Hello, I'm back. All people and events in this story are fictional, and all places are being used for fictional purposes. Any resemblance to real people or events is entirely coincidental. Hal, Dave and Metal Gear belong to Hideo Kojima, I am borrowing them for my own nefarious devices. I'm not making any money off this, but reviews make me all tingly inside. You know me, slash and plot, if you don't like one, I hope the other is enough to satisfy you.

Smoke

Having got the shower to a pleasantly cool temperature, David started unlacing his boots, oblivious to Hal slinking out of their bedroom. The first he knew of the other man's presence was when he burst through the bathroom door. Dave jumped and span around, yanking his M9 from its holster.

Hal just tutted with disappointment. "Aww! I expected some dripping wet muscles, and you're not even naked."

"Dammit, Hal!" Yelled the soldier, lowering his gun and flicking the safety catch on. "Are you trying to get killed, creeping up on me like that?"

"I thought that thing only fired tranquilliser rounds?" He inquired mildly, stepping forward to press himself lightly against his partner's broad chest.

"Yeah, well, it'd still hurt..." Dave faltered, putting his arm around the waist of the slim man as he stretched up to kiss the back of his neck. "Sorry. Tough night." That was all the warning Hal got before he found himself squashed between cold white tiles and his powerful lover, freezing water soaking his clothes and Dave's tongue prising apart his lips.

"Mmph! Wait, I found a really hot lead, and-!" Trapped, Hal slid one hand down the front of Dave's trousers, grabbed the man's throbbing cock and roughly caressed it.

"A lead? What kind of lead?" Dave demanded, peeling Hal's sodden t-shirt away from his skin, lifting it over his head, and pressing his lips to the programmer's skinny, goose-pimpled chest.

Hal unfastened Dave's trousers with his free hand, letting them drop down as he cupped the soldier's balls and squeezed gently, causing a faint, high-pitched gasp. He moved his other hand towards the base of Dave's penis and between his legs, working his fingers back and forth, and smiling as the tough and taciturn man squirmed. "China," Hal murmured into David's ear. "I've gotten rumours from the CIA computers for weeks, but it's taken me days to hack in and find anything positive."

"China?" Dave was not one to relinquish dominance, and he commenced stripping Hal naked. "Are you sure?" He turned the man to face the wall. "Because that could be a very tall order." Dave pressed his torso into the small of Hal's back, his vest clinging to both men's skin, and guided his cock between Hal's legs to tickle the back of his balls. "We could be headed for serious trouble. So, are you sure?"

"Nnn-! I'm sure!" Hal gasped, feeling fingers touch him, sliding inside him. "Jiuquan L-Launch Centre."

"That's in the Gobi desert," mused Dave, rolling a condom down the length of his penis. He shook his long, wet hair, sending a spray of water to join the streams running down Hal's quivering body. "I guess we don't have any reliable sources in the area, huh?" He said, pushing inside the man and reaching around to stroke his cock.

Hal moaned and panted as David thrust rhythmically, the intensity consuming him and his own penis starting to quiver. Dave's movements became more frantic and his thought processes faded, and moments later the two men came almost simultaneously. The soldier took Hal in his arms and turned around, so he was leaning against the bathroom wall with his lover pressed against his chest, and they were motionless for a few moments, simply holding one another.

"No," said Hal, eventually, raising his hand to stroke the back of David's neck. "No local contacts. It's hard enough to get a decent map. The whole thing is an undeniable risk, but if China's producing Metal Gears, can we afford to wait?"

"We've got two options. We can go into Beijing as tourists and do the whole thing on-site procurement, or we can go in through Mongolia and get equipped, but have to tab it," he said, nuzzling Hal's cheek, his stubble scratching against wet skin.

"I don't like the sound of a six-hundred kilometre hike through Mongolia at this time of year." The smaller man's teeth were beginning to chatter under the lukewarm water.

Dave turned the hot tap up, just for Hal, and they got washed. "So. For you to do your job, you need a powerful computer, which is fine to carry through customs, and lots of computer programs, which you can hide on other software or place on nanomachines."

"Basically."

"And for me to do mine, I need lots of firepower and an undetected entrance."

"Yes?"

"And I can parachute into Mongolia then hike a few hundred kilometres, and you can't."

"Hey!" Hal looked as indignant as anyone can while naked and covered in soap bubbles. "I did ten press ups!"

The mercenary rolled his eyes. "I acknowledge your ability to do ten press ups, but I can't carry you and all my gear through the Gobi desert." He grinned as Hal swatted ineffectually at him. "Tell me it doesn't make sense. You can fake whatever nerdy, scientific stuff you need, and bluff your way in. You're good enough to hide what you're doing, even if someone is watching. If all else screws up, you can wait until I detonate the thing then collect the data in the confusion."

The programmer didn't look happy. "That's not much of a plan, Dave. What makes you think they won't shoot all the scientists on the base if anything happens?"

"What, on a satellite launch centre? They blow up all the time." He turned the water off and pulled the shower curtain back, reaching for a towel. "Anyway, it's a crap plan because I don't have any intel. You've gotta get me more details."

"You got it, Snake. I left the computer searching for the spy-satellite photos." Hal padded gingerly across the cold tiles, rubbing himself with a rough towel and going into their bedroom for more dry clothes. "Just don't go rushing off at the first opportunity to fling yourself out of an aircraft and do anything without thinking about it. More haste, less speed, okay?" He rummaged through the bedside drawers, and pulled on fresh underwear as he moved the computer mouse to get rid of the screensaver. "Here we go. Come and have a look."

David came in wearing trousers, but no shirt. He sat in Hal's swivel chair, and frowned at the computer screen. "What do I press to zoom in?"

"It IS zoomed in. We're talking about the military secrets of the People's Republic of China here." The man could feel a knot of anxiety growing in his stomach. "Look, I might be wrong. I don't have anything other than some unusual movement on the spy photos, and a couple of little indicators. It's just that, they still don't have an effective navy, and most of their missile installations are aircraft interceptors. Their military is way overdue for modernisation, but where's their R and D budget going?" He chewed his lower lip, nervously. "I don't know if I'm right."

"It'll be better to go and be wrong, than do nothing and be right." Dave rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully. He wished Hal had told him about this before, but there was almost nothing here, just a suspicion and a risk. "We're going to need more stealth than ever before. If we're quiet enough, we can check the place out and leave before anyone knows we're there."

"So you're not using the crazy wander-in-by-yourself idea?" Hal asked, hopefully.

"I need to see everything you've got," he said, ignoring the man. Hal sighed, and leaned over to bring up the suspicious spy pictures. Something huge and angular was moving through the desert under cover of night. "Can we get this in infra-red?"

He shook his head. "You're lucky to have this."

"Huh." One hand on his chin, he tapped the keyboard softly with the other. "Okay. What else is there?"

"It's hard to pick anything out," said Hal, bringing up more screens. "There's so much heavy industry in China, the components could be manufactured almost anywhere, and I can't go through all the accounts of all the factories in the whole countries, even assuming they haven't been tampered with. On top of that, neither of us speaks Cantonese, and machine translators are as good as useless for this kinda thing."

"So you're saying..."

The man gave a hopeless shrug. "I'm saying I don't have a lot for you."

David stared through the screen, his eyes focussed at some point in the middle distance. "Give me a minute to think about it."

Hal left the bedroom, and went into the tiny kitchen to make a pot of coffee. The fear in the pit of his stomach wasn't going away. If he was wrong, he could be sending them on a politically and personally dangerous wild goose chase. If he was right...

If he was right, they could be on the edge of nuclear war. Not some lunatic faction firing off a few isolated nukes, but two military superpowers blasting one another into radioactive oblivion. And not just them, either, but their allies too – the UK, Japan, Russia. Anywhere not hit by the bombs would be scoured clean of life by the cloud of radiation that would surround the world for – decades? Centuries? Ever?

He lay on the sofa and tried to stop thinking such irrational thoughts. If he hadn't created Metal Gear, someone else would have, so he could stop blaming himself and get on with working out a way to stop it. He forced himself to breathe slowly, wondering if there were any paper bags in the cupboard. Getting to his feet, he paced around the living room.

It was a short journey. They flitted from one small apartment to another these days, rarely staying anywhere more than a couple of months. Consequently, all their possessions amounted to whatever could be fit into the boot of whatever cheap, usually ageing, car they were presently using. It was not a natural way of life for either man, and Hal missed his anime and his toys almost as much as David missed his dogs. At least there were no more embarrassing naked confrontations, or arguments over who got the bedroom.

For a moment, Hal thought longingly of the days when he could have as many computers as he wanted, and was more or less expected to blow them up on a regular basis. You don't employ a revolutionary computer genius who doesn't leave a trail of smoking Mac husks behind him every evening. If you can go forty-eight hours without destroying a computer, you're just not revolutionary enough. He sighed. No. Bad Hal. Mysterious governmental organisations with unlimited funds are a cause for suspicion, not printing out a CV and getting your interview suit dry-cleaned.

"Hal!" Yelled Dave. "Coffee?"

He got the man a coffee, and took it into the bedroom. "I sometimes think you don't appreciate me," he said, sliding the mug onto the desk. "It was difficult getting those pictures."

Dave glanced up sharply, as if he'd been shaken out of thought. "You usually do a lot better than this."

"Usually the operation isn't based in a communist country with a language I don't know." He sat on the bed. "What about the girls? They probably speak Cantonese. I mean, you know, write it."

"Don't trust them," said the man, gloomily. "And I don't think they'd get involved anyway. Their only allegiance is to themselves." He folded his arms over his chest, and span the chair around to face Hal. "We're going to have to reconnoitre this one ourselves, I think. I don't know who else we can call on without all kinds of repercussions going off."

"Surely, there's international committees set up to deal with this," said Hal weakly, drawing his knees up to his chest and hugging them. "Seven years of back-and-forth legal wrangling and inconclusive inspections, leading to some weak sanctions that are largely ignored?"

"The you-know-who wouldn't stand for it. Oil-producing nations rattling the bars now and then are tolerated, but China would be seen as a direct threat." He sank down in the chair and stretched out his legs, resting them on the bed. "It IS a direct threat, whether China launches or not. It'll be an arms race, the Cold War all over again."

There was that fear again. "You think we can stop it?" Hal asked, in a small voice.

David slid further down, and his voice was muffled. "I don't see who else could even try."

He reached out and stroked the man's leg, feeling the cords of muscle under warm skin. "Are we good enough?"

The soldier jumped up, spluttering. "Of course we're good enough! We're the fucking best." He turned back to the computer. "Book yourself a ticket to Beijing for next Monday. That'll give me a good five days to make my way to the launch site, plenty of time. You'll have to disguise yourself. It'll be much easier to get around without giving yourself away before everything kicks off, and it'll make our exfil a lot safer." He glanced over his shoulder. "You'll be some kind of science professor, or... How young could you make yourself look? Maybe an exchange student or something like that, as harmless as possible. There won't be a regular bus service to the base, and it's probably too short notice to try and arrange anything official, but, let's see..." He was typing 'Beijing tourist transport' into Google.

"What if I'm wrong?" Blurted Hal.

"If you're wrong, we meet up in Suzhou and spend the week sightseeing."

"You don't think I'm wrong, do you?"

"I'd love you to be wrong, I've always wanted to see Beijing."