CHAPTER 11— "THE VIOLENT AND BLOODY ROSE PART 1: AGAINST NEIGHBORS"
Snake was flying towards Zanzibar Land in the Reusable Launch Vehicle when he got contacted by Mikki, Otacon, and Sunny.
"Snake?" said Mikki. "We're splitting up. Sunny decided to stay behind and try to look into the Reality of Things central servers further, while Otacon and I go to warn Hannah about Sheila's betrayal."
"You're playing with fire knowing that we betrayed her, Mikki," said Snake. "And Otacon was locked up and tortured by her."
"I'll be fine, Snake," said Otacon. "You don't need to worry about me."
Snake said nothing in response, before saying, "Wait, but can Sunny successfully defend the Reality of Things from being hacked by herself? She's just a child!"
"Technically she can hack into everything and everyone to help her out with that," said Mikki. "She should be all right now that she's at the servers."
"What about Sheila? Where is she?"
"In Geneva with her mother, apparently," said Otacon. "We're going to try and stop her from killing her mother. While it won't solve the larger issue with JD, it should delay the impending problem regarding World War Three for the time being… along with Dante's cyberattack."
"In the meantime, it's up to you to stop Metal Gear DAEMON before it launches, Snake," said Mikki. "Board it and upload the HUMANALIVE virus to its central servers using your BISECT!"
"Got it," said Snake.
As he descended into Zanzibar airspace, he heard a growing noise.
What is that sound… thought Snake.
Then it began to grow deafening, to the point where it was damaging Snake's psyche.
"NO!" Snake screamed, holding his hand to his head, his veins glowing bright blue as he did this.
He managed to pull them away, though as he heard Mikki's voice.
"Snake!" yelled Mikki over Snake's C3. "We're in Geneva, but the cyberattack… It started the moment we arrived at JD's headquarters! The city's in shambles; people are killing themselves and each other en masse, just like in Hong Kong!"
"It's worse than that!" yelled Snake as he looked out the window at the massive, city-sized flying Metal Gear. "Metal Gear DAEMON just activated; it's launching into space! We're too late!"
"Damn it!" yelled Mikki. "What did we do wrong?"
"Is it all right if I offer some context?" said Dante over their C3.
"DANTE!" yelled Snake. "How did you access our C3?"
"I had a little help from Solidus," said Dante with a grin. "Sheila was smart to have Ocelot upload Solidus's consciousness to your BISECT… You're now very close to becoming Big Boss. He may or may not be your worst enemy… but he's close enough to do the trick. Despite that I couldn't access your consciousness because of Ocelot, I could still access his. Hence why we're talking to each other now. I just wish Sheila had told me in advance so I could've deployed additional security measures for the sake of my plans in Rome."
"Damn it!" yelled Snake. "Wait a second… Big Boss? Me? What does Solidus have to do with that?"
"Solidus is practically the spitting image of Big Boss. And after your recessive genes that form your consciousness mix with Liquid's dominant ones… they should cancel each other out."
"You're not making any sense," said Snake. "Liquid isn't sharing a consciousness with me!"
Dante laughed. "You really don't know anything, do you, Snake?"
"All right then… I'll give you a little hint," said Dante. "Sunny was the missing piece of the puzzle. Even with my moles within JD, one of which was close enough to you to know a copy of her younger consciousness existed… I had no idea she managed to fool everyone that way. The real Sunny is in her twenties now… It's incredible she managed to keep her identity hidden for so long."
"Don't you touch her, Dante!" yelled Snake.
"It's too late, Snake," laughed Dante. "After you and the mole accessed the Reality of Things for me, all I had to do was wait for you and the others to leave. The cyberattack happening across the Western nations right now resulted in a gruesome death for Sunny's younger copy."
"What?" Snake's blood began to boil. "No… NO! YOU BASTARD!"
"You still don't get it, do you Snake? Like I said, it was Sunny's younger copy! Her real self was hiding in plain sight this whole time… But it doesn't matter regardless. Metal Gear DAEMON is heading for Geneva to come pick her up now. You're out of friends to protect you now, Snake."
"NO!" yelled Snake.
"In the meantime… enjoy DAEMON's water-cutter while my posthuman virus, HUMANDIE… consumes humanity's collective will."
"Violence against neighbors… In the west's nations, I'm ordering humans to fight and kill each other in the individualistic fashion characteristic of capitalism."
"Violence against the self… In the east's nations, I'm ordering humans to commit collective suicide in the selfless fashion characteristic of communism."
"And finally, violence against God, art, and nature… In Geneva and Rome, I'm erasing the John Doe megacorporation… having humans both kill each other and themselves. The same goes for the holy cities of Jerusalem in Israel, Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia… and also Zanzibar Land. I look forward to seeing how long you'll last down there, Snake."
"Drastically reducing the human population… and turning it posthuman in order to save the Earth… The final phase of my infernal conflict… has begun."
"DANTE!" Snake screamed as Metal Gear DAEMON's water-cutter tore the RLV in two.
Screaming, Snake was thrown out of the RLV and felt the wind pulling his skin off. If he was still human, the extreme speeds the RLV had been going at would've caused him to pass out or even die.
Snake desperately flailed around as he fell out of the sky.
Finally, as he decelerated, he managed to get himself re-oriented, and used his jets to make a somewhat safe descent. Despite this, his mind was making it hard to focus on landing due to the disorienting effects of Metal Gear DAEMON's presence.
He managed to land in some sort of river, and fell deep underwater.
To Snake's shock, he realized the river was extremely hot due to the heat of the desert as well as the oil fires happening above the surface, and was full of transhuman endoskeletons without skin.
What the hell… this water is red… I'm swimming in…
Snake's eyes went wide, and he swam to the surface, swimming past a bunch of corpses.
Getting up, he pulled himself out of the river and vomited. What little of his skin that had been left was now mostly burnt off and his endoskeleton was soaked in blood from the corpses in the river they had been dumped in.
Snake looked around.
Throughout the burning, sandstorm-filled desert valley, the soldiers of Zanzibar Land were killing each other and themselves. Some of them had been hung up in trees and were being eaten at by birds. The burning wreckage of drones and planes was falling out of the sky.
Metal Gear DAEMON had left for Geneva.
It's over… Snake thought. We never stood a chance!
"Oh, but the hurting has just begun, Snake," said Dante. "99 of my elite posthuman guards, modeled after the Genome Soldiers of the Gulf War that Liquid had killed—more of your brothers and sisters—are coming after you. May the best Snake win. The winner gets to fight Rosemary."
Grimacing, Snake hid in a nearby set of abandoned buildings as a convoy of several planes and helicopters passed over, shooting the insane posthuman soldiers on the ground, only for his psyche to give out all of a sudden.
… … … … …
When he started to come to, he found himself naked, and being dragged into an arena of some sorts that was hidden in a low canyon by a set of holographic trees by a set of chains tied to his wrists and ankles. He tried to pull at the metal chains, but they were tougher than the metal in his endoskeleton.
Wait a second… this arena… it's modeled after Outer Heaven's facility where Dr. Marv was brought to and Metal Gear D was launched from!
Thinking about this, Snake thought, I may have an advantage here based on knowledge from my prior mission in Zanzibar Land back in 1999. This was where I killed Big Boss, sent him into a coma induced by the Patriots… the real Big Boss that is. The Big Boss I fought in the version of Outer Heaven back in Galzburg was later revealed upon inspection to be another clone.
But at the same time, I no longer know if I can trust my memories, and whether or not they were based on the experiences of my original self. I need to be careful.
As a holographic crowd of people outside of the arena—Dante's disciples and unwilling transhuman victims he chose to be the posthuman terraforming machines that would reshape the Earth after everyone else was dead—watched Snake, Snake was thrown into the arena by an unknown person holding the chains.
As he fell into a bottomless swamp, he quickly waded out, and took a Genome Soldier looking around a set of power lines out with CQC when he was looking the other way.
Another Genome Soldier located Snake after coming running to investigate the fall.
Snake used his speed to dodge his machine gun bullets and run through the maze of electrified chain-link fences, keeping an eye on his extended reality vision and Soliton Radar augmentations to avoid getting cornered.
Diving and crawling under a gap in the fence, Snake was pretty sure he lost the soldier with the machine gun.
Continuing through the maze of fences, Snake dispatched several Genome Soldiers with CQC towards the ventilation shaft that helped him enter the facility before.
He found his SOCOM in a truck nearby, and crawled under another to avoid the guards, eventually entering the facility via an all-too familiar air vent.
Within the air vent, he looked down underneath him, and couldn't help but feel by the near-omnipresent amount of holographic screens that he was being monitored this whole time.
Jumping out from the vent shaft and using his jets to avoid hitting the floor and making noise, he entered the tank hangar.
Looking around, he could see similar hallways to the facility from his prior mission in Zanzibar being searched by the Genome Soldiers. As he snuck around the catwalks, using his invisibility cloak augmentation to do so if need be, Snake occasionally came across some Genome Soldiers getting in brutal fights with each other.
He then got a strange call on his C3.
"What do you want, Dante?" said Snake.
"Snake," said a female voice.
Caught by surprise, Snake thought, that voice… it sounds familiar.
Still not wanting to risk it, Snake didn't respond to her.
He was about to hang up, when she said, "Don't you recognize me, Snake?"
"No, I don't—wait a minute…" Snake was taken aback. "Holly White?"
"You still owe me dinner," she said. "But I suppose that'll have to wait until after we save the world… again."
"How are you still alive?" Snake thought.
"For starters, I didn't age as fast as you did," Holly said. "I was given augmentations by the CIA as a favor for working with them way back when. Unlike you, I didn't need cryogenics to be kept alive."
"Holly… why are you here in Zanzibar Land of all places… again?"
"Simple. I was on an independent investigation into Dante's motives, trying to expose them to the public. While I hadn't been able to break into Dante's main fortress myself, I may be able to rectify the situation now that you're here… even though humanity's numbers are already about to drop below 10 billion."
Sighing, Snake thought, I'm not sure I believe it's her yet.
"All right, Holly… What do you propose I do."
"You're in a simulation of some kind… Not a virtual reality one inside your BISECT, but rather one created by holograms inside a massive arena. Dante's using you to obtain some sort of data to help complete the superintelligence existing within Metal Gear DAEMON's central server… Cocytus."
"Cocytus… The frozen lake at the center of hell in Dante's Inferno," Snake thought. "That's the hivemind that contains the posthuman consciousness that's infecting everyone's human ones… effectively turning them into nothing more than androids."
"The stronger a person's will is, the deeper Dante's AI will drive them into the circles of hell until their human mind reaches its limits and gives into it, Snake… I think Dante wants to drive you to your limits to obtain some sort of data to complete Cocytus."
"Better not let him then," said Snake, "because once he does… There won't be any stopping him. But even now… Things are looking bad, Holly."
"Have faith in yourself, Snake," said Holly. "You need to get your friends back."
"My friends are dead, though," said Snake, "save for Otacon, Mikki… and maybe Sunny… and they'll likely be dead before I can reach them."
"Have faith, Snake," said Holly.
"All right," said Snake. "Let's find a way to get out of this damned simulation."
"I've obtained some schematics of the arena's sim… I see an exit where the old Metal Gear D hangar was."
"Sounds like I need to complete the sim to get out of it," said Snake.
"Then you'd better do so," said Holly. "I'll see you on the other side and we'll extract to Geneva, go save your friends and come up with a plan to reach Metal Gear DAEMON."
Snake used his SOCOM to shoot out some security cameras and laser tripwire sensors that would set off an alarm. In the place of where there originally were keycard-activated locks, were electronic locks he could hack with his BISECT.
Avoiding Genome Soldiers in the facility, Snake took the elevator up to the office levels where a noise detector was, and quietly moved through, eventually trying to hack one that led into a room containing laser tripwires with bulletproof sensor panels.
These laser tripwires and their movement patterns seem trickier than the ones during my original mission. I'm going to have to time my movements, Snake thought.
Snake managed to crawl and duck under several laser tripwires, while waiting to move past some that were moving back and forth. He had to jump over some moving along the floor, and even use his jets to fly and even wallrun past a few sets of lasers lining the floor and walls.
Snake eventually came to another locked door that originally required a Level 1 keycard.
Snake used his BISECT to hack it open.
He found another set of laser tripwires, and a heavily armored Genome Soldier carrying a nanite spraying weapon shaped like a flamethrower.
Snake timed his movements to sneak past the laser tripwires while staying cloaked to get the drop on the guard, shooting the nanite tank on his back and causing the nanites to drive the man insane, then shot his helmet off and shot him in the head.
He quickly left the room before the nanites infected Snake and his BISECT too.
Backtracking, Snake went to another set of office areas on the second floor.
He tried hacking into a set of computers with his BISECT, only to find they were showing footage of the massacres happening worldwide from the perspectives of other people through their BISECTs.
This is proof Dante gained control of the Reality of Things, right under our noses, thought Snake. This is where he managed to upload the virus from.
Hearing gunshots nearby, Snake hid behind a desk.
He used his sonar vision to see through the walls and desks.
Nearby Genome Soldiers were attacking each other in a shootout in the adjacent office, shooting through the wood of the desks with shotguns and submachine guns.
Snake used his stealth camouflage augmentation to make it through the firefight undetected, using desks for cover and shooting a few guards with his SOCOM; the other guards' screams and loud shots drowned out his suppressed shots.
As he approached the door with another lock, Holly White contacted him again.
"Snake, the room ahead is full of nanites, just like the rooms were full of gas back in the original facility in 1999."
"Great…" said Snake. "What do I do? The nanites will infect my BISECT; drive me insane just like everyone else. Come to think of it… why am I not insane already too? Dante's hacked into my BISECT before."
"Sunny briefed me about your situation," said Holly.
"Sunny? Briefed you?" said Snake in surprise.
"What happened was that Fat Snake managed to protect your consciousness from being turned posthuman when Dante hacked into your consciousness," said Holly. "You'll need his help now."
"But… I've been unable to contact him since Inner Haven…" said Snake.
"Let me re-iterate. You don't need his help, you need his augmentations," she said.
"Augmentations?"
"Specifically his energy shield. That will help block the nanites from reaching your endoskeleton and infecting your BISECT."
"But… I don't have that."
"Yes, you do," said Holly. "It's an augmentation that creates a magnetic field around your body, repelling anything metallic or with a charge. You just need to activate it via the button on your hip."
"…when was I augmented with this?" said Snake.
"Earlier than you think," said Holly.
"What do you mean by that?" said Snake. "And how did you manage to contact Sunny?"
"Sorry Snake; someone's onto me. I have to go," said Holly.
Grunting, Snake looked at his hip. There was a button on it.
Snake hit the button, and suddenly the veins in his endoskeleton lit up bright yellow and his skin began to glow with an aura of yellow energy only he could see.
Snake looked at the door, hacked its lock, and headed into the room filled with nanite spray.
The energy shield took up a lot of Snake's internal battery power. Taking Drebin's advice, he ate a ration he found earlier to replenish his energy before hacking the lock on the other side of the room.
He saw a scientist ahead of him in the next room. The scientist looked like…
Dr. Marv?
Snake pulled up his gun, and crept near him.
Wait a minute…
Snake activated his extended reality vision, and realized it was actually a Genome Soldier.
As the Genome Soldier's disguise dissolved, revealing that he was a ninja, Snake managed to the dodge the Genome Soldier ninja's drill sword attack along with some of his launched nanite-laced shuriken projectiles as the ninja used acrobatic moves in sync with his jet augmentations to dance around Snake.
Snake used his enhanced movement and perception capabilities that were equivalent to Naomi's and enhanced weapon handling capabilities equivalent to Fat Snake's to shoot down the ninja while dodging his attacks, eventually blowing through his armor and helmet, and killing him.
Panting, Snake looked at the ninja, who resembled Kyle Schneider.
"Quick, Snake, force-hack into his BISECT before he dies!" yelled Holly.
"What? Why?"
"You need to obtain enough posthuman consciousnesses to hack into the next level of door locks! For Level 2, just one should do."
"So, you're saying I have to kill and force-hack into enough Genome Soldiers' minds to reach the end of this hellish simulation?"
"The higher the level, it's likely the more of them you'll have to hack per level."
"…all right," said Snake as he held his hand up to the dying Genome Soldier's bullet-riddled skull and force-hacked his BISECT.
He briefly saw images of Kyle Schneider in the VR Room of Death before returning to reality.
When he returned to reality, he heard Kyle's voice haunting him.
"You remember what happened here, as well as in Outer Heaven, right Snake? Hundreds of men, women, and children, some of which were friends of yours… all dead because of your actions."
"I know…" said Snake as he backtracked to pass the noise detector and a set of laser tripwires and moving security cameras.
"The grief haunts you all the time. I can tell, because I can see inside your mind now."
Snake grimaced as he timed his movements to avoid the lasers and cameras, hiding behind cover when needed. "You're not Kyle."
"Oh, but I am."
Ignoring Kyle, Snake headed back through the tank hangar.
Snake used his SOCOM to shoot some Genome Soldiers searching for him as he progressed through the halls while using his stealth camouflage, and knocked on the wall with his fist to lure a guard out from around the corner that had stealth camouflage of his own that he saw with his sonar vision.
He then took him down with a CQC throw and a few punches, slamming him into the wall.
He then hacked the Level 2 lock leading into the jungle area outside.
Snake then tailed another heavily armored Genome Soldier who had made it past Level 2 as well through an entrance to the jungle maze, hiding and crawling through the maze of foliage while waiting for his stealth camouflage's battery to recharge.
Seeing the holograms through the trees, Snake thought to himself, I can't help but feel I'm only wasting precious time trying to escape this simulation… and playing into Dante's hands even further.
The Genome Soldier was looking around the jungle in paranoia, so Snake had to be careful as he tailed him to figure out the way to the next area. There were also smart mines and some explosive laser tripwire traps planted nearby in the dirt and grass that Snake had to avoid; fortunately, he was able to spot them with his extended reality vision.
Snake eventually reached a prison in the middle of the jungle, similar to where Dr. Madnar had been kept, and put the Genome Soldier in a CQC chokehold, stole his uniform and printed it onto his skin as a disguise, and force-hacked into his BISECT.
He then made it past the prison cell's brain scanner lock with the help of the Genome Soldier's consciousness.
Snake could hear Dr. Madnar tapping on the walls, only the tap code didn't make sense to him and wasn't compatible with his C3 anyway.
Trying to find another way, Snake used the Metal Gear Mk. VI mouse scout to navigate through ventilation shafts he couldn't fit through to get to Dr. Madnar.
Snake then used the mouse's microphone and holographic projector to talk to Dr. Madnar.
"Snake?" said Dr. Madnar.
"It's me, but is it really you?" said Snake.
"It is," said Dr. Madnar. "I'm sorry for what happened back during our original encounter in Zanzibar Land, Snake."
"Otacon told me you were after you saved Raiden during the SOP Incident in Eastern Europe. I understood."
"I see…" said Dr. Madnar. "Listen, I don't know how to prove I'm still alive and not posthuman, but I might as well tell you Dante's plans for using Metal Gear DAEMON."
"He's not going to nuke the entire Earth, is he? Reduce it to an hellish icy planet doomed to a nuclear winter?"
"No, as that would prevent him from terraforming the Earth. He kept the 100 million posthumans he wanted to survive the terraforming process at Inner Haven before trafficking them here to be loaded onto Metal Gear DAEMON. What he's going to do is replace the payloads of the stolen nukes he loaded onto DAEMON with terraforming nanite payloads, ones meant to save the world from global climate change… after the other 9.9 billion humans are wiped out."
"Shit…" said Snake.
"You'll have to leave me here for now, because the wall between us is made of an alloy stronger than your endoskeleton or weapons."
"I understand," said Snake. "You're not going to give me Johan Jacobsen's C3 frequency, are you?"
"No, because he sided with Dante. He believes animal and plant life is more valuable than human life at this point."
"He always did care about animals…" mused Snake. "All right, Dr. Madnar, I'll be back for you. Don't betray me this time."
Snake left the prison after bringing back the Mk. VI mouse drone, and backtracked through the mine-filled jungle, where he spotted snipers awaiting him in the trees.
Snake used his SOCOM and advanced perception and weapon handling to shoot them down, along with his nanites to burn them out and his stealth camo to sneak past them when needed.
He made it to the desert, where even more smart mines were buried in the sand.
He got a call on his C3.
"Snake, watch out for the sand."
"Let me guess… smart mines."
"No. Boiling sand."
"Oh…" said Snake. "How do I cross it?"
"Use your jets to fly and jump along the rocks."
"Got it, thanks for the help."
"Of course… it's only right; after all, I am a fan of yours. Good luck."
Snake thought to himself, could that really be him?
Snake jumped along the rocks using his jets, seeing the bubbles forming in the sand. Despite that a few rocks almost broke beneath his feet and their crumbling caused some sand bubbles to burst and nearly hit Snake, he eventually made it to the other side of the desert.
Avoiding causing the imported Nariko sand to squeak and alert the nearby Genome Soldiers, Snake crawled on it instead of walking across it. He found his M4 and M14 EBR in a nearby set of trucks, along with another ration to replenish his energy.
He backtracked to the bottomless swamp in the jungle, where several shellshocked war orphans were nearby, and flew across the swamp with his jets, running along logs to avoid the boiling swamp.
Wiping his forehead, he reached the other prison area and shot another Genome Soldier outside the building with his M4 before force-hacking into his BISECT.
Inside the building, another Genome Soldier awaited him.
This Genome Soldier looked like Running Man, and had the accelerator jets in his boots to rival him.
As Running Man used his BISECT to hack into some valves that released nanite spray into the room, Snake quickly activated his energy shield again.
Snake used his M4 to launch some proximity and remote mines to trap Running Man as he attacked Snake with momentum-based CQC attacks in sync with his jets, which Snake managed to block thanks to his energy shield, but the attacks caused a disruption in the shield.
As the nanite gas started to dissolve Snake's psyche, Snake quickly engaged in Krav Maga with his SOCOM to attack Running Man in close quarters, eventually killing him.
Snake managed to knock Running Man into a set of proximity mines he planted, and detonated the remote mines. The explosion was enough to short-circuit Running Man's endoskeleton and disable his jets as well as sending him flying into the wall.
Snake force-hacked into his BISECT, which helped him re-activate the valves and sealing up the nanites before he went insane.
As Snake's body healed itself, Running Man taunted Snake within his BISECT.
"You're trying to run from your own grief, your own mistakes, Snake… but all you can do is get on your knees and beg for the end."
"I'm not done yet!" shouted Snake.
He opened a door with a Level 3 lock and let out several more shell-shocked war orphans being held captive here before backtracking again.
So much backtracking… Snake thought. The guys in charge of the simulation should've thought about re-designing the levels a little better.
Snake shot down several aerial drones looking for him while crossing the bottomless swamp and jungle again with his M14 EBR, using blast ammunition to do so.
He approached a factory full of tanks and missiles, avoiding the Genome Soldiers and security cameras while taking a few of them out and force-hacking their BISECTs.
He acquired an arm-mounted Stinger missile launcher augmentation behind a Level 3 locked door, then backtracked to the hangar, where he found a strange revelation.
The equivalent of the red keycard was a torn out BISECT lying on a bed next to a corpse, where Snake started to hear a message from Dante.
"You're doing well, Snake…"
"Dante!" screamed Snake. "What are you up to?"
"The world's population has almost decreased to below 9 billion… Would you like to see by any chance?"
"No, don't!"
The sight of over a billion corpses across the world overwhelmed Snake's BISECT, and he began to vomit on the floor.
Trembling violently, Dante said, "Let your will break, Snake… It's in your nature."
Snake pulled his hands away from his skull as his veins started to glow bright blue.
Don't do it, he told himself. You have to persevere… One last punishment… then you can have peace…
Between dissociative episodes, he found himself passing the boiling desert again, and saw a helicopter taking off from a helipad in front of him.
Aboard it was Rosemary.
"You'll pay for killing Raiden!" she yelled. "Die, Snake!"
Snake managed to roll to the side to dodge the helicopter's missiles it launched at him.
Snake used his arm-mounted Stinger missile launcher to fire his own missiles at the helicopter as it flew around him, dodging the chopper's machine gun fire and missiles at the same time using his jets. He used his extended reality vision to locate it in the middle of the sandstorm, and used it in sync with his missile launcher to lock onto Rose's helicopter.
Eventually the missiles pierced through Rose's chopper's armor, and as it lost control and spun in circles as it fell out of the sky, it fired one last set of missiles before Rose ejected herself from the pilot seat and used the blue-hot spaceship fuel in her jetpack to fly away.
"We aren't finished yet, Snake!" shouted Rose before she flew out of sight at a speed too fast for Snake to shoot, and unfortunately he was out of Stinger missiles right now.
Despite this, Snake could feel his strength increasing as he carried on toward the next part of Zanzibar Land through the wreckage of the helicopter.
Wait… this feels like part of the simulation…
Snake called Holly. "What's going on, Holly? Why are my augmentations getting stronger?"
"It's Sheila. She must be activating some of your augmentations remotely; it looks like your armor strength, augmentation battery power, inventory storage, and jet fuel reserves have all been further augmented."
"So… if these augmentations were already in my body, how come they weren't activated back before I infiltrated Inner Haven?"
"Hannah Brady must've been worried that you were becoming too powerful," said Holly.
"I see," said Snake as he approached the base, and shot more Genome Soldiers searching for him with his M4 and M14 EBR.
Once they were dead and he interfaced with some of their BISECTs at close quarters, Snake looked inside one of the vehicles in the nearby garrison.
A cardboard box, he thought.
"Believe it or not, Snake, you might actually be able to fool Dante's hivemind with that," she said.
"Seriously?"
"The box was insulated with lead and nanites that can block Dante from monitoring and hacking into your BISECT now that he's got control of the Reality of Things," said Holly.
"Well, I suppose it's worth a try," said Snake as he folded the cardboard box and stored it in his backpack augmentation.
Snake hid under the cardboard box and walked onto a conveyor belt with X-rays and other scanners examining various packages and containers being loaded onto the base from a trailer via the belt. He managed to infiltrate the next part of Zanzibar Land undetected.
As Snake shot a Genome Soldier with his SOCOM and interfaced with his BISECT before he died, Holly said to Snake via his C3, "Uh… bad news, Snake…"
"You've been captured?" said Snake.
"Yes… they tied me up and blindfolded me…"
"Are you in the tower building?"
"I think so… There's…"
"I remember where you are," said Snake. "By the elevator, a pump, and a water stream."
"They haven't hacked into my BISECT yet… But once they do… Hurry!"
Sighing, Snake thought, this feels all too familiar. Holly may not be real… she may be a posthuman trying to trick me, similar to how GW tricked Raiden into thinking it was Colonel Campbell back during the Big Shell Incident. I have to watch my back.
Snake snuck through the base's narrow corridors full of crates of ammunition with his stealth camouflage to avoid security cameras, shooting more Genome Soldiers along the way while trying to walk quietly across the noisy steel flooring before reaching the elevator.
He hacked into the elevator's controls with his BISECT and entered the elevator, then descended to the level 1 basement.
Snake crept through the sewers, which were filled with buoyant mines in the filthy water.
Seeing a young girl enter a room, Snake followed her in.
"Uncle?" she said.
"No," said Snake, "I'm not Big Boss."
"One-eyed Uncle, have you seen my friend?" she said. "The blonde one."
"I'm not Big Boss!"
"You're may not be yet, Uncle… but soon you'll be the Biggest Boss of them all!"
Grunting, Snake quickly exited the room and headed to another nearby room.
Instead of feeling for hollow walls by knocking on them with his fists, Snake could see through them with his Sonar Vision.
He saw a woman on the other side whose figure looked like Holly's.
He quickly loaded a remotely-detonated explosive round into his M4's underbarrel launcher, fired it at the hollow wall, and detonated it with his BISECT.
He approached Holly White, only to find that she was a hologram, and the hologram slowly turned into Sheila Brady.
"You!" said Snake.
"Yes," said Sheila. "I disguised myself as Holly to provide you intel from within the simulation."
"You let Dante brainwash the world…" said Snake, "all to take out your mother's corporation!"
"I'm having them take each other out," said Sheila. "You're my ace-in-the-hole, Snake. Now that Dante killed my mother, he's about to wipe out the JD megacorporation's control over the world, absorb it into Firelake and his Daemonic hivemind. Otacon and Mikki are being taken aboard Metal Gear DAEMON… but I'm being left alive since I'm a blind spot in Dante's programming. I did this after discovering Sunny's tricks regarding exploiting Dante's hivemind."
"Damn it…" Snake said. "Is Sunny still alive?"
"For the time being," she said. "But she's likely to be taken aboard Metal Gear DAEMON once Dante discovers her too."
Snake said nothing and thought for a moment.
"All this time, Operation Snake Soul Eater was never really Hannah's design… it was yours. She was playing right into your hands."
"Of course," said Sheila. "Like Hannah and Dante, I knew that there were far more puppets in this massive play to pull the strings to than just you. My operation's name was Daemonic Soul Eater."
"Daemonic Soul Eater…" said Snake.
"Like you, Dante was just a puppet as well whom I turned posthuman in order to get at my mother," said Sheila.
"Did he deserve it?" said Snake.
"Of course he did!" said Sheila. "Before he became a monster and created the schism within JD, he was one of my mother's closest associates. His subsidiary was responsible for a lot of the technology that formed the precursor to the posthuman hivemind destroying humanity right now… before he turned it into his own megacorporation, Firelake. I simply used his own technology on him as a form of poetic justice."
Looking away, Sheila said, "He also was a sadist in real life too… He did something unspeakable to me when I was a child… The tattoo on my belly used to say 'No Place for Dante.' I did that to spite him."
"That piece of shit…" said Snake.
"Once I managed to heal from the trauma he inflicted on me, I changed the name and face to that of the famous video game auteur, Hideo Kojima, as an attempt at breaking the fourth wall."
"Sounds like something Hideo would do…" mused Snake. "No offense to him… I love his work, but he is a bit of a man-child at times."
"Hmmm… Looks like you've got Level 4 access now based on how many BISECTs you've interfaced with," she said. "We'll have to risk playing into Dante's hands for now. There's a drone shaped like a pigeon nearby… Its hivemind has information on it we need. Go find it."
"A carrior pigeon for the digital age… Right," said Snake. "I'll be your ace-in-the-hole Sheila… for now."
Snake backtracked through the sewers and took the elevator up to the first floor again, and then took an elevator up to floor 10, the top of the tower.
He blasted his way through the thin walls concealing the doorways on the 10th floor with his M4's underbarrel explosive launcher, careful not to hit the war orphans wandering around. He stocked up on ammunition behind a level 4 door lock he hacked open.
The orphans called him 'One-Eyed Uncle' and talked about a room filled with green pineapples on the south side of the tower on the way back out.
Uncomfortable, Snake avoided talking to them as he went back down the elevator to the first floor again, only to find the elevator had been blown out by Genome Soldiers.
Hearing them approaching Snake from behind, Snake jumped down the elevator shaft and used his jets to control his descent, then used his jets to boost him in the direction of the first floor's elevator doors, which he pried open.
He shot several more Genome Soldiers waiting for him on the first floor with his M4, and engaged in CQC with him before they could attract too much attention. After interfacing with their BISECTs, he then moved through the maze of the tower's first floor until reaching another elevator, and went up to the 30th floor, only to find Red Blaster there.
Red Blaster nearly got him with his grenade launcher and explosive laser tripwire traps set up around the hallways, only for him to activate his energy shield augmentations, saving him from a chain of explosions at the last minute.
Snake fired his own M4's explosive grenades and proximity traps at Red Blaster, eventually destroying his heavy armor and short-circuiting his energy shields.
He managed to interface with Red Blaster's BISECT before he died.
"A fox trap for the foxiest of the hounds… Brings back memories, doesn't it, Snake?" said Red Blaster.
"It does…" said Snake, "but not of you. You're all impostors."
"Are you sure we are, Snake?"
"I am!"
Snake disarmed the laser tripwire traps blocking the stairways to the 31st floor, and ran up them. He eventually came to the door to the roof, which he blasted open with a remote-detonated explosive launched from his M4.
On the roof was the pigeon-like drone, which, when Snake approached it, seemed to fly away from him due to it being sensitive to sound.
Snake tried luring the pigeon with a chicken pot pie ration he found containing chicken, peas, and potatoes.
The pigeon drone approached Snake and ate the ration. While it was doing this, Snake hacked into its hivemind.
The pigeon's hivemind contained samples of Dante's posthuman language.
Wait a minute, thought Snake, they were speaking in code to each other back in Rome… and at Inner Haven after Fat Snake was discovered to be the mole. Maybe if I can speak the language, I can stop Dante!
Snake tried to retrace his memories. In the original version of Zanzibar Land, I had to look for Dr. Petrovich's Russian escort, Gustava Heffner, to act as a translator for Dr. Marv… She disguised herself as a soldier, but she was the only female soldier. Perhaps I can find another clue in the women's restroom again?
Snake found himself dissociating a bit due to the posthuman code in his mind, and found himself falling down the elevator back from floor 30 to floor 1.
Hearing Mikki's voice singing that song, "Snake Eater", in his head, caused him to regain his consciousness and use his jets to land safely just in time.
Snake quickly hid in a nearby air vent as a ton of Genome Soldiers that had formed a temporary alliance passed by his location. He then headed through the snake-like maze of corridors to a Level 4 door lock.
Upon exiting the door, Snake engaged with several alerted enemies, firing his M4 and underbarrel shotgun at them, and sliced through them with his sword-drills. Eventually he was able to lose the massive amount of Genome Soldiers in the desert by turning invisible with the help of stealth camouflage.
I'm not going to able to take them all on at once, Snake thought. I'll have to take a few on at a time.
He dissociated his way through the desert, swamp, and jungle on the way back to the tank hangar.
Dante's getting closer to finding a way into my mind, thought Snake. I have to stop him before he does!
After killing and interfacing with more Genome Soldiers along the way, he headed up to level 3 of the tank hangar.
So many elevators in this place, Snake thought to himself.
He opened a Level 4 electronic door lock and quickly turned the corner after opening the door to avoid a set of soldiers he saw fighting with each other on his Soliton Radar. He went through a maze of several different office rooms and found an updated version of the Metal Gear Mk. VI mouse drone Sunny and Drebin gave him a while back that was more on par with his current augmentations.
He snuck through another office room full of computers, snuck up behind several Genome Soldiers and took them all down with a sequence of CQC throws, punches, and kicks, then interfaced with their BISECTs.
He snuck past several noise detectors on the floor and hacked into a level 3 door, entering the doorway before the noise detector's sonar pulse got him.
He picked up a set of remote-controlled missiles compatible with the Metal Gear Mk. VI.
Continuing his move through the office areas, Snake shot several Genome Soldiers with his M4 before heading into another room filled with nanite spray.
He used his energy shields to avoid the nanites, and consumed a ration with spaghetti and meatballs he found to avoid losing too much battery life. He managed to avoid a bulletproof security camera in the next room by hiding underneath an office desk and timing his movements as the camera's cone of vision scanned the room until there was an opening. He then snuck to the door right underneath the camera and hacked its lock.
There was a room full of radiation that was interfering with his augmentations, meaning he was unable to see in the dark. Fortunately, he knew where the lightswitch was, and he turned on the lights. He was able to shoot his way past several Genome Soldiers without the help of his augmentations, and was still able to interface with their BISECTs.
He found another tool—a set of old-fashioned infrared goggles—and dissociated as he began to backtrack again to the elevator to head to level 4. He hacked a level 4 door lock and entered a room with both Genome Soldiers and noise detectors.
He shot the soldiers with headshots from his M14 EBR before he attempted to pass the noise detectors on the floor.
He headed into a room with another war orphan in it.
"Uncle One-Eye…"
"That's not my—"
"Uncle One-Eye, the Zanzibar national anthem is playing! Soldiers have to stand up straight when the national anthem is playing, or else they'll be punished, right uncle?"
"…uh… that's right, kid," said Snake, playing along.
Hearing the Zanzibar national anthem playing in the distance, Snake realized it was actually someone speaking in posthuman code… or perhaps they were singing?
He shot a Genome Soldier at the corner of where a security camera was perched up at, and dragged his body into an alcove, then interfaced with his BISECT. Snake then waited for the camera's cone of vision to move out of the way before he passed a set of ficus plants.
In the next corridor, he hid behind a set of another ficus plants, and peeked out, shooting an approaching Genome Soldier with his SOCOM.
He entered a set of kids' quarters where their cots and playthings were.
"…there's only one lavatory for us girls in the south-east…"
"…Uncle One-Eye said to go to the medical room where there's pills if we catch a cold…"
"…I wonder if Uncle One-Eye will let the rest of us watch TV…"
There was a room full of radiation, so he put on the infrared goggles to see since he couldn't use his sonar vision.
Another war orphan was watching television in the room filled with radiation.
The TV was showing footage of the global massacres happening, rapidly changing channels to show different locations worldwide… London… Tokyo… New York… Dubai…
There was a number above the TV that was rapidly dwindling.
A number that was now almost less than 8 billion.
"Isn't this a good show, Uncle One-Eye? You said it was your favorite when you were younger."
Snake shivered.
"Of course, this is a simulation. You aren't real war orphans," said Snake. "You can't be. This room is full of radiation…"
Snake looked at the television again. "Then again I suppose real children are being driven insane by the posthuman virus inside their BISECTs as well… forced to kill, and die, at such a young age. Dante, Hannah, and Sheila… they're all sick to make this happen. There's no coming back from this."
Snake entered a room full of bare metal endoskeletons, and nearly screamed, but caught himself.
The endoskeletons were turned off.
Bodies without consciousnesses in them, Snake thought. Likely spares manufactured by Firelake's subsidiary, A-Nile-8, in order to replace any broken ones for the terraforming process.
Snake hacked a level 4 door lock and got out of there.
He entered the kitchen area, where more Genome Soldiers were killing each other.
Snake snuck by with his stealth camouflage, holding his SOCOM in one hand and his drill sword in the other. He found some more rations in the pantry on the other side of the room.
He quickly shot several soldiers dead with his SOCOM, and approached the restrooms next to a set of ficus plants, where he found a bucket in the men's restroom.
He spotted Gustava in disguise as she headed into the women's restroom.
Hidden behind the ficus plants, Snake entered the women's restroom, where Gustava was checking her disguise.
"Gustava Heffner?" said Snake.
"I assume you need help translating for Dr. Marv," she said.
"…I do," lied Snake.
"Let me borrow your C3 for a moment while we ride the elevator in the women's bathroom into the sewers," she said, and interfaced with his BISECT.
Snake dissociated for a moment, and entered another VR room inside his mind.
Dr. Marv, Gustava, and Snake looked at each other in a circle around each other.
Gustava and Dr. Marv spoke to each other in posthuman.
Gustava turned to Snake. "I'm a posthuman, Snake… programmed to be non-hostile by Sheila Brady. Dr. Marv is actually part of a backdoor program in the Cocytus hivemind that Sheila has control of. All of us are based on prior expectations and experiences of yours in this simulation."
"There isn't really a way for humans to understand the way posthumans communicate in its current state, as it's too far evolved for the human mind to comprehend without going insane. You'd have to either become posthuman for it to work, or have another posthuman within your own BISECT act as a translator. This will be crucial for you to survive within Metal Gear DAEMON."
"But I don't have a posthuman within my own BISECT that's friendly!" said Snake.
"Aren't you forgetting something… or rather, someone?" said Gustava as she turned to Dr. Marv, whose body dissolved and turned into Solidus.
"But Solidus hates me!" said Snake.
"It doesn't matter," said Gustava. "He's programmed to do what Sheila tells him to. She was the one who pushed to have him share a consciousness inside your mind, Snake."
"It's nice to get more familiar with you, brother," said Solidus.
"You're not Solidus… you're Daemonic Snake. A posthuman," said Cyber Snake.
"Which is exactly why you need my help getting past Metal Gear DAEMON's posthuman locks. Only posthumans or those who can program its language can break into it. Hence why Sunny is an exception."
"What about Otacon and Mikki?" said Snake.
"Otacon's no exception," laughed Solidus, "and as for Mikki… she's a different story entirely. You really were thrown into this mission blind as a bat. Just like usual, eh, Snake?"
"I don't know what you're saying…" said Snake.
"Well, I was speaking in a human tongue," said Solidus. "Now let me elaborate further in a Daemonic one."
The inhuman noises coming out of Solidus's mouth drove Snake near-mad before he was ejected from the simulation.
Snake got on his hands and knees and puked as he came to in the elevator he was in with Gustava.
"That was just a small sample of the code," said Gustava. "While we will need to upload the whole script to your BISECT at some point to stop HUMANDIE, your mind can't currently take it without us risking losing the battle to Dante."
"A small sample… ?" said Snake. "That was horrible! I don't think I can possibly listen to the whole thing!"
"You'll have to if you want to stop HUMANDIE, upload HUMANALIVE to Cocytus aboard Metal Gear DAEMON," said Gustava as she ran out into the sewers, where several trash compactor machines and tanks were patrolling.
They'd be crushed if they didn't tread carefully.
Snake managed to navigate the labyrinth of tunnels with Gustava and they made it to the elevator on the other side.
As a compactor machine approached them, Snake yelled as he hacked through the elevator door's locks, "Come on, come on… !"
Only for the elevator doors to open and for the elevator to have arrived.
Snake and Gustava dove in seconds before the compactor drone crushed them.
They managed to ride up to Dr. Petrovich's prison cell made of an alloy Snake couldn't break through.
"Dr. Petrovich?" said Snake as he looked around. "Dr. Petrovich!"
Looking around, Snake said to Gustava, "Dr. Petrovich isn't here."
"But what we need from him is here… You've reached level 5 access."
"Ah… right," said Snake. "But… in that case, why'd you bring me up here at all?"
Snake looked at Dr. Petrovich's cell, where a small laptop computer resided.
"To remind you of what you have to lose," said Gustava.
Humanity's numbers had dropped to 7.5 billion, less than three-quarters of what it had been before.
"This is really bad…" said Snake.
"Dante will likely try to hold the others aboard Metal Gear DAEMON as leverage over you, to prevent you from stopping him," said Gustava. "You can't listen to him."
"But Mikki, Otacon… they'll both die!"
"This is the road a soldier must take," said Gustava. "It's lonely, but in the end we all really do die alone."
Snake grimaced.
He could feel his strength growing again.
"I'm becoming the person I used to be," said Snake. "A cold-hearted killer… One who would kill his friends in a heartbeat if given the order to."
"You need to be that person again," said Gustava.
"No, I can't do it!" shouted Snake.
"If that's the case, then humanity as a whole is doomed," said Gustava.
Grunting in frustration, he headed back down into the sewers with Gustava in tow.
They reached a level 5 door that Snake opened with his BISECT.
Snake and Gustava passed the point in the sewers where Dr. Petrovich had to relieve himself and they had to wait.
He remembered smoking down here with Gustava, when he learned that she had once been in a relationship with his friend-turned-enemy, Frank Jaeger.
Gray Fox.
She had fled to the West, abandoned her life as an Olympic figure skater just to join him there… only to be refused entry. Hence why she ended up working for the STB… the communist Czechoslovakian secret police force during the Cold War.
She's likely dead by now. Along with the real Holly White… Snake thought to himself. So many people I cared about, I outlived.
They made it out of the sewers, and crossed another minefield until they reached a bridge.
Wait a minute… I remember what happened here!
"I'll go first," said Gustava. "The bridge is flimsy, but I'm an ice skater, I can—"
"Gustava, DON'T!" yelled Snake.
The bridge was blown up, and Gustava was thrown off of it, her endoskeleton showering sparks.
Horrified, Snake interfaced with her endoskeleton.
"Snake…" said Gustava in the White Room.
"Somehow… I've been given… life? Again?"
"What?" said Snake.
"I see now…" she said. "You've been revived too."
"I… I was…" said Snake. "Gustava… the Genome Soldiers… Holly White… everyone… are they still alive?"
"The Genome Soldiers are…" said Gustava. "Not sure about Holly White though."
Snake sighed, and shook as he looked away. "It doesn't matter. I can't bring you back. I can't bring back the friends I've killed. I can't bring back the billions of humans that have died already!"
"I know it's hard…" said Gustava. "That's why you have to keep going… Like my mother who fled the Nazis… like me… you have to cover your heart… your human one… with ice… in order to survive… You have to… to… what is that light?"
"GUSTAVA!" yelled Snake as the VR room dissolved.
Looking up from Gustava's corpse, Snake saw Gray Fox piloting the Metal Gear D.
"GRAY FOX!" yelled Snake.
"I'll let you go this time, Snake… since we were friends once," Gray Fox said while cackling maniacally.
Snake grimaced.
After restocking on ammunition, rations, and equipment at a nearby vehicle depot whose doors had also been blown open by another missile from Metal Gear D, Snake dissociated again as he began to backtrack, this time killing soldiers while he was dissociated. By the time he came to, his BISECT was level 6, and was able to open a level 6 door lock.
He found himself in a room where the equivalent of the blue master card that would open door locks for levels 4, 5, and 6 during the original mission was another damaged BISECT.
Snake looked at the BISECT in horror.
"The Earth's human population is down to seven billion Snake… By the time you're done with this simulation… there will be no one left to save."
"Damn it, Dante… sending me here was a distraction, wasn't it!"
"Violence against neighbors, Snake… You've killed so many… Isn't it time you did what you've wanted to do for so long now?"
"FUCK YOU!" screamed Snake.
"Put yourself out of your misery, Snake," said Dante. "By now, the capitalist west in all its love of violence against others, is a hellscape of nothing but corpses and a few, extremely traumatized individuals, all of which have given in to become posthumans. Survival of the fittest… Capitalism at its finest. Now, the collective suicide of the communist east is about to resume."
Jesus Christ, thought Snake, Russia, India, China? Those nations consist of at least more than 2 billion people alone… I can't let him do this!
Snake called Sheila.
"SHEILA!" Snake screamed. "Over three billion people are dead because of Dante, your puppet, and more will die if you don't get me out of this damned simulation!"
"Unfortunately, the only way out of the simulation is through it, Snake," said Sheila.
Furious, Snake yelled, "What was this simulation for? Dante had to have had another purpose for me going through it besides a distraction. If he knows what said purpose is, then so do you!"
"He already told you it," said Sheila. "It's to turn you back into your worst enemy… all in an attempt to break your will."
"Break my will?" said Snake. "It's about completing Metal Gear DAEMON! He… he said he was trying to turn me into my worst enemy…"
"Dante thought your worst enemy is Big Boss, hence why you're fighting him again," said Sheila. "But in the process… I- I made a miscalculation… He might figure out who your real worst enemy is…"
"And what happens if he does?"
"No one survives. No one human, at the very least."
Snake said, "You fucked up by turning Dante posthuman, Sheila… The blood of humanity will be on your family's hands. The only reason you lucked out is that no one will be around to remember how badly you fucked up."
"That's why you have to get through the simulation quickly, Snake… and…"
"And what?"
"Stay true to who you are," said Sheila. "The person you are now. One who cares about people."
Snake grunted.
"Sanest thing you've said all day," he said as Sheila's hologram and exited the room he found the damaged BISECT in, where several hordes of Genome Soldiers were waiting to kill him.
Snake raised his M4, and started screaming as he ran at them and unloaded clip after clip into them.
