Snake helped Big Boss walk across the carpet of stars-of-Bethlehem. Feeling the weight of his father’s body on his shoulder, Snake laughed at the strangeness of their situation—a father and son bound as enemies. Snake had grown up only being given the fictional affection arranged for him by the Patriots, yet this was the man he faced as an adversary, as the sole person allowed to be the target of his hostility.
“There’s one more thing Naomi wanted me to tell you,” Big Boss said, his voice faint from pain. “About the old FOXDIE in your body … the one that mutated. The new FOXDIE inside you, that killed EVA and Ocelot, continues to multiply. At the same time it is preventing the old mutated FOXDIE from reproducing. The new FOXDIE is uprooting the old. Naomi confirmed it in her follow-up. The mutants are receding. Before long, they’ll be gone entirely.”
For a moment, Snake froze in place, astonished. Only minutes ago, he had been trying to end his own life, believing that he would otherwise become history’s most terrible bioweapon and spread death across the earth.
“Does that mean,” Snake asked, “the mutant strain won’t cause an epidemic?”
“The mutant strain will only live as long as you do. But even then, the process will just repeat itself. One day, the new FOXDIE will start to mutate and become a new threat. That is … if you manage to live that long.”
Suddenly the strength left Big Boss’s legs. His sudden weight caught Snake by surprise, who let go. Big Boss fell to his hands and knees and let out a feeble groan. His right hand clawed at his chest as if to scrape out his heart.
The virus had recognized Big Boss and went to work on the cells that kept his heart going. Apoptosis. The swarm of molecular machines went from cell to cell, spreading their falsehoods: It’s time for you to die now. Your work is over.
Feeling as if he were watching his own death, Snake said, “Am I going to die?”
This is my future. Snake projected himself onto his original. Before his eyes, a man with his body and his face was dying. Snake felt as if he were having a near-death experience. Many who had been to death’s door reported the sensation of floating above themselves, watching their body die.
This man was Snake’s original, and a large and inescapable part of his life.
This man’s death was Snake’s death.
Possibly sensing Snake’s fear, Big Boss lifted his head and said, “Everyone dies. You can’t stop it. You can’t run away from it. This is your notice.”
Big Boss seemed to be telling him, That’s right, this is your death, whether it will come like this or not. There’s nothing bad about seeing someone die who looks like you.
To attend the death of a loved one is to have a practice run at your own. Mental images avoided through normal life are shown to you inescapably. And you’re left to face the question:
How will you use the life you have left?
As if to drive home to Snake the significance of his own death, Big Boss put it in words.
“Don’t waste the time you have left fighting.”
Having somehow fought back the pain, Big Boss again borrowed Snake’s shoulder and began to walk. He felt heavier now, weaker than before.
“I’ve never thought of you as a son.”
Snake grinned, obviously thinking, Yeah, and I’ve never thought of you as a father. Until a short while ago, Snake had only regarded the man as the original source of his genes and as a longtime foe.
“But I’ve always respected you as a soldier … and as a man. If you’d been in my place back then, maybe you wouldn’t have made the same mistakes I did.”
And Big Boss accepted Snake—as the man who had surpassed him. As the man whom he, along with The Boss and Zero, had created, and who had overturned the world he had wrongly brought about. Though he might never have considered Snake his son, he respected Snake as a person. What could that be if not a father’s praise for his son?
The man who had set everything right—all his sins, all his unfinished duties—was a man of his own blood.
“On the day I killed The Boss with my own hands, my own life ended.”
Walking ever more slowly, the two men at last reached The Boss’s grave. Big Boss removed himself from Snake’s shoulder and slumped weakly to his knees. The words on the tombstone, IN MEMORY OF A PATRIOT WHO SAVED THE WORLD, struck deep into his regret.
“Boss … you were right,” Big Boss said, as if at confession, then spread out his elbows and gave a military salute. “It’s not about changing the world. It’s about doing our best to leave the world the way it is. It’s about respecting the will of others … and believing in your own. Isn’t that what you fought for?”
Big Boss’s heart was filled with regret, yet to have reached this place filled him with the greatest joy. This was the joy The Boss had understood; this was the joy she believed valuable enough to give her life for. Big Boss had taken a long road to get here, but finally, in the cemetery where he faced the end of his own life, he had been able to see.
“At last,” he said, “I understand the meaning behind what you did. At last, I understand the truth behind your courage.”
Using the last of his strength, Big Boss rose to his feet, still in salute—his proof to her that he understood. She had been a true patriot. She loved her country, but was never driven by present national interests. She had been intent on protecting her own identity, such as it was, and never looked down upon other countries or their peoples.
She loved not only the country of her birth, but the world as a whole.
That was something that Zero—and the Patriots—had never been able to accomplish. They were unable to believe in the wills of others, or themselves, and their fear manifested in the memes that expanded relentlessly, and in the narrative that used, exploited, and controlled.
But that had all ended. The country she wanted, the world she envisioned, could now be built by the next generation, and the last one wouldn’t be around to see it. The past might yet repeat itself. Chains might again be discovered to deny love and forgiveness.
But hope always remained. Sometimes where you least expected it.
“It’s almost time for me to go,” he said.