The Snakes in the Garden
BAM!
He collapsed to the ground, on all fours, in a fit of anxiety and surprise. His heart rate pulsed in every inch of his body as the breath coming in and out rapidly vented out of his lungs in exhaustion. Sweat dropped from his chin, culminating all over his face and body, and to the dirt of ground before the grave of his master.
His right hand shook. The pistol felt warm from its latest report and his finger twitching nervously.
I can't do it… why?
He gulped, pondering how his suicide failed. No… pondering why.
Something is wrong… I just can't do it... there is something else…
"That's right," said a voice.
Snake's breath stopped, as if he could easily breathe again.
"Good…no need for you to go yet," the voice sagely said.
Snake's memory suddenly jogged from the beginning to end, as if his life flashed before his eyes, at the tone and diction of that voice. He KNEW it.
But it can't be!
The Old Snake climbed onto his feet, aching still despite his suddenly returning strength, and turned to the direction of the voice, both dreading and expecting to see the bearer of that voice. So long had it been that such wavelengths had reached his ears that Snake had already guessed—but disbelieved—that this voice belonged to the most important person in his life.
And there stood Big Boss.
"It's been a long time… Snake," his genetic origin said.
Snake remembered once again that Big Boss created him. This man, by genetic normality and right, held more years than Snake himself, a rapidly dying biology experiment. Big Boss was far more handsome and, despite these two men being exactly the same height, appeared taller. The greatest soldier of all time bore the years of experience that no other soldier in his or even in Snake's time could ever achieve in his face and demeanor. Through the one eye that had survived war, there was memory and sadness within Big Boss that Snake could see. Snake remembered their conflicts together. Big Boss relived them over and over again during his death-sleep.
There had only been maybe two seconds of a pause, a shared silence, until Snake readied his pistol at Big Boss, defiantly. How could he be alive! This was an illusion, it had to be.
The Older Snake, himself, sported what looked to be a conglomerate of an M16A1 frame and with two cylindrical barrels at each side, forming an infinity symbol. It was big enough to take someone's head off, yet small enough to hold in one hand.
Snake waited for a reply.
Big Boss raised his weapon at Snake, pointing it right between his eyes.
Snake's finger started tightening on the trigger. Ready, aim—
Big Boss dropped his weapon, letting it slip out of his fingers, as if relinquishing himself of it forever.
Snake felt this to be a trick. He approached to attack—
Big Boss responded quicker, faster, and harder. Snake stumbled as Big Boss pushed him past, refusing to accept the offensive energy that Snake was bearing.
As Snake attacked again, Big Boss took his chance to get close.
Snake struggled as Big Boss took him into his arms. He expected to be thrown down, maybe pierced by a combat knife, disarmed, beaten, dead…
…but Big Boss held Snake in an embrace. A warm, soft hug. Snake, left in perplexity, had to figure out what he was feeling. Was it warmth? Love?
Snake tried to wiggle his arm free so that he could raise his weapon. But Big Boss spoke into his ear softly.
"Let it go."
"What—no?!"
"Snake…"
Snake fought against him. He had to kill him, it was instinctive. And this new feeling was alien to him; it felt wrong.
"Snake…! Listen!"
Snake, however, had to listen. Big Boss spoke to him, and his voice was Snake's voice.
"Let it go, my son. Or…" Big Boss turned his head to look at Snake's eyes. "…or should I say 'brother?'"
"…what?!"
Big Boss' jaw tightened, nodding. "It is over, Snake."
Snake felt Big Boss' hand over his own.
"It's about time for you to put aside the gun."
He felt a pull on his gun, and Snake complied. Big Boss broke their embrace, taking Snake's pistol, and smoothly, without thought—all smooth, mechanical movements—took his pistol apart, throwing all the parts away like unwanted trash. It would be the last pistol Snake would see for a long time.
Snake's face crunched, still fraught with confusion and awe.
Big Boss saw this face. "It all began with a bunch of fools, Snake. Fools too greedy to understand the power they had. Myself, I lost too much control over my morality, Snake. My intentions were right… but my methods were wrong." Big Boss turned, as if ashamed of himself. "And yet I am the last of the fools who started this… and my time is coming too, Snake."
"…how are you alive? How can you still be alive?!" Snake asked. He thought of the times Big Boss came back even after Snake destroyed him.
Big Boss' tired face looked to him again. "That body Liquid burned on the Volta..." he shook his head. "Not mine. No, that was the body of another clone…
…Solidus."
"What?!"
"After he was killed, his body was recovered and kept safe. He still belonged to the government, and the Patriots still needed his genes. He is, after all, your brother and my clone."
"But where were you?"
"I was kept in a coma by JD; not only was I physically shut away, but my mind was, too. The FOX was still kept prisoner. I had to be set free. The only two who could do so were EVA and Ocelot. EVA recovered Solidus' and Liquid's bodies, and then transplanted their body parts onto me. I was whole, but still asleep. In order to set me free, the System had to be destroyed…"
"…and now, here I am, brother."
Snake could not believe it. After meeting all his genetic clones, Snake could hear every one of them, including himself, being portrayed by Big Boss. He was still the superior to all three clones.
"Why are you here?" Snake asked.
Big Boss frowned, and he looked over his shoulder, moving to show Snake. Ten meters behind the old soldier sat a balding old man in a wheelchair, plugged into a machine and kept alive by an IV. Across his eye streamed a scar shaped like a lightning bolt. His breathing seemed faint, yet alive. The beeping of his machine echoed throughout the graveyard.
"Everything has its beginning… but does not start at 'one.' Even God has no numeric origin. Since everything came out of nothing… so did the Patriots come out of Zero."
The old man. Zero. At last.
"The cause of it all," gasped Snake.
"Yes. He was the founding member of the Patriots. Everyone else… Para-Medic… Sigint… myself… Ocelot… EVA… they were just a Cabinet to his campaign for a 'cleaner battlefield.' And despite all his claims and intentions… this man does not know it. He does not know he began all this, that he almost led the world to the bring of destruction!"
Big Boss approached his old compatriot, glaring him at the eye.
"…and yet… now that I think about it… all the hatred is gone." Big Boss' face softened. "All gone. Just a deep sense of longing…."
Snake came up to him from behind, hearing his every word intently.
"Was it pity?" he said, to himself. "Did Zero really hate me? Or was it fear?... I don't know anymore… I was unique and so much better… yet so alone…
"…all I do know is that I have one more mission…"
"What?"
"…to erase Zero."
Big Boss moved around Zero's chair, looking at him intently, meditating on this upcoming death. Snake could see it. Big Boss' emotions were in conflict.
"From zero comes ten… ten to a hundred… a hundred to ten thousand… ten thousand to millions… so long as Zero remains… billions can rise again. We had no idea that, by joining his Patriots and feeding his greed, we had created a beast. Turned Zero to One-Hundred. And now… my goal… is to send him back to nothing!"
And Big Boss pulled the plug. At once, Zero gasped for air, reaching painfully to nothing, and jerking, as if in a seizure, back and forth in his chair. At once, Big Boss' eye reflected wet in the light, and he embraced Zero, holding him back yet comforting him. Snake could see his mouth move; Big Boss was whispering something into his old friend's ear.
Then, there was nothing. Zero became nothing. His last breath, a wheeze, slipped past his old lips, and his machine turned itself off.
Big Boss stroked his bald forehead, his fingers tracing over his lightning scar. Big Boss turned and began to move away from Zero and Snake without further thought.
"Are you returning to zero as well?" Snake stopped him.
Big Boss looked over his shoulder without turning to Snake. "You have already destroyed me twice. This will be the third. The FOXDIE that we both have is eating us away… you are dying... and I should be de—" suddenly he began to convulse and he fell onto all fours, coughing blood.
Snake rushed to his father—no his brother—patting him gently on the back and looking into his eye.
"What's wrong?!"
"They've done it again!" he kept uttering.
"What?!"
Big Boss regained most of his breath, slowly trying to crawl past Snake. "I… they… they are still trying to get rid of us, even in death. We are the last remnant of an empire they wanted to not remember. The last evidence of the Cold War. They still try to bury us… and… and…" another tear streamed from his eye as he gazed past Snake.
Snake followed his gaze. It looked as if Big Boss was looking at his own grave.
"Do me a favor, Snake… take me to her."
Big Boss, shaking, raised his arm and pointed to the gravestones around his own. Snake saw that there was one gravestone, sitting next to Big Boss', with a dahlia at its base.
"Take me!" Big Boss wheezed.
Snake lifted the old soldier onto his feet, carrying him with one arm over his shoulder, and then helped him limp to the grave in question.
As they walked, Big Boss cried without weeping. And then, he let out a laugh.
"About… your FOXDIE."
"Yes?"
"It will not kill you."
"…really."
"The new FOXDIE is multiplying and preventing the Old FOXDIE from doing the same. The New FOXDIE is uprooting the old. The mutants are retreating."
"Does that mean the mutant strain won't cause an epidemic?"
"It will live as long as you do."
"…how long do I have?"
"…I'm sorry, what?" Big Boss seemed lost in thought from looking at the grave they were approaching.
"How long?"
"How long what?"
"How long am I gonna live?"
"Snake, everyone dies. You cannot run away from your fate. But… as long as you still have life… Snake, stop, I need to tell you this." Snake stopped them moving. "As long as you still have life, Snake… never stop living. Do things. Fight if you have to, but stay alive. It is the only life you have. Don't waste it!"
Then they approached the grave Big Boss so wanted to see.
"I never thought of you as a son, Snake. But I've always respected you as a soldier. I see that now… and you are truly a man as well, I admire you for that… with the life you have, Snake, maybe you won't make the same mistakes that I did… see, when I killed the Boss…" he inclined to the grave he so wanted to see. "…I had become as one dead…. I tried to change the world in her image, not knowing that my own vision would stamp out hers in a fit of anger to my government, and a self-justifying need to satiate my greed, would interfere. But… after seeing you do what was right, I learned something… it's not about changing the world… No… it's about leaving the world as it is. It's about respecting others… and… and remembering to love even the weakest of people… Isn't that what you fought for?"
Big Boss looked at him long. Snake still could not believe that Big Boss was still alive. They were identical and felt the same way.
"I understand the meaning to your courage… or the truth of it. Because of this… I can see how weak I am in comparison to you. And now… I am near death… but Boss…"
Big Boss lightly pushed Snake so that he could stand by himself.
"…Boss… I see the error of my ways… and I'm sorry."
Big Boss' right hand started to shake. The FOXDIE was starting to work harder at taking the life out of him, yet Big Boss still moved. His hand slowly raised, shaking, sometimes lowering rapidly and coming back up, until he held it in a salute. At once, he was as still as stone. A model soldier, perfect from experience.
Then the FOXDIE struck back. Big Boss fell to his knees again.
Snake caught him at the end, lowering him to his hands.
"Snake… you… have a new lease on life." Big Boss began crawling to the grave.
"Yes."
"You are a freed FOX."
"I know."
"Snake…" Big Boss sat against the gravestone of his own former master, the zero from which he came out of. "Live this world as a new man... not as a snake… heh…" he looked down on the grave. "Boss… your battlefield is clean… this garden of yours is anew… I am here, for you only need one Snake. This world would be better off without snakes…"
Big Boss reached into his coat, pulling out a fresh Cuban cigar. He dropped it, however. Snake immediately took it and put it in his lips, quickly lighting it and taking a puff. Damn, these were good.
Then Snake put it in Big Boss' lips, and he managed to take one puff. He coughed a bit, but, not much.
There was peace once again, between the two Snakes. Once commander and rookie, now equal soldiers, they were at peace.
Solid Snake lightly smiled.
Naked Snake smiled warmly. "This is good…
…isn't it?"
…
…
…
…
…
The cigar fell from his lips…
…
…
…
…
…