METAL GEAR SOLID : THE PHANTOM PAIN

Episode 03 - Call me Ishmael

"War is but a purgatory for the sins I've committed. I'm just a dead man walking trapped in a body littered with parasites, and I've to live with this hell I've created."

- Frank Jaeger

Ocelot brings a lethargic Huey on wheel chair to Room 101, the interrogation room of their Command Centre. After positioning him at the center of the room, he pours a bucket of water on him and taps his cheeks.

Huey wakes up, disoriented, and stares around in confusion as he tries to make out a head or tail of what he was seeing. At first, bright lights strain his eyes, but they gradually fade away when he hears his captor's voice, revealing the dimly lit room he was in. Seeing the long syringe on the grinning Ocelot's hands, he tries to move his legs, but they don't even flinch, and in fact he realizes that he couldn't feel them anymore. Overcome by stark horror and thinking that Skull Face has captured him again, he cries in distress, shouting repeatedly "to give his legs back". His cries of agony are replaced by fear as Ocelot walks over to him with the syringe held high till it starts reflecting the overhead lights onto Huey's eyes. In a desperate attempt, Huey tries to break himself free by quivering from side to side, but to no avail and notices that the wheelchair's been chained to a hook on the ground. He starts to shiver as Ocelot inches closer to him, the syringe now only centimeters away from his sweating face. Trying not to look at the face of danger, he turns his head away, and fortunately to his relief, sees a familiar person standing among the shadows in the front.

"M-Miller, is that y-you?"

"Took you a long time to remember." Kazuhira Miller walks out of the shadows into the limelight, staggering forward with the help of the cane fixed to his right arm. He takes out a cassette recorder form his coat pockets, switches it on, and places it on a table nearby.

"What's this all about?" Huey nods his head at Ocelot. "Ehh... who's him? Where's... where's Big Boss?"

"Outside this room. Watching your every lie sprouting out of that filthy mouth." Miller then limps towards him, pushing ocelot aside. "You thought you could get away with this, Emmerich? Nine years... nine years I've waited to spill the truth out of your guts. What were you exactly doing on the Command platform that day, huh, when the so-called UN Inspection team arrived?"

"Me?"

"You were the only civilian to remain on Mother Base and it was you who had met the inspection crew personally... only that it was just a smokescreen for XOF to storm in. YOU left us vulnerable? Not only that, you were the one who gave the 'inspection team' the green signal giving them the perfect opportunity to hit us home."

"What are you saying? Miller, why-why am I here? Is this some kind of interrogation?"

Ocelot smiles sadistically. "Hell, it is."

"Miller, you're accusing me of the destruction of Mother Base! That's why you made Big Boss rescue me? I-I would never have known it was a ruse, trust me."

Kazuhira limps closer to Huey overshadowing him. "Oh sure, like you wouldn't, only that you were the only one to escape without any injury."

"What-" Huey's mouth falls open as Miller suppresses his speech by continuing his own. He leans over so that his face is only inches away.

"You were a wheel-chair bound paraplegic man for Christ's sake! Tell me, how exactly did you haul your ass off a sinking platform in the middle of the ocean while under fire from XOF commandos? Let me tell you - that's because you were IN on their operation. You collaborated with them to take us down, led them to the control tower. They seized it, giving them complete control over the base. Moments later, they detonated C-4 on the struts legs. Anyone who'd managed to survive was hunted down by the assault force and their choppers... no doubt about it, you sold us out to Cipher!"