chapter ONE: Cell 36

It took sixteen minutes. The car was parked outside the facility, a dim light falling over the front step of the building and a security camera staring in the three men's faces as they stepped out of the car and up to the entrance doors. There was a beep, signaling the recognition of their identification, and the door pushed itself open an inch.

The three men stepped inside, a warm yellow light pouring over them, and the cold stinging morning falling away behind them. It was only 6:03, and the guard at the front desk started up, pulling his feet off the counter and peering through the Plexiglas window in the left wall that separated him from the three men.

"Mr. Allen," the guard said with a smile. Mr. Allen, the second man in the bunch – and the more exotically dressed with a heavy leather-hide coat and a navy scarf toiled about his neck – nodded and gave a subtle little wave as the two men beside him – both in government apparel and carrying side arms beneath their suit jackets, and noticing that one was not a man at all but a woman with short hair and stunning eyes – surveyed the hallway. Two military men were walking up the hall, exchanging nervous glances between each other once they saw Mr. Allen. "I hadn't expected seeing you here this morning," the guard said, trying to hide his worry.

Mr. Allen bobbed his head lightly and rolled his eyes, "Yes, I know, but I was hoping to get a look at the security. You know, make sure everything is up to par." At this, the two military men cleared their throats, and nearly stumbling, came to a halt before their guests. Mr. Allen turned to them and casually saluted. They put their heels together, straightened their backs, and stiffened their fingers at their brows. Mr. Allen waved down their gesture and turned back to the guard, who seemed to be searching for words, having not expected the prison's security advisor to show on his shift.

"Uh…you can take a look around, of course, sir," the guard said, putting up his hands and showing off his teeth in a giant smile. Mr. Allen waved, thanked him, and went down the hall. One of the military men, named Marshal, roughly brushed shoulders with the female associate of Mr. Allen's and turned to give them the finger after they'd passed.

"What the fuck are they doing here?" he asked the guard, whose face became stern and apprehensive.

"Probably what he said," the guard returned. "Checking the security. Making sure you two are keeping watch over the cells, which you're clearly not doing."

The two men turned on their heels and went back down the hall, turning into another corridor and splitting apart somewhere down the next. The guard kicked his heels back up on the counter, lounged back in his chair, and raised a magazine in front of his face as the three men stopped in front of a cell somewhere down an isolated hall.

One of Mr. Allen's associates slipped a key card through a small scanner beside the cell door – a slab entirely of steel – and read a number off to Mr. Allen who pressed a series of digits on a keypad beneath the scanner. There was a moment of waiting, and then the door let out a short hiss and opened itself up to the three who quickly slipped inside before closing the door behind them.

Ten minutes passed before the two military men returned to the entrance hall and peered into the little side room where the guard was kicked back, reading a magazine. One of them tapped impatiently on the Plexiglas and the guard dropped the magazine on the counter and looked at the two, annoyed.

"Where the fuck is Allen?" one of them asked, and the guard raised his shoulders and wrinkled the bridge of his nose. The two military men fell back against opposite walls of the hall and looked at each other. "He didn't come through here?" The one asked.

"Nope," the guard returned.

"I didn't see him either," the other military man commented. "Why don't you look on your damn monitors, you little shit?"

"There will be no need for that," Mr. Allen replied, coming back up the hallway. The two military men pushed off of the walls and the guard discarded his magazine in a small trashcan at his right. "We're here," he said, coming up to the three, who all looked as if they'd just been hit in the stomach with a pile of bricks. "Thanks for your hospitality. Everything looks secure," he said as they swept past the guard, the man and woman's heads held low, and a foul smell passing with them. The doors were triggered by the guard to unlock, and waving, Mr. Allen started out to greet the cold that waited on the front steps.

But, he stopped first, and turned on his heel.

"Oh," he said, facing Marshal who looked terribly frightened, "here's your key card." He flipped the card through the air and Marshal caught it in his arms. He looked at it oddly as Mr. Allen waved and walked into the brisk morning, the sun still low beyond the horizon and the moon still glowing like a giant snowflake in the sky.

Marshal remembered the rough little nudge from the female agent when they'd gone to pass him, when he'd given them the finger, and when he'd asked the guard why they were there. And then he knew why they were there, why they'd come. They'd come to see a prisoner. A prisoner in – Marshal checked the key card and cursed – cell 36.

…Revolver Ocelot.

The three were out the door when the guard finally sounded the alarm.

There were only three men on duty that morning. The prison was small and out of the way, never attracting attention. It harbored no more than ten men, all held under terribly heavy surveillance. They were never bathed, but were properly fed three times a day. In the guard's side room were more than thirty monitors, watching every single inch of the building – the outside, the inside, and everything in between. Any disruptions in technological security were immediately picked up and displayed before him, but because of the situation on that morning there was no expectation for a trick like that.

Technology and heavy fortifications made the little nook of a prison impenetrable, which granted for the lack of manpower. And, seeing as Mr. Allen was the security advisor himself, there was no reason for any of the men on duty to suspect him of pulling a trick like that. But, they had not expected that someone who could slip a key card out of your pocket and continue walking on before you could do so much as blink would be with him, or that his intentions would be wrong in the first place.

But, it was because the three on duty that morning had assumed Mr. Allen's intentions were good, that a half an hour later their visitors took Dr. Donald Kelmar hostage in a New Hampshire science research facility and escaped a mile-long trail of Feds in a helicopter toward New York State. And, why, only minutes after the three had fled the little nook of a prison, Revolver Ocelot was found bleeding and dying on the cold cement floor of Cell 36.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: It begins again. This story, the third in my trilogy, will be the final installment, and most likely my last fan fiction on the site. I'm pulling out everything in my stockpile, and it's retuning to the traditional style of MGS, leaving the public awareness out of the situation. This chapter is the first in several that are planned, and many that I will write before posting again. The rest of the story will begin being posted sometime around or on Halloween. I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, or prologue, or whatever you wish to call it, and please – if you haven't read the Compilation and the American (the preceding stories in the trilogy) – you should! Quickly! Before late October! THANKS!

                                                                                                                                    - espresso