CHAPTER 10 (DEBRIEFING)— "THE DAEMONIC SOUL EATER"
Snake and Mikki's submarine was received at gunpoint upon nearing the energy shield barrier protecting Los Angeles from unwanted guests.
Snake said over the submarine's comms, "We're here on behalf of President Brady."
"Identification?" the guards said on their comms' frequency at the checkpoint behind the energy shield.
"Dr. Mikki Moskova is with me."
The guards were running the name through their database upon entry. Snake waited impatiently.
"Dr. Moskova is cleared for entry. Send her through."
"Can't I just drive the sub through?"
"Does she know how to drive it herself?"
"What are you implying?"
"Dr. Moskova is cleared for entry. You aren't."
"You're kidding."
"What?" said Mikki, looking up and out the window at the guards. "Goddamnit Hannah… Tell them I'm not going in without you!"
Snake said, "She's not going in without me."
"Sir, with all due respect, there's been some increases in security measures here due to concerns about the rumored Firelake cyberattack."
"That's why we're here, damn it… to stop the cyberattack from happening! And she's not going in without me!"
The guards looked at each other as Snake continued to demand entry. "Do you two think Hannah's going to be happy with you, knowing you caused Dr. Moskova, the one person who might be able to save humanity from the unholy fucking mess JD caused, to refuse to enter Los Angeles due to a technicality? I'll say it again, she's not going in without me!"
Their faces red, the guards said, "You're cleared for entry."
A bubble in the energy shield of the dome surrounding the city disintegrated, and Snake and Mikki entered the city's next security checkpoint.
Snake and Mikki were stripped of their clothes and possessions by the security team and had their consciousnesses and bodies scanned via a biometric scanner similar to the one Snake had to disguise himself as Solidus to cross in Rome, all in order to make sure it was them.
Several guards snickered to themselves as they looked at Mikki while she was naked. She covered her breasts with her hands.
"Hannah's getting overly paranoid…" Snake muttered to Mikki.
"For good reason. We failed to stop Dante's plans. Everything's about to go to hell."
"More like everyone… Unless we can figure out a way to stop the mole from locally accessing the Reality of Things hivemind."
"It's worse than you think…" said Mikki. "Fat Snake informed me of how bad the schism has become between JD and Firelake before he was compromised on Dante's island. The mole may not be a single person… Rather, it could be anyone and everyone we see."
"So in other words, we can't trust anyone but each other."
"Right," said Mikki, looking away from Snake as they exited the scanner.
They were given fresh clothes and a hotel room in one of the nearby skyscrapers in downtown L.A.
Snake showered to rinse the rest of the dirt and blood off of his body quickly. Mikki went after him, since her scars weren't as bad as his.
As he got dressed in a gray suit, he looked in the shower at Mikki while she was scrubbing her hair.
As she got out of the shower to dry off, he said to her, "You're going to need to see a doctor to repair your heart."
"We're in the city where some of the richest people on Earth go to party it up with hot celebrities and pornstars," said Mikki. "I'm sure they have plenty of the best transhuman doctors on hand in case they get too rowdy… or if they fall ill from any nasty STDs."
Snake called the local hospital using their hotel room phone line, only to find that he was talking to someone other than the hospital's automated receptionist.
"Snake… It's about time we talked to each other."
"Hannah Brady?"
"Not quite. I'm one of Hannah's daughters… Sheila."
"Oh…" said Snake. "You sound a lot like your mother."
"I'll try to make myself brief in explaining why I contacted you. I'm risking a lot to do this by itself," said Sheila.
"Go on…" said Snake.
Sheila said, "Not letting you into Los Angeles was Hannah's idea… After what happened on Inner Haven, Dante's private island, she's worried your BISECT has been compromised by Dante. But I need you here to complete a task for me."
"Hannah had my father and real mother killed," said Sheila. "She was one of my father's mistresses. My father was the original CEO of the John Doe conglomerate. She was jealous of my mother, and angry at my father for taking all the credit for her own accomplishments in terms of resurrecting the Patriots."
"Guess the patriarchy still is in effect if your father could do something like that…" Snake mused. "So, are you trying to get revenge on Hannah then? Is that what this is about?"
"No," said Sheila. "I need protection from her, and what's coming… I've spent roughly two-thirds of my life working on a plan involving letting JD and Firelake take each other out… Now's the chance for my plans to become a reality."
"My mind is being monitored by Hannah…" said Snake. "If you're trying to avoid her for some reason, you're exposing yourself just by talking to me."
"It's all right," said Sheila. "I have my own influences within JD… with help, I managed to gain partial access to the Reality of Things and create a sectioned-off part of the hivemind that I could monitor. I used some of JD's programmers to help me contact you while you were on your mission on Inner Haven."
"Programmers… while I was on Inner Haven…" Frowning, Snake said, "Hannah contacted me and revealed that her hivemind's ability to access our minds was dwindling… but that it wasn't Dante who was responsible… That VR simulation of the yacht with you and Hannah on it… that was your doing!"
"I had to make it believable," said Sheila. "But I did it to contact you and request that you help protect me from Hannah."
"You invaded my fucking mind!" said Snake. "You drastically interfered with a critical mission I was on… and for what?"
"You're right, it was critical, even if it was risking the future of humanity in the process," said Sheila. "My plan required an ace-in-the-hole."
"You bet a lot of lives on your protection, and yours alone," said Snake. "Billions of them."
"You misunderstand me… Unlike my mother, I'm looking one step ahead… Both Firelake and JD are huge threats to the future of the world and humanity… Neither conglomerate can be able to have control of technology like this… I'm planning to dismantle JD from within."
Snake sighed frustratedly. "All right… What's our next step?"
"Hannah is sending men to kill you right now," said Sheila. "She doesn't want you near the Reality of Things' central server."
"What?" said Snake. He looked out the hotel window. Flying security drones had arrived at the plaza outside. "Why does she want to kill me? My mission's not over!"
"In her eyes, you failed your mission," said Sheila. "It makes sense, given that you still are unsure of where Metal Gear DAEMON is, where Dante and your former friends are hiding. Throw in the fact that she knows you're plotting against her now with the help of Mikki, and the fact that the world's capitalist and communist leaders are meeting at respective summits at high-security bunkers in Washington and Moscow right now, preparing for World War Three—"
"Okay, I get it," said Snake. "What do you want me to do?"
"For starters, stay alive," said Sheila. "Tell Mikki to bluff the guards that are coming in to detain you. Hannah still needs her help counter-hacking Dante's HUMANDIE virus, so she'll leave her alive. Leave her in the hotel room. Sneak out onto the rooftops via the balcony."
"Got it," said Snake. "Do you still have access to a part of my mind that Hannah can't see?"
"I do," said Sheila. "The part where you're sharing a BISECT with a copy of Solidus's human consciousness helped with that."
"That's still there?" Shaking his head, Snake said, "Never mind… I'll keep in touch."
As Snake slipped on his shoes mid-movement and straightened the tie to his gray suit, he said to Mikki, "Did you just hear all that?"
Mikki nodded, and said, "Go."
As they heard a knock on the hotel room doors, Snake quickly grabbed a bottle of Mikki's perfume, something to remember her by in case he didn't come back. He then turned invisible and opened the balcony doors. He stepped onto the balcony and used his jets and adhesive grips to climb up the hotel building to the rooftops, timing his movements and the use of his invisibility cloak's battery life in sync with the movements of the flying security drones flying around and scanning the walls, windows, and balconies of the hotel.
Snake used his jets to jump from the hotel roof to an adjacent office building, landing through an open window.
He rolled to his feet.
Shit, thought Snake, that felt good.
"That's because of me, Jayden," said Naomi as she started running with him through the office building's hallways.
"Naomi?" said Snake. Looking away, he said, "Right… You're able to heighten your perception by using chemical-equivalent manipulation programs to enhance your consciousness… Make the world go in slow motion so you can move and react faster, notice details other people might not for the sake of your sniping and movement abilities."
"Exactly," said Naomi. "Look out the window on the streets below."
"The city's on curfew," said Snake, "but there's a decent-sized crowd below… Jesus Christ, one of JD's PMCs is after me."
"You're going to need the boost to run from them, or fight them if you have to," said Naomi.
"Got it… thanks Naomi," said Snake.
"You're welcome," she said as she turned a corner down into an office room and disappeared behind a set of cubicles.
Snake contacted Sheila via his comms. "Sheila, what do I do now?"
"You need to locate your friend, Otacon… He'll be able to act as another ace-in-the-hole, get access to what Hannah knows."
"Otacon? He's here?" said Snake. "Where is he?"
"At the local police station, being held in solitary confinement for questioning," said Sheila. "I managed to smuggle him here, away from Hannah. She was going to have him and Sunny killed, because she suspects they were both moles."
"Damn it, Hannah…" said Snake. "All right, Sheila… Send me the coordinates."
"You're four blocks away," said Sheila. "For convenience's sake, I'm sending you a disguise… Congratulations, you're about to become JD's inheritor."
"What?" said Snake. As his skin and clothes began to disappear from his endoskeleton and his body's shape changed, he said, "Wait a minute… You're disguising me as… you?"
"Out of all the crazy things that have been done to you so far, are you seriously that worried about letting the consciousness of an eighteen-year-old woman occupy your body, Snake?"
"Wouldn't you be if you weren't one?"
"Point taken," she said as Snake saw Sheila appear after moving through an opaque glass office doorway, and as she approached the stairway entrance to the rooftops ahead of him, she hacked the entrance's locks open with what she assumed was Snake's own hacker code and augmentations.
"Take my hand, Snake," she said as she walked up one stair step.
Reluctantly, Snake took her hand, and next thing he knew he realized that he was looking up at Sheila, who was standing on the top of an Escherian stairwell illusion as he fell down the nonexistent gap in the stairway until he disappeared.
Out on the streets, Snake's image was being passed through by several elite members of JD's private army while they stopped before Sheila, who was wearing a tiny T-shirt with hearts on it that exposed her belly and short khaki shorts.
Snake briefly glimpsed a white tattoo on her stomach that read, "No Place for Hideo." It consisted of a butterfly with a Japanese man's face on the butterfly's head.
That's a weird tattoo… Snake thought.
"Sheila Brand?" said an officer working for the PMC.
"That's me," Sheila said, eyeing Snake briefly.
"What are you doing out here? There's a curfew in place."
"I'm running an errand for my mother," said Sheila. "It's need to know."
"You need an escort," said the officer. "It's dangerous out here. You better than anyone know about the moles."
"Thank you for your concern, officer," said Sheila, "but I'm already being escorted. You just can't see the escort from here because they don't want to attract attention."
Good one, Sheila, Snake thought, rolling his eyes.
"Fair enough. Carry on," said the officer.
Sheila nodded, and Snake followed her to the police station.
While Sheila was persuading the security officers to let them get Otacon out of solitary confinement, Snake looked around the room full of JD's mercenaries, thinking, let's hope Sheila's trick works. She's bought me time at best.
Snake and Sheila walked with one of the officers to solitary confinement, where they opened up the cell.
Snake looked at Otacon, and realized upon seeing his veins glow with his augmented vision while he was holding his hands to his head while rocking back and forth that he was a cyborg too now.
Hannah… Damn you Hannah, you tortured him while he was human, didn't you?
Sheila communicated silently to Snake, "We need to prove to your friend that I'm you. Got any ideas?"
"Tell him about Sunny's eggs."
"What about them?"
"How we used to say how bad they were behind her back."
"All right…" Sheila said as she spoke to Otacon. "Otacon, it's me. You're not going to let me suffer through Sunny's eggs alone, are you?"
Otacon looked up at Sheila. "Snake?" Looking around, he said, "You don't look like Snake… You look like one of Hannah Brady's daughters. This is a trick… it has to be!"
"You have to trust me, Otacon," said Sheila. "Mikki and I need your help stopping Dante."
"How the hell am I supposed to help?" said Otacon. "Hannah and her PMC goons don't trust me. I can't move from here."
"You've been released from prison by one of her daughters," said Sheila.
"Snake… if you even are Snake… this is insane! You're going up against JD when World War Three is about to start, along with Dante's posthuman cyberattack!"
"All the more reason why we have to act."
"Yeah, yeah, I know…" said Otacon, shaking his head. "What's your plan?"
"We need to access the Reality of Things' central server to figure out what Hannah's leads on Dante's location are since she won't share them with me anymore," said Sheila.
Wait… what? Thought Snake. We're going to risk accessing the very thing Dante wants to get his hands on?
"You're a better hacker than I am… Maybe you can figure out something she hasn't yet based off of whatever we find in there."
"All right," said Otacon. "Only one problem… how to we get that close to the Reality of Things' central server without alerting Hannah Brady's forces?"
"The security cameras in here are looping old footage," said Sheila. "The actual Sheila Brady is working with me to bring her down. How do you think I got my hands on this disguise?"
Otacon nodded in what appeared to be partial confusion and possibly disgust.
"I'm arranging a temporary mass blackout to get us through the JD headquarters' security systems. Once we get inside, that's when the blackout will be triggered."
"If you say so," said Otacon.
"Follow me, and keep a low profile," said Sheila.
"I'm going with you," said Sunny.
Snake, Otacon, and Sheila looked over at the corner.
"Sunny?" said Sheila. "But—I thought you were—I mean—"
"You could use my help too," said Sunny.
"All right," Sheila said reluctantly. "Come with us."
Snake thought to Sheila as his red Porsche he used in Rome pulled up in front of the police station, are you sure this is a good idea, Sheila? Dante's moles might beat us to the server if we trigger that blackout!
They won't, Sheila said to Snake as she took the wheel, because I know which one of them was supposed to do Dante's dirtywork. We'll beat them to it.
You know who Dante's mole is? Said Snake as they drove to the JD headquarter building with Otacon in the passenger seat and Sunny hiding in the trunk. Who is it?
Their identity isn't important, said Sheila. What's important is that Hannah had them detained.
…you're seriously not going to tell me the identity of the fucking mole?
The situation is under control, Jayden, said Sheila.
Like hell it is, Snake said.
They drove through the massive skyscrapers and streets of L.A. until they arrived and parked at the JD headquarters courtyard.
"Everyone out," said Sheila to Snake, Otacon, and Sunny.
They all nodded, and got out of the Porsche and walked to JD's front doors.
Sheila then used Snake's hacker code to hack them open.
The moment they stepped inside, Sheila triggered the blackout.
I'm going to need you to get back into your body to preserve my cover, Snake, Sheila said to Snake. That, and I may need you to flex your combat abilities to help Otacon reach the central server.
All right, said Snake, and he could see his image start to dissolve in the darkness as Sheila's flesh and clothes dissolved from Snake's endoskeleton. He could feel his consciousness floating back into his body.
Snake activated his stealth camouflage augmentation to turn invisible, as he knew the blackout couldn't last forever.
Several of JD's mercs were in the lobby, turning on sonar vision to cope with the darkness.
Snake used his Mk. VI stun gun to hit the mercs with some rapid-fire non-lethal shock blasts before they could react.
Snake recharged his invisibility cloak augmentation as he stopped to wait for the elevator as the power came back on and he called it.
As he entered the elevator and turned invisible to avoid the hidden camera inside as Otacon entered the 1st floor, Mikki called him over comms.
Sunny was trembling as she followed Otacon into the elevator.
"Snake," she said, "what's going on? What was that blackout just now? Is Dante's attack starting?"
"No," said Jayden, "but ours is. Sheila Brady's having me access the Reality of Things so we can find Dante, likely by tapping into the mass surveillance network itself."
"What?" said Mikki. "Jayden, something seems off about Sheila's motivations…"
"You know she can hear you, right?"
"Snake, I need to tell you something… Remember in Rome when you were disguised as Solidus by Ocelot in order to break into Firelake's penthouse meeting room, and its laboratories?"
"Yeah… you revealed to me that you and Fat Snake broke in first… You showed me the DICE files upon hacking into their central servers… they said that Dante's consciousness was the 'king bee' of the hivemind, so to speak. What about it?"
"Our original plans to break into the central server revolved around getting help from Jonathan Bozeman… After he was killed in Russia, Hannah became furious... She wanted to erase more than just your memories of when you walked in on us talking and found about the schism between JD and Firelake after being healed in Geneva. She was planning to scrap her original plans for the operation entirely… and your consciousness. Turn you into her own posthuman fighter. She was losing faith in you and the plans…"
"I remember," said Snake.
"But it was Sheila who managed to convince her otherwise."
"What?" said Snake. "What do you mean?"
"It was Sheila who restored your memories of that encounter originally, Snake… not me. She's the one who encouraged you to dismantle JD from within, rather than you being the one who came to her with the idea in the first place; she planted the idea in your head. She's letting on more than she knows."
Snake looked around the elevator walls suspiciously and looked out the window of the elevator at the skyline of Los Angeles, and the ocean waves past the energy shield in the distance.
He heard whispers in his ear, and saw Solidus and Sheila talking behind his back in the reflection of the window.
"Now that you're in his head too, Sheila… Dante and I can do whatever we want to you."
"I'm afraid it's the other way around, Solidus… Soon I'll be the real queen bee."
Snake turned around, but it was just him, Otacon, and Sunny.
"Go on," said Snake.
"Similarly, she's the one who suggested to Hannah to have me and Ocelot break into Paradigm's laboratory in Rome early and procure Dante's appearance and consciousness for you since we couldn't procure Jonathan's. Right in front of Hannah, Ocelot, me… and you."
"Hold on…" said Snake. "That's not how I remember the memories the way they were restored…"
"That's because she was omitting certain details from the memory… Like I said, she's the one who restored them."
Snake put his hand to his chin.
"This is a bit of leap in logic, Snake. I may not be one to do that normally… This is just a hunch, a gut feeling… but I think Sheila knew all along that we'd fail to find Metal Gear DAEMON back at Inner Haven. She's setting up Max and Hannah to take each other out, Snake… That's her plan. That's how she's going to dismantle JD from within."
"Are you saying she's going to let Dante's posthuman attack happen?" said Snake.
"Worse… I think she knew Dante was a posthuman before any of us did… because she was the one who turned him posthuman."
Snake shivered, and looked around at Otacon. Suddenly he felt claustrophobic in this elevator.
"Mikki?" he said.
"Yeah?"
"Can you send me the restored memory of when I walked into Hannah's meeting with you, this time 100 percent unfiltered?"
"Working on it now," said Mikki.
… … … … …
Snake was in Geneva, being augmented again… but his consciousness was already in his new body.
His wounds he obtained in Russia were being healed.
"Snake… you have a visitor," said one of the transhuman doctors.
"Who?" Snake asked.
"Sheila Brady."
"One of Hannah Brady's daughters?" Snake asked. "Why does she want to visit me?"
"I think she wants to explain herself."
Snake sighed, and said, "Bring her in."
Sheila entered the premises, she eyed the transhuman doctors and made a slight nod for a moment before looking at Snake again.
"No…" Snake thought.
"Snake, I don't have much time to explain, so I'll be brief. After your failure to capture Jonathan Bozeman in Russia, I think my mother is planning to change the plans for your mission. She's planning to erase your consciousness like Dante did to your friends."
"What?" said Snake. "Why?"
"She's not pleased with the outcome of the last two missions you went on. She wants less chances of human error."
Snake looked around at the doctors. "Is this true?"
They nodded in sync.
Snake said to Sheila, "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I want to help you."
"Bullshit. I don't trust you."
"Please hear me out, Snake," said Sheila. "Not everyone within JD sees eye to eye with Hannah's larger ambitions… myself included."
"And why is that?" said Jayden.
"She had my father, the original CEO of JD, killed. She had his mistresses killed as well," Sheila said, "along with their children. She killed my real mother."
"You're illegitimate?" said Snake.
"I don't know why she hasn't killed me yet," said Sheila, "but I don't want to wait long enough to find out. I'm her last choice among her children to inherit her title as CEO when she retires. If Dante doesn't kill me… she might."
Snake said, "What do you want from me?"
"I want to survive," said Sheila. "I want you to protect me from her and Dante. I'm smarter than your average eighteen-year-old due to how much time I've spent augmented with a BISECT… but my body isn't designed for combat."
"Fine," said Snake. "What do you want me to do?"
"Help me dismantle JD from within," said Sheila. "In return, I'll make sure you keep your human consciousness."
"You drive a hard bargain…" said Snake.
"I know you don't like what you're hearing, Snake…" said Sheila, "but it needs to happen. My mother's a monster, and I can prove it. She's having a conversation with Mikki right now in her office on the top floor. When I tell you to walk in on her and confront her via your BISECT's communicator, you'll do so. I've already had the doctors here install a frequency I can monitor onto your BISECT."
"They're working with you?" said Snake.
"You couldn't already tell?"
"All right," said Snake. "My surgery's done."
"I'll lead you to the elevator leading to her office, but I won't come in with you."
Snake nodded slightly, and got up to follow her.
"No!" Snake thought.
Snake was on the elevator with Sheila as they ascended to Hannah's office.
"She was the one who let slip to me that JD and Firelake once worked together while I was in Rome with Dante! She's why I confronted Hannah!" said Mikki. "Don't you see it now, Snake? Everything up to this moment was planned by her!"
"The camera in the elevator is being fed a loop of old footage," said Sheila. "Remember to say exactly the lines I feed you. I'll be in the security center, watching the initial portion of the meeting unfold."
Snake nodded, and walked out of the elevator with Sheila as she headed her separate way from him.
"All right, Snake," said Sheila. "I've managed to engineer a distraction that should cause Hannah to send her guards to investigate out a separate door. Hack the lock to her office's front door and eavesdrop on her conversation with Mikki. I want to confirm the truth with you."
Snake nodded, and entered Hannah's office.
Hannah Brady was in her office of the cyber care clinic.
She was talking to a hologram of Mikki while sipping a drink.
Snake walked into the office and listened in.
"What did you just tell your guards to do, Hannah?"
"Nothing… just a malfunction in one of my servers here in Geneva… Where are you right now? Are you with Dante?"
Mikki told Hannah, "I'm in Rome, Hannah… I'm at one of John Doe's old subsidiaries' headquarters that Dante took over and repurposed to become Firelake's main headquarters instead."
"The AI monitoring your thoughts is telling me that you want to ask how long this schism has been going on between me and Dante."
"Tell me. I deserve that much," said Mikki.
"For longer than you can imagine," said Hannah.
"I had already known that the DICE project had been under development for much longer than the point I became a part of it…" said Mikki. "I was just the one who was able to help Dante finish it."
"Obviously," said Hannah. "Despite your genius-level intellect and impressive levels of achievement in your field… Entering multiple advanced scientific fields at a young age, all without a normal education… Spearheading the development of several of the latest full-body transhuman augmentation models… And taking part in the DICE project… You're only in your twenties, Mikki."
"But this… this damned project… and whatever caused Dante to betray you, it's not just a means to rid humanity of its collective consciousness… It's responsible for reviving the war economy to the extent that it's worse than that of when the Sons of the Patriots were in charge of it."
"In addition to that, Dante turned to the Russians and the Chinese for help, and caused society to regress to a second cold war… more like World War Three without nukes given the implementation of the war economy. The two sides of the war are using allied PMCs to brutally exploit each other's proxy nations for resources…" Mikki shouted angrily, "He's been plotting behind your back for over a decade after you cut him loose and you said nothing just because his plot is your plot, only worse!"
"That's correct," Hannah said, and sighed. "Your contributions to DICE merely helped Dante meet the deadline I wanted his subsidiary to meet all the way back in 2023 in order to help me ensure my re-election for a second term… That was eleven years ago. You would've been sixteen then. We had to undergo tremendous losses of profits due to the increasingly unhappy constituents of the world's governments we control since then."
"You pushed him into a corner," said Mikki, who was visibly trembling. "All the people that are about to die because of his experiments… The blood's not just on my hands, or Dante's… it's on yours."
"Why are you telling me this, Mikki?" said Hannah.
"I can't keep the truth from Snake… about what I had to do to him… forever, Hannah," said Mikki. "He deserves to know too."
"Are you considering telling him?" said Hannah.
"You already know the answer; you're monitoring my BISECT!" yelled Mikki.
"Not only would telling him the truth about what you did to him pose a massive threat to our operation," said Hannah, "but it would turn him against you as well."
"Snake's a hero," said Mikki, "and a good person. He used to be my friend, too. He'll understand what needs to be done—"
"Cyber Snake is a hollow shell of his former self," said Hannah. "He's changed now. You would know since you implemented the changes yourself, Mikki.
He may have been your friend in your past life, but in this one he already doesn't trust you very much. If you tell him the truth, he won't trust you at all, and never will. And if you somehow get him to trust you before you tell him the truth… You're seeing what's happening to his mind, knowing that his fellow agents, the only friends he's ever had, are gone. If you actually choose to seduce him for your own selfish reasons, you'll destroy him."
Mikki frowned at Hannah as she said to her, "You're not going to tell him. You're going to fall in love with him long enough to satisfy your lustful desires I designed you to have in this life… and then he's going to find out."
"We'll see about that," said Mikki.
Listening to all of this, Snake was in disbelief.
"Sheila, I had no idea… Your mother, she's a monster—"
"Time to go in now, Jayden," said Sheila. "Repeat after me…"
"No!" Snake thought.
"What the hell are you two talking about?" said Snake as he confronted Hannah in her office.
Mikki's hologram and Hannah looked at Snake.
"Snake?" said Mikki.
"You and Dante were working together at some point?" said Snake. "If Firelake was once part of your organization, the John Doe conglomerate… The successor to the Patriots… then the DICE project was never his, it was yours!"
Snake unholstered his SOCOM pistol and aimed it at Hannah.
"Watch where you point that thing, Snake," said Hannah as her guards surrounded Snake.
"You're not trying to save the world from Dante's plans… you're trying to clean up your own mess, salvage Dante's Infernal Conflict's Evolution, and use it for yourself!"
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, Snake," said Hannah.
"Why should I continue to clean up your mess for you?" said Snake. "Why should I have to kill my friends!"
"The public sees them as traitors—"
"So what? You could convince them otherwise! You own everything!"
"And even I can't stop what's already been set in motion," said Hannah. "The working class were threatening to riot after the Hong Kong incident. We needed a scapegoat to silence the public outcry; your friends were an easy choice. Controlling the world from behind the scenes isn't as easy as it looks, Snake."
"Right," said Snake, "so you tried to make humanity controllable. Decided you'd turn the majority of them into a posthuman slave race. You just wanted us to hand Bozeman over to you so he'd give you access to DICE, didn't you?"
"It's a shame you didn't complete your objective of getting him into our custody," said Hannah. "I suggest you don't fail your objectives again."
"Oh, I'm not failing another objective, all right," said Snake. "I'm done working for you."
"You are when I say you are," said Hannah. "Anna, put Cyber Snake's BISECT in sleep mode…"
"NO!" yelled Mikki as she started to cry.
Snake fell over, and dropped his SOCOM as he lost control of his body.
"…and erase his consc—"
"WAIT!" screamed Mikki. "Give him one more chance… Don't erase his consciousness… Not yet."
"I was contacted by Sheila too…" said Mikki. "She told me the call to make regarding what to do to prevent your consciousness from being erased!"
"NO!" yelled Snake.
"He already knows too much," said Hannah.
"Then erase the part of his memories where he found out too much! He likely read the DICE files after he and Otacon discovered part of them through Bozeman… Make him think he flew directly from Russia to Rome."
"He doesn't want to kill his friends," said Hannah.
"I know… But I believe he can do it… even if he doesn't want to," said Mikki.
"All right, Mikki," Hannah sighed, "you've bought yourself and Cyber Snake some time. Anna, put Cyber Snake's BISECT in sleep mode and rewrite his memories to make him think he flew directly from Russia to Rome."
"Ultra Mouse…" Snake muttered as he began to black out.
… … … … …
Back in the augmentation surgery room, Snake could feel his memories being re-written.
He was screaming.
"The process is painful, isn't it, Snake?" said Sheila as she walked into the room again.
"Forgive me, for there are some memories of yours I need to re-write myself. You know too much. Like how I knew Dante's consciousness was posthuman… and how you're going to be disguised as Solidus to break into Firelake's headquarters in Rome… You'll acquire both his appearance and posthuman consciousness. Mikki and Ocelot will help you out with that by going into the laboratories first."
"What? Solidus?" said Snake through gritted teeth. "I… I don't… understand… and I feel… like I don't… know… anything!"
"It's all right. By the time you remember this, you'll already know what I mean by that," said Sheila as she whispered something to the head doctor before she headed out, and the doctor typed something into his computer console.
Snake's eyes went wide before he screamed at the top of his lungs until he blacked out.
… … … … …
Horrified, when the memory stopped and his vision returned to the present, Snake said to Otacon and Sunny while trembling, "Otacon, Sunny… I need you to do whatever you can to keep Sheila Brady and anyone else who might be working with her away from the Reality of Things central servers."
"What? Why?" said Otacon. "Aren't we working with her?"
"Not anymore," said Snake. "She's the one who turned Dante posthuman… I'm positive."
Sunny looked very afraid.
"Good god…" said Otacon. "I'll do what I can, Snake… but what about you?"
"Right now, we just need to access the servers…" said Snake. "We need to know where Metal Gear DAEMON is being launched from."
As the elevator doors opened and they walked into the central server room vault, Snake said to Mikki, "Mikki, can you make sure Sheila can't access the servers through us?"
"Copy that," said Mikki.
"Mikki?" said Otacon. "Dante's mistress? She's the mole?"
"Yeah," Snake said.
Sunny shivered.
"You might as well know now that we've cut ties with Hannah at this point… We're on our own."
Otacon nodded.
Sunny said, "You… you need to disguise yourself as Sheila to gain access to the vault because of its biometric scanners… Sheila has to go in first."
Snake frowned.
"Should we risk it?" said Otacon.
"We don't have a choice," said Snake.
"We're playing right into her hands…" said Mikki over comms.
Snake let Sheila take control of his body again.
"Fat Snake… I could use your help…" said Snake.
But Fat Snake was being blocked by Solidus.
Snake said to Mikki, "Mikki, please… let me back out before Sheila dooms the world!"
"Relax, Snake…" said Sheila. "I'll let you back out myself."
Snake sighed as he returned to his body.
"Why did she do that?" said Sunny as she and Otacon stepped into the vault.
"I don't know," said Snake, "but for now, we'll roll with it. Otacon, access the server… I'm too afraid to do it myself."
"On it," said Otacon.
"Wait!" said Sunny. "Let me do it."
"Don't worry, Sunny," said Otacon. "I've got this."
Sunny looked at Snake, and shook her head no.
"I trust Otacon, Sunny," said Snake.
"But I don't!" she said.
Otacon tapped into the glowing blue cybernetic console for the hivemind of the Reality of Things, and several screens lit up.
"No…" said Sunny.
Skimming through the various sets of data, Otacon said, "There… Oh. That's it… Outer Heaven… Or rather, Zanzibar Land."
"Zanzibar?" said Snake. "Of course… Big Boss's own rogue nation, in between Russia, China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. That's where he's launching Meta Gear DAEMON from."
"It makes sense…" said Otacon. "There seems to be a recurring obsession with Big Boss here, given that Dante created his terraformed private island not far from the location where the MSF was founded."
"I have to go there then," said Snake. "Mikki, is there any way I can get transport to Zanzibar Land, preferably in less than an hour?"
"Yes," said Mikki. "There's a Reusable Launch Vehicle capable of Mach 36 nearby, courtesy of Solis Space and Aeronautics. You should get there in roughly twenty minutes."
"Good," said Snake. "I'm going to it now. Otacon, keep Sunny and Mikki safe."
"I'll do my best," said Otacon as Snake headed out of the vault and prepared to face Metal Gear DAEMON.
