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So, here’s the deal:
Imagine two guys, ex-military, tough as nails – you know the type, “well-adjusted” on the records but with more issues than you can count, a real FUBAR-type of deal – and they’re together. Relax, it’s 2016, it’s okay.
One of them spent years of his life getting a medical degree, pouring his heart and soul into that shiny PhD – and then about as long searching for a job. Let me tell you, being poor as shit sucks no matter how critically acclaimed and ground-breaking your thesis was. Eventually, he had to improvise and bam, military.
Dr. med. Vincente Ruiz, a real poster boy millennial. That’s me.
The other is more goal oriented, knowing where his talents and ambitions lie and he pursues them mercilessly. He went straight to the military after college, climbed the ranks – all it took was a misplaced grenade and that’s that, dream cancelled. He stayed as an instructor, though; “You don’t need two functioning legs to kick some lazy recruit's ass”, he’ll say when asked why and shrug.
That’s Kazuhira Miller and he’s mine.
Backstory set? Let’s get to it, then.
*
There’s this guy I need to find. He goes by “Big Boss”, but his real name is John. It’s so plain and laughably forgettable, even if the man himself is anything but. Can’t really fault the guy for the phony title now, huh?
The bad thing: he’s a real elusive pain in the ass, impossible to track down. The good thing: I have nothing else to do and solving problems is what I do best.
“But you’re only a doctor”, you mumble to yourself as you read this on mobile at 2am. And you’re right! Or at least that's who I used to be.
I skipped the part where I signed up to work for a PMC called Cipher. The pay was good, the job easy – they needed an experienced medic to train their own for two, three weeks tops – and of course it was a trap. I got kidnapped, tortured by some guy called Ocelot, brainwashed to hell and back, blah blah blah, the usual tragic bullshit every protagonist needs in their résumé. I’ll spare you the details. This is supposed to be a one-shot, after all.
The important part is that I woke up one day to a non-descript room with metal walls and sparse furniture and remembered everything.
The first thing I did was run to the bathroom mirror and there it was, staring back at me with wide eyes: Big Boss’s face, with scars all over and a frankly scary fragment of something sticking out from the forehead... Only it’s my face now, a demon’s face. The second thing I did was puke my guts out, all over the sink.
Then I sat down, and came up with a plan that took me weeks to prepare and one night to execute. I hightailed out of the FOB – my FOB – and it crashed and burned into the Caribbean ocean. That was step three.
Now, after nine years, I’m back in Anchorage and I’m pissed.
I’m also latently drunk, alone in my dingy flat scrolling through the contacts on my phone. I stare at the entry called “Master Miller” – that’s how I jokingly saved him as after that mind-blowing first date and I never bothered to change it – my thumb hovering over the green call button.
Maybe tomorrow, I tell myself and lock the screen. I know it’s a lie.