CHAPTER 14— "THE FORMER FRIEND'S FRAUDS"
Cyber Snake and Fat Snake managed to reach Geneva in less than fifteen minutes due to Metal Gear ROT's ability to fly at Mach 37.
They looked at the chaos below as they began to descend.
"Violence against God, art, and nature…" said Fat Snake.
"Violence against JD…" said Cyber Snake.
"Sheila's plans worked," said Fat Snake. "The JD megacorporation's been wiped out."
"Now we're completing her plans… wiping out Dante and his own megacorporation…" said Cyber Snake. "Can you land us on top of the JD megacorporation's headquarters, Liquid?"
"I can try," said Fat Snake as they descended further.
However, several EMP missiles were fired at Metal Gear ROT after locking onto it.
"Damn it!" yelled Cyber Snake as he deployed flares. "Evasive maneuvers!"
However, the flares only caused the EMP missiles to detonate close enough to Metal Gear ROT to temporarily disable it and its jets.
Cyber Snake screamed as Metal Gear ROT fell out of the sky.
He and Fat Snake quickly ejected from the cockpit, and Cyber Snake deployed his wings and jets to fly through the maze of skyscrapers in downtown Geneva.
Posthumans fired at Cyber Snake from all directions as he performed evasive maneuvers, flying around their gunfire in an attempt to dodge it all while avoiding hitting any of the skyscrapers.
Snake was a few blocks away from the JD megacorporation's headquarters when another missile locked onto him.
Snake quickly used his energy shield to prevent the missile from destroying him, but the missile was powerful enough to negate the effects of his energy shield after it blocked the detonation.
Several armor-piercing bullets then hit Snake, and he screamed as he fell out of the sky and smashed through a window of a massive skyscraper.
Looking around at the destroyed office he was in that was full of corpses, Snake heard several missiles hit the sides of the building.
He then was shaken and fell to the floor as several suicide drones surrounded the base of the skyscraper and self-destructed, causing the skyscraper to begin to collapse.
Snake quickly got to his feet and ran toward another window, shooting through the glass with his SOCOM until it shattered, then jumped out the window and flew with his wings and jets again before the skyscraper collapsed completely.
As he flew away from the skyscraper, he realized it was collapsing toward him.
Snake screamed and flew to the side before the collapsing skyscraper crushed him.
A piece of debris struck his endoskeleton, and he fell all the way down onto the street level, where he smashed into the wreckage of a smart car and passed out for a moment.
After coming to, Snake managed to roll off of the destroyed smart car and get onto his feet as he hit the pavement.
The street level was clouded with opaque smoke due to the wreckage of the destroyed skyscraper.
Snake turned on his sonar vision to see through it.
He could see several posthumans fighting with each other nearby as well as committing suicide.
But some were searching for him.
Activating his stealth camouflage and lying prone as the posthumans approached him, Cyber Snake contacted Fat Snake via his C3.
"Liquid!" Cyber Snake thought. "Are you out of the killzone?"
"I'm in just as much danger as you are," said Fat Snake. "You'll have to leg it to the JD headquarters building from where you are… Use your Soliton Radar to navigate… and be careful. The streets are swarming with posthumans, as well as drones. If they see you, take them out before they self-destruct and take you with them."
"Got it," said Cyber Snake as he crawled through the smoke and swarms of posthumans shooting at each other, being careful not to get spotted. Even with his stealth camouflage equipped, he might be spotted at this distance.
He had to crawl over several piles of corpses in the process.
Snake also had no choice but to shoot several posthumans that were once civilians as they were getting too close to him with his M4 in order to clear a path forward.
"Are you enjoying all the killing, Snake?" Dante taunted Snake over his C3.
"DANTE!"
"You truly are an unnatural monster, Snake," said Dante. "You always were, from the moment you were conceived in EVA's womb."
"Why are you doing all this, Dante?" yelled Snake. "What do you want now!"
"For starters, to break your will completely."
"My will isn't gone yet," Snake said.
"Then I guess I'll have to break Fat Snake's will first to get the other thing I want," said Dante. "I need Sheila's location. She's gone off the grid for some reason despite that Otacon was supposed to find her…"
"You'll never get it from him," said Snake. "He's not his worst enemy yet!"
"Oh, but he is…" said Dante, "given he's now the only viable ally left on the table for the man who stole his birthright. I suppose that's a more twisted take on 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.'"
"Damn it!" yelled Snake.
"He's about to call Sheila," said Dante. "Have fun listening in as I triangulate her location."
Snake looked at the holograms communicating in front of him via his C3 in despair as he continued to crawl through the chaos on the streets of Geneva.
Fat Snake was screaming in agony, while trying to punch the side of his head at full force until his skull bled.
"BROTHER!"
"Liquid, don't call Sheila!"
"I suppose… it was fun, right? Getting inside your head… seeing what makes you tick… ARRRGH!" Liquid clutched his forehead and started to gouge his own eyes out, screaming as he did so.
"You have to fight it, Liquid!" yelled Snake.
"I'm sorry, brother…" said Liquid. "I can feel my will fading away… Ironically enough… if it weren't for the fact that I saw in your head that you never hated me as much as I hated you, rather… that you pitied me… I wouldn't have stood a chance at resisting Dante's mind games… Perhaps in another world, we might not have been enemies…"
"LIQUID!"
"SHEILA!" yelled Liquid.
"Fat Snake…" said Sheila. "I assume Dante finally got to you. This is bad."
"I know where you are, Sheila! This is all your fault, what you did to my brother… ARRGH!"
"Your will's not broken completely, Fat Snake…" said Sheila. "That's good, because you're the only thing protecting Cyber Snake's will right now. If Dante manages to get through to you, I'll have to use some of the others to protect Cyber Snake."
"What?" said Snake, interrupting the C3 call. "Sheila, what are you talking about?"
"Cyber Snake. Good, you're still you," said Sheila. "I'll talk to you through Fat Snake's call… Once you break into the JD conglomerate's main headquarters in Geneva, I'll provide further instructions on how to find me. As for Metal Gear DAEMON… I have a plan to stop it. You can thank Sunny for that."
"Sunny?" said Snake.
"She created a Metal Gear in secret using her old connections at Solis Space and Aeronautics that's capable of flying into space, battling Metal Gear DAEMON… and hacking into all the nukes on Earth at once. All among other capabilities that she kept secret from me for some reason."
"She was a child prodigy…" Snake mused. "Wait a minute… did you say it's capable of hacking into all the nukes on Earth at once?"
"I did… It is," said Sheila. "We'll need to launch several nukes at Metal Gear DAEMON in order to disable its external shields… and at any of the nukes Dante launches from Metal Gear DAEMON to blow them up before they reach Earth."
"I don't get it…" said Snake. "Why would Dante try to nuke the Earth if he wanted to save life on it?"
"He's replaced the thermonuclear payloads of the missiles on Metal Gear DAEMON with terraforming nanite gas payloads. He's going to blanket the Earth with nanomachines that will eliminate the entirety of the existing biosphere and recreate it from scratch in Cocytus's image."
"I see…" said Snake. "He was never planning to save life on Earth… he was planning to replace it with his own twisted version of life."
"But if Otacon and the remaining posthumans get to my location before you do, where the Metal Gear is, it's all over. That's why you have to get to Geneva where I left a clue of my location, and fast!"
"All right," said Snake as he continued through town.
After shooting and sneaking his way through the city streets, Snake was nearing the courtyard of the JD conglomerate's main headquarters. The building was a massive skyscraper that, from this angle, seemed to touch the sky.
It was the tallest building on Earth.
A modern Tower of Babel, Snake thought as he crawled toward the courtyard, only for several mines to be launched near his position from some aerial drones, some of which landed near swarms of posthumans and detonated, destroying the posthumans' bodies.
"Humanity's population is currently below 2 billion, Snake," said Otacon.
"OTACON!" yelled Snake.
"I managed to hack into the JD megacorporation's security systems and servers, as well as several nearby drones and posthumans. They're now operating under my branch of the Cocytus hivemind, and they're all programmed to search for you and kill you now. And once Liquid's consciousness is posthuman, there shouldn't be a problem in finding your location and turning you posthuman as well."
"This isn't you Otacon!" yelled Snake.
"You're right, this isn't me," said Otacon. "You can thank yourself for helping me access the Reality of Things central server for Dante. You certainly have my thanks… and his. Now let us show you how grateful we are and reveal your location to us. It's the only thing keeping your will, your humanity, safe right now."
"I can't do that, Otacon!" yelled Snake.
"Come on now, Snake!" said Otacon. "Be realistic. It won't be long before the only posthumans still alive are the 500 million being stowed aboard Metal Gear DAEMON… Less than 1.5 billion are still on the Earth's surface, and they'll be gone soon too. But if you throw down your weapons and surrender the rest of your will to resist us, you'll be among the 500 million posthumans tasked with restoring the Earth's biosphere."
Snake grimaced, and tears started to stream down his eyes.
"No deal," said Snake. "I get it, Otacon. You're a posthuman too. You're as good as dead, and there's no bringing you back. All my friends are gone, along with the rest of humanity…"
Otacon said to Snake, "Guess I'll have to break your will the hard way then," as Metal Gear ROT came flying at Mach 18 over the skyscrapers adjacent to JD's skyscraper, and fired missiles that destroyed the skyscrapers' foundations, slowly creating a chain of destroyed buildings crashing into each other.
"Metal Gear ROT?" yelled Snake. "How'd you hack into that thing?"
"It was never yours to begin with," said Otacon. "Once you left its cockpit, hacking back into its hivemind was simple. Once we find Sheila's location, we'll use ROT to nuke Geneva."
"Where are you, Otacon!"
"Ascending to the top of the JD skyscraper, searching it floor by floor and room by room for the clue Sheila left for you… We searched the underground Maglev train network JD used to travel throughout Europe, but it was a red herring. I suspect Sheila's still inside the building somewhere. If you want to find her and me so badly, Snake… well, I bet it won't be long before we're in the same spot."
Snake grunted loudly out of frustration, and waited for Metal Gear ROT to pass again. Its missiles created a massive set of holes in the street, sending Snake falling down into the Maglev train network Otacon had mentioned.
Several corpses were buried down here as well. Snake had to pull himself out of a pile of them before he could get back on his feet.
As Snake managed to make his way through the Maglev train tunnels filled with corpses, Otacon said to him, "You mind if I narrate some of Dante's inferno to you, Snake? This one's about the circle of hell known as fraud."
"The eighth circle of hell was known as Malebolge, which is a rough translation of 'evil ditches'. It was shaped like a large funnel of stone shaped like an amphitheater that leads into the next circle of hell where the center of Hell lies. The funnel consists of ten deep ditches which are each designed to punish different types of fraudsters."
"Right," said Snake as he looked at the blood-stained signs of the Maglev tunnels, "I see now… These secret Maglev trains moved around the city of Geneva in circular rings, divided into ten concentric districts before heading outward to other cities in Europe… JD's at the center."
"An interpretation of the poetic justice at play here is that this circle of hell represented the image of a city of corruption," said Otacon.
Snake looked at Otacon's hologram as he said to him, "There are so many aspects of society that the Patriots wanted to recreate and pervert in order to enact their control… they even succeeded at recreating some. Every social relationship, every aspect of society was influenced by them in one way or the other… The JD conglomerate was the continuation of that after the Sons of the Patriots, the Patriots, Cipher, and the Philosophers all fell apart before them."
Snake looked at how some of the various corpses of the posthumans down here had been mutilated.
"Don't feel sorry for them, Snake… These people whose corpses you're looking at are the Grandsons of the Patriots…"
Snake looked at a group of corpses with bloody lashes and marks all over their bodies.
"Panderers and seducers, those who exploited the sexual passions of others to serve themselves would be whipped by horned demons for eternity. The Patriots were known for trafficking people from all over the world to be sold to sexual predators, even children. Your mother, EVA was one of them, as she was trained to be a honey trap by the Philosophers. Mikki Moskova wasn't much different; her body was designed to look like that of EVA's for the sake of the mission. To turn you into what we thought was your worst enemy at the time the mission began… Big Boss."
As Snake passed the first group, he looked at a group of bodies rotting and covered in shit.
"Flatterers, who abused and corrupted language to exploit others' desires and fears, tell them what they want to hear and not what they need to hear… would wade around in a sea of excrement representative of that which came out of their mouths. The Patriots owned the media, and shaped public opinion that way. You know how the Democrat and Republican Parties would constantly fight with each other over policies and elections in Washington? It was all a show! Just like the media networks that represented neoliberal and neoconservative views in America, they were all owned by the same conglomerate! And like how they made us fight against each other and start the war economy, all with words, now they're fighting amongst themselves in their heads while smothered in shit."
Snake looked at some bodies that had been burnt to a crisp.
"Simoniacs, those who made money off of their positions as head of religious institutions, were placed head-first upside-down into holes in the rock, while flames nipped at their feet, with the heat of the fire proportioned to their guilt. The Vatican and several other religious institutions were owned by the Patriots ever since they came to power… along with the pedophile networks running rampant throughout the church. The Founding Fathers wanted church and state to be separate, mainly because the state could be corrupted by the church, and vice versa. Now religion is mired in politics. Nowadays people are either claiming to follow religion when in reality they've misinterpreted the will of god, and refuse to follow in their footsteps, or outright abandon religion because of how awful a taste the former group leaves in their mouths. After all, Jesus's teachings were never about talking the talk, but rather walking the walk. He wanted his followers to help the poor and heal the sick, not let them be victimized by society's thirst to descend into social Darwinism."
Snake looked at some bodies whose heads had been brutally twisted, their necks snapped.
"Sorcerers… false prophets who tried to predict the future. They had their heads twisted around on their bodies to force them to walk backwards for eternity. The Reality of Things was originally meant to be a mass surveillance system, designed to read people's minds and prevent people from committing crimes, or resisting the will of the JD conglomerate before they were even able to. But the reality of things was that a system this advanced couldn't be monitored by people, so they used massive AIs to do so instead… That caused all sorts of problems for humanity, didn't it, Snake?"
Snake looked at several corpses covered in bubbling black goo.
"Barrators… corrupt politicians who made money off of politics. Sounds like an everyday thing in Washington with all the corporate lobbyists, am I right, Snake? They were immersed in a lake of boiling pitch, representative of the darkness behind the deals they made in office. The Patriots were all for lobbyism in Washington, as their power came from corporations."
Snake slid down a sloped Maglev tunnel to find a group of corpses weighed down and crushed by rubble from the tunnels' collapse. Some had trampled over each other.
"Hypocrites were weighed down by leaden robes that appeared beautiful on the outside due to being gilded, representing the weight of their false lifestyles. Dante saw humanity's consumption of resources as hypocritical in their current form as cyborgs, Snake. Humanity would continue to eat, drink, consume, and produce waste, polluting the Earth no longer for the sake of survival, but simply to remind themselves that they're human! The artificial flesh around the full-body endoskeletal augmentation models prevalent throughout society notwithstanding… if it weren't for the human consciousnesses in their BISECTs, humanity would be no different than a bunch of Terminators. And the JD conglomerate profited off of this, knowing it would happen!"
Snake saw literal snakes, lizards, and other creatures eating away at the flesh of corpses down here.
"Thieves would be eaten away at by monstrous reptiles with their hands tied behind their backs, their very identities being stolen from them as punishment. The Patriots stole the world's wealth away from 99% of the population. Tell me Snake, how is it fair that people like Hannah and Sheila Brady get to be trillionaires… afford to live lavish lifestyles, labrynthine mansions and massive yachts while the rest of the world rots in poverty? Psychopathy doesn't even begin to describe it."
Snake was shocked to see a snake bite the endoskeleton in a corpses' neck, and that the corpse was actually alive.
The corpse made a staticky demonic noise while reaching out with one of its robotic hands toward Snake before it self-destructed.
Snake covered his eyes with his hand before running through the tunnels in shock and climbing up an elevator to the lobby of the JD conglomerate, where corpses were sprawled about the floor, their bodies now just a bunch of lifeless endoskeletons.
"Counselors of fraud… those who encouraged others to engage in fraudulent activities. In other words, the Patriots and the higher-ups of JD themselves," said Otacon. "They're hidden from view inside individual flames, just like how they existed in secret during their lives."
As Snake continued through the lobby, he saw several more corpses whose endoskeletons had been hacked apart or blown to pieces via self-destruct mechanisms.
"Sowers of discord… those who created chaos in the world. The Patriots created the war economy, and forced humanity to fight with each other for the sake of profit."
Otacon's rant was interrupted by Sheila, who told Snake, "Snake… we've got a problem."
"I can tell," said Snake as several walking tank drones, Gekko, and posthumans surrounded him. He could also hear Metal Gear ROT circling around for another pass.
"Ah yes…" said Otacon. "The final bolge was where various types of falsifiers resided."
"The Reality of Things is about to be corrupted beyond repair," said Sheila. "I don't have a choice… I'm going to start a reboot. This will cause a global blackout."
"A what?"
"Do yourself a favor, Snake… and shut your BISECT off, now. The Reality of Things's reboot will destroy everything electronic on Earth that it's connected to, including the posthuman consciousnesses of all the remaining people on Earth."
"That's 1 billion people you're talking about!"
"If we don't sacrifice them for the sake of the Reality of Things, then we won't be able to save the 500 million aboard Metal Gear DAEMON. It's us or them."
"Damn it!" yelled Snake. "This is a bad idea, Sheila…"
"Maybe…" said Sheila, "but we're out of time!"
"Be it alchemists, who falsify things, imposters, who falsify persons, counterfeiters, who falsify money, perjurers, who falsify words, or some other kind of falsifiers… the falsifiers are a disease on society. They are afflicted with several different punishments… including diseases, stench, thirst, hunger, filth, screaming, deprivation of senses… and also… darkness," said Otacon.
As the posthuman army around Snake prepared to destroy him, Sheila yelled over his C3, "Shut off your BISECT, Snake, or we're all dead!"
Otacon said, "The false reign of the Patriots is over…"
"But… but what about Otacon?"
"NOW, SNAKE!"
"…and now, the time for the true reign of Firelake… Dante's judgment of humanity…"
"…begins."
Shutting his eyes, Snake screamed as he put his hand to his skull and his veins glowed bright blue as he shut off his BISECT.
… … … … …
As Snake's BISECT began to reboot, he found himself in a VR room again.
"Am I… dead?"
Suddenly Sheila appeared before him.
"Damn it, Sunny…"
"Sheila, what's going on?" said Snake. "Where am I?"
"Your BISECT is rebooting. Your prior body is dead, but I managed to deploy Sunny's Metal Gear far enough into the atmosphere to avoid the global blackout. Your mind has now been uploaded into Metal Gear HUMAN… the first Metal Gear to be modeled after a human. In this case, it was modeled after you."
"You're kidding," said Snake. "So… my BISECT is in control of an entire Metal Gear."
"While you're the main consciousness piloting the Metal Gear, yes," said Sheila. "But your consciousness isn't the only one aboard Metal Gear HUMAN… The entirety of the transhuman race's collective consciousness was uploaded to Metal Gear HUMAN from a backdoor in the Reality of Things that Sunny created some time ago. I had no idea about this."
Snake looked around the VR room as the self-images of several human beings started to wander around in his direction.
"…what the hell's going on…"
"…where am I…"
"…I was eating chips and salsa and next thing I know, I'm here… I swear to god, I'm never eating chips and salsa again!"
Snake looked around in disbelief. "Sunny managed to find a way to separate the human part of humanity's consciousnesses from Metal Gear DAEMON."
"These 10 billion copies are uploaded to Metal Gear HUMAN," said Sheila.
Snake had a sinking feeling in his stomach. "You said Metal Gear HUMAN is the Metal Gear we're using to fight Metal Gear DAEMON, right?"
"…yes," said Sheila. "If this Metal Gear is destroyed… we're done for as a race."
"Done for as a race?" said a man.
"What does she mean?" said a woman.
"Also, who's that dude talking to President Brady's daughter, and why is he wearing a bandana?"
"All right," said Snake. "So, you bought us some time is all. With that said, we still have a chance at saving humanity now."
"Without bodies to upload these copies to, humanity has to stay confined to Metal Gear HUMAN until we upload the HUMANALIVE virus to Cocytus… but yes," said Sheila. "The chances are slim."
Snake looked around at the crowd of humans in the VR room that was looking and sounding increasingly worried as they murmured to each other.
Snake frowned. Then he said, "Wait, what about Otacon! Did his human consciousness manage to get uploaded to Metal Gear HUMAN too?"
Sheila looked at Snake sadly.
"No," she said.
"What? Why not?" said Snake.
"He was already posthuman by the time Sunny managed to finish the upload. It likely happened sometime between the moment right before the Reality of Things was hacked into by Otacon and before Dante's plot began in Hong Kong."
"No…" said Snake.
"I'm sorry," said Sheila. "As you were shutting down though, Fat Snake managed to interface with him before the blackout happened, and before he lost his will completely as well. I think… I think he felt bad for what he did to you over the course of your life… Back at Shadow Moses especially… He wanted you to be able to say goodbye to your friend."
Snake looked at Liquid Ocelot as he shed his fat and returned to his former self-image.
"My fat was never actually fat…" he said, "rather it was another disguise of mine, powered by my energy shield augmentations. My transhuman metabolism more than made up for how much food and drink I consumed."
"Thank you… brother," said Snake.
Liquid smiled slightly.
"I'll give you two some time to catch up," said Liquid. "As for me, I feel like I need to… get some rest…"
Just like that, Liquid's self-image disappeared into thin air.
And Otacon appeared in his place.
"Otacon!" Snake cried as he ran to hug Otacon.
"Snake?" said Otacon as he looked at Snake and hugged him instinctively.
"Otacon, I'm so sorry…" said Snake as he embraced Otacon.
"Snake, what's gotten into you?" said Otacon. "And where are we?"
"Metal Gear HUMAN," said Snake. "Courtesy of Sunny. You raised her well, Otacon."
"Thanks," said Otacon. Scratching his head, he said, "She admittedly became a little harder for me to raise once she became a teenager for… various reasons."
"I was dead by then," said Snake, "or at least… asleep… but I'm sure she was."
Otacon smiled, but then his smile went away.
Looking around at the humans inside Metal Gear HUMAN, he said, "You said… we're inside… a Metal Gear? Metal Gear HUMAN?" As the humans looked at Otacon, and Otacon looked back at them, he continued by saying, "All 10 billion of us?"
Snake looked at Otacon with a sad look on his face.
Otacon began to tremble violently. "Oh GOD!" His face contorted, he began to hold his face over his head and bend over crying.
"Otacon, it's okay…"
"What have I DONE!"
"It wasn't you… You were posthuman, Dante tricked you…"
"I should never have let Sunny get into this mess…" said Otacon. "First JD, and then Firelake… and now… Now she's gone… I killed her! I let Dante access the Reality of Things central server! And now we're all doomed!"
"OTACON!" yelled Snake. "Please… calm down. You're about to die. I don't want you to go out badly."
"How am I supposed to remain calm in a situation like this?"
"You've been calmer than anyone I've ever known in situations a lot like this before."
Sniffling, Otacon said, "You're right."
Collecting himself, Otacon took off his glasses and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.
Snake said, "I thought you were wearing contacts more recently."
"I always preferred wearing glasses. It's just… Naomi liked it when I took them off."
"I see."
"Lately I've been wearing glasses again mainly because I'm no longer looking for a lover," said Otacon.
"It must not be easy given you've lost so many of them," said Snake.
"Tell me about it," said Otacon. "The thing I'm proud of isn't my relationships with Naomi, or Emma, or Sniper Wolf, though… It's the fact that I was able to raise Sunny… that and be your friend."
"You were a good father figure for her, Otacon… and you were a great friend to me. My best friend."
"And now I became my worst enemy… Yours… and hers," said Otacon, looking downward.
"It's all right, Otacon," said Snake. "Sunny's still alive. She's in her twenties now."
"But I thought I…" Otacon then said, "Wait a minute… you're right! Sunny is in her twenties now… The Sunny I killed looked more like she was the age she was during the SOP incident, after Raiden rescued her from the Patriots."
Looking around, Otacon said, "That doesn't make any sense."
"She must've known you were posthuman… or at the very least that Dante's mole was looking for her, regardless of their identity," said Snake. "Hence why she hid hers."
"I don't understand how Dante wouldn't have figured that trick out too though!" said Otacon.
Snake shrugged. "You have me confused at that point as well."
Otacon said to Snake, "Ah well… at least she's alive. You have to promise me you'll get her back, Snake," said Otacon.
"I…" Snake looked at Otacon. "I promise."
"You sounded like you doubted yourself there."
"I did… Meryl, Akiba, Jonathan, Ed… they're still aboard Metal Gear DAEMON with Dante. In order to stop Dante, I'll have to stop them too," said Snake. "But… it doesn't matter anymore. They're gone. There's no bringing them back. And in order to save humanity, I have to sacrifice them."
"You've made other similar sacrifices in the past," said Otacon.
"Yeah," said Snake with a frown, "back when I was my worst enemy… A version of myself who didn't care about the people close to him, or who he hurt. I kept my distance to protect myself from the fact that the people I cared about may end up killed, sometimes even by my own hand."
Otacon said to Snake, "All right, take care, Snake… I don't know if there's any anime magazines in hell…"
"Most likely not," Snake said with a laugh.
"That's a shame," Otacon smirked, "but I'll be okay. I just have to stay… calm…"
"Otacon?" said Snake.
"That light…" said Otacon with a blank gaze as he turned to face a nonexistent light.
"No… I'm not ready!" yelled Snake.
"That light… it's beautiful…" said Otacon as he started to walk towards the light.
"I'm not ready for you to leave!" cried Snake.
As Otacon suddenly floated far away from Snake as he walked, Snake tried to run toward Otacon, but the more he ran towards Otacon, the further away he became.
"Otacon!" yelled Snake as his voice started to become hoarse.
"Snake, it's okay! The others… they're okay! You just have to keep moving, Snake!"
"I am moving! Towards you!" yelled Snake.
"That's not what I mean," said Otacon. "You have to keep fighting, Snake."
"OTACON!"
"Goodbye… for now, Snake."
As Otacon disappeared into the horizon of the VR room, Snake kept running, until he ran out of breath. Falling to his knees, Snake began to cry, and clutch Otacon's nonexistent corpse next to him before he raised his head to the sky and made one last scream.
"OOOOOTTAAAAAAACCOOOOOOOOONNN!"
… … … … …
