by Project Itoh
Snake’s back gave out, and he lurched forward. Luckily, he regained his balance, avoiding a fall. As if the artillery fire and swarms of bullets weren’t bad enough, now Snake had to worry about his back killing him first.
All he could do was grit his teeth and keep moving. He didn’t have any other options.
Pushing aside the intense pain in his lower back, Snake resumed his advance. He was used to ignoring pain. Put in enough years on the battlefield and you developed the ability whether you wanted to or not. The trick was to separate the sensation of pain from your consciousness.
But the pain of old age wasn’t like the sharp pain of a bullet or knife wound. It was dull, heavy. It reverberated. Compared to the many battle wounds Snake had endured, this was much harder to ignore.
Bullets whizzed past Snake’s ears, but he was too preoccupied fighting back his pain to spare any room for fear.
Then there was the air. The air quality of the battlefield was, as one might expect, far from wonderful. Dirt flew, and clouds of powder smoke hung in the air, along with all the terrible smells of battle—burning houses, burning vehicles, burning people—and you didn’t have to be there to know it wouldn’t be easy on the lungs. Making things worse (and this he brought on himself), Snake was a heavy smoker.
Hacking and coughing, Snake somehow made it to the rear of the villa. Snake climbed into the house through a window on the terrace. Inside, PMC forces were rallying against the rebel army. The soldiers were exchanging shrill jeers with rebels outside—but their behavior was clearly different from the combat high combatants sometimes experienced. Each seemed unusually excited. Some leaned out front windows, wildly spraying bullets, with what any soldier would recognize as not the right timing.
“Otacon, something’s strange about these guys.”
“Yeah, the PMC troops have been operating at high altitudes for a while now, and we have reports that it’s starting to upset the balance of the nanomachine control system. The change in concentration of oxygen in their blood seems to have an effect on the nanomachines—it’s leading to heightened aggressive tendencies.”
Perhaps that was another weakness in the System. At the very least, these soldiers were clearly not completely under its control. Nature was causing interference in the SOP. Unlike ID guns or ID vehicles, the human body contained too many unknown elements.
“Get to the basement,” I told Snake. “There should be an underground tunnel that leads to the research lab.”
The mansion had a definite South American air to it, with touches of Spanish Colonial architecture all over. The quaint appearance of the villa formed an odd juxtaposition with the sight of the armed soldiers holed up within, where they fought their pitched battle.
Sneaking around inside confined quarters was Snake’s strong suit.
He easily passed behind the line of soldiers and made it to the long underground tunnel. Snake was far more at ease with this sort of infiltration than he was with sneaking around in the middle of an open battlefield. He completed mission after mission via secrecy and stealth.
The tunnel was supported by wooden beams, and after some distance it ended in a vertical shaft with a ladder leading up. Snake climbed it and cautiously lifted the trapdoor at the top.
He was outside an isolated medical laboratory in the middle of a forest. Snake slowly clambered up to the surface, and alert for any disturbance in the baseline, he advanced toward the building. In stark contrast to the villa, the lab was a ramshackle wooden structure with exposed boards and peeling paint. But it wasn’t unkempt. The grounds were clean and looked cared for—an impression certainly aided by the ring of blue flowers around the building.
Blue roses.
Snake pressed his back to one of the building’s walls and looked in through an open window.
Most notable was the imposing GE-brand CAT scanner. Such a large and expensive piece of equipment was out of place inside the lonely clinic. In a country like this, that sort of machine might not be found in even the capital’s university hospital or medical facilities for the very wealthiest. Everything else inside the shack, for that matter, was clearly state of the art, with high price tags and high precision.
This had to be Naomi’s research center. Or, I should say, Liquid’s research center.
Someone moved in front of the window. Snake ducked down.
It was Naomi Hunter.
“Yes,” she said into the cordless phone at her ear, “the next test. And things on your end?”
Letting the M4 hang from its sling, Snake drew his Operator and stepped in through an open doorway. Slowly, careful not to make noise on the floorboards, he moved to a room where he could better hear Naomi’s conversation. She was in the connecting room, her back to him.
“I see. We’re on schedule here as well. I know. Me too. Until then.”
She hung up the phone. Suddenly, she gripped the edge of the desk and gasped as if struggling against something. Her shaking form revealed deep agony. Without stopping to think, Snake rushed forward to support her, but before he made it, she withdrew a syringe from her lab coat—the same type as the one she’d left in the Middle East—and jabbed it into her neck. Snake froze.
Finally, she took in a deep breath. For a time, at least, her pain had left.
“Naomi,” Snake said.
Having only just caught her breath, she jumped back in surprise at her visitor’s sudden appearance. When she saw it was Snake, relief flooded her face, but the coldness remained.
“Snake, I knew you’d come. You and I … neither of us can escape our fates.”
Snake looked at her. Nine years since they’d last met, yet she still had that bewitching beauty behind which she kept her feelings deeply hidden. The sight of her conjured the words femme fatale in Snake’s mind.
Was that sadness filling her shining eyes? Was there any truth behind her words?
Snake had been completely outfoxed by Naomi on Shadow Moses. He couldn’t blame her for it, though. In Zanzibar Land, he had crippled her brother, Frank Jaeger, code name Gray Fox.
After the battle, Frank had become a test subject for an experimental exoskeleton. He had to be pumped full of painkillers to endure the searing pain as artificial muscles were grafted to his body. Armed with superhuman strength and speed, he escaped his confinement with one purpose—to find Solid Snake. His journey took him to far-off Shadow Moses Island.
Naomi used to hate Snake, the man who killed her brother. Perhaps she still hated him. Or perhaps, having learned that Frank gave his life to protect Snake, she’d forgiven him.
Snake asked, “Who were you just talking to?”
“Liquid. Although I suppose he’s really Ocelot, from a medical standpoint.”
“So he’s not here then.”
Naomi nodded.
Watching the video stream, I could only sigh dejectedly. Sunny stood behind me, worrying for me though unaware of what to say. I turned to her, saw the plate of fried eggs in her hand and sighed again.
“Don’t worry, Sunny. It’s nothing. I’m in the middle of a mission right now, so I’ll eat later, okay?”
Sunny climbed back up the gangway, the concern still upon her face. I turned back to the monitor.
“Where are all the guards?” Snake asked.
“They know I won’t escape.”
“Tell me, Naomi. What happened in the Middle East?”
The chaos. The world falling apart.
It hadn’t affected only him. All of the Praying Mantis soldiers had languished there, and some of them died. If Liquid were trying to seize control of the SOP, was that test a success, or was it a failure? Did Liquid already have the SOP within his grasp?
“What you saw was the soldiers’ emotions run amok.”
“Another product of the System?”
Naomi shook her head. “At first, Liquid thought—we thought—the SOP was an ID control system designed primarily to maintain order and control in battle. And we were right. But only pa
rtially. SOP has another function: to control people’s senses.”
Snake had seen Meryl’s behavior—that sudden unnatural calm as the System automatically adjusted her emotions to their optimal state. With that amount of emotional control, the System would also be able to create artificial combat highs to increase combat effectiveness, as well as to dispel any bouts of panic during a battle.
“The skyrocketing demands of the war economy,” Naomi explained, “have fueled the demand for more soldiers and more fighting. The System ensures a steady supply of battle-optimized soldiers at minimal cost. But you of all people surely understand …”
“That unlike combat technique, a soldier’s senses can’t be taught—only earned through experience. Does that have something to do with that test of yours?”
“At first, our goal was to release the soldiers’ nanomachines from the System. But we didn’t know about the mental control.”
“And the nanomachines went berserk?”
Naomi shook her head. “No. Our test was a success. At least, it confirmed our hypothesis at the time.”
“Confirmed it?”
“Just as we predicted, the nanomachines stopped functioning, and the PMC soldiers were freed from the grips of the System. But the moment the System stopped … all the pain, and fury, and sorrow, all the trauma and stress, all the hatred, regret, guilt … all the sensations that had been suppressed were unleashed within their hearts.”
That chaos was the result of being freed from the System.
With the spell of the nanomachines broken, the emotions simmering below the surface erupted all at once. The soldiers’ memories, unlike their senses, weren’t erased. Each enemy soldier they’d killed, each lost comrade, each threat of violence against the innocent. The emotional consequences of all of their actions had only been restrained, not eliminated, by the technology.
“In suppressing the user’s mind,” Naomi said, “the nanomachines exact a heavy burden on his heart. The user’s body begins to reject the nanomachines; this reaction must then be suppressed with drugs. Before the user knows it, his mind is in complete shambles.”
The instant they’d been freed from the SOP, the soldiers had been brought down by their own humanity. A chill ran down my spine.
Once Liquid’s plans came to fruition, the hundreds of millions of green-collar workers around the world, wherever they might be, would all simultaneously be thrown into madness.
“Snake … remember Frank.”
The sudden mention of his name took Snake by surprise.
Snake’s superior, Snake’s enemy, Snake’s friend.
Naomi’s brother.
“They twisted his body for their experiments and suppressed his broken heart with nanomachines. SOP has taken it even further and applied it to people with flesh and blood. The war-guilt these soldiers carried assaulted them in the form of unimaginable shell shock. The purpose and the methods of war may have changed, but the battlefield itself hasn’t. Until the SOP was removed, those soldiers waged war as if it were a game. And then, suddenly, reality came crashing down upon them.”
But what about Snake, then? No one could say that the legendary hero had made it through his battles unscathed. Even the “man who made the impossible possible” had suffered his share of setbacks. But Snake made it through his own doing, not thanks to nanomachines. Just like every other warrior of the previous century—no, every other warrior since man first made war.
Snake must have been having similar thoughts, because he asked Naomi, “But what about me? I’ve never been under the System’s control.”
Naomi nodded.
“That’s why I want to examine your body. You need to know too. All right, Snake. Undress.”
Old age comes to everyone.
There isn’t a single human, mammal, or vertebrate who can escape old age. Not the rich, not the poor. Not the president, not the peasant. Death by old age is a protocol of life.
Aging primarily originates from what’s essentially a self-executing program in the DNA. One’s environment and lifestyle certainly have an effect, but improvements in those areas will never be able to entirely eliminate aging or death. The word grow is just another way of saying “age.” To grow, to learn, to mature, is to age.
Granted, Snake’s aging was far more rapid than that of other people. But as long as that aging was a process already etched inside his DNA, he wouldn’t be able to escape it.
As Naomi ran Snake’s body through her tests, she explained this to him.
Through the codec, I despondently listened to her talk. Had I been alone, I might have cried. I might have been unable to hold back the welling tears. I might have thrown my head on my desk and wailed. But Sunny was with me, and I didn’t want to do anything to upset her. So I held my eyes on the monitor and silently listened.
Naomi’s news didn’t get any better.
At the end of chromosomes are segments called telomeres, and these determine how many times a cell can divide. The telomeres consist of repeated snippets of buffer code, and with each division of the parent cell, a little more of the buffer is lost. Once the telomere is completely gone and the chromosome exposed, the cell will cease to divide.
Snake’s body, created as a clone of Big Boss, contained telomeres intentionally engineered to be short. The same was true for Liquid and Solidus.
And even though all three were the same age, Solidus had looked a decade older than Solid and Liquid—something that helped give him a presidential air suited to his office. It seemed he had been created with an even more fleeting life span than the other Snakes.
The Patriots’ project, Les Enfants Terribles, sought to mass produce copies of history’s greatest mercenary, Big Boss. The Snakes were warped, artificial creatures created for one purpose—war.
The clones were to designed to be saleable commodities, and in order to prevent misuse by clients or theft by enemies, their life spans were limited and a terminator gene inserted to prevent natural reproduction. None of the Snakes could ever father a child, and even if they survived their battle, they didn’t have long for this world. It was a safety mechanism to prevent the sons of Big Boss from escaping the control of the Patriots. A cruel fate written into Snake’s body.
Snake sat up on the CT scanner’s bed.
“The truth, Naomi,” he said. “How long is my body going to hold out?”
Naomi looked at the floor. “Your cells, blood, organs, nerves, skeletal system, muscle tissue—every part of your body is aging rapidly. If you were an ordinary man, by now? You wouldn’t even be standing. The only thing keeping you together is your strength of will.”
Snake was tired of roundabout answers. “How long do I have?”
“Half a year.”
I gasped.
The doctor had said one full year, and now it was half?
She knew more about the Patriots, about Big Boss, and about Snake’s body than anyone. My heart sank.
With the doctor’s opinion, there had still been room for hope. Yes, we had to prepare for the worst, but he didn’t really understand Snake’s body. Snake was special. Not ordinary. The doctor’s calculations—or his diagnosis—could have been wrong. To tell the truth, that’s the hope I’d been clinging to, an excuse to turn a blind eye to my friend’s fate.
Snake, on the other hand, took the news as coolly as ever. He took out a cigarette and searched for his lighter. I’d been ignoring his fate, sheltering myself from it, but Snake had accepted it. Of course, I couldn’t claim to really know what was going on inside his head. It could have been Snake putting up another of his strong fronts, like with the injections.
Whether he truly was steadfast or was just shielding us from his inner turmoil, I didn’t know. But wouldn’t either option require the same strength and kindness of will?
Naomi looked away from the test results on her computer screen and back at Snake.
“Listen,” she said. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
&nb
sp; “Now what?”
“FOXDIE only kills its victims when the infected person’s genetic code fully matches the genetic sequence programmed into the virus’s receptors. In other words, it only attacks targets with specific genes.”
We knew that already without her having to tell us again. That was what killed both the AT president and the original Liquid.
“Yeah,” was Snake’s empty response. He had found a light and raised the cigarette to his lips. Naomi snatched it out, and Snake dejectedly watched as she threw it into the trash bin.
“The receptors on the FOXDIE virus inside your body are breaking down. The rapid aging process is changing the environment within your body, and as a result, the virus is starting to mutate.”
Two microscopic images appeared side-by-side on the display. In one, the object was smooth, but the subject of the other image was broken down. Mutated.
“This mutated version of FOXDIE could activate even if the infected person’s genetic pattern doesn’t perfectly match the receptors. Which means the virus will begin to indiscriminately kill the infected.”
I was dumbfounded. Snake had unwittingly spread FOXDIE all over Shadow Moses, but the virus was programmed to kill only FOXHOUND and the AT president. By working alongside Snake, both Meryl and I had likely contracted the virus ourselves. The only reason we didn’t suffer the apoptosis, the heart attack, and the death, was that we weren’t its targets. FOXDIE (which was just a tiny little bit of protein, if you thought about it) was clever enough to discriminate between its intended victims and everyone else.
And it was losing that ability.
And it was happening right now. Inside Snake.
His body was an incubator for history’s deadliest virus, one to which there were no antibodies and no cure.
“How long,” Snake asked, “will it take for the receptors to wear down?”
I noticed the question wasn’t Will the virus go away after I die from old age?
“Three months.”
Snake gasped.
Naomi looked away with a pained expression. “Ironic, isn’t it? You’ve spent your whole life saving the world from Metal Gear—from nuclear annihilation. And now you’re becoming a doomsday device yourself. If it were up to me, you’d be quarantined already.”