Solid Frodo: Hobbit Espionage Action

Chapter 11: Meryl! Damn!

Stepping very carefully back into the hallway full of dead guards. Apparently the one Frodo had felt bad leaving had finally expired. They walked carefully, still wishing they could wash the blood off their feet somewhere. Soon, but not as soon as they would have liked, they left the hallway and entered the room right before the area full of poisoned gas.

"Ohhhh," Sam groaned. "I hafta wear that mask again, huh."

"You should," Frodo said, "it would be best. I promise not to let Merry and Pippin braid your hair."

Sam glared at the aforementioned Hobbits. "You was gonna braid my hair?"

"No!" Pippin objected. "We were just teasing Frodo."

Sam gave Pippin a sidelong glance. "I’m sure that’s all you was doing...."

"You’re hair isn’t braided anyway, and we won’t if it gets messed up again," Merry said conversationally.

"Oh, all right, but I don’t like this...I can’t believe you was gonna braid my hair...," Sam complained as he got the gas mask out and tried to get it on his head. Eventually he had to have help, and soon the task was done.

The Hobbits without masks took their deep breaths and then they all ran through the poisoned hallway until they reached clean air. Then they helped Sam with his mask so his hair wouldn’t get all messed up again, which allayed his fears of ending up looking like a Hobbit-lass.

When they were done, Pippin asked, "So, where should we look for Meryl anyway?"

Frodo tapped his chin. "I thought we would start with the room above us, the one with the...restrooms, since Otacon said we would have to get her into the ‘Women’s Room’ to talk to her safely."

"‘Restrooms’?" Merry asked.

Frodo nodded. "We all went into one, the ‘Men’s Room’...that’s what they call them."

Merry blanched. "I’m not going into a ‘Women’s Room’! What if she’s in there using the chamber pot!"

"She won’t be because right now she’s hiding out as a guard! Besides, if the radar says there are any guards in there, we just won’t go in, OK?"

Merry hrmmed a bit. "OK, that makes sense. So what are we supposed to do, find her and chase her into the ‘Women’s Room’?"

"I guess so."

Pippin slumped. "Well, let’s go then, wouldn’t want to miss out on the golden opportunity of watching for wiggling Big People butts."

So they entered the elevator. Merry reached out to press the triangle, but Pippin slapped his hand away and declared, "My job." Merry shrugged and let Pippin do the honors.

Shortly the Hobbits arrived at the floor above and exited the elevator. A quick check of their radar indicated there were more guards on this floor, but one of them was still occupied in the ‘Men’s Room’. "One would think they drink too much, considering how much time they spend in there" Merry whispered quietly.

"It’s like they go in shifts," Pippin agreed.

Frodo waved them forward, toward the room with the most guards. "It’s a shame the radar can’t pick up differences in walking," he grumbled. The other Hobbits agreed with his sentiment.

Slowly, they sneaked to the doorway and peered inside. There were two guards pacing the floor. When the Hobbits were certain they wouldn’t be seen, they stepped in and quickly hid in an alcove. Sam pulled the Scope out of his pocket and with a muttered apology to Rosie, began checking out the guards’ butts. He couldn’t be certain, not having exactly aquatinted himself much with the ways of Mannish walking, but he thought he had figured out which guard was Meryl. He pointed to her and handed the Scope to Frodo so he could double check.

"I suppose that must be her," Frodo agreed. He handed the Scope back to Sam and then thought for a moment.

"Well if you found her, we should go get her attention, right?" Pippin asked.

"But how do we do that without getting the other guard’s attention too?" Merry countered.

"Let’s wait a moment," Frodo suggested. "They seem to have a pattern...she’ll probably come over here soon, and then we can see if we can chase her into the ‘Women’s Room’."

So they waited, hiding in the shadows when the wrong Big Person wandered by and looked around their alcove. Soon enough though, Meryl came by, and Merry shoved Pippin out into the open so she would see him. She gasped, an exclamation point appeared over her head, and then she ran out of the room.

The Hobbits ran after her, and Pippin glared heatedly at Merry, growling, "Now what if that was the wrong one, Merry? What would you have done then, huh?"

"But it’s your job," Merry defended, "jumping out in front of guards unexpectedly." Pippin frowned deeply at his friend while they chased Meryl.

Indeed, she went exactly where Otacon had predicted, and with some trepidation, at least on Merry’s part, who had seen one too many disrobed Big People today, the Hobbits entered after her. The room looked very similar to the ‘Men’s Room’, with the exception that there were no wall-mounted chamber pots. But Meryl was no where to be seen. "Ohhh, I just know she’s using one of the pots," Merry complained, and refused to move an inch further into the room.

Frodo groaned in frustration. "Do you think she had time? We were right on her heels!"

But Merry wouldn’t move. "OK," Frodo said, "you can watch the door then." The rest of the Hobbits moved farther into the room, and Pippin checked under the stall doors for feet as they passed.

When they reached the last stall, they found the door open, but no one inside, just a discarded terrorist uniform. Slightly puzzled, Pippin went and picked it up.

Suddenly, they heard soft footfalls and turned around. Meryl had sneaked up behind them and had her FA-MAS pointed right between Sam’s eyes. Sam squeaked, but did nothing, and the other two Hobbits were still.

"So this is the second time I’ve been able to sneak up on you Hobbits," she smirked. Strangely, she didn’t have any pants on, just her underwear.

"Not on all of us," Merry said from behind her, his Númenorean dagger pointed at her back. "Anyway, we aren’t here to fight, so let’s be nice and put our weapons away, right?"

Meryl hissed through her teeth and lowered her FA-MAS.

Sam sighed in relief, and Pippin quipped, "What is it with you Big People and clothes? Do you not like wearing them or something?" Frodo shot Pippin a fierce look.

Merry sheathed his dagger, and the five walked away from the stalls and stood in the relatively more spacious wash area. Meryl grumped, "Men aren’t allowed in here, you know." She appeared to be attempting to discreetly cover her panties with her tank-top shirt. She looked distinctly embarrassed.

"Well, it’s a good thing we isn’t Men then, right?" Sam replied.

That caught her off guard. "You certainly aren’t women," she said quickly.

"No, we certainly aren’t that either," Pippin agreed just as fast, shielding his eyes.

"We went over this with Otacon," Merry said, "Men are Big People, and Hobbits are Little People. Well, if we were Men, we’d be men, not women, but since we aren’t...well...we’re male, not female."

Meryl started tugging on her shirt again. "When I joined up, I had psychotherapy to destroy my interest in men anyway," she said in a half-aside.

"Don’t worry, we ain’t interested in Women either. Too tall, no fur...," Sam supplied.

"Fur?!" Meryl asked, shocked.

"Well, yeah, fur!" Pippin said, pointing at the curly brown fur covering his feet. "Hobbit-lasses have such nice fur."

"Huh. And too tall? What, women make you feel...inadequate?" Meryl smiled wolfishly.

"I don’t quite know what you’re talking about, Miss Meryl," Sam replied honestly.

"I wish I didn’t know what you were talking about," Pippin grumbled.

"That’s enough," Frodo sighed. "Not that it matters, Hobbits just don’t find Big People attractive in the slightest. There are many reasons, none of which have to do with ‘inadequacies’." He said the last with a glare at Pippin, who was not yet considered an adult by Hobbit standards and could thus be expected to think in terms of the lowest common denominator.

"Hrm," Meryl hrmed. "If you don’t mind, I’ll be right back." She quickly slipped into a stall, and after a moment of shifting, she came back out with her regular pants on. Everyone was, on the whole, relieved to have all participants fully clothed.

"Are you hurt at all?" Merry asked once Meryl had returned.

"No, I was disguised as a soldier, remember?"

"That’s good," Frodo said. "We were concerned when we heard the gunshots. Why did you change? You would be safer, I’d think, in disguise."

"I got tired of disguising myself." Then her voice became subdued. "The truth is...the uniform smelled like blood...."

The Hobbits winced, agreeing silently that that would be a good reason not to wear a disguise. Then suddenly Pippin jumped up on the sink counter and looked at the faucet. "How do you work this thing?" he asked, turning a knob experimentally while he sat his blood-soaked feet in the basin.

Unfortunately he turned on the hot water and got very close to burning his feet. He yanked them out of the water fast enough though, and since Hobbit feet are very well protected from the elements, he got away with only making them sting. Meryl quickly turned off the water. "What are you doing?!"

"I’m trying to wash my feet!" Pippin declared loudly, holding up one of his bloody feet. "We had to walk through a hallway full of slashed up Men and we got blood on our feet."

"Oh, well, if you’re going to do that, you shouldn’t turn on the hot water only."

"Well how can I tell?!"

Meryl pointed directly at some words in Roman letters on the knob Pippin had turned. "It says ‘Hot’ right there. Can’t you read?"

Pippin puffed up. "YES, in fact, I am a lettered Hobbit. I just can’t read these letters."

Meryl humphed. "Well, this one says ‘Cold’. They work the same way, just turn them both until you get a temperature you like. And there’s some soap in here," she said, pointing at a wall dispenser.

"Oh good!" Pippin said happily, and since there were two sinks, Merry immediately hopped up and they both started washing their feet. Sam and Frodo were planning to do the same as soon as Pippin and Merry were done. "Just don’t splash, OK?" Merry warned Pippin, who had a penchant for getting...enthusiastic when he took baths.

"And no bath songs!" Sam insisted.

"You’re no fun," Pippin mock-pouted as he washed his fur.

While the two younger Hobbits busily cleaned their feet, Frodo asked Meryl, "We heard from Otacon that President Baker gave you a Dwarven key...he said it was the only way to stop the ‘nuke’ other than destroying Metal Gear REX. Do you have the key?"

Meryl reached into her cleavage and pulled out a rectangular black card. "You mean this?" She handed it to Frodo.

Frodo examined it. "I suppose it could be. I’m guessing if a Dwarf made this, it could be all three, we just need to know how to work it."

"I’m still not really with you on this whole ‘Dwarven key’ thing. Maybe there are two other keys and we just don’t know where they are."

Frodo shrugged. "Possibly. If we can’t find them...or figure out this key, we’ll have to destroy Metal Gear. Not exactly looking forward to that."

Pippin and Merry finished up and hopped off the sink. "Your turn!" Pippin said, and suddenly grabbed Frodo and hoisted him up onto the countertop.

"HEY!" he shouted, not being a real touchy-feely type, and somewhat displeased with the implication that he couldn’t get on the sink himself. Merry did the same to Sam, but Sam was quite a bit sturdier in build than Frodo and he almost slipped on his wet feet.

"I think I coulda managed myself, Mr. Merry!" Sam grumped, while Merry tried to twist out some sudden kinks he found in his back.

"Next time you can, Sam. Are you made of rocks or something?"

Sam frowned. He used to be quite on the pudgy side, and one must point out, all of them had been when they were in the Shire...but so were all Hobbits. Sam just happened to be stouter in build and darker than the other three, as he had no Fallowhide in his blood like the others did. "No, I am not. I ain’t no heavier than you are, I’m sure," he retorted, indicating that Merry’s extraordinary height probably made him extra heavy too.

Merry just snorted.

Frodo and Sam shortly started in on washing their dirty feet, and while they did, Frodo continued his conversation with Meryl. She seemed a lot more comfortable being able to look Frodo in the eye while they spoke. She asked, "How are the negotiations going?"

"I don’t think they’re going anywhere."

"That’s not good. I got captured with the others when the Genome Soldiers revolted. We might have to destroy Metal Gear. It’s in an underground maintenance base to the north. I can take you there."

"Oh, you want to come with us?" Frodo asked, looking up from his foot washing.

"Yeah, I know this place better than you do."

"Are you sure? You don’t have a Sneaking Suit or an Elf cloak...you can’t hide as well as we can."

"I’ll be fine, I won’t slow you down."

"OK then, come with us." Frodo turned back to his feet, scrubbing blood out of his fur.

Meryl turned thoughtful. She looked at herself in the looking glass. "Y’know...I don’t use makeup the way other women do. I hardly ever look at myself in the mirror. I’ve always despised that kind of woman. I always dreamed of becoming a soldier. But I was wrong...it wasn’t really my dream. My father...he was killed in action when I was younger."

"That’s too bad," Sam said. "Losing a parent is hard."

Frodo nodded in sympathy. "I’m an orphan really. My parents drowned when I was young."

Meryl sighed. "I thought if I became a soldier I could understand him better. But...I guess I was wrong. I’ve just been hiding from myself. I want to know what I’m really like, why I’ve lived the way I have."

"I think everyone asks those questions," Frodo said. "Some of us have...destinies, things we were born to do." He looked down at his Sneaking Suit. "I don’t know that sneaking around a strange place even more unfamiliar than anywhere I’ve ever been is part of it, but I guess it must be."

Sam added, "It’s just that Road Mr. Bilbo was always talking about. We kinda got on a...long cut along the way!"

Meryl shook her head and turned away from her reflection. "Are you almost done?" she asked.

"Nearly," Sam answered.

"Meryl," Frodo asked, "are you armed? Just in case?"

Meryl pulled a large gun out of a holster at her hip. "I have this, a Desert Eagle. Found it in the Armory." Then she pulled a magazine clip from her cleavage and loaded the weapon.

Pippin narrowed his eyes. "You sure do keep a lot of stuff in there. Is it like Inventory?" Meryl declined to answer.

Sam and Frodo finished up their feet and dried them. Then the clambered down off the sink. Meryl held out a password card. "I found this in the guard’s uniform. We’ll have to go through the Commander’s room to get to the maintenance base since the overland route is blocked by glaciers."

"Where’s the room?" Pippin asked.

"It’s on this floor, just down the hallway. I’ll take you there."

"All right then, if we’re all ready, let’s go," Frodo said. The Hobbits nodded, and they all exited the ‘Women’s Room’ with Meryl.

Go on to Chapter 12