Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriot by Project Itoh

you slip into the facility unnoticed.”
    Snake changed the subject. “Colonel, how deeply are they involved in this?”
    I looked at him and asked, “The Patriots, you mean?”
    Even in the Middle East, we couldn’t help but keep watchful for any sign of the Patriots’ involvement. After the battle with Solidus over the Arsenal Gear in Manhattan, their AI had loudly proclaimed that they would regulate and control everything.
    Snake nodded. “The data we got from Arsenal Gear was a load of crap. Twelve founders who’ve all been dead for a hundred years. Give me a break. We know they exist today. If the purpose of this battlefield control system is to control IDs, it fits in with their plans perfectly.”
    “Seizing control of the world’s ID systems,” Campbell said, “and then using them to manipulate the economy and the worldwide flow of information—for the Patriots, that’s the ultimate prize. You might say that the Patriots are the embodiment of the war economy.”
    “Everything that Solidus feared five years ago,” Snake said solemnly, “has come to pass.”
    The former president had turned to terrorism out of his desire to build a world free of the Patriots’ control. Freedom. Human rights. Opportunity. These were the fundamental ideas that burned inside each and every American’s heart in those glorious first days of their independence. But somewhere in the young nation’s short history, those ideals were warped and twisted, and the Patriots’ horrifying System was born.
    It wasn’t because any one person had been driven by a thirst for power, or that someone had desired control. America’s commerce, economy, lifestyle—even the very essence of the nation itself—had given birth to the structure of the Patriots.
    “Now with the media and global opinion under complete control,” Campbell said, “not even the UN can stand up to them.”
    Snake asked, “Then Liquid’s insurrection is against the Patriots?”
    “Exactly. It would seem as though Liquid has taken up Big Boss’s cause. An age of persistent, universal warfare for mercenaries freed from domination. In a sense, the ‘Outer Heaven’ Big Boss envisioned is already a living reality.”
    “You mean the PMCs and their war business.”
    “Right now,” Campbell said, “Liquid is a slave to the Patriots, forced to fight their proxy wars for them.”
    “He must be dying to break free of their spell.”
    “Beneath the surface, a new cold war is brewing between Liquid and the Patriots over who will survive.”
    Snake turned away from the screen and looked up at the ceiling with a distant gaze. “And no matter who wins, the world will have no future. Until we stop Liquid and destroy the System, we’ll never be free.”
    Isn’t that what Solidus had wanted? He had been terrified of not leaving any legacy behind. Solid, Liquid, Solidus—the sons of Big Boss—had been born stripped of the ability to create offspring. They were just reproductions of Big Boss’s genetic code.
    But Solidus had wanted to achieve something. He wanted to prove he was more than a simple carbon copy of Big Boss’s DNA. He wanted to prove he was free. He wanted the world to hear his silent cries— I am free. I am me.
    I am free. And you are free.
    “Snake,” Campbell stated plainly, “what we call ‘peace’ is an equilibrium kept in check by the war economy. Destroying the System means wiping out the information society—the end of modern civilization. Like it or not, we may have no choice but to protect the System.”
    Solidus had tried to destroy the System, but it defeated him. As ironic as it might seem, Snake and I—and Raiden—believed our actions had saved the world. If we now took down the Patriots like Solidus had tried to do, only an endless chaos would await us.
    But still, could you say that Solidus was entirely wrong? I didn’t think I could.
    “Got it,” Snake said, rubbing at his shoulder, stiff from lying unconscious for an entire