Cold. Cold. COLD. AAAAAAAAGH.
"Aga brb rbrbhrbrhrbrhrbhaaaaaah!" The brilliantly red colt sat straight up and let out a long series of gripes and curses. Boy, was he freezing! And wet!
Keegan McCadden hated the cold, and he hated being wet. Being both was the ultimate injustice at this point, and he made it very clear how uncomfortable he was.
He heard the laughs of somepony else in the room, and as his vision cleared, he saw two figures standing before him. One was a serious-looking, gold-maned stallion with a clipboard and a labcoat, but the other was a disheveled colt about his age and size.
This colt was thin and squirrelly-looking. His eggshell mane was spiked backwards, and his mane was sky blue. He was cackling with laughter as the other scribbled on the clipboard and tapped some machine.
Keegan snarled. He hated it when ponies were laughing at something he didn't get, but he got the distinct feeling this colt was laughing at him. He hated that even more. Keegan strongly felt the urge to clobber this colt in his squirrelly little face, but curiosity overtook his irritation. After all, he realized he didn't actually know where he was, what he was doing there, and why he was, in fact, cold and wet and confused.
"Where am I?" He asked the gold-maned stallion, who seemed to be in control of the situation.
He saw that he was on a medical table inside a small laboratory. Beside him were three additional tables, one of which this giggling stick-colt was sitting on, gloating over his own position.
The well-lit lab was brimming with medical equipment, most of which Keegan didn't recognize. He thought that it must be some big hospital he was in, since his county hospital never had this much fancy equipment. He also noticed that the stallion in the lab coat was examining his head and legs, because Keegan was covered in little suction cups wired to these machines for monitoring.
"You're in the belly of the beast, ya half-wit!" The colt sniggered. "You signed the contract, and now you're cold and wet and dis-orientate-torted! What a deal!" Okay. This punk was getting on Keegan's nerves big time.
"Why don't you shove it, ya l'il cretin, afore I come over there and shove your jaw all the way up into your brain?"
The colt's demeanor switched hard and fast to wild-eyed anger. "Come over here and try, why don't ya!"
Keegan was right about to, when the stallion in the lab coat put his hoof on Keegan's chest and said, "I wouldn't recommend that. He's been out of stasis for about half an hour longer than you." The colt sneered at this, but Keegan hoofed his nose at him.
"Sorry for not introducing myself the moment you woke up," the lab coated stallion continued. "But administering your vitals was the most pressing issue. The cold stasis technology is... experimental."
Keegan had too much of a headache to fully comprehend the hesitation in his voice, and he just said, "Thanks a lot, doc."
The "doc" smiled. He said, "Not a problem. Do you in fact know who you are?"
"Aye. I'm Keegan McCadden," the fire-maned colt said proudly. The other colt scoffed.
"And do you know where you are?" The "doc" asked.
Keegan paused to consider. He confessed, "As a matter of fact, doc, I don't. Am I at a big-time hospital? Did I fall in a lake or sommat?"
"No," the "doc" told him. The grin was gone, and a look of seriousness took its place. "You are at a medical bay in Gideon Labs. I am not a doctor, not of medicine anyway. I am a scientist, and you signed a contract with MaxxDyne corporation. You belong to us now."
Keegan looked at the doc -- no, scientist -- with no expression but blank non-understanding. For ten seconds. Then understanding dawned on him.
"Oh! That's right!" He laughed.
He remembered signing that thirteen page contract with those nice-looking professionals. He remembered that charming CEO telling him all the wonderful things about this contract. He remembered how desperate he was for some work, after every single job opening in Coltsburg turned out to be a dead end.
And he remembered being bagged and tossed in the back of a truck and being driven for hours to who knew where.
"Some deal, huh!" He kept laughing and laughing, and to his surprise the other colt saw fit to join him.
"Ha ha! Same thing happened to me!" The colt said between laughs.
"That so? Ha ha ha!" Keegan was bent over from the hilarity of it. The other colt just nodded, the wind in him exhausted from lauging.
"Ah, aha! Ha! Whew, ha ha." Keegan wound down enough to get out a solitary question, "What's your name? Heh heh!"
"Eh hee hee ha! It's, aha, oh, it's Camdyn McGaith."
"It's ruddy good to meet ya, Camdyn! We're in this belly together!"
Tears rolled down both their cheeks, and the scientist stallion just shook his head, wondering what had become of colts these days and asking himself if they were all on dope.