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“I swear to god, she was looking right at me,” Brass Kangaroo said.
No one paid quite enough attention to the way Mother Base's construction of exposed metal and open sea air made voices carry, especially when they were sharp with agitation. Ocelot had heard rumors that he had ears like a cat and a supernatural talent for knowing things. Really it was only a matter of standing in the cool shadows between the struts and watching.
“I wouldn't worry about it,” said Flaming Moose. His skills weren't much to speak of, but he was valuable as a peacemaker. Miller kept him assigned to the medical platform, where lately the ability to keep the others from panicking was as in demand as talent in research. “She never pays attention to anybody.”
The other soldier shook his head rapidly. He was in profile against a sign that declared the area under construction. “I'm telling you. I walked in to do my rounds and she sat up and watched me the whole way. Just staring.”
“She was probably just tracking the motion. It's not as though she has much else to look at.”
It was true that there was little enough to do in her bare, silent cell. Ocelot had offered her one of his Zane Grey novels once and gotten the expected stare in return. She laid on her bunk and gazed out between the bars, until and unless the sound of a helicopter made her vanish and reappear at Snake's side as he went into the field.
“She shouldn't even be here,” Kangaroo insisted, voice rising. “Nobody knows what she's thinking. Hell, you've seen the kinds of things she can do. It's not natural!”
“She hasn't done anything to anybody.” Moose's eyes were sweeping the area and he lowered his voice, the way you did to try to hint to someone to follow suit. He put his hand on the other soldier's arm. “Listen, I'll swap shifts with you. You can take the one all the way over on the other side of the platform-”
The other gestured wildly. “She's gonna shoot me in the back of the neck!”
Both soldiers were stopped short by the sound of spurs. The last, fear-edged word was still ringing off the metal walls as they drew themselves into twin salutes.
“If she wanted you dead,” Ocelot said, “You wouldn't have the time to worry.”
The man's swallow was quite visible.
“It happens I'm headed that way,” he continued. There was no sense in letting this get out of hand. Besides, he had to admit, he was curious. Either Kangaroo was simply paranoid, or something had gotten their guest's rare attention. “Why don't the two of you join me?”
Their tread thudded heavily behind him.
Descending the stairs meant taking a moment for his eyes to adjust from the sunlight and endless ocean to the shade and close walls of Quiet's enclave. There she was, lying on her bunk as usual. There was nowhere else for her to be, with Snake hundreds of miles away in Afghanistan. She made no indication she noticed Ocelot as he walked past the polite fiction of the bars. That made it clear her senses had told her long ago that he was no threat. Despite what the rank and file believed, she was far from inscrutable. She made perfect sense once you stopped thinking in words.
There was a hitch in the steps behind him. When Ocelot turned, the soldiers were advancing again, wary as during any incursion into enemy territory. Kangaroo, face held taut, was caught between the officer in front of him and the brother-in-arms behind who was very delicately prodding him with the butt of his gun.
“See?” Moose said quietly to him. “She's not doing anything.”
“I guess not,” Kangaroo said, with a note of relief in his voice. He came closer to the bars. “It must have been my-”
Quiet's head lifted.
The soldier's senses were almost correct. She was, indeed, looking straight at the Walkman on his belt.
In the base's PA control room, it only took flipping a few switches to isolate a section of the speakers and set them to play from a tape deck.
There was plenty of material to choose from. Mixed in with the weapons, resources, and blueprints that the Boss sent home, there would, now and then, be other things. Diamonds, recruitment posters with their painted colors weathered from being nailed to the side of an outpost in the sun and sand, cassette tapes with names handwritten on the side in Cyrillic. In the midst of a world that wanted him dead, Snake took the time to pilfer mementos from under the enemy's nose. Someone could fall in love with a man like that.
Ocelot's gloved finger paused over one. He plucked it out and set it into the player.
In the silent cell on the medical platform, speakers crackled. Quiet rose up on her elbows. After a moment of static, they began to play The Cure.