Timeline A: (x-y)=0.5 (1:11) (N:corrupt)
In all the infinite spectrum upon infinite spectrum of man's knowledge, many things have been achieved. They have measured the heartbeat of the earth, they have coaxed sweet sound from the dull, and they have lulled the very stars themselves from their slumber, to make them dance at the bidding of even the common man. But in all this boundless knowledge, the spiral-within-a-spiral intricacy of everything there is, no one man, brilliant as he or she may be, has ever, ever, figured out the point of caviar.
Except the caviar sellers.
Maybe they know something we don't.
Ye god. Was this a sign of old age? It must be. He shook his head sharply, sending a nearby diplomat, nervous already, into a semi-dignified crouch.
Which was fair enough. Diplomats, on the whole, tended to run to thin and blade-like, not to say waifish. The suggestion was always of silver cigarette cases, fountain pens and perhaps, in the past, lazy days spent punting along famous collegiate rivers with people named Sebastian. This great hulking brute, with his six feet of height, his eyepatch and suspiciously militant bulge in his jacket, looked as if the only reason he would be at the function was to rob the guests, or possibly just burn the place to the ground and sow the land with salt.
He turned, sending the diplomat further to the wall.
"Caviar sellers." The behemoth growled.
"Don't trust them."
And walked off, casting a visibly ominous shadow. The corridor seemed to be darkening ahead of him, although possibly just because he was blocking out most of the light. Probably a bodyguard, thought the diplomat. For a ridiculously important person.
Snake walked away, letting his thoughts drift from his present trivialities. (He had dismissed caviar as a topic for later evaluation.) He was uncomfortable here, and people were uncomfortable with him. The life of a statesman was one of finesse and élan, (two words which incidentally had to be translated for him) qualities which he possessed only in bursts. In these narrow rococo (was it rococo? One of these art styles where they flung gold glitter at everything anyway) halls, the emphasis ironically was on subtlety and delicacy of touch- a word here, a murmured reprimand there, a swift joke to ensure good relations. Good relations. People didn't like it, the colonel had told him chidingly, if you pulled out a Biretta in the middle of negotiations and I quote "vow to put a hole in you the size of goddamn Alaska unless you give up the goddamn walking nuke". People got upset. Negotiations were disrupted. The prime minister suffered a mild attack of something or other.
His style was more direct, and they disliked him for it.
Even the goddamn tie was too tight.
Now, if he had had his own way…
There wouldn't be a need for this conference. No need to put two men across a table and call it an excuse for a party. If he had had his way, this could have been solved five months ago, with all the expenditure required being the price of two packets of cigarettes and a half-a- litre of coolant spray. He had seen the blueprints. It would have been so easy. In through the side gates, then box it over to the back door (they never guarded the back door), a few guards inside, (though nothing a swift, muffled dart to the neck couldn't deal with) and then…
He stopped. He realized that he had unconsciously stepped into the shadows provided by a large decorative urn, and, with a deepening sense of shame, recognized the peripheral eyestrain he could feel was the semiautonomous search for that tantalizingly now-you-see-me blip of the nanoradar in the corner of his vision.
The elderly Chinese lady he had been reflexively drawing a bead on did not look that much of a threat. Rather the opposite really. He sighed deeply, and continued on his way to the banquet hall.
National heroes are expected to behave in a certain way. If they have won their acclaim on the field of battle, Snake had long ago realized, then they were expected to continue their glorious tradition on their return home by putting on a suit and making extremely small talk with the people they had formerly been attempting to kill.
It could have been done, the Colonel had said, Oh yes. With the right men, the right equipment, they could make Philanthropy entirely black-ops and the world would be a little more oblivious and a little more safe.
If they had had the right men.
They had had Snake.
He, apparently, was not enough.
No, he thought dully, as he rounded the corner, following the light and the sound of chatter, just a little too late to be fashionably so; what you needed was someone on mission control, preferably someone who was involved in the original Shadow Moses debacle: who knew the Metal Gears, knew them inside and…
He stopped.
The man ()
And blinked.
Before he was guided to a group of outstretched hands and smiling faces, he thought he had seen… someone.
Which was ridiculous. He himself was now well over forty years old (felt like 60 sometimes), and the older man had been well into his forties when they met. He knew that people could age prematurely, but none could reverse it. And yet…
(He pulled the Colonel over to the side, slowly, slowly, so as not to seem rushed.)
"Who is he?"
(The swift backwards jerk of the thumb.)
"Him? No-one important. A scientist. Ex-peace corps. A wasted talent, of course. Hostage survivor. Part of the whole Shadow Moses episode, or so I hear. Traumatized completely. Here as an advisor. Why, do you recognize him?"
Talk about a difficult answer to a difficult question.
"Think I'll go say hello." Snake muttered, hoarsely. He could barely hear the colonel's reply over the sound of his own heart.
He walked, so he wouldn't run. The slim hands. The eyes, hazy, a mass of grey, behind the glasses. The smile- hesitant, as though something would chase it away any second now. There was something here he recognized. Memories started to drip back, as silvery and insubstantial as mercury in an hourglass.
"Do I know you?" he said, raising a hand in greeting.
A hand was offered back, and the smile, like the bushel being raised from the light, crept towards full luminescence.
"I… I think you do." Came the quiet voice, the voice which hinted at much.
Their hands met.
"Michel…" said the hesitant smile. "From the SETA office, right?"
Something had been building. It was. He could feel it. And now…
He let his hand slip from the other man's grip.
"I'm sorry." For who? "I've mistaken you for someone else."
He left. He left behind the lights, and the noise, and the Colonel's furious stare, and the delicate negotiations, and the sparkling chatter, and the stupid fucking food and the pointless, pointless luxury of it all.
Timeline A: (x-y)=0.4 (11:17) (N:corrupt)…
(Away on the other side of the room, the older man shook his head, trying to dislodge a memory that had never existed. He was still frowning at the floor when a strong arm landed heavily on his shoulder...
And drew him close.
"What is the problem, Emmerich?" just the hint of the accent here, framing her words rather than marring them.
"You knew, huh?"
"It's hard to miss when you're this close." Her blonde hair sat lightly on his shoulders.
"I have the sneaking suspicion that I've met that guy before, but I just can't think where."
The beautiful traitor laughed.
"I'm not interested. It's time to feed the family." She said, pulling him close.
"تعال ، أمريكية." she said. "غدا هو يوم الجمعة ، فطيرة الراعي."
They left early, as married couples are wont to do.)
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Because even in some parallel universes, Otacon got to hit it, yay, and even to put a ring upon it.
