Snake stood and tottered over to Raiden’s medical station at the side of the cargo bay. The cyborg was covered with cables hooked to monitoring devices, and tubes filled with white liquid wove in and out of his body. Thanks to QR codes, Dr. Madnar had quickly been able to locate the access shunt to the bloodway that substituted for his arteries and veins.
A computer hooked up to a bar scanner could read the tags covering Raiden’s exoskeleton and display any relevant information for each part—its capabilities, related components, the manufacturer, the production date, even URLs for online help pages. Just as nanomachines filled soldiers’ bodies and constantly monitored data about their health, labels covered Raiden’s artificial body and contained data about his manufacture.
Sunny was thankful for the tags. In fact, they might very well have saved Raiden’s life. If she had needed to stop to look up each and every part, he might not have survived. Still, something about the shroud of wireless ID tags rubbed Snake the wrong way.
Sunny must have thought Snake had come to take Raiden, because she turned to him and said, “N-no! Jack can’t go. He’s not ready yet.”
Then Raiden spoke.
“Let me go, Sunny.”
He slowly shifted his arm. The movement was sluggish; he clearly hadn’t yet recovered. His voice wasn’t even his own, but that of a speaking device in his throat.
“No!” Sunny said sternly. “Your dialysis isn’t done yet.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Raiden was strapped to the medical bed by several data cables. As much as he tried to move, the cords held him in place. The sight made me think of Gulliver captured by the Lilliputians. Except Raiden had been so weakened, I couldn’t imagine he had the strength to snap free from his binds.
When told he wasn’t ready yet, Raiden looked straight into my eyes. I shrank back, overpowered by the force of his gaze.
“From now on,” Raiden said, “I’m living my life by my own will. Not a proxy life, as a slave to someone else’s scenario.”
Snake stared at Raiden, remembering what the young man had said in Manhattan—how Solidus killed his parents and turned him into a child soldier, and how he fled from that nightmare to America, where the Patriots, as part of the S3 Project, used him as a pawn and manipulated him into becoming another Snake.
None other than Solid Snake himself freed Raiden from that life.
Only after he met Snake did Raiden begin to walk his own path.
So Snake felt responsibility for meddling in another’s life and skewing its direction. He let out a sigh, quiet, but heavy with his thoughts.
“I’m a shadow,” he said. “One that no light will shine upon. As long as you follow me, you’ll never see the light of day.”
Perhaps Snake felt responsible for Meryl too. And I didn’t want to think about it, but maybe he even did for me. Maybe my friend had always carried a sense of guilt: These young people who look up to me, can I even begin to tell myself that their lives are blessed for it? If I’m the Legendary Hero, wouldn’t the legend be of bringing nothing but misfortune upon others?
Those feelings were a part of why he now fought for an ending.
Raiden spoke more to himself than as a response to Snake’s words. “You and I are both just pawns in this proxy war. But once this is over, we will have our freedom. I’ll release you. It’s the only way I’ll ever be free.”
“Raiden,” Snake said firmly, “what I said five years ago … that’s not what I meant.”
“I’ve got nothing to lose.”
I shook my head. He said he had nothing to lose, and yet he still clung to something—maybe to the fight itself. The sight was too painful to watch.
His near obsession must have tortured Snake, who leveled stern eyes at him and remonstrated, “Don’t be an idiot. You know you’ve got someone to protect.”
“Snake,” he said, putting on a smile so awkward he looked like he was choking on it. “I’m the rain. The light of day holds nothing for me.”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” Snake said. He was still young; he should’ve still had the strength to bring light somewhere.
Snake put his hand on Raiden’s shoulder. “You’re the lightning. You can still shine through the darkness.”
“The lightning …”
“Raiden, look at me.”
Suddenly, Snake ripped the bandage from his left cheek and revealed the scorched skin beneath. “Do you see this? I have no future. In a few months, I’m going to be a weapon of mass destruction.”
Raiden looked into the face of the ragged old soldier, skin battered and burned and peeling off. This close, his flesh gave off a distinct, unpleasant odor—the stench of old age, perhaps. Heavy, sagging eyelids crushed the spirit from eyes that had been so astute and fearless when they first met on the Big Shell.
This was the face of a man with no future, an old man held up solely by a longing for the closure only atonement could bring. Snake wasn’t fighting for the future. He wasn’t fighting to hold on to something. Snake fought for what he had already lost. This was the face of a man who had nothing left to lose.
But Raiden still had a woman who cared for him.
He had something to hold on to—a place to come home to.
“You have a family,” Snake said.
Raiden’s eyes flew open. “I have no family!”
With his outburst, the medical observation systems sounded a warning in unison.
Raiden’s hardened exoskeletal body began to convulse. I dashed to his bedside, and Sunny wrapped her small arms around him, holding him down, while Snake shook his head with finality.
Again Raiden shouted, “I have no one!”
His wounds were already life-threatening—if it continued, Raiden’s agitated state could prove fatal. Sunny worked the infusion pump to temporarily increase the flow of painkillers.
Then Raiden spoke. Not with the artificial sound from his throat, but from his own mouth, he said, “I have always been alone.”
As his chin moved, the oxygen mask, only loosely held in place, slipped to the floor. Teardrops ran from his white eyes down his cheeks and onto the bed.
And then the drugs pulled his consciousness back into a opiate haze.
His unsteady breaths regained a steady rhythm, and his eyelids grew heavy and shrouded his eyes. I let out a relieved sigh, and my tensed back muscles returned to normal.
Softly, Snake spoke Raiden’s name. The man whom Snake, albeit unintentionally, had torn from a better and rightful life to further his own cause.
Just as he fell into sleep, Raiden squeezed out the raspy words: “Don’t leave me here alone.”
Snake got on one knee, drew close to Raiden’s ear, and gently whispered to the unconscious man, “This is my fight. My destiny.”
Snake’s words seemed as much directed at himself, reaffirming: This fight isn’t Raiden’s. It’s not Meryl’s. You don’t have to get hurt.
Snake stood, removed the bandages covering his injured body, and retrieved his equipment and maintenance tools from the storage area at the rear of the bay. Just as I decided to help him, he began to cough violently. The noise was terrible and sickening, like the depths of his lungs were convulsing.
I ran over and went to pat his back, but he shook off my hand and put Naomi’s autoinjector to his neck. Its contents had mostly calmed him down, but clearly the drug’s effectiveness was diminishing.
I couldn’t take it anymore. The emotions I’d suppressed through Campbell’s call came out all at once.
“Snake, stop,” I said. “You can’t handle any more of this.”
He put his hand to the wall and tried to steady his breathing. “I’m not dying right this moment.”
“That’s not what I mean. You can’t beat Liquid. He’s got the Patriots’ own control system on his side. Not only are weapons useless, but the US military is in shambles. And even if it weren’t, Liquid’s has the men and machines to match it.”
All else aside, our opponent controlled sixty percent of the global military might, but now any forces that would stand against him were frozen as if by magic. So why did this man alone have to fight?
“Things can’t get any worse, Snake. Face it. We’ve lost,” I said. “We never stood a chance.”
I’d let my emotions vent, and Snake just looked at me. He never appreciated becoming the subject of concern. Although he might have jokingly complained at times, he always dealt with everything himself. Snake, of all people, knew he couldn’t fight this by himself. At Shadow Moses and the Big Shell, he learned that there were situations in this world he couldn’t make it through alone.
That was all the more reason for him to fear others getting hurt on his behalf. Even when the battles had been too much for him alone, as long as he could make any of the responsibility his own, Snake always carried the guilt.
Having seen the crossing of Snake and Raiden’s lives, I don’t think I ever found Snake’s tragic sense of responsibility so painful as with Raiden, who had come to embrace battle.
Snake, eyes still at the wall, put his hand on my shoulder.
“It’s not about winning or losing,” he said. “I—no, we—started this. And it’s our duty to finish it.”
Then, having nothing left to say, he returned to his equipment check.
As I helped him prepare for combat, I quietly cried. I’d known that would be his response; I’d known I couldn’t stop him no matter how hard I tried. I think Snake noticed I was crying, but he didn’t speak. The two of us worked together in silence.
With the fate of the world and that of humanity at stake, I prayed for one single thing: for the noble soul of my friend, who continued to fight despite a body covered with injuries, to find peace.