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In the Name of Peace	By : ktatters Category: +M through R > Metal Gear Views: 2459 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Metal Gear, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Dave was nearly hissing with rage. This had been someone's idea of a trap? Making his partner doubt himself and his parentage, making Hal think his father had had anything to do with war...
If it had been true, Dave didn't think there was any reason to run from it, of course. Hell, he didn't run from the knowledge that he had been created from Big Boss. But these latest sheets of paper had been designed to knock Hal as off balance as they could.
First: Hal was a clone. Dave was a clone. They had been engineered, both genetically and socially, to be partners and lovers (and had they ever gotten that one wrong, he'd thought sourly as Hal laughed at it).
Second: they weren't the only ones, they were just the first. There was a virtual army of them out there. The Daves of the program could easily be controlled by their Hals' kidnapping. They were all set up to work on covert missions in partners with all the zealous devotion of soldiers for the cause.
If they'd come upon this information without knowing it was false, Dave would have been watching to make sure Hal didn't kill himself by deciding it was all his fault and he had to be the one to go off and fix things. According to the papers, after all, it had been Arthur Emmerich who had designed the program, though he hadn't expected the one he'd taken as his own son to take part in it. Big Boss had funded the research, and the CIA had decided to take over after they found out about it through a leak.
Dave was ready to spit.
And where was this whole thing culminating? Where was the trap they had been so eagerly heading toward? Outer Heaven, of course, the place where their own allies had said there was nothing.
He was so angry that he'd already figured out what he wanted to do. He wanted to go to the old Outer Heaven location and spring the damned trap. All he had to do now was convince Hal that it was the right move.
Speaking of his partner, Hal had been mumbling to himself for the past hour, going back and forth over all the sheets of paper and computer printouts they'd amassed. Time to distract him.
"Hey, Hal. Drop those for a bit. Let's go see a movie or something. It'll get your mind off the whole thing about your dad and this trap they've set for us."
He looked up in surprise, then shook his head and looked back at the papers. "It's not right. It just doesn't seem right at all..."
"No one likes knowing they've been played, now get your head out-"
"That's not what I mean, Dave. I mean this fake stuff, it just doesn't play."
"You mean you want to keep believing it despite the evidence to the contrary."
Hal shook his head and stood up. "No, look, I'll show you. See, this stuff all makes sense together. Not a single hole that you can find, right?"
"First, I get tipped about those databases, and find that my dad was working near Galzburg, which you tell me is Outer Heaven." Hal put the picture of Big Boss and Arthur Emmerich in Pripyat on the table. "Then these pictures. They were working together in Pripyat." He put the transcripts down. "We've got a conversation of it that seems entirely too accurate. I go to the place where they're supposed to have been selling the nuclear material, and find a research lab and guards everywhere."
"So they did a really good job."
"Wait, okay? Then you go off to- Julie's... and find these. Here's you, here's me, here's my dad, here's Big Boss..." He rustled the rest of them. "These two are probably your brothers. Politician would be Solidus, since he was the president, and Black Knight must be Liquid. Then the rest of these, I don't know who they are, but Confederate sounds like it's got some sort of ties to the Patriots. The last three are only connected through him, which might mean they are the patriots..."
"I'm not getting your point, Otacon," said Dave with a shake of his head.
"That's at least four points of contact, five if you include the talk you had with Julie, which she would have had to be prepped for. And a possible sixth if either of us had recognized the location of the other photo, or maybe even more if the other photos had printed. I mean, to do this, logistically you'd need more resources than I would dare to speculate on."
Dave was getting impatient. "And?"
Hal put his hands down on the table. "So the question, Dave, is: with all the resources they're putting into this, why would they make a mistake now?"
Dave frowned. "Good question." He took the printouts of new 'information' they had obtained at the UN. "It's possible they had a leak. Someone tipped Philanthropy."
"What if this is the truth, and someone's trying to make sure we don't believe it?"
Snake sat down and shook his head. "You're going to have to give me more than this to make me believe someone's doing that."
Hal sat down next to him, looking determinedly at the papers on the table. "What would convince you?"
Snake leaned back and nodded. Another good question. What would have happened if they hadn't found the guys who were planting it? They would have thought it real unless it could be proved fake. "What did they have in those two missions that was supposed to have happened? I mean, something we can check on."
"Hm. Cloning labs in Outer Heaven? That could be proven false pretty easily. I mean, we already had the guys from the South African teams check things out."
"And they didn't find a thing. But we'd probably be able to justify that one pretty easily. They just moved, or we couldn't get into the old Outer Heaven base itself. What else is there?"
"Well, we wouldn't really be able to verify the thing about dozens of us running around."
"No, we couldn't say that was true or false, so it would be completely useless."
"I don't know.... I'm a clone can't exactly be tested..."
Dave smirked, a certain glint in his eyes as he pulled the hair sample Julie had given him. "Yeah, we could test that."
Hal looked at him in disbelief before comprehension finally dawned on him. "You got that from Julie's too? Snake!"
"I told her I was an insurance agent, and that we needed to figure out if your dad was who we thought he was. A promise of ten million pounds makes people give you things they might not ordinarily give you."
"And they knew about the vials of blood you got from there, so they must have known about this too! You see, Dave, they planted this in there so that it would be just believable enough that when we tested every angle, we'd come up with a flaw!"
"Hm." Dave nodded. "Unless, of course, you really are a clone."
Hal lifted an eyebrow. "What?"
"Well, if the whole thing is true, then your dad and my dad were together. So unless he was bi, your father wouldn't have had you for a kid, right?"
Hal crossed his arms, looking a little peeved. "And I'm sure Julie gave you the real thing, right?"
Dave shrugged. "Right or wrong, you could prove it with a simple genetic test. If it comes back saying it's your own hair, then everything's up in the air still. But if it comes back saying it's not, then at least you know the UN thing was the real trick."
Hal frowned and stared at the hair, so Dave decided to take another look. It had a few greys scattered in with it. Hal was just starting to get a little bit of grey in his hair, but there was quite a bit more in this.
"Come on Hal. You can't be scared of the results, can you?"
"Of course not." Hal stood up and grabbed the hair sample. "I'll send it out to one of the labs we've used before, and I'll pay them enough to have the results in under two hours."
Hal went to the phone and brusquely made some arrangements. "A courier will be here in about ten minutes." He walked into the kitchen area and tossed Dave a roll of masking tape and a little bag. "Get one or two strands into the bag and label it. We'll save the rest in case we want to retest anything." Dave did as he was told, labeling the sample with the letter A.
Hal came out with a sample of his own hair in a similar baggy, as well as an envelope. He took the tape and marked the sample 'H,' then put the two samples inside the envelope.
"Happy?"
"You're really touchy about this, aren't you. You think there's something wrong with being a clone of someone?"
Hal paused and looked at Dave. "No, of course not," he said, looking away. "But I'm not a clone. I'm not him."
"You know, we're all more than just our genetics."
"Yeah," said Hal, a little sarcastically. "We're also a product of how we were raised."
"Okay." Dave sighed inwardly. Hal was going to be very difficult about all of this, wasn't he... "Is there anything else here? The hair could just be yours, after all."
Hal didn't look particularly mollified, but apparently he was willing to keep looking anyways. "Well... anyone who knows us knows that I've been into the CIA databases at least a million times. I could check there pretty easily to see if the CIA has any details about this whole thing."
There was a knock at the door. "Must be the courier."
"I'll get it, Hal. Just in case." Dave stood and walked to the door, opening it to see a fairly lanky young man in a courier's uniform. Of course, nothing interesting.
"You here for the pick-up?" asked Hal from behind him.
"Yes, sir. You're Mr. Arthur Danzinger?"
"Yeah, that's me." Hal handed him the envelope along with a fifty. "Get it there fast, okay? Time sensitive."
"You got it, man."
Hal closed the door. "You worry too much, Dave."
Dave shrugged. Hal might be the so-called brains of the operation, but Dave was the security force and as such, felt that he had the right to be paranoid. Still... "You're figuring we've got one of two conspiracies being leveled against us and you're not going to worry?"
"Life's too short to worry about every little thing."
"Yeah, if you open every door without looking through the peep hole it is. Well, you check up on the CIA stuff. I'll see if I can find any holes or inconsistencies in the rest of this stuff."
"You got it." Hal went to his computer and started typing while Dave flipped through the pages of the various missions, trying to find anything out of place.
The dates were all right, in terms of when everything happened. None of the missions Arthur and Boss had taken were outside of the dates from the wars they were associated with. None of them had overlapping days, although they all seemed to have been taken very close to each other. Most of them seemed to have been designed to lower the power of both parties involved in the conflict, though it might have only been apparent through hindsight.
An hour and a half later, Hal had finished with a triumphant little laugh. "There's nothing here on the CIA databases, Dave."
Dave nodded. "I haven't found any inconsistencies either. Looks like someone played a little joke on us." His eyes narrowed. "And we're going to need to find out who."
"Well, they'll probably email me, and I can trace them from there. As long as no one's put another-"
The phone rang, and Hal grabbed it. "Hello, Philanthropy 31. Yeah." He paused. "Really? Maybe we screwed up in what we gave you. I guess it must have been from..." There was another, longer pause. "You can tell that? I mean... Well, are you sure that was the H sample?" Dave went to the phone to press the speaker option, but Hal waved his hand away. "Yeah, that's just pretty unexpected. Are you sure that's-" The pause went on for quite a while this time. Hal's face fell slightly. "Yeah, I- I don't see a way either, if you're sure... Well, thanks for the analysis, then. We really appreciate it, and the money has already been sent to your accounts." Hal rubbed his eyes. "Yeah, thanks again. We'll call you the next time we need something." He hung up the phone.
"Well?" asked Dave, curious.
Hal sat quietly for a moment, then got up and got his jacket. "Where are you going, Hal?"
"To get a drink."
"Sit down, Hal." Dave stood between Hal and the door. "You don't even know where the nearest bar is."
"So I'll find one. I don't want to talk to you right now, okay?"
Not okay. "So then, we won't talk, you can just have the drink." Hal was a talker when he was drunk. "Look, I got some Crown Royale up in Canada. Nice single malt whiskey..." Not that Hal knew the difference between a good whiskey and a lousy scotch... "Get you drunk faster than beer."
Hal looked between Dave and the door, then sighed and took his jacket off. Dave threw him a half-smile, then grabbed the liquor from his room. He poured a little bit into two glasses and gave one to Hal, keeping the other for himself. "You want ice?"
He glanced at Hal, who had already downed it. "No, liquor's liquor. Just pour me some more."
Dave nodded. "Sit down," he ordered. Dave cleared the evidence papers off of the table, then sat down himself. He poured Hal another drink, a little larger than the last. "Go easy, okay?"
"I'm fine," said Hal, downing it.
"It's a lot stronger than the American beer you're used to drinking, Hal."
"Hmph."
Dave poured Hal another, and gave himself another glassful while he was at it. How to get Hal to talk... there was the question... Dave drank his whiskey, then poured some more for them.
"We could get another analysis if you want," Dave offered tentatively.
"What's the point...? It's not gonna change anything. I shouldn't even be upset about it right? I mean, you've lived with it for years, and it doesn't bother you... Give me some more, will ya?"
Dave poured another glass for Hal and himself. Hal drank his too quickly, so Dave followed suit and poured again. At the rate they were going, they were going to finish the bottle before the hour was up...
"When d'you find out you were a clone, Dave?" Hal's speech was beginning to slur. His own was probably almost to that point. Dave hadn't eaten in a while, after all...
"Shadow Moses. I thought I was just Big Boss' kid before that."
"Hm. Y'know, 5 years ago, they couln't even do a DNA test on hair. Now look. They c'n see... radioactivity, 'nd... exposure to chemicals..." Dave poured them both a little more, almost spilling it. He was glad he'd moved the papers. "I mean, ten years ago, hair samples didn't tell much of anything, y'know that Dave? Couldn't tell... whether things were internal or external... didn't know how long they stayed..."
"And now?" Dave watched as Hal chugged it back again. The bottle was going to be empty real soon now.
"Now they c'n tell ya... this chemical is life long after s'posure... this radioctive isetope lasts f'rever in human hair... genes are zacly the same..."
"They can tell you gibberish?"
"Nah, Dave... you gotta be a bit more literate in the sciences, y'know... means they can tell if the hair came from different sources even if it's genticly simlar." Hal yawned. "I think... I need more of that... whiskey stuff. My glass is empty."
"'S half-full, Hal." Hal downed it. "Okay, Hal, but then no more. So, 's that mean... wha's that mean, really?"
"See, my hair," said Hal, pointing vaguely to his head. "'s got no... whassit... m, radioactive iodine indict- indic... thingies. Dad's hair's got it though. Makes sense, right, him being in Chernobyl when it 'sploded. But my hair, it doesn't got any radio iodine thingies. And I just took it now, so if dad's hair were my hair, it still woulda had the same thingies, right? So it's not my hair, but it's the same."
"Genetic'ly, y'mean?"
"Right." Hal tossed the whiskey down his throat. "Right. So that means that I'm a whassit. Like you. Clone."
"Bein' a clone's not so bad. Still make yer own choices, live yer own life. Not so bad, Hal," said Dave, throwing his arm over Hal's shoulders.
"You... you're my bes' frien' Dave, but... I mean, wha's the diff'r'nce 'tween us and them? They worked together... prob'ly lived together sometimes... Maybe even thought they were doing somethin' good for the whole world! I want to do something good for the whole world..."
"We are. We stop Metal Gears, prevent wars..."
"No... every Metal Gear we destroy... it's like in that musical cartoon, when the mouse is breakin' the brooms. They jus'... keep gettin' up. Multiplyin'. Only the wizard guy knows how to stop 'em for real. Mouse, he jus'... he's gotta try 'n' stop 'em, even though he knows he can't... See, we're jus' like the mouse..."
"Naw, Hal." Dave pulled his friend closer. "We're fightin' for what we believe in. We wouldn't... go do that Chernobyl thing... or blackout the eastern seaboard... we're protecting people."
"Oh Dave," Hal said with a strangled sob. "That's 'sactly what was in the files on us. We go protectin' people, think we c'n save the world and it's really jus' made up by some witch in 'ngland... Everythin's just... programmed in!"
"Aw, Hal... don't go cryin'..." He pulled Hal to his chest. If the guy had to cry, at least Dave didn't have to see it. "We're okay, y'know..."
"Yeah, I guess. You... you really are my bes' friend, Dave. My only real friend, ever..."
"You too, Hal. Best friends in the whole world." He chuckled. "See, you can't jus' program in friendship, right? 'F you could do that, you coulda made a HAL for real, right?"
"I am the best!" Hal laughed and pulled away, looking up to Dave. "Dave?" He looked at Hal's face, amazed at how quickly he'd become serious again.
"Yeah?"
"'F it's not... you know, genetics, or social enge... eng... neering that decides who we are, what d'ya think it is?"
"I think... we all have something deep inside that tells us who we are. Like a soul, something that's unique to us. Something that no one can control unless you let them."
"Oh." Hal tilted his head to the side. "You sure guys like us have one though? I mean, coming from guys who musta sold their souls to the devil..."
"'Specially 'cause of that. If you don't have that spark inside you that's just you... You can't... love anyone, or... you know."
"I loved Emma..."
"Nah, not that way. Not like a sister, I mean-"
"Like Sniper Wolf then, right?"
"No, Hal... that was jus'... you know, Stockholme's..."
"Was not. I loved her."
"If you say so."
"You mean like my dad and Big Boss. Like you and me 'r s'posed to be."
Dave shrugged. "You don't gotta say that."
"'S what you mean. But we couldn't. We'd just be followin' them. I don't want to follow 'em, Dave." Hal's eyes were unfocussed. "Why do they gotta go and mess up things? Limit everthin'..."
"Don't let them set your limits. You gotta... you gotta live your own life, not worry 'bout how anyone else lived theirs..."
"Yeah. I guess you're right. You're right too offen, Dave... I thin'... I should go t... t' bed..."
"Yeah. You look beat." Dave was having trouble keeping himself upright, too. "Come on, I'll help ya."
"I don't need help t..." Hal stood up and nearly fell over, steadying himself on the chair just before he did. "Maybe jus' a little." Dave got up and grabbed Hal beneath his arms, and led him to his bedroom.
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In the Name of Peace