The Developer And The Engineer.

The developer and the engineer.

Today Hal arrived with his new makeup and I love his new wrinkles and how the length of his face is accentuated. These are a couple of pictures that I took with my cell phone, with his "long" haired wig. Personally, I love this hybrid look of Hal with long hair, with his older look…

This is amazing!!!

the theory of fission (nuclear, father and son)

👍

I love everything about Hal's possible scenarios regarding his past. I have such a beautiful draft of the chapter regarding his past that all I want is to get it published soon

hurting myself by thinking about otacon actually seeing this picture

what do you think huey told him? personally i'm fond of "she didn't want to raise you, so she left." i think he'd want to make her sound as bad as possible, and a vague "she died" wouldn't really convey that.

i have some thoughts...

imagine growing up without a mom, without even the concept of a mom. when your father remarries in your teens you are so divorced from the idea of A Mother that it's easy for your stepmom to groom you, because she's not related to you and never will be, and you don't understand that kind of relationship anyway.

except that ruins everything. your dad kills himself when he finds out and you run away from home in shame and grief. you are on your own for the first time, for REAL, not just the loneliness of a computer screen while your dad ignores you.

do you wonder about her? freshly eighteen, too smart for you own good but with no practical skills--do you think about how different your life would be, if you knew her? if she cared about you? working for the FBI, hacking into their database--do you look for her? do you even know her name?

years pass--you get really good at what you do. you meet a guy. somehow, against all odds, you start the weirdest little family. (the little girl reminds you of your stepsister, who died in your arms.) you may not have any of your old family left, but you do have this new one.

do you think about her again? do you hold this small child in your arms and wonder what would ever make a mother give up her son?

maybe you stumble upon some of your father's research, somehow. you knew a little about his past (you maybe even knew he was involved with metal gear's inception), but something catches your eye in these ancient documents. the very first metal gear, ZEKE, was created by your father, yes... and someone else.

"strangelove".

it's a weird name, sure, but it's also one you've never heard before. you do some digging. records are sparse and sometimes expunged entirely, but she did exist, and she was an AI researcher. she's been MIA for some time now, or at least that's the official word, but you're good at what you do. you can dig deeper.

maybe you never find out just how intertwined your past is with that of the man you live with. maybe that information is gone, or was never recorded in the first place. but maybe--maybe you find out that she's gone. exhumed from one of her own AI projects, unrecognizable. does the record you find mention the c-section scar noted on her body when she was found? does the record show who did this to her?

the pieces are falling into place in the most grotesque way, painting a picture you almost wish you'd never had to see. and there's nothing you can do. your father is dead, and will never atone for what he did. this woman--your mother?--is dead too, and has been for a long, long time. in the end, you always would have been alone.

but maybe. maybe you find some old scan of a photo. cracked and faded from time and misuse, but it exists. probably someone's afterthought, just documenting everything available about her, about the situation.

about you.

because that IS you. no older than three, with a fluffy head of hair and thick, round glasses. smiling in her arms.

your father never took pictures, and there were no family friends to do so either. the oldest surviving pictures of you are either in old yearbooks you don't own copies of, or when you're in your teens at the very least, and god knows you don't have those either. but this--

this is you. and her. and you both look happy. and you wonder: did she love you? what would have happened if she had survived? would she have kept you away from your father, kept you safe? where would you be? who would you be? would you have avoided all the senseless death of just about everyone who's ever mattered to you?

it's bittersweet, really. because she is dead, and there's no way to change the past. but she was smiling. and you were smiling. and you can't remember, because you were too young to remember, but you think you loved her. and you hope she loved you too.

the death in your life is not over. there will be more, and it will even be worse. the only thing you can do is protect the child you have, now, in the way you like to imagine your mother would have protected you, if she could.

it's closure, in a way, isn't it? it doesn't really make you feel better, but you know, now. if there's any way she can live on, it can be through you.

you obtain a picture of the girl's mother, and you tell her that her mother loved her very much. she, like you, was an infant when her mother was killed in cold blood; unlike you, she was never even in her mother's arms. you do not want her to grow up with the uncertainty you did.

maybe you don't tell anyone. maybe it's too hard. but you think about her, about the photo, about a life you never had. and you try to live anyway.

Today, Hal invited Lina to go for a walk and eat something outside the house.