but I felt little sympathy for him. Technological and scientific innovation need not have direct bearing on nuclear or virological research to contribute to the making of weapons of mass destruction. After all, the Ninja was born of genetic engineering and cybernetic research, which could easily have healed a civilian rather than improved upon a soldier. A scientifist cannot plead naivete to the practical products of their own research. The consequences must be anticipated, and the ethical burden of a newly developed technology must ultimately rest with the individual researcher. I wonder if Dr. Emmerich would ever realize that onus. Freed from the laboratory where he was being held, Emmerich cloaked himself with a stealth camouflage of his own making and promised to keep out of sight. With the stealth camo, he could easily evade the terrorists’ surveillance. His rescue charge safe, Snake departed for a rendezvous with Meryl. Snake’s objective was to meet with Meryl and re-enter the launch code using her override key, outwitting the FOXHOUND psychic Psycho Mantis all the while. To this end, he headed towards the hangar where Metal Gear was being stored.

The best laid plans: Meryl was ambushed on the way by the FOXHOUND sharpshooter Sniper Wolf. Snake, attempting to rescue the wounded commando, was himself captured. He was taken to the terrorist command post still unconscious, stripped of all his gear. However, his cochlear-implant radio passed unnoticed, and we could hear the terrorists conferring about the incapacitated operative. We gathered from their talk that the preparations for the nuclear launch were complete. Richard was unusually intent on identifying the individual terrorists in the room. From the voices involved in the conversation, we confirmed the presence of Sniper Wolf, Revolver Ocelot, and the leader of this uprising himself, Liquid Snake. What little I knew of Liquid Snake was troubling, and it came entirely from a slim file folder Richard showed me just prior to mission commencement. The man with the same designation as Solid Snake was recruited into FOXHOUND after Solid Snake’s departure from the unit. His fighting skills were formidable, and he quickly rose to the leadership position in FOXHOUND’s field operation team. His real name, place of origin and other information remained classified. Only a single photograph accompanied the documents, and I had not been able to contain my astonishment at the sight of it.

"It’s not a mistake. That IS Liquid Snake," said Richard, echoing my thoughts.
"But - how?" The face in the photo was the spitting image of Solid Snake.
"I wouldn’t know. But once the two Snakes run into each other, something may come out." His words were noncommittal, but Richard’s tone spoke volumes. And now, the two Snakes - Solid and Liquid - had indeed come fact to face. But Liquid had little to say.
"So long, brother." He called out before turning and walking away. The voice was full of hatred, but there was also something in it that seemed to confirm and gleefully anticipate another meeting. Why this was so was as mysterious to me as the reason he called Solid Snake 'brother'. I would no find out the truth until a little later.

What awaited Snake after his brief encounter with Liquid was Ocelot’s KGB-tested 'interrogation' techniques. Ocelot apparently had no interest in extracting information, but rather appeared to be enjoying the acts of torture for their own sake. Snake’s ragged gasps echoed from the radio in the silence of the control room. The heart rate and other physiological data transmitted by his nanomachines graphically demonstrated the extent of his suffering. All we could do was listen and wait. After Ocelot was done, the battered Snake was taken to a cell. Campbell soon established radio contact with him, but Snake had some hard questions for his former CO instead. He had realized that Metal Gear was a nuclear delivery system, and for once, Campbell was at a loss for an answer.

"So you did know about this all along!" Snake rasped out bitterly. Campbell continued to be silent. It was all the confirmation Snake needed.
"You should have told me."
"I’m sorry."
"Pawns don’t need to know, is that it? You’ve change." Campbell had no rebuttal to Snake’s barbs.

According to Campbell, even the President had apparently been unaware of the existence of Project Rex until the day before. To make matters more complicated, he was due to meet with the Russian president the following day for the formal signing of START3. The treaty stipulated further reduction of the nuclear arsenal, picking up where START2 left off. The agreement would reduce the number of Russian and American tactical ballistic missiles to somewhere between two thousand and twenty-five hundred, and the signing was a historic event that had been made possible by long and arduous process. If the fact that a new nuclear weapon was being developed by the United States were made public, there was a significant chance that the signing would never take place. Worse still, the loss of confidence in America’s commitment to non-proliferation could create international turmoil. The government clearly had every reason to keep the situation under wraps, and there were ample indication that the terrorists had counted on the fact. The timing of this takeover as well as the twenty-four hour deadline said as much. Campbell continued to plead his case with Snake.

"Snake, you’ve got to stop them."
"Sing it to someone else."
"You’re the only hope we have."
"All right then, tell me what this new warhead is about."
"I told you, I don’t know."
"I don’t believe you."
"..."
"If the situation is so desperate, why don’t you accept their demands? Give them Big Boss’s body. It’s just a corpse."
"That’s not an option." Campbell was floundering under the barrage of Snake’s questions.
"Is there a reason you can’t comply with that demand? A reason you haven’t told me?"
Naomi broke in as Campbell fell silent.
"The President passed a number of policies that severely restrict genetic engineering on humans. He can’t afford to have the public know about the military’s use of genetically-enhanced soldiers."
"Is that really all there is to it?" Campbell did not reply.

I received a call from Snake soon after. Captive, alone in enemy territory, unable to trust his own mission controllers to tell him the truth – there was little I could say to help a man in Snake’s situation. “Capture does not mean defeat. Stay vigilant for a chance to escape, and don’t give up.” I had doubts about the effectiveness of these words coming from someone with no combat experience, but it was the best I could offer. We had no choice but to trust in Snake’s abilities. As I closed the radio channel, I caught Richard studying me.

"Yes?"
"You’re very - passionate about this job."
"Do you object? It’s the job you forced on me, after all."
"No, but I admit that I’m a little jealous."
"Ah, the jealousy act. Yes, I know that one too."
Richard averted his eyes.
"I wouldn’t call it an act. If - no, forget it." He lit a cigarette. Chesterfields. The same brand as Humphrey Bogart.
"You still smoke the same brand."
You know me. Once I decide I like something I can’t kick the habit. Cigarettes, line of work, woman - everything." He didn’t look at me as he replied.
The torture was conducted again and again, solely for the purpose of breaking Snake. He held out each time, but his strength was steadily ebbing, and the voice we heard over the radio was growing more labored.

"Naomi, talk to me. I need something to distract me."
"What do you want me to talk about?"
"Anything."
"I’m not good at finding things out to talk about"
"Tell me about yourself."
"About me? That’s not so easy."
"You got any family?"
"It’s not a very happy story."
"I don’t have any family. I guess there was one person, someone who called himself my father."
"Where is he?"
"Dead. I killed him." I was even more taken aback by what Campbell volunteered next.
"You’re talking about Big Boss."
"What? Big Boss was your -- ?"
"No reason you should have known." Campbell elaborated to Naomi. "It was six years ago, in Zanzibar Land. Snake and I are the only ones who know about it now."
"Oh God - was Big Boss really your father?" Naomi still seemed disbelieving.
"That’s what he said, and that’s all I know."
"You knew and you still killed him?"
"Yeah."
"Why?" Naomi asked fiercely. There was a pause before Snake answered.
"Because that’s what he wanted. And what I wanted."
"But it’s still - patricide."
"Yeah. I know. My personal nightmare too." Snake’s voice was the faintest we had heard.
"Is that why you left FOXHOUND?"
"Maybe. I can’t deny that it felt good to lose myself. It’s easy to do that in Alaska." After a moment of silence, Naomi confided in a low voice.
"I don’t really have a family of my own either. I have a brother who put me through college, that’s it. He’s not a biological brother - and a lot older than me."
"Where’s he now?" Naomi’s reply was deeply pained.
"He’s gone." There was deep sorrow in her voice, and, I thought, something more.
"A stepbrother who put her thought school. I wasn’t told about that." Richard muttered. There was suspicion in his voice, and puzzlingly enough, a hint of anger.
I opened the personnel profile on Naomi. Naomi Hunter. Born New York City, 198X. Ph.D. in genetics. Recruited by the industry giant ATGS soon after completing doctoral program, moved to California’s so-called Biotech Bay area. Led several genetic therapy programs, until recruited by FOXHOUND to fill the post of chief geneticist as a result of her accomplishments in this field. Parents died in car collision when Naomi was two years old. One brother, ten years her senior, a U.S. Marine. Killed in training-related accident when Naomi was seventeen. Richard thought for a minute, then scribbled something in his notebook. Summoning one of his men, he tore the page out and handed it to him.
"Wire this message to the skipper of USS Discovery. And make sure Campbell doesn’t know about it."
"What are you plotting now?" I knew even as I asked that Richard would not respond.

The torture was repeated time and again, but Snake managed to take advantage of the guard’s waning vigilance and escape. The location and the fate of his fellow hostage, Meryl, eluded us. Evading the intense manhunt that followed, Snake still refused to stray from the course that led to the Metal Gear hangar. What drove him? Guilt for Meryl’s capture and an urge to avenge her? A sense of duty to the mission? The will to stop the carnage of a nuclear strike? None of them seemed to apply to Snake. He was an enigma. We could do little but watch over him as he ran, wounded and exhausted. After successfully taking on Sniper Wolf as she reemerged for an ambush, Snake closed in on the Metal Gear hangar only to discover Vulcan Raven blocking his way. The giant FOXHOUND operative, armed with a fighter-plane Gattling gun, was a daunting enemy. In the end, however, Snake eventually prevailed. The stricken Rave, leaning against the wall, started to speak as Snake approached him.

"There are some breeds of snakes that nature never intended. I think you and the Boss belong to one of those. Go and settle it with him. I’ll be watching how it ends." The dying Raven then dropped the bombshell.
"I’ll give you one clue. The man who died in front of you wasn’t the DARPA chief. It was Decoy Octopus - one of us FOXHOUNDs. He was a master of disguise. I guess the Grim Reaper was the only one he couldn’t fool."
"Is he dead?" Raven did not answer Snake’s sharp query. Snake tried another track.
"Why go to all that trouble and impersonate Anderson?" Raven smiled faintly.
"That’s all the clue you’re going to get. Everything else, you’ll have to figure out yourself." A few minute later, Vulcan Raven died. Richard was chagrined.

"So that’s how it was. They had us completely fooled."
"Why would Octopus impersonate Anderson?" I asked.
"I don’t know. Maybe to get information out of Snake."
"That would mean that they knew Snake was coming." Richard stubbed out the cigarette without answering. His face was expressionless, but I knew exactly what he was thinking.
We had a leak.
While Richard and I were talking, a call was made to Snake.

"Snake, it’s me -- "
"Master?" Snake answered. It was apparently Master Miller.
"I need to talk to you about Naomi Hunter. Turn the monitoring off -- " Miller had barely finished his instruction before Campbell cut in.
"What about Dr. Hunter?" Miller made an exasperated sound. It was clear that he had not intended Campbell to hear what he had to say.
"Colonel, is Naomi there?" Snake asked.
"No she’s trying to catch up on her sleep."
"Okay." Campbell turned his attention back to Miller.
"What were you saying about Dr. Hunter?"
"All right. Maybe it’s better that the Colonel hears about this now." Miller said resignedly.
"Go on," urged Snake.
"That’s not the real Naomi Hunter you’re working with, Colonel."
"What!?" Campbell raised his voice, astounded. Miller continued coolly.
"Naomi Hunter does exist. Or rather, she did. She went missing in the Middle East some time ago. This impostor must have gotten a hold of her identity somehow."
There were a number of ways to obtain someone’s Social Security Number and commit an identity theft, certainly. But Dr. Naomi Hunter an imposter -- !
"Who is she really then!" Campbell was agitated, but Miller remained cool as ice.
"Probably a spy."
"A spy!"
"Yes - sent in to ensure this mission’s failure."
"Are you saying she’s one of the terrorists?" Campbell’s tone was disbelieving, but Snake backed up his former instructor.
"I don’t want to believe it either, Colonel. But it’s true that she’s a FOXHOUND personnel."
"So it would not be surprising if she took part in this insurrection." Campbell finished dully, as though Snake’s words had crystallized his own doubts.
"Or she could be working for another organization." Miller suggested.
"Another -- ? No, that’s not possible.." As Campbell trailed off, Miller spoke up, his tone ruthless.
"Take her into custody, Colonel."
"What!"
"It’s clear that Naomi Hunter is working against us. Interrogate her and find out what her objective is."
"If she really is their spy, we’re in serious trouble." Campbell murmured. Miller pounced on the gravity of the Colonel’s tone.
"What are you talking about?"
"N-Nothing in particular." Campbell tried to recover himself.
"Campbell, did you give her access to some other line of classified information?"
"..." Campbell remained silent, but Miller pressed on.
"Does it have anything to do with the way the DARPA chief or the ArmsTech president died?"
"Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about."
Clearly, Campbell knew something. It was equally obvious that he had no intention of revealing what he was privy to. Perhaps sensing that fact, Miller dropped the pursuit abruptly.
"In any case, it’s too dangerous to retain her in the mission."
"H-Hold on a minute. She is an integral part of this mission. In fact, we can’t afford to proceed without her." Campbell was being too insistent about Dr. Hunter’s value. I had to wonder if it was indeed the case that he had trusted her with highly classified information. Snake was also suspicious.
"More secrets, Colonel?"
"Give me time. I’ll have her background and movements re-checked." That was all Campbell could say.
"Hurry. Find out what she wants as quickly as possible." Miller was unrelenting.
"Of course." Campbell agreed reluctantly. "Snake, just give me some time."
"Time is something I wasn’t given a lot of." Snake growled bitterly.
"What’s the deal?" I said to Richard. "Is Miller right about Naomi?"
"I don’t know, to be honest. It’s obvious there were things in Dr. Hunter’s past that I didn’t know about. I’m having them go over her background again." Richard was visibly upset, a rare occurrence. I suddenly wondered there had been something between him and Naomi. Richard lit a cigarette and continued in a more composed tone.
"But if what Miller said about Naomi is true, it raises questions about him in turn."
"Why do you say that?"
"He’s supposed to be in his cabin in Alaska."
"So I hear."
"How did he manage to find out so much about Naomi by himself and from the middle of nowhere when the DIA investigators couldn’t?" Richard called one of his men over and ordered them to look into Miller’s activities.
"You check up on even one of your own?" I asked as the agent who hurried away.
"How do you know he’s one of our own?" Richard shot back, blowing a stream of smoke.
"Should I assume you don’t trust me either?"
"You’re the one who doesn’t trust me. Never have." He said quietly, and ground his cigarette into the ashtray.

Snake had finally reached the Metal Gear hangar, and stood in the shadow of the machine’s fifty-foot-tall bulk. But considering Metal Gear’s state-of-the-art composite armor and Snake’s limited arsenal, it was improbable that he could destroy the tank while evading enemy patrols. The most practical avenue of attack was to re-enter the launch code using the override key and thereby cancel the scheduled nuclear strike. As Snake methodically searched for the code entry interface, Emmerich radioed in. He had been making himself useful by breaking into Baker’s protected files. From these, he had pieced together the true nature of Metal Gear and its prototype warheads. According to Emmerich, the weapon used a built-in rail gun to fire the ballistic missiles clear of the atmosphere. The missile would then automatically realign itself, and reenter the atmosphere on its designated trajectory toward the target.

I understood exactly what all this meant, and the knowledge left me cold. Normally, ballistic missiles go through four phases from launch to impact. The first is the boost phase, which consists of the time between the missile’s launch and the point at which it leaves the atmosphere and exhausts its supply of rocket propellant. Following the burnout, the rocket enters the post-boost phase, which concludes with the separation of the reentry vehicle that contains the warhead. The third stage is the midcourse phase, in which the reentry vehicle separates and achieves a controlled descent back into the atmosphere. The warhead’s reentry into the atmosphere and its arrival at the target mark the fourth and terminal phase. Current missile defense system detect incoming ballistic missiles by scanning for the rocket burn that takes place during the missile’s boost stage. However, Metal Gear’s missile technology employs a rail gun rather than convention rocket propulsion to achieve boost-stage acceleration. As a result, there is nothing for existing missile defense systems to detect. The rail gun’s effectiveness is nothing short of amazing, with a range of over 3000 miles, rivaling that of mid-range ballistic missiles. It reliably homes in within 170 feet of the target 50% of the time, placing it in the same class as high-end ICBM’s. The ability of a Metal Gear to conquer virtually all terrain means that the rail gun can launch a stealthy nuclear strike from almost any spot on the globe. This invisible attack would make it impossible for anyone to pinpoint the origin of a given missile even in the event of a strike. Without a clear aggressor to retaliate against, the concept of mutual assured destruction falls apart. Without the fear of MAD, the existing rules of nuclear non-engagement would no longer apply, and the world would fall into chaos.