Episode 3 – Friends in Need.
Chapter 1 – Lending a Hand.
Snake awoke with a ragged gasp. Sweat was pouring down his face and his heart felt as though it were about to leap out of his chest in an explosion of gore. He had just finished a session with his most recent reoccurring nightmare in which his dogs talked to him while he tried to stop Ocelot from cooking animals alive on the electric rack he had brought back from Shadow Moses. Though highly unsettling in its own unique way, it was preferable to some of the other dreams he usually had that made him hate sleeping.
Now wide-awake, he got out of bed and raided his bedside table for his meds. Snake swallowed three pills, which included an anti-depressant, a muscle relaxant, and another mood stabilizer. He checked his alarm clock and found that it was only six in the morning. Snake swallowed one more anti-psychotic than he needed just in case his dogs were feeling social again. He hated having to take these pills, but they were necessary to keep the demons in his mind at bay. His disgust made him crave a cigarette. After lighting one, he went into his living room and resumed what he had been doing before he decided to get some rest.
Thirty pages of information were on his kitchen table. Snake had been going over them carefully, memorizing everything. Otacon had given the papers to him two days ago after he had managed to crack the encrypted container on the SD card that had been included with the documents that told Otacon how to hack a few satellites to feed his voyeurism. The card had been out of place and they couldn't ask Ocelot about it since he was still in the hospital after some jerk broke into his house during the party he was hosting and cut off his hand.
Big Boss was apparently still alive. Ocelot had goons in place to monitor Snake's former nemesis while he did whatever it was that he was doing in America. A couple of photos were included in the report that depicted Big Boss speaking to a couple of men inside the safety of a private penthouse. The conversation could have easily been intercepted if they hadn't communicated with each other using an ink pen and a piece of paper. Two men in the room owned private military companies while the third was a major player in the arms industry. Though money was not exchanged, it was clear that a deal had been made when the meeting concluded.
Ocelot's subordinates, who were often described in the documents as inept and disposable, believed that Big Boss had bought them out. An attempted assassination that same evening had failed miserably. Big Boss had since dropped off the face of the Earth. All of this had occurred shortly before Snake was forced by some supernatural power to go outside for a change.
Another file that had been on the card revealed a conspiracy to consolidate several armies across the globe into five privatized groups. Soldiers and federal agents would replace local police. To get enough recruits, cloning would be used. The document wasn't complete and cut off abruptly during a section that described an unsuccessful attempt to create a soldier deadlier than Big Boss without using his genes in the nanomachines given to the test subjects.
A sticky note with a checklist Snake had made detailing what he needed to do to go hide in Europe for a few months was next to the confidential documents. He looked at it for a moment, convinced that running would do nothing more than prolong the inevitable. Still, it would be nice to have a continent separating him from Ocelot. As he wondered just how difficult he could make it for the authorities to find him, his cell phone went off. The Russian National Anthem, which threatened to drill through his coffee table if left to play long enough, could only mean one thing. Ocelot was calling. He was still in the hospital. Snake assumed that his hand had just been replaced. Ocelot should have been doped to the gills. Snake got rid of his cigarette and decided to answer the call anyway.
"Yes?"
"Snake! Help!" Ocelot exclaimed.
"You don't have to yell into the phone. What's wrong?"
"Meryl is here."
"And?"
"Do you have any idea what she's doing to me?"
"No. What's she doing to you?"
"She's torturing me. She's withholding my medication, eating all of my food, and she won't let me go to sleep. She keeps going on and on about how I must be plotting something. I would have called you earlier, but that woman has an unusually large bladder. She's had ten glasses of my lemonade and she just now went to the bathroom."
"Are you plotting something Ocelot?" Snake asked, looking at the photo of Big Boss.
There was a pause on the line as Ocelot guffawed.
"What kind of a question is that? I thought we were friends."
"And you were wrong. Am I supposed to trust you after all we've been through?"
"Of course you're supposed to. For as much as you know, I actually could be protecting everyone right now!" Ocelot exclaimed.
That was quite a bit of a stretch, but plausible. During their initial confrontation in the basement of the Shadow Moses facility, Snake had hidden behind one of the four pillars in the room and ducked at just the right moment to avoid the bullets Ocelot had fired at him. It was almost as if Ocelot intended to lose.
"Look, I know you think I'm a jerk and you know what? I'm not even going to bother trying to argue with you because you're right. You are right, Snake. I am a jerk. It's my anti-drug. Even so, I really need you to help me out here. Think of all the time we've spent together," Ocelot said.
"I've only hung out with you once."
"That's exactly why you need to come up here and save me from Meryl so we can continue to hang out with each other and build great memories together until one of us starts acting too much unlike himself and we part ways. We'll both wish things could be like what they once were, but by then it will be too late. Both of us will have moved on."
"Put Meryl on the phone and I'll talk to her."
"Actually, there is one other thing. The surgeons did a very poor job of replacing my hand. It isn't healing well. There's some medicine here that I could really use, but everyone ignores me when I ask them about it."
"Have you threatened to sue them?"
"It didn't work. They said I was acting hysterical."
"Did you tell them that you work for an organization that can erase all records of their existence?"
"I don't want to spoil the surprise. I think these scrubs are out to get me and that's why I need you to bring me the medicine they won't give me. Will you help me?"
If Snake chose to help Ocelot, he could not expect that favor to be returned. If Snake chose not to help Ocelot, that would only make things worse between them.
"It would be a waste of time if Snake decided to help Ocelot," Ocelot said over the phone, interrupting the narrative. "However, he wasn't sure if angering the man would be a wise decision."
"Isn't this the fourth or fifth revision of this story?" Snake asked.
And then Snake and Ocelot remembered that the fourth wall is there for a reason and stopped acting like grinning idiots.
"What hospital are you staying at?" Snake asked.
"Boo-Boo-Fixie."
"Who's that you're talking to? Is it Solidus?" Meryl asked in the background.
"Stay away, Meryl. It's just my stock broker," Ocelot replied.
"Yeah, right. As if you actually need to invest your money. Goodness gracious, you can't possibly be comfortable in that position. Let me adjust your bed for you."
"I enjoy pain, Meryl. It makes me stronger. Stay back. If you want to make me feel comfortable, you can give me a quick – "
Ocelot screamed and the line disconnected. Snake sighed. It would probably be a good idea to go up there and pry Meryl off him before she went too far since being on the ugly side of a man who could call in an airstrike on his house seemed foolish to Snake. Ocelot was a lackey, but the Patriots might consider listening to him if he had something to say. That made him useful. Snake immediately corrected himself. He didn't know exactly how many people worked for the organization or what sort of rank Ocelot held. They might even be looking for an excuse to fire Ocelot since he had such an abrasive attitude.
The cost of being wrong was too great. Snake used the Internet to check the directions to the hospital. He didn't take a gun with him since the hospital might have a metal detector installed in the front doors. It made him feel naked, but not defenseless. Snake stepped outside. As usual, it was very cold and snowing lightly. There was a beautiful howl in the wind. The clouds made it seem later than it actually was. If Snake hadn't seen the spectacle so many times before he'd go as so far as to call it magical. Now, however, he knew snow was just wet rain that made insurance companies nervous.
He got inside his Jeep Wrangler and drove into town with only his thoughts to keep him company.
X
The parking lot of the hospital was nearly full when he arrived, but Snake managed to find a spot between two luxury sedans. He approached the grid wrong and had to back up and straighten himself out before trying to get in again. The front bumper of his car nearly made contact with the edge of the sedan to his right, so he had to back up again and straighten himself again before he finally managed to insert his car between the two spots. He had to get out of the passenger's side since he was parked right up alongside the vehicle to his left.
He started out toward the hospitals main entrance. A couple of people were out and about, but Snake didn't pay any attention to them. He walked through the front doors directly into a lobby full of comfortable chairs and old magazines. The male receptionist was currently reading a copy of 1984 and did not acknowledge Snake's presence.
Snake approached the desk and looked at the badge the man was wearing. Curt would be assisting him.
"Lisa Garland, report to the ER immediately. Dr. Kaufmann needs your assistance," a female voice said over the radio Curt had on his side.
"On my way," Lisa responded.
It then occurred to Snake that he didn't know Ocelot's real name. Meryl had to have been as equally clueless. She must have peeked in every room until she found him. While Meryl had given Snake her cell phone number, he hadn't bothered to commit it to memory so he couldn't call her and ask her where she was at. Curt was looking at him reluctantly, disgusted with the fact that he was obligated to help a visitor.
"I'm looking for someone," Snake began. "She's visiting a friend and I'm not sure what his name is. Have you seen a red head walk by here recently?"
Curt raised an eyebrow at him. Snake put his arm on the desk and leaned in a little closer.
"She has a butt that you will never be able to forget."
"Oh, yeah. I know who you're talking about," Curt said. "She took the elevator."
That narrowed it down a little bit. He thanked Curt and walked over to a kiosk that displayed a map of the hospital. There were three floors. Most of the rooms reserved for patients were on the second floor, but there were two wings for them on the third floor. Snake decided to start at the top and work his way down.
"Hey, wait a second," Curt said.
Snake looked back at him suspiciously.
"Are you Solid Snake?"
An immense feeling of dread engulfed Snake. The FBI had been chasing him after the tanker carrying Ray had sank in 2007. He had fallen off their top ten most wanted list a few months ago, but plenty of his mug shots were available to the public. Some of his work for the United States had been declassified until it was erased after the authorities realized it cast him in a somewhat favorable light. Despite all that, only one person had recognized him in public and that gentlemen happened to be speaking with him at that very moment.
"The legendary Solid Snake?" Curt asked again.
He didn't have time for this.
"You?" Curt finished in a highly giddy fashion.
"Who?" Snake asked.
Snake hadn't been interested in body language, posture, inflections, eye contact, or confidence prior to attempting to join FOXHOUND, but after he had read what was required to pass the entrance examination he had spent a significant amount of time learning how to manipulate people. He still remembered most of the lessons and luckily Curt's enthusiasm faltered now that he believed he had embarrassed himself.
"The. . .the one man army. The best mercenary in the world. They paid him to destroy insurgent hideouts in Afghanistan in 1999."
Those were the days. Life was so simple before he found out that he was a clone. In retrospect, he should have known FOXHOUND was trouble when the man in charge called himself Big Boss. If only he had settled for the Delta Force. They were more creative with their codenames.
"He sounds like one tough bastard, but I've never heard of him," Snake said.
"Crap. I was going to have you sign my copy of In the Darkness of Shadow Moses if you had been Solid Snake. You look so much like him."
"Sorry to disappoint you, kid."
"If you don't mind me asking, how do you take care of your mullet?"
"I use a lot of conditioner. I prefer the kind made by Grandpa's Brand. Just look up 'grandpa's conditioner' on Google. It should be the first result."
Curt grabbed a piece of scrap paper and wrote that down.
"Thanks. I'm sorry that I mistook you for someone else. I won't keep you from your business any longer."
"Don't lose sleep over it," Snake said as he headed towards the elevators.
Snake found the elevators and pressed the button for the third floor. It seemed to take forever for the elevator to go from one floor to the next. Snake mashed the button panel in a futile effort to try to make the ride go faster. When he finally arrived on the third floor, the door remained closed. It didn't take too much effort to pry open the door.
He made his way past a staff hub and pretended to know where he was going so that they would ignore him. It started smelling more like a hospital now that he was near where they quarantined their guests. Coffee, cleaning fluid, and pot roast mingled together to create a rather unique aroma. One room he stuck his head in was occupied by a group of cosplayers dressed as characters from Resident Evil who were visiting a friend of theirs currently locked in traction. The cosplayers gave him a friendly wave and the mummy in traction groaned. Snake gave them a polite nod and continued on his way. As his luck would have it, he soon heard two familiar voices arguing heatedly a few doors down. He peeked into the room where the commotion was coming from and found who he was looking for.
Meryl was standing beside Ocelot's bed, refusing to leave. It didn't matter how many curse words Ocelot managed to cram into one sentence. She wasn't leaving until he told her the truth. Ocelot was doing some rather impressive button mashing on the patient emergency button that was supposed to summon a nurse. The panel over at the staff hub was probably flashing enough to send someone into an epileptic seizure. For some odd reason, a cart full of drugs was in the room with them.
Since they were preoccupied, Snake snuck into the room and tapped Meryl on her left shoulder. As she turned around to see who had touched her, Snake positioned himself where she wasn't looking.
"Dead," Snake said.
Meryl gasped and jumped about five feet, flailing her arms wildly. Snake made a gun with his fingers and pointed it at Ocelot, who had his mouth open in mid-explicative while Meryl did her little panic dance.
"Also dead."
They blushed, knowing that Snake was right. Everyone hated this game, but he loved it.
"Snake, good timing, I was just about to pass out. Get me some morphine," Ocelot said.
"What are you doing here?" Meryl asked. "Don't tell me you came to visit Ocelot."
"I'm here to ask you to stop torturing him."
"Well, I won't."
Snake shrugged indifferently.
"At least I tried. If you really want to get him to talk, break his thumb and grind the bone against the joint."
"I've been poking at his bad hand with a spork. Does that count?"
"No, he knows what to expect. What exactly are you hoping he will tell you?"
"I want to know when this alternate reality we are all living in is going to come crashing down."
"If it does, Ocelot will send someone after me or Raiden. They wouldn't waste time and resources on you or anyone else."
"They could kidnap me to get to you," Meryl pointed out.
"Why would they need the theatrics when they could just send twenty five men in power suits after me?"
"Keep it coming," Ocelot said.
"I don't want any of us to get hurt and I do not trust Ocelot," Meryl said.
"I'm asking you to," Snake said. "For the time being, at least. How about this? If he does turn on us, I'll let you shoot him."
Meryl considered that offer for a moment.
"No, you will let me burn him alive and dilute the ashes so they can't clone him."
"You can burn him, but he won't be alive when you do it."
"Why not?"
"Because when you burn someone alive you usually have a really hard time forgetting the noises they make."
"Fine, it's a deal."
She was about to shake his hand when she retracted it.
"Wait, he's probably got a few vials of blood somewhere in an undisclosed location that the Patriots could use to clone him."
"I will tell you exactly what you need to do to get them if you will help me," Ocelot said.
"That's good enough for me," Snake said.
"Great, get me some morphine," Ocelot said.
A vial of morphine and a box of needles were ready for use on the cart. Snake prepared a generous dose of the opiate and injected it into Ocelot's good arm. Ocelot looked positively ridiculous in the teal hospital gown he had been required to wear. Snake shifted his attention to Ocelot's new hand and grimaced. It was in bad shape. They hadn't closed the wound properly. Nobody could have been that stupid. A combat medic on his second day of training could have done a better job without trying. The limb was brown for some reason and Snake could smell the infection from where he was standing. A towel was set below Ocelot's hand to soak up the discharge and it needed to be changed.
"You can't imagine how hideously agonizing this feels. I'm currently waiting for the surgeon to come take a look at his work," Ocelot explained. "I believe they are deliberately ignoring me."
"Where did the cart come from?"
"I woke up and it was there. Someone is playing games with me. I need to get out of this hospital fast."
Snake looked at Ocelot's hand again and wondered why the skin tone was different.
"Wait a minute. Is that Liquid's hand?" Snake asked.