Disclaimer: Don't own anything you recognize.
By Scarbie(Scar_the_undertaker@hotmail.com)
*****
Snake and Otacon had just finished getting their small office furnished three days ago. They had nice desks, chairs with rollers, a top-of-the-line computer, broadband connection, a fax machine, and many other things. They were ready to rock.
"Well Snake," Otacon said while patting his computer tower, "I guess we're official now."
"Yeah, I guess so." Snake still couldn't believe he was doing this.
"I won't have to worry about Roy waking me up in the middle of the night, telling me I have to go up against a Metal Gear. I'm actively looking for them now." He rolled his eyes and smiled ruefully, as he went to take a seat at his computerless desk.
Snake turned to Otacon. "Now what do we do?"Otacon sat at his computer and started searching the internet for anything suspicious. "We wait."
So wait they did. For hours. When the phone rung the two men were startled. Otacon reached for the phone and grinned.
"I got it." He picked up the phone and said, "Hello, you've reached Philanthropy."
Snake watched Otacon's face go from excited delight to confusion. Snake's eyes narrowed.
"Hold on, please," Otacon said to the person on the other line.
"What's wrong," Snake whispered.
"He doesn't speak English," he whispered back, "he speaks Spanish." Other than English, Otacon only spoke Japanese.
"Oh." Snake reached out and grabbed the phone. Since he knew how to speak six languages, twelve if things like Pig Latin are counted, he was Philanthropy's international representative. Which considering his lack of social skills is a role totally incongruent with his personality.
"Hola," [Hello] Snake said.
"¿Quien es este?" [Who is this?] a man with a heavy accent replied.
"Este es Solid Snake," [This is Solid Snake] Snake said.
"Solid Snake?" The man asked, confused.
"Sí, Solid Snake," he said, getting irritated. "¿Como se llama usted?" [What's your name?]
"José. José Humanus," the man said.
"¿Cual es el problema, Señor Jimenez? [What is the problem, Mr. Jimenez?]"
"Mi apellido es Humanus, no es Jimenez," [My last name is Humanus, not Jimenez.] the man said.
"Lo siento," [I'm sorry] said Snake. "¿Cual es el problema, Señor Jimenez?"
"¡Vi un robot!" [I saw a robot!] Mr. Humanus exclaimed.
Snake moved the phone from his mouth and turned to Otacon. Covering the phone with his hand he said, "Otacon this is not good."
Otacon looked puzzled. Snake reached into one of the desk drawers and pulled out a writing tablet and a pen.
Snake put the phone back to his mouth. "¿Qué miró como? [What did it look like?]" The pen in his hand hovered over the paper.
The man took a deep breath apparently gathering his thoughts.
"¡Era grande--enorme! [It was big--enormous!]"
"Er--Bueno. [Er--okay]" Snake responded, wanting more details. Big and enormous was pretty much a given with Metal Gear.
"¿Tiene usted más información? [Do you have any more information?]" Hopefully it would be more useful than the first tidbit.
"Sí. El robot era rojo, azul, y blanco." [Yes. The robot was red, blue, and white.]
"They're getting pretty colorful these days," Snake thought with some distaste as he wrote down the information.
"¿Vio usted alguna arma?" [Did you see any weapons?]
"Sí, tenía un fusil." [Yes it had a gun.]
"¿Qué tiempo lo vio usted?" [What time did you see it?]
"Um--Vi lo en 3:30 esta tarde." [Um--I saw it at 3:30 this afternoon.]
Snake looked down at his watch. It was four now.
The man had something else to add. "¡Cambió en un camión!" [It changed to a truck!]
"¿¡Como!?" [What!?] Snake asked. He couldn't have heard that right.
"Dije, '¡Cambió en un camión!'" [I said 'it turned into a truck!']
"Shit," Snake thought, "It's convertible. What if it's amphibious too! We need to hurry up and take this thing out!"
Snake quickly took down this new information. Otacon was watching him.
"We must really have something," Otacon thought. He hadn't seen Snake that animated before.
"¿Dónde estaba usted cuando usted vio el robot?" [Where were you when you saw the robot?]
"Estuve en la--" [I was in--] The phone went dead.
"Hola. Hola. ¡Hola, Señor Jime--uh Humanus!" Snake said.
When he accepted the fact that noone was on the other line Snake hung up the phone. The base to the phone was on Otacon's desk.
"What's wrong," Otacon asked.
"We got disconnected." He dialed *69 so he could talk back to Mr. Humanus.
The phone rung four times before someone picked up.
"Hola, Señor Humanus." Snake said.
"Who?" A raspy, unfamiliar voice asked.
Snake's eyebrows furrowed. "Who the hell is this?"
"You're talking to a real-estate deprived individual at the Ama-Ko station on the corner of 38th and Madison."
"Huh?" Snake was confused.
The bum hung up on him.
Snake turned to Otacon and said, "I didn't even get to speak to the guy."
Otacon frowned. "So what's our next move?"
"Here's the information that he gave me before we got cut off." Snake tore off the sheet of paper from the tablet and handed it to Otacon.
Otacon eyes rapidly went over the paper. When he was done he said, "That bastard."
Snake wasn't used to hearing that kind of language coming from his friend's mouth.
"What?"
"Red, blue, and white. Has a gun. Turns into a truck--"
"Yeah, it sounds pretty dangerous."
"No, Snake." Otacon shook his head. "That's Optimus Prime."
The term 'Optimus Prime' wasn't ringing any bells with Snake.
"What the hell is 'Optimus Prime'?" Snake asked.
Otacon looked at Snake almost pityingly. Then again Snake probably didn't have much time to watch TV as a child. "He's a character on a show called Transformers. You've been had, man."
Snake sighed. "Is this one of your animes?"
Otacon rolled his eyes at Snake's tone. "Does it matter? A good show is a good show."
"So you think some punk-ass kid made the prank call?" Snake was angry.
Otacon thought for a moment. "No. How would they have gotten our number anyway? It's not like we're listed."
"True." Snake sat back down at his desk. Then an image popped into his mind. "Ocelot!" He clenched his teeth so hard that a muscle twitched along his jawline.
*****A man wearing a brown leather trench coat walked out of the the Amoco on the corner of 38th and Madison. He was carrying a bottle of ice tea. Affecting a Spanish accent was quite trying on the vocal cords. He walked to a white convertible that had bull horns on the front.
"I rather enjoyed that little chat with my 'brother'."
Liquid was in such a good mood, he gave the homeless man standing near him a dollar.
"Bless ya." The bum thanked the cowboy as he stepped into his 'host's' car.
A/N: Heh! Where the heck did this story idea come from? Well after doing the Colonel Campell story I was in the prank call frame of mind. And what better victim of a prank call is Snake! The José Humanus thing came from prank calls that my father used to pull on me. "Hola, dis is José. José Humanus."
If you see any grammar or spelling mistakes in the Spanish (or in the English), please email me or inform me in a review and I'll change them ASAP.
10/25/02: Big thanks to Pablosky who brought some Spanish mistakes to my attention.
6/16/03: Thanks to 'someone' for pointing out some other Spanish mistakes. Also I decided to make the Transformers being anime or cartoon more ambiguous because, I get different answers from different people. *Shrugs*