Thank you guys all for being so supportive of the play and for all the lovely letters I’m still getting regarding it. I’m deeply honored and humbled by it all. - Amanda

This reel is a collection of the auditions I received from Tim Weaver (Ocelot), Zellie Berraine (Olivia), and Sean Chiplock (Otacon) that ultimately got them the roles!

Just remember, any questions or comments about CITA can be emailed to andikith@gmail.com

–Amanda M.

It’s the voice actors of Metal Gear Solid: Cracks in the Armor the way you’ve never heard them…completely f**king up.

Kamran Nikhad

Zellie Berraine

Sean Chiplock

“Let go of me!”

“Get ahold of yourself, Otacon! What the hell’s the matter with you?”

As he takes a moment to look around, he instantly understands why every cell in his body is vilely quivering. The room is covered in a collection of overturned bookshelves, papers, and electronic debris—all things that had been whole objects several seconds ago. A small tornado would have done less damage.

Snake physically gives him a quick jolt to remind him of the question he’s still waiting on the answer to. Hal feels himself losing it again in an onslaught of unwelcomed emotion…but it’s one that involves the more familiar action of sobbing. He doesn’t want to tell anything he knows because he doesn’t want to believe it. But blissful ignorance won’t do anything…especially tell Olivia what he should have known an hour ago…

Solid Snake – Kamran Nikhad

Ending Theme: Cindy – “Cold Snowlight”

Trivia

- VERY special thanks to composer Cindy who let me snag her beautiful song “Cold Snowlight” as the ending track at the very, VERY last possible moment. I owe ya one!

The program buzzes suddenly. “Damnit!” He feels Olivia’s hand lightly land on his shoulder but it offers little of the comfort it’s supposed to. “I can’t even save my virtual patient. How am I going to save you?”

“Hal, you know the point of the program isn’t to learn how to save me but to learn how to take out the bullet.”

Hal can’t even begin to understand why she’s so calm. He wants to reach out and shake her to transfer something—anything–to her that’ll make her remember that she’s going to die and that he’s going to be the one killing her.

“First Wolf, then Emma…now you. I can’t keep anyone alive. I’m so sorry, Olivia.”

She lifts up his head between both her hands. Her eyes are sympathetic but they still hold tomorrow’s goal in them. “Ready or not, we do this first thing tomorrow.”

***

Olivia takes a deep breath mostly for Hal since he looks as if he’s forgotten how to breathe at all. She doesn’t feel the scalpel go into her leg and is only made aware that anything is happening when her chest becomes too heavy to breathe normally anymore. She can see Hal’s eyes filling with concern and sadness and by the time he brings them to look at her, she looks away.

After the bullet is out, Hal holds it in his grip lost in the reality of seeing it out of her body.

“Go…now.” She pushes out on hard labored breaths. He steals a moment to apply a bandage before he gets up and leaves the room as he’s told. Alone with Snake, she finally allows the face and strength she was faking for Hal to break.

“Is there anything I can do?” He asks. It’s the most sincere he’s ever sounded with anything he’s said to her.

She smiles. “Yeah. You can stop asking questions and for once tell me what you’re thinking.” Snake’s face wrestles for focus in her sight and around the time he informs her that the serum isn’t working, he fades out of it completely…

When she comes to, he’s holding her like a caught object and she’s looking up at him through barely open eyes. She can feel his heavy breaths and still hear the last reverberation of his gruff calls of her name bounce off the walls of the Nomad.

“Who’s going to take your stitches out?”

“What?”

“The stitches in your arm.”

“Oh,” he says after a quick glance to his own arm. “I’ll manage.”

The response inspires a chuckle that without warning turns into sobbing. “I failed, Snake. I’m sorry.”

“What are you talking about?”

She uses her last breaths to tell Snake of her true intentions and purpose for him. He knows the exact blink that’s going to be her last one and when her eyes close their last time, he gently lays her body down as if the absence of life turned her into a precious porcelain.

He wants to apologize but apologizing to a dead body is just as good as crying over one to him: it doesn’t solve anything. Instead, he leaves the room. His energy will be better spent making Ocelot pay.

***

Hal feels like a mad man playing, stopping, rewinding, and then playing the video of Olivia’s torture over and over again. But something’s not right and hasn’t been since he’s held that bullet in his hand and he feels the answer is in that recording. On what he figures is his thousand play through, it snaps together in epiphanic clarity and viciousness and makes him feel as if his brain wasn’t working at all until that very moment.

“Oh God. No…”

Solid Snake – Kamran Nikhad

Olivia Steele – Zellie Berraine

Hal “Otacon” Emmerich – Sean Chiplock

Revolver Ocelot – Timothy Weaver

Female Computer Voice 3 - Illa Scriptor

Trivia

- I think what made Snake and Olivia’s chemistry work is the fact that they are complete polar opposites. Snake is very logical and does almost nothing from emotional attachment to something. I’m certainly not calling Snake emotionless—he’s not—but, over the years, he’s learned to not factor them into what he does. Olivia probably doesn’t have a logical bone in her body. She’s driven by emotions and I think it’s that that also makes her the bit of a bad ass she is as well.

- I know I didn’t spend a whole lot of time exploring the whole “Snake doesn’t trust Olivia” thing that came up but I like to think that her willing to risk her life was enough to gain back Snake’s trust.

- In the first part of this, when Olivia comes to talk to Hal while he’s working with the simulation, there was a LOT of sobbing from both of them originally but it felt like too much since they ultimately both get their chance to boo-hoo later too. I had to remember this wasn’t just my story anymore…I had actual actors who had to cry for 10 minutes straight and say their lines so I spared them.

- Olivia’s death speech was originally very different but after a chat with UltraNeko doing my other job, I rewrote the whole thing for Olivia to express her desire to be someone (besides Otacon, of course) who wanted to treat Snake like a human, especially after knowing his true origins and purpose of creation. In the story version Snake, in a sign of regained trust, tells her briefly about his relationship with Meryl which is a subject he blatantly avoided when he first met her. Olivia loosely predicts the events of MGS4 when she hopes for him to see her again in her final breaths. I liked the ending but after going over my and UltraNeko’s chat, I felt like this one worked on every level—especially emotionally–and was more in line with the Olivia character. So, I have to thank UltraNeko immensely for inspiring it.

- Zellie Berraine is one of the most talented actresses I know but like %99.9 of the population, she can’t die, cry, and speak French all at the same time. In one of her final lines, she was supposed to say, “Hal told me everything about the Les Enfants Terrible project…” but after a few retakes over Skype, we both realized that that sequence of words probably wasn’t happening. So, I did a quick rewrite and just made it, “the project”. I think Metal Gear fans know what she’s talking about and for those who don’t, wiki it!

- Every woman that Otacon has really cared about has not only died but has died in front of him. In my own personal quest to spare this poor yet fictional character, I had Olivia make him leave the room.

Ten minutes ago when he decided to tell Olivia about his assumptions about the bullet in her leg being a transmitter to aid Ocelot, he never guessed he’d end up the makeshift surgeon to remove it. He pleaded with her to give him time—to let him spend the next few days racking his brain and draining every resource he knows of to figure out a way to disable it so that she could live but she knows the dangers of waiting and wouldn’t hear of it. And now, he hears his own words—his own stupid words—repeated back to him. The worst part is that she’s right and they both know it but she’s the only one that accepts it as her fate. He feels her staring at him, waiting for an answer to come across his lips. The only thing he can do is remove his glasses and cover his eyes when he feels the familiar sting of tears rushing to them. She doesn’t want to see him cry and he doesn’t want to do it in front of her. She wants an answer to her impossible request: Will you kill me?

Solid Snake - Kamran Nikhad

Olivia Steele - Zellie Berraine

Hal “Otacon” Emmerich - Sean Chiplock

Trivia

- All that stuff about removing the bullet rupturing an artery…probably complete crap. I’m sure medically, it’s either impossible or implausible.

- In the story version, Olivia didn’t have to try as hard to get Otacon to do the surgery. I think in my rewrite of this, I realized it would take a lot more convincing to make someone like Otacon purposefully kill someone no matter how necessary it seemed.

- This is one of the most edited scenes in the history of this story. The events and ending changed a lot over time and since this is a pretty vital scene that expresses what Otacon thinks is going on, I had to come back MANY times and edit certain things him and Olivia said.

In the moment following her departure, Snake finds himself in front of a computer monitor with Otacon playing a clip of audio with Olivia and his voice on it. Otacon’s a bit reluctant to tell Snake that he’s picked up the signal of a transmitter on Olivia because it only fuels Snake’s anger and distrust toward her. He’s even more reluctant to reveal that he doesn’t think Olivia knows she bugged. He trusts Olivia. He’s seen her in the moments Snake haven’t and in ways he doesn’t. When he voices his support of Olivia still, Snake is not surprised at his friend’s blinding loyalty to the woman…especially because she is a woman and this is not the first time he’s had a “crush” that’s potentially spelled doom for them both. At Otacon’s request to trust him on this, Snake nods his head but but without the implied agreement. It’s just a motion to satisfy the engineer until the truth about her is uncovered.

Solid Snake - Kamran Nikhad

Olivia Steele - Zellie Berraine

Otacon - Sean Chiplock

Female Computer Voice 2 - “UltraNeko”

Trivia

- A big, BIG thanks to Sadie/”UltraNeko” for lending her voice, talent, and sweetness to my little radioplay in the form of Otacon’s computer’s voice. Be sure to check out Sadie’s Gaming Infection on Youtube! (http://www.youtube.com/user/ultraneko)

- I really can’t believe how amazing the response to the radioplay has been. From the iTunes reviews to personal emails I’ve received, it’s all been very flattering and very much appreciated. Please, keep all the good stuff coming and I promise to do the same. Thank you to every single person who’s given this play a listen out of boredom, curiosity, or suggestion from a friend. It means a lot to me and the entire cast.

He’s in without so much as an empty glance from security and when he calls Otacon back, he can’t help but let the engineer in on his concern. Like most times, Otacon brushes it off. He must seriously think the accelerated aging is messing with his mind. Snake knows it’s not. Just before he’s home free, the computer lets out a true warning chime and systematically begins deleting information from the hard drive and the disc Snake had brought to snag it. Now Otacon believes him. He tells Snake to forget the information and jet, two things Snake was already going to do, with or without his friend’s permission.

In true feline fashion, Revolver Ocelot enters the room without a sound. Snake doesn’t become aware of his presence until his voice cracks the air with an arrogance that thinks it has a triumph card over the mercenary’s situation. Olivia’s name comes up and starts swirling around the dust bunnies that have been collecting over Snake’s primal instincts about people and trust lately. Olivia quickly voices a rebuttal from his Codec but the old man in the duster and cowboy boots is starting to make sense. The thoughts are taking up so much of Snake’s concentration that he almost misses the swiftly drawn revolver and first few complimentary shots towards him.

Snake’s first thought is hide. It has never been that before but his body isn’t in the condition to indulge his foe for more than a few exchanges of blindly fired bullets. Ocelot withdraws once Snake disappears into a corner of the room that he doesn’t much care to venture into. This isn’t their fight, anyway, but it is coming. And soon.

Snake listens to Otacon call for him a few seconds over Codec and clinches down hard in his mouth as he responds. There’s an awful, bleeding bolt of pain in his left arm tightly housing a revolver bullet. For once, Olivia’s concern isn’t necessarily for him but rather what he may or may not know about her now. He has nothing to say to her for the moment and cuts the transmission right on top of her question, a move he knows is in vain since he’ll see her in less than twenty minutes back on the Nomad. He stays in his place for a moment, head propped on the wall behind him, right hand playing bandage over the throbbing wound on his arm. Once again, there’s a substance in his body that he’s forced to play a daily round of Russian roulette with until something–anything–just puts him out of his misery for good.

This kind of thing really shouldn’t happen more than once a lifetime, he thinks to himself.

Solid Snake - Kamran Nikhad

Olivia Steele - Zellie Berraine

Hal “Otacon” Emmerich - Sean Chiplock

Revolver Ocelot - Timothy Weaver

Trivia

- This scene should rightfully have music (especially around the time Ocelot makes his appearance) and I had a very talented composer set to write a piece for it but the chapter was rushed out and had to do without it. It also suffered a little bit from my mixing of the shootout that Snake and Ocelot have. That was originally supposed to be done by someone a lot more talented than me with that sort of stuff by the name of River Kanoff.

- I was very fascinated with alluding to things and events from MGS4 which changes the MGS4 storyline slightly since with this, Snake and Otacon would have already known a good deal of what Ocelot was up to in the Middle East but, eh, it’s non-canon anyway.

- This is one of the only scenes that every member of the main cast is in.

Solid Snake - Kamran Nikhad

Olivia Steele - Zellie Berraine

Music - Foo Fighters - The Pretender

Trivia

- I really wanted to find a way to incorprate more music into the play since it’s sort of structured to be very quiet and dialog concentrated. Snake having an iPod in MGS4 made it easy for me to insert music in but then came the question, “What kind of music does Solid Snake listen to?”. Surprisingly, I went through only a handful of different bands before landing on the Foo Fighters and a few different songs before deciding on “The Pretender”. While the band strangely fits Snake, the choice is primarily another nod to David Hayter, who has said in interviews that he’s a fan of them.

- End of Scar Tissue! Next chapter: The Goodbye Song pt. 1! Stay tuned!

Emma.

He’s thankful for the sudden computer chime that abruptly stops wherever that conversation was headed. They’re getting closer to where they need to be and where Ocelot already is–London, England. Ocelot has been working on something bigger than his normal schemes…and his partner has been ArmsTech, Otacon’s old employer. Whatever it is, it’s catastrophic enough that Otacon can tell that extra effort has been put into keeping him out of ArmsTech’s computers. The fact that he hasn’t been able to hack it in the past couple of days despite his constant and tiring efforts frightens him more than it annoys him. The change in appearance of Olivia’s scar steals his attention away from the matter at hand. It looks different in a way that could mean there’s something really wrong with it…or it could be his eyes, which haven’t closed and have barely blinked in the past 24 hours, playing tricks on him. Olivia assures him it’s the latter and tells him to get some rest. That sounds like a great idea…

The many traveled miles and few hours of rest doesn’t serve him well enough to give him the ability to crack ArmTech’s security still. Otacon is at his last possible option and as semi-sensible as it all sounds to him, Olivia rejects the idea immediately.

Sending Snake in is a terrible last option to have.

Solid Snake - Kamran Nikhad

Olivia Steele - Zellie Berraine

Otacon - Sean Chiplock

Trivia

The conversation between Otacon and Olivia is my favorite bit in Scar Tissue and though it’s got a little fluff in it, there’s a lot revealed in this scene. First, I hope people really begin to get the established relationship between Otacon and Olivia. I think you can definitely tell how close a person is to someone by listening to the way they talk to them. The tones they use, the things they say and how they say it. Olivia uses gentler tones with Otacon than she does with Snake. I like to think she feels she always has to be on guard with Snake, standing her ground with him and letting him know, ‘hey, your broodiness and moodiness don’t intimidate me’. Her guard is probably pretty non-existent around Otacon, who’s very pure-hearted (not to be confused with innocent) and sensitive.

The REAL reason Olivia calls him “Hal” is because when I was writing the story version of this, when all three of them were talking in a scene–Olivia, Snake, and Otacon–it tended to get a little confusing. So, by having Olivia call him Hal and Snake call him Otacon, it was easier to separate who was talking without putting “Olivia said, Snake said” after every single line.

This scene wasn’t actually a part of Scar Tissue in the original story. It was a really short part all it’s own called “Sidelines” and it was a late night conversation between Olivia and Otacon about a bunch of different things. They discussed everything from her trying out for the cheerleading squad in highschool and not making it to what it’s like for Otacon watching Snake on a mission, knowing he can’t do anything if something goes wrong. Having a part that short seemed really pointless so, I absorbed the most important elements from it–the talk about Emma and Olivia calling him “Hal”–into Scar Tissue.

I’ve talked to a lot MGS fans in the past who feel really bad for Snake and the fact that he always gets pulled into doing another one-man infiltration mission right after he’s decided to retire from “the business”. Olivia is sort of the voice of those fans in her pleas with Otacon to not send Snake into ArmsTech in his condition. And even though she doesn’t exactly win her battle, she is the first person to truly stand up and say, “Hey, has anyone noticed that Snake isn’t all that well these days?! How about we give this man a break”. Too bad it’s not canon, eh?

Olivia is a ghost…but the scar on her face is so familiar and so real that Snake feels it could be a part of his own body plan. Hers wasn’t the first life he’d seen taken. She’s not even the first soul he’s seen come back from their supposed grave…but hers was the first death he had felt responsible for in a long time and knowing that she wasn’t actually dead at all offers little to no comfort at the moment.

After Otacon leaves, there’s still an uneasy surrealism to her presence…until she puts that needle into his arm, quickly making it an unpleasant reality. Whatever’s in that syringe feels like sharp, hot pebbles getting pushed through the small circumference of his veins. Even in the seconds after the injection is complete, the burning continues to crawl throughout his arm. Olivia issues a quick but sincere apology for it and leads them into conversation that causes him to finally reveal the details of the vision he had during his blackout to her and allows the burning sensation to finally stop.

Unfortunately, the imprints from the video and the blackout nightmare don’t subside so easily. They are not accidental or coincidental–they mean something and even though he wants to chalk the whole thing up to happenstance like Olivia does, he knows he can’t.

Solid Snake - Kamran Nikhad

Olivia Steele - Zellie Berraine

Otacon - Sean Chiplock

Trivia:

- Snake is forever letting random, pretty girls inject him with substances in syringes, eh?

Solid Snake - Kamran Nikhad

Otacon - Sean Chiplock

Trivia:

- This scene was really, really different in the story version. While the reveal isn’t THAT much of a shock, I felt it was too quickly given away in the other version and decided to drag it out a little bit here.

- This chapter was named after the Red Hot Chili Peppers song of the same title.

The silence between his greeting and Otacon’s response is dense and concealing. Otacon is trying desperately to hide from his tone what his heart is nearly leaping into his throat to scream but he’s terrible at not telling truth and even worse at hiding it. Half of that truth spills out from him and contains Olivia’s name. Snake convinces him to give him the other half in the video he’s received. Otacon’s warning of the video’s content is snubbed in Snake’s irritation at him for tyring to give him one to begin with. He considers himself ready and prepared for anything.

…anything except what comes after hitting “play”.

Solid Snake - Kamran Nikhad

Olivia Steele - Zellie Berraine

Otacon - Sean Chiplock

Revolver Ocelot - Tim Weaver

Male Computer Voice - “GA”

Trivia

- As completely wrong and sadistic as it is, this is my favorite scene of “Overpoured”. Torture scenes are a kind of a staple in the MGS series and I was very happy to carry on the tradition (*cough*unlikeMGS4did*cough*).

- I kind of forgot to mention it but Snake and Otacon reside in New York. That’s the only place I could ever see both of them living. Snake would be fine in Alaska but I always imagined Otacon would be pretty miserable and Otacon might be okay in a place like Los Angeles but I think Snake would hate it. It is also a nod to Otacon’s actual voice actor, Christopher Randolph, who is the only regular cast member who lives in New York today.

- I really didn’t think this scene would work without a Codec call but I couldn’t think of a single reason Otacon would be calling Snake on the Codec if they, indeed, lived together. So, I fixed that by having Snake mention that Otacon was in Los Angeles with Mei Ling.

- This is the END of the “Overpoured” chapter BUT next is “Scar Tissue”! Stay tuned and (wants to steal a line from UltraNeko) well, just stay tuned.

It doesn’t help much.

He dropped so suddenly, so hard…so lifelessly. Despite his steady heartbeat and pulse withstanding through his unconsciousness, the sheer waiting is making it harder for her to imagine him ever opening his eyes again.

But he does and with a start.

She’s relieved and stirred all at once when Snake’s eyes pop open and his breathing deepens to pull from the depths of his chest. He’s seen something and it only takes Snake’s blunt dismissal of her questions concerning it for her to realize he doesn’t want to remember what it was.

A helicopter sounds from the distance and her and Snake exchange goodbyes without much of the emotions or gestures that would normally go with an event like that. She finds incredible irony in Snake’s last request for her to take care of herself. He knows there’s something wrong within his own make up and whether he wanted her to or not, Olivia knows now too…

Solid Snake - Kamran Nikhad

Olivia Steele - Zellie Berraine

Music: 8mm - “Quicksand” ( http://www.myspace.com/8mm )

Trivia

- In the story version of this scene, it was full of borrowed dialog from the games. At one point, Snake even said, “I’ll call if I’m feeling lonely”.

Note: I apologize for the wonky sound quality. This is my first time mixing ANYTHING and I’m still learning how to do this. I really, really hope that you guys are into the story enough to forgive the mixing errors. If you don’t listen with headphones, it’s not as noticeable.

THE SCENE: Olivia can’t help herself or the state of uninhibitedness the wine has put her tongue in. The mercenary is quiet and dark, both traits that drive her already curious nature wild, forming and slingshotting questions faster than he’d be able to even consider answers…if he was, indeed, answering. He breaks her interrogational streak with the mention of an “Otacon”. He’s discovered his communication with Otacon was the only casualty of the explosion from earlier. Olivia offers her help to fix that…

Solid Snake - Kamran Nikhad

Olivia Steele - Zellie Berraine

Trivia

- This is the perfect example of a scene that, on paper, felt a little flat but really came to life once Zellie and Kamran recorded the lines.

- Olivia orginally talked a lot more about Evan in this scene. She even went over the details of their first date but while translating it to radioplay, it felt like it was too much.

- Snake actually getting to smoke a cigarette was my way of giving the poor guy a break. Anyone see what happens to him whenever he tries to do that in the games?

Solid Snake - Kamran Nikhad

Olivia Steele - Zellie Berraine

Music arranged by: Amanda Mack

“Can’t Say Goodbye to Yesterday” - Carla White, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty OST

Trivia:

- Olivia’s dual citizenship in the USA and Canada is a nod to Solid Snake’s voice actor for the games, David Hayter.

Solid Snake - Kamran Nikhad (Camp Panda Ops MGS Machinima)

Olivia Steele - Zellie Berraine

Music arranged by: Bernie Spencer

Music composed by: Harry Gregson-Williams, Metal Gear Solid OSTs

Trivia:

- Olivia was named after Attack of the Show host Olivia Munn.

- In an attempt to stay as close to the games as possible, Snake’s dialog consists mostly of questions and repeating the last part of what Olivia says.

- Olivia orginally had a little sister but the idea was scrapped.

- Although it’s never mentioned in the dialog of the radioplay, Olivia is 32 years old.

- Olivia never answers Snake’s question about how she got him back to her house by herself because I never quite had an explanation for it. Consider it a plothole.

- While writing the original story, I jokingly called it “Metal Gear Sexy” for the working title.

- The whole thing was written over the course of about 3 days.