Disclaimer: I don't own Metal Gear Solid (or anything Metal Gear for that matter,) and I don't own Max Steel. My profit from this is an exact figure of zero dollars.

Metal Gears, Nanoprobes, and a Word from our Sponsor

Chapter VIII

by Alhazred

madarab20@hotmail.com

http://www.rockettownonline.com/~alhazred

Josh was fully awake in an instant when some of the early morning's events came back to him. His hand slapped against his neck without conscious thought, and he was more then a little relieved to see he wasn't bleeding profusely or, an absurd idea but worse, wanting someone else to have that wound for his own benefit.

And he had such a crick in the back from falling asleep sitting at the table.

"Freak took a chunk outta you," Snake chuckled. "Maybe this nanoprobe thing isn't bad after all. I wouldn't mind losing that much blood and walking away like nothing."

"You pay for it later," Josh smiled grimly, flipping the button on his watch to expand the Biolink and check his T-Juice levels. "I spend more quality time with the generator then I did with my last girlfriend. I miss the big generator."

"Most people would say 'I miss my girlfriend,'" Snake grinned. "But I shouldn't talk. Mine are always trying to kill me. Otacon's tried to kill me."

"Naomi was not your girlfriend, Snake," the aforementioned Otacon walked into the room. The edge of his lips curled into a grin. "Although, she was pretty… but not as pretty as Wolf..."

"Hey, she wanted me to strip search her." He defended himself. Otacon raised an eyebrow at him. "This was before we met."

"So, Snake," Otacon pushed his glasses up. "We, um… killed the Wisemen's Committee."

"Really?" Snake blinked. "Finally pulled the trigger on something?"

Otacon rolled his eyes, almost saying 'as if.' "Well, no, it was a computer program. Kinda like GW, and we nuked it with E.E.'s virus."

"Ouch," Snake said. Then he thought about it. And he thought about it some more. And it became perfectly obvious what Dread had wanted Berto and Otacon for in the first place. "You what?"

"I didn't know what we were doing!" Otacon raised his arms and near-freaked out, anything but eager to be reminded of it. "They were gonna kill us! The idiots kept a real nuclear weapon on the island and the stupid AI tried setting it off!"

"Oh," Snake blinked. "Well, that woulda sucked."

Josh blinked, "I don't get it. What does it matter?"

"That stupid AI ran the country, to put it simply," Otacon thought aloud. "Now that it's gone, there's a power vacuum. And I'd bet money our friends the Peanut Gallery filled the space in as soon as that thing went down."

Thinking of the early morning's events, Josh decided to get more information. "So what's the S3?"

Deadpanning, Snake rolled his eyes. "Oh, that."

"Not something Snake is particularly proud of," Otacon added, knowing Snake would be unresponsive. He started mocking Ocelot, voice as well as body language. "The S3 is training exercise designed to produce soldiers on par with Solid Snake."

"Don't remind me," Snake grumbled. "Actually, it's simple. They stage a terrorist incident rigged to simulate Shadow Moses, except you don't know. And the terrorists don't know. But it all comes together like a neat little report, assuming the poor bastard being run through it survives."

Shoving his glasses up, Otacon continued. "The idea is, putting someone through a mock-up of Shadow Moses, in the real world with real goals and consequences, shapes said someone into Snake: skilled, quiet, quick and without hesitation. No offense, Snake."

But Snake merely shook his head. "None taken."

"That's what Ocelot said, anyway," Otacon went on. "We know the first test subject and… well, it worked. Perfectly. He can be that when he wants to, if he wants to. Just like Snake."

Josh stared at them for a second, noticing that Kat and Berto had entered and listened to the explanation from the doorframe. "That's sick."

"Yeah," Snake nodded. "But then, so was cloning the world's best soldier to do some twisted version of Captain America in the first place. Heh, like he said, 'we're born to die and we die to live.'"

Shooting everyone a questioning look, Otacon said, "speaking of which, John Dread-slash-Marco Nathanson, the who-what-why-where-how in-the-what now?"

"Down Otacon," Snake sat down himself. "Actually, if anyone understood a word of that, I'd like to know myself."

Josh simply slid back in his chair and growled. Kat took the cue and rolled her eyes. "Benevolent dictator type, he thinks he knows how to run the world better then everyone, that kinda thing."

"Great," Snake commented. "Another Solidus. And we handed him the capability."

"You seem kind of," Berto started, "blasé for someone asking about their long lost brother."

"Brother like hell," declared Snake. "Besides, I've been through this evil twin thing before. Twice. It doesn't surprise me anymore. It pisses me off and I want to put a bullet through his head because he's just as bad as Liquid and Solidus, yes, but it doesn't surprise me."

"I like that image," Josh said. "Well, now we know who's paying off Smiley, too."

"How'd he get Vamp?" Otacon scratched his head. "Ocelot I can understand, the AI said Ocelot betrayed them, but Vamp's just..."

"Probably has nothing left," Snake surmised. "You know, I don't get Ocelot, he would have to have a reason to switch camps."

Josh thought on that. "Dread's been at his nanotechnology again. I wonder if…"

He trailed off, not knowing how to finish, but Berto picked up on it. "How does Liquid Snake live in his arm? Maybe Dread told Ocelot he could get him out or something… he probably staged his whole attack on N-Tek so he could finally get to our research data while we freaked out about the generator."

"Okay, so, we've done what exactly," Kat jumped in, "we've given Dread and his loser friends control of the United States, and he used us to get some data on making more Snakes. God help us on that, question is, why?"

"I'll choose to ignore that," Snake crossed his arms, slightly insulted.

"Well, assuming he's not lying on being your brother-" Otacon began, but Snake cut him off.

"He's not."

Never able to understand how Snake could trust his gut feelings and on-the-battlefield truths so much, Otacon went on. "Maybe he's got some inferiority complex like Liquid. Except he wants to be you instead of kill you."

"That's disturbing," Snake blinked. Josh opened his mouth, but he changed his mind on saying anything. No, Dread wasn't foolish like that. The trouble he went through to get what he wanted… it wasn't for something trivial.

"Heh," Otacon wondered about it all. Finally, he decided he was sick of being serious for the moment. "Not half as disturbing as what I found on the Internet last week."

Josh could recall a few occasions when Berto had said the same thing. "I'm afraid to ask."

"So am I," Snake narrowed his eyes at his partner.

Kat often found amusement in not backing down when others became worries. "Bring it."

"Remember fanfiction.org, Snake?" Otacon smiled the smile people wore when they were too afraid to say 'don't kill the messenger.'

Cringing at the very name, Berto said, "bane of the web..."

"It has a section for Nastasha's book now," finished Otacon.

"Oh God," Snake's head thudded to the table while Josh, wisely, kept his mouth shut and didn't bring the information into his Internet-ignorant brain any faster then needed.

Growing glum, Otacon added, "and the first story posted involves you, me and hardcore yaoi."

"I do not need that image," Berto whined, his face falling into his hands. Josh decided to be happy that he had no idea what they were talking about, but Kat was starting to feel like she was approaching a car wreck.

"You know what, I change my mind," Snake banged his head again. "Let someone censor digital information."

"And you were the uke."

In the next instant, Otacon had succeeded in getting Snake out of his chair faster then if he'd pointed a gun at his face. "You read it?!"

And Otacon also wondered why he'd been stupid enough to bring this up. "Well... um... it was so... there..."

"Oh that's a good excuse," Snake glared at him.

Nudging Kat with his elbow, Berto motioned toward his room and they both discreetly walked off.

"Otacon, how could you," Snake demanded. "That crap is bad enough as it is without you reading it! I'll assume it's not because you wish it wasn't fiction."

"It most certainly is not!" the engineer huffed, crossing his arms.

But Snake wanted more then to chew him out, he wanted one, simple, solitary thing; revenge. "Oh, I forgot, I'm not related to you or an armed terrorist, I guess I couldn't turn you on if I tried. Not that I want to try."

"That is a low blow," he jabbed a finger at him. Josh, meanwhile, kept his mouth shut and just turned to one or the other as they talked.

"Normal women, Otacon, you need normal women. Or normal men, should I say?"

Otacon gabbed a handful of pens from his pocket and hurled them at Snake's head, hoping one might poke his eyes out. Snake simply tilted his head to the side and let them go by. "I'm not the one who had the hots for Roy Campbell's daughter, or that singer chick you told me about!"

"At least Meryl wasn't-" Snake started to say. He stopped when the voices of the two who had so recently left floated into the room.

"There is no way the author that wrote this has ever had sex," Kat's voice laughed.

"They probably think so," Berto's voice was followed by the click of a mouse. "Hey, look, it's illustrated."

"That position is impossible!" Kat started laughing.

Following her lead, Berto chuckled, "I wouldn't know, I've never seen a gay couple in bed..."

Dashing around the table, Snake and Otacon skidded to a stop in front of Berto's room, but Snake immediately wished he hadn't; his monitors, and the image displayed on one of them, were easily visible from the doorway.

"Jesus Christ!" Snake shielded his eyes. "Turn it off, for crying out loud, turn it off!"

Otacon hadn't actually seen that particular picture, and he turned a bright shade of red at the sight. The artwork was very... flattering.

"I think I'll do that," Berto nodded, closing the window without actually looking back to it. "That's one Temporary Internet File that's getting deleted..."

Madly shaking his head and waving his hands in front of his face in a vain attempt to get the image out of his head, Snake said, "Now that I won't sleep for a week, can we get something to eat? Please?"

"Works for me," Kat answered. "So. Who's up for pizza?"

Snake and Otacon let out a resounding "Yes!"

They promptly left Berto's room, intent on claming the phone, wherever it was. It hadn't yet occurred to them that neither had any idea what the phone number to the nearest pizza parlor was. Or Snake, perhaps, didn't care.

Shoving off from her position leaning against the wall, which had provided an exemplary view of Berto's monitors, Kat gave his back a nudge with her elbow. "Usual for ya, Berto?"

He drew in a sharp breath, his hand hitting the desk and pushing on it so hard the wood creaked. For a moment, he didn't say anything, and he didn't see the questioning look Kat threw in his direction.

"Berto?"

"Uh, no," he finally said, "no, nothing for me. I'm... gonna go grab a shower."

He stood in short order and quickly walked away, obviously realizing that he'd tipped her off to whatever was wrong. He could feel the frown on her face.

Josh, meanwhile, was still absent and just hanging up the phone when Otacon and Snake came looking for it. "Phone, Kid. Time for food."

Josh looked almost... disturbed. "Eh, you guys get something, I need to go drop in on Dad, blatantly unannounced."

Kat walked out just in time to hear that and raised an eyebrow. Unannounced? Who was he talking to on the phone, then? Josh had as much skill at hiding bad vibes as Berto had a fashion sense. Has everyone in the place besides me gone nuts?

"I want Chinese!" Otacon yelled.

"Otacon, I'm gonna hit you. Gimmie that phone!" Snake chased him around the table; no small feat considering half of it was a booth.

What am I saying? Everyone else has always been insane...

Josh was out the door first, and Berto left soon after they could hear the Helifoil taking off, a change of clothes over his shoulder.

Kat's curiosity got the better of her.

---

Halfway to his destination, Josh became unsure of himself. Three-quarters of the way, he regained his resolve.

In front of the door, he lost it again.

Just inside the door, he decided it didn't matter how he felt, he was going to get his answers no matter what.

"Josh?" His father stared at him, confused. He usually called first, after all. "What's up?"

Josh didn't give him an answer, he gave Jeff his own question. The look on his face and the edge in his voice conveyed that quite well. "Marco Nathanson."

"What about him?" Jeff blinked, tossing the paperwork in his hand to the side of his desk and lacing his fingers together, obviously realizing that he wasn't going to like this.

"You knew."

Josh was, if anything else, very eager to get to the point. Jefferson, on the other hand, nearly had a heart attack when he realized just what Josh was talking about. "What?"

"Don't bullshit me Dad," Josh shot back, his hand unclenching from the fist he hadn't realized he was making. "Just... don't..."

Suddenly wishing he'd never gotten out of bed this morning, Jeff decided he certainly didn't even need to ask what Josh was talking about anymore. But he didn't have a very good answer, either. "He's dead... it just... seemed like a good idea to forget about it."

"Yeah?" Josh snorted. "I'll give you one guess whose demise has been greatly exaggerated."

"No," said Jeff, flat-out in denial. He absolutely refused to believe that Dread was alive, not after everything they'd been through.

"Berto still records my Biolink, I'll go back and get the video if you want."

Jefferson scowled and fell into his chair. "I really shouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning... so who told you, he told you? Bastard's mouth just gets bigger."

"Well it certainly wasn't coming out of Smiley's big mouth," Josh glared at him. His feelings were so mixed on the matter he couldn't be calm and he couldn't seethe about it. He could just think back to those mission records Jim McGrath had kept, how he'd talked about his work and his friends. "He was like a brother to you both! How can you not-"

"Like I need you to tell me that!" Jeff didn't let him finish, going into full parental mode. "Get that damned idea that I was born yesterday out of your head! I lived that! You think I didn't feel the knife in my back the first time I saw 'John Dread?'"

"I..." Josh started, suddenly at a loss for words. It occurred to him that he'd been yelling at his father for the wrong reasons... like Jeff had said, that was part of his life, after all. But it just made him loath Dread even more, that he betrayed his fathers like that... "He was holding me Dad... he showed me... in his arms..."

Josh flopped into the chair in front of Jeff's desk, and Jeff's blood pressure came down in tandem with Josh's temper. "I remember that... heh... hell, she took another picture of what he looked like after he volunteered to watch you while they went out."

"Dad, please," Josh's face fell into his hands, "this is disturbing enough as it is."

"You gave him a black eye."

"Tell me more!" Josh perked up.

"And his hair was white, but he wouldn't say what you threw at him." Jeff almost smiled, the old memories conflicting with the recent past so much it was maddening. "Of course, I had the job after that and you threw a wrench at me."

"A wrench?" Josh blinked.

Rolling his eyes, Jeff added, "sometimes I wonder just how long you've had those damn probes."

"Uh... Dad," Josh looked at the floor, then at the ceiling. "There's... another reason I came by."

"Uh oh," Jeff went stiff, expecting something horrid and mentally scarring. "What?"

"Well," Josh drawled, suddenly afraid for his life. "It... kinda violates every shred of ethics we have... and I don't want to, I really don't, but I swear there's no other way."

Jeff went total deadpan. "Josh. Spit it out."

So he did.

Outside the office, Jefferson's secretary was going about her business, totally unflustered by the previous shouting. It was normal, after all.

She was, however, startled into falling out of her chair when Jeff's voice raised to humanly impossible heights with a resounding "WHAT!"

---

If someone had told Berto he would intentionally put himself through the trauma of showering in a public locker room used by even more jocks then the one in high school, he would've laughed. The tiny shower built into the van was small, but not so small that he minded.

At the moment, however, he was supremely grateful that the DOX had such facilities. And that peak usage time had been an hour ago, so there was no on around to stare at the patches of burns across his back and arms. Maybe getting home from being tortured at 6:00am and trying to sleep until the afternoon wasn't such a bad thing, really.

On that thought, he turned the water to its coldest, letting the icy temperature blissfully numb his back over for a minute before he shut it off and grabbed his towel.

Someone was leaning on the lockers not far from the bench that he'd set his clothes on, but that wasn't really a problem. He could throw his shirt on without turning his back, easy. First things first, though, he reached for his glasses sitting in the middle of his clothes.

And then he promptly had a heart attack as he clearly saw just who was nearby. "Kat?!"

She snorted and held back a laugh. "Nice towel, Martinez."

After turning an interesting shade of red and grabbing the towel at his waist as if gravity had doubled, Berto glared daggers back at her. "This is not a co-ed locker room!"

"I missed the part where that's my problem," she gave him a look that clearly meant 'we're having words whether you like it or not.' "By the way, nice scorches, too. I'd say 'burns' but you might hear that as something else and, frankly, I stopped looking long before your pants came off."

His conversational skills utterly overwhelmed by what she was talking about more then his current state of being, Berto stopped looking her in the eye. But he didn't turn his back to her.

"So. You were planning on saying anything," Kat's eyebrows went up. "When?"

"I thought... Otacon..."

"Oh, he told us Ocelot had his fun, alright," Kat waved her finger; for some reason, it made Berto think of Franz Kafka. "He neglected to tell us you're in serious need of the world's largest Band-Aid and I fully intend to kick his ass for that later."

He blinked at her.

"Look, Berto, I know," she paused, a sigh escaping her lips. Se really hated remembering the crap she'd done and suffered through years ago. "I know it hurts. And I don't mean the burns. But there is this thing called 'medical attention,' and in case you haven't noticed, you need it.'"

"You're kidding, right?" he exclaimed, suddenly terrified. "What do you expect me to say? 'Oh, thanks for seeing me Doctor, I was electrocuted on a slab of metal by a conspiracy theory?'"

Getting that evil grin she'd perfected over time, Kat answered, "No, I don't expect you to do that, I just except you to appreciate my first aid skills." She cracked her knuckles, remembering the... excellent job she'd done, taking care of him when he spread the flu around the jungle that time. "After you get dressed."

In point of fact, Berto wondered, for the first time, how he was going to do that with Kat staring at him.

---

"I can't believe they left us with nothing."

Snake glared at Otacon with his best impersonation of Death. "I can't believe you never bothered to tell me we're broke."

"Well then!" Otacon pointed at him, "I can't believe... um... I can't believe you're complaining since this is free!"

"Wanton Soup, Hal."

Pouting, Otacon longed for Chinese takeout, a feeling that Snake had just reminded him of. The DOX buffet, while free and located in a fairly spacious establishment, was comparable to a high school's cafeteria. After barely managing to swallow a bite of genuine hockey-puck cheeseburger, Otacon decided to switch topics. "So. What do we do?"

"Hell if I know," Snake rested his head in one hand, eyes wandering to the ceiling. "Hmm. We're pretty much screwed if we can't find Arsenal and get to it."

"I don't get it, why does he want that... thing? Soli- you're other brother was smart enough to realize it's a big joke," Otacon said.

"I doubt he wants it for a weapon." Snake answered. Solidus had been smart, yes, but Dread seemed to be thinking more for the long term. "He probably wants it so he can disappear and run the world while not existing."

"That's another thing I don't get, if he's seized control you'd think there'd already be orders sent to every possible government organization to come right here and arrest us," Otacon concluded. Snake wondered if any of his twins had ever thought of leading a normal life. "Unless they don't want a big... fuss... you know, the Patriots depend on secrecy to work. It doesn't matter who's running it, if people know, it can't work."

"Uh-oh. What are you suggesting?"

That mad look in his eye, Otacon almost stood up to demonstrate his plan in interpretive dance. "Think about it. You're registered to compete here for our cover, right? And Vamp's team is still here, which means he is. This stuff is broadcast over ESPN or something, so we get you on camera…"

"Wait a minute here…"

"…drop hints that you're So- that you're you, get the whole world paying attention and bam, we blow the whole thing open on national television!"

Resisting the urge to get up and bolt a plate of metal over Otacon's mouth, Snake motioned for him to lower his voices. "One problem, Yaoi Boy; we dunno where they are, we don't know where Arsenal Gear is, and this is besides the fact that I'm supposed to be dead and that's the only thing stopping a federal manhunt for our asses. No one cares about you."

"Gee, thanks," Otacon huffed, pushing his glasses up. "So we just find Arsenal. It can't be that hard, I mean, it must be close by if they were holed up on that island waiting for the AI to lose it."

"Riiiight, we can go looking with the submarine hanging off my left ear," Snake rubbed his temples. Otacon was right; they were close and it pissed him off to know end that they were, at the same time, so far away. "Actually, maybe it is that simple. I mean, the kid's got his tie to N-Tek, maybe we can ask nicely to borrow a submersible."

Shaking his head, Otacon shot the idea down. "No go. N-Tek doesn't have any submarines, I checked their inventories when I first hacked in. If they had any, the FBI must've impounded them."

"What a surprise," Snake answered. Everything came back to the Patriots… strange, how they'd shut N-Tek down and Josh had never heard of them. Why had they bothered? If N-Tek wasn't endangering them, wasn't it just setting up a sign that said "Patriots This Way?"

"Okay, that leaves Plan B," Snake rubbed his chin, "wring the answers out of Vamp."

Scratching his head, Otacon said, "well, we're not gonna do that on camera."

"No, I don't think we'll have to," Snake turned his head toward the nearest wall. They'd sat down near a bulletin board for DOX announcements and the like; one poster in particular caught his interest.

Otacon followed his eyes. "You can't be serious... you're serious."

"Find me a tux."

---

"So the DOX season is over with this weekend, ri- ow!"

"Sorry," Kat's face turned genuinely apologetic, though Berto couldn't see it with his back to her. He could, however, smell whatever it was she'd spread on the bandages before covering the scorches on his skin. "Christ, that was a big one... keep drinking."

"Yes Ma'am!" Berto took a gulp from one of the three bottles of water she'd forced on him for emphasis. "Do you have to describe my blisters?"

"Cut me some slack here," she jabbed her elbow into the small of his back, where the heat had barely reached. "I'm used to wrapping wounds, not covering them gently..."

Chuckling, Berto said, "yeah, 'gentle' was never your strong point, huh?"

"I'll choose to let that one slide," she smiled, tearing one more piece of tape from the roll and putting the bandage on him. "One more should do it, spot looks worse then the others."

"It feels worse," Berto whimpered, feeling the air sting that area of his back more now that the rest of it and his arms were covered. He sniffed at the scent of medicine in the air. "What is that stuff?"

"You don't want to know," she deadpanned. In truth, she didn't think he wanted to know that she was using a butter knife to spread it. Improvisation was funny like that. She was positive he didn't want to know how she'd gotten all the bandages. "How's it feel?"

"Better," he had to admit. The stuff felt like ice, and numbness was good as far as Berto was concerned. He felt very numb, in fact, as soon as the door opened and a sigh carried on the air; it was Josh, he could tell.

"The things I do for the world," he said to himself, heading for the kitchen. "Anyone home? Kat? Ber... Berto?"

Josh hadn't been expecting this sight when he walked in, of that much was certain. Berto, sitting backward in a chair at the table, his very bandaged arms suddenly wrapping tighter around the back, and Kat sitting behind him, one more bandage flat in her hand, one large burn showing on his shoulder blade, not yet covered.

"Heh, hey, where'd you run off to, Hermano?" Berto said, his head turning to look out the window.

"Berto..."

"I don't wanna talk about it!" he snapped, almost knocking Kat over as he bolted out of his chair, pulling his shirt on as fast as he dared once Kat had taped the last bandage over his back. "You couldn't have waited ten more seconds, could you!"

Completely floored and at a total loss for words, Josh could do nothing except let his mouth hang open. He had no idea what to say, he'd just run off and done God knows what, as far as they were concerned, when there more important things he'd totally looked over. He hadn't even thought of Berto over his own demons, and those suddenly seemed a lot smaller.

Calming down, Berto leaned against the table and looked at the floor. "Sorry, Hermano..."

Snake's voice came from outside, fast approaching the door. "I'm telling you, it's too small..."

Even Berto forgot about the issue at hand when Snake walked in, decked out in a spotless tux, the bow tie hanging out around his neck, his partner walking in behind him with a 'whatever' look on his face.

"Snake," Otacon sighed, reaching up to the other's neck as soon as he turned. "It's a bow tie, it can't be too small."

Before Otacon could begin repairs on the poor garment, however, Snake's arms came up and pushed Otacon's away. "Hey, watch it, Yaoi Boy!"

"Snake, I'm fixing your tie," the scientist rolled his eyes.

"Which puts you dangerously close to my nipples, Mr. I-Was-The-Seme!"

"You can keep your nipples to yourself, thanks!" Otacon huffed.

Eyes growing wide in fury, Snake seemed to tower over Otacon a little more. "Seme tries to fix Uke's tie and dies grisly death - film at eleven!"

Kat swirled a finger next to her head. "Sheesh. 'You might be an otaku if...'"

Josh blinked. "I am so glad I don't know Japanese."

"Do I envy you, Hermano," Berto looked at Snake and Otacon like the two were married.

"Envy me? I didn't click... whatever it was that you did…"

Kat, however, was ignoring them. "You're doing what I think you're doing, aren't you?"

Seeing it in her eyes, Snake finally adjusted his tie to perfection. "Yep."

"Someone wanna clue me in?" Berto asked.

"We saw this," Otacon whipped out a rolled up poster, seemingly from nowhere, and let it drop open.

"Oh God," Kat made a face, "I was hoping we could skip that..."

"End-of-DOX charity ball," Josh read. "I totally forgot about... that's tonight? That's going out over television, you know. What are you going do, expose yourself on national television so you can get the cameras aimed at the Patriots?"

Kat made a vague gagging motion. "Please, there's a lady present."

"Pretty much, yeah," Snake nodded, glaring at Kat on the side.

"I hate dancing," sighed Kat.

"I love being a background monitor," Berto smiled.

"We know Vamp's going to be there," Snake grabbed the little N-Tek button Josh tossed his way and stuck it to his lapel, "it's the only way I think of to find Arsenal."

"Oh, I have that covered," Josh announced.

Berto thought back to earlier, how Josh had been on the phone… and went to see his father unannounced. "How, Hermano?"

"I... got us a submarine," he answered. "Not that I found out where the thing is, but I got us a submarine. Well, Dad got us a submarine. Remind me not to go near him for a few... years. So, this thing's in a hour, I'd better get ready... Kat, you coming?"

"Not like I have a choice," she answered. "Oh well... at least I already have a dress… and all of you don't even say it, I just keep it for emergencies like this, thank you very much."

"Great, you can be my date," Snake smiled at her.

Outside, a man leaned on a car at the other side of the parking lot. His black clothes looked like a dark orange as the sun started going down, but his skull-shaped mask didn't seem to attract the light at all.

L'Étranger watched, amused, as Solid Snake came running out of Team Steel's van, a rather large piece of furniture following him through the air.

---

If it isn't obvious, the business with the Snake/Otacon yaoi is a none-too-veiled stab at the state of that particular genre of fanfiction nowadays. For the record, no, I don't have any specific authors or stories in mind.

The ref list:

-Kat's line about problems is from Spider-Man.