//------------------------------// // Hostile Contact // Story: Terms of Employment // by chromewasp //------------------------------// Dear God, I can't believe I just said that. It's even harder for me to believe that I actually did it.         I mean, if you'd told me that one day my hand would be anywhere near Slayde's posterior, I would've laughed hard enough to blow your skin off.                  But right at that moment, it seemed like the most logical choice. The little brat is acting up? Set him down and give him a swat on the rear.         Okay, maybe that sounded a bit rednecky, but my nerves were a tightrope and Slayde was walking on them with ice skates. And besides, I grew up in the Ozarks--try as I might, I can never quite erase my inner hillbilly.           Anyway, it was just three quick swats—whap, whap, whap. Instantly Slayde went rigid, his words halting in his throat.         And then he started crying again. That was plenty annoying enough on its own, but far worse was the fact that he refused to move. He just wanted to keep sitting on his butt and bawling his eyes out--for all I knew, probably until this place came tumbling down.         I tried to the “I’m-gonna-pretend-to-walk-away-and-leave-you-behind” game to urge the munchkin onward, but he retaliated by crying even louder.         Sweet Jesus, why do kids need to be so goddam unreasonable?         It seemed stupid to try giving him yet another spanking; I didn't want to get stuck in some sort of feedback loop. Still, if we didn't move along soon, we would become top contenders for the annual Pancake Impersonator's Pageant.         So then I broke a precedent that had been upheld for thousands of years--I picked up Slayde and carried him on my shoulders. Thusly the tyrannical man-rides-horse paradigm was shattered, and nothing would ever be the same again.         For his part, Slayde seemed unable to grasp the gravity of this historic moment. He mostly just squirmed, whined, and sniffled before eventually deciding to quietly pout.  I suppose his way of getting revenge was to soak the back of my shirt with tears and snot.         With that issue resolved, I had the chance to concentrate more on our route. The map the Sphere had provided me with was proving to be reliable, and the ruins were easy to navigate. The city's streets were straight and evenly spaced, dividing it into a neat grid. The atmosphere reminded me much more of a giant cathedral than a city.  Towering pillars supported arched ceilings that disappeared into the gloom.  There were too many statues and monuments to count, (most of them themed around--you guessed it--horses) and every intersection featured a small stone fountain that gushed glowing blue liquid.  I couldn’t tell if they were merely decorative, or if the inhabitants actually drank that shit. I half-expected the city itself to be shaped like a giant horseshoe or something stupid like that, but it turned out to be built in the image of a six-pointed star. Guess I'm not the only one who got tired of the equine motif.         Although the city's layout worked in our favor, the scale did not. My first, flare-lit impression of the city's size was wildly off the mark. You know how frustrating it is when you set your sights on a landmark, but no matter how long you travel, it doesn't seem to get any closer? It wore on my nerves far more than anything Slayde could dish out, and I could've sworn my exasperation was coalescing into a murky, toxic aura around me.         Or maybe that was just my B.O. All I know is that no one was in the mood to step on my toes...which is probably why the foals never said a word for a good half-hour.  As we were hiking down a gloomy boulevard lined with strange statues, I heard the foals panting heavily.  Glancing over my shoulder, I noticed they were lagging further and further behind.         I don't know much about kids, (or foals, but so far they were proving pretty similar) but I do know they can't be expected to keep up the same hiking pace as an adult. So it was no surprise when Chicago and XB9 got short of breath—what was a surprise was that it was Chicago who asked for a break.         The year before, Chicago had carried 60 kilos of ammo over a seven-day journey through a steamy jungle.  The dumb bastard had almost gotten himself killed--and not just from his refusal to let me take off some of the load.  No, it was from the fact that no one knew about the hideous swollen spider bite on his foot until we saw how he couldn’t put his left boot on anymore.           That was Chicago...always the silent sufferer.  Every time, I’d make him promise to ditch that habit, and then next week he’d be marching quietly along with a cobra dangling from his nose.  I always thought the day he changed his ways would be a welcome one, but now it just felt wrong. Was this another personality distortion? Had Chicago’s spirit been broken?   Once again, I had no way of knowing.           “Can we stop? Just for a minute or two?” Chicago said, her voice only just loud enough to be intelligible.           It was a Herculean effort just to keep looking at her. It was already a knife in my chest to see Chicago stuck in that piteous, inhuman shape. Seeing her trembling with exhaustion...it was like getting run through with a rusty railroad spike.         Abruptly I averted my eyes. “Yeah...” I said distantly. “I think we can afford a breather.” XB9 seemed supremely grateful for the opportunity, and promptly plonked himself down on a nearby patch of moss.         I realized Slayde hadn't said anything in a while. Plucking him off my back, I discovered he was sound asleep. As I set him down, he brought his right hoof to his muzzle and gently sucked on it.         His big eyes twitched under their lids. “Activate the tesla beam,” he grumbled. “Unggh...bungling fools...”         I couldn't help but smile. Every bit of their old personalities showing through was a blow against the Sphere. My spirit thus buoyed, I summoned up the strength to talk to Chicago.         “How are you doing?” I asked her. She had curled up in the corner of a nearby alcove, staring blankly at the floor.         “Okay,” she said.         I cocked an eyebrow. “You're sure?”         She nodded, still not making eye contact. “I'm okay.”         I reached out to pat her on the shoulder, but then thought better of it. “We'll get through this, okay? Beers are on me.”         Chicago murmured something I didn't quite catch.         “What was that?” I asked.         “Five vodka shots,” she said simply. “Slayde said 'fool' again.”         I laughed in a way that was probably a bit more maniacal-sounding than I'd wished. But hell, who can blame me? You can't go through what I've been through without losing a bit of your sanity. Noticing that Chicago herself didn't seem all that amused, I quickly euthanized my laugh with a fit of fake coughs.         “You let me know if you need anything, all right?” I offered. “If you need a break, we'll take one. We'll get through this, all right?”         “Right,” replied Chicago. Nothing in her voice sounded convinced.  Her eyes remained fixed on the floor.         “We'll get through this.”         “Yeah.”  That wasn’t like Chicago at all.         “We'll get through this!”         “Mmh.”  Still no trace of my friend...and something about that moment made my mind twist to a breaking point.         “We will get through this!” I yelled.  “We’ll get through this!” I let my voice echo off the ceiling, enjoying the way it resounded through the entire cavern, like I had a whole squad of allies out there to aid our escape, like the sound waves could reach out to the Sphere and crush it like a cheap Christmas ornament, like it would be just loud enough to wake me out of this horrible fucking nightmare where--         I collapsed to my knees and coughed. I coughed again, and again, feeling something rising in my throat and the world spinning out of control. I wanted to throw up, but I couldn't. I was dry-heaving, and it angered me that my body was too weak to finish such a miserable task. I clutched and tore at my armor, goddammit, it was too fucking hot!         I felt a small hoof touch me on the leg.         “We’ll get through this,” I heard a small voice say.         I was dehydrated, starving, tired, sick, and desperate. But Chicago was right. I was going to get through this.         Wheezing, I pulled out my water bottle. I uncapped it, raised it to my lips, and then stopped.         “You first,” I said, holding it out to Chicago. “It ain't vodka, but it'll have to do.”         “You need it more,” she protested.         “No--” I started to say. With an exasperated growl, Chicago snatched the bottle and squirted water into my flapping jaw.         “Ackpth! All right, all right!”         I took the bottle back and drank a few quick swigs. “There. No more for me. We need to conserve this as best we can.”         “Right,” Chicago said, obediently taking a drink herself.         “I'm gonna go check on XB9, okay? I need to make sure he--”         Before I could finish, XB9 bolted up to me, his sharp eyes wide with dread.         “Did you hear that?”         Distant footsteps. Slow and methodical. Purposeful.         Fear crept up my spine like a cold, slimy centipede. I got back on my feet, every muscle taut and tense.         This whole situation was fucked up beyond belief, but I couldn't help but wonder if there was something worse out there, hiding behind the faceless statues and towering pillars. I didn't have my gun, but I still had my combat knife. I whipped it out of its sheath, relishing the blade's heft and the vicious, gleaming edge. If someone wanted to take me down, I'd make it a mutually painful experience.         Laughter echoed off the hard stone walls of the ruins. I spun on my heels, searching for a target and finding no one. Behind me Slayde stirred awake, gasping in fright.         “Who's there?” called XB9, trying his best to not sound like a scared little kid. It didn’t work.         The laughter came again. Closer now.         I brought my knife up to a combat position, feeling my stomach drop into the toes of my boots.         "That won't help you." The speaker sounded calm to the point of boredom. “That won't help you at all."         The voice came from directly behind me. I whirled to face the speaker, sweeping my blade in a lethal arc. My arm passed through something like freezing fog, and I jumped away in startlement.         At last I could get a better look at the interloper...and it took me a few seconds to comprehend what I was seeing. A shimmering blue image of a man staggered back, clutching his ethereal throat in mock agony.         "Yeow! You got me! Oh, why'd you have to bring a knife! It's my one true weakness!"         The voice was still unfamiliar, but I quickly recognized the apparition's face.         "I always figured your weakness was in the IQ department, Childs," I said, lowering my knife but not sheathing it. "That is, if that's who I'm really talking to."         "Yes and no. As you might guess, I'm a bit more than the bumbling idiot you thought you knew," he explained. As he spoke, it dawned on me why I hadn't recognized his voice: he sounded competent.         "I have brains. I have experience. But best of all, I have ambition," he said, making a grandiose gesture in the air. Countless tiny pictographs filled the air, and he studied them with the orgasmic glee of an English professor reading a lost Shakespeare play.         "And ambition," he breathed, "is everything."         "Dat's my line!" whined Slayde.         “Which you swiped from the third director of P.H.A.N.T.O.M.,” Childs sighed, not even looking away from the symbols.“Shame on you for that, by the way.  What the Sphere did to you is only a fraction of the humiliation you deserve.”         “I had a feewing—feeling about you! I shoulda fed you to da sharks on day one!” Slayde seethed.         "Oh-hohoho, spare me, doctor. You've always had the intuition of a brain-dead slug overdosing on--”         “Enough!” I yelled. “Childs, do you have anything important to say, or are you just here to prance around and gloat?”         “I admit I got a little sidetracked,” said Childs, shrugging. “This whole experience has thrown me for a loop. I swear, it's just so complicated to betray people these days. Even with help from a man like you, XB9,” he said, casting a thin smile at the ex-spy. “I gotta say, that was a nice reward you were gonna give me for being your mole. Two million dollars, a new identity, some prime beachside property in Yeysk...but I'm afraid it wasn't quite enough."         XB9 bared his fangs at him, his leathery wings flaring and his narrowed eyes glinting in the dim light. "Not enough?" he snarled.         Childs checked his fingernails. "You see, I discovered the Coalition wasn't going to completely bury the city. No, there would be some convenient little patches that would 'miraculously' survive. Sites where the Coalition would send its scientists."         "That's a lie!" shouted XB9. "We'd never allow anyone to exploit this place!"         “Tsk, tsk. You should be more careful about what you’re fighting for, little guy. But if it’s any consolation, they wouldn’t have gotten much from the sites they wanted to study, anyway--they're even worse scientists than Slayde!"         "How dare you!" fumed Slayde. "I have studied at the gweatest--greatest universities of the world, honing my skills to a wazor's edge!"         "Yes, 'gweat' institutions like Oakbury University--tell me, do they still offer the legendary 'three degrees for only three hundred dollars' deal there?" Childs scoffed, grinning at Slayde's wounded expression. “Ah, did I hurt your feelings? Good, you contemptible little heap of shit.”         Occasionally, I find myself rating people on what I call the Punchability Scale. A "1.0" (Slightly Punchable) is that douchebag with spiky blond hair who struts around the gym and talks about how hard it was to sculpt his pecs. A "5.0" (Moderately Punchable) is the asshole in the Porsche who cuts you off on the freeway and then flips you the bird.         Childs was already starting to hover around "7.0”--Severely Punchable. And as he kept flapping his lips, I could practically see the meter rising.           “But I digress. To put it simply, there's been a change in plans. Originally, all I needed to do was stick around with the rest of the mercs while they fled—just so I could signal to the Coalition where to intercept and capture them. That part went beautifully...but then XB9 didn't report in. Naturally, they detonated the charges...and the ruins had the gall to stay perfectly intact.”         Chicago and I traded glances. Shit, Childs had that glint in his eye. That little glint that screams, “I am making my Evil Fuckwad Speech! I need to rant about my diabolical plan because this is my way of compensating for my critically low self-esteem! Fear me! Curse me! Care about me!” It was a common sentiment among supervillains—Slayde being one obvious example—but damn, it never gets any less grating. A little tip if you ever go into my line of work: indulge the Evil Fuckwad and pretend you're listening intently. It's a good way to screw with them, even if it takes a little patience. For the more you let him build up his ego, the more satisfying it is when he falls into his own piranha pit.         “This left them in quite the conundrum,” Childs continued. “They needed to find out what was going on down here, but they were reluctant to risk more of their precious little secret agents. So I volunteered for the task...and what an opportunity it is! It's both pathetic and hilarious that you abandoned the Sphere so quickly. It's not that hard to operate, and it still has enough power to do quite a lot of stuff. For instance, custom volumetric displays,” he proclaimed, gesturing at his holographic body.         “Great, you can put on lightshows,” said Chicago. “Good for you.”  While it was a relief to see another shred of the old Chicago, I wasn’t particularly enthused about her provoking the megalomaniac.         Childs clucked his tongue. (Another notch on the Punchability Scale...) “Don't be so shortsighted, sugarpea. You'd be amazed at all the things they could do with this thing—they even found a way to make light imitate solid matter!”         His fingers danced along the glowing runes, and a translucent blue gate shimmered into existence in front of us. He smirked and crossed his arms. “Uh oh, looks like your little adventure has come to a dead end. What are you gonna do now?”         Panic tingled my scalp as I pushed against the unyielding gate. It had the same ethereal appearance as Childs’ hologram, but it felt like it was made of solid steel.         “Scanning,” said a monotone voice. “Access granted.” The gate unceremoniously vanished.                  “Shit...that wasn't supposed to happen.” I could've sworn I saw Childs' cheeks go red even through the monochrome hologram. Fortunately for his ego, he quickly recovered. “This isn’t over, Slayde.  When I return, I’ll make you pay back a thousandfold for every humiliation you put me through!  I’ll break you! Crush you!  Ruin you!  You want to get to Site Danicus? I’ll make you and your friends scream for every step you take! I'll make it slow, Slayde! I'll make it hurt! And before it's even halfway over, I’ll make you beg! And you know what I'll do then, Slayde? I'll fucking laugh!”          We all stared in stunned silence while Childs' hologram faded away, his maddened peals of laughter echoing off of a million surfaces.