METAL GEAR SOLID 6: THE INFERNAL CONFLICT

CHAPTER 3— "THE LUSTFUL ULTRA MOUSE"

The Nomad III disappeared into the stormy night sky above Snake as he waded through the waters of the Gulf of Thailand.

I'm glad you're still on my side, Otacon, Snake said before he dove under.

The sound of lightning and thunder above penetrated through the darkness and quiet blur of the ocean water Snake was swimming through. It helped guide the way, along with the soft glow of Snake's Solid Cyber Vision, which had been downgraded from full color spectrum view to a tactical green filter.

Snake turned off his Cyber Vision as he reached the shore, and broke the water's surface. He walked onto the beach and entered a crouching position as he activated his BISECT's C3.

"Otacon, it looks like Bangkok is under curfew. Looks like thugs from one of Drakovich's PMCs are patrolling the slums. Someone must've tipped them off."

"That, or they're taking extra precautions. Drakovich wouldn't want any uninvited guests to crash his party."

"Not to mention that he doesn't seem fond of people to begin with," said Snake. "It makes sense that he'd send his thugs to bother the locals living in the slums; he's one of the richest men on Earth and he has a god complex. He thinks ordinary citizens are below him."

"Snake, I heard you're meeting with a contact within Drakovich's inner circle. Let's say that you're right, that someone did tip off Drakovich. Do you think that they could be the one that did it?"

"I didn't take you as the one to be afraid of anonymous tips, Otacon," joked Snake.

"Right… sorry about my screw-up in Hong Kong. If anything, this whole situation may be my fault."

"Don't beat yourself up, Otacon," said Snake. "I'll get to the bottom of this, and I need you on your A-game to help me do that."

"Right," said Otacon. "It's time you head to the local safe house and pick up your gear. Be careful not to get spotted, Snake."

"I will," said Snake.

Snake crept through the back alleys of the slums, crawling when necessary. He looked at the guards blocking the front doors to the alleged safe house this mystery contact, Ultra Mouse, set up for Snake to collect his gear at. Snake had to trick them into leaving somehow.

Then, looking at a set of scattered e-books on the ground, he got an idea.

The guards heard Snake knock against the wall of the ficus garden stands next to the safe house. Snake quickly tossed an e-magazine he found next to the guards as they approached his location, then he crept around the ficus garden to flank the guards.

"Oh wow, how'd we miss this before?" said one of the guards. "Check it out. This e-magazine has pornos in it."

"No kidding?"

"Whatever sicko left this good stuff here gets my blessing."

"Here, let me see," said the other guard. "Dang. Look at the size of her—"

Then Snake crept up behind the first guard, and CQC slammed him into the ficus garden wall.

"What the hell—" said the other guard, but Snake hit him with a few punches, then grabbed him, twisted his arm, and slammed him into the muddy ground as well.

"That's a waste of a good magazine," said Snake as he went to the safe house doors and hacked the locks.

Inside, Snake found a familiar friend.

A monkey was smoking a cigarette before it chucked the cigarette at Snake.

Wait a minute, I've seen that monkey before…

"Snake, long time no see," said a familiar voice.

"Drebin," said Snake.

"Relax, old friend," said a now augmented Drebin as he popped open a can of soda and sipped it. "I was sent at the request of Ultra Mouse to supply you with some black market gear and augmentations. Top of the line. That as well as a gun laundering hacking algorithm."

"A gun laundering hacking algorithm?"

"From now on, you won't need me to unlock the enemy's guns for you. You just need to analyze the enemy PMCs' algorithms for analyzing their individual soldiers' biometrics by collecting as many of their guns as possible. Once you collect a certain type of gun, though, you can use Sunny's Metal Gear drones to take them to your safe houses and equip your loadouts there. That, or any of the dead drops in your immediate AO. The more powerful or useful the gun, augmentation, crafting material, or equipment set though, chances are the harder it's going to be to unlock their algorithms. Next-gen PMCs tend to be very protective of their stuff."

"Got it," said Snake.

"Anyway, I'd better hurry up and give you your kit. This is a dangerous city to be in right now, and the more we stay in one place, the more vulnerable we are."

"So much for a 'safe' house," said Snake.

Snake now had a set of base crafting materials to help him rebuild his endoskeleton and some of its augmentations, along with a Sneaking Suit clothing schematic that doubled as armor, a laundered SOCOM pistol with a sound suppressor, a suppressed M4 Custom assault rifle with a reflex sight and Masterkey shotgun underbarrel attachment, a semi-automatic M14 EBR suppressed sniper rifle, and an Mk. VI stun gun whose rounds were designed to penetrate endoskeletal armor and electrocute the inner parts of its chassis, causing it to short circuit.

He also received a melee weapon, a thin drill shaped like a sword whose handle doubled as a taser that worked similarly to the Mk. VI. He found he could attach it to his arm and extend and hide it within a slot in his arm that he used for CQC chokeholds and then use it to hold an enemy human shield or to interrogate them.

"Good," said Snake.

"Oh, and a little present from Otacon," said Drebin. "The Metal Gear Mk. VII, a little robotic mouse that can be used as a reconnaissance drone or to shock enemies unconscious. It has stealth camouflage built in so it can't be seen."

"Strange," Snake said, "Otacon should've given this to me earlier." After pausing to think for a second, he said, "Never mind. Do I have enough crafting materials to build stealth camouflage into my endoskeleton?"

"Unfortunately, the best I could acquire was OctoCamo."

"Ah, of course," said Snake. "That brings back memories."

"Finally this," said Drebin, as he revealed Snake's favorite bandana.

Snake stared at the bandana in awe. "How'd you get your hands on this?"

"I have my ways," said Drebin. "Just do your best to hang onto it. Those things aren't cheap, and they're definitely not infinite in supply. Speaking of infinite, Snake, I'd watch out for—"

Snake was interrupted as Meryl's Patriot-II machine gun arm augmentations tore through Drebin's endoskeleton until Drebin collapsed to the floor. What was once Snake's friend was now a short-circuiting, destroyed endoskeleton that had been shed of its skin and blood. Meryl's bullets removed all of it.

Snake looked onward in shock at Meryl as she double-tapped Drebin's skull to decapitate him.

"Meryl!" shouted Snake.

"I found the guards I sent to investigate the safe house lying unconscious next to a partially destroyed e-magazine with pornography on it," Meryl said. "You always were a bit of a pervert.

"You shouldn't have come here, Snake," said Meryl. "You're here to get in the way of Dante's plans for humanity, aren't you?"

Looking at Drebin, she said, "Poor Drebin. He was always just a pawn. He isn't this mole I've been hearing so much about, is he? Tell me, who's the mole within Dante's organization?"

Snake said, "Listen, Meryl… this isn't like you. Whatever Dante did to you and the others, you can fight it…"

"I'll give you one last chance, Snake, before I consider you an enemy. Join us in helping Dante save the world. Tell us who the mole is."

Snake said, "You know I can't do that, Meryl."

Meryl said, "You always were bad at accepting the fact that you're in a constantly changing world. You're a relic of the old world. Wake up and face reality, Cyber Snake."

Snake said, "Damn it, Meryl, what the hell happened to you and your unit in Saudi Arabia!"

Meryl grimaced, and fired two bullets into Snake's right eye, revealing the terrifying glowing red cybernetic eye underneath.

Snake screamed, and crouched down, grabbing his face, only for Meryl to kick him to the ground, where he was staring at Drebin's unrecognizable corpse.

"You won't make it far into Dante's party without the others recognizing you this way," said Meryl. "Now you look like your own twisted version of Big Boss. A true Terminator, lost in time. You'll find that the path you're on is more of a one-way trip than you expect.

"Go back to Geneva, Snake. Go home," said Meryl. "Tell them you failed."

Snake looked back up at Meryl as she used her augmented speed to run out of the safe house before Snake could get up and go after her.

Looking back at Drebin for a moment, Snake said, "I'm sorry," and quickly found a way out of the safe house via the back door. He managed to sneak away from the safe house and across the street right before Dante's thugs arrived to burn the safe house down with flamethrower augmentations and white phosphorus grenade launchers. He then somehow made it out of the slums and out of Lower Bangkok without being further detected, even though Dante's thugs started to search the entire city for him, harassing and even executing civilians in order to taunt him.

Snake traveled through the Thai jungles in the middle of another superstorm, hitting the deck as aerial drones and hovercraft swooped by above him. He used his BISECT's GPS map to navigate in the direction of Dante's mansion.

Eventually he entered a garden area where the rain had stopped. Looking above him, he realized he had entered a partially open biodome. The weather in here, despite artificial, was warm and moist, and the lush garden had clearly been terraformed to look like a wonder of mother nature. The intense light resonating through the garden gave it an almost Edenic feeling.

Snake used his augmented vision to conduct surveillance on Dante's labyrinthine palace, it was located on an elevated hill on the other side of a hedgemaze.

Snake navigated through the hedgemaze, using his taser, stun gun, and CQC to stealthily knock out the guards patrolling it while taking cover in the vine walls and tall grass and using his OctoCamo to blend into it. He also utilized the Metal Gear Mk. VII for reconnaissance so none of the guards surprised him.

On the other side of the hedgemaze, Snake looked at his GPS, and looked at the point on the map where he was supposed to meet Ultra Mouse at. It was in one of the guest houses.

Snake found a way into the guest houses by crawling through an active aqueduct that provided clean water to the biodome.

People in the slums without proper augmentations are dying of thirst, whereas people here are drinking it just to fool themselves into believing that they're still human, Snake thought.

Snake crawled through a ventilation shaft leading down to the guesthouse hallways. The meeting point was in a larger room in the center of the guest house, complete with two floors. Downstairs there was a dining room, a kitchen and bar area, a bathroom, a closet area containing unpacked suitcases and various dresses, and a living room with plush furniture and a plasma television with the evening world news on. The news anchor was talking about the superstorms and the war economy's latest hyper-recession, as well as the amount of civilian casualties and property damage caused by both the natural disasters and the proxy wars happening around the globe. Upstairs there was a bedroom on the second floor with a balcony that had a majestic view of the biodome and the jungle beyond it. Snake heard a beautiful female voice singing; the sound was coming from the upstairs bathroom.

Creeping up the stairs with his sword-drill and Mk. II readied, Snake heard the woman's voice singing a song.

"What a thrill… with darkness and silence through the night… what a thrill… I'm searching and I'll melt into you… What a fear in my heart… But you're so supreme! I give my life, not for honor, but for you, snake eater… In my time there'll be no one else… Crime, it's the way I fly to you, snake eater… I'm still in a dream, snake eater…"

Snake saw the silhouette of a woman in the steam coming out of the bathroom. Snake accidentally made a bit of noise as there were some bread crumbs on the creaky floor that he stepped on.

The woman had stopped singing.

Looking to the desk beside the bedroom dresser, Snake saw that there was a plate with an assortment of breads, crackers, cheeses, and alcoholic beverages that the crumb trail was coming from, as well as an old-fashioned book; it was a copy of the Book of Revelations.

That was a good idea for a trap, Snake thought.

"Hello?" said the woman as she came out of the steam in a revealing scarlet bath robe. The woman's blonde hair was still soaking wet and smelled of shampoo.

"Speak of the devil," she said, looking at Snake and smiling coyly.

Snake recognized her immediately; it was the woman who had her hair braided in a set of two buns that he pulled out of the collapsing tower in the Limbo stronghold.

Gripping his Mk. II and aiming it at her, Snake asked her, "Who are the Apostles?"

The woman said nothing, and walked over toward the desk.

"Who are the Apostles?" Snake repeated, keeping his gun trained on her.

The woman picked up a knife and cut off a piece of gourmet cheese from a wheel of it, brought it slowly up to her lips, and nibbled on it, as she turned around at sat on the desk.

Snake was considering firing when three guards showed up the stairs from behind. "Mikki, an intruder was detected in the compound. Dante's called off the meeting for the night, his orders are for us to escort you to safety—what—who the hell is that!"

Snake turned around to see the three guards train their automatic rifles on him.

"It's him!" said one of the guards.

"Drop your weapons, Snake!" said another.

"We're going to count to three…" said the third.

Shit, thought Snake, this is bad.

"One…"

"Two…"

"Three- what the—"

Six shots were fired from behind Snake; they all penetrated the eyes of the guards until they fell over, bleeding out on the velvet-soft crimson carpet.

Snake looked back at the woman, who was holding a six-shot .44 Magnum revolver. She quickly pointed the barrel of the gun up toward her lips, and blew the smoke trail out that was coming from it.

"Three blind mice… only those weren't actually mice. How ironic," said the woman. The woman looked at Snake's arm which was still hovering instinctively over his SOCOM. "Hmm… I recognize the other gun strapped to your hip. His signature gun. Good, you must still be you. You're the Snake I'm looking for after all."

Looking at Snake, her eyes went wide. "Oh, of course, the password. It's 01310011161. La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo in reverse."

Snake sighed, and took his hand away from his SOCOM. "So, you are Ultra Mouse."

"That's correct," said the woman. "But for the sake of avoiding unwanted attention around here, it's probably best that you call me Mikki."

"Right," said Snake. "That's what the guards called you."

"Your attention to detail is impressive…" said Mikki as she crossed her legs while sitting back down on the desk; Snake couldn't help but look down for a moment.

Mikki smiled again. "It's nice to meet the legend in the flesh," she said, but then looked at his wounded eye and said with a hint of sadness in her sultry voice, "or I guess not exactly the flesh."

Snake looked at the Book of Revelation. "You managed to hide your gun in a hollowed-out Bible. Very classy."

"I had to get it in here somehow," she said, downing a shot of vodka. She looked back at Snake again. "What? The cheese made me thirsty."

"I was told you're a mole working for NATO. You're posing as Dante's mistress. Do you think you can get me into his palace?"

"Sure. But… given what the guards said about Dante canceling the meeting for tonight, that means we'll have to wait until tomorrow," she said. "You won't want to get into the palace until Dante's meeting with the Apostles happens."

"The Apostles? They're a real group?" said Snake. "Who are they?"

Mikki smirked. "01310011161."

"I'm being serious."

"And so am I… technically," she said. "The Apostles are the reverse of the Patriots, or the La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo. The Patriots gave rise to the Sons of the Patriots and the war economy, causing chaos worldwide. Whereas the Apostles' goal is to bring order to the world again, albeit not through freedom from tyranny, pain, labor, or war, but rather by embracing them. But there's a lot more to it than that, and with Dante involved, the greater picture gets more complicated."

Mikki continued, "Dante is the bastard child of Zero, a partial clone and insurance policy in the event that the Patriots were destroyed or that they became a corruption of their former selves, like they did. While Dante is following in his father's footsteps, he's doing so on his own terms, as he hated Zero. Just like he hates Big Boss, and therefore you and his other dead clones."

"But I'm not dead like Liquid and Solidus. At least not yet."

"Have you considered how similar you are to Liquid, though?" she said. "Given his consciousness was originally implanted in the body of Ocelot, and now it's in the cybernetically replicated body of a man who was once a former bomb expert—a man known as Fatman—isn't that the same as how you're really just a copy of the consciousness of Solid Snake uploaded to a cybernetically replicated body of Solid Snake? And you consider Liquid to be long gone. So, either Liquid is actually alive, or…"

Snake was silent in response to that.

"Never mind… Sorry about that," said Mikki. "It's just something I always worried about given what Dante had been telling me. That he believes most of humanity is extinct, and that their consciousnesses uploaded to the bodies of androids are merely copies, and therefore worthless. Anyway, it's just food for thought." She picked up another piece of cheese and snacked on it.

"Ever since what happened in Hong Kong, I've been reluctant to get into debates on the ethics of transhumanism," said Snake.

"I can imagine," said Mikki.

Snake decided to avoid asking how much she really knew about what happened to his friends. For now.

"Speaking of killer robots, President Brady sends her regards. She said that you can help show me how to use the crafting materials I was given to rebuild my endoskeleton's augmentations from scratch."

"Of course," said Mikki. "I have a lot of crafting materials I can give you in my suitcases as well. I was always good with biohacking tech. Not to mention supercomputer science."

"You're a senior programming expert?"

"And a lot more," she said.

"But you're so young… at least in terms of appearance," said Snake. "I suppose you probably have the consciousness of a woman closer to my age… or do you?"

"Nope, I'm still in my mid-twenties," said Mikki with a smile. Looking down for a moment, she said, "They called me a prodigy back at the 'charm schools' used to train young children for eventually supplying the war economy. They were awful places to grow up in. I was too traumatized back then just by the training alone; after all, I was just a child. I knew my life would be short if I became a soldier. So, I managed to avoid becoming a child soldier with the help of my intellect. I became a programmer instead… and it helped me survive their sick indoctrination program long enough for someone to manage to free me from it."

"That's pretty impressive," said Snake.

"All right, Snake," she said as she walked closer to him. "Shall I examine your body? That is, so I can help rebuild it."

"Fine," said Snake with a sigh, "go ahead."

… … … … …

That night, Mikki helped re-engineer Snake's body.

Snake was currently in his Terminator-esque state—merely a terrifying endoskeleton with glowing red eyes—when Mikki kissed him on his nonexistent lips.

"Normally I need to have skin to do that," said Snake; his gravelly voice was currently a terrifying, demonic-sounding electronic voice.

"It's all right, Snake," said Mikki. "You have a beautiful mind, and a beautiful soul. For me, that's enough."

"You said it was just a copy though."

"In hindsight, that was dumb of me," she said. "I'm not a misanthropist like Dante. I try my best to hold onto whatever humanity I have left in me, and that I see in others. But it's hard to do that nowadays."

"How are you going to give me my flesh back?"

"By injecting autopoietic nanomachines into your endoskeleton's armor mesh to regenerate your tissue. Then it should regenerate over time even if you get wounded."

"Of course. Nanomachines. Got it," said Snake.

Mikki bent over to get a set of syringes from her suitcase. Snake looked over in her direction for a moment. Mikki looked partially over her shoulder at Snake, then back at her belongings, and smiled to herself.

"All right," she said as she turned around holding a syringe in her hand, "this should be more than enough."

Looking at Snake, she said, "Try your best to relax. This is going to feel weird for just a moment." She then injected the syringe into a socket in the side of Snake's endoskeletal neck.

Snake grunted as he felt the nanomachines begin to flow into the empty pockets of his endoskeleton. "The initial effects should take a few hours, but you should be good to go after that. Until then, you might as well rest."

Snake said, "You mean enter sleep mode?"

"Of course, it'll help you recharge your battery. After all, they only have a limited length as of the moment."

"Are you sure that's a good idea? I'm in the middle of enemy territory, after all."

"Don't worry, Snake…" she spoke softly into his ear while standing behind him. "I'll keep watch over you while you sleep."

Snake said nothing in response.

"You don't trust me?" she said. Looking down for a moment, she backed away from Snake, and said, "All right. I understand. You can stay awake. To be honest, I'm exhausted myself. I'll sleep in shifts."

Snake said, "Sounds good," and walked toward the stairs.

"Wait, where are you going?"

"To sleep on the couch."

"Don't you want to sleep in an actual bed?"

"The only bed I see is yours," said Snake. "Besides, I can't feel discomfort."

"Um… right. Sorry," said Mikki, looking away from Snake. "Feel free to sleep wherever you want here." For a moment, Snake thought he saw her blush.

She's acting somewhat unusual for someone who's trying to seduce me, Snake thought.

"Good night, Snake," she said.

Snake nodded in response, and headed toward the stairs. He briefly looked back in her direction; she headed to her bed and started to take off her robe, her back was turned to him. A mirror on her nightstand revealed her facial expression; she wasn't staring back at him, instead she seemed rather sad and distant.

He went down the stairs and lie awake on the couch, staring at the ceiling as he thought of his friends, and what he may have to do to them if they couldn't be saved. Ironically enough, he was starting to want to enter sleep mode, and had trouble resisting the urge to do so.

At some point, Snake's cold red mechanical eyes shut, and as he entered sleep mode, his flesh slowly began to reappear.

Later that night, Ultra Mouse crept downstairs and stood over Snake in a set of black see-through lingerie.

"Forgive me, Snake," she said, and walked back up to her bedroom and opened up her laptop computer.

Snake dreamt of his time at Shadow Moses; the dream was blurry, as if it was composed of dated VR sim graphics.

He remembered when he saved Meryl by enduring Revolver Ocelot's torture, and told her he had been living for himself for most of his life, and that he was going to start living for others, without letting his genes control his fate. He then left her and joined Otacon to start tracking down Metal Gears after taking down Liquid Snake and Metal Gear REX.

After that, his next dream became more vivid.

He remembered being framed and vilified to the public by Ocelot aboard a tanker carrying Metal Gear RAY, who had been the one that sold the Metal Gear data on the black market and had been working in cahoots with both the Patriots and Dead Cell. Metal Gear RAY was used to defeat other Metal Gears, and Ocelot sunk the tanker. But not before Liquid Snake's personality manifested in Ocelot through Ocelot's arm that he had grafted to his missing arm after Snake dismembered it in Shadow Moses. The Patriots were a shadow organization, a megacorporation working to control the United States and the free world through the controlling of digital information and the collective human consciousness. They were originally an AI superconsciousness and hivemind developed by Zero during the Cold War. Dead Cell was quickly made into a useful false flag terrorist organization for the Patriots—blamed for the issues of the United States while initially being merely used for combat training drills—before they grew out of control, and went rogue.

Then, at the Big Shell Incident not far from Manhattan, where the tanker had been sunk, he met Raiden, who was just a rookie back then, and a puppet working for the Patriots while being fooled into thinking he was working for FOXHOUND, which was disavowed and disbanded not long after the Shadow Moses Incident. He helped Raiden take down Dead Cell and his sadistic adopted father, who was the leader of Dead Cell and also Snake's other brother. Solidus Snake was the third clone of Big Boss from the Les Infants Terribles experiment, the second being Liquid Snake, and the first being himself, Solid Snake. Solidus's genes were exactly that of Big Boss's, while Liquid's were the dominant traits, and his were the recessive ones. Despite that they had to stop Dead Cell to prevent Manhattan from being destroyed by Arsenal Gear, the massive Metal Gear containing an armada of Metal Gear RAYs secretly housed within the Big Shell facility, this was exactly what the Patriots wanted. They wanted to test Raiden by making him think he was Solid Snake in order to also test their meme-based digital information and human consciousness-controlling program, the Selection for Societal Sanity. Snake helped Raiden realize his potential to pass something useful onto the future other than mere information, and this helped him reconcile with his then-pregnant girlfriend, Rosemary… for the moment at least. He then managed to rescue Sunny from the Patriots while Snake was in retirement, and became a cyborg in the process.

Then Snake's next dream after that became even more vivid, and colorful, like that of the jungle.

He imagined he was Big Boss, at the height of the Cold War! He was going to rescue the Russian scientist responsible for creating Metal Gear's original predecessor, the Shagohod! But this mission—the Virtuous Mission—went horribly wrong. It started when his mentor got involved in the mission. Their relationship was unlike any other on Earth. She wasn't quite a mother to whom was then codenamed "Naked Snake," nor was she a lover, nor a friend. But the sheer unconditional love from their unique bond as teacher and mentor made Snake feel a warm sort of feeling in the dream… a happiness he had never felt before.

Her name was the Boss.

She betrayed the US, betrayed Naked Snake, and tossed him off a bridge in the jungle, bringing him to death's door.

After that, the warm, happy feeling turned to a hellish one…

Anticipatory grief.

The Boss became responsible for a nuclear detonation in Russia after her new 'boss', the extremely sadistic Colonel Volgin, also known as "Thunderbolt", destroyed Sokolov's research facility with a portable nuke she stole from the US for him.

Now, Snake was tasked with a new mission… "Operation Snake Eater"… killing his old friend and preventing nothing short of Mutually Assured Destruction, either through the Cold War's possible catastrophic conclusion…. or through Volgin's own plans for world domination.

Volgin inherited part of the Philosophers' Legacy, a vast set of funds created by the Philosophers—the predecessor to the Patriots—before they disbanded. The funds were enough to fight World War II ten times over again in the event that the need for such an event would ever happen again, and as the organization began to unravel, the Cold War started to grow hotter by the day. Volgin was made a very rich man, and thus the stolen Shagohod he had Sokolov complete after the Boss and her old squadron, the Cobra Unit, could be mass produced and help the Russians—no, help him—win the Cold War and dominate the world. Perhaps Volgin would've created a Russian version of the Patriots like Zero eventually did— 'the Collective', perhaps—if he had won.

But Naked Snake, despite his grief, managed to kill the Cobra Unit, Volgin, and his mentor and the one person he truly ever loved, the Boss herself.

To be fair, he had some help from a Chinese triple-agent known as EVA, posing as an American defector, a Russian spy, Sokolov's wife, and Volgin's lover all at once, who in reality was planning to betray Snake to steal the microfilm containing the documents to access the Legacy's funding accounts.

He also had help from a young Ocelot, who was initially hostile to Snake, but learned a lot from him despite being on opposite sides of the war. In reality, though, they weren't; Ocelot was a triple agent working for the US to obtain the Legacy, and he managed to hand EVA a fake microfilm. Thus, the US obtained half of the Legacy, which was the true mission happening behind the scenes, and while the Russians still had access to the other half stored somewhere… the Cold War would continue until its happy ending.

But like all 'happy endings', this story wasn't a full story… merely a scene in a longer story, and it was no fairy tale with a happy ending.

What Snake learned from the dream next was truly terrifying.

The Boss never defected to the Russians. Like Ocelot, she was also a triple agent, and was working to get the Legacy from Volgin. And when the initial mission went wrong after Volgin detonated that nuke and had the Boss attempt to kill Snake in order to acquire Sokolov and the Shagohod, the Philosophers' mission changed. Snake would have to kill the Boss in order to steal the Legacy for his boss, Zero, and prevent the Cold War scene from ending… and ending humanity's story in tragedy in the process. Snake killed the Boss, and completed the mission, saving the story from ending.

The Boss had sacrificed her life and her dignity to complete this mission. Like Solid Snake, she had believed in absolute loyalty as a soldier until it finally broke her inside and led to her taking on the mission that would mean her demise. She sacrificed her life merely to preserve the Philosophers' corrupt ways and the horrors of the Cold War while desperately hanging onto the belief that the good in humanity would prevail, and like other terrible scenes in history, the Cold War and the Philosophers would end. And her predictions came true, despite being merely another scene in the story.

EVA decided not to betray Snake completely for this reason, despite still stealing the (fake) half of the Legacy. She realized the meaning of the Boss's bond with Snake when the Boss let her live. Perhaps there was a little bit of good in EVA after all, despite all the times she lied to Snake. Like Ocelot, who was the real triple agent codenamed ADAM, she learned a lot from Snake during their temporary love story. The Boss wanted EVA to tell Snake the truth… since she was forbidden from doing so herself.

This broke Naked Snake's will, and left the Boss's will to be corrupted by Naked Snake and Zero over the years, giving birth to the Patriots. It swallowed Snake's soul, and that Snake was no more. He was then given the title of Big Boss, and over time, that would be his new identity.

Snake could feel the pure rage within Big Boss's soul as he stared at the corrupt politicians as they gave him a mere medal for his "patriotism". He decided to leave at that moment, defect for real and start his own legacy. Hence, he would become the villainous father that Solid Snake had despised for years… despite that there were still many scenes left before that would happen, ones that Snake wasn't able to dream about yet.

The concept of the scene was all a lie, as in reality, all scenes in the story would appear and then disappear, leaving former friends as enemies and rendering all bonds between humans, human life… human genes, human memes, and human futures completely meaningless. That was the Boss's final lesson to the then Naked Snake before he became Big Boss.

But humanity's story had to come to an end at some point, and as Snake's dreams became more vivid and life-like than he had ever had now, he could see it happening in the near future as he began to start waking up and the dream started to become lucid. Was what he saw with Big Boss a dream… or real memories?

Nevertheless, he remembered the pain of aging, and coming out of retirement to find the world in a state of perpetual war. The war economy was designed by the Sons of the Patriots, the will of the corrupted AI, the corrupted collective will of the Boss, interpreted by Big Boss and Zero… the founders of the original Patriots.

This was the newest terrifying scene, and humanity was forced to begin its transformation from human to transhuman then as they used nanomachines to suppress their human feelings to adapt to war by becoming killing machines.

Snake was tasked with assassinating Liquid Ocelot, the consciousness of his brother stored in another man's human body, once more. When he went to meet with his contact to learn information about Liquid's whereabouts, the contact turned out to be Meryl.

Then Snake's lucid dream turned into a lucid nightmare… He tried to think about Big Boss's memories once more; whether they were real or not, they were better than his present reality.

Yet all he felt was pain there. Big Boss had to kill the Boss and the Cobra Unit, who were extensions of the Boss, and therefore, extensions of himself. It ate that Snake's soul alive.

And then Snake understood. These memories were real. During his debriefing, Otacon kept going on about how his mission was modeled after Big Boss's! He was on the same mission Big Boss had been put on, to kill his friends, kill extensions of himself. Could he do it? Did he even have to? Like the Boss, he knew there had to be something good, something human, left in his friends somewhere…

He couldn't allow Dante to control them like this, he couldn't!

He grew determined to snap out of the trance that this dream had him in.

Then, strangely enough, he couldn't help but think of that woman who helped Big Boss, EVA, and the time they first met…

What was even weirder was that, while he was looking at EVA as she told him to wake up once Ocelot/ ADAM came looking for them, she resembled…

She was still telling him to wake up.

"Snake, wake up! Come on, Snake, hurry! Wake up!"

And the lucid dream became a waking one.

… … … … …

"Snake, wake up! Come on, Snake, hurry! Wake up!"

Snake looked up at EVA trying to shake him awake, only he realized it was Ultra Mouse.

"Oh, thank god!" she sighed. "It worked. Come on, we have to go!"

"Is the meeting starting soon?" Snake said.

"Not yet. But someone else is here."

"What? Who?"

"Fat Snake!"

"Damn it!"

Ultra Mouse shut her laptop computer and packed it up as she put on her lab coat, and strapped her revolver to her thigh.

Snake grabbed his gear, and put it back in his kit. He looked at himself in the mirror.

I look like me again. Good. Wait a minute…

"Mikki!"

"Yeah?"

"I still look like me!"

"What about it? Isn't that what you wanted?"

"They're going to recognize me this way!"

"It's all right, Snake; I have a plan in mind. Just don't let them see you on your way to the palace!"

"It would be easier to do that if I had a disguise!"

"But you're a snake. The Snake," she said. "Aren't you known for crawling to your mission on your belly?"

Snake sighed. "Point taken."

Hearing marching footsteps on the way, Mikki said, "Quick! Hide!"

Snake looked around, and, after doing some quick thinking, found an option.

Fat Snake was juggling and drinking a set of two sodas as he walked in with a set of four dozen soldiers.

"Search the area," he said. They found Mikki, who was sitting in the living room, eating some cheese and drinking some breakfast wine.

"What's going on?" she said.

"The man in charge of monitoring the superconsciousness network you built for helping Dante's soldiers share their senses with each other is dead, Mikki," said Fat Snake. "Not to mention that six soldiers were missing by the time we sent in a replacement. One sent to investigate a possible intruder near your area."

"An intruder?" said Ultra Mouse. "Do you think the intruder could've done this?"

Fat Snake downed the rest of his first soda after stopping juggling it, and made an impressive throw without looking into a trash can in the living room, not far from Cyber Snake's hiding spot.

"Don't play coy with me, Mikki," said Fat Snake. "You killed that technician and the six soldiers, didn't you?"

"What the hell are you talking about, Snake?" she said while downing her wine.

Fat Snake downed his other soda after stopping juggling it, and threw it into the same trash can as well. One of the soldiers happened to peer in the direction of the trash can.

"Wait a minute!" said Mikki, to try and catch the soldier's attention as well as Fat Snake's. "I know you, Liquid. You're the one who killed him, aren't you! Are you trying to frame me for something!"

Sighing, Fat Snake said, "If I had framed you…" then pulled out his explosive revolvers in a split-second and aimed them at Mikki.

Mikki squeaked and flinched in response.

"…you'd already be dead," said Fat Snake as he looked at where he threw his soda. He looked over, and raised his eyebrows in confusion.

The soldiers searching around the room looked in the direction of the trash can.

"What the hell is that?" said Fat Snake.

The soldiers stopped to look in the direction of Cyber Snake's hiding spot.

They started to chuckle boyishly to each other.

"Really?" said Fat Snake. "A poster of an adult model taped onto a cardboard box?"

Ultra Mouse looked over in Cyber Snake's direction. There indeed was a cardboard box with a life-sized poster of a nude woman on it. Cyber Snake was crouching behind it, scouting out the soldiers' positions through small holes cut through the nipples of the woman on the poster.

Turning back to Fat Snake, Ultra Mouse said, "So what? Is it that weird for you to know that I go both ways?"

"It's not weird for me," said one of the guards.

"Quiet, soldier!" shouted Fat Snake.

"Yes, sir…" the guard said in an awkwardly slow manner.

"I've seen that cardboard box trick before…" said Fat Snake as he started to juggle his revolvers now.

Damn it, Cyber Snake thought, as he prepared to shoot through the box and make a run for the door.

Then Fat Snake did something completely unexpected. He then gripped his revolvers and fired twelve high-voltage electric shock explosive rounds at the forty-eight soldiers before they could react, coating the guest suite in electricity and unconscious bodies in clusters of four.

"Tell maintenance there's been a power surge," said Fat Snake. Looking at the cardboard box Cyber Snake was hiding behind, Fat Snake said, "You look pretty good… brother…" Looking at Ultra Mouse, Fat Snake said, "I'd say I go both ways, but I'd be lying then, wouldn't I?

"Don't trust this little mouse, Snake… She's up to no good. This is a game of cat and mouse… or, let's say, Ocelot and mouse… It's eat or be eaten, and if a Snake were to interfere with the Ocelot and his prey… the outcome would be… undesirable."

Fat Snake holstered his revolvers. He picked up all of Ultra Mouse's cheese she left on the coffee table and stuffed his mouth with it.

"I'll see you both at the party," said Fat Snake with his mouth full, before downing it with her wine.

Cyber Snake and Ultra Mouse both stared in disbelief as he left.

"What the hell just happened? Why did he do that?"

"I know! He took my cheese!"

"Damn it, Mikki, focus!" shouted Snake. "He knows I'm here, and he just implied he knows your codename, therefore he knows you're the mole! This whole operation is ruined! We need to abort!"

"No, we can't!"

"Then do you have a plan?"

"I do," said Ultra Mouse.

"Then what is it?"

"I'm… still working on the Fat Snake part of it…" she said while scratching her hair, and looking away.

Snake put a hand to his head.

"You have to find a way to bluff. Tell Dante that Fat Snake is full of shit- I mean… that he's lying about your cover. You have to get to Dante first before he blows your cover!"

Ultra Mouse said, "All right. I'll see you at the palace. I'll give you further instructions and intel via your C3."

"Got it," said Snake. "Now go!"

Ultra Mouse buttoned up her lab coat, put on her heels, and headed out the door.

Looking at the unconscious guards' bodies lying around the room, Snake thought to himself, he's up to something. He's always up to something.

Snake crept out of the room, and made a hasty exit from the guest house.

After crawling and sneaking his way through the garden areas without alerting the guards, Snake eventually came up near a bridge leading into the palace's front entrance.

Hitting the deck, Snake blended into the grass with his OctoCamo skin and used his Cyber Vision's binocular-camera ability to look for another entrance into the palace.

He saw that there was a set of scaffolding beneath the bridge that he could climb on. Perhaps there was a ventilation shaft down there that he could use to enter the palace interior.

Snake crouched to hide in the bushes lining the area next to the bridge, and avoided the spotlights coming from the sniper towers surrounding the bridge, along with the approaching armed convoys of soldiers, tanks, and various Metal Gear-esque drones similar to the Gecko from the Guns of the Patriots Incident, all of which were escorting the party guests' limousines to the palace.

Snake used his adhesive grip to climb the scaffolding beneath the bridge until he made it to the other side.

To his luck, there was an air vent.

Snake drilled open the air vent hatch, and crawled through until he managed to make it to the wine cellar in the basement. He then turned on his Cyber Vision to help him see through and navigate in the dark.

He heard a door open above him, and heard two drunk guards talking to each other about the dinner for tonight.

"All the fancy dressing on the steak and the steamed vegetables and the pasta is fuggin'… gross, man. Marinara… Teriyaki… Butter sauce…"

"It's delicious, though… The chef Dante hired is… made of five stars… You're just a picky eater… Quit pooping on the party, man."

Then Snake heard one of the guards' bowels groan. "Ohhhh, I don't think I should've eaten that last piece of crabmeat… I gotta go real bad!"

One of the guards ran off, while the other looked in a drunken stupor around the wine cellar.

"Maybe I can find something to drink down here…"

Snake snuck up behind the guard and CQC-slammed him to the ground, then scanned the now-unconscious guard's tuxedo outfit, shoes, face, sunglasses, and skin to look like him, then printing them onto his own skin for a disguise. He then picked up the guard's P90 submachine gun, and a keycard he dropped.

Wonder what this is for, Snake thought. Hopefully this thing opens more doors than just one. Oh, the memories…

After hiding the guard's body, Snake walked up out of the wine cellar and into the palace halls.

Snake was fortunate to grab the disguise, because the halls of the palace were packed with guests… and other guards.

He made his way into an empty restroom that reeked of diarrhea, and called Ultra Mouse on his C3.

"Mikki?"

"Snake?"

"Call me Dave, Mikki. You know, because that's my name."

"Ah, of course… Dave," said Mikki over Snake's Cybernetic Codec Communicator.

"Kept you waiting, huh. I'm here inside the palace, in disguise among the party."

"Glad you made it."

"Did you take care of Fat Snake?"

"Apparently I didn't need to. He didn't mention anything about you and me to the guards, nor to Dante."

"You're sure."

"Positive. I was right there with him when he said everything was fine. Dante doesn't suspect a thing."

"At least he doesn't for the moment. He may change his mind later. I know him well by now, so I know that he's a slippery little bastard."

"Dante's about to give a speech in the den area. After that, he's going to his panic room to talk with his associates, the Apostles."

"Panic room? Why would he host a meeting in a panic room?"

"Beats me."

"Huh… that's weird. It must be a pretty big panic room then."

"I haven't seen it, but I bet you're right. I only have the general location, and I know that there's a hidden mechanism somewhere in Dante's bedroom that utilizes a keycard. You'll have to use your Cyber Vision to locate it. I also know only guards in charge of the Apostle protection detail are equipped with said keycards."

"Keycard?" Looking at the keycard in his pocket, Snake said, "Um… speaking of which, can I send you a picture of something?"

"What do you mean?"

"I've got one in my pocket… Do you have any idea what they look like?"

Ultra Mouse started giggling.

"What's so funny?"

"Dave, you're being ridiculous! If you're happy to see me, just show it to me in person!"

"What? Wouldn't that risk blowing your cover?"

"What?"

"I mean I pulled a keycard off the guard I managed to switch places with. I want to see if you know whether or not it's the right one. Do you know what the keycards are supposed to look like?"

"Oh…" said Ultra Mouse. Snake could see her face turn red. "Oh, right. You meant the keycard. Yeah, send a picture of it. Lord, I definitely need to stop drinking for tonight…"

As Snake snapped a picture of the keycard with his Cyber Vision and sent it to Ultra Mouse via his C3, Snake said, "Yeah, you should do that. I need you on your A-game, Mikki. If you're thirsty from eating too much cheese, drink some water instead."

"Of course, Snake," she said. "Yes, that keycard is the right one. You should be able to get in fine then."

"Good," said Snake.

"Dante's coming. I have to go."

"All right, bye for now, Mikki," Snake said, and ended the connection.

Snake located Dante's bedroom on his BISECT's GPS and was making it through the various rooms in the lower floor to locate a set of stairs to head up to the bedroom, including the kitchen, dining hall, living room, salon, game room, theater, and indoor pool.

Snake looked around the palace and noted how massive and fancy everything was. The foyer had a set of marble fountains with sparkling water and golden statues modeled after Dante.

Because of course he is, thought Snake as he looked at the statues, narcissism's a key trait of someone who has a god complex. This whole place and the people here are extremely decadent.

He entered the den area and found some stairs to walk up. He was heading to the door at the balcony on the top of the stairs when he heard Dante's voice booming from the balcony on the other side of the room.

"Kuwabara, kuwabara… Welcome, everyone, to a night of celebration and relaxation," said Dante. "I hope that this party serves as a form of momentary escapism from the hell that is the outside world. I appreciate your donations to my philanthropy causes, transhuman and terraforming biotech subsidiaries. It is only a matter of time before I and my parent conglomerate, Firelake Industries, manage to find a sustainable solution to the war economy as well as global climate change. Then, we can celebrate like this more often. Everyone will be able to."

The crowd beneath him cheered. Dante added with a grin, "Despite that times have gotten hard, Firelake has always taken pride on creating a vision for a better future, and then actualizing that vision. For our employees truly believe that every single life on Earth matters, thus they are currently working to develop a solution to create equity among mankind. While I am not going to break the confidentiality of my projects just yet, you will see glimpses of them in the near future. Just know, that you have contributed to building a better, safer Earth to live on, and for that, you have my gratitude."

The crowd cheered more. Pretty sure most of what he just said consisted of lies, Snake thought. Either the guests in here are extremely gullible, or they're in cahoots with Dante… or a mix of both.

"Now, enjoy the party, and the feast is now ready in the dining hall," said Dante.

As the crowd started to disperse to go eat food, Snake realized that Ultra Mouse was standing next to Dante. Listening in to their conversation, Dante said to her, "Promise me you won't cause trouble while I'm attending to my business, sweetheart."

"I won't, Dante."

She's scared of him, Snake thought as he saw her shiver a bit as Dante kissed her on the lips. No wonder she wanted to drink.

Snake quickly moved around the upper floors to follow Dante to his bedroom, while trying to avoid attention.

Once he made it to Dante's bedroom entrance, he hacked open the keypad lock to it, and swiped the keycard into the slot.

Snake looked around; Dante's bedroom was huge.

His bed's large enough to let a Metal Gear sleep on it, let alone a man.

The bed's quilt had colorful Renaissance painting replicas stitched into its patterns, one of which was art depicting the story of Dante's Inferno and the various Circles of Hell.

Snake quickly located the hidden door to the panic room, which was a hidden vault with a switch and full body biometric scanner built into a massive cherry wood dresser… but no keycard slot.

Damn it, Snake thought, how will I get in?

Snake was trying to think of a way when he heard a guard singing some song in Japanese with a drunken slur and bad interpretation skills come into the room.

"Hey, man, where the fuck have you been!"

It was the guard that ran off to the bathroom that was with the guard Snake disguised himself as…

Shit, thought Snake. He'd have to try his best to play it cool.

"I've been lookin' all around for you, buddy!" said the guard in a drunken slur. "I swear I misplaced my keycard… Do you have any idea where it might be?"

Snake realized he shouldn't talk any further, as he didn't find an opportunity to disguise his voice as the guard's.

Snake shrugged in response to the guard.

"I swear, some assholes in our unit are constantly giving me a hard time about not having a keycard tonight. I sure hope I didn't eat it with the punch or something… hopefully it comes back out soon if I did…"

The guard made a loud fart again. Snake thought, if I could still smell, I'd probably be able to smell this idiot from miles away.

"Hey, but fortunately we both didn't need keycards to get in since the door was already unlocked, am I right! Drakovich ain't gonna zap us to death now!"

Snake cringed mentally at the thought of this. He stayed silent.

"Hey, man, why aren't you talking anymore? Hello?"

Snake had to stay silent, he had to…

The guard started to laugh uncontrollably. "You're more drunk than I am! You can't even speak!"

Thank God, Snake thought.

"This bed looks comfy as… inferno… I think I'm going to take a snooze-y while I wait for Dante to get here and tuck me in…"

He's as good as dead, Snake thought.

Snake just had to find a way to wait it out. Since he was disguised as one of Drakovich's guards, maybe Drakovich would let him into the meeting himself… if this other idiot guard didn't land him in huge trouble as well.

Snake was pretending to stand guard while the guard was laying on Dante's bed, snoring loudly and drooling all over the quilt when Fat Snake walked in, juggling a fresh loaf of French bread in one hand and a shish kebab in the other.

Sinking his teeth into and gobbling up the loaf of French bread, Fat Snake looked on the guard, then at Cyber Snake, grinned and said, "Thank you for standing watch here, soldier. Your fellow guard is as good as dead. But I'll leave him for Dante to take care of.

"You probably wonder what I'm doing here," said Fat Snake as he pulled the meat and vegetables skewered off the shish kebab's stick with his teeth one at a time. "Nothing to take note of. Just enjoying a little food while I still can, and… accessing Dante's panic room. I happened to have acquired his biometric data from a DNA sample. He dropped several samples on the floor here earlier while fucking his mouse of a mistress senseless."

He must know it's me, thought Snake. This is definitely a trap, but I can't run at this point.

"Hmmm… You're one of those strong silent types, aren't you? Well, I'm at least glad you're here to listen to an old gluttonous fool like me ramble on." said Fat Snake as he opened the biometric lock to the hidden vault door by breaking open a vial containing the sample of Dante's… DNA… and holding the sample over a scanner disguised as a lava lamp. The old-fashioned cherry wood bookshelf with a plasma television built into it opened to reveal the hidden entrance to the panic room.

After using a handkerchief to wipe the sample off of his hand, Fat Snake said, "Follow me to the meeting, soldier. We'll wait for Dante there."

Going with it for now, Cyber Snake followed Fat Snake into the panic room, where there was a massive pool full of piranhas underneath a bridge the two Snakes crossed over while Fat Snake downed two cans of alcoholic fruit punch he was juggling.

There was a circular conference table with twelve chairs, and a holographic 3-D world map in the middle of it, along with tons of computer screens and consoles that could be accessed with a BISECT built into the walls. Tubes full of some sort of red liquid were lining the walls as well, along with lots of futuristic machinery.

Fat Snake whistled a tune while walking over to a large vault door, and used his BISECT to access one of the dual locks.

"Help me with this, would you, soldier?" said Fat Snake with a sinister grin.

Cyber Snake complied, and hacked the other lock on the right of the vault door.

When the vault doors opened, the two Snakes looked at a small glowing blue spherical device hovering in a glass container in the center of the vault, with several spinning screens moving around it.

What is that? Cyber Snake thought.

"The Eye of Providence itself," said Fat Snake. "Advanced neural supercomputer software that Dante has entrusted me with keeping safe. Go on, see for yourself."

As the glass container opened too, Cyber Snake pulled the glowing device out of it and held it up to his eye.

How powerful is what I'm carrying in my hand… he thought.

As the exited the vault and Ocelot closed it, they heard voices and marching footsteps coming from outside of the panic room.

"By the way, chances are you'll get in trouble if you're too mute to explain why your friend passed out on Dante's bed. Perhaps you should find a place to… hide away."

Snake looked around, and quickly hid up in the ceiling of the panic room with his adhesive grip by climbing up a set of nearby pipes on the walls while hiding the Eye in his kit. He then pressed himself against and crawled along the ceiling, then watched the meeting while hanging upside-down from another pipe in the ceiling.

Pretty sure there was a guy from the NSA who was known for climbing pipes like these and hanging from them… he could even slit the throats or choke a man to death while upside-down like this… I wish I could figure out how to do that…

Dante entered the facility beneath Cyber Snake.

"Ocelot!" said Dante.

"Yes, sir."

"Why didn't you deal with this drunken moron lying on my bed?"

"He must've come into your room after me," said Ocelot. "I was told to wait in here. Mikki registered my biometrics to enter the panic room."

"I wasn't aware of this," said Dante as he walked across the bridge over the pool full of piranhas.

The drunken guard was snacking on a shish kebab.

"Does that meat you're eating taste good, soldier?" said Dante.

"Yes, sir. It tastes dee-licious!"

"Good…" said Dante with a grin. "I'm sure the piranhas will agree with you."

"Piranhas?"

"Ocelot, do it."

Ocelot remotely activated a switch—presumably with a program in his own BISECT—that caused the bridge to give out under the drunken guard's feet.

The guard screamed as the piranhas in the pool tore off the flesh on his body and then ripped into the alloy in his endoskeleton until it was destroyed, along with the BISECT chip in his skull.

"Looks like they enjoyed eating him more than the shish kebab," said Ocelot.

"That's why I like you, Ocelot," laughed Dante. "You're not afraid to care for your fellow man."

"I try to, sir. Though how successful I actually am at it is debatable."

"By the way, where were you back in Hong Kong?"

"I was in the Limbo stronghold; I tried to bring the building down on Snake to stop him from acquiring the DICE files."

"Did he obtain them?"

"Unfortunately, I believe so."

"This was also believed to be true by our double agent within NATO, hence why I ordered the rest of the Apostles to avoid meeting in person at this party. This is going to set back our plans considerably. Speaking of which…"

Drakovich snapped his fingers. "Bang."

Holograms of 11 men and women in suits appeared at chairs in the round table with the globe hologram in the middle, along with 88 more in holograms on screens all around the panic room.

"Welcome, my fellow Apostles," said Drakovich. "Ocelot, sit down at the twelfth chair."

Fat Snake complied, and cleared his throat.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you all know me as the one responsible for dismantling the Patriots through my own methods and manipulations, the one responsible for giving birth to the war economy responsible for ravaging the Earth, the life on it, and brotherhood among humanity that we held so dear. I received credible intelligence that there is a double agent here. Someone, at least one of us, is planning to betray you, and put a stop to your plans for world peace, Dante."

"Do you know who?"

"I'm afraid I don't yet. I was hoping your double agent within NATO would find out."

"We've been communicating with them," said one of the Apostles. "They haven't found out anything yet."

"May I inquire as to who the double agent is?" said Fat Snake.

"I'm afraid not. The information is compartmentalized to the clandestine intelligence subsidiary Dante runs through me," said one of the Apostles' holograms at the table.

"Of course. I merely thought I might as well ask," said Fat Snake.

"You've yet to earn our trust completely, Ocelot," said another Apostle at the table. "You may have stopped the Patriots, but you needed to manipulate your brother and his friends into helping you do so."

"Not to mention you had hoped to free Big Boss from his forced slumber," said Dante. "I read your profile. Speaking of your brother, have you found him yet?"

"I'm afraid I haven't yet," said Fat Snake.

"But we have," said Meryl as she and Cyber Snake's friends walked in, and tossed one of the unconscious bodies Fat Snake had shot with explosive electric shock rounds in the guest house into the piranha pool.

"We found this guard lying unconscious in the guest house," said Jonathan.

"Along with forty-seven others," said Ed.

"Did you kill them for failing their jobs?" said Dante.

"Yes, sir," hissed Raiden as he licked his lips. "I slaughtered them and drank their blood."

"And I burned their bodies to a crisp while they were still breathing," said Rosemary.

"I tried to kill him back at his safe house in Bangkok, and succeeded at killing his contact, Drebin," said Meryl.

"How the hell did he manage to knock forty-eight guards unconscious?" said an Apostle.

"He's good…" said Ocelot.

"I disagree," said Meryl. "I know him well. He's a relic of the old world. Even for him, this is overkill. He's good at sneaking, not mass murder."

Naomi said, "We identified the room the guest house room the guards were in as the one Mikki was staying in. You don't think the double agent could be her?"

"No," said Dante. "That's way overkill for her. She's not a soldier, she's a scientist. And even if she is the double agent, I can keep her under control myself. She's crucial to our plans."

"I wanted to mention something about that," said an Apostle at the round table. "Your new transhuman endoskeletal models are being mass produced at your complex of manufacturing facilities as we speak."

"Good," said Dante. "May I see the progress for myself?"

"If you come to the Firelake subsidiary's main headquarters in the Altai Mountains, you can."

"Excellent," said Dante. "Meryl, can you and the others be there to play defense, in case Snake tries to sneak into that facility?"

"Yes, sir," said Meryl.

"Should I come too, sir?" said Fat Snake.

Mei Ling said, "You ask too many questions, Ocelot."

"He outranks you, Mei Ling," said Dante. "Despite that I admire your taste for wrath, you are to respect him. He may have destroyed your ship back during the Guns of the Patriots Incident, but I want you to remember who our true opponents are, and channel your wrath against them."

"Yes, sir," said Mei Ling.

Dante said, "I had hoped to conclude our supper later rather than sooner, but given the news of the double agent, along with Snake's arrival, I suspect that even meeting via teleconference has become a danger to our operation now. This meeting is adjourned.

"Meryl, I leave it to you and the others to hunt down your former friend. Ocelot, do what you can to investigate further into the identity of the double agent."

"Yes, sir," said Meryl.

"Yes, sir," said Ocelot.

"Ocelot, have you secured the Eye?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Despite the setbacks, our plans for the world are inevitable, and very soon they will become the reality of things," said Dante. "I will see you all in Firelake's headquarters in Rome when the time is right."

The Apostles nodded, and their holograms and screens turned off, their pixels evaporating one by one, along with that of the globe in the center of the round table, in the center of the panic room.

Cyber Snake's former friends and Fat Snake exited the panic room.

Despite that his mind was racing from the meeting he just recorded in his BISECT with his senses, Cyber Snake had to be hasty to make it out of the panic room.

Strangely enough, he found a vial full of sperm in his kit.

Why is Ocelot helping me? Snake thought.

Not questioning providence, Snake unlocked the door to the panic room from the inside once they were gone.

While waiting for the panic room vault door to open, Snake looked at the pool full of augmented piranhas and the guards' endoskeletal remains.

Snake managed to make it out of the mansion and out of the biodomes with the help of his disguise.

He then got a call on his C3.

"Snake?"

"Ultra Mouse."

"I sobered up like you recommended," she said. "Did you manage to make it to the meeting?"

"Yeah… somehow, I did way more than that… thanks to Liquid, of all people."

"What did you find?"

"I'll brief you about it on the way out. I thought you'd be more surprised about Liquid than anything else. He threatened to kill us and blow our covers, after all. Anyway, do you by any chance have a plan for extraction?"

"Yes. There's a hovercraft I stashed nearby the biodomes. You can use it to ride through the jungle back to Bangkok's airport. I'm sending the location to your BISECT."

"Got it," said Snake.

"There's a superstorm happening outside the biodomes. The winds are starting to pick up. You may have to use your adhesive grip to anchor yourself to the ground. Be careful, Snake."

"You as well," said Snake, as he ended the call, and looked up at the illusion of the clear skies created by the bright lights of the biodome ceiling.

On the hovercraft ride out through the massive storm, Snake debriefed Ultra Mouse.

"I managed to secure something called the Eye of Providence within a vault in Dante's panic room."

"The Eye of Providence? That's something I designed!"

"What?"

"How'd you get to it?"

"…with Liquid's help. I think he's planning something bad in the long run. We have to keep an eye out for him."

"I know, you'll have to be more careful," said Ultra Mouse. "But for now, I think you're safe."

"As will you. What is the Eye of Providence?"

"It's a long story… If it's all right, I'd rather explain it to you on our next mission. We'll see each other again; I can guarantee that. I was assigned to protect you, after all," said Ultra Mouse. "What did you learn from the meeting?"

Snake said, "I think our next mission is going to have something to do with Dante's manufacturing facility that's part of his megacorporation, Firelake's subsidiary company."

"Of course, A-Nile-8!"

"The website and manufacturing empire designed for people to buy goods online and have them shipped to their location across the globe? What's the CEO's name again?"

"Jeffrey Bozeman. He's an Apostle, and a household name. Frankly, I'm surprised you couldn't remember it," said Ultra Mouse. "Your consciousness isn't getting senile in its old age, is it, Snake?" she joked.

"…no, it's not."

"I was kidding… but still, that's good to hear. So how does A-Nile-8 factor into things?"

"Something about manufacturing new transhuman endoskeletons. Not sure what entirely."

"So… are we headed to Russia?"

"Don't you know that already? Given Dante's going to take you with him?"

"He hasn't told me yet."

"Right. There's something else, too."

"Tell me."

"Apparently there's a double agent within NATO. Whoever they are, they must be close to us. If Liquid doesn't blow your cover, they might."

"Sounds like we need to figure out who they are then… before they figure out who I am."

"Yeah," said Snake.

As lightning crackled above Snake, and the wind started to throw the hovercraft around a bit, Snake said, "I probably need to focus on driving now. I'll talk to you soon, Ultra Mouse."

"Great," said Ultra Mouse with a smile. "You've got my number. Don't keep me waiting too long."

Snake sighed after hanging up.

He managed to make it to Bangkok's airport, where Otacon and Sunny were waiting for him in the Nomad.