Viper: The Official Remaster

Chapter 6: Fourth Echelon

Finding the Research and Development building was simple; Ryker just had to locate the building that had the most security. It was easy to keep a low profile slipping in, only taking off the hood of his sweatshirt when he needed to show his face at the security gates.

Truthfully, Ryker didn't know the amount of privacy he had. The night Grim had poached him right out of the hands of Harry, she'd introduced him to no fewer than eleven operators in three nights, correctly banking on the fact no NDA would keep the agents' mouths shut. How recognizable he was would depend on the randomness of whoever he ran into.

Thinking back, Ryker had to admit Grim's strategy was a brutal one, to convince Harry to let him assist in the rescue of three kidnapped operatives, but at the same time, unknowingly damn any chance of Harry convincing NATO to let a former White Mask lieutenant join Rainbow by introducing him to eight operatives in one night.

By that notion alone, the knowledge that Grim and Harry weren't exactly friends couldn't have been more pitifully obvious.

Running into Sam Fisher again was another topic he had yet to fully process. Surely he'd be asked about their run-in at the Roskilde Festival in Copenhagen, but in his honest opinion, there really wasn't much to tell.

Rainbow had been active in Denmark at the time providing an investigation, as well as additional protection to an up-and-coming senator of New York, Nathan Fisk. Naturally, Wyvern and Viper both had been tasked with his elimination. Fisk took a bullet through the neck in the end, toppling off of the stage and into the crowd with around eight seconds to live before he bled to death. A clean hit, but extraction was where everything had fallen through.

Captain Inari had mapped where each Rainbow operator would be stationed, giving Ryker a very false sense of security and a lowered guard. Who he didn't expect to run into was Sarah Fisher, Sam's daughter of all people, who was taking time together with her father on a much-needed vacation.

One door separated the Viper from his extraction, being a helicopter waiting on the roof of the building, and all that stood in the way was a single woman. Sarah had planted herself in the way with her arms crossed and an intense stare, unflinching at the gun Ryker had put to her head along with his demand she step aside.

Her response was a simple "no."

He had trouble remembering what happened after, Ryker just barely able to recollect he'd stood locked in a gaze with her until Sam arrived several seconds later. He simply had to turn and fire. The 5x28 rounds his Five Seven carried could've easily pierced through the weak vest Sam was wearing, but he couldn't. He didn't want to. He refused...

Ryker had decided death was the better option.

Sam beat him within an inch of his life in the following moments, smashing Ryker's face hard enough to break the mask that covered it. Ryker didn't fight back. Again, he didn't want to. Death was such a welcome embrace, and he wasn't going to fight against it.

Ironically, it was Sarah who stopped Sam from finishing the job, her father holding Ryker's own karambit to his broken body and struggling to find the restraint not to cut down the Lieutenant who had just held a gun to his daughter's head only minutes before.

The dream faded as Ryker stopped at a curb, habitually counting several seconds in his head before walking forward, that very habit saving him the embarrassment of avoiding getting flattened by a humvee. There was nothing better at passing the time than getting lost in the past you tried to avoid so often. He slipped through the last security checkpoint without trouble and into the building without a word.

He had to admit, the Avalon Base of Little Ottawa had quite the R&D Department. Immediately upon entering, Ryker was greeted with a myriad of lab-coated scientists and the occasional soldier, all of them clad in a futuristic, white-out lobby.