MGS: untitled (2/?)
Aug. 4th, 2010 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
what_we_dreamTitle: Untitled (2/?)
Series: MGS/Sherlock Holmes
Pairing: None
Rating: PG
Notes: This is UNFINISHED and will remain so.
Summary: Apart from being a MGS/Sherlock Holmes crossover, I'm not sure this has any outstanding features.
Otacon was sitting cross-legged on their room’s tiny wooden bed tinkering with the inside of a wind-up watch when Snake came home. The bed didn’t make a comfortable workspace, but since the entirety of the floor space was taken up with the rickety cot they were paying half a shilling extra for, it was the only place for him. Although there was an oil lamp mounted on the wall by his head it wasn’t lit due to his mistrust of it, and as such the only light in the room was streaming in through the window set into the wall above the side of the bed. With the sun already disappeared behind the rows of brick houses, that light was pale, and he was having to squint hard to make out the tiny cogwheels, screwdriver acting as a make-shift probe, sounding against them gently. To his right on the plain bedcovering, faded to gray from whatever colour it had originally been, if any, sat six closed watches ticking quietly. To his left sat a smaller pile of watches, some ticking erratically, some not at all, and a deep cardboard box.
He startled at Snake’s sudden arrival, the soldier throwing the door open and stepping immediately inside, shoulders hunched slightly. He stopped just short of running into the cot.
“What the hell are you sitting in the dark for?” Snake glanced out the window and then at the dark lamp on the wall. He took a further step in and closed the door behind him, forcing him to lean in over the cot, pulled a match out of the pocket of his dark dirty trousers. “Fuck it’s cold out there,” he continued, striking the match on the tarnished brass mounting of the lamp and carefully manoeuvring it inside the clear glass shell. The wick lit with a flicker, yellow glow growing to light the small wooden room. Snake licked his fingers and crushed the head of the spent match, then threw it to land at the foot of the cot where there was a space of nearly a foot between the bed and the wall, the only space in the room where the two men could stand without having to twist awkwardly to fit and maintain balance. They used it for changing.
“How was work?” asked Otacon, ignoring the soldier’s previous two statements and focusing his attention again on the innards of the watch in his left palm. The lamp provided enough light for him to now see what he was doing properly, and he began to fiddle industriously with the screwdriver.
Snake shrugged. “No worse than carrying around the RPG for a few hours. I’ve got the job for as long as I want it.” He crossed his arms over his thick woollen sweater, another back-alley find. The greasy sheep’s wool had been knitted so tightly as to render it nearly completely waterproof, although it was nearly as heavy as a leather jacket would have been. “Have you eaten?”
Otacon had pulled on his partner’s abandoned 21st century sweater, sleeves bunched up at his wrists. The house had no internal heating, just the heat provided by fires lit in other rooms, and while they were on the top floor he suspected most of the heat was rising through the chimneys, rather than the floorboards. It was nearly as cold as outside.
“No. But I’m almost done.”
“What about those ones?” Snake indicated the pile to his partner’s left.
“They need new parts.” Otacon tightened one last screw, shut the back of the watch and turned it over. The second hand was now ticking evenly. He quickly set the time off his own watch, uncovered from the deep folds of Snake’s sweater, and then placed it in the cardboard box. He moved the rest of the repaired timepieces into the box and scooped the broken ones into his hands, holding them like he would a handful of water. These he handed awkwardly across to Snake, unfolding his legs for better reach.
Between the bed and the cot there was a thin strip of empty floor, equal in size to the small island of space currently occupied by Snake, left clear to allow whoever was in bed to step over the cot without having to jump. Otacon slipped a foot into this space, grabbing the box, and bridged the cot in an awkward jump-step, coming to stand precariously close to Snake, box under his arm. He reached down and grabbed the seedy frockcoat from the foot of the cot where it had been lying in a pile, and turned to the soldier. Snake nodded, threw the door open, and stepped out into the dimly lit corridor beyond. Otacon extinguished the lamp and followed him.
In three days, they had come to accept in varying degrees the idea that they had been pitched backwards in time. Otacon for his part had been perfectly willing to believe it from the beginning. Time travel had never been much of an interest as his, but he was completely able to consider that somewhere someone had made it his life’s project, just as he had made mecha his, and had finally succeeded in doing what humans had been considering for centuries. He only wished he had more of his memories, that he could remember whatever had happened, what the machine had looked like, or something of its creator. He knew it couldn’t have been the woman, whatever her name was. She had projected a sense of extreme competence, but he hadn’t seen the dedication, the devotion there which he felt was necessary to an endeavour like this. She had reminded him of one of his robotic aids- cold, calculating, and completely without inspiration. An excellent technician, but not a creator.
Snake, he had been surprised to find out, while perfectly able to act as though they were in the past, didn’t actually believe it. Only a trip to the Parliament buildings, newer and slightly dirtier than they were used to seeing, had convinced him that, whatever was going on, everything was acting as if they were living in 1889. He had adapted quickly, though, and it was owing to his practicality that they had found a place to sleep and the means to support themselves, if at an extremely low level. Otacon wasn’t sure what Snake actually believed, but until they either remembered more or discovered more, Snake had put the engineer in charge of finding a way home and had distanced himself from any conversations about the nature of time, space, or their interactions.
They walked down all three flights of stairs, pausing at the bottom door while Otacon pulled his coat on, struggling to force it to fit over the sweater. Neither of them had managed to find much in the way of suitable outdoors clothing, Otacon making due with ill-fitting layers, Snake with his sweater.
The soldier watched the engineer struggle into his coat, holding both box and armful of watches momentarily. Finally Otacon finished tugging at his sleeves and lapels, and reached out to take the box back.
“Glasses,” said Snake automatically. Otacon sighed and pulled them off, tucked them away in a pocket. They had quickly discovered that, apart from their clothing, Otacon’s glasses stood out as odd. Without them, he could see people clearly up to five feet away, after which the world changed from unfocused to one large blur with very few in between stages. Snake, satisfied, opened the door, and they stepped out into the cold street.
The watch repair shop, above which they were living, was located in a neighbourhood not far to the west of where they had found themselves originally, and was only of a slightly better class. Whitechapel had meant little to Otacon, but he had gathered at least something of its reputation from Snake’s complete unwillingness to look for lodging there. With only the money gained from pawning a money clip, though, there had not been many options. He had lucked out with his third try for a job in finding one able to provide them with a room and a small sum on top of that, even if it was next to one of London’s more dangerous slums.
The building itself, like most of its neighbours, was built of old brick, chipping slightly at the corners, dark and stained with smoke, soot, and the general grime of city life. The door into the house itself was directly next to that letting into the repair shop. Both doors had once been painted a clean white, but since had only been whitewashed irregularly, and had built up a coating of grey grime at the tops, and darker muck at the bottom. The window display, though, was neat and tidy, and the only reason they had bothered trying for employment there.
Otacon pushed the door open, Snake stepping aside to let him in first, watchful eyes on the street. A small bell tingled above the lintel as the door knocked against it, and the man at the counter looked up.
Jeremiah Parker was a kindly old man with a sickly wife and a deceased son, as Otacon had discovered in three days of living in his house. The man himself had aged well, and stood straight with only a slight stoop. He wore several layers of rumpled clothing, none of which matched nor fit under the other, and had failed to tame the thick grey hair which was woven erratically about his skull like an ill-kept bird’s nest. He suited his shop very well, which was small, crowded, and filled with carpets, furniture and display cases which did not match or fit well in the space they occupied.
“I’ve finished this bunch, Mr. Parker,” said Otacon, putting the cardboard box down on the largest surface in the stop, a varnished oak counter behind which Parker stood, a remnant of the shop’s better days, when it had had a caretaker and a young apprentice and had done well for itself. Now, with only an old man whose hands were beginning to shake and whose sight wasn’t what it had been, it was surviving only on its reputation and the still skilful, if slower, work of its owner.
Snake came around behind him and deposited the watches in his care on the counter beside this box. “This bunch need new parts, mostly springs. One broke a cogwheel- that’ll be tougher to fix.” He tapped his finger on the most tarnished of the watches.
Parker looked down at the counter in clear surprise, shallow wrinkles around his eyes smoothing while those on his forehead deepened. “Remarkably fast, my boy.” The old watch-repairer took out an eyepiece of the type used by jewellers, screwed it up against his right eye, and dug a watch out of the pile, clicking its back open to examine the mechanism. He checked the front, back, and listened for several seconds to the tick before nodding and setting it down on the desk and taking up another one. He repeated this for all seven watches before taking the eyepiece out and looking up, now with more respect that astonishment. “I confess myself amazed, Mr. Hill. This is fine work. With such skills, you could easily find yourself a more profitable employment.”
Otacon smiled awkwardly. “Thanks, but I’m happy here for a while. Besides, with no papers, it’s not easy getting anything more formal.”
The old man nodded with a slight scowl. “Aye, all that matters these days is where you were schooled. Skills mean nothing anymore, just bits of paper. In my day, a man recognized good work when he saw it. That’s good work, sir, and when your papers turn up I’m sure you’ll find yourself some a fine position. I’ll keep my ears open, though there’s not many who keep up with old Parker no more.”
Otacon nodded. “I appreciate it, sir. We’re going out for dinner- supper, I mean,” he corrected himself seeing the confusion on the man’s face, “but we won’t be back too late.”
“Right you are. I’ll leave the latch off. You can lock up when you come back.” Parker began carefully placing the watches back in the box.
“We’ll be sure to do that.”
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Outside, the streets were covered in a fresh sheet of snow, soft flakes now beginning to drift down from the dark clouds. Windows were already shining with yellow candlelight, boys running about to light the street lamps. Every building had several chimneys letting out a constant thick stream of smoke. Men and women were bustling over the cobblestones hurrying home from work or from shopping, carrying paper parcels and packages and leather cases, the occasional cab clattering along, horse shaking its head in the snow. It was a twilight world, similar to their own and yet completely different. And, although they were no longer attracting the looks they had originally, Otacon still felt that they stood out like sore thumbs. He sighed, breath forming a soft white cloud in the cold evening air.
“How much do you have on you?” asked Snake, glancing over at him while skirting a boy running from one side of the street to the other, dressed in indoor clothing, who hurried into an open doorway and closed it behind him.
Otacon felt through his pants pockets, fingers closing on some coins. He pulled them out and examined them in the poor street light. “Uh, that’s a pence, and that, and… five pence and a shilling?” He poked at one of the coins, flipping it over to read it. “How many shillings in a pound?”
“Twenty,” answered Snake, digging a few coins out of his own pocket. “Weren’t you paid today?”
“No, not until the end of the week. I don’t think Mr. Parker’s got a lot of cash on him. It’s sad, really, his son was going to inherit the store, and then he was killed in the Boar War – was there an overpopulation of them, or what? – anyway, now he’s got no one to help him and business has been dropping, so-”
“I get the picture,” cut in Snake dryly. “And you mean Boer the Dutch farmers, not boar the animal. Anyway, I did get paid today,” he ignored the engineer’s indignant “hey!” and continued, “which brings our total up to two shillings and eleven pence.”
“And… how many pence in a shilling, again?”
Snake rolled his eyes. “Twelve.”
“Right.” Otacon dropped his change back into his pocket. They had been eating at the same restaurant for the past two nights. Calling it a restaurant was politeness. It was really just a hole in the wall which could possibly be referred to in truth as a booth, serving the kinds of stews that took all afternoon to cook and turned out to be 80 percent potato, ten percent mystery meat, and ten percent mystery in general. The booth, which Snake referred to as the Hole, charged them six pence for dinner, meaning that when Snake’s lunch was factored in they weren’t saving much. Mrs. Parker had been making them breakfast- wheat gruel- and Otacon had been skipping lunch without Snake’s knowledge. He figured he could manage that for another two days before it really caught up with him.
“We’re not making a great living here,” he said.
“If you ever get paid, we’ll manage.”
“Laying aside the fact that we’re living on wheat gruel, suspicious lunches and extremely suspicious dinners and hardly breaking even, we need to figure out how to get home. That costs money.” He had been working out a plan while sitting in their tiny room fiddling with ancient watches.
“What for?” Snake turned the corner, and waited for Otacon to realise and follow. He did a minute later when he noticed the absence of his partner at his side.
“A microscope. Whatever happened, we both remember your blood being involved. I’d like to take a look at it.”
“You want to buy a microscope,” said Snake in the toneless voice that was for him the height of scepticism.
“Don’t be ridiculous. That would cost a fortune, and would still be useless. I need to build one.”
“Even better,” said Snake in the same tone.
“Oh, don’t be so sceptical. I can do it. But I’ll need parts, and that costs money.”
“If you need more money, you’re going to have to figure out a way to get it. We’ve hit a plateau in employment. Nothing better’s going to come up without some kind of papers, or references.” Snake glanced around once more before turning the final corner and coming to the Hole.
It was crowded, as always, by bulky working-class men shoving up to get their dinners. Some stood, some sat on stools, some leaned on the counter or any other available surface. Snake fought his way in past the crowd, caught the cook’s attention, and ordered. A minute later money changed hands, and Snake returned holding two steaming ceramic bowls. He handed one to Otacon and immediately began to eat with what looked very much to the engineer like the barely controlled hunger of an animal. He ate his own mush more slowly, letting spoonfuls cool in the air before swallowing them, not bothering to let them sit in his mouth. There was little taste, and little that required chewing.
It had been a shock to Otacon, who lived mainly on pre-packaged food, to discover there was no such thing here. He could stop into a café and get a cup of tea or a biscuit, or a bakery and buy a bun or scone, or the butchers and order a slice of meat, but there was no way to get something as simple as a sandwich and bottled drink. He had to rely on others for his meals, because there was no way he could have prepared them himself. Apart from fruit and baked goods, nothing purchased from the grocer came ready to eat. It was a completely different culture, and Otacon began to understand why women had had such an important place in the house. Without them, no one would ever have eaten. Men working all day had no time to prepare food themselves, or space to do it in. They relied on their mothers or wives or daughters or servants to make their meals, or they ate out. There was no other way. Of all the differences, only the indoor plumbing situation was more acute.
He had also found that drinking was a problem. Snake had warned him against drinking the tap water, and as such the only time he drank at all was in the morning when Mrs. Parker made them tea with their gruel. For a nearly life-long caffeine addict, the lack of coffee was both shocking and, when the headaches and the twitchiness set in, extremely uncomfortable. But he didn’t have the money to spend in cafés where coffee might be procured, and he couldn’t bear to ask Mrs. Parker to break her routine. He was vaguely worried about dehydration, though.
One thing which could be procured anywhere they frequented, and the Hole in particular, was gossip. Otacon was familiar with the expression “gossip like washerwomen,” and while he didn’t know any personally, he suspected they had nothing on the men who frequented the Hole. Although professional conversations sometimes took place, the majority of the dialogue was a recitation of the day’s events, with emphasis on the violent and gruesome. The Hole was basically a specialised news system for the illiterate, focusing on that news which they found most interesting. Otacon, having enough on his mind without listening to the latest accident on the river or bank robbery, generally paid the conversation little attention, mind working out the parts required to make a telescope powerful enough to distinguish cells, and the equivalents which might be found in this time. He glanced up from his greyish stew, though, when a word caught his attention. The men directly in front of him were talking about an engineer.
“-down by the docks, wif ‘is throat cut, and all ‘is suit done over wif blood. They ain’t found the knife, neither.”
“Sure as anything it was the Dagos. A boat of them just came in, little bastards pouring off it like rats. Country’s not safe no more. A man can hardly find hisself a job.”
“Aye, Bill Jackson down Squires way said…”
Otacon tuned the conversation out as the topic shifted and glanced up to look at Snake, whose sharp eyes were scanning the area now that he was reaching the bottom of the bowl. He met Otacon’s gaze and finished off his bowl. “Stay here,” he said, and pushed back into the crowd to return his bowl. A few seconds later, he had disappeared, one large poorly dressed man among many. Otacon finished his bowl slowly, warm stew lining the sides of his stomach and heating him from the inside even as the cold air was numbing his fingers. He shifted about slightly, scanning other conversations, but apparently the initial interest in the murder on the docks had passed on to more local matters.
Snake reappeared just as he was scraping the bottom of his bowl, an eyebrow raised. Otacon nodded and ventured over to the counter, returning his own bowl. Snake was already walking towards their room when he freed himself from the crowd, and he jogged to keep up, slipping slightly on the mush underfoot, snow melted by heavy traffic.
Neither man said anything for a minute, walking slowly through the emptying streets. Already there were fewer pedestrians than there had been when they set out, locals eager to be out of the cold, or perhaps off the streets before dark.
“I didn’t find out much else,” said Snake out of the blue, breath misting. “An engineer who worked for a big firm was murdered on the docks last night. We could get a paper, but-”
“We need the money,” finished Otacon glumly. “How common are murders here?”
“Probably not much less than at home. They’re just less desensitized.”
“Huh. So, we don’t need to be worrying about Jack the Ripper, or anything?”
Snake glanced at him, amusement showing in his face even in the dim light as they turned a corner. “Well, you certainly don’t, since he only killed women. Besides, I can’t remember when he was active, but the probability of it being now is extremely low.” He looked away to scan the street, then back again, expression serious again. “You should be careful – at least as careful as you would be back home. Don’t go out alone at night.”
“Right,” said Otacon quietly. Home, something neither of them had, had come to refer to their time, a useful code which would be interpreted by listeners simply as America. Any of the many houses and apartments Otacon had ever lived in had seemed more like home than this place, though. Every time he looked out the window, or stepped out the door, he was immediately hit by the foreignness, the sense of displacement. He pushed his cold hands further down into his pockets and shivered. At his side, Snake glanced back over his shoulder for the third time. “What is it?” asked Otacon, tilting his head to look back. A few people, blurs in motion, were walking in opposite directions. Something small, probably a cat, ran across the road, leaving dark marks in the white snow.
“Nothing,” said Snake, turning back, eyes slightly narrowed. “Hurry up. It’s cold.”
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The next I heard of the case came not from Holmes, but again that from source of literary gossip around which society hovers like a moth to a candle, the newspaper. It was the title of the lead article which caught my eye, the bold text reading “Second Engineer Murdered” in the evening edition of the Times. I immediately began skimming the article below, which explained that a second engineer had been found murdered, a Mr. Lewis Hardgrave, on the docks, and that the police were as yet uncertain whether this murder was connected to the one of two days ago. I had just finished it when Holmes walked in, face gaunter than usual, pulling off his scarf.
“Holmes,” I greeted him, and received a nod in return. His eyes fell upon the paper on my lap, and a thin smile came to his lips.
“I see you are up to date on the latest events of the case,” he said.
“They are related, then?”
“It is uncertain. Lestrade believes so, finding it impossible to conceive of the notion that two men of the same profession might be murdered within days of each other without there being some tie in between.”
“Surely it would be unusual?” I suggested.
“Unusual, but not impossible. When one considers the different locations, and the different causes of death, apart from profession the two deaths have no common features.”
“So you do not believe them to be related, then?”
Holmes threw down his scarf in a rare fit of ire. “I do not know what I believe, Watson! I have spent the past two days scouring this city for these two supposed recently arrived Americans, with the help of the Baker Street Irregulars, as you call them. Together we have uncovered no fewer than five pairs of these men living in reduced circumstances, each matching some but not all of the criteria set out. And now a new crime has come along to hurry the pace of the investigation without providing any further clues. It really is maddening.” He threw himself down in his favourite chair, staring darkly into the fire.
“No further clues?” I asked after a moment’s pause.
“None,” replied Holmes, “and you may believe that Lestrade had me out to view the body before it was disturbed this time. The man had his throat cut with a sharp knife, not so sharp as to suggest a surgeon’s tools, not so dull as to suggest a sword, but exactly the right sort of cut as to leave the options open to any ordinary kitchen, butcher, leatherworker, soldier or sailor’s knife as long as they were reasonably cared for. None of the victim’s effects had been taken, and no other items were found at the scene. It is impossible to tell even if the murderer was right or left handed, although I suspect from a slight elevation the cut was given by a right-handed man of at least 5 foot 9 or 10 inches tall. The snow had not yet begun to fall when the murder was committed, and as such there were no footprints.”
“And no witnesses?”
“You may take that for granted. None have come forward.”
“What do you intend to do now, then?”
“The police are interviewing the associates of both men looking for ties, as well as possible motives for murder. So far, none have turned up. Both men appear to have been respectable engineers working for well-known firms with good reputations. The first man, Archer, was a mechanical engineer working with Feyton and Trine, a company which manufactures parts for steam engines. The second, Hardgrove, was also a mechanical engineer, working in a larger firm which designs presses, like those used for coining money. Neither was in financial difficulty, but neither had accumulated any great wealth either.”
“Surely the second man, at least, may have been murdered for information about the presses he was developing, possibly even their plans?”
“That is certainly a possibility, and in fact the most likely one if these deaths are not related. But it is facts which are important, not theories, and we have none of the former.”
“What will you do, then?”
“I am continuing to follow the only avenue left to me.” Holmes turned, grey eyes shining dimly. He had less of his energy than was usual when he was on the hunt. But he had not yet given up.
“The Americans?”
“Yes. If they have not already left the city, we will find them.” Holmes stood and then stooped to recover his scarf, smiling ruefully.
“Let me know if I can be of any aid to you,” said I, in awe of his persistence.
“I will not hesitate to do so.”
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Snake woke early on Saturday morning, as he did every morning, and lay still in the old bed, staring up at the dark ceiling. In the darkness he could hear Otacon breathing, the slow deep rhythm suggesting his partner was sleeping, lying in the smaller, rickety cot. The sun hadn’t yet risen outside, sky the deep blue of the bottom of the ocean, world outside the small thick-paned window silent. The silence was making him restless. No, it wasn’t the silence, although that wasn’t a help. Ever since they had arrived here, wherever the hell “here” was, he’d had the feeling someone was watching him. It had been growing the past few days, strong enough to cause him to be constantly looking over his shoulder even when he knew no one was there. The fact that it was too dangerous for him to carry his M9 around was making him twitchy. The fact that Otacon was treating this like one big… field trip was beginning to grate on his nerves as well. Oh, yes, he complained about it, but Snake could see the excitement in his eyes when they walked around the city. He was enjoying it.
That was the problem with his partner. He was just so goddamn naïve. Tell him he had been sucked back in time, and he’d believe it. Never mind that right now they were probably in some mind-scrambling machine, or pumped full of toxic chemicals in some lab, or who knew what, he was perfectly happy as long as he had screws and bolts to tinker with, and was already concocting far-fetched theories on the space-time continuum and quantum and principles named after dead scientists. And sooner or later, whoever was mind-fucking them would get tired of it and pull the trigger, and Otacon wouldn’t even have time to wonder what had happened. That was the problem with believing everything you were shown and told.
Snake sat up scowling and pulled his sweater off the end of the bed. In a quick move he threw the light covers off, stood, and hopped over the cot in the dark effortlessly. The room was even colder at night than in the day, and with the blankets they had been provided not being much thicker than sheets, they had taken to sleeping in their clothes. It was uncomfortable, but Snake had known worse. Otacon had stopped grumbling after the first day or two.
He picked his shoes up from next to the door, turned the handle quietly and walked out into the hall without looking back at his partner. Otacon could make excuses to the landlady. He needed to cool his head.
Loafers slipped on- there was not a day that went by in which he didn’t regret not wearing boots, and when he got back he would be damned if he ever wore shoes again- Snake stepped out into the cold early morning air. The street was already beginning to bustle, shopkeepers hurrying to their stores, delivery boys pulling up outside doorways, men hurrying to catch the train to work. He checked his watch in the shadow of a doorway not far from a lamppost, read 7:32. The sun would be up in half an hour. Aware that jogging was an affectation of his century, he instead took up a brisk walking pace, and headed west, towards the main commercial centre of town. He had an hour and a half before he needed to be at the docks to carry boxes for a shilling six pence a day; plenty of time for some exercise.
It hadn’t snowed in the night, and the early morning activities had brushed most of the previous day’s layer from the streets, although the cobblestones were slick with frost and ice. The morning before on the way to work he had seen a horse slip on a downhill slope and fall to be crushed by its heavy load, screaming as the cart wheels ran into it. Some kind soul had found a service revolver and blown its brains out after an agonizing five minutes, which Snake would have approved of, if the sudden reminder of the presence of firearms hadn’t shocked him out of it. He knew, of course, that they existed in this time. He just hadn’t taken it on board until that moment. Whatever Otacon thought, this place was no amusement park. Only the engineer would be able to wake up on a corpse and still not realise that.
He passed through their low-class section and into a more prosperous part of town, designated by grander buildings with proper coats of paint, well kept stores with full displays, and a general better standard of dress. His appearance was beginning to garner stares, abruptly raising his awareness that he hadn’t shaved or washed his hair in nearly a week, and he was just deciding to turn back to less critical neighbourhoods when the cries of a newsboy caught his attention. A few men and women were stopping by to purchase papers from the kid, at a pence each. He rifled through his pocket and turned up a coin. Glancing at it to ensure he wasn’t overpaying, he gave the kid the coin and took a paper in return, already taking up his quick stride in the direction he had come.
Newspapers hadn’t changed much. More writing, fewer photos, but the same ghoulish interest in the pain and suffering of others.
He began his quick walk back, stopping only once along the way at a small bank to borrow a pen.
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Otacon woke later that morning, sunlight streaming in through the dirty window above the bed. He sat up, wincing at the deep creak emitted by the cot, and glanced at the bed. It was, as expected, empty. Except for what looked like a newspaper sitting on the disarrayed sheets. Reaching under the bed for his glasses with one hand, he grabbed the paper with the other and pulled it into his lap, eyes widening as he read the bold font of the title.
Police Still Baffled by Ripper! read the headline, going on to explain that the ongoing police investigation into the several Whitechapel murders attributed to the so-called “Jack the Ripper” had stalled. In the blank space at the top of the paper above the title, was a short message in Snake’s curt writing. It read: Don’t go outside.
Series: MGS/Sherlock Holmes
Pairing: None
Rating: PG
Notes: This is UNFINISHED and will remain so.
Summary: Apart from being a MGS/Sherlock Holmes crossover, I'm not sure this has any outstanding features.
Otacon was sitting cross-legged on their room’s tiny wooden bed tinkering with the inside of a wind-up watch when Snake came home. The bed didn’t make a comfortable workspace, but since the entirety of the floor space was taken up with the rickety cot they were paying half a shilling extra for, it was the only place for him. Although there was an oil lamp mounted on the wall by his head it wasn’t lit due to his mistrust of it, and as such the only light in the room was streaming in through the window set into the wall above the side of the bed. With the sun already disappeared behind the rows of brick houses, that light was pale, and he was having to squint hard to make out the tiny cogwheels, screwdriver acting as a make-shift probe, sounding against them gently. To his right on the plain bedcovering, faded to gray from whatever colour it had originally been, if any, sat six closed watches ticking quietly. To his left sat a smaller pile of watches, some ticking erratically, some not at all, and a deep cardboard box.
He startled at Snake’s sudden arrival, the soldier throwing the door open and stepping immediately inside, shoulders hunched slightly. He stopped just short of running into the cot.
“What the hell are you sitting in the dark for?” Snake glanced out the window and then at the dark lamp on the wall. He took a further step in and closed the door behind him, forcing him to lean in over the cot, pulled a match out of the pocket of his dark dirty trousers. “Fuck it’s cold out there,” he continued, striking the match on the tarnished brass mounting of the lamp and carefully manoeuvring it inside the clear glass shell. The wick lit with a flicker, yellow glow growing to light the small wooden room. Snake licked his fingers and crushed the head of the spent match, then threw it to land at the foot of the cot where there was a space of nearly a foot between the bed and the wall, the only space in the room where the two men could stand without having to twist awkwardly to fit and maintain balance. They used it for changing.
“How was work?” asked Otacon, ignoring the soldier’s previous two statements and focusing his attention again on the innards of the watch in his left palm. The lamp provided enough light for him to now see what he was doing properly, and he began to fiddle industriously with the screwdriver.
Snake shrugged. “No worse than carrying around the RPG for a few hours. I’ve got the job for as long as I want it.” He crossed his arms over his thick woollen sweater, another back-alley find. The greasy sheep’s wool had been knitted so tightly as to render it nearly completely waterproof, although it was nearly as heavy as a leather jacket would have been. “Have you eaten?”
Otacon had pulled on his partner’s abandoned 21st century sweater, sleeves bunched up at his wrists. The house had no internal heating, just the heat provided by fires lit in other rooms, and while they were on the top floor he suspected most of the heat was rising through the chimneys, rather than the floorboards. It was nearly as cold as outside.
“No. But I’m almost done.”
“What about those ones?” Snake indicated the pile to his partner’s left.
“They need new parts.” Otacon tightened one last screw, shut the back of the watch and turned it over. The second hand was now ticking evenly. He quickly set the time off his own watch, uncovered from the deep folds of Snake’s sweater, and then placed it in the cardboard box. He moved the rest of the repaired timepieces into the box and scooped the broken ones into his hands, holding them like he would a handful of water. These he handed awkwardly across to Snake, unfolding his legs for better reach.
Between the bed and the cot there was a thin strip of empty floor, equal in size to the small island of space currently occupied by Snake, left clear to allow whoever was in bed to step over the cot without having to jump. Otacon slipped a foot into this space, grabbing the box, and bridged the cot in an awkward jump-step, coming to stand precariously close to Snake, box under his arm. He reached down and grabbed the seedy frockcoat from the foot of the cot where it had been lying in a pile, and turned to the soldier. Snake nodded, threw the door open, and stepped out into the dimly lit corridor beyond. Otacon extinguished the lamp and followed him.
In three days, they had come to accept in varying degrees the idea that they had been pitched backwards in time. Otacon for his part had been perfectly willing to believe it from the beginning. Time travel had never been much of an interest as his, but he was completely able to consider that somewhere someone had made it his life’s project, just as he had made mecha his, and had finally succeeded in doing what humans had been considering for centuries. He only wished he had more of his memories, that he could remember whatever had happened, what the machine had looked like, or something of its creator. He knew it couldn’t have been the woman, whatever her name was. She had projected a sense of extreme competence, but he hadn’t seen the dedication, the devotion there which he felt was necessary to an endeavour like this. She had reminded him of one of his robotic aids- cold, calculating, and completely without inspiration. An excellent technician, but not a creator.
Snake, he had been surprised to find out, while perfectly able to act as though they were in the past, didn’t actually believe it. Only a trip to the Parliament buildings, newer and slightly dirtier than they were used to seeing, had convinced him that, whatever was going on, everything was acting as if they were living in 1889. He had adapted quickly, though, and it was owing to his practicality that they had found a place to sleep and the means to support themselves, if at an extremely low level. Otacon wasn’t sure what Snake actually believed, but until they either remembered more or discovered more, Snake had put the engineer in charge of finding a way home and had distanced himself from any conversations about the nature of time, space, or their interactions.
They walked down all three flights of stairs, pausing at the bottom door while Otacon pulled his coat on, struggling to force it to fit over the sweater. Neither of them had managed to find much in the way of suitable outdoors clothing, Otacon making due with ill-fitting layers, Snake with his sweater.
The soldier watched the engineer struggle into his coat, holding both box and armful of watches momentarily. Finally Otacon finished tugging at his sleeves and lapels, and reached out to take the box back.
“Glasses,” said Snake automatically. Otacon sighed and pulled them off, tucked them away in a pocket. They had quickly discovered that, apart from their clothing, Otacon’s glasses stood out as odd. Without them, he could see people clearly up to five feet away, after which the world changed from unfocused to one large blur with very few in between stages. Snake, satisfied, opened the door, and they stepped out into the cold street.
The watch repair shop, above which they were living, was located in a neighbourhood not far to the west of where they had found themselves originally, and was only of a slightly better class. Whitechapel had meant little to Otacon, but he had gathered at least something of its reputation from Snake’s complete unwillingness to look for lodging there. With only the money gained from pawning a money clip, though, there had not been many options. He had lucked out with his third try for a job in finding one able to provide them with a room and a small sum on top of that, even if it was next to one of London’s more dangerous slums.
The building itself, like most of its neighbours, was built of old brick, chipping slightly at the corners, dark and stained with smoke, soot, and the general grime of city life. The door into the house itself was directly next to that letting into the repair shop. Both doors had once been painted a clean white, but since had only been whitewashed irregularly, and had built up a coating of grey grime at the tops, and darker muck at the bottom. The window display, though, was neat and tidy, and the only reason they had bothered trying for employment there.
Otacon pushed the door open, Snake stepping aside to let him in first, watchful eyes on the street. A small bell tingled above the lintel as the door knocked against it, and the man at the counter looked up.
Jeremiah Parker was a kindly old man with a sickly wife and a deceased son, as Otacon had discovered in three days of living in his house. The man himself had aged well, and stood straight with only a slight stoop. He wore several layers of rumpled clothing, none of which matched nor fit under the other, and had failed to tame the thick grey hair which was woven erratically about his skull like an ill-kept bird’s nest. He suited his shop very well, which was small, crowded, and filled with carpets, furniture and display cases which did not match or fit well in the space they occupied.
“I’ve finished this bunch, Mr. Parker,” said Otacon, putting the cardboard box down on the largest surface in the stop, a varnished oak counter behind which Parker stood, a remnant of the shop’s better days, when it had had a caretaker and a young apprentice and had done well for itself. Now, with only an old man whose hands were beginning to shake and whose sight wasn’t what it had been, it was surviving only on its reputation and the still skilful, if slower, work of its owner.
Snake came around behind him and deposited the watches in his care on the counter beside this box. “This bunch need new parts, mostly springs. One broke a cogwheel- that’ll be tougher to fix.” He tapped his finger on the most tarnished of the watches.
Parker looked down at the counter in clear surprise, shallow wrinkles around his eyes smoothing while those on his forehead deepened. “Remarkably fast, my boy.” The old watch-repairer took out an eyepiece of the type used by jewellers, screwed it up against his right eye, and dug a watch out of the pile, clicking its back open to examine the mechanism. He checked the front, back, and listened for several seconds to the tick before nodding and setting it down on the desk and taking up another one. He repeated this for all seven watches before taking the eyepiece out and looking up, now with more respect that astonishment. “I confess myself amazed, Mr. Hill. This is fine work. With such skills, you could easily find yourself a more profitable employment.”
Otacon smiled awkwardly. “Thanks, but I’m happy here for a while. Besides, with no papers, it’s not easy getting anything more formal.”
The old man nodded with a slight scowl. “Aye, all that matters these days is where you were schooled. Skills mean nothing anymore, just bits of paper. In my day, a man recognized good work when he saw it. That’s good work, sir, and when your papers turn up I’m sure you’ll find yourself some a fine position. I’ll keep my ears open, though there’s not many who keep up with old Parker no more.”
Otacon nodded. “I appreciate it, sir. We’re going out for dinner- supper, I mean,” he corrected himself seeing the confusion on the man’s face, “but we won’t be back too late.”
“Right you are. I’ll leave the latch off. You can lock up when you come back.” Parker began carefully placing the watches back in the box.
“We’ll be sure to do that.”
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Outside, the streets were covered in a fresh sheet of snow, soft flakes now beginning to drift down from the dark clouds. Windows were already shining with yellow candlelight, boys running about to light the street lamps. Every building had several chimneys letting out a constant thick stream of smoke. Men and women were bustling over the cobblestones hurrying home from work or from shopping, carrying paper parcels and packages and leather cases, the occasional cab clattering along, horse shaking its head in the snow. It was a twilight world, similar to their own and yet completely different. And, although they were no longer attracting the looks they had originally, Otacon still felt that they stood out like sore thumbs. He sighed, breath forming a soft white cloud in the cold evening air.
“How much do you have on you?” asked Snake, glancing over at him while skirting a boy running from one side of the street to the other, dressed in indoor clothing, who hurried into an open doorway and closed it behind him.
Otacon felt through his pants pockets, fingers closing on some coins. He pulled them out and examined them in the poor street light. “Uh, that’s a pence, and that, and… five pence and a shilling?” He poked at one of the coins, flipping it over to read it. “How many shillings in a pound?”
“Twenty,” answered Snake, digging a few coins out of his own pocket. “Weren’t you paid today?”
“No, not until the end of the week. I don’t think Mr. Parker’s got a lot of cash on him. It’s sad, really, his son was going to inherit the store, and then he was killed in the Boar War – was there an overpopulation of them, or what? – anyway, now he’s got no one to help him and business has been dropping, so-”
“I get the picture,” cut in Snake dryly. “And you mean Boer the Dutch farmers, not boar the animal. Anyway, I did get paid today,” he ignored the engineer’s indignant “hey!” and continued, “which brings our total up to two shillings and eleven pence.”
“And… how many pence in a shilling, again?”
Snake rolled his eyes. “Twelve.”
“Right.” Otacon dropped his change back into his pocket. They had been eating at the same restaurant for the past two nights. Calling it a restaurant was politeness. It was really just a hole in the wall which could possibly be referred to in truth as a booth, serving the kinds of stews that took all afternoon to cook and turned out to be 80 percent potato, ten percent mystery meat, and ten percent mystery in general. The booth, which Snake referred to as the Hole, charged them six pence for dinner, meaning that when Snake’s lunch was factored in they weren’t saving much. Mrs. Parker had been making them breakfast- wheat gruel- and Otacon had been skipping lunch without Snake’s knowledge. He figured he could manage that for another two days before it really caught up with him.
“We’re not making a great living here,” he said.
“If you ever get paid, we’ll manage.”
“Laying aside the fact that we’re living on wheat gruel, suspicious lunches and extremely suspicious dinners and hardly breaking even, we need to figure out how to get home. That costs money.” He had been working out a plan while sitting in their tiny room fiddling with ancient watches.
“What for?” Snake turned the corner, and waited for Otacon to realise and follow. He did a minute later when he noticed the absence of his partner at his side.
“A microscope. Whatever happened, we both remember your blood being involved. I’d like to take a look at it.”
“You want to buy a microscope,” said Snake in the toneless voice that was for him the height of scepticism.
“Don’t be ridiculous. That would cost a fortune, and would still be useless. I need to build one.”
“Even better,” said Snake in the same tone.
“Oh, don’t be so sceptical. I can do it. But I’ll need parts, and that costs money.”
“If you need more money, you’re going to have to figure out a way to get it. We’ve hit a plateau in employment. Nothing better’s going to come up without some kind of papers, or references.” Snake glanced around once more before turning the final corner and coming to the Hole.
It was crowded, as always, by bulky working-class men shoving up to get their dinners. Some stood, some sat on stools, some leaned on the counter or any other available surface. Snake fought his way in past the crowd, caught the cook’s attention, and ordered. A minute later money changed hands, and Snake returned holding two steaming ceramic bowls. He handed one to Otacon and immediately began to eat with what looked very much to the engineer like the barely controlled hunger of an animal. He ate his own mush more slowly, letting spoonfuls cool in the air before swallowing them, not bothering to let them sit in his mouth. There was little taste, and little that required chewing.
It had been a shock to Otacon, who lived mainly on pre-packaged food, to discover there was no such thing here. He could stop into a café and get a cup of tea or a biscuit, or a bakery and buy a bun or scone, or the butchers and order a slice of meat, but there was no way to get something as simple as a sandwich and bottled drink. He had to rely on others for his meals, because there was no way he could have prepared them himself. Apart from fruit and baked goods, nothing purchased from the grocer came ready to eat. It was a completely different culture, and Otacon began to understand why women had had such an important place in the house. Without them, no one would ever have eaten. Men working all day had no time to prepare food themselves, or space to do it in. They relied on their mothers or wives or daughters or servants to make their meals, or they ate out. There was no other way. Of all the differences, only the indoor plumbing situation was more acute.
He had also found that drinking was a problem. Snake had warned him against drinking the tap water, and as such the only time he drank at all was in the morning when Mrs. Parker made them tea with their gruel. For a nearly life-long caffeine addict, the lack of coffee was both shocking and, when the headaches and the twitchiness set in, extremely uncomfortable. But he didn’t have the money to spend in cafés where coffee might be procured, and he couldn’t bear to ask Mrs. Parker to break her routine. He was vaguely worried about dehydration, though.
One thing which could be procured anywhere they frequented, and the Hole in particular, was gossip. Otacon was familiar with the expression “gossip like washerwomen,” and while he didn’t know any personally, he suspected they had nothing on the men who frequented the Hole. Although professional conversations sometimes took place, the majority of the dialogue was a recitation of the day’s events, with emphasis on the violent and gruesome. The Hole was basically a specialised news system for the illiterate, focusing on that news which they found most interesting. Otacon, having enough on his mind without listening to the latest accident on the river or bank robbery, generally paid the conversation little attention, mind working out the parts required to make a telescope powerful enough to distinguish cells, and the equivalents which might be found in this time. He glanced up from his greyish stew, though, when a word caught his attention. The men directly in front of him were talking about an engineer.
“-down by the docks, wif ‘is throat cut, and all ‘is suit done over wif blood. They ain’t found the knife, neither.”
“Sure as anything it was the Dagos. A boat of them just came in, little bastards pouring off it like rats. Country’s not safe no more. A man can hardly find hisself a job.”
“Aye, Bill Jackson down Squires way said…”
Otacon tuned the conversation out as the topic shifted and glanced up to look at Snake, whose sharp eyes were scanning the area now that he was reaching the bottom of the bowl. He met Otacon’s gaze and finished off his bowl. “Stay here,” he said, and pushed back into the crowd to return his bowl. A few seconds later, he had disappeared, one large poorly dressed man among many. Otacon finished his bowl slowly, warm stew lining the sides of his stomach and heating him from the inside even as the cold air was numbing his fingers. He shifted about slightly, scanning other conversations, but apparently the initial interest in the murder on the docks had passed on to more local matters.
Snake reappeared just as he was scraping the bottom of his bowl, an eyebrow raised. Otacon nodded and ventured over to the counter, returning his own bowl. Snake was already walking towards their room when he freed himself from the crowd, and he jogged to keep up, slipping slightly on the mush underfoot, snow melted by heavy traffic.
Neither man said anything for a minute, walking slowly through the emptying streets. Already there were fewer pedestrians than there had been when they set out, locals eager to be out of the cold, or perhaps off the streets before dark.
“I didn’t find out much else,” said Snake out of the blue, breath misting. “An engineer who worked for a big firm was murdered on the docks last night. We could get a paper, but-”
“We need the money,” finished Otacon glumly. “How common are murders here?”
“Probably not much less than at home. They’re just less desensitized.”
“Huh. So, we don’t need to be worrying about Jack the Ripper, or anything?”
Snake glanced at him, amusement showing in his face even in the dim light as they turned a corner. “Well, you certainly don’t, since he only killed women. Besides, I can’t remember when he was active, but the probability of it being now is extremely low.” He looked away to scan the street, then back again, expression serious again. “You should be careful – at least as careful as you would be back home. Don’t go out alone at night.”
“Right,” said Otacon quietly. Home, something neither of them had, had come to refer to their time, a useful code which would be interpreted by listeners simply as America. Any of the many houses and apartments Otacon had ever lived in had seemed more like home than this place, though. Every time he looked out the window, or stepped out the door, he was immediately hit by the foreignness, the sense of displacement. He pushed his cold hands further down into his pockets and shivered. At his side, Snake glanced back over his shoulder for the third time. “What is it?” asked Otacon, tilting his head to look back. A few people, blurs in motion, were walking in opposite directions. Something small, probably a cat, ran across the road, leaving dark marks in the white snow.
“Nothing,” said Snake, turning back, eyes slightly narrowed. “Hurry up. It’s cold.”
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The next I heard of the case came not from Holmes, but again that from source of literary gossip around which society hovers like a moth to a candle, the newspaper. It was the title of the lead article which caught my eye, the bold text reading “Second Engineer Murdered” in the evening edition of the Times. I immediately began skimming the article below, which explained that a second engineer had been found murdered, a Mr. Lewis Hardgrave, on the docks, and that the police were as yet uncertain whether this murder was connected to the one of two days ago. I had just finished it when Holmes walked in, face gaunter than usual, pulling off his scarf.
“Holmes,” I greeted him, and received a nod in return. His eyes fell upon the paper on my lap, and a thin smile came to his lips.
“I see you are up to date on the latest events of the case,” he said.
“They are related, then?”
“It is uncertain. Lestrade believes so, finding it impossible to conceive of the notion that two men of the same profession might be murdered within days of each other without there being some tie in between.”
“Surely it would be unusual?” I suggested.
“Unusual, but not impossible. When one considers the different locations, and the different causes of death, apart from profession the two deaths have no common features.”
“So you do not believe them to be related, then?”
Holmes threw down his scarf in a rare fit of ire. “I do not know what I believe, Watson! I have spent the past two days scouring this city for these two supposed recently arrived Americans, with the help of the Baker Street Irregulars, as you call them. Together we have uncovered no fewer than five pairs of these men living in reduced circumstances, each matching some but not all of the criteria set out. And now a new crime has come along to hurry the pace of the investigation without providing any further clues. It really is maddening.” He threw himself down in his favourite chair, staring darkly into the fire.
“No further clues?” I asked after a moment’s pause.
“None,” replied Holmes, “and you may believe that Lestrade had me out to view the body before it was disturbed this time. The man had his throat cut with a sharp knife, not so sharp as to suggest a surgeon’s tools, not so dull as to suggest a sword, but exactly the right sort of cut as to leave the options open to any ordinary kitchen, butcher, leatherworker, soldier or sailor’s knife as long as they were reasonably cared for. None of the victim’s effects had been taken, and no other items were found at the scene. It is impossible to tell even if the murderer was right or left handed, although I suspect from a slight elevation the cut was given by a right-handed man of at least 5 foot 9 or 10 inches tall. The snow had not yet begun to fall when the murder was committed, and as such there were no footprints.”
“And no witnesses?”
“You may take that for granted. None have come forward.”
“What do you intend to do now, then?”
“The police are interviewing the associates of both men looking for ties, as well as possible motives for murder. So far, none have turned up. Both men appear to have been respectable engineers working for well-known firms with good reputations. The first man, Archer, was a mechanical engineer working with Feyton and Trine, a company which manufactures parts for steam engines. The second, Hardgrove, was also a mechanical engineer, working in a larger firm which designs presses, like those used for coining money. Neither was in financial difficulty, but neither had accumulated any great wealth either.”
“Surely the second man, at least, may have been murdered for information about the presses he was developing, possibly even their plans?”
“That is certainly a possibility, and in fact the most likely one if these deaths are not related. But it is facts which are important, not theories, and we have none of the former.”
“What will you do, then?”
“I am continuing to follow the only avenue left to me.” Holmes turned, grey eyes shining dimly. He had less of his energy than was usual when he was on the hunt. But he had not yet given up.
“The Americans?”
“Yes. If they have not already left the city, we will find them.” Holmes stood and then stooped to recover his scarf, smiling ruefully.
“Let me know if I can be of any aid to you,” said I, in awe of his persistence.
“I will not hesitate to do so.”
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Snake woke early on Saturday morning, as he did every morning, and lay still in the old bed, staring up at the dark ceiling. In the darkness he could hear Otacon breathing, the slow deep rhythm suggesting his partner was sleeping, lying in the smaller, rickety cot. The sun hadn’t yet risen outside, sky the deep blue of the bottom of the ocean, world outside the small thick-paned window silent. The silence was making him restless. No, it wasn’t the silence, although that wasn’t a help. Ever since they had arrived here, wherever the hell “here” was, he’d had the feeling someone was watching him. It had been growing the past few days, strong enough to cause him to be constantly looking over his shoulder even when he knew no one was there. The fact that it was too dangerous for him to carry his M9 around was making him twitchy. The fact that Otacon was treating this like one big… field trip was beginning to grate on his nerves as well. Oh, yes, he complained about it, but Snake could see the excitement in his eyes when they walked around the city. He was enjoying it.
That was the problem with his partner. He was just so goddamn naïve. Tell him he had been sucked back in time, and he’d believe it. Never mind that right now they were probably in some mind-scrambling machine, or pumped full of toxic chemicals in some lab, or who knew what, he was perfectly happy as long as he had screws and bolts to tinker with, and was already concocting far-fetched theories on the space-time continuum and quantum and principles named after dead scientists. And sooner or later, whoever was mind-fucking them would get tired of it and pull the trigger, and Otacon wouldn’t even have time to wonder what had happened. That was the problem with believing everything you were shown and told.
Snake sat up scowling and pulled his sweater off the end of the bed. In a quick move he threw the light covers off, stood, and hopped over the cot in the dark effortlessly. The room was even colder at night than in the day, and with the blankets they had been provided not being much thicker than sheets, they had taken to sleeping in their clothes. It was uncomfortable, but Snake had known worse. Otacon had stopped grumbling after the first day or two.
He picked his shoes up from next to the door, turned the handle quietly and walked out into the hall without looking back at his partner. Otacon could make excuses to the landlady. He needed to cool his head.
Loafers slipped on- there was not a day that went by in which he didn’t regret not wearing boots, and when he got back he would be damned if he ever wore shoes again- Snake stepped out into the cold early morning air. The street was already beginning to bustle, shopkeepers hurrying to their stores, delivery boys pulling up outside doorways, men hurrying to catch the train to work. He checked his watch in the shadow of a doorway not far from a lamppost, read 7:32. The sun would be up in half an hour. Aware that jogging was an affectation of his century, he instead took up a brisk walking pace, and headed west, towards the main commercial centre of town. He had an hour and a half before he needed to be at the docks to carry boxes for a shilling six pence a day; plenty of time for some exercise.
It hadn’t snowed in the night, and the early morning activities had brushed most of the previous day’s layer from the streets, although the cobblestones were slick with frost and ice. The morning before on the way to work he had seen a horse slip on a downhill slope and fall to be crushed by its heavy load, screaming as the cart wheels ran into it. Some kind soul had found a service revolver and blown its brains out after an agonizing five minutes, which Snake would have approved of, if the sudden reminder of the presence of firearms hadn’t shocked him out of it. He knew, of course, that they existed in this time. He just hadn’t taken it on board until that moment. Whatever Otacon thought, this place was no amusement park. Only the engineer would be able to wake up on a corpse and still not realise that.
He passed through their low-class section and into a more prosperous part of town, designated by grander buildings with proper coats of paint, well kept stores with full displays, and a general better standard of dress. His appearance was beginning to garner stares, abruptly raising his awareness that he hadn’t shaved or washed his hair in nearly a week, and he was just deciding to turn back to less critical neighbourhoods when the cries of a newsboy caught his attention. A few men and women were stopping by to purchase papers from the kid, at a pence each. He rifled through his pocket and turned up a coin. Glancing at it to ensure he wasn’t overpaying, he gave the kid the coin and took a paper in return, already taking up his quick stride in the direction he had come.
Newspapers hadn’t changed much. More writing, fewer photos, but the same ghoulish interest in the pain and suffering of others.
He began his quick walk back, stopping only once along the way at a small bank to borrow a pen.
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Otacon woke later that morning, sunlight streaming in through the dirty window above the bed. He sat up, wincing at the deep creak emitted by the cot, and glanced at the bed. It was, as expected, empty. Except for what looked like a newspaper sitting on the disarrayed sheets. Reaching under the bed for his glasses with one hand, he grabbed the paper with the other and pulled it into his lap, eyes widening as he read the bold font of the title.
Police Still Baffled by Ripper! read the headline, going on to explain that the ongoing police investigation into the several Whitechapel murders attributed to the so-called “Jack the Ripper” had stalled. In the blank space at the top of the paper above the title, was a short message in Snake’s curt writing. It read: Don’t go outside.
