Philanthropy

Otacon: Autumn's recently been working on this fic again. She's busy with chapter sixteen now, so she thought she'd be nice and give you some more of Snake to drool on.

Otacon: It's just that she'd LOVE to get a review, even if it's just one...

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Eleven

We reached the suburbs, with sirens screaming behind us. I followed his instructions blindly. So when he said ‘Make a left, now,’ we ended up somewhere in a sleepy neighbourhood with closed curtains and neat little gardens. This is where he got out of the car, so I followed. We crawled through the gardens to the backyards, where big bushes hid us from sight. It was so dark I couldn’t even see my own hands. We crawled further and further away from the car, trying to make no sound at all, hoping not to wake the people in the houses.

Cars stopped in the area we had left ours. But we were already so far away we hardly heard them. Whenever the wind blew through the trees I thought I was gonna have a seizure of shock. Every sound made my nerves tighter. I imagined a face looking at me through the bushes every second of the run. And then everything would be over.

‘Hal. Hal!’
‘Where are you?’
‘Over here. What the hell are you doing?’
‘I’m so scared.’
‘I’m scared, too. Just don’t give in to it.’
‘I don’t think I can do that.’
He grabbed my hand. ‘Can you do it now?’
I didn’t respond. He just went on, dragging me with him.

The scariest part about these soldiers- or whatever they were- was that they didn’t seem to communicate at all. They didn’t speak, didn’t yell at each other where to go. But they still managed to corner us. And I was done for.

I was the weak one, so I had expected them to go after Snake first, to secure him. But I just felt two strong hands on my shoulders and I fell backwards. I yelled for Dave to help me, being the helpless little hacker that I am. Of course I did my best to beat them off, but it was of no use. They were with so many. I saw Snake standing in the shadows. Just staring at me, with his eyes wide open. They pulled me upwards and turned my hands around my back, lifting them so high it hurt like hell. All I could think of when they threw themselves towards him was ‘he’s only wearing his boxers, he’s only in his boxers.’
A terrible sensation of guilt rose. I felt the urge to cry, but I didn’t want him to see it. Not again. So I held back my tears.

I heard fighting noises. Fists hitting faces. Breaking noses. I opened my eyes carefully when I noticed the grip on my arms loosen. I saw half- lit shadows battle each other in the dark. I couldn’t believe he was doing all this by himself. Gunshots, too close to my ears. A few soldiers fell. It was a hopeless fight. More and more quiet soldiers just kept coming. I managed to break free and without a second thought, rammed my elbow in my captor’s face. I dropped to the ground, desperately searching for the gun I had dropped, finding it, and realizing I couldn’t do anything as long as I couldn’t see who I was aiming at. I didn’t know what to do. So I thought of something girls had to do when they feared they were going to get raped.

‘FIRE!! THERE’S A FIRE HERE! HELP!’

I just kept on yelling until I’d woken up the entire neighbourhood. Even when they tried to choke me, I kept going. People started to get out of their houses, woken up either by the gunshots earlier or my yelling. Lights flashed on. It bought us some precious time, though I knew the police were probably involved in this and the people would be too scared to come any closer. And in the meantime, Snake just kept on kicking their faces in. It was then that I heard a helicopter coming closer.

‘Otacon! It’s Mei Ling! Get on the copter!’
‘What about you?!’ I screamed.
‘They were after you! You get out!’
‘No!’ I yelled. ‘No!’
‘Be strong, Otacon,’ he yelled back. ‘Get away.’

For a moment I was in doubt. The helicopter was beside me. Soldiers were trying to shoot Dave. But they were all trying to get closer to me. So I jumped in the last moment, grabbing the chair I could reach and swung myself inside.
‘Snake!’ Mei Ling screamed. ‘Move! Come here!’
They were shooting at the helicopter now. I ducked, knowing they wanted me dead. Mei Ling was hit, but it was only a scratch on her head. I stared in shock at her wound, because it looked really serious, when I felt a warm body landing on top of me, gasping and trembling.
‘Snake,’ I yelled, holding him as close as I could.
He grinned at me, his face covered in blood, scratches, bruises and dirt. ‘I guess I still rock without a suit.’
‘Oh god,’ I hissed.
Then I felt the helicopter rising up. Bullets were still hitting the outside, but nothing serious happened. We went higher and higher, until everything was quiet and still.

‘What the hell was that?!’ Mei Ling suddenly said, turning to us. ‘What the hell were they?’
‘No idea. But they were obviously after him.’
‘Why?’
‘I bet it’s something about his computer activities.’
‘They’ve been hacking me?!’ I asked. ‘Impossible. I would’ve noticed!’
I wanted to grab my laptop and track every file on it, but then I noticed it wasn’t there anymore.
‘Ack! My laptop’s gone!’
‘Obviously!’ Snake said. ‘Even I noticed!’ He hit the floor with his fist. ‘They’ll use this to find out what we’ve been doing. Crap, this is bad.’

Even though he didn’t know anything about computers, I guessed he was right. I’d been making plans yesterday and hadn’t secured the files thoroughly yet. And even if I’d erased it, they could still find out we were behind the break-in of that governmental office, the retrieval of all these documents and who I was. Not who Snake was, but I was guessing they kind of knew. They must’ve been inside of the system lately. I couldn’t believe myself.

He looked terrible. Beaten. I tried to get closer to him, but he didn’t even look at me.
‘Did you see what you’re doing?’ he whispered in my ear. ‘I couldn’t make a decision with you in their hands. I couldn’t even move my legs.’
I didn’t know what to say. I guess he’d proven me wrong that this would ever work.
‘I would’ve been too late.’
‘I know.’
‘I would’ve had us both killed.’
‘I know! What can we do? We can’t do anything about it anymore!’
He groaned. ‘Why is this so hard?’


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