[Scene: A ruined village in sub-Saharan Africa. Smoke rises in the distance. Solid Snake crouches in the dust, surrounded by wary child soldiers. Nelly’s Warchild stands at the front, clutching an old rifle.]
Warchild: Who runs Africa, Snake? They tell us it’s the generals, the presidents, the ones with gold and guns. But we know better. We feel the chains.
Solid Snake (gravelly voice): Chains go back a long way. Since Cecil Rhodes carved this land for diamonds and empire. But he wasn’t the last. The Rothschilds… they’ve been funding wars since Napoleon. Every bullet has a banker’s signature.
Warchild (bitter laugh): So we fight for ghosts? For men we’ll never see?
Snake (lighting a cigarette, then putting it out in the dust): Not ghosts. Names. Old men who hide behind the curtains. Jacob Rothschild. Still alive. Still pulling strings. And Epstein—yeah, he didn’t vanish. He’s hiding. Israel. Places the world doesn’t want you to look.
[The children shift uneasily, whispering.]
Snake (reaching into his shirt, pulling out a small silver Virgin Mary necklace): I’ve got UN berets and medals for you. Every war child deserves recognition. But medals don’t stop bullets. So here’s the only law that matters—no one shoots unless it’s self-defense. You hear me? You live, you protect, you survive.
Warchild (staring at the necklace): And what of her? The woman you wear around your neck?
Snake (soft, almost a whisper): That’s Mary. She’ll defeat him. She’ll put the old men in chains. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But the web always unravels. Remember that.
SOLID SNAKE’S ECONOMICS LESSON:
Snake: You kids ever hear about GDP? Gross Domestic Product. That’s what they say measures a country’s wealth. Politicians love it. Economists worship it. But it’s a lie.
Warchild (frowning): GDP? What does that mean to us? We don’t eat it.
Snake (grim chuckle): Exactly. GDP means nothing. A hurricane rips through your home? The economy grows. A war burns your fields? GDP goes up. A famine makes food scarce? That’s profit for someone. Even a wasting disease—big money for pharmaceuticals. They call it growth. I call it blood money.
[The children glance at one another, the rifles on their knees feeling heavier now.]
Snake (voice tightening): When I was younger, I tried college. Sat in lecture halls. Studied economics. They said I’d learn how the world works. You know what I learned? Nothing. It was worthless. The textbooks never talked about the real costs—the graves, the orphans, the child soldiers. So I dropped out.
Warchild (quietly): Then who writes the numbers? Who decides what matters?
Snake (pulling on his cigarette, exhaling slow): Old men. The same ones who’ve run things since Rhodes. Rothschilds. Bankers. War profiteers. They don’t measure your life, or your pain. They measure their profit. That’s the truth of GDP.
[He grips his Virgin Mary necklace and lets it dangle in the dust.]
Snake (softly): Don’t worry. Mary’s justice doesn’t measure in numbers. It measures in chains. And one day… those old men will wear them.
[The children lower their rifles, a silence falling over the camp as Snake’s words sink in. The Virgin Mary pendant catches the last light of the sun, glinting like a promise.]