in the quiet loop. (solid snake x reader)

07 - captured.

"Just... strange. No idea."

You and Hal looked at each other before he spoke. "Interference?"

"I don't know."

"Where is this Colonel?"

"I don't know. I've never met the man, actually."

You furrowed your eyebrows, already searching. Hal answered, "I'll dig around."

"Thanks. I owe you guys one," Raiden said before cutting the codec off.

You and Hal's fingers flew over your keyboards. You watched the waveform data pulse on the screen as Hal captured the frequency pattern. You squinted your eyes as you took a good look at it.

"That's strange..." Hal frowned. "The codec line isn't a relay. It's not bouncing off external towers or satellites."

Your brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

He zoomed in on the data path, rechecking it again and again. "This signal's originating from inside Arsenal Gear."

A chill ran down your spine. "That's not possible. The Colonel... he's inside Arsenal?"

Hal shook his head. "No. It's not him. There's no physical body tied to this transmission."

You stared at the screen, pulse rising. "Raiden's been talking to... an AI."

Hal pulled up a side profile that had "COLONEL ROY CAMPBELL" with metadata from military records. The Shadow Moses logs appeared beneath it.

"He's based on a real person. Roy Campbell," Hal explained. "He was Snake's CO during the Shadow Moses incident."

You took the files that had the mission logs, codec transcripts, and timelines – all leading to a pattern. "They recreated the events. Raiden's been walking the same path as Snake. The same missions. The same betrayals. Even the same mentor..."

You stepped back, breath catching as the thought solidified in your head.

"This whole incident... it's a mirror."

Hal blinked at you. "You mean..."

"Shadow Moses. The S3 Plan. They weren't trying to create a perfect soldier. They were trying to recreate the legend of Solid Snake."

You looked down at the screen, line after line of meaningless codec chatter, corrupted voice, and falsified commands.

"They made a war..." you said, the disbelief laced in your voice. "Felt like a video game."

The silence fell in the room. Hal's jaw was tense, his eyes scanning the endless loops of data. The Patriots had not just manipulated information. They had simulated meaning itself, controlling perception, emotion, and decision.

"But why?" You turned to Hal, voice barely above a whisper. "Why go this far?"

Hal didn't have the answer, and neither did you. Just the weight of realization, and the fact that Raiden down there, somewhere in Arsenal, was still being fed lines from a ghost of a man long disconnected from the truth. You stared back at the console.

"How do we fight something that isn't even alive?" You murmured to yourself.

Hal adjusted his glasses as he opened the Codec. The hum of machinery and screens filled the background as he called Raiden back.

"Raiden, about this Colonel of yours. I found out where he is."

"Where?"

"Inside Arsenal."

There was a pause, as if Raiden was taking in what had just said.

"What?!"

"We checked out all the possibilities," you said. "But Otacon kept coming back to Arsenal. It isn't a relay point. It's the origin of the signal."

"And the encryption protocol it uses is exactly the same as that of Arsenal's AI. The so-called GW," Hal added.

"What the hell does this mean?!"

"I think it means... you've been talking to an AI."

There was a long silence on the line. You could hear Raiden's breathing shift.

"No... No, that can't be right. It's impossible."

"I ran it multiple times. Cross-checked the patterns, authentication keys, even the Codec frequency signatures. It's not human. It's all machine-driven logic."

"Then what the hell am I doing here? Was any of this even real?" Raiden exclaimed in disbelief.

"You're real, Raiden. Your choices are your own, regardless of how much they've tried to script them," you managed to say, not hiding the disbelief in your tone.

"So the mission... my orders... even my identity... none of it's mine?" Raiden asked.

Hal let out a sigh before replying. "Maybe not the start. But how you finish it, that's on you now."

The codec transmission with Raiden faded out, leaving the safehouse quiet except for the rhythmic tapping of keys and the hum of your laptops. Hal hunched forward in his chair, sifting through layers of data logs, while you stood back, arms crossed, mind racing. The more you uncovered about the Patriots, GW, and the eerie echoes of Shadow Moses, the more it became clear that this wasn't just another mission.

And Snake was the center of it all.

You turned from the screen, the shadows of Arsenal's implications heavy in your chest. He had gone in without hesitation, same as always, but this time, there was no fallback. No safety net. Not unless you made one.

You quietly stepped away from Hal, pulling up a side terminal and beginning to input a different set of coordinates. Emergency extraction. A false ID drop linked to an old European contact. You scanned through decoy routes, plotted satellite blind spots, and issued falsified clearance for a private boat set to dock at Pier 42 near Manhattan under a shell company's name.

It wasn't much. But if Snake made it out of Arsenal in one piece, this would be the only way to get him off-grid.

Hal noticed your movement, giving you a glance. "What are you doing?"

"I'm covering Snake," you said without looking up. "If this goes south, he'll need a way out. A quiet one."

He hesitated, then nodded, his eyes soft with understanding. "You always think ahead."

You offered a small smile. "Someone has to."

You slipped out of the safehouse with only the essentials that had encrypted codes, forged documents, and the final clearance key for the evac boat. The city was colder than before, wind carrying that sharp tang of something about to collapse. Somewhere beneath the waves, Arsenal was stirring, and you were racing against it.

The streets thinned as you neared the Hudson, the lights of the dock barely visible through the mist rolling over the water. You moved quickly but silently, mind checking every angle. You were almost there. The boat was tucked between two freighters, its engine still and waiting for your final authorization.

You reached for the comm in your jacket. But then, you heard a rustle behind. You turned instinctively, hand going to your sidearm, but it was too late.

A sharp sting hit your neck. A hiss of pressure. Your knees buckled. The last thing you saw before the world tilted was a man in civilian clothing with a small neural device tucked behind his ear like an agent. You hit the concrete with a soft thud, shadows pulling you under.