MGS: La Corriveau (1/?)

[what_we_dream]

Title: La Corriveau (1/?)
Series: MGS
Pairing: None
Rating: G
Notes: This is UNFINISHED, and likely to remain so.
Historical notes: The legend of La Corriveau is a true Quebecois folk legend; there really was a Marie-Josephte Corriveau, although she was tried and hung only for killing her second husband rather than a bevy of them as is sometimes portrayed in legend.

Summary: Philanthropy travels to what seems like a dull town in Quebec, Canada, to investigate a possible manufacturer of MG parts. But Snake can't shake the feeling that something strange is going on.

 

Si vous passez un nuit sur la côte de Lévis / If you spend a night on Lévis hill
Et qu'il vous semble l'entendre un arbre qui gémit / And think you hear a tree moaning
Gardez les yeux par terre / Keep your eyes on the ground
Et faites une prière / And say a prayer;
Car la Corriveau se balance toujours dans sa cage de fer / The Corriveau is still hanging in her iron cage

Mes Aieux, la Corrida de la Corriveau

The thick fog swirled slowly over the cobblestones of the narrow road, cold tendrils caressing the old stone, brushing against the close brick walls. Every window overlooking the street was shuttered and locked. The tiny slivers of golden light escaping between the old boards were too insignificant to do anything but emphasize the darkness. Only pale moonlight lit the road, the fog shining dimly in its light. The silver gleam also caught the oil-dark feathers of a pair of ravens as they circled down to land, wide wings making a deep thrumming as they beat, like a windstorm in a tin shed.

Above the street, the metal gibbet clanked quietly with a soft breath of wind. Inside, the corpse's dead eyes watched the road.

Otacon stood staring up into the dark sky, watching the white cloud of his breath disperse quickly in the biting air. The pale sliver of moon, which he had seen only once during he long evening, was covered by a thick blanket of dusky clouds, so that no point of light shone in the sky. There was an odd smell in the fresh air that tickled at his mind with faint familiarity. Shoulders hunched, hands tucked in woollen gloves inside moth-bitten pockets, he turned to his partner.

"Do you smell that?" His voice echoed slightly in the empty silence.

Snake's sharp eyes turned to him from the still road, two flashing points in the poor light outside the station. The soldier paused for a minute, then shrugged. "Nothing strange. The cold, fumes from the train, cat piss." He looked back to the narrow road. In the distance the hum of engines and murmur of tires were audible, but there were no cars in the street in front of the pair.

As the two men had no usual look when in public, it was impossible to say that they were dressed unusually. Nevertheless, their clothes were considerably shabbier than those they often chose. Both wore old jeans, dark dye faded with wear, the once stiff fabric now loose and soft. The frayed hems brushed back and forth over sensible well broken-in shoes with no shine left. Snake wore a thick sweater of dark material which looked inky blue in the poor light and clung silently to his form when he moved. Otacon stood huddled in a hip-length grey woollen coat which was just beginning to come apart at the seams, and had wrapped a knitted scarf around his neck, the ends tucked into the loose coat.

Otacon, who had been dipping his chin into the scarf, raised his head slightly. "I guess," he said indecisively. "It seemed more… I don't know. Natural? Like flowers, or herbs, or something." He shrugged.

Snake said nothing, but tensed slightly, just enough to catch his partner's attention. A car was coming up the street, trundling over the uneven road. As it drew nearer, its own headlights lit it enough to illuminate the yellow paint. Snake bent and picked up the duffle bag on the ground next to him. Otacon did the same, picking his backpack up and swinging it carefully onto one shoulder. The cab slowed and stopped in front of them, steam rising from the hood. The passenger-side window slid down slowly.

"Hôtel Vaudreuil?" said Snake, leaning in slightly, voice gruff. The driver nodded, and they slipped into the back. Gashes in the plastic upholstery had been mended with duct tape, making a crooked chessboard of the back seat. Otacon gave one look at the seatbelt, lying loose and limp across the seat, and latched onto the door handle with a sigh. Snake paid him no attention.

The car rumbled off down the narrow road, fog parting before its buttery headlights like a gossamer curtain. In the upper window of the house across from the station, a thin strip of light shining between the shutters went abruptly dark.

The old lady behind the counter wore the peaceful smile of a woman who had long ago learned to float along with the current of life. She stood behind a tall carved maple desk, only her head and shoulders visible over the block of dark wood which made up the front desk of the Hotel Vaudreuil.

She was wearing a knitted shawl over a floral dress, and had her hair in curlers. All in all she was, in fact, the stereotypical grandmother. She spoke to Otacon in quiet, broken English heavily overlaid with a French accent, until Snake stepped in to conduct a short conversation in her native tongue. He signed the register with a spurting pen, writing in a cramped difficult hand in a book whose cover was falling off, pieces of binding fraying away. It was probably the same age as the hotel.

The interior of the hotel itself looked like something out of the 1920s. Subdued green wallpaper covered the walls from dark wooden trim to elaborate white moulding carved around the edges of the ceiling. Flower-shaped glass lights lit the room in a dusty glow. Heavy chintz furniture sat in square groupings on either side of the wide foyer, clustered around low coffee tables. The carpet, an unassuming beige with a floral border, was faded and worn by decades of traffic. Only the absence of lace doilies on the table tops detracted from the room's old-fashioned atmosphere. It was close, warm, dusty, and slightly soporific.

When finished registering the two men padded up the narrow wooden stairs behind the proprietress, who had introduced herself as Madam Perrault and insisted on guiding them to their room. The staircase was lined with old wooden-framed black and white photographs, slowly turning sepia-coloured with age. The stairs creaked underfoot.

The hallway of the second floor was identical in style to the foyer, although too narrow to contain any furniture with a ceiling shorter than the average. They walked down it single file, both men unconsciously ducking their heads slightly despite the still-ample clearance space. On the left there was a short row of oak doors. The wall on the right was taken up by nothing but the odd dusty watercolour. The old lady led them to the second door from the end and turned the brass key in the lock, pushing the door open and flicking on the light with a blue-veined hand. She smiled and nodded at Otacon who bobbed with an embarrassed grin as he passed, and Snake who gave an easier smile and thanked her.

"Dejeuner sera prêt à sept heurs et demi," she informed them, in a voice like bare branches rustling in the wind, as she handed him the key. Snake nodded, and she ambled off down the hallway again in an uneven gait.

The door had a simple brass lock, and a slightly newer steel bolt, which slid home without a sound. Snake turned his back to the door, and came up face to face against his partner, who was standing next to the door waiting for him. Otacon said nothing as the soldier slipped around him to stalk quickly through the room, checking under the beds, in the wardrobe and in the bathroom with sharp efficiency.

"What was that she said?" Otacon sat down on the bed closer to the window, the aged mattress sinking under his weight. The room smelled vaguely of potpourri, although there was no sign of a jar on any of the ancient wooden furniture. He dropped his backpack down by his feet and swung his legs up onto the bed, closing his eyes with a sigh. The pillow was fat and heavy, but so soft that his head sunk almost completely into it. He groaned and thumped at it with the back of his hand.

"Breakfast's at seven thirty," his partner answered, walking around the side of the bed to glance out the window. Otacon opened his eyes as he did, but caught only a glimpse of darkness and one yellow window before Snake dropped the heavy curtains back down.

"I didn't realise you spoke French," said the engineer, sitting up again to pull off his coat and scarf and drop them beside the backpack.

"Too bad these people don't." Snake placed his own bag down at the foot of the second bed and unzipped it. "It's like the entire damn province has one huge head cold." He pulled a pair of M9s from the bag, handed one to his partner, who took it reluctantly, and immediately put it in the drawer of the bedside table. The soldier placed his own on the bed.

"This place looks like it was frozen in time." Otacon ran a hand over the surface of the table, old dusty wood smooth under his touch. "I mean, have you seen the wallpaper? And those lights? I bet there's lead in all the paint!"

"I'll try to refrain from chewing on the window frame," said Snake dryly. "You'll be less impressed when you see the pipes in the bathroom. Don't count on hot water any time soon." Snake stripped off his sweater, and after a second's consideration the loose turtleneck under it. The long hulking radiator, painted white to match the window trim, was completely silent as the heat rolled off of it. It must have been on for hours; the room was a good 78 degrees.

"You think the rest of the city's like this?"

"Like what?"

"Like… I don't know, a museum. Or an old picture. You saw the train station. The last time it had a renovation must've been the steam age!" Otacon struggled out of his coat, pulling off the thick scarf and dropping them both to the ground near the foot of his bed.

"No. You saw it yourself in the briefs. They've had to switch over to industry to survive. Refineries, snack food industry, banking. You can't live by tourism with nothing other than a nice view."

"It's too bad. Everything's so… quaint. Almost like a fairy tale." He yawned.

"Uh huh. You trying out for Sleeping Beauty?"

Otacon wrinkled his nose. "Eew, Snake. No. I'm just tired." He stretched slightly, and yawned again, this time for several seconds.

"So go to sleep."

"I was planning on checking out the local internet connection."

"That can't wait for tomorrow?"

"I'd rather do it n-n-now," he broke off to bite down on a yawn. "Arg, okay! Fine! I give up." He dropped back dramatically on the bed and pulled the covers over himself after a brief struggle.

"You going to get changed?"

"No!"

Snake smiled, white teeth shining. "Fine. Good night." He dug his toothbrush out of his bag and went to brush his teeth, drinking the water sparingly, before returning and packing it away again. "Okay if I turn the light out?" Snake glanced at his partner, lying on his side, breathing slowly. "Otacon? …Huh."

He flipped out the light, and went to bed.

Snake woke first, and slipped around Otacon's bed to twitch the curtains open. Outside the sky was grey, but the cobbled street was dry. He turned away and glanced at his watch. 6:45. Otacon was lying on his back now, dark hair dyed blacker than usual and spread tangled on the pillow, face empty. Snake sighed quietly and went to lie on the floor at the end of his bed to began doing sit ups.

He woke Otacon up half an hour later, engineer blinking blearily. "What time's it?"

"7:15."

"Too early," he groaned, closing his eyes and crossing his arms over his face.

"You've been sleeping for almost eight hours. That's more than you usually get."

"Eight hours?"

"You went to sleep at eleven thirty, remember?"

"Eleven thirty?" Otacon dropped his hands, sat up slowly, hair sticking up. "Huh. Must've been really tired." He stretched out his shoulders, then leant down to grab his backpack. Snake got there first, pulling it away.

"Breakfast first."

"But Snake-"

"The internet'll still be there afterwards."

Otacon sighed. "Fine."

When they went down the front desk was manned, not by the old lady of the night before, but an old man of similar age dressed in semi-formal wear. His wrinkled face split into a wide grin when they descended the creaking stairs, and he hurried around the desk to shake their hands, light blue eyes nearly hidden by the wrinkles displaced by his smile. He broke into a creaking torrent of French, which Snake interspaced with affirmatives, and Otacon smiled at helplessly. It ended with him ushering them to the left of the foyer through a pair of frosted glass doors into a small dining room.

The wallpaper and lighting fixtures were identical to the foyer's, the carpet blue instead of beige. Dusty, wooden-framed watercolours hung on the walls. Several round, white-clothed tables were placed about in no apparent pattern. Against the far wall a long table had been set and carried a variety of silver pans, pitchers and platters as well as a supply of pristine white plates, shining glasses and cutlery. Apart from them, the room was empty. Snake asked a quiet question, which was answered with a laugh and a sentence. Otacon wandered over to the buffet.

Two chafing dishes contained ham and bacon and sausages, warm and juicy with a thick sweet scent. One platter held an assortment of fresh sliced fruit, the other golden baked goods. There was orange juice and coffee, and a carafe of hot water with a little fabric-lined wooden basket of tea bags next to it. The engineer glanced across the room at his partner, who was finishing the conversation. The old man was motioning towards the table.

"Si vous voulez quelque chose qu'il n'y en a pas, dites-moi."

Snake nodded, and the old man pattered out to return to the desk. Snake glided through the room, slipping between the tables with thoughtless ease.

"What's up?" asked Otacon, eyeing the sausages.

"We're the only ones eating, apart from him and his wife the rest of the staff. No other guests." He glanced down at the food.

"And you'd rather be staying at a big anonymous hotel. Doesn't exactly fit with the eco-tourist label."

"This doesn't fit my label."

"Rather go someplace where no one knows your name?" asked Otacon with a smile. Snake rolled his eyes.

"What are you having?" He reached over and grabbed a plate.

"Uh, I was thinking of sausages, and maybe a croissant and coffee?" Otacon watched in surprise as his partner filled the plate up with sausages, a croissant, and then poured a mug of black coffee. Without a word, he walked over to a corner table, Otacon following him. The soldier set the plate down in front of himself and began cutting the sausages.

"Hey!"

Snake looked up. "What?"

"That's mine!"

"I don't remember saying so." He speared a sausage with a quick flick.

"But- arg!" Otacon threw up his hands and turned, stomped back to the buffet. Snake watched him go with sharp eyes, smelling the sausage carefully before eating it.

Breakfast was finished quickly, Otacon sulking over his coffee, Snake watching the foyer through the open doors. No one entered or exited.

"Do you know what we're doing today?"

"Huh?" Otacon looked up from his coffee, cup shaking slightly in his double-handed grasp.

"If we grab our stuff, are you okay to go?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah."

"Good. Let's go." Snake stood, chair stopping less than an inch from the wall behind him, and slipped out around the table. Otacon rose more awkwardly, chair knocking back into the one behind him, and stumbled out after his partner, leaving his cup behind. The coffee inside lapped up against the white porcelain sides in small waves, staining them temporarily darker.

They gathered their sweaters and coats from the hotel room, Snake slipping the M9 into his waistband near his spine and pulling his sweater on overtop. Otacon emptied his clothes out into the ancient dresser, smelling vaguely of cedar and potpourri. He pulled on a sweater and the grey woollen coat, stuffing the scarf into the backpack in front of his laptop and then swinging it onto his back. They hurried out down the steep stairs, nodded to the elderly Monsieur Perrault, and came out onto the old street.

The hotel at night had been nothing but a sole light over a dark ominous door. In the day it was a plain white-washed quarter of a long brick building. Its neighbour to the left had left the brick façade unpainted and appeared to be a residential building, while the one on the right had chosen to paint the brick cornflower-blue with white highlights and advertised itself as an art studio. The hotel itself was marked as such only by a small brass plaque screwed into the brick to the right of the doorway, the burnished brass reading Hôtel Vaudreuil, 1798. The windows were tall and slightly narrower than standard, giving the building an oddly despairing look.

The building across the street was almost identical, though the windows were of a slightly different design, brick in a different state of disrepair. Most of the windows had old wooden shutters, now pushed open to let in daylight. Snake gave them a glance and then turned to the right. The street curved a little more than a block down, rounded paving stones shining dully as a beetle's eyes in the cloudy morning light. "This way, right?"

Otacon nodded, pulling a ratty map out of his pocket. "Yeah." They set off, walking on the narrow sidewalk at a quick pace. The street itself was active without being busy, cars driving by every now and then, the occasional well-wrapped up pedestrian walking by, people moving behind the windows.

"Well?"

"You want me to give you a briefing now?" Otacon glanced around at the street, and the slow but present stream of people and cars flowing by.

"Doesn't need to be our deep dark secrets or anything, but some background would be good."

Otacon sighed and pushed up his glasses. "Well, the town of Levis was established-"

"Lévis like the dam, not the jeans," interrupted Snake, glancing down a side-street before crossing.

"Fine. Lévis was established in the 1600s under the name Pointe-Lévis. It's the part of town we're in today, but recently it merged with a bunch of surrounding municipalities, so what's called Lévis now contains a lot of small towns that weren't originally part of it. It's right across the river from Québec City, capital of Québec. There are two bridges that connect them, as well as a ferry system. The city was originally the centre of an agricultural district, but in the 1800s a series of British forts were built here on the highest point in the region. Today they're open to the public as a historic site. The town's become largely industrial, as you know. I've recently dug up information suggesting that parts for Metal Gears are being manufactured in the town." He dropped his voice in the last sentence, glancing around again.

"You think Québec is trying to make their own Metal Gear? I mean, I know they're separatist, but I don't think they're that rabid about it."

"They're not making them themselves, they're selling the parts across the border for a substantial profit. It was actually the money trail that I caught, not the proof of manufacturing. I still haven't been able to track that down. Which is why we're here looking around, rather than infiltrating."

"How do you know what's being sold then?"

"Well…"

"You don't," said Snake, flatly.

"I'm pretty sure," protested his partner, glancing at Snake quickly, and then shrugging. "Some flags have been raised recently at the border crossings. One shipment was stopped and searched and found to contain 'various electronic hardware' and the subsequent manifest listed a bunch of stuff that would be perfect for building the necessary computer systems."

"That sounds pretty thin."

"Well, there've been some other things, too. Alone yeah, it doesn't really stand up, but taken together it adds up to a pretty significant… are you listening?"

They had reached a bizarre junction in the street, a sort of three-way junction with a small round stone plaza in the centre raised up from the uneven cobbles. Sitting tall and slightly chipped on the plaza was a square built of dull stones rounded by the years. On the side facing them a bronze plaque had been mounted in the stone. Snake had stopped to look at it, sharp eyes narrowed to focus on the bronze. He waited for the street's single car to pass, then stepped across to the tiny plaza, partner trailing behind him.

The bronze plaque held one long paragraph of French in raised lettering, beginning La residence de Marie-Josephte Corriveau, pendue Ici le 18 avril 1763 pour le meutre de son époux … Otacon's eyes skimmed over the letters, struggling to pull a meaning out of the familiar words here and there before giving up and waiting for Snake to finished. He did with a snort, then turned away.

"What's it say?"

"Some woman lived here who was hanged for murdering her husband and put in a gibbet on display. Local legend."

"That's pretty grim."

Snake shrugged, stepping of the plaza and back to the main sidewalk. "Which way?"

"Huh? Oh, north."

The Forts-de-Lévis were, as Otacon had said, built on the tallest point in the region. However, as the region was mostly flat lowlands, it was not the impressive vantage point it might otherwise have been. It looked over the city of Lévis, spread shadowed and rambling in a broad curve of the river, and the river itself which was dull and grey under the thick clouds. On a clear summer's day, the view would have been scenic and verdant, but on a dark mid-April day it was gloomy and unwelcoming.

The two Philanthropists trekked up a hill with a shallow incline to the forts, the new asphalt road lined with tall maple trees only beginning to show the first hints of green buds. Despite the unimpressive height, it was windy near the top, the late spring wind still cold enough to cut through thick layers to the skin.

"Why exactly are we here? No one's going to be building electronics in an abandoned fort, never mind caching them in a tourist hotspot." Snake looked up at the stone walls of the main fort. A thin crowd was gathered at the wide gate, mostly families and a couple of young men and women with backpacks, in the general muddle that always surrounds any ticket booth. Hotspot was an overstatement.

"I thought it would give us a good view of the city. Whoever's building the chips must be using a factory, and we'll be able to spot the industrial districts from up here."

"Or we could just use the map," said Snake pointedly. "Why are we really up here? Tell me it isn't because you wanted to see the fort."

"It's not because I wanted to see the fort. No, really," protested the engineer at the soldier's flat look. "Look, I'll tell you when we're inside, okay?"

Snake sighed, but picked up his pace again. They cut their way through the milling families and paid for their tickets, Snake pulling a bill from his pants pocket, Otacon producing a battered wallet and a handful of coins. They passed through the gates and immediately veered right, away from the general flow streaming left towards the battlements and cannons.

The main fort walls were built in the shape of a pentagon, the grey stones not much larger than the bricks that made up the houses in the city below. They rose to a height of more than twelve feet, built inside a deep ditch which was bordered on the other side by a walking track. The long flat bottom wall faced the town and the river beyond separating it from Québec, while shorter walls were cut into the hill rising away to the south. In the middle of the walls a shallow hill, also pentagon-shaped, had long ago been raised. On the top, a dirt parade-ground was lined with a row of cannons currently being scrambled over by young children. The philanthropists headed away to the outer walls, climbing a set of stone steps and leaning against the wall to look out over the town. Under the heavy grey sky, and with the thick clusters of still-barren maples which seemed to take up almost as much space as the small houses, it had a sombre, unwelcoming look.

"Well?" said Snake, watching the boats on the river.

"You remember I told you there were a bunch of things which together added up to something that sounded like Metal Gear activity?"

"Yeah."

"It, uh, turns out that I first picked up on it from a local website, run out of Lévis. It was making claims that some local political big-shots had sold the city's industry out to people without ethics – the people, not the politician. Well, probably him too, but anyway. It mentioned the incident at the border crossing, and some others than, when I investigated, together linked up pretty well to … you know."

"And?" Snake pulled out his cigarettes, tapped one out and lit it, continuing to watch the river while ignoring Otacon's glare with the ease of practice.

"The site claimed the fort was involved somehow, although that part was pretty unclear. It was written like the person who wrote it assumed anyone reading would know what they were talking about. And it was in French, so I had to run it through a couple of translating programs and although we've come a long way since Babblefish they're still not entirely reliable."

"Who runs the site?"

"I don't know, it was run anonymously – no contact information. The domain is registered to "la corriveau." La is like "the", right? So I looked up corriveau but it doesn't mean anything."

Snake had shifted slightly at the name, now he turned to look back towards the interior of the fort, at the rows of cannons and the pale parade ground beyond. "It's a name," he said, holding his cigarette between two fingers while his grey eyes watched the people wandering through the fort's interior. "We read about it earlier today."

"Huh?"

"That woman who was hung. It was her last name. They called her la Corriveau; that's how she's known in the legends."

Otacon looked at him. "What legends?"

"According to that plaque, she became a kind of folk legend. You know, the kind of thing parents use to shut the kids up at night. A kind of witch or something, a woman who had a bunch of husbands and kept murdering all of them – the number changes with the stories. Until they caught her and hung her up in the gibbet – that part stays true regardless."

There was a moment of silence, the wind whistling over the battlements. A pair of sun-bleached flags barked as it tore at them, one the blue and white of the provincial flag, the other the red and white national flag. Snake took a drag and let the smoke out to whip away in the wind in one long breath.

"Not the kind of name I'd choose," said Otacon, wrapping his arms tightly over his chest against the wind. The soldier made no answer. Eventually, he shrugged and continued. "Anyway, I don't know how the fort's involved, if it is at all, but I figured it would be the easiest place for us to check out since we can access it freely without trouble."

"Makes sense. Anything else?" There was a slight edge there, a hint of an unsaid that you're not telling me?

In some ways, the Tanker had divided them, or at least divided time, into before and after. Had cut some bonds, and strengthened others. And, in the silence of two men who had never had someone to talk to about such things with, never mind experience them, it wasn't always easy to tell which was which.

"No. Except… that webpage? It talked about the problems like… like they were being addressed. Even though it didn't say anything about it, and there certainly hasn't been anything in the news."

"You think people here are taking matters into their own hands?"

"I don't know. Maybe. You know me and people." The engineer looked down at the kids, face closed. Snake dropped his cigarette and ground it out.

"C'mon. Let's look around."

The forts, despite being the area's main tourist attraction, were not actually a big one and had few buildings. There was a long stone armoury, now serving as a visitor's centre with maps, books, pamphlets, postcards, posters and the usual kitschy collection of souvenirs. There was a larger hall built under the main wall with tall windows looking inwards into the compound filled with displays telling the history of the city and the fort. And there were a couple of outbuildings which served as displays on life in the 1800s in Pointe-Lévis. That, apart from a couple of modern wooden buildings tucked away inauspiciously in corners to house equipment and toilets, was all.

They checked the hall last, skimming through bilingual explanatory signs and plaques in case someone had been leaving messages through them, checking the displays themselves for clues. Looked for any potential drop-boxes, for notes scrawled under tables or on the backs of posts. And found nothing, just dust and graffiti and woodworm.

At the exit was a message book on a thick wooden lectern. Snake leafed through the pages, scanning the entries and messages.

"What are you looking for?"

"Your friend," answered the soldier, without looking up.

"Oh."

Pages rustled in the cool quiet of the hall. Apart from them the only other people were a young backpacking couple up near the entrance, examining the scale model of the area.

"Don't see anything."

"Do you smell that?"

Snake looked up at the other man's tone, set low and uncertain. "Smells like a cellar; cold, dust. Varnish."

"Huh. Thought I smelled… I don't know." Otacon shrugged, then pulled his coat tight. "Time to go?"

"Yeah. Where's next?"

Behind them, the thin pages rustled in the wind of the door's closing, flipping back to the ribbon marking the newest page. And the latest entry, 17 avril, Marie-Josephte.

Next turned out to be one of the town's industrial districts, blocks of factories and warehouses, all steam and smoke and smog. The alleyways between them were narrow and dark, the cement underfoot cracked and stained. The Philanthropists made a quiet reconnaissance through the backstreets, Otacon pointing out possible targets, Snake taking mental notes. At the sound of voices, the soldier would fade into the shadows, while the engineer simply disappeared.

They spent all morning marking sites requiring investigation, stopping only after noon had passed and Otacon's list had been taken care of. By which point they had ended up significantly downriver.

They stopped for lunch in a little café, Snake ordering, Otacon paying from the battered wallet. Coffee and ham-and-cheese rolls, freshly baked. They ate at a small table in the back of the empty café, Snake sitting with his back to the corner and watching the door over his partner's shoulder.

"Assuming we find what we're looking for, do we have anyone to link to it? Preferably someone not fingered by a fringe website run by a lunatic?" Snake finished his first roll all at once before speaking, coffee sitting untouched near the edge of the table.

"Well, the name on the deed to the factory will be a pretty big hint. But apart from that, there are some ties suggesting the mayor, who also happens to be a bigshot in the refinery industry." Otacon tore the ham out and ate it separately, before beginning to dip the pastry of his roll in his coffee.

"On his own?"

"Not necessarily, but it's possible. Remember, it's not like these people are actually building anything, they're just exporting one particular set of parts. We're looking at a financial motive, not a taking-over-the-world motive. Of course, he's probably got a couple of managers under him as well."

Snake nodded, and took up his second roll. "This afternoon?"

"I'd like to check out the local archives and see if there's anything in the papers. But, uh, they'll all be in French…"

Snake gave him a flat look.

"Well, it's not like sitting down and reading for a while'll do you any harm," pointed out the engineer. "Besides, just think of all the exercise you'll be getting tonight."

The soldier grunted ominously, and tore his roll in half. "What about the other end of the money flow? Someone's gotta be buying these things."

Otacon set down his role, face darkening. "That's harder. For one thing, it's not just a straight stream; they're not all going to the same company. Different revenue flows, different names, different addresses. And, like you'd expect, all of them are fronts. Someone's taking a lot of care with this, running everything through several proxies. I'm still unravelling it all. I figured, until I do, it would be easiest to take care of the supply end of things."

"Fair enough. What kind of numbers are we looking at here? I mean, enough to make a dozen? Or just one?"

"Depends on what the need the parts for; whether they're experimenting or whether they've already got all their prints worked out. If they're using them for experimentation – and most of the situations we've come up against have had people making substantial revisions to the original plans – they might not have been able to make anything. If they know what they're doing, though… we could be looking at an army. Assuming they're going to the same place in the end."

Snake drained his coffee. "Guess I'd better get reading, then."

They spent a long afternoon at the archives. It became apparent early on that there was no point in Otacon being involved in the search at all, Snake being perfectly capable of coming up with search terms on his own. So while the soldier looked through the local and regional newspapers, Otacon read up on what local history was available in English.

They called it quits at five, stumbling out into the cool air to find it was already nearly twilight. A moist wind was slipping in from the river, soft mist curling over the cobblestones and around their shoes.

"Well, that was a waste of time." Snake pulled the collar of his turtleneck up higher, hunched his shoulders against the cold and began walking.

"I don't know." At the soldier's glance, Otacon continued, "well, yes, okay, in terms of related information gained, it was probably a waste of time. But I read up on the local history and some of it was pretty interesting. And … kind of grim. Lots of French-British conflicts, ugly takeovers and shifting loyalties and bad blood and that sort of thing."

"Sounds like the history of most places more than a couple of centuries old. Nothing lasts, empires most of all."

"I guess. It's still grim, though."

They caught a cab back to the hotel in silence, mist beading on the windows.

Snake?

Reading you. Just coming up on target 1. Looks closed for the night, all right. No lights, no steam, no cars.

Roger that. Let me know if you need anything.

The soldier gave no answer, at that moment standing in a pool of shadows picking the lock of one of the side entrances. It swung open with a click like a pistol being cocked but raised no reaction from the soldier, who pulled it off, slipped it into a pouch at his side, and stepped forward into the factory.

The factory which was both empty, and very clearly making bagged chips.

Snake didn't sigh, but his shoulders did slump slightly. He slunk out, replaced the lock, and slipped across the empty road to the next building.

Otacon was stretched out on the bed with his arms folded over his eyes, glasses on the bed next to him when Snake got back a little after one a.m.

"Why didn't you have the door locked?" questioned the soldier sharply as he stepped in, closing and locking it behind him and then running a hand through his hair to shake out the moisture beaded in it. It had been a long walk back from the industrial quarter, and the damp fog hadn't improved his temper.

"I knew you were coming."

"I might not have been the only person coming!"

Otacon sighed. "I was tired," he said, completely failing to argue. The soldier paused, slightly nonplussed. And then,

"That's got to be the worst excuse I've ever heard for not protecting yourself." He strode into the room fiercely, stripping off his long trench coat and then beginning on the harnesses under it, tossing them on the bed with more force than necessary. "You know you need to look after yourself – I can't do it for you. Not all the time. Not when I'm on missions. We've talked about it," he growled, with the air of someone laying a signed contract on the table.

"I know. I just… sorry." The engineer didn't shift, continued lying as he was. After a minute, he whispered, "I was tired."

"Otacon?" Snake stopped, snaps to loosen the suit halfway undone. The engineer sighed, but didn't answer. "Hal? Are you alright?"

There was no answer; the engineer was sound asleep. Snake snarled, and finished stripping out of the suit in a filthy temper not unaffected by concern.