The Shocking Conspiracy Behind Shadow Moses

Dumped by: Nekura_Hoka from the PC Version
of Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance. 7/6/05
--------------------------------------------

 The Shocking Conspiracy
Behind Shadow Moses
  
by Gary McGolden
  
  The island of Shadow Moses lies due north
of Alaska's Fox Islands, deep in the Arctic
Circle. Above one of its rocky cliffs stands a
cabin normally used for meteorological
surveys, and it was here that I found myself,
 seated on a chair with my hands bound behind
my back and a burlap sack covering my entire
head. A blizzard rages outside, and the cabin
was a dark, silent patch somewhere inside the
storm. I could sense at least four men around
me.
  They had been interrogating me for what
felt like hours now.
  The burlap sack is pungent with the traces
of coffee beans. In the biting cold of the cabin,
 images of Brazil come to me unbidden: alleys
coiled through with vivid, untended profusion
of flowers, children with skin like frothy
chocolate, sunshine capable of burning out
the cornea, erupting between palm fronds.
  I can feel my senses starting to fail.
  The man in the front of me asks for the
second, or the hundredth, time.
  "I'm going to ask you again. What's in the
optical disc?"
   "Told you, I don't know. I just found it,
okay?"
  "You're lying, you bastard!"
  A fist explodes into the pit of my stomach,
bringing up a peanut butter sandwich of many
hours ago along with the rusty taste of blood.
The relentless beating and numerous knife
cuts of the past hour have my whole body
screaming with pain, but I refuse to tell them
what they wanted. I had too much invested at
 this point, too many days of dangerous
investigation into the story of a lifetime. There
was no way I was going to give it all up at
this point.
   "That's enough."
   A voice spoke up from somewhere in the
back of the cabin.
   "We have the disc back. Just get rid of him
so we can get out of this place."
   Even in my current sorry state, I was still a
 journalist. He had said, "We have the disc
back." That meant that my hosts were the
original owners of that optical disc. The last
piece of the puzzle was in its place; I knew
beyond a shadow of doubt that everything
recorded on the disc was true, and that the
conspiracy I had suspected did in fact exist.
  At that moment, I heard a window shatter.
  The raging storm outside seemed to gain
entry to the cabin in an instance, and I heard
 thin screams from the captors that encircled
my chair. The next second, they had already
fallen heavily onto the floor.
   The brief confusion ended before I regained
enough presence of mind to even panic.
Whoever was now here, whatever had
happened, my tormentors were obviously out
of commission. But now I could hear measured
footsteps approaching across the floor.
  If this person had just saved my life, who
 was it? Or was I about to share the others'
fate? The footsteps came to a halt in front of
me, but strangely enough, I did not feel any
sort of a presence nearby.
  The burlap was slowly lifted from around
my head, pulled off by an unseen hand. The
stinging night air cooled my face, and my
eyes gradually regained focus in the darkened
room.
  And I could finally see who it was that stood
 before me.
  Just out of the sight of most of its citizens, a
massive conspiracy determines the working of
this nation.
  Weapons of mass destruction secretly
developed by the military.
  Super-soldiers re-engineered into war
machines through genetic manipulation.
  A killer virus that only targets specific
individuals with deadly accuracy.
   Tanks that walk rather than roll, and carry a
nuclear payload.
  A covert organization, the third and the
most powerful political party, my encounter
with which landed me in this chair in the
Alaskan winter...
  All of these are a part of the truth I found
sealed within the optical disc, and I intend to
share what I have learned in the pages to
follow. That includes everything I now know
 about our government, and the secret arena
where an even greater power pulls the
strings. This is the truth many have glimpsed
but never dared to talk about.
  Everything detailed in this book actually
happened, and after I lived it, my world was
no longer the same safe place I knew. Neither,
I promise, will be yours if you have the
courage to keep going.
 It all began a month ago --
 THE POSTMAN RINGS
  A month before my dramatic escape from
death on Shadow Moses, I was having late
breakfast in my apartment in New York.
  Ever since an alien abduction episode in my
childhood, I'd been plagued by a
persistent ringing in my ears.
  A large patch of mud was my undoing.
I slipped, fell and was knocked unconscious.
When I came to, it was already dawn.
   Later, I was trying to see the bump on
the back of my head in the mirror when I saw
"IT" instead. A small hole, about the size of a
pinprick, had been made behind my ear. You
learn a little something when you watch as
much TV as I did. There was no doubt that I
had been abducted by a passing UFO, and
had spent the hours while unconscious with
alien beings! Unfortunately, no one in the
area recalled seeing a UFO, and not a single
 person had the sense to listen to my story. I
realize now that this was the day I decided to
uncover truth for a living, and become a
journalist.
  But back to the present day. It turned out
that the ringing wasn't in my ear, but from the
doorbell. The thing shrieked somewhere south
of a baritone bat sonar, barely within the
range of human hearing. Blame the mangling
it took from a particularly displeased visitor.
   Outside the door was the mailman, and in
the mailman's hand was a thick manila
envelope. On the envelope was a label,
addressed to me.
  A letter bomb!
  I pressed my ear against the envelope and
concentrated hard. But not a tick from the
thing. Of course. No one uses analog watches
in bombs these days. That's why they call it
the Digital Age. In fact, why would there even
 be a watch in a letter bomb? The point is that
the unlucky recipient opens it, and the bomb
goes off. Which means that it's actually the
completely silent envelopes that are
dangerous. I knew that opening that flap
would send my eggs to the big omelet in the
sky, but you don't get to be an investigative
journalist for thinking inside the box.
  I tore through the bottom of the envelope
 instead.
  *Riiip*
  No!
  The contents of the suspicious envelope
dropped to the floor with lightning speed!
  In this world, you can never be too careful.
Let this be a warning to you, readers: when
circumstances compel you to open an
envelope from the bottom, turn it upside down
first. As a rule, I discovered, objects fall
 down, and this is what happened to the
contents of my lethal envelope, straight down
into a half-eaten depth of a delivery pizza
forgotten on the floor. I don't recall when
exactly this food item arrived on these
premises, but the thing was definitely a
museum piece by now.
  Fortunately, it wasn't a bomb but an optical
storage disc, now liberally smeared with
peanut butter. The disc was the kind that
 comes in a clear plastic casing, through which
the rainbow sheen of the circular unit shone.
I gazed into it awhile, thinking of the UFO from
that fateful day.
  Anyway. I fished the optical disc out, noting
the lack of a label. A quick wash at the sink
got rid of the crud it had accumulated.
  The disc was drying by the window as I
hunted through the now-harmless envelope
for clues. A single sheet of Xerox paper was
 stuck to the inside and it read:
  
"From the desk of MAX SMITHSON, Editor-in-
Chief, MEGASURPRISE magazine
  
I'm mailing you this optical disc that was sent
to the edit department. It's right up your alley,
see if you can turn up something more. We'll
do a book if you get enough stuff together.
This is your chance for a comeback, so don't
 screw it up."
  
  Max is an old friend, and used to manage
most of my book deals way back when. We
hadn't seen each other much since I gave up
writing. Not that he has the right to tell me
about comebacks and screwing up, but I find
myself growing excited by the prospect of
writing another book. But there was a
problem, and it was a big one.
   How the hell was I going to get to the disc's
content?
 THE SHOCKING TRUTH WITHIN
  My next-door neighbor is a starving college
student, and I hit him up for the use of his
computer now and then. I banged on his door
and screamed repeatedly until he shuffled up
to the door half-asleep. Once inside, I made a
beeline for the piece of junk and stuck the
disc into the drive. The icon appeared on the
 display with a gentle whir. The file name read:
"In the Darkness of Shadow Moses".
  
  But an urgent click on the icon only brought
up an error message. What nefarious scheme
was this!? What secret encryption was
preventing me from accessing the data!? I
clicked again and again with the same result,
and started to gnaw on the keyboard in
frustration. The starving student came running
 over, wailing about his equipment. He typed in
some moon-man language, avoiding patches
of my spit, and a frighteningly cheerful
application startup screen appeared on the
display. Then lo and behold, I finally laid my
eyes on the dense mass of text, the contents
of the disc!
  At the very top it read: "'In the Darkness of
Shadow Moses' by Nastasha Romanenko"
  The starving student was being scholarly
 and trying to read the text over my shoulder.
I knocked him out with a punch to the solar
plexus and devoured the file's content. It was
like a blow to the head with a frozen tuna; my
brain was reeling from the shock. The file was
full of wild stuff: top-secret conspiracies,
incredible genetic experimentation, cold-
blooded military deployment of classified
weapons. This was the most incredible
stuff I had ever come across.
 THE UNOFFICIAL FACTS
ACCORDING TO THE DISC
Most readers should be aware of the series of
strange military actions involving an island
farther north of Alaska's Fox Islands, some
two years ago. The island was called Shadow
Moses, and received a series of well-
documented but never-explained visits of
obvious significance. USS Discovery, an Ohio
class ballistic missile submarine, was ordered
 away from its designated training area and
was confirmed offshore of Shadow Moses
Island. It joined an E-3C AWACS that had
already and suddenly been deployed to the
area, with none other than Jim Houseman, the
National Security Advisor, aboard. Sixteen
hours later, 6 F117 Night Hawks with a full
payload took off from the Galena AFB for
Alaska.
  Various theories were placed into circulation
 by the media at the time. Some journalists
insisted it had been a foiled invasion
attempt by a foreign state, others suspected a
coup d'etat by a part of the U.S. military. I
myself wrote an opinion piece for a magazine
explaining that Shadow Moses was the Ellis
Island for the "Greys." This diminutive grey
race is after all the most famous of our alien
neighbors, notorious for having secret bases
all over planet Earth.
   But according to this file, we had all been
off our marks.
  What had instead unfolded on Shadow
Moses was the most major terrorist incident
in history, an apocalyptic scenario born out of
a government-developed superman project
and a doomsday weapon of the same origin.
  On that fateful day, the nuclear weapons
disposal plant on Shadow Moses had suddenly
been seized by an irregular operations squad
 called "FOXHOUND", aided by a group of
next-generation super-soldiers. And what
they threatened was no less than a nuclear
strike against the mainland United States!
  So how is it that we're still alive?
Apparently we have a man known only as
"Solid Snake" -- and his solitary infiltration
of the disposal facility -- to thank for it.
  Believe it or not, this is only the tip of the
iceberg as far as the Shadow Moses incident
 is concerned. The disc contains many more
horrifying facts such as a major government
conspiracy, a classified weapon described
as a "walking nuclear-capable tank", and
advanced genetic manipulation projects. Many
of these hidden dealings were discovered by
Solid Snake as he carried out his mission, and
it is now my job is to relate these facts to you
the readers.
  But is it still a little too premature to do
 so? The content of the disc may after all be
nothing more than fiction, or even a delusion.
After all, who exactly is this Nastasha
Romanenko?
 IN SEARCH OF NASTASHA ROMANENKO
  A quick search of the Web turned up a few
illuminating facts about this elusive writer.
Nastasha Romanenko was at one point with
the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency). At the
time of the Shadow Moses incident, she
appears to have been a freelance military
analyst, having already resigned from the
Agency. Nuclear and weapons technology
 would certainly be right up her alley, and in
the disc she states that she took part in Solid
Snake's mission support. Her exact role was
as a member of NEST (Nuclear Emergency
Search Team), providing field expertise via
the radio. Her intimate involvement in the
mission gives her a complete and clear grasp
of the facts surrounding the case despite the
government's successful cover-up.
   A look at Romanenko's curriculum vitae and
body of papers makes her anti-nuclear stance
more than obvious. That, along with all the
other facts about this person, suggests that
unless she suffered a sudden chemical
imbalance or is plotting a second career as a
Hollywood screenwriter, Nastasha Romanenko
does not indulge in expounding conspiracy
theories for its own sake.
  All very interesting. So where is Nastasha
 Romanenko now? I decided to give Global
Elements Inc., the book's publisher a call.
Below is a complete transcript of the
conversation.
  
  Me: "Hello. Listen, you leftover carnival
prize, what do you know about a woman
named Nastasha Romanenko?"
  Whoever it was: "Hey, your village called.
They want their idiot back. And watch
 your language, freak." Click.
  
  Clearly, they're hiding something. Why else
the abrupt response and the hasty hang-up?
I was on the trail of something important.
Something dangerous. If the content of the
disc was true, this Natasha Romanenko was
definitely the Woman-Who-Knew-Too-Much.
Her life would be in danger, and she must
either have gone to ground or was already
 dead. That brief telephone conversation spoke
volumes: there was a contract out on her life!
If this was the price of speaking the truth as
described in that disc, the picture was
complete. But was everything she wrote really
true?
  I went back to my apartment and packed a
bag. I was headed for Shadow Moses.
 THE COLDEST PLACE
I took a plane out to the northernmost
domestic airport and went to see my cousin
John-Dee.
  John-Dee is a hardcore Alaskan and a big-
eye tuna fisherman. When I asked him to drop
me off at Shadow Moses Island during one of
his trips out to sea, he turned pale and a
nervous tick started up at the corner of his
eye.
   "Shadow Moses? Are you nuts? All the
other guys say the place is crawling with the
military. If you get even close to the shore,
they shine these huge searchlights in your
face, and some of my buddies even got
interrogated once!"
  I felt the sudden chill of fear along with a
certainty that I was on the right track.
  "You're a wuss, you know that? Try being
abducted by a UFO, that'll teach you what's
 really scary."
  "I got a family, you know? I'm not about to
go messing around with The Man!"
  "OK, you get me as close as you can then.
I'll swim the rest of the way."
  "Swim? You're gonna turn into frozen tuna
treat."
  "Don't worry about that. I have an idea."
  We sailed out for Shadow Moses Island that
day.
 THE TRIP TO SHADOW MOSES
  It was colder than the dairy section and the
boat pitched like a subway derailment on
caffeine. I shook constantly from the cold,
retched peanut butter into the sea, then
downed some more to keep warm. A few days
passed in this pleasant fashion until John-
Dee, drawing lines on his charts, turned to
me.
  "I'm sorry man, but this is as far as I can
 go. If you really want to do this thing, you're
going to have to find your own way."
  There were at least 20 miles to Shadow
Moses according to the chart. But John-Dee
was already a blubbering wreck, and I didn't
have the heart to strong-arm him. I steeled
my nerves.
  "It's okay. Help me get ready."
  The plan was brilliant. I'd gutted a super-
size tuna and stuffed some inflated balloons
 inside, along with a small oil lamp to keep the
interior toasty. I would cover the length of my
body with the fish and dog-paddle my way to
the island. Any oxygen shortage could quickly
be remedied thanks to the balloon, and my
landing would appear to be nothing more than
a large dead fish swept ashore. All I had to do
was slip out of the tuna undetected and
investigate the hell out of the place.
Absolutely brilliant.
   I bore the fishy stink of the tuna skin with
proper journalistic aplomb and walked to the
edge of the ship's deck. The Arctic wind was
numbing even through the wetsuit, but I bade
John-Dee a hearty farewell and jumped into
the sea. But right then, disaster struck!
  Actually it was the tuna spine. Its bony
mass conked me hard on the back of my head
from the force of the landing. I tried to right
myself, but I was jammed tight against the
 balloons. The tuna started to sink rapidly, and
I kicked my legs wildly as about a gallon of
seawater rushed into my lungs. To add insult
to injury, the lamp fell over, shedding its
cover. I could feel the heat of the exposed
flame dangerously close to my face, and smell
the singed hair. This is why I hate traveling.
  But after what felt like hours, I found myself
ashore on Shadow Moses Island.
   Let's take a moment here to review what
happened on the island on that fateful day.
Romanenko's disc provides a complete
answer.
  Shadow Moses was no ordinary weapons
disposal facility, but served as a secret
military training ground among other things.
On that day, the wetworks commando unit
known as FOXHOUND and the next-generation
Special Forces group were conducting joint
 exercises.
  FOXHOUND is an "irregular" squad of elite
soldiers, equipped and armed to the teeth
with the latest technology. They were longtime
-- and strictly behind-the-scenes -- playyers
throughout recent history, engaging in
sabotage, selective assassinations and other
covert military operations. Wherever the
United States could not officially intervene,
whether it was a civil war, regional unrest or
 other types of low-intensity conflict,
FOXHOUND was there. It's unlikely, however,
that an average citizen has ever heard of them
before; these commandos remain a top-secret
government project.
  And then there's the next-generation
Special Forces unit. This is a cutting-edge
anti-terrorist force newly organized to cope
with terrorist incidents specifically involving
weapons of mass destruction typified in
 nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. They
draw heavily from former mercenary ranks,
and are on a diet of rigorous VR training
guided by the FORCE 21 concept. The result is
combat capability, which is rumored to
surpass even those of the Delta Force and
DEV GRU (formerly known as Seal Team 6).
Most frightening of all, these soldiers have
supposedly been manipulated at the genetic
level to increase their combat performance.
   They were the purebreds among the dogs
of war, and they turned on their masters with
a surprising demand. Having seized the
civilians that were on hand, they demanded
that the government turn over to them the
body of FOXHOUND's founder and combat
genius, the so-called "Big Boss." The
government had 24 hours to comply or a
nuclear strike would be initiated. But what
would motivate them to make such a demand,
 and how did they intend to make good their
threat of a nuclear launch?
   With these questions still unanswered, the
government decided on a seemingly reckless
course of action. For this daunting task of
stopping a nuclear strike and freeing the
hostages from the clutches of these ultimate
soldiers, they sent in a single man. His name
was Solid Snake -- no other than a former
member of the now-renegade FOXHOUND and
 a legend among mercenaries for single-
handedly bringing down the fortress cities of
Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land.
  Your reaction is probably one of incredulity.
"Just one guy?" You may wonder. "They
decided to gamble the future of the entire
world on a single mercenary?"
I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment.
But there is more to this mission than meets
the eye, as I was later to discover.
 SOLID SNAKE'S REMOTE SUPPORT TEAM
  Snake was delivered to the island by USS
Discovery, an Ohio class ballistic missile
submarine. He may have been the lone field
operative, but there was a distinguished
mission control team in contact with him by
radio.
  The overall control of the mission rested
with Colonel Roy Campbell aboard the USS
 Discovery. As a former commander of
FOXHOUND and Snake's CO during the 1999
Zanzibar Land standoff, he was forcibly called
out from retirement to deal with this latest
crisis.
  Also aboard the Discovery was Dr. Naomi
Hunter, a genetic engineering expert with the
commercial biotech firm ATGC Inc. She was in
charge of FOXHOUND's gene manipulation
program.
   Mei Ling, the architect of the mission's state-
of-the-art radar and communication systems,
was the third team member. Apparently
something of an engineering wunderkind, she
developed this next-generation communication
technology while still a student at MIT. At the
time of the mission, she may have still been in
her teens.
  McDonnell Miller, a former FOXHOUND
survival instructor, was the only land-bound
 member of the mission control team. Unlike
the other four, Miller was working out of his
home in Alaska at his own request.
  Lastly, Nastasha Romanenko, the author of
"In the Darkness of Shadow Moses," rounded
out the team as an expert on nuclear and
other weapons of mass destruction.
 WHAT TERRORIST ACTS
WERE COMMITTED HERE?
THE HOSTAGES AND WHAT THEY TELL US
  The first task faced by Solid Snake upon his
infiltration of Shadow Moses Island was the
rescue of the hostages. Two of the captives in
particular were considered top-priority, but
neither survived the mission. Though Snake
successfully freed both men, they died
suddenly in an identical manner. At the time,
 the mission control team tentatively attributed
the deaths to heart attacks -- a diagnosis
that was to prove starkly incorrect.
  The first hostage was Donald Anderson, the
head of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency), the R&D body of the U.S.
Department of Defense. The organization is
responsible for planning and overseeing the
development of new weapons technology.
  The other VIP hostage, Kenneth Baker, was
 the president of ArmsTech, one of the largest
and most powerful defense subcontractors in
the country.
  An overseer of the U.S.'s war technology
and a powerful arms producer don't just
happen to meet in an out-of-the-way military
outpost. No one reading this account can fail
to realize that these two had no business in a
nuclear weapons disposal plant. And since
neither Anderson nor Baker was in the habit
 of enjoying winter picnics, Romanenko's
assertion that there was a new weapon
secretly being developed on the island rings
all the more true. According to her, there was
indeed such a weapon, and it was close
enough to completion to warrant a field test.
But what exactly was this new weapon?
 THE MOTHER OF ALL WEAPONS
  Metal Gear. I'm not sure it's a term that
many of you have heard. I know it only as a
kind of a journalistic urban legend while I was
still a beat reporter. It was a phantom bipedal
tank that moved with unprecedented speed
across difficult terrain such as mountains,
desert and swamps, firing nuclear warheads
from locations that were previously
impossible. Once this weapon rolled off the
 assembly line, nuclear strikes could be made
from almost any adverse terrain, and the
tactical nuclear map for the whole world
would be rewritten.
  This nuclear-capable bipedal tank is said to
have lurked in the wings of both Outer Heaven
of South Africa and Zanzibar Land in
Central Asia. One theory holds that the
development had progressed to a working
 prototype stage, but the weapon never
materialized on the world arms stage. In a
strange coincidence or a causal connection, it
was none other than Solid Snake who saved
the world from the threat of Metal Gear during
both incidents.
  But history does indeed repeat itself, and
the specter of Metal Gear rose once again --
in the state-of-the-art weapons development
program on Shadow Moses Island.
   When I reached this point in the narrative,
I suddenly checked myself. Wasn't Metal
Gear's time effectively over? Ever since the
collapse of the Soviet Union late last century,
the idea of mutual assured destruction and
the arms race to maintain this dangerous
status quo had been fading into obsolescence.
The START2 treaty signed by both
superpowers had already started to chip away
at the nuclear stockpile even back then.
 In fact, the disposal facility at Shadow Moses
had been built to disarm and temporarily store
many of these same warheads. With the very
idea of nuclear weapons under serious
scrutiny, why would the military invest in the
development of a nuclear-capable tank?
Or was there something more to this
weapon?
 THE NATURE OF THE BEAST
  Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you
Metal Gear REX, the newest of its kind.
Almost forty-five feet in height, equipped with
Vulcan cannons and laser array and shielded
by a cutting-edge composite armor, rendering
the unit practically impervious to even HEAT
(High Explosive Anti-Tank) warheads. And I
haven't even gotten to the truly scary part of
this thing.
   The crown jewel of this Shadow Moses
Metal Gear was its rail gun technology. The
gun was designed to fire nuclear warheads
clear of the atmosphere, where they would
automatically align themselves to the target
and ride the optimal trajectory back down to
Earth.
  "So what?" you may think. "There's a big
fat missile flying in from the sky. Who cares
where it came from? Just shoot the damn
 thing down." But here's the catch: You won't
be able to find any of REX's warheads, let
alone shoot them down. Don't believe me?
The facts bear me out.
  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 that 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 systems are
 alerted to incoming ballistic missiles by
detecting the rocket burn during the missile's
boost stage. However, Metal Gear's missile
technology employs a rail gun rather than
conventional 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.
   It also wouldn't matter if the whole world
knew that a nuclear missile would be launched
from Shadow Moses Island; the missile
defense system was helpless against the new
 breed of ballistic missiles. This was exactly
what the terrorists counted on in unleashing
Metal Gear REX and its all-powerful nuclear
weapon against the world.
 WHAT I FINALLY SAW INSIDE THE FORTRESS
  Anyway.
  I trudged through the cave, sweating under
the weight of my trusty tuna. Soon, the rocks
gave way to smooth walls and a row of bright
lights. I had finally arrived -- this was no
doubt the cradle of insurrection, that military
facility which Solid Snake so brilliantly
penetrated, the eye of the storm that
threatened to engulf the world!
    Fortunately, there was not a soul to be
seen. I could, however, hear a faint cry
amidst the whistle of the wind.
  "Gary, help me -- "
  I couldn't believe my ears. How could
anyone on a remote island that I'd never
visited know my name? I took a good
cautious look around and saw a familiar
figure among the steel pillars in the corner.
It was -- John-Dee!
   My cousin, who'd so carelessly pitched me
overboard into the subzero water only few
hours ago, was now sitting on the ground, tied
to a post. What had happened?
  "Help, Gary -- "
  I trotted over to where he was calling
pathetically, the tuna heavy on my back. He
smiled weakly when he saw me.
  "What the hell happened to you, John-
Dee?" I asked, crouching down next to
 him.
  "I dunno. Right after I let you off, this black
helicopter came around."
  "A helicopter?"
  "Yeah. A kind of squarish black one. The
next thing I know, I'm tied up here... Gary,
why're you still wearing that fish?"
  Was there more to this as I'd suspected?
Who was responsible? The military? Or that
mysterious group mentioned in the disc, the
 one whose authority outstrips even that of the
President of the United States?
  My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden
gunfire. I instinctively pulled the tuna over me
again.
  "Gary, you gotta help me! Untie me, will
ya!?"
  Where was the shooter? The bullets were
wildly ricocheting off the posts, making it
impossible for me to pinpoint the origin.
 If I stayed put, I was dead meat. What should
be my next course of action?
  "Untie me, man! Gary!"
  "Don't call me Gary! I'm just a tuna!" I
started to run, dodging bullets and sprinting
up the stairs. I was unstoppable, speeding
away like a gazelle in a large fishskin.
Farewell, cousin John-Dee. There are
responsibilities greater than your safety that I
must shoulder. Mine is a high and lonely path.
 SOLID SNAKE VS. THE ARMY OF DARKNESS
  Let's take this moment to review Solid
Snake's footsteps. The nuclear weapons
disposal facility that he had infiltrated was
crawling with terrorists, and engaging the
enemy was unavoidable. This was a
battlefield, no mistake about it.
  Snake's progress had been impeded at
every step by the patrolling squads of super-
"genome soldiers," and such formidable
 FOXHOUNDs as Psycho Mantis, the master of
psychokinesis and mindreading, the chameleon
-like Decoy Octopus, the chaingun-wieldinng
giant Vulcan Raven, and Sniper Wolf, one of
the best marksman in history. The following is
a profile of individuals whose involvement with
the government conspiracy seems to be the
most intimate. The information should help
make the terrifying truth about this case more
clear.
 - Revolver Ocelot
  An ex-Spetznaz, also known as
"Shalashaska." After the collapse of the
Soviet Union, he found lucrative contracts
as a mercenary in conflict-ridden regions
throughout the world. His activities led to his
recruitment by the U.S. government, and
his entry into FOXHOUND. As his code name
indicates, he is a brilliant marksman whose
preferred weapon is a revolver.
   Ocelot challenged Snake when he came
looking for Kenneth Baker, the President of
ArmsTech Inc. But the battle never reached
the conclusion Ocelot wanted due to the
sudden intrusion of the stealth camouflage-
clad cyborg-Ninja. The Ninja's sword cut a
deadly arc right through Ocelot's right arm,
and Ocelot retreated in agony.
  The Russian sharpshooter also served as a
liaison between his terrorist band and a
 Russian militia led by the renegade Colonel
Gurlukovich. According to FOXHOUND leader
Liquid Snake's master plan, the Russian militia
would join them on Shadow Moses after the
nuclear strike had been launched. They would
then commence an all-out assault on the rest
of the world from their safe retreat on the
island. With nuclear missiles that could neither
be detected nor defended against, over a
thousand first-class Russian soldiers, next-
 generation genome commandos and the
combat skill and tactical cunning of
FOXHOUND, this new army's objective was
nothing short of World War III.
 - The Ninja
  The mystery figure equipped with a
reinforced exoskeleton and stealth camouflage
confounded Snake as well as the terrorists
with his superhuman strength and agility. His
interest seems not to have been what was
happening within the facility; evidence
suggests that he was there solely to engage
Snake in battle. It was through such an
encounter that Snake realized the identity of
 the Ninja.
  His name had been Gray Fox, and he was
supposed to have been killed by Snake, his
best friend. This may seem surprising, but the
dead coming back to life is a fairly routine
occurrence. There are examples throughout
the world to prove the fact. When a Roland
Grace's grave was relocated in 1952, there
were deep gouge marks discovered on the
inside of the Hungarian farmer's casket lid.
 It looked as though the dying man had tried to
claw his way out of the coffin. On a brighter
note, a Japanese man called Jin-emon
Natakama walked out of a stalactite cave in
1914 a full ten years after he had gone
missing while exploring the same cave. His
family was doubly astonished to discover that
he had apparently not aged a day since they
last saw him. All this makes complete sense to
me, and it should to you as well in a moment.
 Two words: pyramid power. I have no doubt
that Gray Fox was forced to undergo the same
revival process by military scientists in the
course of their horrific genetic experiments.
  
 - Liquid Snake
  I know exactly what you are thinking as you
hear the name of the man who led the Shadow
Moses uprising -- and my answer is yes.
Solid Snake, our hero, and Liquid Snake are
none other than twin brothers.
  They are not, however, twins in the usual
sense. This is yet another manifestation of the
U.S. military's dangerous love affair with
genetic engineering. The two Snakes are
 fighting machines created through the
so-called Project "Les Enfants Terribles"!
  The rumors that the government is
attempting "mass-production" of super-
soldiers are numerous and persistent. Just the
other day, I came across something called
"D-People-E-O," a humanoid combat droid.
Development on the outer shell had gone off
without a hitch, but the unit had to have a
human being inside to function, which
 decreased its utility somewhat. The military
finally realized the fact late in the game, and
pulled the plug. There was also a plan to use
a well-known psychokinetic's DNA material to
breed an army of gifted soldiers.
Unfortunately, someone pointed out that there
is indeed no spoon -- at least not in a normal
combat situation.
  Solid and Liquid Snakes, however, were
successfully created from their "father" Big
 Boss' genetic material. They were literally
born to be extraordinary soldiers, and it was
no surprise that when they finally met, the
result would be a titanic confrontation.
 WHAT I SAW ON THE ROOF
  I hauled myself and the tuna up the steps,
dodging the invisible sniper. The spiral
staircase seemed to go on forever. Just as I
was about to give up the climb, I saw the exit
to the roof.
  I pulled open the door and lurched into the
faintly lit gloom. The subzero wind felt
soothing on my overworked body. I laid the
tuna down and sat down next to it, trying to
 catch my breath. The enemy may pursue me
even here, but I had nothing left in me to run
with.
  I pulled out my hip flask of peanut-butter-
and-bourbon, and took a long swig. The fiery
liquid slid down my throat, hot and thick.
  Peanut butter is my Waterloo. When I was a
kid, I was a wuss who couldn't eat peanut
butter like other red-blooded children.
One day, I decided to confront this weakness
 of mine, and put myself on a peanut butter
overload: anything I put in my mouth had to
have peanut butter on it. I piled the stuff on
everything from chilidogs without onions --
my favorite dish -- to spearmint gum to my
first girlfriend's lips.
  The inevitable result was that I came to hate
peanut butter. If I didn't much like it before, I
now loathed it with abandon. If I could gather
the entire world supply of peanut butter and
 dump it in the Bermuda Triangle, I would.
As it is, all I can do is eat as much of the
stuff as I can. Peanut butter, I will always hate
you.
  How does that song go?
  "And I-ai-ai will always hate you-u-U-u"
  No, that's not it.
  "Will always -- "
  It must be another song I'm thinking of.
Can't remember. Snow is starting to coat my
 shoes.
  Where was my tuna? Oh, there it is, right
next to me.
  Bright light in my eye. Now I remember
what day it is -- June 24th. The anniversary
of my UFO abduction. Why am I so sleepy?
And what is that sound?
  It was a chopper. A squarish black one, and
it was coming closer.
 FOXDIE --
THE SECRET ASSASSINATION VIRUS
  If you recall, I wrote that the two hostages
-- the DARPA chief Donald Anderson and
ArmsTech president Kenneth Baker -- died of
a heart attack while they were being rescued
by Solid Snake. The actual cause of their
death, however, was a specially engineered
assassination virus called FOXDIE.
  FOXDIE is a retrovirus that kills only a
 select people; its development was passed
onto Naomi Hunter from her predecessor.
Once FOXDIE finds its way into its target's
system, the person dies almost immediately.
It's practically a viral equivalent of
spontaneous human combustion.
  Dr. Hunter had injected Solid Snake with
this virus, and as he unwittingly made contact
with his targets one by one, they fell prey to
the retrovirus' power. But the decision to
 infect Snake was not hers -- that order in fact
came directly from the Pentagon!
 THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT'S GOAL
  The true objective of the DOD was to
selectively assassinate the perpetrators of the
terrorist uprising. All Snake had to do was to
come into contact with the targets; the
mission objectives he was actually given --
namely to stop the nuclear launch and rescue
the hostages -- were nothing more than a
smoke screen. By simply sending Snake in as
a disease vector, the Pentagon stood to
 reclaim their expensive investments,
Metal Gear and the bodies of the genome
soldiers, with little risk of damage.
  The Pentagon also believed that FOXDIE
would successfully cover up the incident by
the virtue of its lethality. However, Naomi
Hunter's reengineering of the virus cast grave
doubts on the reliability of FOXDIE itself. Even
though the nature of her manipulation was
 unknown, the Pentagon decided to take
extreme measures to counteract this
development.
 THE BOMBER ON THE HORIZON
  Alarmed by the news of Dr. Hunter's
tampering, the then-Defense Secretary Jim
Houseman personally took over as the
mission's commander and headed for Shadow
Moses on an AWACS. Around the same time, a
bomber took off from a base in Galena,
Alaska, carrying a payload of surface-piercing
B61-13 tactical missiles. The Defense
Secretary had decided on a more direct
 approach to cover-up.
  Fighting nuke with nuke -- it was a
rationale that smacked of a return to the arms
race, and Snake was furious. He had already
succeeded in destroying Metal Gear REX, and
the terrorist incident was over for all intents
and purposes. Was a nuclear air strike to be
his prize for accomplishing all this?
  As it turned out, the air strike never
happened. Somebody had countermanded
 Jim Houseman's orders. You may think that
the only person with the authority to override
the orders of the Secretary of Defense was his
commander-in-chief, the President of the
United States. But like most things in this
account, the truth is far from obvious. The
hand that stopped the nuclear strike was that
of a shadowy secret society!
  But what kind of a group is it whose power
outstrips even that of the American
 Presidency?
 THE FACE OF THE ENEMY
  When I came to, I was sitting in a weather
station cabin with a burlap sack on my head
and my hands tied behind my back. So this is
the way it ends, I thought dimly. I haul myself
all the way out to this pimple on the Arctic
and die at the hands of an invisible
executioner without finding out a thing.
  One of my captors moved in closer and
started to rummage through my inside chest
 pocket. I cursed inwardly; this was where I
carried Nastasha Romanenko's disc, the entire
account of the Shadow Moses incident! My
policy is, the best way to ensure that
something doesn't get stolen is to have it with
you at all times. Clearly, I needed to
re-evaluate that one.
  The man easily found and seized the disc.
  "What is this?" He demanded.
  "Whatever it is, it's worth more than you."
 I responded with as much menace and dignity
as the burlap on my head allowed.
  "Well, well, that is something..."
  What followed was both highly tedious and
painful, and nothing of great significance was
said until that electrifying statement, "We have
the disc back."
  
  We've now come full circle since the start of
my account, and caught up to the point where
 it originated. It was unclear how the disc had
gotten to Max Smithson at MEGASURPRISE,
but my captor's words indicated that the disc
had originally belonged to them. Either that,
or they were the ones who wanted it the most
urgently. I took my courage in my hands and
opened a dialogue with them.
  "Yo, you guys happen to be that secret
society whose power outstrips even that of the
American Presidency? Answer me, you
 artificial coloring on a cheap drugstore candy
cane!"
  This had the exact effect I'd hoped for,
namely to send them into a violent fit of rage.
I must have hit pretty close to home. The
contents of the disc were as good as verified
-- this was indeed the secret society whoose
power outstripped even that of the American
Presidency! In my delight, I hardly paid
attention to the obscenities that were being
 screamed at me, nor to the distinct sound of a
gun being pulled out of its holster.
  It was then that the cabin suddenly erupted
into controlled chaos. It seemed only seconds
from the time the window was smashed in to
the moment I realized that my captors had
been decimated and I was alone with my
savior.
  Who was this human whirlwind? I was
ready to lose my lunch from the curiosity and
 the terror. I could taste the peanut butter in
my mouth. I could hear the enigma walk up to
me, and lift the burlap sack off my head.
I concentrated on the hammering of my heart
for a moment, then slowly looked up.
  There was nobody there.
  I could see nothing, sense nothing. But
someone was untying the ropes biting into my
wrists. Invisible hands placed themselves on
either side of my head in a strange parody of
 a coronation. They deftly removed the
bandanna I had earlier fashioned into a clumsy
bandage for my bruised head; the faded
piece of cloth was not my own, but a flotsam
found on the beach. I reached for the unseen
figure with my shaking hands, but with one
quick flick of the bandanna, it was gone.
  But there were more surprises to come.
As I gingerly moved my stiff body, I felt an
unfamiliar bulk against my chest, and
 discovered the precious optical disc,
miraculously recovered. Not only that, but
there were enough backup copies to fill me
with awe and pop the stitches on my flimsy
pocket.
  I thought of my mysterious savior:
possessed of superhuman fighting ability,
invisible, and capable of burning discs in an
instant. There was only one possible
explanation.
   He had to be an alien, probably the little
gray kind.
 LIFE AFTER SHADOW MOSES
  And so I came in from the cold to my hole
of an apartment in New York, my trusty tuna
beside me. The landlord mentioned that my
neighbor the starving student had gone
missing recently. It could be that I was nosing
around the wrong information from his
machine. If I ever see him alive again, I should
apologize.
  I am currently banging out this manuscript
 on an antique typewriter. This is the truth as
described on the optical disc, and as
elaborated and verified by my own
experiences on that fearsome island.
  As this account draws to a close,
my thoughts dwell more and more on
Nastasha Romanenko, the woman who risked
everything by recording the facts of the
incident onto this disc. I think it was her way
of giving voice to the victims of this mission,
 the casualties of nuclear weapons throughout
modern history, and to all the lives disrupted
and damaged by an elaborate government
conspiracy. Her will was passed onto a
counterculture journalist in New York City --
that's me -- and the truth is now out there for
all to see, just as she dreamed. Readers, the
responsibility to disseminate the facts of the
Shadow Moses incident is now yours.
What will YOU risk to know the truth?
 PUBLISHER'S AFTERWORD
  This nonfiction work was based on the
factual account written by Nastasha
Romanenko, a military analyst who allegedly
took part in a secret mission to counter a
terrorist incident on Alaska's Shadow Moses
Island. Her account was published in its
original, unabridged form as "In the Darkness
of Shadow Moses" after the successful
publication of this volume.
   Gary McGolden, the author, is a journalist
and a nonfiction writer who is best known for
his past bestseller, "The Telekinetic Powers
of the Loch Ness Monster - The True Energy
Source of UFOs". The details of McGolden's
adventures on Shadow Moses remain
uncorroborated, but there are serious doubts
as to his tuna-aided landing on the island.
There is in fact ample evidence that he was
swept out to another small island several
 miles south of Shadow Moses and failed to
realize that fact.
  McGolden has seemingly vanished into thin
air following his manuscript's arrival at our
humble offices. While this has been a source
of great pleasure to our accounting
department, I sincerely hope that this
notoriously fickle but talented writer is hard at
work on a follow-up to this volume.
   Though certain aspects of the book require
further fact-checking, this alone should not
dissuade you of the veracity of many of its
main assertions, nor should you dismiss the
contents of Nastasha Romanenko's disc
outright. Instead, readers should approach
this account with an open mind and a sense of
adventure, much as Gary McGolden did when
he first received the disc in the mail.
  I should note, however, that Gary was
 mistaken about one thing. I never mailed him
that disc.
  
Max Smithson, Editor-in-Chief
MEGASURPRISE Magazine