They've been working together for two weeks and four days when Snake asks the question Otacon's been dreading;

"What do you think of me?"

"Huh?" Otacon responds, trying to look like he hadn't expected the question, let alone known the answer. "What? Why do you ask that?"

"Because I want to know," Snake says, not looking at him. "That's why. Most people don't live long enough to give me an informed answer."

"And I can give you one in two and a half weeks?"

"Yeah," Snake responds. "I'm not that complicated."

Otacon decides to engross himself in re-reading the small print on the forms from the UN, and starts filling in the holes in the letters by shading them solid with his pencil in order to make himself look more busy, when Snake comments,

"That bad, huh?"

"N – no – " Otacon stammers, whirling around on the chair, "it's not like – uh – "

"Be honest," Snake says. Seated on the floor, his feet are crossed close to his body, and despite the ramrod-straight back he looks strangely subservient. His expression is a grim line, grey pixels for eyes. "Please, tell me what you think."

"Well – " Otacon bites his lip. "I think you're a good person. Brave. Admirable, even."

He stops.

Snake leans forward and sounds the word unspoken in the air. "But?"

"But, uh - " Otacon says, "I'm not sure I like you, yet."

"Why not?"

"Well, you're so – difficult," Otacon explains. "I don't ever know how you'll respond to things because you're so moody. Sometimes you'll be all calm and relaxed and then suddenly you'll – shut down and I won't get a decent word out of you for the rest of the day. And sometimes you'll get all – funny, and start asking weird personal questions. Stuff like that."

"Does this count as a weird personal question?"

"Yeah, a little."

Snake tilts his head and stares at the painting on Nastasha's wall – the one of the dead forest around Chernobyl that depresses Otacon just to see. The muted light from the sun behind the study's blinds picks out the tops of his smooth cheekbones.

"I see," he says, grimly.

"Was that – " Otacon says, slightly deflated, " – was that the answer you expected?"

"How the hell should I know? I just told you no-one else has ever given me an answer."

Too quickly, Otacon says, "Oh, that can't be true."

Snake thinks.

"You're right. It isn't. Everyone else who gave me an answer told me the same thing – that I was little more than an animal, and they were probably right."

"Snake, seriously, that's not what I – "

"I know," Snake says. "There's worse things than that."

He nods his head stiffly, face unchanging. Otacon strains to pick up on some subtlety of expression that would reveal what Snake was thinking, some giveaway, but comes up blank; after all, he thinks, it's only been two weeks and four days, and he's not quite used to what Snake's mannerisms mean, and so there's no way of knowing. However, Otacon does know he'd rather be having some other, different conversation.

"What are you working on, anyway?" Snake says, and Otacon breathes a sigh of relief in his head.

"Ah. Just boring paperwork, mostly," he explains. "They want all my details, my legal record, evidence of this and that and – it's kind of a pain, but it's not the most bureaucratic thing I've ever had to do."

Snake shakes his head. "Me neither. Couldn't so much as visit another department in the CIA without a full psych test and blood samples. At least the UN has a reason to be careful. There's a lot of money and honour riding on this."

Even with someone he knows doesn't like him, Otacon thinks, he talks the same.

"Yeah, I know," Otacon agrees. "Just one thing, though."

"Tell me."

"We need a name."

Snake looks away.

"For my application?"

"No," Otacon says, "for the organisation. I already filled out our form. Faked a bit of evidence here and there, wrote your real name down as 'N/A'..."

Snake gives a tiny bark of laughter, but it's very brief.

"About the organisation," he says. " I don't care what it's called. You'll come up with something better than anything I could, anyway. It's all up to you."

Otacon pretends to be surprised.

"Oh, I was hoping you'd say that," he says, collapsing back into the chair wistfully. "A whole organisation to name! I keep coming up with names while I'm trying to get to sleep or making food or on the toilet – not all at once, though – " Snake doesn't smile at the joke, and Otacon manages to avoid rolling his eyes – "and I forget most of them. How about – ONWARD?"

"ONWARD?"

"Organisation for Nuclear Weapon A – A-something R-something and Disarmament. I came up with the middle two before, I've forgotten them now."

"I like it," Snake says, dismissively. "Call it that."

"But I've forgotten what it stands for! I can't call it that!"

"Then why did you bother telling me?" Snake responds, and Otacon's reminded of his assessment of Snake's personality. "I'm going. Tell me what you decide on." He gets up.

"Uh," says Otacon. So – difficult. "G – Goodbye, then."

But Snake has already gone, not responding to Otacon at all.

Otacon gnaws on his thumb with frustration, trying to recall the A and the R. Maybe it wasn't ONWARD at all, he wonders, but UNOWN? United Nations Organisation against Weapons of Nuclear... something – not enough letters –

Giving up, Otacon stacks the papers into a neat little pile underneath the shell he's been using as a paperweight, and gets up to leave.

--

Snake's definitely a good person. Otacon's sure of that. A bad person wouldn't answer honestly when Otacon asked him what he thought about love, and war, and other big concepts like that; a bad person wouldn't love dogs; a bad person, if killing did to them what Otacon suspects it does to Snake, would just kill and kill and kill until they tore the world down around them and never think about it. Snake's almost definitely been a bad person at some point in his life before now, but, for now, Otacon's sure he's a good person.

"We don't have time!" he's roaring at the scientist he's got cowering up against the wall, trembling all over. From where Otacon's standing, he can see the poor man's tear-streaked face framed between Snake's sleek, long legs.

"I can't tell you!" he wails. "I'll lose my job!"

"And if you don't take that fall, tens of thousands will lose far more! Now, tell me where it is!"

"Snake – " Otacon whispers, touching him on the shoulder, "eight minutes."

"Did you hear that? In eight minutes, they'll bring it up to ground level to launch!" Snake's bristling with fury, but Otacon's close enough to see the drops of sweat on the back of his neck. "Your boss is going to use that thing to commit one of the worst acts imaginable. Are you going to let him do that? You're just going to sit here playing dumb while he drops a nuke on Eldera?"

The scientist sniffs, and wipes his eyes very slowly with the back of his hand. There is a long silence as Snake waits. Then the scientist says,

"I'll be killed! – "

"I'll kill you! – "

"Snake – "

Snake retracts his fist from the wall where he'd struck it in anger, and looks back at Otacon. His eyes are shadowed dark with exhaustion. His cheeks are splattered in pixels of red from the soldiers he'd had to shoot getting them both in here. Yes, Otacon thinks, definitely a good person.

Even a good person should have waited for official UN approval before doing this, though.

"Snake, please," Otacon says to him, aware he sounds like the Good Cop to Snake's Off-The-Rails-Loose Cannon. "Just remember how you dealt with me."

"Telling you to go away repeatedly, even though you didn't?" Snake says. As Otacon's wondering if that's completely true, Snake bends down in front of the scientist.

"Listen," he said, his voice calmer. A prickle runs down Otacon's spine at the dark, steely tone, and for a second he imagines what it would be like if Snake was as cool as that all the time, a charismatic leader of this nameless organisation. "This is your chance to save the lives of uncountable men, women and children. You'll be nameless, unnoticed in the annals of history, but you and your family will always know you as the brave, selfless man you are."

"Are you going to kill me?"

"I've got no reason to." Snake leans in, cool and sincere. "You need to live. But what do you live for? It can't be for crying and shaking with fear about something you have the power to stop. You were born for this, and you can fulfil your destiny by telling me where I can find Metal Gear."

"I – "

"Where is it?"

"It's – it's in the hangar. The obvious one in the centre of the complex is just a decoy, with only regular weapons inside. Metal Gear's in the small hangar to the far East of the complex. You get better vantage from there, too." The scientist gave Snake a strange look; the look of someone who'd only just realised what the words they were saying meant, but it's gone in a second. "You need an engineer pass to get in. I'll – give you my card."

The scientist's shaking hands begin to unclip the card from the lanyard around his neck, but Snake takes them gently, steers them away, and takes the card out himself in one swift motion.

"You're a good man," he says, pats him on the shoulder, and gets up. The bandanna catches underneath his body armour's collar, and he unhooks it with a sweep of his hand. "Come on, Otacon. Six minutes and thirty seconds."

"You can do that?" Otacon says, in disbelief, running after him.

"Do what?"

"That timing thing."

"Yeah," Snake says. He leads Otacon down a corridor, seemingly by instinct. There's a disturbing clarity in the air, most personnel having evacuated or moved into the area around the base to support Metal Gear.

"I guess that's why you never keep people waiting," Otacon says.

Snake shoves the card into the door slot. It's the old-fashioned kind you have to swipe, and the reader rejects him with a beep. He curses and tries the card the other way round.

The Metal Gear squats like a sitting frog on the central platform, already ascending.

"No!" Snake barks, running at it, as Otacon attempts to block out the million voices in his head saying stupid things and find a – terminal, right there, against the wall – which he dashes to, as Snake runs and stares helplessly up at the column and runs again, a caged animal. The hangar roof is grinding its way open. Rain glances off the hunched body of the tank, shining its skin with the nervous sweat of a debut. Otacon starts going through the list of passwords he memorised on the flight. He prays the system doesn't count incorrect logins.

The Metal Gear is standing now, knee joints extending in a screech of hydraulics.

"Otacon!"

"You need to delay it!" Otacon yells back. Nombre de usuario o contraseña incorrectos.

"How?"

"Try breaking the platform!"

It's half-sarcastic as he gets another incorrect login. He's slowed down on this stupid Spanish-language keyboard, letters where there shouldn't be.

The platform's a wide mesh-over-steel base suspended on a tall trunk, powered by who-knows-how-many-generators turning a powerful metal gear at the bottom, turning in place. Only a quarter is visible – it's pointlessly shiny and exposed, a ludicrous decorative touch, an obvious character flaw. It's like some kind of awful marketing logo.

A sudden zipping sound grabs Otacon's attention and he's startled away from typing as he sees Snake tear off the dark blue body armour of his Sneaking Suit and shove it into the gear, between the teeth. The gear rolls, slow as a glacier, and the platform inches up, and then there's an awful scraping sound and the platform stops moving.

"Otacon!"

"I'm on it!"

It's two minutes and forty seconds before the terminal lets him in – two minutes forty seconds of awful tension as the wheel clanks its way forward, inch by painful inch. Metal Gear, pre-programmed, is roaring with its joints as it calibrates them, tens at a time, locking its clawed feet into the mesh it stands on and adjusting its balance on its squatted knees.

Otacon's fairly sure that if he stopped to think about what he's actually doing, he'd pass out on the floor and probably wet himself, but as it is, beyond the urgency, he's weirdly calm.

"Snake!"

Snake's unravelling his belt, and clamping it deep around the teeth. It pulls tight, material straining. "What?!"

"I'm in!"

"Then shut the damn thing down!"

It's arching its body now. The sleek railgun on its arm scrapes across the sky like a scalpel, waiting for the platform to finish its ascension, cascading white sparks with every raindrop that strikes it. Otacon's fingers are a blur as he finds the program, gains access to the controls –

The belt snaps, a loud twang that makes Otacon jerk round.

"Shut it down!" Snake screams back at him. Otacon hunches over the keys again, even as he hears the rubbery scrape of the body armour giving in.

Just another three seconds –

His cursor becomes an hourglass. He snatches a glance behind him. Snake's holding onto the wheel like a demented Atlas, carved stone muscles straining under the sodden underlayer of his Sneaking Suit. There's no way even he's strong enough to hold that thing for even a second, and it rolls along and along and along and –

it happens.

Metal Gear curls back up to fake sleep, with the smooth motions of a machine. Snake, flicking rat-tailed wet hair from his eyes with a toss of his head, snarls as he wrestles against the gear, before he realises it isn't resisting him any more.

"Your suit," Otacon says.

"Yeah. There isn't going to be another one where that came from. It's a shame, but at least it wasn't a waste."

Snake gives a little sigh and kneels down, pulling out a torn oblong of the dark smart material with some difficulty. He stretches it between his hands, and then wonders over to Otacon, handing it to him.

"This is all that's left," he observes, as Otacon tilts it so that the rain caught in it runs down the clefts moulded to Snake's muscles. It looked like the part that used to go over his left side.

He's distracted from it when Snake suddenly looks up, and they both stare at the man approaching. Tall, face scarred by age and battle in a tasteless impasto, his body is swathed in a dark uniform and a dark coat. He's carrying a machete in his left, holding it out like a rapier.

"The General," Snake introduces, needlessly.

"Snake!" the General answers, returning the favour. "The hero of Shadow Moses, Zanzibar Land and Outer Heaven. For someone with your reputation, I would expect a greater margin of success."

"I pull through by the skin of my teeth," Snake responds, and Otacon can see each of the muscles in his back tense and flex from the sheer anticipation of threat. "That's always been how I work. It's not likely to change."

"Another forty-two seconds and it would have launched its payload, you realise."

"Yeah. You think I should have waited thirty-five more?"

The General laughs, tip of his blade unmoving. There's a long wicked scar running along the back of his hand, up his sleeve – it looks to Otacon like he got it from a sword-fight.

"Like a true American action hero," the General purrs, even as Snake trains his gun directly at his face. "But, even then, it would hardly be 'three more ticks' from disaster. You see, you may have shut down the machine, but someone – " he cast his left hand around the hangar – "me, or one of my men, could ever so easily turn it back on. There may be no countdown, but this is still a moment of great instability in time. This is the final tick, slowed down to infinity. Let's relish it, shall we? Because – it's not over yet!"

The General bares his teeth with a hiss.

"I'll engage him," Snake says, not looking round. "Prepare the escape chopper. I'll be with you in eight minutes."

"Eight minutes, Snake? Is that your personal record?"

"Your remaining lifespan," Snake growls in response. Sodden and disarranged, steel muscles showing plain underneath the film-thin suit, hair a tangled mess, he looks even more bestial than usual.

Otacon needs no further encouragement to get out of there.

"Let's make a little wager out of it!" the General calls after him. "You have eight minutes! The final tick of the clock! You will not be held back, but if I am still alive after eight minutes, I will give my men the order to kill you! Return to where you came from and live, or wait for your partner and die!"

--

It's seven minutes and ten seconds before Snake's fist pounding on the side of the chopper jerks Otacon to take off his glasses and wipe his face – he hadn't been crying, just weeping from the exhaustion and the guilt and the stress. He pulls open the chopper door, and takes Snake's hand to help him in. Their hands lock around each other's comfortably, and Otacon feels an electric jolt of security.

"You waited for me," Snake says.

"Of course I did," Otacon agreed, replacing his glasses and looking around for his ear protectors –

"You trusted me."

"Definitely. Something about you – I don't know, you feel really trustworthy. Put your headset on unless you want to get tinnitus when you're older."

Snake takes his pair from the hook on the wall, and just as Otacon sees his pair on the floor, Snake picks them up for him and hands them over. With noise cancellation and the internal speakers on, Otacon crackles through the microphone into Snake's headset –

"What does the ground-to-air presence look like?"

"Don't worry. The General's a proud man. He ordered everyone not to attack until he gave his word."

"And he's... not going to, is he?"

"No," Snake said, and needlessly added, "he's dead, if that's what you mean."

As Otacon drags the chopper above the trees, he sees men in uniform, wondering below as if dazed. Some are weeping; others are comforting them, and others still are hostile. One points his AK at the choppers underside and fires a volley that clangs harmlessly off its armour – Otacon yelps at the gunshot, but Snake's gloved hand closes around his and keeps it steady on the choke. Otacon, grateful, lifts it into the sky.

When they're high enough that the people below are little more than ants, Snake takes his hand away. Otacon sees him take something out of his pocket, and push it. Even through the headset, he hears a crack like sudden thunder coming from the base, and an ever-so-faint chorus of male screams.

"That's Metal Gear done for," Snake says, putting the detonator back in his pocket.

"I guess Eldera will win the war, now Serena is without a leader."

Snake nods. "Although the General – he was a dictator, but his people loved him. Towards the end of the Eighties, democratisation spread like wildfire across the whole of South America – it says so much about the General's strength and talent that it didn't spread to Serena. Together, Serena and Eldera are twin islands of an dying old ideology stranded in the sea of a changed world – they fight with each other because there is no-one else left."

"Why was the General so popular? He looked like – "

"He was a good leader, and, despite being military, focused most of his attention on securing a better standard of living for his country. The previous General had almost crippled it – he was committing a slow genocide in Praulia, the capital of the Serena Republic – and he would have carried on spreading that hate if this General hadn't killed him and gutted his government, eventually taking over. He united the ethnic groups under his charisma, helped to reduce tensions. Eldera will probably end those years of civilian peace... take over the territory. Maybe the people of this country will find a way to resist them without resorting to nuclear weapons." Snake looks, grimly, down at Otacon. "That's all we can hope for. Our part of the work is over."

"There has to be something – "

"Don't be an idiot. We've already meddled in other people's affairs more than enough. This organisation isn't even legally recognised; if we want that, we have to be on our best behaviour from now on. No more last-minute missions and no doing anything beyond our main goal. Got it?"

"Snake?"

"What's up?"

"Why," asks Otacon, "did you – join this organisation?"

Snake clenches his fist.

"Hate."

"Of what?"

"Of Metal Gear, and of the people who plan to use it."

"That's – kind of a strong feeling, isn't it?" Otacon says, awkwardly.

"On the battlefield, it's an everyday emotion."

"How does – I mean, I hate Metal Gear more than anyone else, but – as a soldier? When you're killing people, and hating them? H – "

"I don't hate them," Snake says.

Otacon says, "oh".

--

"I've got a name," Otacon says, triumphantly.

"Don't flash it around or I'll start wanting one."

Snake's standing in just the suit's inner layer, waiting for Otacon to finish the project. Otacon glances over at him, but only finds himself wondering if Snake's always had such thick thighs.

"I meant for the organisation, Snake. You know that."

Snake groans. "Go on."

"OMEGA."

"What's that stand for?"

"Organisation against MEtal GeAr," Otacon explains, gesticulating where the capitals are with his soldering iron.

"Put that on the form."

"You don't like it?"

"I have no preference." Snake folds his arms. "The sooner you come up with a name, the sooner we can work on stopping Metal Gear proliferation. We can't live on the my money forever. We need funding, and for that, we need recognition, and for that, we need a name."

"Then why don't you come up with one?"

Snake blinks. "Huh?"

"If it's that unimportant," Otacon tosses over his shoulder, carefully melting a line of smart material so that beads of dark liquid plastic rolled over the head of its tip, "call us something. Spare me the indecision."

He's fitting the stay along the molten strip as Snake starts around awkwardly and eventually says,

"I can't come up with anything."

"See?" Otacon says. "That's because you don't care. I, however, do care. Does AMGER sound good?"

Snake comes towards him and perches on the edge of the work table, looking down at Otacon, who manages to tear his eyes from the way Snake's thighs sort of dip out into his buttocks and gets back to work. He smooths a fibre strip over the stay, and blows on it to harden it.

"Against Metal GEar Rex?" Snake guesses.

"No, actually. Activists for Metal Gear ERadication," Otacon corrected, fixing the other stay. "Hmm. Kind of – lame, actually. Let's not call it that. Oh, before I forget, will you remind me to tighten your suit?"

"Tighten it?" Snake says, pulling the suit on his upper arm taut with two fingers. The static cling emulates every fibre of muscle beneath.

"Yeah," Otacon said. "It'll be more comfortable and improve bullet resistance by about 30%. Trust me."

"Anything else?"

"You need a haircut and a shave," Otacon says, before he can stop himself, and then blanches in embarrassment. Snake, ever so slowly, reaches behind his head to touch the loose waves starting to curl over at the top of his neck.

"Give me a break," he says, scowling. "This is what I'm like when there's no women to take care of my looks for."

The realisation drops into Otacon's gut.

"You – can't let yourself be as bad as you were before over something like that." Otacon begins, awkwardly. "You've – you've got me."

"I thought you didn't even know if you liked me as a person," Snake snarls, sarcastic. "Change your mind because of my winning personality? Or is it just that you're with me now that I'm dedicated to fighting your war that you started?"

Otacon feels anger bubble up in his throat, but thinks – I'm not going to rise to your bait.

"I – care about you," he says, and his voice sounds measured and sharp and cool. "What I don't care for is putting up with you acting like this. There's no reason to hate yourself for – whatever it is that happened. And you want to be a better person, don't you? So – so don't go around expecting everyone to hate you. If you're being a better person, they don't! That's the whole point!"

Otacon swallows. Getting a little too emphatic there. He cuts down the other fibre strip and seals the stay while Snake stares on, dumbfounded –

"Otacon – " he starts.

"Just twenty-four more seconds, while this hardens."

Snake falls silent again, and waits, while Otacon counts in his head.

"Now?" he says, after twenty-four seconds.

Otacon pokes at the seam and finds it strong.

"Yep, done. Get on your feet, I'll try this on you."

It's not as good as the old armour, the dark carapace that fit into each curve of muscle. There's not much smart material left, and what was there Otacon has had to slice along its thickness, making two ultra-thin cloths. After cropping and trimming and reattaching straps, he'd assembled it into a new thing from an old, and even if it'd only ever be a cheap imitation of the first one, it could still be something valuable in itself.

"So, what's this going to be?" Snake asks, looking over his shoulder at Otacon.

"Just a harness with a little body protection. You'll have room for your equipment, and..." Otacon shrugged. "Well, that stuff's expensive. I don't want to waste it."

Otacon loops the harness over Snake's shoulders, accidentally brushing the hair at the back of Snake's neck with his fingertips. He shivers, and Snake notices the motion, but doesn't do more than smile enigmatically and turn his head forward again.

"Can you clip it at the front for me?" Otacon asks. "Just quickly. Adjust the little clip until the strap's about the length of a quarter of your chest on either side. The clasp should nestle in between your pectorals."

Snake does it, then turns around so Otacon can see.

"Like that?"

"Yeah," Otacon agrees. He reaches out to check Snake's adjusted it correctly by pulling on it, then placing it back. The suit is so cold to the touch it feels almost wet.

Snake turns back around.

"Could you do the same for the stomach clip? I can never remember your waist measurement, and, well, you're getting older – "

"I hear ya," Snake says, dryly. There's the little click of the clip locking into place. "Okay, I think I've got it."

"Now, hold it against your stomach with your hand. Push it right in."

Otacon demonstrated by reaching around, brushing up against the smooth wall of Snake's stomach, ignoring the little pulse of energy that spikes across his own. Snake's finger pushes down on his own finger and he takes his hand away.

"Now what?"

"Just – "

"Yeah?"

"Hold onto that for a second," says Otacon, surveying the perfect curve of Snake's lower back. He grabs both ends of the elastomer thread and yanks them both tight. "Okay. Now you can let go."

Otacon works swiftly, inserting the end of the thread into each of the eyes. It's not hard work – he used to lace up his sister's shoes like this – and it's done quickly. He ties off the ends, cuts the long overhang with a pair of scissors, and backs away.

"There," he says, pleased.

Snake turns back around, and tugs on all of the straps, rolling his shoulders and waist to get a feel for the tightness.

"Not as nice as your old one, I'm afraid," Otacon admits, as Snake's poking through the pouches. "Kind of a 'budget model'."

Admiring it, Snake twists his upper body to look down at his back with an acuteness that suggested insane flexibility. He runs his hands up the lacing, feeling the criss-cross.

"Looks like a corset," he says.

Otacon blinks.

"I can honestly say I didn't mean to do that – " he adjusts his glasses, " – oh, now that you've said that I keep seeing it."

"Otacon – "

"Don't worry, I'll make you a new one – "

Snake's hand comes down on Otacon's shoulder.

"Otacon, it's great," he says, and his voice is so effortlessly objective that Otacon feels the words more than hears them. "It does the job. Besides, it could look like a penguin suit for all it matters to me. No-one's going to see me wearing it."

He's beaming.

Otacon's mind catches up to him and he realises it was a friendly little semi-joke, albeit kind of a dark one, and he's about to start laughing but then Snake interrupts,

"Got some bad news for ya."

"The kind of bad news you'll get to test out my harness on?" Otacon says, a little belligerently.

"How did you guess?" Snake says, grim again. "I must have it written all over me."

"How did you find out about it before me?"

Snake's eyes went dark.

"It was Meryl," he said. "She called."

"Here?"

"Yeah. Still wasn't – " Snake takes a deep breath, " – but I think her tip was solid."

"Why do you think she gave it to you?"

"I've got no idea. No idea where she got it from either, but – "

"It's fine, I'll check it out. What is it?"

Snake looks sour.

"Remember two weeks ago?"

"When we destroyed the Metal Gear derivative in the Serena Republic?"

"Yeah. The power vacuum created by the death of the General caused weakened defences, but they're still just about holding on."

"In all the newspapers," Otacon says, "and it feels weird; we should be having this conversation the other way around."

"We're not going to. What Meryl said – she said that Eldera have built one."

Otacon stares at Snake.

"Are we going to go to Eldera?"

"Six hours," Snake says. "I know what I said before, but this is part of our organisation's mission."

"SSHAMI's mission."

Snake rolls his eyes. "Survivors of SHAdow Moses Island, right?"

"You guessed! Good job, Snake!"

"I'll give you six hours," Snake says. "Do you think you can get a plan for us by then?"

"You can count on me."

Snake smiled. "Right. In the meantime, I think I'll go cut my hair and shave."