A Place to Call Home

Chapter 1: Philanthropy

    Beams of sunlight shone through a dusty window of an apartment room. It was early November, 2006, and a young man in his mid-twenties sat in front of two monitors hooked up to a tangled web of wires, modems, and computer towers. He was skinny, and slight short. The man typed at his computer, lines of code, windows of schematics, and many other things ran across the screen, reflecting off his glasses. The room was fairly standard, yet messy. A queen-sized bed sat against the wall behind him, unmade. There were two doors, one on the wall of the computer, and one to the right of the man. The one on the computer wall lead to the hall of the building's second floor. The one to the right was the door to a simple bathroom, which contained a sink, shower, and toilet. The apartment room was dark, save the light from the monitor.

   He sighed, "Dammit... Why won't he answer?" The man took off a headset and pinched the bridge of his nose. As he did, there was a knock on the door. The man jumped up and ran to the door, flinging it open. A wide smile spread across his face. In the doorway was a tall, broad shouldered man. He wore combat fatigues, with blood was spattered in spots on them.
  
   "Snake, oh my god! I thought something was wrong, that you might have died or, or worse!" The shorter man said
  
   Snake calmly replied, "I'm fine, Otacon. I came home didn't I? Plus, my codec got busted during insertion. Haven't had a new one since Shadow Moses."

   Otacon sighed, the hugged Snake tightly, glad that he was safe. He then noticed the blood on his clothes.
  
   "Woah, Snake, are you hurt? You're covered in, in blood!" Otacon exclaimed, with a worried shake in his voice.

   "No, it's, not mine... Hal, could we drop the codenames when we're off duty? I'd like to feel relaxed when I'm home," Snake said.

   Hal nodded, and said, "Ok, David, I know how you feel." Hal elected not to ask how many people David killed out in the field. He never asked, but he still felt a little guilty every time David came home, covered in other people's blood. Hal did, however, understand why it had to be done. They were doing it for a justified reason, the one reason that David went out on missions, for peace. The two men ran a small organization named Philanthropy, whose purpose was to rid the world of Metal Gears, which were giant, walking nuclear tanks. The organization was filing for recognition by the U.N., and had only a handful of members besides David and Hal.

   David walked in after hugging Hal, and entered the bathroom. He took of his clothes, turned on the shower, and got in. As the warm water washed over him, blood, dirt and sweat all swirled down the drain in a spiral. He looked over a few cuts and bruises, and sighed. Whenever he came back from a mission, he always felt some sort of guilt. It was usually over letting Hal worry, or having taken lives, but no matter what, it was always there. It only last for an hour or so, but he knew that it had gotten much easier to get over, and these days it was much shorter. When David first started military work in the 90's, he felt horrible for weeks, even months, over a single man's death. David understood that he had become jaded over the years, and he couldn't decide which was worse: feeling guilty for a month, or not caring after an hour.

   Hal sat back down at the computer and started searching again. He was looking for schematics, build plans, anything leading to another Metal Gear project. In the back of his mind, he hoped that there wouldn't be any more leads, because that would mean David wouldn't have to leave for another mission. It would mean David could be safe, maybe they could lead a normal, civilian life together. Instead, a list of schematics buyers popped up on screen. Hal sighed, as there were now at least five new terrorist cells, militant groups, or private force that wanted a build-it-yourself Metal Gear. He knew that he and David had a lot of work to do.