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The situation, from the very beginning, felt wrong. Metal Gear RAY, as it was named, a new development that was more or less serving itself on a silver platter. The USS Discovery, an oil tanker headed right to the Hudson River. It was perfect. The entire thing was uncannily perfect, but yet both him and Snake knew something was wrong. With no way to verify this mission’s safety and no secondary leads about this project, they were cornered in their decision.
Otacon wouldn’t chance Snake’s life for something like this. He had gotten a boat, right along the shoreline of the river, readied with the keys already in the half-in the ignition in case anything had gone wrong. He stood on the George Washington Bridge, overlooking the tanker, shifting on either foot, waiting for something, anything from Snake. And if he could help it, they’d make it out unscathed no matter what happened.
Snake was only supposed to take a few photos and get out. That was his mission, and equipped with stealth camo, it should’ve gone smooth. And it would’ve, if the camo wasn’t damaged during Snake’s bungee stunt to get onto the tanker. Otacon guided Snake through every room, corridor, and confinement with a calm and collected composure.
Philanthropy wanted to outsource the violence this time, being very little more than an active two-man army, Mei Ling occasionally chipping in. They hadn’t the manpower to take on an army of marines, not by a long shot. The plan was supposed to be simple: take photos of Metal Gear RAY, post said photos for the public to see, and the rest be history for the group.
Otacon’s codec chimed, and he picked up the transmission call. The photos of everything he needed– and then some. Ones of the logos, of the machinery, and many of the commander; a few too many of the commander, in fact. Otacon started data identification, and Snake set off to determine the ship’s destination. Nothing good came after that.
Gun fights and surprise identities, tracked transmissions and uncovered lies. The Russians' presence on the tanker, cipher’s appearance, and the obvious notion that this entire mission was a trap for Otacon to fall into. Even with photos of RAY. Otacon was already readying to play damage control, warning Snake that something was bound to go wrong. Snakes Vitals went haywire. His heart rate was higher than Otacon had seen from Snake before– was he running, was he terrified? He kept his laptop close to his face, jacket shrouded over himself and the machine as rain started harder than before.
“Otacon, we have a problem.” His voice was feigning calm, but that slight edge was off.
Beams of light shone through a sliver in the boat’s hull, tearing open into a now-crater. Something leapt from the boat and into the sky, a metallic beast far larger than it appeared in photographs. The machine to end all other copies of Metal Gear REX. It roared with the moving of its joints. RAY was like a dragon, perching on the boat before diving down into the harbor, disappearing without a trace or wake left behind.
“Snake?” Otacon dialed something into his laptop, his fingers working faster than his mind. He kept trying over codec, only the fuzz of an empty line meeting his cries. “Snake!?”
Metal wretched, that loud grinding sound that happens when metal meets metal in a hasty fury. A few smaller pops before orange painted the sky in a beautiful massacre. His laptop gave small beeps, hardly heard through the sounds of crashing metal through waves and his own blood rushing through his ears. Fixed in his stance, Otacon looked at the diagnostics of Snake’s nanos. Everything was flat. His heart was stopped– and so was everything else; oxygen, blood pressure, body temperature, everything at zeros. Otacon closed his laptop, tucking it under his arm.
The boat– right, he still had a boat. If the tiny thing would even be able to make it through the trashing waters, through the wreckage and fire.
He didn’t remember making it to his boat, he only remembers jamming in the key and turning. The boat rumbled as it started, and Otacon threw the throttle forward, the boat lurching as it jumped into speed. Waves crashed from every direction, knocking his boat back and forth. He opened up one of the seats of the boat, the kind that had compartments underneath. He tossed his laptop into it and pulled out a flashlight, hoping to himself that the batteries weren't corroded.
It took a few smacks to get the torch to turn on, its beam flickering before flooding the waters in front of him in a pool of warm white light. The boat leapt into the air over waves. Otacon winced with the screech of his boat’s hull against the remnants of the tanker.
A body– face down in the water. He slowed his boat down to look. The body was missing its legs, the torso donning a marines uniform. Not Snake. Otacon whispered a silent prayer for the soldier before moving on. To whom, he didn’t know. No god he knew would let war rage on. He knew these men weren’t at fault, not really. Orders were orders, he knew well enough that good intentions didn’t equate to their outcome. He moved on.
It felt like forever, and trying to pinpoint where Snakes tracker used to be when it last pinged was a nightmare. The currents tore every which way, and he could be twenty feet to the riverbed by now. Otacon didn’t know what he’d do if he couldn’t get Snake back. Dave’s death was impossible– if he were to die, what would happen to Philanthropy? Metal Gear? Otacon? And all of it would be Otacon’s fault. Snake was about all he had after REX.
A piece of wreckage with arms wrapped around it bobbed a few hundred feet in front of Otacon. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to identify Snake if he were to have seen him, hundreds of military men scattered in the water, dead, to disguise the man he was looking for. He had no question who this was.
He couldn’t speed forward fast enough, the boat slow in the midst of his haste. Otacon’s hair was plastered to his forehead, slicked backwards with rain, sweat, and riverwater. Droplets ran down his cheeks, salty.
“Snake!” He called out. Nobody responded
Otacon wasn’t the strongest man– that's why he wasn’t the one doing the heavy lifting. His missions consisted of cracking codes, ciphers, and monitoring Snakes surroundings to keep him safe by any means possible. He scourged for data, creating lines of code and works of machinery to aid the super-soldier. He wasn’t hands on, he wasn’t built for that. So he braced his knees and begged that his boat wouldn’t tip.
He hooked his hand under Snake’s shoulder, pulling him toward the small, one-man craft. Snake’s arms let go of the scrap metal he clung to, no strength left in his cold body. Otacon tried not to think the worst. He held his breath as he pulled.
Snake’s dead weight fell backward onto Otacon, crushing his legs into the floor of the boat. His head lulled off to the side, his eyes open and lifeless. His pupils didn’t have the shine in them that they usually did. The cigarette smell really never went away. He unwedged himself from under Snake, splaying his body out so he was lying flat.
Vitals; he needed vitals. Emotions were later, work was now. He put two fingers right under the base of Snake’s jaw. Nothing.
Otacon pushed the hair from his own face. He took off his jacket and shoved it under Snake’s neck, keeping his head tilted backward so his airway stayed open. Lacing his fingers together, one hand over the other, he pushed into Snake’s chest.
One, Two, Three… Thirty. Crack. One, Two, Three… Thirty. Nothing. He wailed, snot over his lip as he sobbed. He thrashed his fist on Snake’s chest, beating against his ribs. A choke, and water spilled from Snake’s mouth. One, Two, Three… Thirty. It was faint. He lifted Snake to sit up, and clenched his teeth as he struck Snake’s back with more force than he ever wished to use. Another choke, a mix of vomit and seawater hacking onto the boat’s floor as Snake's restarted body threw itself forward with a wretch. Otacon pulled Snake’s head to his shoulder, steadying him; grounding him. Snake fell into a coughing fit, clawing at his burning chest as his organs went from zero to overdrive. He didn’t understand how he was awake after being dead seconds ago. He crouched, steering the motor toward the shore and starting it in a crawl.
“Snake, are you..?”
Snake nodded, stifling his cough to catch his breath.
“Hal..”
Otacon didn’t wait another second before putting the boat back into full throttle. Snake propped himself up on his elbows, his head back as he tried to calm himself. His body was weak and shivering. While the boat pushed forward through the dying waves, Otacon tried to assess Snake’s conditions with as much professionalism as he could muster in a situation like this.
A bullet wound to the thigh, a few lacerations on his arms, and a scrape across his cheek. Serious, but not fatal. He wouldn’t lose Snake, not yet.
“Olga,” Snake said, weak. Otacon turned to look at him, finding him peering off in the distance, seeing something he couldn’t.
“What of her?” Otacon slowed the boat. A whir of helicopter rutters screamed over, louder than it seemed, almost drowning out what little words Snake could say.
“She’s there.” He pointed somewhere toward the wreckage, the tanker almost fully under the water. There, he saw–
A white-haired woman floating on her back, presumably unconscious. Something about her always felt familiar to Otacon, but placing what exactly made him feel like that was impossible. He turned the motor and toward the woman they headed.
She was much easier to get on the boat, as light as she is, being sat propped up against the seat that held Otacon’s laptop. No CPR needed– she was breathing and her pulse was steady. Otacon wasn’t sure if he could take that much more stress on him than he already had now. His mind was far away from the situation at hand. But with Snake sitting up on his own now, he felt a little better knowing that he was okay, despite everything.
A little further up the river Snake spotted an abandoned dock, looking solid enough to offload themselves and ditch the boat.
Snake bit his lip as he watched search beams scanning over the wreckage, hoping that the waning tanker distracted the news teams enough to keep their attention away from him and Otacon. A laptop was shoved into his chest.
Snake didn’t push Otacon on the sketchiness of the mission, he knew well enough how upset Hal would’ve felt already. Snake stared out at the water as he watched Otacon pull Olga’s body onto the wooden slats he stood on. He unraveled the headband he had tied over his temples, the fabric more shredded than before. He tossed it into the river; he wouldn’t need it. His body felt weaker than ever, back from death like a phoenix. He teetered on his feet. Otacon looked at him with something in his face like sympathy, or rather guilt. He took his laptop from Snake and tucked it under his arm.
“Dave, are you sure you’re alright to walk?”
“What other choice do I have?”
“Right.”
Otacon helped Snake up the rocks below the bridge he had stood on only a few moments before, pausing a few paces up, staring blankly at the stone before him.
“What’s wrong?” Snake pried, trying to get a read on Otacon’s expression.
“Olga.” He turned back, the woman still lying where she was set, unmoved. “We can’t leave her.” His voice was broken.
“We can, and we have to, or neither of us are getting away from this.” Snake spoke matter-of-factly. Otacon didn’t like these circumstances, none of it. He wished he ignored the tip, he wished E.E. hadn’t contacted him in the first place. Thoughts of Emma and Julie came back, he shook his head to make them go away. Huey. The water. Oh, god. Not Snake too.
“But–”
“She’ll be fine. They’ll find her.”
Otacon nodded and they kept going. He had a car, not too far from where they were. Once they set foot on asphalt, Snake looked back to see what had come of the tanker. Oil had since caught fire along the top of the bay, and one bright light shone on Olga’s now sitting up body. He turned to look at Otacon’s face. His mouth was fixed in a frown, bottom lip trembling. He only stared forward.
The getaway car was parked in an alley a few blocks from the bridge, just close enough in town that it was only a few minutes’ walk, but far enough that it wouldn’t be suspicious. The car took a few tries before the engine purred awake. Snake climbed into the passenger seat, Otacon turning the car out of the alley and down the street before even considering a seatbelt.
It was a long hour of silence, only the hum of the radio, growing fuzzier as they drove further from the station. Snake closed his eyes, trying to run through the mission in his mind, anything that could’ve changed the outcome, what to remember, what to forget.
“I’m glad Mei Ling suggested that boat.” Otacon desperately tried to lighten the mood. “Without that, then well..” Tried, and failed.
“They’ll be looking for us.”
“Oh, yeah.” Otacon thought for a moment. “I’ll talk to Mei Ling. I think FOXHOUND, or at least something of the sort, kept Liquid’s body.”
“And what does Liquid have to do with this.?” Snake asked, registering it as a stupid question before he could stop himself from saying it. “Ah, right.” He wasn’t in his right mind, either.
“Genetic copy.” Otacon nodded.
“But the arm.”
“People lose limbs in accidents like that, Snake.”
“I guess, yeah.” He sat himself up, reaching into a pocket of his sneak-suit. He, for a brief moment, was very glad Otacon was so thoughtful with his designs. His lucky strikes were hardly affected, even after he nearly drowned.
“I’m sure she’ll find a way to get it here.” Otacon chuckled to himself. “I can’t believe that the Legendary Solid Snake is dead. News headlines, ‘Solid Snake killed in marine tanker mishap’. What a way, huh?”
“I can’t either.” He clamped the cigarette between his teeth, igniting it with a spare lighter in the passenger door. “Of all ways, he drowned to death.”
“Well, it wasn’t going to be old age.” Otacon squinted with the smoke.
“I suppose,” He took a long drag, cracking the windows when he saw Otacon’s grimace, making an effort to blow the remnants outside of the car.
A few moments of banter was cut with the ringing of Otacon’s cell.
“Mei Ling, what's the matter?”
“Have you seen the headlines? You’re a terrorist!”