It had been bad enough running the whole way through two heavily guarded fortresses while carrying a giant hang-glider. It was light, and he was able to carry it one-handed, leaving the other hand free for a gun; but it was also cumbersome. He'd draped the end of the far wingtip with the stolen camouflage mat, its low-fidelity, blurry, cheap active camo lagging five or six dangerous seconds behind the environment, but that protected it from side glances at best. It was clumsy, and yet delicate. And getting it through doors took minutes if he was lucky. By the time he'd defended it from the close-quarter assassination squad in the elevator, not letting it suffer a single rip or mark, he was ready to shred the thing.

The moment he brought it out from under the eave of the rooftop, the wind roared into the glider as if it were a sail, and he angled it down and forced himself, crouched for balance, inch by inch, onto the end of the skydiving balcony.

The cliffs sprawled out below him, the distance murky with mist, the whole building tilting and rocking alarmingly in the wind. Which was blowing south.

Great.

The whole construction of the glider pinned to his back, fragile as a paper crane, he stared down at the drop through the gaps in the grated flooring, and for a second his stomach lurched in abject terror and he found himself unable to do anything except grip the crossbar and not move. He knew the wind would change eventually, he rationalised, trying to bring his mind out of wherever the hell it had gone, feeling his pulse beat at the back of his neck. All he had to do was wait for the wind to curve around to the North and he could fly across the ghost of that wrecked bridge, like a –

His numb hands flipped open his lighter. The flame was snatched off to the East, and then, when he relit it, the North. He balanced the cigarette between his lips, and, shielding the fire, lit it. He pulled it in as deep as he could, and begged himself to jump.

This was his one chance, he snarled at himself in his head, pinching the cigarette so tight it bent between his fingertips. He had to move! He couldn't stand here forever! A child could do this – that child back in the other room had told him that their 'Uncle' threw them off this balcony as skydiving practice. Why couldn't he –

Uncle, he thought, and remembered the one eye, as the wind snatched the cigarette from his slackening fingertips, and he placed both hands on the crossbar. The old bastard had talked him through his first parachute jump, years ago – dropped the cargo hatch, and spoke into the radio. At the time he'd thought the transmission had gone to all the recruits, and had only found out later, when he'd told Fox about it, that the radio system in the FOX-HOUND altitude training plane only allowed person-to-person transmissions.

He'd said some pithy little thing Snake had thought at the time sounded stupid – he remembered, as the wings filled with air, and the sudden buoyancy made Snake's insides jolt – he'd said, spread your wings and fly – god be with you -

And Snake flew.

When he reached the other side he tore the damn thing off, decided it would be unnecessarily risky to set fire to it with his lighter, and instead tossed it into the ravine, quietly throwing up after it. He'd never again be able to watch Escape From New York again without wincing, he thought, wiping his mouth.