Emma were close, as they had no other friends. Huey later committed suicide by drowning himself in the family pool, and attempted to drown Emma as well. After the incident, Emma became estranged from her stepbrother, blaming him for not saving her. Shortly afterwards, Hal ran away from home and did not see any of his family members until several years later. Choosing not to continue school, he began to educate himself via the Internet. He became a big fan of anime, and started calling himself Otacon, short for the "Otaku Convention", which he never misses. He matriculated at MIT and earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University. During his college years, he was recruited by the FBI's Engineering Research Facility, but was fired from his job after hacking into their classified database. Otacon was hired by Armstech, Inc. to be the lead engineer for the Metal Gear REX project. He jumped at the chance to make an actual mecha type robot, which appears frequently in the anime he enjoys. He was led to believe that it was a mobile defense system, but in reality it was a nuclear doomsday weapon. In 2005, during the Shadow Moses incident (the events of Metal Gear Solid), Otacon encountered Solid Snake who had informed him of the true nature of Metal Gear REX. Devastated, Otacon realized that he had written yet another chapter in his family's dark history—his grandfather had worked on the Manhattan Project, and his father was born on the day of the Hiroshima bombing. Otacon had developed a strong attraction to FOXHOUND member Sniper Wolf. Distraught that Snake would have to kill her, Otacon eventually came to terms with her, himself, and his position in life. With Otacon's assistance, Snake was able to destroy REX and defeat the terrorist uprising. According to the in-universe novel In the Darkness of Shadow Moses: The Unofficial Truth, Otacon had allegedly left for Great Britain after the events of the terrorist uprising to visit relatives. After the schematics for Metal Gear were placed on the black market by Revolver Ocelot, Snake and Otacon formed Philanthropy, an organization dedicated to the end of the proliferation of Metal Gear-type weapons. In 2007 (the events of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty), Otacon received an email from his step-sister Emma, informing him of a new prototype Metal Gear RAY. The e-mail was actually a trap for the