Snake was not in a good mood. He and Meryl had recently cut ties with one another following from a brutal fight the two of them had a week before. She took most of the stuff with her; the house, the appliances, hell, even his sneaking suit was claimed by her. He was left with just a bandanna, his clothing, one pack of cigarettes, and a cell phone. He lit up a cigarette (he felt he deserved one) and started fiddling through his cell phone contacts. He only had two contacts: Meryl (which was promptly deleted) and…Hal. He didn't remember how he got the engineer's number –was it right before he left with Meryl?-, but he decided to give it a shot. He didn't have any other numbers he could call right now and like hell he was going to be homeless.
"Hello? Who is this?" Hal's soft voice answered instantly, giving off hints of confusion and intrigue. "Hey, it's me, I…have a favor to ask," Snake replied with a bit of desperation tinged in his voice. "Well, what is it?" Hal replied, curious for an answer. "Something happened and I need a place to stay for the day. Can I stay at your place?," he asked gruffly, brunt and to the point. The phone was silent for a second –who could blame him for hesitating?-, but he eventually responded with "You may". "I'm in Washington, by the way. Are you still in Alaska?" Snake asked while switching the phone to his other ear. "Yeah, I am. Do you have a pencil and paper on you?" Hal asked, "Are you going by plane?". "Mm," Snake replied as he ran into a building to access a pencil and scrap of paper. "Ready". "You're ready? All right, here's what you should do: Take the plane to Alaska Airlines from Washington to Juneau at the nearest airline and meet me at the checkpoint E-19. I'll provide the car ride there. You got that?" he instructed with a lack of breath, making his voice sound airy and light. "Got it," Snake confirmed before attempting to hang the phone. Before he could, however, Hal spoke again: "There's a plane leaving for Alaska tonight, I suggest you hop on that one," he suggested before hanging up the phone himself. Snake looked down at his notes and double-checked them to make sure he read the instructions carefully. After reading them, he put the notes in his pocket and head out towards the airport.
He managed to get to the city airport through a hitchhiker (he played the part of a helpless civilian), but the real challenge was getting on the plane. He had no money nor did he have much that he could sell for a plane ticket. However, there was something he could do: smuggle himself in. He and Meryl ended up sneaking themselves in from Alaska to Washington after Shadow Moses with the help of one of his old friends; he could do it again in reverse. He decided to walk towards the old location of his "friend" in order to sneak himself on a plane; luckily, his ticket to Alaska was right where he wanted him: by the gate of the cargo planes. "Ah, hey there. You look like crap. Things didn't go so well with the missus?" he asked with a bit surprise. Snake nodded in response. "Yeah, I need to go back to Alaska for something important," he added, with the supply plane pilot nodding in response. "I can do that for you. We're stopping in Montreal first, but I'm sure you expected that. Hop in. We're leaving in half an hour," the pilot responded as Snake climbed on board.
Snake felt his muscles numb from kneeling for so long when the plane finally stopped in Juneau, Alaska. Both him and his friend waited until the passengers on other planes have firmly went inside the plane before the two of them went inside. "I'm not sure what you're doing, but take care nonetheless," his friend added as he pat Snake on the back and let him inside the building. Right inside the Juneau Airport was a map which Snake promptly used. "E-19, E-19…" he repeated mentally as he traced the location with his fingertips. In a few seconds of tracing, his fingers touched the words "E gates: [1st floor] Suitcase Check-up and Information" on the map. Satisfied with this information, he followed the many signs on the airport to his destination.
He arrived to E-19 to be greeted by a conveyor belt full of suitcases and one mussy-haired engineer sitting beside it. He was dressed casually with a t-shirt that had some giant purple robot on it and blue jeans; had he not known better, he would've thought this was just a regular person instead of someone capable of building a Metal Gear or able to save his life. "Well, I'm here," Snake mentioned, trying to see if the engineer was sleeping or not. "Oh, you're here," Hal responded, getting himself up and dusting off his pants. "Let's go, shall we? You can tell me all about what happened on the way there," he indicated to Snake while signaling him to come. The two of them then went off to Hal's ride, neither of them uttering a word to each other on the way there.
"So, does Meryl know about this?" Hal asked once the two of them are on the road in Hal's small, Japanese-made car. "No," Snake replied bitterly, hoping Hal would pursue a different topic or stop talking all together. "Why not? You two are dating, right…?" Hal responded, giving Snake a look of puzzlement before turning his head back to the road. "I don't want to talk about it," Snake grumbled, reaching in his pocket for his box of Lucky Strikers to light. Before he could, however, one of Hal's hands slapped the box out of his hands. "You need to watch your health. I know you're frustrated, but that's not going to help you," Hal sincerely reminded him while Snake was fumbling around for the box of Lucky Strikers.
The two were awkwardly silent to one another for the rest of the way there.
Snake and Hal arrived to a small shack with a grey roof, grey bricks, grey window…fitting for a dreary place with tons of snow. "Well? Come in," Hal noted as he opened the door. Snake was greeted to an…interesting living room. Books with bent spines were scattered across the coffee table, clothes were strewn about, and there were a few robot figurines by the fireplace instead of family photos. "As you can tell, I didn't have time to clean. Hope you don't mind," he chimed as Snake inspected some of the books. "Is this some of your anime stuff?" he asked while holding a beat-up copy of Ah! My Goddess volume one. "That's manga, Snake. Anime is the animated stuff," Hal responded in a huff while Snake flipped through the manga, deemed it boring, and set it gently back down. "Now, I should really ask you…why are you here? Something happened, right? I think I have a right to know if you're staying here," Hal asked while moving closer to Snake. "You can't just call people out the blue to ask to stay, just…I need to know," he added, his voice slowly growing louder with each word.
Snake just stared at Hal with a suspicious look in his eyes without muttering a word. "Well?" Hal repeated while crossing his arms, "What happened?". Snake continued to ignore him and instead asked "Am I sleeping on the couch?". "Yeah, unless you want the bed ...you still need to answer me though or else…just answer me here," Hal responded, sighing and putting his hands in his face. Snake then gritted his teeth, sighed, and decided to finally answer the poor geek. "I'm not seeing Meryl anymore, ok?" he muttered before sitting himself on the couch. "Wow…" Hal gasped, putting a hand over his mouth, "Wow…uh…sorry". "No need," Snake responded in a growl before attempting yet again to have a smoke. Hal didn't stop him this time; he only went out of the room to avoid getting secondhand smoke.
The next morning, Hal was making a cup of coffee for Snake while Snake flopped around on the couch. "I haven't gotten groceries in a while, so this is all I have, but drink up," he explained, pushing the other man in an attempt to wake him up. Snake groaned in response as he sloppily scratches his head and gets himself off the dusty couch. When he arrived to the kitchen, he ignored the cup of coffee out on the dining table in favor of scavenging the pantry. "You don't see to have anything," he grumbled as he walked, zombie-like towards the dining table and sat himself down. "The coffee's for you," Hal mentioned, sipping a cup of coffee of his own. Snake responded by nodding and sipping some of the black liquid. He swallowed the coffee in one gulp, albeit in necessity rather than pleasure. "Don't like it, huh?" Hal quipped as Snake put the cup in the kitchen sink and headed back to the couch.
Hal soon joined him in the living room. "If you're not with Meryl, then…uh…what do you plan on doing?" he asked politely, hoping the solider would be up to idle chit chat. Instead, Snake asked "What have you been doing?" in a somewhat cocky manner. "Oh, well, I've been planning something important, actually…" Hal answered before leaping off the couch and clumsily running to grab something. In a few minutes, he returned with a notebook in his hands. "I want to reverse the damage I've done at Shadow Moses…with REX," he commented in an airy voice as he threw the notebook to Snake. "It's the papers for a group," he added as Snake flipped through the pages, examining written lines of code, maps, and diagrams of complex machinery. Snake looked up at Hal blankly as Hal took the notebook out of his hands. "So, what will you be doing again? You know what I'm doing…I think it's your turn," he noted while flipping through the notebook. "I don't know," Snake responded flatly as Hal got up to return the book. Hal then put his fingers to his lips and started to ponder. "If you don't have a plan, why not join me…and this group. You can help me amend my mistakes and stop the Metal Gear…from…uh, existing," he offered, looking back at the solider with a small smile. "I'll think about it," Snake responded as Hal left the room, leaving Snake alone with his thoughts.
A few minutes later, Hal returned to the living room, noticing that Snake is still on the couch. "I'll come with. I have mistakes I need to amend as well. Both of us can stop the cycles we're trapped in," he answered confidently. Hal was about to respond, but Snake stopped him by adding something to his statement: "One other thing. My name, obviously, isn't Solid Snake. It's Dave". Hal nodded as the two shook hands. Snake wasn't sure if he trusted Hal in the slightest or if the partnership is going to last, but this decision satisfied him for now. At least he now had something to do in his life.