"What? Why?"

Snake crushes the MP3 player under his heel.

Snake almost smiles. Almost.

The rain keeps falling. Somewhere, the beat plays on forever in the static of a dead channel.

Snake plugs the device into his ear. A dusty, compressed beat drops—a loop of helicopter rotors and gunfire syncopated to a wobbling 808.

"Laughing Octopus cryin' on the inside, we alike / Raging Raven in the sky, I'm too tired to fight / Crying Wolf in the snow, sniper wolf déjà vu / Vamp flippin' on the ceiling, what that neck taste like? Pfft, screw you."

Beat. The rapper comes back one last time:

Snake pulls the earbud out. He looks at the MP3 player. He looks at the rain-streaked window.

Then the outro. A sampled voice—Big Boss, maybe, or The Boss—whispers over a fading synth:

Long pause.

It's his voice, but chopped and screwed.

"Snake? Snake! SNAAAAAKE!"

"Nah. This is war. Pass the Rations, son. End of the line. Mic drop. (Gunshot sound.)"

It’s a rap file. Someone—Otacon, probably, in one of his “we need to keep your morale up” interventions—has commissioned a Metal Gear Solid 4 theme song. And it’s terrible. And perfect.