//------------------------------// // Chapter 21: Reunions Suck // Story: Bailing Out // by PhillyCh3zSt3ak //------------------------------// Chapter 21: Reunions Suck April 13 Have you ever had one of those days where you say, “I should have really just stayed asleep today?” Yes? Well I’m sort of having one of those right now. How? Well let’s just start at the beginning shall we? *** Twenty-four years ago… “And push!” Ok that was a little TOO far. Let’s try again. *** One week ago… “Do you know why you are here?” Hernandez asked as I stood in his office. I honestly had no idea why I was in his office instead of down in the labs doing whatever it was they needed me for. Half the time I’m on my phone doing something or another. What was I playing the other time I was here? Oh yeah I think it was called ‘Deus Ex: The Fall’ or something like that. Fun game. “No I do not,” I simply replied. “It appears that the higher-ups want to thank you for your service during this project. Starting today you’re in charge of a new unit when it gets deployed, if at all.” “‘If at all’ sir?” I was genuinely confused at this point. “Well you are going to be the commanding officer of a unit of gene therapy treated soldiers. However we haven’t perfected the process to make it 99.9% effective for all recipients. And in light of your new eventual assignment, you’ve been given a promotion.” He reached inside of the desk and pulled out a pair of silver double bars. He held them in front of me, “Congratulations, Captain.” He snapped a salute and I returned it. I took the pins and put them in my pocket, I’d add them to my dress uniform later since it was back home. “Thank you, sir.” I was then told that my combat uniform with new rank embroidery would be made available by the end of the day. Well it looks like I’ll be getting paid more, huzzah! Why I was just promoted I’ll never know, but it’s not like I don’t appreciate it. Not much else happened the rest of the day. Spits and I went home and started to relax in front of the TV. Eventually dinner rolled around and since Spits has been learning a thing or two about cooking I’ve let her do something once or twice a week, other times either I cook or we cook something together. It’s sort of fun really, except for when you burn a broiled salmon. I still have no idea how that even happened. As Spitfire was cooking I went out and got the mail and the daily newspaper. You’d be shocked how many people still get a normal newspaper considering pretty much every bit of news is now digitized available immediately on the internet rather than waiting twenty-four hours to hear about it. As I walked back inside I thumbed past numerous bills that I’d set aside later to pay, a credit card offer again, and then something that surprised me: a letter from my old high school. “What’s that?” Spits asked holding a spatula in her hand. “A letter from my high school,” I replied. As I read the contents I saw that it was an invitation to the class of 2014 high school reunion. I crumpled it up and attempted to throw it in the trash can, but Spits intercepted me. She grabbed and uncrumpled it before reading it herself. “This is for your high school reunion, why don’t you want to go to it?” she asked. “Let’s just say that I don’t have the fondest memories of that place.” “Oh come on, how bad could it have really been?” she asked innocently. “Do you remember my ex Heather?” she nodded. “Well she’s in charge of the reunion, and to be frank I’m still a little bitter about how she treated me.” She came over and turned me around to face her. “Now listen here, you have a beautiful wife and a great job, not to mention that you just got promoted to Captain. Not many people have had that honor at your age, not even by Equestrian standards. So how about this: I’ll go get a sexy black dress and you can show me off to your ex and all your former classmates and let them wallow in jealousy,” she said before giving me a kiss. “Umm… ok then?” I answered befuddled. *** Present… And that’s pretty much how I got here at my high school reunion. I was driving the rental into the parking lot that I knew so well from four years of driving into it. I parked and killed the engine. “Are you ready?” Spits asked in her new black dress. “Nope,” I simply replied. “I’d rather jump on the next rocket to the moon.” “Aww come on it won’t be that bad. We’ll go in, show me off, have a few drinks, visit for a short bit, and leave. How’s that?” “Tolerable,” I begrudgingly replied getting out of the car, putting my hat on my head. We came to the main entrance and I held out my arm for Spits to hook her arm around. “Well, here goes nothing.” Right as soon as we went inside we were greeted by the nametag people, you know where they ask you to check in? I technically didn’t need a nametag from them since I already had one that came with my dress uniform, but I took it just to make them happy. I looked over to Spits and saw that she was happy to be here for me, then again she gets to show off her backless black cocktail dress and heels. How’d she manage to pull off a backless dress considering she has wings to hide? Simple, some experimental optical camouflage that’s supposed to be rolling out to elite special forces within the next five years. She got it reprogrammed so that it would display a non-winged back instead of what it was originally designed to do. All she did was place it over her back under the dress and press ‘on.’ We walk into the ‘ballroom,’ or should I say the gym and I could feel eyes watching us, well for multiple reasons. One there was a young ranking officer with a red-headed beauty attached to his arm. I’m thinking it’s mainly because of the second since I saw some guys getting dirty looks from their wives or girlfriends. “Andrew? Is that you?” I heard a male voice from my left ask. I turned to see my old friend William. “Hey Bill, how’re you doing?” I myself asked before bringing him into a ‘man hug.’ You know the kind where you start shaking hands but pull each other into a quick hug that lasts less than a second. What? He’s my best friend. “Not bad. I just finished my scoring for a movie just recently and I’m just waiting to hear back from the director to see if it goes green or not. What about you? Looks like you’re moving up in the military world.” He looked at the pins on my shoulders, “Captain, right?” “Yeah, just got promoted the other day.” “And who is this lovely lady?” “I’m his wife Samantha,” Spits chimed in. “You got married and didn’t invite me? And here I thought I was your best friend,” he said with false mockery. “It was sort of a spur of the moment thing,” I replied taking whatever liquor that they were serving. Tastes like punch with a touch of vodka. “What so you eloped or something?” Bill asked. “Pretty much.” “So what do you do in the Air Force?” The metal insignia on my hat must’ve given that away. “You fly anything?” “I do a little this and a little that where I’m stationed. I’m always in the F-22 sims when I get a chance. I’m friends with a few of those flyboys and they sure look like they’re having a blast.” “And what about lovely Samantha here, what does she do?” “I’m a private contractor working a consulting gig out of the same airbase that Andrew here works at. In fact that’s where we met,” Spits replied. She’d better be careful, the more details you put into a lie the faster it’ll come down on you. “So I assume you have a few stories that you could tell me.” “Yeah there’s one where he ends up pointing a gun at me, but in all fairness I may have gone into his office and surprised him,” Spits pointed a thumb at me while letting out a small giggle while Bill wore a shocked look. “Oh don’t worry he wouldn’t shoot me.” “Why don’t I get us something to drink?” I asked breaking the uncomfortable silence that had set in. They both nodded ‘yes’ and I walked away. They were probably talking about some of my less proud moments back in these halls. Which means Spits would be having a laugh at my expense. “Well hello there handsome,” a very sultry sounding woman said behind me. I cringed as I grabbed the punch ladle. I knew that voice, and it could only belong to one woman. I turned around and pasted the biggest fake smile I could muster on my face. “Heather, it’s so good to see you again,” I said with as much enthusiasm as one could seeing their former lover. Lord take me now. Or better yet her. “How long has it been? Six, seven years?” “It certainly doesn’t seem that long.” She looked at my uniform, “So Air Force, what do you do?” “Deep space radar telemetry,” I replied using one of the many cover stories prepared for us. “That sounds boring, maybe I can make life a little more exciting,” she said trying to be as seductive as she could. “That would be my job,” Spits said walking up to me, taking the red Solo cup filled with punch. “I’m Samantha, and you are?” “Heather,” she replied trying to be as socially welcoming as possible. “And how would ‘making his life be more exciting’ be your job?” “I’m his wife in case you didn’t notice,” Spits answered with what I assume is pride. Spits turned to me, “Wait isn’t she the one who-?” “Yep,” I replied. “‘I’m the one who’ what?” Heather asked accusingly. “If I remember right you were the one that broke his heart in high school when he found you sleeping with another guy in your house on the same night you were going to go out on a date. But that’s if I got all the facts correct.” I could see Heather’s eye twitch, Spits nailed it though. Almost as if the universe was playing with us ‘Ballroom Blitz’ started to play. “You bitch!” Heather screamed before lunging at Spits, fist extended. “I wouldn’t do that-,” but my warning never reached Heather’s ears. Not out of concern for her, no out of the concern that Spits might get sued by an angry bimbo after what would happen next. Spits swatted the fist aside before pimp slapping her. You could hear the sharp crack of backhand on face. I saw few people watching the scene cringed as they heard the slap connect. Heather fell to the floor, mainly due to her momentum. She rubbed her cheek while she tried to figure out what had happened. She did stink of alcohol after all. To an extent that was sort of hot. Oh come on what do you think guys like it when girls fight? Seriously though because I have no idea why it is. “Uhh Sam, we should probably go now,” I said as I grabbed her wrist and started to drag her towards the exit. I felt a hand grab my shoulder roughly. “And where do you think you’re going?” a deep male voice said behind me. He spun me around and before me was the hulking mass of ‘Jumbo,’ the biggest football player in my graduating class. Which in and of itself was a shock because he was failing half the year. I’m betting he got someone to go into the school’s system and change his grades so he could graduate, but that was just a rumor that was floating around “To be honest, anywhere but here,” I replied with a bit of snark. “You ain’t going nowhere until I get revenge for my lady.” Must resist urge to correct him on the misuse of double negatives and total butchery of the English language. “Well your ‘lady’ was hitting on me, and she started it.” He then punched me in the face. Well I guess I just touched a nerve. I took off my jacket and hat and handed them to Spits, “Hold these for me please.” I cracked my knuckles, it’s been a while since I’ve had a fight of equal strengths. “Oh so now the weakling is going to fight me.” I swiftly landed a blow straight to his balls with my foot. Had this been a South Park episode I would have yelled ‘Rochambeau!’ as I landed the blow. “Nope. I’m going to win.” *** Meanwhile at Twilight’s library… Twilight was frustrated. She had spent the better half of the last two months looking over the same equation that could be used as a power source if it could only be used in reality instead of theory. “Aaarrgh! Why can’t I figure this out!” she cried to the heavens before setting her head down on her desk. She grabbed her desk lamp and threw it into the wall. Her frustration had finally come to a head. “Twilight, what was that?!?” Spike asked as he ran down the stairs. Even he could see that Twilight was breaking down from the stress being put upon her. She managed to hide it whenever she was out and about with her friends; but in here, in her private sanctuary, she was able to express it freely. “It’s nothing, Spike,” she said trying to pass it off. “Well it doesn’t sound like nothing,” he replied taking a bite out of a sapphire. “Spill it.” “Well it’s almost been a year since Spitfire’s been gone and I really want to get her back to her family, I really do. Why can’t these things be easy?” she asked as a tear fell from her cheek. Spike walked over and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Twilight, there are things in this world that we can and can’t control. The Everfree is a perfect example of that. Sometimes we just have to admit that we can’t solve everything that we want to.” She took that to heart, pondering it for a moment. She sat up and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Thanks, Spike. You know what to say and when to say it.” Behind her a cracking sound started. “What was that?” Spike asked as they both turned around. Behind them where the lamp smashed into the wall was a hole. He gave Twilight the stinkeye. She chuckled with a sheepish smile, “I guess I don’t know my own strength.” Spike rolled his eyes as he walked over to the hole to clean up the wooden fragments that had broken off. He looked into the hole and what he saw confused him. “What is this?” he asked no one in particular, but that caught Twilight’s attention. “Spike what are you-?” she trailed off as she saw it too. There was a black object with a glass surface that only had a note on it that said ‘Turn me on and see how far the rabbit hole goes.’ There was an arrow that pointed towards a small black bar. She picked it up pushed the black bar and on the glass appeared a topographical map with two dots, one that said ‘current position’ and another that said ‘destination’ that included map grid coordinates. “Wait a second...” Twilight trailed as she remembered every map that she had looked at at least once in her lifetime while in the Canterlot archives. ‘Thank you eidetic memory,’ she thought to herself. “That is in the Crystal Empire!” she shouted, which startled Spike a bit. Twilight started gathering things into a pile franticly. “Spike, take a letter.” *** Well that fight went rather well. And by ‘rather well’ I mean I won, but Jumbo got a few hits in. Now Spits and I are sitting at a bar with me holding a cold Sam Adams bottle to my jaw. “So do you think it was worth it?” she asked sitting next to me sipping a Long Island. “Was it worth protecting my lady’s honor? You bet your sweet ass it was,” I replied before taking a sip of the beer I was using as a cold compress. I must’ve said the right thing because that earned me a kiss on the cheek. “You certainly have a way with words, you know that?” “And here you said I was a sappy romantic a month or so ago,” I replied with a smug grin. “But you’re my sappy romantic,” she said before kissing me again, this time on the lips.