foolishwren | 008. Video

008. Video

_{[When the screen comes on, it's pointed straight at the sky-- specifically, at the deep, smoke-gray thunderheads starting to roll in. The foliage just peeking over the bottom of the screen's view is whipping around in a frenzy, buffeted by the foreboding winds that have sprung up in the face of the storm.]

[Heather's voice then cuts in over the roar of weather. She's YELLING to make herself heard.]}

Can you BELIEVE this!?

Can you friggin' believe this?!

All day yesterday I'm slogging along through the heat and then the moment I get to the city to actually chill around in civilization, THIS happ--

_{[A handful or so of wet leaves is quite suddenly plastered against the camera lens. Thank you, 60 mph wind. Thank you]}

Ackplthh--!!

_{[... And apparently Heather was hit in the face by several, too.]}

PLHHHFFLT! If I have to spend another week sitting in the Pokemon Center in order not to drown, I am gonna...... oh boy.

_{[Aaaand here comes the rolling wall of pure downpour. The camera turns sharply and any viewers still watching are treated to a tilta-whirl of grass, dirt, a running Sentret, and occasionally Heather's boots as she high-tails it away from the rain. THAT'S RIGHT, HEATHER. IF YOU RUN FAST ENOUGH, YOU CAN OUTRUN NATURE.]

[Eventually the video feed cuts out.]}

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Yes, I bloody well am.

[Way to go, Heather. Way to go.]

_{[She holds both hands up.]}

Whoa, jeez, sorry. It's just that when most people talk about clones, they're talking... crazy sci-fi stuff.

_{[... Really, Heather was in no position to not believe in clones. She was the reincarnation of her world's equivalent of 'Carrie'. And to top it all off, technically the Mother of God. You'd think she'd have learned to suspend disbelief a little by this point.]}

[Well, quit poking fun at his origin story if you don't want him to get all pissy at you.]

Tch, it's hardly science fiction. My brother and I were cloned in the 1970's.

_{[HEY SHE DIDN'T KNOW, OK. JEEZ LOUISE.]}

... The seventies, huh. They got started earlier than I thought. _{[The conspiracy theorists were RIGHT.]}

... Anyway, yeah, sorry.

[In the MGS world, they usually are.]

Hn. You didn't know.

[It's too late, though: you've gotten him started. There's only one way this can end.]

On August 21, 1972, the American government saw the success of the Les Enfants Terribles project, by which they managed to clone the world's greatest soldier in order to preserve the genetics that made him excel on the field of battle.

[Got that? Good. Here comes the batshit crazy.]

There were eight embryos made from the donor cells, six of which were sacrificed for the strength of the remaining two. Accomplices to murder before birth.

One of those sons was given that soldier's dominant genes, so that he would be the superior of the two and bear his father's legacy, destined to bear the torch of his predecessor-- made in the image of the father. The other was given the recessive genes, formed of the scraps left behind from his twin, the refuge and the trash, destined by his very genes to nothing but failure and defeat. Doomed from before his birth to be inferior, to be the lesser, to be the darkness to his brother's light. And aware, every day, of his own inferiority, of the cursed genes that kept him from glory. Cast from paradise before he had even had the chance to strive for the throne of the father.

[Yeah, he's not bitter. Not at all.]

_{[Heather likes Liquid well enough. Sure, he's a grumpy jerkface, but hey, so is she sometimes.]

[But this right here is a self-righteous, delusional rant, purple-prosey and just slightly disturbing. Has Heather heard ones like it before? ... Yes. Many times, from many people, all of whom were dangerous, crazy, and wound up dead. A few of them at her hands. So when Liquid launches into his monologue, Heather actually.... leans away, her brows furrowing. It may not be a religious rant, but... when you get right down to it, is there much of a difference? Crazy is crazy.]}

...

[Quite frankly, Liquid is dangerous, crazy, and will eventually wind up dead. The different probably is that he realizes this.]

[He looked over at her when he was done.]

You think I'm mad.

[He never claimed to be sane.]

...Smart girl.

_{[That is a pretty big difference. ... And a fortunate one, really. If you're gonna be crazy, it at least pays to know it.]

[When she answers, it's one of her usual slightly-smartassed replies, but there is an uncharacteristic meekness to her voice.]}

Just a little.

_{[To be fair, even THAT batshitlicious rant had nothing on some of the ones she'd heard before. ... But man, if he started talking about God and salvation and opening the gates to paradise and purging the world of the filthy sinners, she was outta there.]}

[Don't worry, Liquid was entirely an atheist. He'd seen and done far too many things to have ever had faith.]

[They say that there are no atheists in foxholes, but he was one of the exceptions.]

You should. Sanity was never one of my great virtues.

_{[Heather relaxes a little. Admitting insanity, at least when done in a generally, y'know, accepting way, tended to be a good sign. As opposed to the whole 'I'M NOT THE ONE WHO'S CRAZY!!! IT'S EVERYONE ELSE WHO'S CRAZY!!!" shtick she's heard so many times before.]}

Hey, at least you admit it.

Too many people don't.

[shrug] Madness runs in the family. Denying it would be futile.

[As fucked-up of a family as he had.]

Heh.

Sometimes I'm not so sure it doesn't run in mine. Buuut I'm pretty confident about how I turned out.

_{[Dahlia Gillespie would not be winning the 'Sane Mom of the Year' award any time soon. Or any kind of award any time soon. Or ever.]}

Perhaps all families have some measure of insanity to them. I'm not much of a judge.

[At least she didn't have a Spartan existence living amongst soldiers while her father told her every day that she was inferior and would amount to nothing, so that she grew up with festering hatred and the bloody-minded determination to prove everyone who ever doubted her wrong. By any means necessary.]

Yeah... wouldn't surprise me.

_{[She definitely didn't, and for that, she was grateful. ... On the other hand, at least Liquid hadn't been burned alive and forcibly impregnated with an occult god at the age of seven. Between them, Heather and Liquid could probably demolish small planets with the sheer force of their traumatic backstories.]}

[If traumatic backstories were artillery, Liquid would be ruling the world right now. Heather could help if she liked.]

You've not turned out so bad, though.

[This is the rare compliment from Liquid; take note.]

_{[Heather had no desire to rule the world, thankfully.]

[She raises a brow at the compliment, not having expected it. But she did take it in stride.]}

I like to think I turned out all right.

_{[Then, with a grin, she added--]} I only turn the crazy on when I need it.

[The compliment was supposed to make up for unleashing the batshittery on her.]

That's the way to do it.

_{[It did. At least for the moment. Heather's been around the block, she knows that sometimes crazy is just to be expected. Wariness was something she'd learned the hard way was necessary and of course creepy deluded speeches gave her the wig, but... honestly? Now? She was confident that on the off-chance Liquid or anybody else she met turned psycho, she'd get out of it one way or another. .... But she'll listen a little more closely next time she's camping. No more sneak attacks, at least if she can help it.]}

Yeah, s'kept me alive this long, there's gotta be something about it that works.

[Good luck with that. When Liquid wants to sneak up on something, it gets sneaked up on, unless that person is either crazy prepared or as good a stealth operative as he is. But none of his crazy is going to be directed towards her-- she's not the object of his batshit obsession.]

[He pulled a bottle of water out of his pack and took a swig.]

I don't knock a method that works.

_{[True, but... she can dream! Needless to say, she doesn't believe on just randomly hating on somebody until they give her reason to. So Liquid's still cool in her book.]}

Only an idiot would.

[It was a good thing she wasn't holding it against him-- he kind of liked her. It would be... annoying if his batshittery drove her off.]

Of course.

[You know what, this topic of conversation wasn't really leading anywhere good. Maybe it was time for an abrupt change into something less... about crazy.]

Did you hear how long this storm is going to last?

_{[Quite possibly a VERY good idea.]

[Heather shrugged broadly.]}

No clue. I hope it cuts it out soon, though. During the last one I was more or less stuck indoors for like, ever. Drives a person crazy.

[Liquid sometimes had those.]

Tch. Perhaps there's something broadcast on these... device things.

[Guess who was before cell phones? Yeah, Liquid and his PokeGear were totally not best friends.]

Hm. Well, we can check.

_{[Her video function was still kind of wonky after all that rain, but maybe there was some kind of newscast thing she hadn't discovered yet. She pulled it out.]}

[Whenever Liquid got this thing to actually work, it was mostly by chance. For some reason, he was a total derp when it came to technology other than weaponry or vehicles. He could manage to fix a helicopter engine with duct tape, a paperclip and a yard of string, but couldn't get the bloody radio to work on this.]

Bloody thing.

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foolishwren - 2010-07-04 14:03 (UTC) - Expand

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008. Video

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