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A hand slamming down on Hal’s desk jolted him out of his daze quickly, eyes focusing back on the screen before him, and then at the owner of the hand who was standing over him.
People usually left the base’s scientists well alone. They weren’t exactly the most interesting people to hang around, unless you wanted to have complex code or engineering terms explained to you. They were a small group that stuck together, and no one bothered them, which was the way they liked it. They weren’t disturbed that way.
However…
That didn’t stop the occasional person from taking an interest. The closer and closer they got to finishing Metal Gear, the more people poked their heads in to observe, to ask questions, and to simply observe (which Hal didn’t understand,) which was a mix of both encouraging and terrifying.
And, with more and more people taking an interest in the project, that meant they were visited by some of the… stranger people on the base.
This was how Hal Emmerich had ended up with Liquid Snake leaning over him, hand planted in the centre of his desk, chest directly at his eye level.
Why did he insist on walking around shirtless? They were in Alaska, for heaven’s sake! Did he not get cold? Did he not get self-conscious?
“Doctor Emmerich. What’s the progress of this looking like?”
Hal had to crane his neck to meet Liquid’s eyes, leaning back into his chair to try and put as much space between them as possible.
“Progress of… what, exactly? If you mean REX’s construction, that’s out of my hands, but I think it’s going well. If you’re talking about the progress of coding everything, I think we’re on schedule for that too…”
It was probably best not to lie to Liquid. He wasn’t the scariest of the Foxhound members (that prize went to the man in the gas mask, whom Hal had been too terrified even to acknowledge when he saw him). However, he was certainly still intimidating- he was taller than Hal, far stronger, and rarely had anything other than a stern scowl on his face.
Liquid thought for a moment- Hal could see his brow furrow slightly- and then turned to face Hal's screen instead of the scientist himself.
"Talk me through what's happening here. What does all this mean?"
Liquid waved his hand loosely in front of the screen, and Hal scanned the screen in an attempt to work out exactly what Liquid was pointing to. He didn't seem to know himself. Hal didn't even know where to start. He didn't want to start too technical and confuse the man, but he didn't want to start too simple or patronise him either. He could imagine the man getting upset either way and the thought of being this close to someone that strong when they were mad at him made Hal's stomach flip.
"Well... this is REX's missile guidance system. It's not too different from any other, really. If I'm honest, this isn't really my code..." He explained, slowly moving his finger down the display line by line as he spoke. "I think that was Emma- uh, Dr Kang's code. I'm just going along and trying to clean some stuff up. There's not much to do until we can really start testing it once Rex is built."
Liquid nodded along, and Hal quickly turned his head to study his face, trying to work out whether he had missed the mark or not.
"You'll need a pilot for that, won't you?"
"Huh?"
"When you do all the testing. You'll need a pilot for it."
"Uh- yeah, we will. I think we were going to get one of the mechanics to sit in and monitor everything for us whilst we tried to make sure it's all working..."
Liquid stood back and crossed his arms over his chest. Hal did his level best not to let his eyes wander down to his arms, and mostly succeeded by staring Liquid directly in the face, but avoiding his eyes, gaze wandering over his cheeks and forehead.
"I'll do it. I'll be the one piloting it in the end anyway. Might as well get used to it now, right?"
That did sound like a lot of sense- Liquid was the one in charge, after all.
"Did you not get the simulation... the virtual mission thing? I know we had some of those distributed..."
Hal hadn't been directly involved with that- whilst he did know enough to program his own games, they'd never been more advanced than simple point-and-click games. He was too busy working on REX to figure out how to code a virtual reality game.
"No, no, I did. Played through it a few times actually. Was disappointed I couldn't do much damage. You know, punch through a wall, bring the whole building down, that sort of thing!"
Liquid had definitely meant that as a joke, but Hal didn't find it very funny.
Hal laughed quickly, forcing the air up out of his lungs.
"I mean, REX is only meant for defence, right? We're not going to spend all that time on making sure you can punch through simulated walls when all you'll really need to do in there is just check the displays, and locate surface-to-air missiles to shoot down... that bit's like a game, I guess."
"I know, but you have to admit it would be good to really be able to move that thing. You know, go charging through a battlefield towards the enemy. Grabbing helicopters out the sky, crushing tanks- you've got to think about this more!”
As if Hal hadn’t already thought plenty about this…
“Well, it would be cool, but… REX is only for defence. If it could be used to protect people, I would. Plus… it’s not really up to me. The government want what they want, and I build what they want. If they wanted something that could destroy that much stuff, I would have had to build that for them.”
Liquid frowned for a moment, then clapped his hand on Hal’s shoulder, giving it a shake- one far more gentle than Hal expected from a man built the way Liquid Snake was.
“Give it a think, alright? And when you need that pilot, come and find me. Actually…”
Liquid leaned across Hal’s desk to reach for a pen and the open notebook. Hal panicked, not wanting Liquid to see anything inside, but by the time he had tried to grab it in a panic, Liquid was already handing it back, a number emblazoned across the top.
“There. Give me a ring when you’re done. I’ll be waiting, alright?”
Hal looked down at his notebook, realising that he had just been given Liquid Snake’s phone number, but by the time he called after him, the soldier was already gone.