Solid Frodo: Hobbit Espionage Action

Chapter 3: Solid Frodo and The Fortress of Doom

The room they entered was enormous, at least by their standards, having only seen such large places used to put houses in. But the cavernous area was largely empty, except for what they could only describe as mechanical Oliphaunts sitting in neat rows below, their trunks all pointing straight forward.

They were on a rather narrow, but fortunately railed catwalk high above the Oliphaunts. Frodo looked through the Scope, and after scanning the area, they decided to head right to check what was in the rooms over there. First, however, they picked up another box, this time with cylinders that were marked a little differently than the other cylinders. Frodo got two, and Merry and Pippin one each, so they were all now carrying two items, aside from the Scope and Merry’s pipe.

They carefully sneaked past the roving eye in much the same fashion they had with the first eye, then carefully walked up to a door. It buzzed.

"Hmm, I don’t see a handle...," Merry muttered to himself. "And no Elvish runes. Don’t think we’ll guess the password for this one."

"No, I doubt they have Elvish passwords anyway," Pippin agreed.

So they passed by that door, recognizing that it was quite the lost cause to even try to open it, and went to the next door, which did open when they neared it.

"Uh oh!" Sam exclaimed. "There’s an eye in this one!"

Pippin looked inside the room while avoiding the gaze of the eye. "There’s something inside. I’ll go get it." Before anyone could say anything, the Hobbit had already run in and was standing under the eye. "Hey, I think it’s another one of those Palantír things."

"Just go get it," Sam prodded. Pippin nodded, and as soon as the eye was looking away, he ran and picked up the object and hid in the shadows until the eye was turned away. Shortly, he was back outside with the other three Hobbits.

"Here Sam, I don’t want anything to do with Palantíri." Sam took the proffered device and seeing it was supposed to fit on a head, one a great deal larger than his, he handed it to Merry.

"It’s much too big for me."

"Oh, all right," Merry said, taking the device. His head was quite a bit bigger than Sam’s...Sam was the shortest among the four Hobbits, and Merry was, in fact, one of the tallest that had ever lived. He put the device on his head and situated the lenses over his eyes.

"OH FIRES OF MORDOR!" he cried, and flung the thing off his head. It clattered noisily to the ground.

"What’s wrong?" Sam asked, concerned. Pippin took several steps away from the Palantír device.

"Ah...ah...," Merry panted, clutching his chest and attempting to get over the sudden fright. "It was like you all turned into fire, or all your blood suddenly turned visible! It was awful!"

"Oooh, sorry, Merry...that’s Morgul stuff for sure...," Sam whispered.

Frodo wasn’t so certain, so he gingerly picked up the device. "We should probably keep this...not use it, mind you...not until we know what it is. But things aren’t what they seem around here."

Merry looked a little upset, but consented, as long as he didn’t have to carry it. "I can’t imagine that horrible thing being anything but sorcery...but if you say so."

"Well, I do...we should find a nice spot to hole up in for a bit so we can ask what all these things are."

"I agree," Pippin replied, "but where?"

"There are some doors over there," Sam said, pointing over to the far side of the large room.

"OK, we’ll head that way," Frodo said, and they all started making their way across the catwalk. Even on the parts of the catwalk that a normal person would make noise stepping on, the Hobbits were totally silent. The quickly hid in convenient nearby shadows when a guard appeared, and he took no notice of them. As soon as he passed, the Hobbits continued on at a quick pace. Soon they reached the room Sam had pointed out, and quickly entered it.

It seemed a quiet enough room, where they could take a little break and call some people about what all the strange things were they had picked up. But before the sat down to rest, Merry went and grabbed another box of the second sort of cylinders that were lying on the ground, but instead of putting them in a pocket, he held one and examined it, careful not to move anything on it.

Just as Frodo was about to sit, he saw another object. It was a box...not a wooden box...but...it looked like it was made of many sheets of extra thick paper. He picked the rather large and unwieldy box up and carried it over to where the Hobbits were sitting.

"They just leave empty boxes lying around?" Merry asked as he got comfortable, getting out his pipe and lighting it.

"You’re going to share, right, Master Brandybuck?" Pippin asked, his voice somewhat pleading.

"Oh, if you can’t bother to keep your own pipe on you...," Merry muttered.

"Well, it was a little hard with that Naomi around."

Merry exhaled a smoke ring then sighed. "OK, I’ll share, but in a moment, OK?"

Pippin seemed satisfied, so he sat back and took out one of the cylinders he was carrying so he could ask about it. Frodo was examining the inside of the box, when it fell on top of him. He squeaked in alarm, and the other Hobbits laughed.

"Well, Frodo, you look a sight, scrambling around inside a box!" Pippin exclaimed.

Frodo made some muffled noises and managed to get the box off the top of him. "You know, we could use this to hide from those eyes. I’m sure they wouldn’t care if they saw a box."

"Maybe," Pippin allowed, "but how do you suppose we’ll look carrying around a box big enough to hold two of us in a pinch? Pretty ridiculous, I’d think."

Frodo frowned. "Well, yes, I suppose we would, but we’re supposed to remain out of sight."

"I don’t think we would with a big box trailing behind us."

Sam interrupted. "Shouldn’t we oughta call the Colonel or something now?"

Merry puffed happily. "Yes, we should." After Pippin gave him puppy-dog eyes, Merry sighed and passed his pipe over to the other Hobbit, who accepted it eagerly.

"All right, Sam, let’s do that," Frodo said, and they all put their hands under their ears. "Colonel," Frodo said to the green vision. Quickly the list of names was replaced by the Colonel’s face.

"Yes, Frodo?" the Colonel asked, his voice a little strained.

"Well, we have some questions. We just came through this room full of mechanical Oliphaunts," at this the Colonel’s face tightened, but he said nothing, "and we’ve found some things we don’t rightly know what they are or how to use them."

"All right, show me what you have."

Merry held up the second sort of cylinder they had found. "This, what is this?"

"That is a Chaff grenade. If you pull the pin and toss it, it will explode quietly and fill the room with small strips of metal. This is good for jamming electronic devices, like the cameras. It also jams your radar, so be careful how you use it."

"Pin?" Merry asked, examining the Chaff grenade.

The Colonel suppressed a groan and said, "The metal pin. Right above the part that looks like a tongue, do you see the straight bit of metal?"

"Oh, yes, I see it. Is that the pin?"

"Yes. You pull it by pressing down on the metal tongue. As soon as you do, you should toss it, so it doesn’t explode in your hand. It will take a few seconds after you pull the pin for it to explode."

"That could come in useful. So what are these cameras?" Sam asked.

Campbell’s face fell. "You’ve already sneaked past several. They’re the things mounted on the walls that move back and forth and have a lens."

"Oh!" Sam exclaimed in understanding, "the roving eyes! They gave me the creeps, you know...dead things with peeping eyes."

Campbell merely grumbled something incoherent.

"Anyway, what about this?" Pippin asked, taking the pipe from his mouth and holding up the other cylinder that must also be a grenade of some sort. While he wasn’t paying attention, Frodo snagged the pipe and started blowing smoke rings, and Merry gave him a dirty look.

"That," Roy Campbell answered, "is a Stun grenade. Also known as a flash-bang grenade, it stuns the enemy for a few seconds. However, if you use it, you will alert the guards to your presence once they recover. You activate it the same way you activate the Chaff grenade."

"Oh," Frodo said, "wouldn’t that knock us out too?"

Campbell blinked. "Er...I don’t know. It doesn’t affect the person using it, because they are prepared for it...I suppose if you make sure the rest know you plan on using one, the rest should be prepared enough."

Frodo frowned, thinking that didn’t make a lot of sense, but he let it slide.

"Anything else?" Campbell asked, ignoring the fact that Frodo was smoking.

"Well, yes," Frodo answered, and he picked up the Palantír device.

As he did, Sam snatched the pipe, and Merry cried, "Look here you thieves! Next time bring your own pipeweed!" He snatched back his pipe before Sam could get more than one puff off of it and extinguished it. "If you all plan on using it, I’d better save it," he growled.

Sam pouted a little. "Pippin was right, we couldn’t hold on to ours with that Naomi demon roughing us up like she did."

"Anyway," Frodo said rather loudly to quiet the other squabbling Hobbits, "I wanted to know about this Palantír here. Merry said it made us look like fire, or that it made all our blood visible. Should we avoid it? It sounds dangerous."

Campbell rubbed his face rather hard. "No, those are Thermal Goggles. They use infrared to make objects that give off heat glow brightly. So it actually makes your body heat visible. You can also use it to see certain metal objects like Claymore mines."

"So...er...it’s not evil sorcery?" Merry asked slowly, still shaken by what he felt was surely a vision from the deepest depths of the Outer Darkness.

"NO!" the Colonel shouted. Merry cringed.

Frodo patted Merry on the shoulder. "It’s OK, it’s safe for us to use. Now what is a Claymore mine? Is Claymore anything like mithril?"

"What?" Campbell asked, then quickly added, "Nevermind. Claymore mines are devices hidden in the ground that explode if you step inside their cone of sensitivity. There should be a Mine Detector around somewhere. When you find it, you can use it to show the Claymores and their range on the radar. All you need to do is crawl over them to pick them up and not set them off."

"Oh now that’s not nice," Sam commented, "hiding things in the ground to hurt people! I don’t even think Orcs are that evil."

"Whatever," the Colonel grumped. "Anything else?"

Pippin piped up. "Yes, there’s this box! Frodo thinks we can hide in it, but I think we’ll look completely ridiculous dragging it around. What about that?"

"Frodo is right, you can use it to hide in. You have to be careful to hide where there are other boxes. Also, as far as carrying it around, it will fit in your Inventory."

All the Hobbits blinked. "How can a big giant box fit in our pockets?!" Pippin shouted.

"It’s...Inventory. Things fit in it. I don’t think anyone really does understand how it works."

Pippin looked quite skeptical. The Colonel sighed, resigning himself to the fact that he was going to be doing a lot of that with the Hobbits. "Just try it," he said.

"All right...," Pippin said, still unconvinced. He took the box and attempted to put it in a pocket...and without any effort at all, it fit.

"Now that just doesn’t make any sense!" Sam exclaimed. "You don’t have any Elf magic and yet here you can stick huge boxes in little pockets?!"

Campbell shrugged. "It’s Inventory. That’s just the way it works."

Merry shrugged, "If it works, it works. Convenient, I’d say."

"Yeah I suppose, but I wish in all this these suits wouldn’t ride up so high," Pippin grumbled.

"OK, is that it?" Campbell asked, out of duty, not because he really wanted to talk to them any more.

"Not just yet," Sam answered, only just now remembering the loud bowless crossbow he was carrying. He pulled it out and with some effort held it up. "What is this? It makes awful noise."

"That is a SOCOM pistol. And yes, it is noisy, but you should be able to find a suppresser for it so that it won’t alert the guards if you use it. It carries a magazine of 25 bullets. I’m going to hazard a guess you have no clue what any of that meant, so I’ll explain." He described a SOCOM magazine clip, how to load it, and then went on to explain the laser sight and some other details.

"Oh, so...these ‘bullets’, are they like crossbow bolts except really small?"

"Hrrrr...yes, if you want to think of them that way," the Colonel answered through his teeth.

"Thank you for answering our questions, Colonel," Frodo said politely, and it seemed Campbell was all too willing to get off the Codec as fast as he could.

"Well," said Pippin, as he stood, stretching, "I guess we ought to start looking for that hostage or something, right?" With some effort, Sam put the SOCOM back in his pocket.

"Yes, let’s get back to work," Frodo said, putting the Thermal Goggles in his pocket, where they fit quite nicely. The other Hobbits stood and as soon as they were ready, they all walked out the door and turned to the nearby stairs, where an eye was roving.

"Shall we try your box, Frodo?" Pippin asked, a little sarcastically.

Frodo frowned. "I don’t think it will be any easier than what we’ve been doing. I’m sure the eyes would see a box that moved."

Merry pulled out his Chaff grenade. "Why don’t we try this!" he said excitedly. "Let’s see how it works!"

"That sounds fine. Go ahead," Frodo said, so Merry pushed the tongue down on the grenade then tossed it. They waited for a few seconds, then suddenly the air was filled with little tiny strips of glittering material, and the radar went out.

"Well, hardly anything like Gandalf’s fireworks," Sam observed, thought he wasn’t really expecting it to be.

"Come on, let’s go while we have the chance!" Merry said, grabbing Frodo’s hand and dragging him down the stairs. The other Hobbits followed close behind, but stopped short half way down when they saw a guard.

Without the radar they couldn’t tell if the guard could see them because he was wearing a black cloth over his face, so they all ran with utmost haste down and around the stairs to hide in the shadows there. As soon as he passed them by, they scurried off to the elevator, grabbing another item box on the way (which later proved to be a SOCOM clip), and entered the elevator. The doors closed and then they...did nothing.

"Um," Pippin said.

"Er," Sam agreed.

"Uh...," Merry elaborated.

Frodo looked at the markings next to what looked like lit triangles. "Strange tengwar...."

They stood and thought for a while, then Pippin reached out and pressed the triangle with the point up. The door opened, and they looked out at the room with the mechanical Oliphaunts. "Well, OK, let’s try the other one," he said, and pressed it.

Soon the door closed and the room moved down, not as fast as the first elevator, but still, Hobbits were very unused to moving vertically at all, and they were again somewhat disoriented when they disembarked the elevator. Their radar showed no guards and a splotch of green very close by.

"Look!" Sam exclaimed, "the green glow on the radar! That must mean we’re near the Diaper Chief!"

Pippin scratched an ear. "That doesn’t sound right Sam...."

Sam glared at the much taller Hobbit. "Well, what was it then?"

Pippin shrugged. "I don’t remember. I just don’t think it was Diaper...although I suppose if these ‘terrorists’ have a lot of babies they might need a Diaper Chief...."

"Maybe it was Draper Chief?" Merry offered.

"There ain’t no windows, Merry!" Sam responded loudly.

"Dropper Chief then?"

Sam pointed sharply at Pippin. "No, he’s the Dropper Chief, dropping rocks in every suspicious hole he can find."

Pippin grumbled and huffed. "Honest mistake! But does anyone let me live it down? Noooo!"

"Well if it wouldna set a hundred zillion Orcs on our tail, we might!"

Frodo slowly shifted away from his companions and began fingering the Ring, which he had on its chain around his neck.

Suddenly, the Codec beeped and Colonel Campbell was shouting at them. "DARPA CHIEF! D. A. R. P. A., DARPA!"

By now Sam had been worked into quite a lather. "And just what exactly is a Darpa?"

"DARPA stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency," Roy Campbell said, his calm tone clearly forced.

"Oh," said Sam, having no idea what one of those was.

"I told you it wasn’t Diaper," Pippin said haughtily.

"Oh hush." Sam grumped. "It’s not like Darpa is a real word or anything easy to remember like that."

Frodo, still absently fingering the Ring, said with a sigh, "Please calm down."

"All right, sir, I’ll try," Sam said after a pause. Pippin was slower, but eventually he also nodded.

Colonel Campbell began speaking again. "To get to the DARPA Chief you’ll have to find the ladder at the far end of the cell block and crawl through the ventilation shafts. That shouldn’t be a problem at all for...Hobbits of your stature."

Merry frowned. "I’ll just bet if I were a Big Person I’d tower over you."

Campbell narrowed his eyes. "Why do you say that?"

"Because Pippin and I happen to be the tallest Hobbits that ever lived. If we were Big, we would be the tallest Big People that ever lived, and something tells me you aren’t. I know a dozen Big People and Elves taller than you."

Roy Campbell growled and seemed to puff up, perhaps in some instinctive attempt to be taller than he was. In the background the Hobbits heard Mei Ling giggling. Merry smiled in satisfaction. He didn’t appreciate Big People taking shots at the height of Hobbits. "Just go rescue the DARPA Chief," Campbell muttered and signed off.

Pippin gave Merry an appreciative nudge in the side. "That was a good one, Merry."

Merry smiled again.

Frodo, no longer fingering his Ring, went exploring some. The other Hobbits followed suit, looking around, trying to peep through the tiny openings on the doors that wouldn’t open. They heard someone complaining through one door, but this door wouldn’t open either and there was no window.

Eventually the Hobbits all walked back to the end of the room, where there was a ladder. They climbed up the ladder and easily unlatched the vent, passing it down, Hobbit to Hobbit, until it was soundlessly set on the floor. Then they scrambled into the ventilation shaft, Frodo first, with Sam and Pippin following, while Merry took the rear.

As they crawled through the shaft, Merry looked down into one of the grates that they climbed over. "Ugh," he muttered under his breath, disgusted at the view of the Big Person on a chamber pot below.

Pippin also looked through a grate, this one a little farther along the shaft. He turned his head back to look at Merry. He whispered, "There’s a Big Person woman with her pants off down here. Don’t you think it’s kinda cold to be exercising with nothing but your undergarments on?"

"That’s better than a Big Person with no undergarments," Merry whispered back.

Sam grumbled to himself, "It’s rather smelly in here...not as bad as the Dead Marshes, but I’d warrant it would be if it weren’t so chilly."

"Shhh," Frodo hushed the other three Hobbits. "I think I’ve reached the DARPA Chief’s cell."

The other Hobbits were quiet while Frodo went about unlatching the grate. It was easy work for him, as Hobbits are very good with their hands. Then he hung his head down into the cell, pausing for quite a long while.

"What are you doing, sir?" Sam asked from behind him.

"Er...well...I’m trying to find a way down. The floor is a good bit farther down than I like."

Pippin and Merry groaned behind the other two. If they were at the right grate, they probably wouldn’t have any trouble getting down. They were both in the four foot six range, and while occasionally they bickered over which one was taller, they both towered over Frodo and Sam.

"Well, you could hold onto the grate while the rest of us climbed down," Sam suggested. He didn’t like the idea of jumping either, as he was an inch or three shorter than Frodo, who was approximately three foot five.

"Uh," Frodo hemmed a bit. "I don’t know...."

"Come on, let’s give it a try." With that, Sam shoved Frodo toward the grate, and he had no choice but to hang on with his hands or fall. He growled and groaned as Sam scrambled down him and held onto his ankles, making a Hobbit ladder for Merry and Pippin to climb down. Pippin was nice enough to help Sam down while Merry used Frodo and jumped the rest of the way when he reached the shorter Hobbit’s ankles. Then Pippin and Merry helped Frodo down, who looked uncharacteristically upset.

The whole time, the DARPA Chief was staring at the spectacle before him. He had hoped someone would rescue him, but was quite unprepared for four small...somethings...to do so. "Who...what...are you?" he asked, turning to face the Hobbits.

"We’re Hobbits," Pippin proudly exclaimed.

"Um, OK...," the DARPA Chief answered uncertainly.

"We’re here to rescue you," Merry added.

"Oh...good...," the Chief replied. Something was quite amiss here...he had been expecting someone like, oh, say, Solid Snake.

"Anyway, before we get onto the rescuin’, we was wonderin’ if you knew if these terrorizerists could shoot off one of those ‘nuke’ things?" Sam asked.

"Yes, unfortunately, yes, they can. They got my code. They’re using a new prototype of Metal Gear, called Metal Gear REX."

"Code?" Frodo asked, having recovered from his temporary snit.

Just then, a voice pounded on the door and said, "Shut up in there, will ya?" The guard peered in, and the DARPA Chief waved him away, but the Hobbits didn’t need to hide, since all of them were below the level of the little window.

Then the Chief continued. "Yes...both myself and the president of ArmsTech have the two codes needed to launch the nuke. They had a psychic, Psycho Mantis, and he read the code right out of my mind."

All the Hobbits shuddered, remembering the picture they saw of Psycho Mantis. "Is he a Ringwraith?" Sam ventured, his voice shaking.

"A what?"

"Nevermind," Frodo said quickly. "Well, I guess we should get to the rescuing part."

"W-wait a moment. Do you...do you know any other ways to activate the detonation codes?" The DARPA Chief seemed strangely interested and intense.

"Sir, we don’t even know what a detonation code is," Sam answered.

"Oh...OK," he replied, sounding distinctly unhappy about it all. The Hobbits exchanged looks, wondering why a Big Person who supposedly knew the codes to a ‘nuke’ wouldn’t know anything else about them. "Well," he continued, "you can use this key card to escape. Here." He handed Frodo a transparent, thin wafer with some writing on it.

Merry peered at the card. "That will open doors with the same writing on them? It has the password on it?"

"Er...yes," answered the DARPA Chief, without realizing just how easily he had gotten off on that one, since none of the Hobbits mentioned magic.

Frodo was just a bit curious however. "If you had this, and it would open that door, why didn’t you try to escape yourself?"

"Um...you should go rescue the President of ArmsTech now. He should be in the basement behind some sealed walls, they didn’t have a chance to paint over them...you can blow them up with C-4."

"All right...but what about the card?" Frodo insisted. "And how do you know what they did with the other hostage?"

"Er...um...," the Chief said, sounding quite unwilling to answer Frodo’s questions. So instead, he clutched at his chest and began screaming about a heart attack!

All the Hobbits backed up in shock, and they dimly heard someone pounding on the wall, wondering what was going on in there. Then, the DARPA Chief lay still.

Frodo bent down to check his pulse, but there was none. He looked back at the other Hobbits, and they all looked very upset.

"He wasn’t supposed to die on us!" Pippin cried.

"That’s really awful," Merry agreed. "We should ask about it...."

So all the Hobbits called Colonel Campbell and reported what had happened. Naomi came on the line, and the Hobbits flinched. "It sounds like a heart attack or something."

Frodo frowned. "Don’t your nanothings tell you stuff like that? I mean, wouldn’t the DARPA Chief’s nanomachines tell you something more specific?"

But Naomi had nothing more to say, and the Colonel came back on the line. "Look, this is very unfortunate, but now your top priority is to rescue Kenneth Baker. Go down to the second basement and find him!"

"All right, all right, but this really is very suspicious," Frodo answered, while Merry had suddenly started rummaging under the bed of the cell.

The Colonel went off line, and Merry pulled out a ration. "It’s not the best circumstances to be finding food, but it looks sealed up pretty well."

Pippin snapped up the ration and opened it, dividing the contents amongst the Hobbits. "That’s two serious scares in one day. I don’t like this."

"Me neither," Sam said as he accepted his portion. "Pippin, you know, maybe you should take the SOCOM. I think it’s too big for me."

Pippin nodded. "Probably right. It was made for a Big Person, and I’m a good bit closer to the right size." So Sam pulled the SOCOM out of his pocket and handed it to Pippin.

As they were eating, they heard strange sounds coming from outside the cell door. They finished quickly, and carefully opened the door and peered out.

"Freeze!" shouted a woman from behind.

All the Hobbits stopped short, then turned around to face the voice. She looked like one of the guards, and Merry covered his eyes when he glanced behind her and saw the previous owner of the guard clothing, knocked out, with his derriere sticking up and his nether regions to the wind.

"That was a good bit more of a Big Person than I ever wanted to see," Merry muttered.

The woman faltered a little bit, her aim pretty much over the heads of the Hobbits, giving all of the Hobbits a chance to draw their swords and Pippin to draw the SOCOM. It looked slightly heavy for him, but he managed. Merry uncovered his eyes when he heard blades ringing from sheaths.

"Er...," the woman said, displeased to say the least. "Look, this is a FA-MAS!"

"And this is Sting," Frodo answered, brandishing his Elven blade. "I’m sure that means as much to you as FA-MAS means to us."

The muzzle of the woman’s gun shook some. "Err...you aren’t...what are you?"

The Hobbits collectively sighed, getting a little tired of the question. "We’re Hobbits," Sam answered.

"What are Hobbits?"

"We are, and that’s the best answer you’re gonna get," Pippin answered, SOCOM still trained on the woman. Unlike her, his hands were steady, for Hobbits are crack shots, whatever the projectile might be.

"You don’t have to be so hostile," Merry scolded. "Don’t get too much into this role."

"Oh hush Merry."

Frodo considered for a moment, then said, "Why don’t we put our weapons away? You don’t look like an enemy, even if you are dressed like one, and we mean you no harm."

The woman looked in the cell. "If that’s true, then why did you kill him?"

"We didn’t!" Sam answered. "He just went and died all on his own!"

The woman narrowed her eyes at them. "I don’t know if I buy that."

"You don’t have to, but it’s the truth," Merry said, lowering his sword.

"Hrmph. Do you have a card to open that door?"

"Actually, we do," Frodo answered. "The DARPA Chief gave it to us, though I still don’t understand how he had it and was yet still captured in that cell."

Before they got a chance to converse further in that rather nerve-wracking manner of having guns pointed at one another, the door to the room opened and three guards poured in, guns blazing.

The Hobbits all tried to hide, but it became abundantly obvious these guards were out for blood, and there was really nowhere to hide. So Pippin started shooting, staggered a bit by the kickback on the SOCOM but still able to keep his aim. The woman stood stock still, as if she had never held a gun before, while the other three Hobbits started hacking at the enemy with their blades.

The enemy guards were surprised to see three very short people trying to maim them with swords, and after the first several guards went down with deep cuts to their legs, a second wave came in and nearly tripped over the other guards. Pippin dodged some bullets and shouted at the woman, "Are you gonna shoot that thing or not?"

After that, the woman started spraying bullets from her FA-MAS and screaming like a banshee. Merry, Frodo, and Sam all ducked instinctively while Pippin continued his fire from behind the woman. Guards were cut down like cornstalks, and they dropped rations and clips of SOCOM ammunition. Merry gathered the rations, while Sam scooped up the ammo and brought it to Pippin. Frodo, keeping a low profile near the door, stabbed at the guards’ feet as they entered the room. He really didn’t want to kill anyone.

After what seemed like forever, the guards stopped coming in and they could all breath easier.

"Did anyone get hit?" Frodo asked, looking at the woman and the other three Hobbits.

"I think one of them gave me a bit of a hair cut, but they were all aiming pretty high," Pippin answered, holstering the SOCOM and pulling at a bit of his curly hair that seemed somewhat shorter than it had been a few minutes ago.

"I’m OK," the woman panted, lowering her FA-MAS and shaking all over.

Merry looked concerned. "Are you sure? Do you need some food to calm down?" He started opening up one of the many rations he had gathered during the shoot out.

"No, no, I’m fine," she said, as she started carefully walking out the door.

Sam, Pippin, and Frodo all snagged a bit of ration, feeling that some food would make them feel better anyway. They followed after the woman, mouths full of ration, and the ones with blades wiping them clean on some of the guard’s clothing along the way.

As they followed the woman out, all of the Hobbits’ vision swam, and they suddenly saw what looked like a very mechanical room, with some of the scary FOX-HOUND members in it. There was Liquid Snake yelling at Revolver Ocelot about how they would never get the code now...Revolver Ocelot said it was an accident...strapped to some machine was a man that looked shockingly like the DARPA Chief, dead. Then there was the Ringwraith, Psycho Mantis, saying something about an idea he had.

When their vision cleared, all the Hobbits had to duck back into the room, because the woman was shooting at them! And above her head floated...the Ringwraith!

Every Hobbit found a different room to hide in and some scrambled under the beds in the cramped cells. They were very scared, but Frodo felt something was amiss. He didn’t feel any compulsion at all to put on the Ring, not even a little one. And that vision...the DARPA Chief had just died in front of them by heart attack...but he had also died in that room with the FOX-HOUND terrorists?

Nevertheless, it took a long time for the Hobbits to gather their courage enough to come out of hiding. Ringwraiths were not something to be trifled with...Merry knew that perhaps better than any of them. He thought they were very lucky none of them had felt the Black Breath.

Slowly, one by one, the Hobbits gathered in the main room, taking care not to look at the naked guard who was still unconscious.

As soon as they were all together, Merry broke out the rations again. Two such frights in a row required some lunch. As they ate, they discussed the strange vision.

"Did you see what I saw?" Pippin asked the others.

"I think we all saw it," Merry replied around a mouthful of ration.

Frodo tapped his chin. "You know, it was strange. I’m certain I saw the DARPA Chief on that machine."

"Me too," Sam agreed, "but how could that be? He went and had a...a heartytack right in front of us!"

"I don’t know," Frodo answered. "And I don’t like that Ringwraith at all. But...he wasn’t like the others...he wasn’t...as terrifying...and I didn’t feel anything from the Ring."

Merry nodded. "I agree. He wasn’t like the ones we’ve met." He shuddered hard. "You don’t suppose there’s...a...a...Ringwraith that’s...," Merry tried to continue, but he couldn’t. Ringwraiths terrified Merry because he had been in close contact with two of them, one of them the very highest of them all, the Witch-King of Angmar. They had all been chased by them, and Frodo stabbed by that same king, but Merry was actually more scared of them than Frodo. Merry never thought that a weakness on his part, because Nazgûl terrified everyone.

Pippin tried to continue Merry’s thought. "You mean, like...a...weak one? Like a...milquetoast Nazgûl? A wimp?"

Merry nodded slowly, still shivering a little.

Frodo frowned in thought. "A weak Ringwraith? I suppose there might be...but even a weak one would be terribly strong. I wouldn’t want to face one, at any rate." All the Hobbits were in agreement on that.

"We should ask the Colonel, shouldn’t we?" Sam asked.

"Oh, not him, he’s such a bother!" Pippin grumped.

"Sam’s right," Merry said. "He might know more about this than we do."

"We know plenty about them, I for sure don’t want to know more," Pippin argued.

Frodo just looked at the others for a moment, then called the Colonel. "We just saw some strange things, Colonel," he said slowly.

Naomi quickly came on. "It’s probably some sort of psychic feedback loop from Psycho Mantis." Then as quickly as she came on, she cut the line.

"I don’t think she likes us much," Merry stated.

"She didn’t even give me a chance to say anything!" Frodo growled. Frodo didn’t get upset very often, but he seemed rather put out at the moment. Maybe it was the Ringwraith, or maybe it was having to stab Big People...kill some of them.

Sam grabbed Frodo’s shoulder and shook it in a friendly manner. "It’s OK, Mr. Frodo sir. That Ringwraith didn’t make me scared like the others did, and we really didn’t have a choice about the guards." Sam was a good friend to Frodo and apparently at the moment a mind reader as well.

Frodo nodded slowly. "Still, she could have given us a chance to say something. I don’t like this business of seeing the DARPA Chief dead twice."

"I’ll bet she’s an Orc in disguise," Pippin added. "She’s mean enough."

"Maybe," Frodo conceded. "Well," he said, standing, "We should go find this ArmsTech president. Let’s go."

Go on to Chapter 4