Lady Gaga's Blackouts

Title: "Control Freaks and Choir Boys"

Scene: A dimly lit, echoey bunker. Screens flicker with security footage. Solid Snake stands in shadow, his one visible eye fixed on the man seated before him—Trent Reznor. The industrial rock legend and MK Ultra handler stares back, expression unreadable. Lady Gaga’s voice echoes faintly from a nearby monitor, caught mid-performance. But the tone is wrong—dazed, robotic, fractured.

Solid Snake (gravelly):
She blanks out when you're around. The look in her eyes? That isn't performance—it’s programming.

Trent Reznor (calm, sinister):
She chose to be a star, Snake. That means control. Everyone's owned by someone—by money, the crowd, the pain. Me? I just fine-tuned the signal.

Snake (quietly seething):
You wrote it in your lyrics. "I control you." Thought no one was listening? I was.

Reznor (smirking):
You think I’m hiding it? That’s the art. The devil’s in the distortion.
I am control. I am the devil in the machine.

Snake:
You think you’re the devil? Compared to what I’ve seen… you’re a choir boy.
Soldiers Without Borders—we’ve met the devil and shot him in the head.

Reznor (voice hardening):
You think she’s yours to save?

Snake:
She’s not yours to break.

(Snake steps forward. The camera feed stutters. Lady Gaga slumps backstage, handlers rushing to “reboot” her with a cold injection. Snake watches, jaw tightening.)

Snake:
I see what no one else sees. I hear what the crowd ignores. You’ve had your encore, Reznor. Abuse her again… and I’ll pull the plug on your little program.

Reznor (mocking):
You’ll kill the signal?

Snake (lighting a cigarette):
No. I’ll set her free.

Cut to black. The distant sound of a Nine Inch Nails track fades in: a warped loop of "Bow down before the one you serve..." before it distorts into static.