Episode 5 – Working Out Working.

Chapter 1 – Peer Pressure.

In a country run by corporations overseen by a group of computers, the Shopety-Shop-Shop Mall was a safe haven for regular entrepreneurs to run a business. While most strip malls had fallen into obscurity, the quirky establishment had flourished in spite of the bad economy thanks to strong community support. Boredom was almost impossible at the mall due to the number of activities that were available to the visitors. Stalking Otacon was not a sponsored event, but with as much as Solid Snake did it to stave off his sneaking mission withdrawal it could have been.

Otacon had wandered into CropStop, where he would remain lost to the world for at least thirty minutes. At Cropstop, customers were always certain to reap a bountiful harvest of fun. It was a variety store that sold items geared towards nerds. Snake thought it was a bit like Spencer's, only better. He didn't dare wander inside because he wasn't strong enough to resist the goodies that the store sold. Snake could momentarily break off his pursuit. Being a man of habit, Otacon was bound to visit the game center near the fountain in the center of the mall to see how many people he could beat at Darkstalkers 3, which would turn out to be anyone foolish enough to challenge him and Felicia. Once done with that, he'd head over to where they quarantined the masterpiece theater rejects and watch some of the performers attempt to convince their audience that what they were seeing was actually worth money. Snake was waiting for the perfect moment to sneak up on Otacon and tell him that he'd just had his neck snapped. Though Hal was wise to this game, he had never caught Snake creeping up on him.

While the lonely nerd tried to decide if the nendoroid for a character from a series he was not familiar with was worth buying, Snake stopped following him long enough to grab a snack. His friends responded better to having been killed when sweets were involved. Snake visited 25,000 Calories and ordered a pair of cinnamon rolls known as Grandma's Buns and a shell stuffed with chocolate dubbed the Yamaha Cornet.

He backtracked to CropStop and discovered that Otacon had left early. Snake wandered over to the game center, which went by the name Denial of Service and enjoyed one of the larger spaces inside the mall. Otacon was playing by himself, no doubt attempting to ensure that his initials dominated the high score table. Under his control, Felicia was destroying Morrigan. Snake snuck up behind him and waited until Otacon landed the finishing blow on his AI opponent. At that precise moment, Snake slapped Otacon's shoulder.

"Dead," Snake announced.

Otacon's grip on the joystick kept him from sailing into the ceiling.

"Do you ever get tired of that?" Otacon demanded.

Snake presented the bag he carried that contained the cornet, which made peace between him and Otacon.

"The only time I eat from Twenty Five Thousand is after you've murdered me," Otacon said. "So now that I'm dead, what are you going to do with the rest of your day?"

"I have no idea," Snake replied.

"That must be rough."

It could get a little tedious, but Otacon didn't need to know that. Snake set the bag of goodies down and put a quarter into the Darkstalkers machine in a feeble attempt to show Otacon that he still remembered how to have fun.

"Did you hear that Ocelot got himself an act?" Otacon asked.

"He hasn't spoken to me since I drained all the gas out of his Tornado while he was asleep," Snake replied as he selected Baby Bonnie Hood.

"That was you?"

"Who else? Don't tell anyone. Did he say anything about the note I left in his mailbox?"

"Nope. What did you write?"

"I asked him why he's in Alaska. I used a typewriter to compose that message and made certain not to leave any fingerprints behind. Anyway, what's this about his act?"

Snake began spamming the medium punch attack button while Otacon effortlessly worked around it.

"He's over there with the mimes doing ventriloquism and self-brutalization. At least that's what I think it's called. He beats himself up."

Felicia annihilated Bonnie with all of her adopted children.

"Sounds interesting," Snake said, switching tactics and spamming the light kick attack button.

"He's on in about ten minutes," Otacon said as he began mashing the light kick attack button as well to even the odds.

Bonnie still couldn't get a lead on Felicia and was beaten without too much effort. Snake didn't bother putting in another quarter.

"I guess that means he still has Liquid's hand," Snake said.

"And everything that comes with it," Otacon stated.

Ocelot had been meaning to get a replacement for the limb that he had lost at the hands of a special agent who had attacked him during the dinner party he had hosted a while back shortly after Snake was driven out of his home by his dogs. Someone had paid off a surgeon to ensure that the replacement Ocelot received belonged to Liquid Snake. The part had been easy to acquire since Ocelot kept it in his attic and didn't exactly try to keep that fact a secret. Once the spare had been sewn back on his body, Ocelot had started acting like Liquid again and had tried to kill Snake.

"I bet he stinks," Snake said.

"He got through the evaluation."

"So do half the books they publish these days."

"Pining for Lovecraft again, Snake?"

"May he rest in peace."

Snake munched on his bun and watched Otacon finish the game, which didn't take long because he was near the end when he had been challenged. Once again, he made his way to the top of the leaderboards with his vast knowledge of the mechanics used in the game. When the time came to enter his initials, Snake motioned for Otacon to get out of the way.

"Want to see something neat?"

"Sure."

Snake entered the initials DBE and pointed at them with a smirk.

"That's you?"

"Yup. The real me."

"I'll be up all night trying to figure out what those last two letters stand for. The initials for your favorite alias would have been better."

IP for Iroquois Pliskin. Snake smirked.

"Let's go watch Ocelot," he said.

"I still can't believe he hasn't gotten rid of that hand after what happened."

"It probably has a better grip than his other one."

Public humiliation at the mall was done on a schedule and conducted inside a room reserved for the local lunatics a few doors down from 25,000 and a few other shops that sold food. In order to be considered, aspiring performers had to face down the League of Five, which ran security at the mall and several other businesses around town. The members of the privately owned group were known to remain silent on duty and to carry out kick bans with maximum efficiency. They wore all their gear while working and carried around AA-12's loaded with rock salt rounds out in the open to ensure that nobody littered and everyone behaved. If Ocelot managed to gain their approval, he had to be worth seeing.

Bruce and Jimmy – Best Friends Forever had started early. Snake and Otacon sat at a table near the small stage. Ocelot had ordered a doll that bore a striking resemblance to Liquid. It was dressed in the only outfit any of them had ever seen Liquid wear. Ocelot operated the dummy with his right hand. His lips barely moved while he was speaking. They were in the middle of a joke when the doll spotted Snake seemingly of its own accord because Ocelot didn't appear to notice them at first.

"Who steals your genes, Jimmy?" Liquid asked, gazing intently at Snake.

"I don't know, Bruce," Ocelot replied. "A pants thief."

The doll turned its head to look at Ocelot.

"No. Listen carefully. A twin brother steals your genes but your girlfriend steals your jeans."

Ocelot's audience was not made up of the most intelligent crowd available. Snake and Otacon didn't get it, but everyone else did and they found it to be wildly hilarious.

"Finally, what do you do if a rifle jams on you?" Liquid asked.

"Remedial action?"

"No, you find some peanut butter and a piece of toast and have your last meal."

"You suck!" Snake shouted through the cacophony of joy.

"Not as much as you do, Edward Cullen," Ocelot retorted.

A group of clinically insane patients could not hope to laugh louder than the people watching Ocelot. As their hysteria continued for longer than it should have, Ocelot stashed the doll in a suitcase and gestured for the crowd to calm down. Their anticipation rose to levels that hadn't been previously achieved by mankind.

"Now, who wants to see me beat myself up again?" Ocelot asked the crowd.

The resulting cheer was so loud that it popped Snake's ears. Ocelot fought with Liquid over many of the mundane annoyances roommates often encountered using their stage names for ten minutes. He was really hitting himself and watching his right arm act against him was unsettling. It did indeed appear to have a mind of its own. His face began turning red. Bruises appeared underneath his skin. Snake was on the edge of his seat, hoping in vain that Ocelot would break his own nose while Otacon started reading a manga he had purchased.

The performance ended with Ocelot sufficiently battered. He received a standing ovation.

"Thank you, thank you!" Ocelot shouted. "Donate blood to the Red Cross and save a life! Do be sure to get your flu shots and immunizations! Tetanus is no joke!"

"Neither are nanomachines that can gain complete control over your brain!" Snake yelled over the cheering.

Ocelot didn't react to Snake's taunt. A few people pointed at him and laughed while everyone else shook their heads. What Snake had just said was a popular topic among conspiracy theorists. The average person was more inclined to believe that aliens had visited Earth. They had no way of knowing that both arguments were valid. Even if they did, it would be tricky to convince them to care.

A nervous guitarist took the stage as Ocelot left, introduced herself, and began performing. Most of the audience started leaving because they had come for Ocelot, who took a seat at the table Otacon and Snake were occupying.

"I thought we all agreed that you should stop pretending to be Liquid," Snake said.

"I'm not pretending and I've got it under control," Ocelot said.

"Is that so?"

Ocelot nodded, but Otacon and Snake were not convinced.

"This sort of thing seems a bit beneath you, Ocelot."

"It was a direct order that I couldn't talk my way out of because of what happened with Liquid. Some idiot caught my meltdown on camera and then uploaded it to YouTube. The video went viral and people started recognizing me in public. They wouldn't leave me alone. Even when I was busy pumping gas into my car after you stole a full tank from me somebody came up to me and told me how funny the video of me was and how I should make further use of my talents."

"Can you back that accusation up with proof?" Snake asked.

"How stupid do you think I am? I know it was you."

"Bite me, I didn't steal your gas. Have them lower the price for a barrel of oil if you can't get over the fact that you were robbed."

"You think this is funny, don't you?" Ocelot asked. "I know you pull these kinds of stunts because you know you can get away with them. Campbell told me about what you did at the First Amendment."

"There's a real shocker," Snake said.

"Wait, that was you?" Otacon asked. "You were the guy that broke in and turned all the books in the horror section upside down?"

"I've got a lot of spare time," Snake said as he reached for his cigarettes.

"Enough to break into Raiden's house, film him while he's sleeping, and then leave the camcorder on his coffee table?" Ocelot asked.

Snake lit a cigarette and took a long drag from it.

"I sincerely apologized for that," Snake said.

"You still owe me a hundred and twenty dollars," Ocelot insisted.

"For what?"

Ocelot slammed his fists down on the table.

"For getting past my home surveillance system and draining the gas out of my car!" Ocelot shouted.

"You're just bent out of shape because you've been having such rotten luck lately. Did you file a police report?" Snake asked.

"You know what, Snake? Maybe you should just get a job like the rest of us instead of alleviating your PTSD by pulling pranks. Or is there some reason why you can't do that?"

"Switching tactics?" Snake asked.

"No, I'm serious. What do you do all day long? Do you sit around the house drinking and vegetating until somebody throws a party? You don't even mush anymore."

"Due to recent events, I'm taking a break from that hobby."

"And now you do nothing. Why don't you teach Krav Maga with Meryl or work maintenance at the college? You could even join the League of Five! Wouldn't that be something?"

Ocelot was obviously hoping that working nine hours a day or more would tire Snake out to the point where he wouldn't have the energy to even think about popping Ocelot's back door off its hinges and leaving it in the alley while he was out buying groceries. Snake might have been getting old, but almost half a day of work wouldn't be enough to stop him from doing what he did best.

"What did you do before you joined the military?" Otacon asked.

Snake smoked quietly for a moment. If he didn't say anything, Ocelot would gladly answer Otacon's question for him, embellishing his reply with as much snark as he could muster.

"It was my intention to specialize in foreign languages and work as a translator. I could speak Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese by the time I was eighteen. I joined the military so that I could pay for college and discovered to my immense surprise that I was quite good at being a soldier. I was so good that they pulled me aside, put me through a bunch of tests, and then asked if I was interested in becoming a Green Beret. My records came to the attention of a man known only as Big Boss. You know the rest of the story."

Otacon was completely spell bound by this admission and was left speechless. Snake put out the cigarette he had worked so hard to finish.

"I think he meant what sort of jobs did you have, not what your aspirations were," Ocelot said.

"I didn't do anything interesting. I was a warehouse loader at a soda company. I had a brief stint at a local fast food joint that didn't end well, but that's about it."

"It just so happens that we've got a soda company in town who could use a warehouse loader. You should go down there and apply," Ocelot said.

"I bet you would put in a real good word for me," Snake said.

"Anything to keep you away from my house."

Snake considered Ocelot's suggestion for a moment. It would be refreshing to work again, if only until he got tired of it. Everyone else had managed to find employment above serfdom. Raiden fished for crabs, Otacon continued working as an engineer when he wasn't busy hacking, and Vulcan Raven taught physical education to kids in middle school. If forced to work with other people, he would rather it be with someone he knew and with the economy the way it was, Snake had a better chance gaining employment through them than on his own.

"Are you in need of an administrative assistant, Ocelot?" Snake asked.

"Nice try, but no. Go talk to Mantis if you are into that sort of thing. He's always hiring urchins because nobody can stand him. Come to think of it, you would be right at home at his clinic."

Mantis was but one of several individuals who should have been dead that Ocelot had brought with him when he had moved to Alaska. There had been no explanation as to why he was still alive and while Snake had really been concerned with it initially, his interested tapered off when it became clear that they weren't out for revenge. Mantis had mentioned his private practice to Snake when they went out drinking a few months ago. Inspired by the tendency for business owners around the area to give their emporiums ridiculous names, Mantis had dubbed his clinic the Praying Mantis.

"I don't know about that. I heard that Naomi works there," Otacon said. "Can she even be in the same room as you?"

"Yeah, we made up. I gave her enough money to take a vacation away from her career and helped put a nanomachine lab in her basement. What is she doing with Mantis?"

"Who knows?" Ocelot asked.

"I bet you do."

"I do!"

The urge to strangle Ocelot was getting higher, but Snake kept himself under control.

"If you can't be bothered to work with Naomi, why not give FedEx a try?" Ocelot asked. "You can play around with cardboard boxes all day long. Maybe they would let you take a few to that storage locker you've got downtown where you keep the boxes that aren't quite your favorites, but are still too precious to recycle."

That cut too deep. He looked over at Otacon and saw that he was trying hard not to grin. Snake had to stand up for himself.

"I'll think about it. Can I see that Liquid doll you made?" Snake asked.

Ocelot nodded and placed the suitcase containing the doll on the table. He undid the latches and slid the case over to Snake, who opened it. He took the puppet out of its red velvet coffin and slid his hand under the trench coat and into the compartment containing the controls for the doll.

"Hello, Liquid," Snake said.

Liquid's head moved left and right and his mouth opened and closed even though no words were coming out of it.

"Yes, I'm Liquid," Snake said in a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like Liquid and didn't match the flapping lips of the doll. "It's me, did you like my sunglasses?"

Neither Ocelot or Otacon would have believed that Snake's voice could reach such a pitch due to the amount of cigarettes he had consumed in his lifetime. Ocelot grew pale and started shaking like he was having a seizure. His two acquaintances noticed this, but silently agreed to see how far this new development would go since he had been acting like such a jerk.

"Brother! We meet again! I'm fresh from a good varnishing and ready to fight you because I still can't get over the fact that it was you who killed Big Boss and not me!" Snake gurgled in the voice he had chosen for Liquid. He cleared his throat and continued in his own voice. "Fine, we'll fight. Take this."

He flicked the nose of the puppet and let out a tiny scream of pain. The head of the puppet continued jerking left and right as it tried in vain to avoid Snake's fingers.

"Please stop, Snake! You're hurting me!" Snake said in Liquid's voice.

Ocelot looked about ready to vomit. He pushed his chair away from the table as if he intended to stand up, but remained seated and kept himself balanced by propping his right arm on the table.

"Okay, I think that's enough," he said.

"Have mercy on me!" Snake said, continuing his poor impersonation of Liquid. "Snake, I. . .I love you! In a brotherly sort of way, that is. That's the real reason I've always wanted to kill you. So nobody else could have you. Also, I want to steal all your lacquer."

Ocelot reached for the pills that kept his alter ego under control while the fingernails on his right hand dug into the table.

"I could kill you a hundred times and it still wouldn't be enough to avenge Master Miller and Gray Fox," Snake said. He then switched to his awful Liquid voice. "Just clone them!" Snake used his own voice to reply to that retort. "Just clone Big Boss so you can kill him. There, see? Not the same thing, is it?"

Snake assaulted Liquid's wooden nose and squealed in agony.

"Oh, I wish I could just run away!" Snake said in Liquid's voice before switching back to his own. "I've got my hand up your butt, you're not going anywhere."

Liquid seized control of Ocelot. He dove across the table with his fingers curled, ready to choke the life out of Snake. The bottle of pills fell off the table and rolled away on its side as the bottle desperately tried to gain enough momentum to escape the crazed mammal intent on pillaging the medicine it was sworn to protect. Snake couldn't manage to dodge before Ocelot got his heavily callused hands around his throat. The two men tumbled to the floor with Ocelot on top. Otacon barely managed to pull the doll off Snake's arm and set it down on the table. He chased after the bottle of pills and caught it.

"Let's see how much you like it!" Liquid said through Ocelot.

He started flicking Snake's nose until he realized what he was doing. Ocelot tore himself off Snake before he did any further damage. Otacon opened the bottle of pills and gave it to Ocelot.

"Liquid, cut it out. Snake was just joking around and I'm getting a bit too old for this sort of thing," Ocelot said.

"Yes, you are getting old. In fact, you're getting so old that you have to jump start your penis with a car battery in order to get an erection! What an odd fetish for electricity you have!"

"Yeah, well, you're so British that your farts have an accent." Ocelot said coldly

Liquid was taken completely aback by Ocelot's comment.

"You'll pay for that," he sneered. "In pounds."

"We're not in England. You'll have to use dollars. That didn't even make any sense."

"No. I meant I'm going to get you fat."

"Go ahead! I'll just work it off like I always do."

By this time, everyone around them had figured out that another performance of Bruce and Jimmy was underway. Ocelot slapped himself across the face and threw the bottle of pills on the ground. He then marched over to Snake, who had gotten back on his feet and was ready to brawl. Ocelot intentionally lost his footing as he turned to the right and fell on his side. People started cheering as Ocelot crawled across the floor on his belly, picking the pills off the floor and swallowing them dry.

Ocelot slowed down after the fifth pill and then stopped completely once he had managed to get the twelfth one down. The medicine hit hard and fast, dulling his brain to the point where he didn't care who he was. Though it wasn't clear who had won, the crowd still cheered in approval of Ocelot's performance.

"That escalated quickly," Otacon said, watching Ocelot blow spit bubbles while his eyes twirled around.

"He can really get under my skin sometimes," Snake said.

"I think my heart just stopped," Ocelot said in a slurred voice. "It was going thump-thump-thump, but now it's doing this instead."

Ocelot blew a raspberry. A glazed expression formed on his face and he grinned broadly enough to permanently stretch out his cheeks.

"He doesn't look so good," Otacon said.

"Nope. He's going to need a lot of water and some charcoal," Snake said.

The second Snake finished speaking, a section of the ceiling slid away and two members of the League of Five dropped down into the room. One pulled a bottle of water out of her backpack and forced Ocelot to drink it while the other began checking his vitals. When Ocelot finished the bottle of water, they prepared a shot of adrenaline and stuck the needle in his arm. The female guard pulled out a chunk of activated charcoal from a pouch on her belt, stuck it in Ocelot's mouth, and made sure he swallowed it. They waited to see how Ocelot would respond.

"He'll live," Snake said. "I'm not going to wait for him to come around."

Snake left the scene of the incident and Otacon followed. They didn't bother glancing back to make sure if Ocelot was okay because they were both too cool for that.

"Are you really going to call Mantis?" Otacon asked as they headed for the same exit.

"Maybe."

Snake stopped abruptly on the sidewalk outside of the mall as he remembered something important. Meryl had asked him to do her a favor the next time he felt like antagonizing Ocelot. She had told him that stealing Ocelot's gas was rather weak and that while sabotaging his back door was a much better idea, there was something far worse that Snake could do to him. Snake searched the parking lot from where he stood and spotted Ocelot's Oldsmobile Tornado parked in the handicapped spot.

He made his way over to the Tornado. Otacon followed since his GTI was in the area Snake was headed for. As Snake got closer to the vehicle, he saw that Ocelot had a handicapped sign hanging from his rear view mirror. Otacon watched as Snake scanned the parking lot quickly to make sure nobody was watching. He then reached into his jacket and pulled out a pair of gloves. Snake put them on his hands because what else did you think he was going to do with them? He took a pick out of another pocket in his jacket and immediately went to work on the door on the driver's side.

The lock opened without too much effort since vintage vehicles weren't typically built with security in mind since trust was rarely an issue prior to the eighties. Snake slid into the driver's seat, pulled the handicapped tag from the rear view mirror, put it in the glove box, and reached into his jacket again. This time he took out a very large tube of glitter and dumped it into the heating vents aimed at the driver. He then fiddled with the controls so that the heater would kick on the second Ocelot started his vehicle. It took him less than a minute to vandalize Ocelot's vehicle.

"You're clear," Otacon said.

"I know, but thanks for thinking about me," Snake said as he closed the door. "Call me if anyone is hosting anything this evening."

With that finished, Snake headed back to his own vehicle. When he was sure Otacon was out of range, he started chuckling. His only regret was not being able to see Ocelot's face when the trap was sprung.

X

Snake didn't care what Ocelot had to say about what he did in his spare time. Winding down with booze during the evening was great fun. It certainly didn't do his liver any favors, especially when he took his medicine on top of it, but he didn't care. He went straight to his liquor cabinet the moment he got home and took out a bottle of Jack Daniels. Meryl had been kind enough to make spaghetti and was passing the time with James Clavell on Snake's couch.

"Is the world safe?" Meryl asked, not looking up from her book.

"Absolutely not," Snake replied from the kitchen.

He could hear canned laughter coming from some cheesy alternate universe where his life with Meryl was a popular sitcom. They got along well enough, but Snake found himself wishing that her apartment complex hadn't been subjected to arson since she was starting to think that they were dating and he didn't know how he felt about it. Snake joined Meryl in the living room once he had finished proving his manliness by eating spaghetti while drinking JD and not gagging once.

"I was thinking about getting a job," Snake said.

"You're holding a bottle of whiskey."

"So I am," Snake said. "I might give Mantis a call and see if he will hire me to work for him at his clinic."

"Out of all the people who tried to kill you that are somehow still alive despite the fact that you saw them die, I like him the most."

"I figured you'd approve. By the way, I did that thing with the glitter that you asked me to do."

"That's awesome!" Meryl said.

Meryl set her book down for a moment and put her right hand up. Snake played along and gave her a hi-five.

"Has Ocelot called you yet?" Meryl asked, her attention now on Snake.

"Give him time. Don't forget your end of the deal. You owe me a game of Snake in the Box now."

"Oh, god."

Their moment was over. Meryl returned to her book. Everyone knew that Snake had a bit of a fetish for cardboard boxes, but few people were aware of how deep his dirty obsession went. Meryl knew all too well and was routinely forced into playing a twisted form of hide and seek with Snake that involved twelve cardboard boxes and one room. Meryl had to guess which one he was hiding under, which sounded simple enough, but was nearly impossible. Things really got crazy when Otacon agreed to play. For Snake, it was better than sex-for his friends, not so much.

Snake's cell phone chimed, emitting the same sound that the communicators from the original Star Trek made when they were opened. He had assigned this tone to accompany incoming text messages. Meryl raised an eyebrow and looked away from her book for a moment. Snake took out his phone and played around with the touch screen. A message from Ocelot was waiting in his mailbox.

"Guess who?" Snake asked Meryl.

"What's it say?" Meryl asked.

"Let me show you what I think is funny."

His sixth sense kicked in. Snake pulled Meryl off the couch and put himself on top of her just as gunfire louder than thunder began tearing through the sky. Their backyard was quickly ruined. The operator of the drone took it a step further and began tracing an outline of Snake's house in the soil around the structure. Attacking with a drone on American soil was a bold move, but Snake lived out of town and a few miles away from his nearest neighbor. It would be relatively easy to cover up, especially given how gullible the public was getting.

"What the hell is that?!" Meryl demanded.

"A UAV, probably a Reaper."

There was a loud explosion as a missile hit the ground just shy of the house. Windows shattered, debris assaulted the roof, and Snake's dogs were going nuts. Meryl struggled, but Snake kept her pinned.

"We've gotta do something!" Meryl insisted. "Get off me! I'm going to get the Stinger!"

"It isn't in range. Meryl, I have a confession to make. Remember about a month ago when Ocelot got out of the hospital and had his little episode?"

"Yeah?"

"I've known that a UAV was circling the area since then."

"You what?!" Meryl roared. "Are you smiling?!"

Snake hadn't noticed it before, but he did have a slight smirk on his face.

"It's kind of funny, don't you think? This is all Ocelot can do. He doesn't want to kill me."

"Why not?"

"I wish I knew."

"What's stopping Liquid from dropping six Hellfire's on us?"

"Ocelot doesn't have direct control of the drone. Last time I checked, they build entire stations for that sort of thing. There's probably somebody in Galena eating Doritos and just following orders. They know what Ocelot sounds like."

Snake's cell phone chirped again. It was just within his reach. Another message from Ocelot was waiting to be read. He had sent Snake a thermal image of what the drone could see. Two white human shapes were huddled on top of each other while several blobs were trying to break out of his shed. Meryl grabbed his cell phone and gasped in disgust at the image.

"I think it's time to move," Meryl said. "How many houses do you own?"

"A couple."

"Wow. How much money do you have, again?"

"A lot."

Meryl scoffed and glared at him.

"How can you be this calm when you could die at any given second?" Meryl asked.

"That's life, Meryl," Snake replied.

He caught her off guard with that retort. They remained entwined on the floor for another minute to make sure that Ocelot had finished throwing his tantrum. Snake helped Meryl up.

"We need to get him harder next time," Meryl said.

"I'll think of something. In the meantime, let's go see what the damage is."

"You go do that. I'm going to give Otacon a call and see if he can drop that thing out of the sky, which is what you should have done in the first place."

"Ocelot will fly another one in."

Meryl groaned in aggravation, realizing that Snake was right.

"So are you going to call Mantis tomorrow?" Meryl asked.

Snake nodded. Ocelot would cool off quicker if Snake got a job, which would make his next passive aggressive attack on Ocelot all the more glorious. Employment at a psychiatric facility would also undoubtedly spice up his day-to-day life.