INT. RAIN-SLICKED ROOFTOP – NIGHT
The city lights of a nameless European capital glitter below. GRETA THUNBERG, 17, stands at the edge, her shoulders slumped. The wind whips her hair. Behind her, SOLID SNAKE materializes from the shadows, his sneaking suit almost absorbing the scant light.
GRETA
> (To herself, voice thick) They have the data. They’ve always had the data. They sit in their rooms of polished stone and they… they talk. And the forests burn.
Snake stops a few feet away. He doesn’t look at her, his gaze scanning the skyline.
SNAKE
> (A low gravel) Kids shouldn’t have to fight this war.
Greta turns, startled. She wipes her eyes fiercely, embarrassed.
GRETA
> Who are you? One of theirs? Sent to scare me?
SNAKE
> I’m here to tell you to stop crying.
GRETA
> (A bitter, wet laugh) Why? Because it’s inconvenient? Because it makes the powerful uncomfortable? Good.
SNAKE
> No. Because tears are a resource. They evaporate. Action is a weapon. It leaves a mark.
He finally looks at her. His eyes are old, weary, but sharp.
SNAKE
> The prophet Isaiah wrote about a world where a wolf lives with a lamb. A little child will lead them. He wasn’t talking about negotiation.
GRETA
> What else is there? They won’t listen.
SNAKE
> They listen to two things: force, and money. We’re short on money.
Snake gestures out towards the glowing city.
SNAKE
> They’ve got you fighting over straws and electric cars. It’s a side mission. The main op is right under our feet. Soy fields where rainforests stood. Plastic oceans. All to feed a machine.
GRETA
> I know. I *know* that.
SNAKE > Then you know we need tools. Real ones. Bamboo. Grows faster than anything they cut down. Industrial hemp. Can replace half the plastic in that city. Cloth, fuel, food. We had it. They took it away.
GRETA
> Who?
SNAKE
> The men in the rooms with polished stone. The bloodline. A company called DuPont. They’ve had their boot on the neck of hemp for a century. They won’t move it for a speech.
Greta stares at him, the activist in her wrestling with the sheer, brutal simplicity of his worldview.
GRETA
> So what do we do? You can’t just… make them.
SNAKE
> (A faint, grim smile) I’ve got a message for them. For the whole world, listening in on their wires.
He keys a button on his Codec. A low, steady beep.
SNAKE
> (Into the mic, his voice changing, becoming a broadcast) This is Solid Snake. To the powers in Dupont Circle. You’ve held the world hostage long enough. You have until New Year’s Day. Release the patents. End the blockade on industrial hemp. Let it grow.
GRETA
> (Whispering) They’ll never agree. They can’t. It would cost them everything.
Snake’s eyes are locked on some distant point in the sky, far above the clouds.
SNAKE
> I know. Then they’ll learn the oldest lesson.
GRETA
> What lesson?
He looks back at her, the prophecy of Isaiah taking on a terrifying, new meaning.
SNAKE
> Spare the rod, spoil the child. And you’ve all been very, very spoiled.
GRETA
> What’s the rod?
SNAKE
> The Rod from God. A tungsten telephone call from orbit. The last argument of kings.
He turns and begins to walk away, melting back into the shadows from which he came.
SNAKE
> (Over his shoulder) Stop crying, kid. You led us to the battlefield. My job is to win the fight.
He’s gone. Greta is left alone on the rooftop, the wind drying her tears, replaced by a chilling, terrifying hope. She looks up at the stars, wondering which one holds the rod.
