As Lara drifted to consciousness, she thought momentarily she had dreamt the crash's aftermath, and instead been the only survivor

The sun ran its magnificent bloom over the kingdom it nourished. Every plant and flower seemed to open, every leaf warmed to the touch, dripping with clear, clean water. The air's tepid humidity was soothing, and light flowed constantly down upon the world of verdant colour. Overhead, birds sniggered from their perchs, and that natural song made her temporarily fearful she had awoken to a very different future than the past she had shouldered.

What jarred her out of such thoughts was realizing she was being gently, even benevolently, observed.

By Snake.

He was seated, back to a massive tree trunk, one hand loosely holding the pistol she'd given him, one knee raised with his arm resting upon it. When he spoke, she could see his eyebrows shift with regard under the cloth of the bandanna.

"You sleep okay?"

Lara sat herself up on one elbow, rubbed her eyes. "About as well as can be expected. I think it was the exhaustion more than any of the accommodations." She pushed the waterproof sleeping mat off her, having been folded in it like a tortilla. In her subconscious, she stored the gentle snores of Otacon and their new companions nearby. In spite of their speech, the birds, and the everpresent running water from one side, it was quiet. Serene. She felt comforted for his presence.

"Have you been up this whole night?"

He shook his head. "I was gathering firewood in case we camp here another night when I chased off a wild cat. After that I got about an hour."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Nothing too big. Once it realized it was outnumbered, it wasn't going to chance the fight. She wandered off." He set the pistol down, perhaps because now there was another conscious person about, on a small square of cloth next to him, with a canteen of water for company. He took a pull from the canteen, and as she approached him, offered it to her.

She took a drink, then laughed. "Only you could stare down a leopard."

"Pfft. Maybe as big as a dog. I don't think panthers are in this sort of—"

Lara sat down next to him, and replied, "Oh, yes, they are. Maybe not terribly large ones, but leopards none the less."

The night previous came back to her as bits of tired conversation as she already began to nod off. The consensus had been to make a trip to the plane once dawn crested the mountains, and they had shaken off the fatigue of the accident. There had been little talk of this Metal Gear after the comment about La Paz Caminante, and Snake did not want to cast conjecture where there wasn't evidence to support any of it, especially with answers arriving soon enough. After that had followed some concern about the state of the rebellion, and neither of them had much more information regardless, but it could wait, with both relief workers offering to take them to a rebellion camp the following afternoon. The rest of the night, however brief, had been a short examination of each of them by Ellie and Vines, at their insistence.

Snake had been the least pleased by this development, tolerating the exam from Vines with some grousing, but no real resistance. "I haven't felt anything, and it's been hours," Snake had said.

"You'd be surprised," Vines said, feeling Snake's ribcage with two hands, "at what the human mind can block out. A gating mechanism for pain can shut out significant injury for as much as a day sometimes in the right conditions."

When each of them had seen minor first aid for a few odd cuts, Ellie had produced thin half-blankets made from a waterproof vinyl with thin cotton lining, and Vines providing one more. Divying up the bedding was easy enough; Snake and Ellie both volunteered to give up their share, and Ellie took any spare jackets and cloth oddends for a pillow and blanket.

During conversation around the fire, Lara had slipping close to sleep more than once, and after laying down, was surprised by the ease that it took her. She had no dreams she could recall, just the afterbirth of some emotional remnants they had left behind.

"Snake," she said, glancing at Otacon. He'd rolled over once, and she would be surprised if they got more than an hour or two more. "You know more about the governing around here than I do."

'Yeah, but your knowledge is more practical. I'll trade you. What do you want to know?"

"Do you think there's a chance they could manage it? South America, I mean."

"Maybe. Brazil doesn't have a massive army, but it's hard to believe that other countries wouldn't get dragged into the conflict. Bolivia's had European rulers for most of its history, and the classism between La Paz and Cochabamba is at a fever pitch. Mobilising, hell, militarising the rural poor-"

"Becomes as easy as giving them guns."

"Bingo." He looked around, as the branches swayed from a sudden flux of wind into their small strip of jungle. If it had been a road, they would have been seated on the shoulder, with the stream and its pebbled bed as the yellow line down the middle. "How dense is this jungle? Could it hide an army?"

"Absolutely, but terrain being what it is, plus the weather and climate? I can't imagine they could be more than just a band of marauders at best," Lara said.

"You'd be surprised what marauders can get done. Che Guevera took Chile with a handful of outcasts," Snake said. "Lara, how dangerous is it out here if you were trying to create an op center?"

"A what?"

"A central base for commands to be carried out from and most of the artillery work to take place."

"Unlikely, if electronics are involved. You'd need a real structure, or else any sort of computing would be trashed by the humidity and the storms. And construction would have to have real, actual equipment, with real contractors. These people are coca and bean farmers, not engineers. Rainstorms can get severe enough that living out here can be next to impossible. That's not true of all of Bolivia's outback, but this…"

Snake growled.

Lara asked, "Snake. Do you think this… Metal Gear is capable of ruining the region, politically? Of the country?"

"No."

"Really? Why?"

"Because I don't think we're dealing with a Metal Gear."