Brief Comment: Computer and its workings seem to be in order. Updates on schedule.

Thanks, as always, to those who keep coming back.

Lara set out the process before Snake and Ellie left, beginning by arranging a tent and its accoutrements near a tiny crest of an escarpment that could have been a cavern were it slightly more concave, with fronds laid at its peak and ferns at its base, while the others had likewise begun similar tasks of necessity. Snake was systematically checking the firearms for alteration, sitting crooked-kneed against a tree trunk, Otacon taking a more thorough stock of supplies, and Ellie & Vines sifting through their packs, all while they exchanged things they thought the other would need in the time apart.

She enjoyed listening to the mild chatter between Snake and Ellie, surprised somewhat by his candidness and her interest.

There was another, more immature feeling she noted in herself by their exchange that she chose not to acknowledge.

"How soon are you three planning to go back?" She said, checking a small, grungy device with yellow trim and touchscreen.

"As soon as we're finished, which I was hoping would be within a day or two." Snake had mercifully taken a brief reprieve from smoking. He'd broken apart one of the rifles and lain their innards, a series of springs and metal shafts and connecting viscera, on a handkerchief he'd borrowed from Ellie. He was checking every item individually, methodically, to the point of being near-obsessive save for the detached, quiet patience he was going about it.

"It's a shame you guys had to come in like this. Bolivia's a really beautiful country. There's a lot to see here, a lot of good people, rich culture, excellent food. Have you ever been before?"

"No, I've never left the States," Snake said.

"It's sort of comforting seeing another American, to be honest. There's a lot of multiculturalism in Bolivia, but aside from the goddamn tourists, not many from the States. Now, Brazil? There's plenty of Americans out there. You should come back."

"Maybe I will, once this business is done."

"I imagine she's been here before. She seems..."

"At ease with the place?" Snake nodded. "Seems that way."

"I was going to say preoccupied, sometimes."

"Maybe."

"Are you two...?" Ellie said.

"Huh?" Snake took his eyes from the rifle and looked to Ellie. Once the understanding brushed across his face, he smirked, shook his head, and went back to work. "No. We're not."

"I see, then. If you two aren't together, do you think she's a-"

"With that body? Not a chance."

Lara bit her lip, smiling.

"Do you guys base yourselves out of a town, or just that outpost?" Snake said.

"We check in with the ICRA every six months for a nice hotel and some dry clothes," Ellie said, "but most of the time, we're out here for a long time. Frankly it's a little hard relating to the other women, so it can be nice to get to be around other relief workers. There's more of a western vibe to them. It's a nice change of pace."

"Sure. How many relief workers are there in the area? Just you two?" Snake had finished one assault rifle and moved onto one of the pistols they'd brought back, which was shorter work and fewer parts.

"Yeah, it's pretty much us. There's another British guy who helps run the outpost, which is really half clinic and half import shop, but he's not with us, he's just a migrant worker."

"Have the Boys of El Che been working out here long? You treat any of them?"

At this, Vines seemed to be remarkably grim, but Ellie paid no mind. "Yes and no, in that order. The Boys seem to cause a lot of noise, but we've never really encountered any of them. It's strange."

Snake seemed only to growl.

There was a brief pause as Vines averted Ellie's attention as they refilled her canteen with his, then: "Are you really just her hired gun?" Ellie jerked a thumb over her shoulder to Lara. For her part, Lara ignored the comment, as if she hadn't heard. The distance between them would help the illusion.

"Hired gun? I think she holds hers fine, actually. I'm only here to help make sure everybody makes it out in one piece." He glanced at his surroundings. "Hell, I'm not even sure why we're here. Photography or artifacts or something. Too much for my small mind, anyway." And at this, even Vines seemed amused. Maybe more than Ellie.

"She's got quite the reputation, you know."

"That right."

"Fuck yes. Survived things no one else could have. Orphaned twice, if you can imagine it."

Snake locked a slide into a frame, stared down the sights. "I can't."

"Yeah, it's crazy. Shipwreck, planewreck, cave-ins, everything. You'd think she went looking for death. You ever wonder about-"

"I don't."

"Yeah, I suppose not." Ellie cast a glance at Lara, brushing a blonde strand out of her face. "She's not as bloodthirsty as I would have judged, from the tabloids."

"I try not to think about how to judge other people." Snake spoke this in a flat deadpan between casual examinations of metal and steel coils, and Lara wondered how Ellie would take it. Her silence seemed like enough of an answer, and Lara felt a small pride grow warmer.

"So how are you guys planning to get back?" Ellie said, after the moment had passed.

"Well, our plane's shot to hell, figuratively or literally, so I'm not sure. Is there a way inland from here? To civilisation?"

"Yeah, there's a bus that comes-"

Snake just started laughing. Ellie looked confused.

Arrangements after that were brief in their proceedings. Lara finished nailing stakes into the ground, the tent like an angular Quonset hut with a single dwarf door buttoned closed. She thought it would be novel to sleep in a bed again. The others wrapped up their tasks in short order, Snake first and Vines and Ellie last. While the ICRA members kept their own quick council, they did likewise, agreeing (however reluctant on Snake's part) that Vines would need a pistol.

It was then that Snake attempted to arm Otacon.

He held out a pistol and two clips of ammunition, safety-on and unloaded. Lara didn't need to predict where the conversation was headed.

"In case you need to. Alright?" Snake said, hand outstretched with the pistol in one palm.

"No. I can't, I won't. There's got to be a better way."

"And I'm telling you there might not be. If you need to defend yourself, then it'll come down to who has a gun and who doesn't."

"Yeah? Does that theory work with missiles, too? With nukes?"

"Goddamn it, that's not what I'm saying-"

"Snake, please, I can't shoot someone, I can barely see clearly if the air's humid-"

"Lara, help me out, would you?"

She sighed.

"Hal," she began. "If you don't want to, you shouldn't."

"Thank you," Otacon said.

"Are you both out of your damn minds?" Snake had to correct himself. His volume was raising higher than he was intending. "If those people come back-"

"As a woman who uses two pistols on a basis more frequent than she'd like, I trust you, I most certainly am not. If those sort come back they're going to find me in a very unsavoury mood. Aren't we here to extend a sort of peace-by-proxy?"

Snake sighed. Seemed to think this over. "Fine, yeah." He still held it to Otacon. "Then don't use it. Just... keep it. Alright? Just give it to whats-his-face and then you can grab it if you change your mind."

Otacon shook his head. "Alright, alright. Jeez." Then, when Snake turned to leave: "Hey. Thanks. For..." He held the gun, looking uncomfortable, and shrugged. "You know?"

"Yeah," Snake said. "I know." Then, as he walked away, he mumbled "Goddamn it. Had to take his side."

Before Snake could get far, Lara trotted behind him. "Hey."

"Yeah?"

"If something happens, I'll make sure he's alright. He seems to be better now." Lara said.

"I noticed. And thanks." Snake jerked his chin at the direction of the others. "You think you can trust him?"

"Vines? Well, I'm not terribly convinced we have a choice, but for what it's worth, I believe he'll be more than suitable. It's not as if he exactly hid he used to be former military, nor did he take up arms during the firefight. And anyway, if we end up in another shootout, a third gun would make a big difference, but I know you should get going."

"Yeah. I'll try not to be long. Used to hike in the forest. This shouldn't be that much different."

"Typical tourist."

"Funny." Then, as he turned to go: "Be on your toes, okay?"

"You too. Hurry back, I'm starting to like the smell of burning tobacco."

Snake's footfalls on the grassy forest floor, trampling underfoot with an odd mixture of disregard and deliberate care for his surroundings, reminded her again of his namesake, or rather the animalistic nature of the codenames she had read about. She recalled one of them, Octopus, as being particularly apt, but not to the extent that Snake could move in clear view of her yet otherwise make no meaningful disturbance of the world around him. She watched him yet did not hear him, nor feel him, the way she felt the others behind her betwixt a sixth sense and a mental umbillicus. It was the first point she'd noticed that if there was an on-switch to whatever abilities he'd possessed, they most certainly were being put to use.

Lara found herself drifting through her own thoughts of it. Of the nature of codenames, of him, and of that world. She briefly even recalled that strange and distant opposition by the code of Ocelot, and thought it as silly as it was formidable. Not unlike Snake.

Ellie and Snake had their things ready to go, Snake strapped with an assault carbine around his chest, clip loaded, safety off. He'd stocked himself with ammunition and returned Lara's pistol to her, for which she was very grateful. Another replacement for Snake sat in a hip holster, a 1911 standard. Ellie's pack was thick with supplies, canvass bloated with lumpy shapes.

"He won't be gone more than a few hours, presuming he doesn't get lost," Ellie said. Snake looked at her, mouth turned downward somewhere in the neighborhood of disdain. "Malcolm, you gonna be okay out here? Any idea when you're on your way in? There's the supply plane coming in Tuesday I could use your hand with."

"I imagine I'll suffer through it," Vines said. "I'll be back before then, no doubt."

"Lara, you got what you need?" Snake had a cigarette planted in one corner of his mouth, hands resting on the rifle.

"I have two strapping young men for company," she said. "And if that's not enough-" Lara patted the dual holsters on either hip. "If we need you, we'll yell really loud. Promise."

"If the radios hadn't been trashed, you wouldn't have to," Snake murmured. He shook his head. "No point worrying about it now. Back soon."

Lara felt a maddening urge to hug him. It wasn't their situation or even the vague disquieting affection for him that restrained her: Snake did not look like a man who enjoyed the goodbye hug.

Instead, she watched him go in silence.

The interlude was longer than Lara cared for. She did not care waiting for the sky to well up and dowse them in more rain, but the rain would come if they waited for it or not. For the time being, with the light fading in mid-day, they sat about in a small circle, busying themselves with other points of interest. Otacon was burying himself in between tapping on the wearable, fingers dancing around their opposite forearm, touch-screen tablet laid at an angle to act as a monitor. Vines contented himself with rolling cigarettes in advance from a pouch of tobacco and a sheaf of papers. Lara was going over another screen Otacon had given her to examine a topographical map of the area. She was doing her best to commit it to memory and finding it next to impossible; topography photos were the worst.

"So," Vines said. "why are you here?"

"Because." Otacon said. He clearly did not appreciate Vines rather dispirited interrogation technique.

Vines licked a strip of adhesive gum. "We're not in primary, Hal. Really. I am on the payroll, aren't I? Shouldn't I get to find out?"

Lara sighed. "Please, let's not do this again. Good lord, you're worse than S-"

Vines stared at her.

"Worse than somebody I know."

"You were going to say Saladdin."

Lara let out a laugh so involuntarily that she felt its distinctly quavery sound wildly unpleasant. "I most certainly was not. But yes, you are worse than him. At least he has some tact." She bit her lip. "We're here to stop something in the area. That's all. If anybody's on anybody's payroll, you're on theirs. Not mind. So I'd appreciate if you showed my friends some respect, yes?"

"I will show respect when I feel its damn well returned. You've been stringing the both of us along, and I agreed regardless to come on your little errand, so I think a few questions aren't exactly breaching ethics, alright?" A hiss of air came from either of his nostrils, and he shut his eyes. "Please. I want to help if I can, really, because I can't imagine you're a lot of savages. Especially not you, Miss High Society."

"Excuse you."

"Right. But if you want my help, I need to know what I'm doing."

Otacon and Lara exchanged looks, and she realised she was getting much better at talking without talking.

Lara stood. She went to the cache of materials and supplies they'd organized closer to the tents, and when she returned she gave to Vines an assault carbine and two clips of ammunition.

"We trust you." Then, following this. "We have to."

Vines looked at the gun, at her, then back at the gun. He did nothing for a long while. Then he picked it from her hand, barrel-first, and examined its ejection port, clip, and so forth.

"Thank you," Vines said. He was examining the currency she'd provided him, and the thought made her ill-at-ease. "So you're here to help The Boys?"

Otacon gaped at him. "Help...?! No! We're here to stop them!"

"Wait, you mean...? I don't get it. You're here with a bunch of guns and that man, I just thought..."

"No, absolutely not," Otacon said.

"Gents, we're going in circles," Lara said. "Mister Vines, do you really want to know?"

Vines thought for a long time. "Yes, I believe I do."

Otacon picked up the thread of conversation. "We have reason to believe that Bolivia is housing a new type of weapon. Something that's never seen mass production before, but it's been around for a long time. The Boys of El Che are developing it, or helping someone who is. We're here to put an end to all that. We were planning on this being a lot quieter before we were shot down."

"So you are with the government?" Vines said.

Lara: "Bolivia's?"

Vines: "No, the States."

Otacon: "No to both anyway. We're just... activists, I guess. We're not entirely sure why we're here except that thing can't see the light of day."

"Activists? There has to be more to it than that. Why you three? Is there even anyone else?"

"We're just a group of people who have some experience with it," Otacon said. "Well, except for Lara."

Vines looked to her. "Then why are you here?"

"Because I thought it sounded like an interesting way to spend a vacation." She smiled at him and tried to hold her patience.

"And Saladdin? Why is he here?"

"Why do you keep calling him that?

Vines hesitated, looking out into the jungle. The vegetation was a brilliance of engineering, and she understood the desire to peer at its architecture for some sort of guidance, so she simply let him work it out on his own. "I used to be in the Australian Defense Force. In the early aughts, I mean. I was nineteen. I was stationed out of an allied base during a joint operation with a bunch of Americans, some Canadians. Out there, among the kurds and the rebels and the rest, there's rumours of a man like him, his body riddled with scars."

"Like him? What do you mean?"

"A man with a gun who goes from country to country, helping set up revolutionaries, fan the flames of whatever war is nearby. It's why I thought you were with The Boys." He sighed. "A lot of the people we help are people who're hurt by them. Farmers who don't want to side with their cause, or won't provide shelter, resources. People who're injured in whatever operation they have going on out in the jungle. And they've been growing. Over the past year, their numbers seem to have tripled. How they're doing anything out here is beyond me, but all we're doing is keeping the status quo. Their status quo."

"I can't imagine what that's like," Otacon said.

"I can tell you," Vines said. "Imagine cleaning up broken glass with your hands, and as soon as the floor's clear, someone throws a brick through another window." Vines pulled a cigarette from the thirty-odd pile he'd created, and lit it, inhaling luxuriantly. It seemed much more a rite with Vines than Snake's habit, almost reverent. His movements were languid, his eyes florid. "What else did you want to know?"

"You seem to be conviced of this man. Why him? Why... Plissken?"

"Because I've seen him."

"In person?"

"No, in photos, and in stories. People talk. Villages tell the same stories they've told for hundreds of years, so stories only a few decades old are pretty recent news as far as campfire anecdotes go. The kurds are especially taken with him." Vines sighed out a length of ethereal cancer. "You know, it's strange. When I was there, they talked about him in the present tense. Like he never left. If I hadn't seen a photograph, I'd have sworn they were just legends. There's a lot of that sort of business out there, and when you don't have books or television, you're fairly willing to entertain any sort of fancy to keep it together. It wasn't that big of a jump to figure a man like that would incite, or side with, people like the Boys, similarities to Guevara not withstanding."

Lara thought of Snake having infiltrated Iraq and said nothing.

"You called him Saladdin." Otacon said. "Why?"

Vines shrugged. "It's what they called him. Are either of you familiar?"

Lara nodded, and said she'd explain to Otacon later, but Vines said there was no need.

"Saladdin was a great man. A conqueror, maybe, but a great man. He gave each person under his rule a fair hand, especially his prisoners. Fine damn lodgings, offered succor, food, prayer mats, everything except a hi-def flatscreen. If he took a land, he treated them well. Everything was in purpose of the greater good, but he never compromised his faith. To be called that seems like a fairly high honour."

"You sound like you admire him," Lara said.

"Don't confuse respect with admiration. A killer is a killer is a killer."

They said nothing.

Again, Lara thought of Snake.

"Is that why you left the military?" Otacon asked.

"Absolutely. It wasn't for me. I thought maybe I was being presumptuous, but... There's not a heaps of room for critical thought in it, right? First chance I got, went to Uni, ended up with the ICRA. Married a girl in the States, never looked back."

"You said you'd seen photos?" Otacon said.

"Sure. Shit, they're not exactly common, and the ones I did see are blurry, but they're out there. As keepsakes. I didn't take any with me, it's against the hadiths."

"The hadiths?" Lara said. "You mean you're religious?"

"A reformer, to a certain extent, but sure." He shrugged. "I haven't done the morning prayer in a long time, but I've got the fanclub badge and everything. God exists. It'd be naiive to think otherwise. That was another reason to leave the nasho. Muslims aren't liked anymore there than in the States. White or otherwise." Vines plucked the cherry of his cigarette from its lit end and flicked it away, stashing its remainder with the others. " Anyway, it's why I started calling him that. Plissken, I mean."

"I don't follow," Lara said.

"Because he looks just like him. Plissken, the man in the photos. They look exactly the same, save some scars and-"

"You mean-"

"What? Did I say something?" Vines look to the both of them. Lara looked pale. Otacon had his head downcast.

"It'd take more effort to explain it," Otacon removed his glasses, planted the ridge of his nose in between his middle and index fingers. "Trust me, it's not him. And if I were you, I would try to avoid the topic."

"Then who is he? Plissken?"

"Solid Snake. My name's Emmerich, not Danziger."

Vines looked to Lara. "So when you were going to say I sounded worse than-"

"Worse than Snake, yes. Not Saladdin." By this point, Lara was simply playing with the touchscreen, not studying it. She couldn't focus on it.

In Nastasha's account, Lara had recalled reading so much of it about Liquid, Snake's brother, and his obsession with their "father" Big Boss. How he'd said Big Boss had left his mark around the world. Lara did not care for the echoes of history to talk back to her, and someone else's history at that.

She thought of her mother, and suddenly wanted Snake very near by.

"So, wait," Otacon said. "If you thought we were here with the Boys, then why did you ally yourself with us? "

"Because I thought..." Vines blew air out of either of his cheeks in a long exhalation. He looked sheepish, less like the angry twenty-something he'd been projecting thus far. If anything, he looked closer to Otacon. "I thought maybe I could stop you. If Americans and British were getting involved, I thought maybe Bolivia was going to get a lot hotter."

"It is, if we can't stop it," Lara said. "The Boys are planning to use this superweapon to try and unite all of South America into one country."

Vines laughed. "That's impossible."

"It's really not. If they can get it operational, and capable, they can take the rest of the continent if they can organise the manpower," Otacon said.

"If this... thing is that powerful, that would mean it would have to be..."

Horror crossed Vines face like the plague.

"Yes," Lara said. "It's nuclear."