Chapter 5 – Reality Glitch.

Snake stirred. No dreams had accompanied his nap.

"Seriously, that's all he does anymore," Meryl said.

It was entirely possible that he was the subject of Meryl's sentence, so Snake pretended to be asleep.

"I'm sure it's only a phase," Campbell said. "He just finished developing the next generation of sneaking suits. We're lucky he even had time to say hello, let alone host parties."

They were obviously not talking about him. Otacon was the subject of their discussion.

"I can't believe that there is a facility near our town with the resources available to make something like that," Naomi said.

"Where do you think Snake stole half of the stuff that's in your lab?" Meryl asked. "Anyway, I think we should do an intervention when we get back. Otacon won't even watch anime anymore because he could be spending that time doing a raid."

"What's that?" Naomi asked.

"A bunch of players in his group of online friends get together at a certain time and take on the boss in a dungeon."

"I thought he was trying to locate the Patriots," Naomi said.

"He wrote a program to do that for him so he can spend time doing other things."

An idea occurred to Snake. Now would be the perfect time to see if they were paying attention to their surroundings. Snake snapped out of his ruse, made a gun with the fingers of his right hand, and shot everyone in the helicopter. Judging by the fact that they all screamed and jumped in their seats, they clearly weren't ready for his surprise attack. This wasn't the first time he had pretended to murder his friends and he was hoping that it would not be his last.

"You're all dead," he announced.

"You can be so immature at times," Meryl said.

"Attention passengers," Brad's voice said. "Our destination is now visible."

Shadow Moses had not changed one bit. Another helicopter was on the landing pad. A man with blazing white hair and skin far too soft for his gender stepped out. Despite how cold it was outside, Raiden seemed perfectly comfortable in a T-Shirt and a pair of jeans. Snake noticed that a truck was parked near the helipad. It looked exactly like the one he had seen so many years ago.

After the helicopter that had brought in Raiden had left, Brad landed. Snake immediately headed for the truck, walking right passed the older female officer that had come to greet him. He jumped into the back of the vehicle and found an unloaded SOCOM. A change in the wind alerted him to a precarious situation. Somebody was about to point a finger gun at him. Snake whipped around with the unloaded SOCOM and aimed right at Raiden's head before he had a chance to murder him. Raiden snapped his fingers together and shook his head in shame.

"Can't get the drop on you, can I?" Raiden asked.

"Very few people can," Snake replied.

He jumped out of the truck and faced Raiden.

"I always secretly hoped you wouldn't have to do this kind of work again."

"They gave me a picture of Rose and my kid."

Snake was left speechless. Raiden had been separated from Rose for quite some time. He had left them behind to avoid the situation he was now facing. Snake and Otacon had helped conceal their identities. Raiden had chosen to live in Alaska because that's what everybody else was doing and had been making a living as a crab fisherman. Raiden had not been around for many of Snake's recent misadventures, although he had shown up to try and help when Ocelot had gone crazy with Liquid's hand again.

"What kind of a picture?" Snake asked.

"They were at a park. It was just a way of showing me that they know where they are."

This presented a huge problem. If Snake didn't want to kill Big Boss, Raiden sure would. He was liable to do whatever he was told to save his family. Snake could sympathize since friends weren't blood.

"Do you know why we're here?"

"Yeah, I got a phone call. Do you think something is a bit off about this mission?" Raiden asked.

"Trust me, kid, there's always something that they don't tell you."

The female officer from the heliport approached him again.

"Hello, Solid Snake. I'm Major Lee. If you'll follow me, I'll take you to our VR room. It's in Dr. Emmerich's old laboratory. You might remember the way."

"Right past the building that has a hanger with two tanks, a floor with three holding cells, and an armory full of less than two hundred bullets."

Snake tossed the SOCOM in the back of the truck since he already had one in his private collection. He looked up where the searchlights were kept in the direction of the abnormally large ventilation shaft and sighed wistfully.

"Care to crawl through it and meet us in the building for old time's sake?" Lee asked.

He shook his head. Two soldiers dressed in snow camouflage and carrying M4A1's were waiting for them at the entrance of the hanger. They gestured for the team to halt while Lee walked passed them and leaned on the door.

"Arms out," one of the soldiers said to Snake.

Though Snake was hoping the soldier would miss his Glock, he found it immediately and took it from him.

"I knew it. You truly are legendary, aren't you?" Lee asked.

"The one and only," Snake replied.

Meryl scoffed, but said nothing. It took the soldier a few minutes to finish searching everyone else. None of them were carrying anything worth confiscating. Lee gestured for them to come in. When they all stepped inside, the soldiers followed. No tanks were in the hanger and the back door still wouldn't open for anyone who wasn't carrying a level five keycard. A soldier watched them from the catwalk on the second floor near the offices a few feet from the ventilation shaft. Lee took out a card and swiped it across the reader, which buzzed in irritation and refused to open.

"Whoops, that's a level two key," Lee mumbled to herself.

It took her a minute to find the right key and open the door. Four soldiers came running down the hallway as the door opened. One of them was carrying a sleigh and all of them were giggling.

"There goes four future members of the senate," Snake said.

"Our country is truly in capable hands," Raiden said hopefully. "Did you see the size of that sleigh?"

The party proceeded across the canyon that separated the two buildings. Naomi and Meryl huddled together for warmth. The snow was ankle deep and despite the fact that he was wearing tennis shoes instead of boots, Raiden still wasn't visibly phased by the awful weather or by the snow that was getting into his shoes with each step he took. He tripped into a gutter in the middle of the canyon that hadn't been completely filled with snow even though everything else was covered in it.

"Is this heated?" Raiden asked in confusion as a sensation of warmth crept up his legs.

"What's this thing doing here?" Snake asked. "I don't remember a gutter being here."

"That's been there," Lee replied.

"No, it hasn't," Snake said. "This would have really made that fight against Raven a lot easier."

"You must be imagining things," Lee said.

Campbell helped Raiden out of the gutter and the entourage continued forward. Lee had no trouble opening the door to the warhead storage building. The bay door was up, giving them a great view of the interior beyond the driveway leading into the canyon. A few warheads were out on the floor, ready to be dismantled. Containers were piled up against the wall, waiting to be driven out to a remote area and dumped into a fracked pit when nobody was watching. No personnel were present and Snake noticed that a new security door had been installed in the north end of the room.

They walked up the stairs leading to the balcony that ran the length of the room and headed towards the elevator.

"This is so stupid," Raiden said. "How far away is the base Big Boss has taken over? He could be gone by the time we're done with this."

"I doubt that," Lee said. "The Metal Gear he wanted to steal was behind a door that locks with a random code in the event of an emergency. The code is a hundred characters in length. He can try to either drill through the door or hack the panel. Either way, he will be there for a while."

Lee pressed the button to call the elevator twice. The second time she pressed the button, the elevator magically arrived on their floor and opened. Snake decided to test Lee.

"He's not trying to steal a Metal Gear," Snake said. "He's attempting to get an AI that will help him locate five computers that control the world."

Lee slowly turned her head to look Snake in the eyes with an expression of confusion and disgust. The two soldiers following them snickered.

"Are you trying to be funny?" she asked.

"You don't believe me?"

"I'm not too sure what to believe about you."

That went just about as well as he had expected. They crowded inside the elevator and Lee pressed the button that would take them down to the second floor basement. Once they arrived on the floor, it was only a short walk to Otacon's lab. The hallway where Gray Fox had slaughtered nearly a dozen hapless soldiers had been completely redone. There was no evidence that a fight had ever taken place in it. Half of Otacon's lab had been redesigned for VR exercises while the other half had been dedicated to their development. Five padded medical beds were in the room. A helmet hooked into a large computer case was resting where the head of the user would lie. Each station had its own operator, who would monitor and control the simulation they would be experiencing.

"We have recreated the situation to the best of our abilities," Lee said. "If you're going to be on the ground, have a seat."

Meryl, Raiden, and Snake sat down on the beds.

"I'm going to go over new equipment available to you, so listen carefully. This is important to the plot," Lee said.

"The what?" Raiden asked.

"The mission. I meant the mission," Lee said. She cleared her throat before continuing. "You will all be wearing OctoCamo. This sneaking suit will generate a camouflage pattern based on your surroundings as you move. The suit also masks thermal signatures, giving you an extra layer of protection. Everyone gets a M4A1, a M9, and a knife. The metal on your guns responds to your OctoCamo. Whatever pattern you're wearing will transfer onto your guns. You will have a tablet computer attached to your left arm. You can use your Soliton radar and make CODEC calls with it, among other things. It should not be too difficult to figure out.

"Everybody also gets a pair of Solid Goggles. They will give you night vision and thermal vision. The goggles can tag enemy soldiers, enabling you to see them behind barriers. Their silhouettes will be one of three colors. If they are green, they are not looking at you. If they are yellow, they are looking your way. If they are red, you are dead. Civilians will be tagged in the same manner, but they will have a red 'X' over their faces so you will know not to shoot them.

"Finally, you will all have a master keycard. The locks in the base you will be infiltrating use keycards. This card synchs to your tablet computer and will hack any lock you come across. If you take too long to complete this exercise, we will have to end it abruptly. You will receive more instructions once you are in the simulation. As always, a panic button will be on your right wrist. If you press it, the simulation will end immediately. Please lie down and put on your helmets."

The trio did as they were told.

"I think something is wrong with mine. How do you adjust this thing?" Meryl asked.

Snake attempted to take his helmet off and wait for Meryl, but once the process was started, it couldn't be stopped. Two blue dots at the opposite ends of his vision began heading towards each other until they finally merged in the center. He then felt as though his spirit were leaving his body. Though he had been through this process a few times before, it was still uncomfortable.

Typically, the simulation began right after the ticklish out of body sensation had ended. An impenetrable darkness greeted him. It lingered. If this were an exercise focused on how it felt to be wide awake while being asleep, the programmers had outdone themselves. Snake tried to speak, but was unable to do so. Only his thoughts were working.

All at once, he was falling face first into a runway covered in snow and ice. Snake frantically groped at his chest in search of a ripcord to the parachute he hoped he was wearing, but found none. He landed on his back after falling thirty feet from the entry point. Pain had been turned on for the simulation, but the part of the physics engine that should have registered his back as broken seemed to have missed its chance to shine, which delighted Snake to no end.

When Snake was finally able to focus on something other than how much agony he was in, he stood up and examined his surroundings. He had landed at the end of an illuminated runway. A great deal of snow had been shoveled off the runway and a heavy fog had descended on the environment. He noticed that he was wearing the suit Lee had mentioned. It covered his entire body in a camouflage pattern that perfectly matched the concrete he was standing on. His face was protected by a separate mask made out of the same material.

A M4A1 and M9 popped into existence with muddy textures that eventually began to render properly. Snake wasn't having any more of this. Something was wrong. The panic button was on his right wrist protected by a transparent lid that could only be opened by him. Snake grabbed the lid and discovered that it had been sealed around the button. No amount of pulling would cause it to come free.

Snake picked up the M9 and discovered that a holster had magically appeared on his leg. A tactical harness also seized the opportunity to clip out of his body and settle itself on his chest, which made him cry out in fright. The items he was wearing added no weight to his body. He could not even feel the texture of the sneaking suit against his skin. Snake tried to use the butt of his gun to break the container above the panic button, but it didn't work.

It was then that the wind kicked in and he began feeling a little chilly. He took a brief moment to make sure that his weapons were loaded with actual bullets and that his harness contained extra ammunition. It was a relief to find that they were functioning properly. The goggles and keycard that Lee had mentioned were missing. He looked at his wrist where the tablet computer should have been and saw nothing. Snake's forefinger stopped an inch away from his wrist when he tried to poke it. The device was there, but had somehow become invisible.

"Colonel, can you hear me?" Snake asked, tapping buttons randomly on his invisible computer. "Are you there? Hello?"

He received no reply. He was on his own. Standing around out in the open in a malfunctioning VR environment was incredibly dangerous. He needed to find a place to hide. Snake ran down the runway, hoping for the best. The sound his feet made when they hit the concrete was substantially muffled, which he figured was an actual part of the suit's features and not another error. A figure materialized out of the fog ahead of him. Snake came to a full stop, crouched down, and aimed his M4A1 at the target.

Big Boss shambled into view, looking directly at Snake. He had dressed formally in a stylish light brown tuxedo with a matching trench coat. Big Boss came to a stop five feet away from Snake.

"Will you kill me?" Big Boss asked.

This was a test. They had brought him here to see if he was capable of killing Big Boss. If he really intended to join forces with him, someone would see to it that he was eliminated before he got the chance. Snake's conflicted emotions were readable on a screen somewhere. Somebody would know that he was willing to choose the lesser of two evils and give Big Boss a chance to explain himself further before he made his decision even if it did mean putting everybody he knew in danger. He pulled the trigger anyway in case he happened to be wrong and shot Big Boss in the heart. A wound appeared, but Big Boss was not affected by it.

"As I suspected," Big Boss said. "Ocelot was wrong about you. Are you familiar with the concept of virtual death?"

Snake remained silent and kept his gun aimed at Big Boss because he knew that he would be getting an answer to that question eventually.

"With as realistic as these simulations are getting, it is theoretically possible that if the wrong messages are sent to the brain, you will actually die. Let's test that out."

Big Boss convulsed into a T pose, fell through the cement, and vanished. Though it seemed like a crazy explanation, Snake was certain that Big Boss had been being played by the same Patriot AI that had posed as Campbell. Snake took off running as fast as he possibly could. He expected a sniper to take him out at any second.

It started to rain. A building that had been built on top of the runway appeared out of the mist. The structure was made out of bricks, had no windows, and was rather large. Snake spotted a single door about a foot away from the corner of the building. A light was above it. It seemed a little suspicious. Snake veered off to the right, intending to go around the building. He slammed into an invisible wall so hard that he bounced off it and fell to the ground. An arrow appeared in his vision that pointed towards the door. He didn't have a choice.

He approached the door and entered the mysterious building cautiously. Not all the lights were on. Most of the interior was covered in shadow. Snake saw a bunch of trucks, cardboard boxes, and the head of Eva Unit 02, which he had to stop and admire. Evangelion was one of Otacon's favorite shows, but Snake could not stand it. If assets like this were available, it would not be long until Otacon swore off MMO's for good and hooked himself up to a VR machine until he died of malnourishment.

"Boo!" somebody exclaimed.

Snake turned around and faced Raiden, who had a smug smirk on his face. Raiden had the same equipment that Snake had been given, but had chosen to take off the balaclava, presumably so he could show everyone how pretty he was. His M9 was pointed at Snake.

"Too bad none of this is real," Snake said.

"You're not going to ruin this for me," Raiden said. "Put your hands up and start shaking, I want your dog tags."

"This isn't the time to be fooling around. We're kind of in a bind at the moment, if you haven't noticed."

Raiden holstered his weapon. Snake backhanded him across the face. Raiden cried out, stumbled back a few steps, and shielded his face with his hands.

"If you ever point a loaded gun at me again, we will no longer be friends and I will break your arm."

"But you said that none of this is real!"

"You were pointing a loaded gun at me in a malfunctioning VR environment. Our pain sensors are on. Are you not able to comprehend how stupid you were just being?"

"You're right. I'm very sorry."

"I accept your apology."

The threat he had been given by Big Boss' doppelganger came back to him. Snake aimed his rifle at Raiden, who immediately surrendered by raising his hands into the air.

"Alright, the shoe is on the other foot. I get it," Raiden said.

"Prove you're who I think you are. Tell me something that only you and I would know."

"Why?" Raiden demanded.

"Because, if you're just another variable, I'm going to shoot you."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Okay, calm down for a second. What happened?"

"I'll give you to the count of ten."

"If I keep my arms up, could you extend that count to thirty?"

"Fine, but not a second longer than that."

Snake didn't start counting and would give Raiden as long as he needed to answer the question. He kept his head clear of any fond memories he had shared with Raiden to make it difficult for anyone to cheat if Raiden wasn't real. Raiden's face lit up with surprise when the memory finally came to him.

"Remember the time we went to hang out with Otacon and he went out to go get alcohol and we found that one heavily read hentai manga just lying out in the open and we drew mustaches on all the girls?"

Otacon had obtained the manga in question at Comiket. The release had been an exclusive. Since it had yet to be scanned and uploaded to the Internet, Otacon had lost something rare. If the content in the manga hadn't been highly questionable, Snake would have felt bad about it. He lowered his rifle.

"You're Raiden," Snake said, lowering his rifle.

"Are you Snake?" Raiden asked.

"What do you think?"

"It does seem obvious when you put it like that. So, what should we do?"

"We should stay right here while it's safe because if we get killed in here, we might die in real life."

"That's a load of bologna. If we die, we would just hit a game over screen."

"Raiden, for the tenth time, this simulation is broken."

"If we were in trouble, Campbell would pull our helmets off."

"I agree, but there must be some reason why he can't do that or he would have done it already."

"Okay, I'm officially starting to get a little nervous."

"That's fine. Just don't start freaking out. Have you seen Meryl?"

Raiden shook his head.

"Where did you spawn?" Snake asked.

"Right where we're standing."

Snake looked up at the ceiling and could not find a way up to the roof.

"If she's out there, I don't think that she can miss the place," Raiden offered.

He wondered how safe it would be to search the area for a flare gun and a pair of binoculars when his vision went red. White text was displayed in front of him.

WARNING!

A FLAGRANT SYSTEM ERROR HAS OCCURRED.

DO NOT PANIC.

DO NOT THROW UP.

PROCEED IMMEDIATELY TO GOAL MARKER.

DISPENSING HELPFUL GUIDES.

PLAYER 1, OBSERVE YOUR SHADOW.

PLAYER 2, HANG TIGHT.

His vision returned to normal. Snake looked down at his shadow as it suddenly jumped off the floor and formed into a little black imp with luminescent tattoos. She wore an intricate stone helmet on her head. The character levitated at Snake's eye level and grinned deviously. Vague memories of watching Otacon flail around in his living room in front of the television with a white remote came to him. Sometimes there wasn't really anything better to do than watch him play video games. Snake recognized the character as Midna from some game with Of in the title.

"Moce hiwt em fi oyu awnt ot vile," Midna said.

Snake blinked a couple of times. Midna reached behind her back and pulled a blue dialogue box from nothing. White letters appeared on the background.

Come with me if you want to live.

The dialogue boxed closed, disappearing from view.

"Where's mine?" Raiden asked.

"Hey!" a new voice cried out.

They looked up in the air to see a blue ball of light with transparent wings and an infinite supply of glitter flying towards Raiden.

"Hello! Hello!"

"I get a stupid blue firefly?" Raiden asked, disgusted. "What is this?"

"Listen! Look!" the firefly shouted as she floated off to the right behind a truck that was full of bananas.

"I'm going to shoot it," Raiden said.

"Don't be ridiculous," Snake said.

"Taht yaw!" Midna exclaimed, following the firefly.

As they were about to make their escape, an explosion distracted them for a moment. Where the front door had once been was a hole and a pile of crumbled cement. The fog billowed in from outside as a large male with a pyramid shaped helmet covering his head stepped in. The butcher's outfit the man wore was covered in grime and he was holding the handle of a gigantic knife in one hand. The enormous blade dragged across the ground as he started walking right towards Snake.

Raiden unloaded an entire clip into the legs of the filthy individual, but none of the bullets had any effect on him.

"Raiden, get out of here! It's after me," Snake said.

Satisfied with that statement, the blue glitterfly began to shout 'Hey' incessantly until Raiden relented and took off running after it. The pyramid man took no interest in Raiden's escape. That's when it finally hit Snake. Raven's infamous Halloween party, costumes, strangers, candy, and alcohol. Good times. Somewhere in the haze of it all he remembered playing a game called Silent Hill 2 on Otacon's PS2 a few hours before the festivities officially commenced. The monster standing in front of Snake was Pyramid Head and somehow he knew that they were destined to meet in battle when he first saw him.

"I bet I can run faster than you," Snake said.

Pyramid Head took a step forward and swung the knife like a club using only one hand. Snake stepped back just in time and the knife missed him by a mere inch. He ran behind a truck, realized that he was heading into the shadows, and then veered off into the light. Snake passed an assortment of toilets from several different designers. Pyramid Head was right behind him. The sound of his knife dragging across the cement floor accompanied his plodding footsteps.

He kept running from truck to truck looking for something he could use to his advantage. Midna had disappeared completely. She had to have lost sight of him. Everything was packed in so tight that it made it impossible to see to the end of the building. It was a maze of junk. Snake took a sharp turn around a truck just as Pyramid Head brought the knife down where he had been standing. The force of the blow broke through the concrete.

Snake decided to risk his life and ducked near the engine of the truck. It took Pyramid Head a moment to pull his knife from the ground. As his target came around the corner, Snake stuck his foot out and tripped Pyramid Head, who went flying forward. He dropped his knife while he tumbled. His helmet struck the floor first and he came to a screeching halt. For one glorious moment, Pyramid Head was stuck suspended in the air from his helmet until his weight dislodged him. Pyramid Head fell over on his side, completely disoriented.

"Yeh!" Midna shouted.

Midna was flying through the air, heading right towards him. An odd orange hand had sprouted from her helmet, which held a blue VR goal marker. While Pyramid Head was busy recuperating, Midna placed the goal marker right in front of Snake.

"Is Raiden okay? Did he get out?" Snake asked.

Midna nodded. Pyramid Head was beginning to stand up.

"What about Meryl? Is there another person in this simulation?"

She shook her head. It was safe for him to leave. Snake spotted the knife a few feet away and went for it. Stealing it would add insult to injury. Pyramid Head deserved to lose it. Snake grabbed the handle of the blade and almost gave himself a hernia when he tried to move it. He held the blade in one hand while he stretched the fingers on his other hand out towards the goal marker. Midna put the orange hand that Snake assumed was made of her hair on the spinning white disc that the marker floated above and pushed it an inch further towards Snake. Right before Pyramid Head grabbed him, Snake's forefinger touched the marker and his world went black.