I run a private campground. It’s mostly forest and open field, but here’s a handful of houses that belong to my family. There is also a graveyard. It is surrounded by a wooden fence and ‘no trespassing’ signs to keep the campers out. Only members of my family are buried there, but after one of the musicians was thrown through my window, I felt it only right to make an exception.
If you’re new here, you should really start at the beginning, and if you’re totally lost, this might help.
The family graveyard was started because the town whispered that our family was tainted by the evil we associated with. This was before even Mattias’s time, but those sentiments echoed through the generations. We stand apart from the good, decent (hah) folk of the town, aloof and rejected because of the company we keep. The touch of the inhuman rests upon us, they whisper. Stained with evil from our proximity to evil. Those rumors persist even now, though in less hostile ways. The tradition of using the family graveyard remains.
We’ve had our share of funerals on this land. My parents’ funeral was held here, such as it was. There was no ceremony. No viewing of the body. My mother had died gruesomely and there was hardly anything left of my father to look at. The extended family gathered and we put their casket in the ground - a single casket, for the both of them - and then we filled the grave up again. There weren't a lot of people talking. My aunt and uncle stayed close to me and kept most of the well-wishers away. I didn’t need to hear what a tragedy it was, that I’d lost my parents so young. I already knew. I knew all too well.
And then that was it. We buried the dead and then we moved on. Or tried to, at least.
I heard my mother’s side of the family held their own funeral. A small gathering at the church. I didn’t attend.
We buried my aunt and uncle much the same way. Sometimes I feel our grieving never ends. It just pauses for a few years or more, until the land claims another life. I wonder if it will be different, when this land is fully ancient and I’ve installed as benign a ruler as I can. Perhaps our long watch will end and we can finally feel our sorrow in full.
There was another funeral, the day after the musician was thrown through my window. I wanted to return its body to the dancers, but I could not find them. And worse, the body was decomposing. Rapidly. I’d wrapped the body tightly in a tarp and left it outside, as the cold would preserve it while I searched. When I returned for lunch, I found the tarp had flattened and a noxious bile was leaking out the edges. I pressed on the tarp, gently, and even the bones felt spongy. There wasn’t a lot of time before the body collapsed entirely.
It didn’t feel right, just letting that happen. We try to burn the creatures we kill. It’s not just a way to dispose of the corpse. My father believed it was the last dignity we could afford them. He tried to impress that upon me as a child, but it never really took. Standing there in the cold and the snow and staring at the musician that had saved my life and paid for it with its own, I think I understood better. I couldn’t let it simply rot away. But nor did I have the time to locate the dancers.
I would bury it myself. And perhaps to console my conscience, I would give it the most revered burial I could.
I called up the nearby farming supply store and rented a small backhoe. Tore out part of the graveyard fence to get it in and then ripped up enough frozen dirt to make a six foot deep grave in the middle of an especially cold winter.
While I was doing all of this, Bryan came around. He’s been doing as I asked and staying out of the deep woods. He asked what I was doing and then went away for a bit and came back with a coffin assembled out of scrap lumber. Then the old sheriff drove up, having been notified by a phone call from Bryan.
And the three of us had a funeral.
There wasn’t much said. Bryan and I struggled to drag the coffin all the way from the house to the grave once the musician was inside. We didn’t let the old sheriff help, on account of his leg. We were worn out and panting by the time we got it down into the grave and none of us wanted to talk. We just stood there, staring down into the hole, and the old sheriff passed a flask around. When we’d all had a drink, he poured the rest of it into the grave, letting it splatter on the uneven wood casket.
I felt I should say something. I cleared my throat uncomfortably.
“Thanks,” I said. “For saving my life.”
And that was it. I filled the hole back up, Bryan helped me stomp the dirt down, and we put the fence back. Then we all went our separate ways.
A few days later, the old sheriff returned. He brought with him a wooden grave marker, heavily sealed to survive the weather. No name, just a date of death and some floral patterns decorating the top. His wife made it, he said. She’d recently taken up wood burning. I could put it up in the spring when the ground softened.
Then he cleared his throat uncomfortably and said he was also here on official business. I suggested we move to my office. This was going to be an unpleasant conversation and I did not want to ruin the times he came over for coffee and we sat at the kitchen table and talked. He followed me, reluctantly, for I think merely moving us to the office was enough to indicate that I already knew what he was here for.
“The police found a body,” he said as he settled himself in front of the desk. “It was in an unusual state.”
“Completely drained of blood?”
He raised an eyebrow. I sighed.
“It’s Beau.”
I told him what happened. How he emptied his cup killing the thorns and how I’d taken him off the campground to refill it. Blood forcibly taken and all. I was concerned for my staff, I explained, and didn’t want him to attack one of them. I’d hoped he’d find someone aggravating, as he had in the past, and terrorize them a bit and leave with the blood he needed.
“But you knew this might end up with someone dead?” he asked.
“I knew.”
He sighed and looked away. His gaze settled on the blank spot on the wall, where my parents had hoped my diploma would someday hang.
“I don’t know what to say to you right now,” he said softly. “I’d hoped… you’d be better than your parents. I guess not.”
“What else do I do?” I asked wildly. “I need Beau’s help. I don’t know what those thorns were doing to my land - or to the fairy. They haven’t attacked the fomorian yet and that worries me. Think about what may happen if the fomorian wins!”
He was quiet for a long moment.
“The town is going to hold you responsible,” he finally said.
“Fine. I am responsible. I don’t deny that. But I have never seen any of them offering to help out here. The only time I’m dragged in front of that town hall is to accuse me.”
Not that I’ve ever asked for help. But there’s bad blood there and the old sheriff knows it. Sometimes I think that’s why he’s always been sympathetic to my family, because his position allowed him to be here to help us when no one else would.
“In centuries past the towns had to have a hangman,” he sighed. “No one liked the hangman, though he was considered essential.”
He pushed his chair back and stood.
“I guess your family is our hangman.”
“What will you tell them?”
“The truth. And I’ll make sure they understand how desperately you need any help you can get right now, or the town will face an evil beyond anything we’ve experienced before. But Kate, I need you to do one thing for me.”
He named it. I couldn’t answer him and he didn’t demand a response. He just took his coat and left.
He asked that when this was all done, that I consider Beau. That I consider what he was, what he did, and decide if he should be added to my list.
The list of creatures I intend to kill.
I didn’t want to tell him that it might be unnecessary. The fomorian’s threat hung heavy over my head.
The next day I went into the deep woods to look for Beau. I didn’t dare summon him. Perhaps the fomorian was watching the house, knowing that I might do so. It felt like a reasonable precaution, considering the circumstances. If I were in the deep woods, however, he could choose whether it was safe to approach me or not.
I didn’t find Beau. Instead, the dancers found me.
They came up from behind. I turned and waited for them, as initially they were grouped close together and I could not see what they carried. They were somber, dressed in black with veils over their heads and faces. Mourning the loss of their musician. I felt I should at least offer my condolences and explain where I’d buried the body.
I didn’t get a chance. The procession drew to a halt as it came close. The lead dancer held up a finger when I made to speak, indicating that I should be silent. She sidled up beside me and looped her arm through mine. Like we were friends. Bemused, I let her escort me to the group, assuming this was some kind of mourning ritual and I was being included.
Unfortunately, I was correct.
If I’d known what role they wanted me to take, I might not have waited for them on the road.
The group parted to reveal what they’d been carrying in the middle of all of them. A coffin. Constructed of wood and covered in rainbow glitter. It sat on the ground, presumably because the dancers carrying it wanted a short reprieve, and I crept closer to inspect it out of curiosity. One of them kicked the lid off so I could look inside.
Empty. The interior was covered in glitter as well and I had to admire their dedication.
Well, I admired it for a couple seconds, at least, until two of the dancers shoved me from behind. My shins caught against the side and I went down face-first - directly into the open coffin. The glitter dug into my palms as I tried to catch myself, but a lid slammed down on my back before I could push myself out again. I pounded on the bottom, the sides, and kicked my heels against the lid, but nothing gave. Then it lurched, swayed, and I braced myself on the sides, heart pounding at the sudden movement.
The swaying settled into a rhythm. They were carrying it. And all around me I heard noise - crying, wailing. Sobs. A raucous commotion, utterly unlike the silent and grim funerals my family held. The dancers seemed determined to let the entire campsite know of their loss.
The longer it went on, the more panicked I grew. This was not my first time being trapped in a grave, but it was certainly the more claustrophobic of the two occurrences. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine I was elsewhere, that it didn’t matter that there was only an inch or two of clearance around my entire body. I told myself that I was safe in my own bed, that the wailing I heard was that of the little girl. Whatever trick of the mind I could conjure to stave off the screaming panic that hovered at the edge of my thoughts.
I couldn’t focus entirely on staying calm, however. What if they intended to bury me alive? Or worse - and I began to break into a cold sweat at this thought - turn me into a replacement musician. The harvesters came to my mind, them and their cursed raincoats. Perhaps they weren’t the only creatures around here that could replenish their ranks. I ran my fingers along the seam, searching for a weak point. The glitter stung as it dug into the skin under my fingernails. I found nothing. I twisted, trying to find a better position so I could leverage an elbow or something to smash against the lid of the coffin. It dipped to one side, swaying like a boat in a storm as the dancers carrying it struggled to adjust to my shifting body weight. I seized on this idea. Maybe I could force them to drop it. I twisted again, slamming my shoulder against the opposite side.
“You’re making this hard to carry, Kate,” a familiar voice said from just outside the wooden box.
The former sheriff.
“Uh, do you know if they’re going to… kill me?” I asked.
He just laughed. It’s not a reassuring response, but I felt somewhat mollified by his presence nonetheless. The former sheriff was no longer fully human, but I hope that he’s retained enough of it to not let me die needlessly. He’s tried to save me from them before.
I stopped struggling. The only thing it was really accomplishing was bringing glitter raining down all over me, anyway. Eventually, the coffin was gently lowered to stable ground. I let out a slow breath, trying to loosen my muscles, waiting to see what would happen next.
The coffin lid was pried off. It landed heavily on the ground. I rolled over, struggling to lever myself up over the sides. The lead dancer stood at the foot of the coffin, holding out a hand to help me up. I stared at it suspiciously for a moment.
“Surely you want out before we bury it?” she asked.
That got me moving. I clasped my hand in hers and she hoisted me free. I glanced around while I vainly tried to brush glitter off my jacket. I was covered in it and if you’re wondering, yes, I’m finding it all over the house now.
We were in the dancer’s favorite clearing. The largest one, near the steepest hill that we’d used to take the wagon away from the children. They’d dug a grave close by where the bonfire usually goes, in which they were preparing to bury an empty coffin.
“I’m sorry about not returning the musician’s body,” I said unsteadily. “I didn’t know what else to do with it.”
“Oh that’s nothing to apologize for. You buried it according to your own customs and that it had a funeral is all that matters. This is just us having a bit of fun is all.”
Fun. Right.
I watched them lower the coffin into the pit. I still didn’t know what I was doing here, but at least I wasn’t going to be buried alive. The old sheriff helped, but he didn’t pay me any special attention. I was okay with that. We were never friends, anyway.
“Ah, good, our other guest is here,” the lead dancer said, turning to face the edge of the clearing. “We can conduct our business before the ceremony.”
Beau had just arrived. He stepped out from between the trees and crossed the clearing as the dancers arranged themselves opposite him. I felt uneasy, like I was watching a supernatural showdown forming up. It was clear from the expression on Beau’s face that he wasn’t pleased to be here, and considering how rarely he showed emotion, that was certainly saying something. His lips were thin with distaste and his eyes were narrowed, his brow furrowed.
“We’re all in agreement, then?” the lead dancer asked neatly. “Something has to be done about the fomorian?”
“But the fairy-” I began.
“Is taking too long.” She was curt with her interruption. “They are not able to kill the fomorian yet and so they’re biding their time, waiting for the right opportunity. It’s a stalemate and perhaps that is acceptable for them, but we are suffering for it. So are you, yes?”
I nodded. Yes. This was a problem all of us faced. I felt a thrill of excitement in my veins. This wasn’t just a funeral. The inhuman entities were convening a war council of their own and I had been invited.
“You’re trapped here just as Beau is,” I said on a hunch. “You have to stop the fomorian because you can’t leave.”
“Nor would we want to leave, even if we could. It’s nice here.”
No one had any solid plans on how to kill the fomorian. The lead dancer and Beau avoided that topic and I suspect they too are waiting on the fairy to make their move. But in the meantime, they would do what they could to mitigate the damage and keep the land from falling into the fomorian’s sway. Keeping the thorns at bay would be Beau’s responsibility. I requested that perhaps we think of a way to stop them from being sown at all, so that Beau didn’t need to refill his cup so often.
“That’s not possible,” the lead dancer replied sharply. “None of us are up to the task of standing against the fomorian. It is what it is and you must accept that.”
The curse of the inhuman, being subject to the rules of their world. And the only weapon of humanity, to be able to dream a world different than what it is. It wouldn’t occur to them to defy the natural order in which the fomorian was more powerful than they. Still, I didn’t pursue that any further. They’d already lost one of their musicians aiding me.
The dancers would help keep track of the fomorian’s movements. They weren’t being targeted by it like Beau was. The musician’s death was a singular retribution for a specific action.
And as for me… well, they didn’t actually know what to do with me yet. I felt a little offended.
“Just… go be... you at the fomorian,” she finally said in exasperation. “It seems to work well.”
This wasn’t the only outcome of the meeting, of course. I brought up some suggestions, inquiring about other uses of the stone in particular. Neither Beau nor the dancers seemed willing to give it up. The stone was their defense against the thorns and those were their primary concern. I also got the impression that Beau and the dancers don’t get along and the fact they were speaking to each other at all was a significant first step.
Also, the meeting was adjourned early.
A whistle came from the tree canopy. Beau and I pivoted to look, but I saw nothing. I wondered if it was one of the musicians, recalling how easily the one had scaled the tree when rescuing me.
“It’s coming,” the lead dancer said tersely. “Bad luck, I suppose. Or it’s hunting you.”
She nodded at Beau. He inclined his head softly in respect and stepped backwards.
“It is time to go, then. Thank you for the warning.”
He turned and walked swiftly away. No sooner had he stepped out of the clearing and back into the woods than the lead dancer rounded on me.
“You can’t be here either,” she said.
“Sure, I’m leaving too. Just point me in the opposite direction of the fomorian.”
“Oh no. That won’t work. You’re human. You’re slow and you’re far too noisy. Get in the coffin.”
“What?”
“Coffin! Hide!”
Her panicked tone got me moving. I dropped into the pit and hastily lay down inside the beglittered coffin. Two of the dancers dropped the lid down on top of it and the darkness swallowed me up. I held very still, breathing shallowly, as the ground shook with the fomorian’s approach.
The voices were muted at first. The lead dancer, speaking in a conciliatory and subservient tone. Then the fomorian’s rumbling voice, clearly audible through the wood of the coffin.
“You wouldn’t defy me, would you?”
“Of course not,” the lead dancer replied in a clear, smooth voice.
Could inhuman things lie to other inhuman things? Was it only humans that compelled them to speak something close to the truth? I felt a flicker of hope that maybe we’d get out of this alive.
A moment of silence. Then, the startled cry of the lead dancer, echoed swiftly by her followers. The clearing went still and quiet again, save for the sound of plaintive choking from the lead dancer. I balled my hands into fists, my nails biting into my palms, seething in helpless rage.
I guess they can lie to each other, but it’s not very effective.
There was the sound of a body hitting the ground.
“I’ll ask again. You wouldn’t defy me, would you?”
I strained to listen, trying to hear what was being said over the beating of my own heart.
“N-no.” She coughed. “I wouldn’t dare.”
“But you did dare.”
The ground shook. I held my breath. It was coming closer. For a moment, nothing - and then -
The coffin snapped all around me. I threw up my arms with a cry, shielding myself from the shrapnel as sunlight came streaming in. Then a shadow covered me as the fomorian’s hand pressed past the shattered wood and wrapped its fingers around my chest. It lifted me up, the debris of the coffin sliding away and falling back into the pit. It held me in midair, dangling like a doll, and ponderously turned to face the dancers. It held me aloft for them all to see.
Beneath me the dancers were all on their knees. The lead dancer had a hand to her throat where I could see bruises already forming from where the fomorian had choked her.
“This one is mine,” it growled.
It shook me, hard enough to send my head spinning and to rattle my teeth against each other. I clung desperately to the creature’s bony hand, feeling like I was about to be torn apart by the violent movement.
“I was going to kill her on sight, but then she angered me, and now that will no longer suffice. I will destroy everything she cares about first. Until then-”
It released me and I landed in a heap on the ground, wheezing in pain from the impact. I struggled to pull my legs underneath me, to at least drag myself to my knees.
“-she is not to be touched. Do you understand?”
“Of course.”
The lead dancer was careful to keep her gaze on the ground. She did not look at either me or the fomorian.
It turned and limped away. The trees creaked and cracked as it forced its way through them. No one in the clearing moved or even spoke until the trembling of the ground under its footsteps stilled entirely. Only then did the lead dancer give a sigh of relief.
“Lucky us that it thought we were trying to kill you instead of conspiring together,” she sighed.
“Lucky me that it wants me to suffer first,” I replied.
We both sat there for a moment, contemplating how close we’d each come to death. Finally, I tentatively asked if this meant the alliance was off. After all, it seemed the fomorian was willing to go after them for any suspected defiance. The dancer only laughed.
“What did we do when you tried to drive us out?” she demanded.
“Uh, you dragged me from my house and forced me to dance until I collapsed.”
“Exactly.”
I guess it’s all fun and games until someone threatens their party, and then the knives come out. Good to know.
“Still,” the dancer said thoughtfully. “We’ll have to be careful when we interact with Beau, since we’re also under watch by the fomorian.”
“Beau?”
“We have little to do with each other and no reason to help one another. A condition of this… alliance… was that we use his fledgling name.”
“He’s such a bastard,” I muttered.
The lead dancer nodded sagely in agreement.
“That he is.”
There was no other reason for me to stay, after that. The dancers had a funeral to hold, even if they were burying the shattered remains of an empty coffin. And I had to go stand in the shower for however many hours it took to get all the glitter out of my hair. Before I went, however, I decided to seize the opportunity to ask a question that’s been bothering me for many, many years now.
“Hey, since we’ve got a working relationship now, can I ask you something?” I said. “What… are you?”
She seemed perplexed by my question.
“We’re dancers,” she said. “We heal people.”
“And the people you kill?”
“We heal them too.”
I remembered the former sheriff, dousing a camper with gasoline. He'd said some people don't want to be cured.
In some cultures, dancing is used as a cure from affliction. But if the affliction is in the soul, a flaw of character, then I suppose death is a remedy of sorts.
“Would you kill me, if I were not marked for death by the beast?” I asked.
She looked me straight in the eyes.
“Do you really want to know the answer to that?”
Her tone was sharp. A warning. My voice faltered and she gave me a thin smile.
“No. You don’t.” And she walked away.
I’m a campground manager. At one point, Beau said that I have a weak will. I don’t think the dancer refused to answer because I wouldn’t like what I heard. She refused to answer because I was afraid that she would. I would rather be left wondering than bear the weight of knowing for certain what kind of person I am. Both answers are dangerous. One invites complacency. The other; self-hatred.
Maybe someday I’ll be strong enough to know. Maybe when this is all over. For now, I don’t have the luxury of self-doubt or introspection. There’s a war to be waged. [x]
Read the full list of rules.
Visit the campground's website.

I work at a medical examiner’s office in a large metropolitan area in the United States. You’ll have to excuse the vagueness, but I value my job and safety. My safety is also the reason why I’m recording my recounting of what happened in the first place. I’m not sure what to do next or who may be coming for me, and my hope is that having some evidence, even if its only my word at this point, may help me stay alive. Given what I know, it’s a very small hope.
Yesterday a body came into the lab. Badly burned, it had been found in a shallow grave out in the middle of nowhere woods. The only reason it was found at all was because the fire burning the body had spread to a nearby tree and then burned several acres before forestry got the call. It took two days to stop the fire spread, and it wasn’t until they were investigating the source that they found the twisted remains of a man, legs and arms broken and bound by barbwire that had melted into his flesh after he was set ablaze.
Identifying the corpse was going to be difficult. Any idea of facial recognition or fingerprints was out the window, and whatever blunt instrument had been used to break his limbs had also been used on his teeth. Still, his torso was partially intact, and after taking the initial round of external photos, I assisted the senior M.E. in conducting the autopsy.
Fire and heat change a body in a variety of ways, and because of all the variables—weather, clothing, ignition catalysts, body shape and mass—plus the inherent fickleness of fire, you never can be sure what you’re going to find during a burn autopsy. That being said, it still seemed odd that the internal organs were as intact as they were when we opened our John Doe up last night.
A person, terrible as it may sound, cooks just like any other animal or lump of meat. As the outside grows hotter, that temperature change pushes deeper and deeper into the center of the body, cooking the organs and muscle, the fat and bones, from the outside in. With some variance, you’ll see that pattern replicated on any part of the body, though different materials obviously change due to heat at different rates.
Yet even with the variances accounted for, this body had burned strange.
The bones, which are more resistant than soft-tissue, should still have had some damage at the extremities where there was less buffer between them and the fire—fingers and toes, for instance, or even at the wrists, ankles and neck. But no, there was no real sign of any damage to the bones other than where they had been intentionally broken.
And while the muscle and fatty tissue had melted within expected parameters, the internal organs were almost unblemished. As we began excavating and weighing them, I asked my boss if he noticed it too, and he said he did. He’s a reserved guy that doesn’t speculate on much, but I could tell he was as confused as I was.
I asked him if it was possible someone had set him on fire and then put him back out before it could do more damage to the bones and organs, but he began to shake his head slowly before I was even done speaking. Told me that if that was the case, we’d see signs of it in the burned tissue—irregular patterns where parts of the body was cooled off suddenly or melted residue from whatever was used to put the fire out. Besides, he said as he met my eyes, he’d heard the ranger that found the body said it was still burning when he found it.
I felt my mouth drop open a bit. How was that possible? If it was the source of the fire, it would have been set aflame days earlier. Fire had to have fuel, and the body would have been consumed well before then if it was burning the entire time. I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was, but before I could voice it, he began taking off his gloves.
He had a few calls to make before we went any further. Finish cataloguing the items we’d already removed, and then put the body in the freezer for the time being. He’d text me in an hour or two when he was ready to get started again.
All of this seemed strange—his demeanor, talking about calling someone to ask about the body, everything. But he was already leaving the examination room, and I still had to weigh the perfectly healthy-looking and unburned intestines we’d just removed.
It was as I was transferring them from the extraction bin to a sealed bag that I felt something hard and irregular inside. My first instinct was to just set it aside until we started back, but touching the bulge again, I reconsidered. It wasn’t a natural shape. Hard and rectangular, I felt along the length of intestine above and below it until I had a good sense of its dimensions and began to get an idea of what it might be.
A usb drive.
I glanced up at the clock. I had plenty of time to make a small incision and extract whatever it was. If it was important, that would certainly be better than leaving it in rotting guts to get damaged through another couple of hours of purification. Swallowing, I grabbed a scalpel.
Five minutes later I was holding a small, black usb drive in my hand. After its interrupted journey through the body, there was no chance of any fingerprints or other viable trace evidence, so I made the decision to clean it off. After that, it wasn’t long before I started debating whether to plug it into my laptop or not.
It was stupid. According to protocols, it should be bagged and sealed, deposited in the evidence lockbox, and examined forensically by someone in the computer forensics department. I knew that. But I felt this growing and irresistible urge to look at it anyway. At first I chalked it up to curiosity, but as the impulse took hold, I sensed it was something more. I was afraid, more afraid than could be explained by the strangeness of the body or finding the usb drive. And for whatever reason, I had the gut feeling that looking at what was on it was the key to understanding why.
So I plugged it in, running virus software on it before opening the one folder that popped up. It was supposedly clean, and the folder’s name was normal enough. It just said “Song”.
Clicking on the folder, I saw there were seven .mp3 files inside, numbered 1 through 7 without any other description. Dialing my laptop’s speakers down to 15, I selected the first one and hit play.
A low, echoing thrum filled the examination room. It wasn’t coming from my laptop, or if it was, it wasn’t coming just from there. Waves of softly booming sound made the air tremble, like distant thunder, and when I looked around, I could see the instruments near the exam table jumping slightly in time with the pulsing noise. And not just randomly. They were all hopping and rolling in the same direction.
Away from the body.
Standing up, I started back toward the corpse on the table. Somehow, that sound was coming from the body. How was that possible? I had the image of someone stuffing a small subwoofer into the man’s chest, but that was absurd. And even if someone had, why would it activate when I hit play on my unconnected laptop?
I looked back at my computer just as the player switched to the second file.
The thrum was suddenly gone, replaced by the sharply sweet sound of a violin, or something that reminded me of a stringed instrument. The room was stiller now, almost frozen in the delicate, crystalline trance of the winding melody, something familiar and melancholy and terrible. I felt myself shudder as it began to coil inside my head like something dark and venomous.
Wincing, I forced myself closer to the body. This new music was coming from there as well, but how? It had to be a hidden speaker, didn’t it? I didn’t know how it was playing off my laptop, but that was the only logical answer. Bending down, I put my ear near the ruined charred torso. Yes, it was definitely coming from the body, but I couldn’t identify a particular location. It was almost as if the entire corpse was a tuning fork vibrating with whatever this awful song was.
I felt myself growing queasy. I needed to turn it off. I had to stop it before it got worse, I needed to…
That’s when I first heard the new noises from the body.
It was a wet, sucking sound at first, rhythmic in its own way, it seemed to keep time with the razored melody digging into my brain, buried underneath it or entwined with those strings. Standing up, I looked down at the body.
The organs we had removed…they were growing back.
Staggering backward, I ran for the door even as the music shifted again. Now it was a chorus of some kind, whispering, singsong voices uttering sibilant phrases I didn’t understand but that still made my skin crawl. Reaching the hallway, I looked back through the door at the body, sucking in a breath as its broken limbs began to reset.
Turning away, I ran down the hall toward our office. If he was still in there, I would get him. If not, I’d head outside and get in my car. Call the cops from there.
The hallway lurched as I turned the corner. The sound was still here. It was everywhere. And as it shifted from that singing whisper to a jangle of tinny bells, I felt my stomach begin to loosen as my limbs grew heavy. I had to make it to the office. I could lock the door, and even if my boss wasn’t there, I could call for help. I…
The senior M.E. was laying on the floor outside the door to the office, unconscious, his body shuddering in some kind of small seizure that echoed the ringing of the bells. Dropping to my knees, I felt my own limbs spasming as I crawled toward the door. If I could just get inside…If I could just make it inside….
And then everything went dark.
When I woke up, my phone said that about ten minutes had passed. Pushing myself up, I saw that I’d almost made it to the door and the unconscious man next to it. I checked his pulse and breathing, and both were fine. He was unconscious, but stable, and as I dialed 911, I realized that the music had stopped. Everything was quiet.
They said emergency services would be there in less than five minutes, and my first thought was to just stay with the senior M.E. until they arrived. But then what I’d seen in the exam room came back to me. I had to have imagined it, that body making itself whole…that wasn’t possible. The music had some kind of hallucinatory effect. Maybe it was some secret military shit, who knew. But dead bodies didn’t heal themselves, and I needed to get my shit straight before the cops got here and I started talking crazy.
So I forced myself to go back down to the exam room, my heart fighting to get loose as I pushed open the door. I just had to see that the body was still there, unplug the usb drive from my computer, and then I’d go back to the office.
The body was gone.
Sucking in a breath, I looked all around the room, but there was no sign of anything out-of-place. I shot a look out at the hallway behind me, but there was nothing there. Head pounding, I stepped inside, walking quickly across to my computer and reaching for the usb stick when I saw the player change.
Now Playing: E:\Song\7.mp3
And then I heard my own voice echoing through the room.
I work at a medical examiner’s office in a large metropolitan area in the United States. You’ll have to excuse the vagueness, but I value my job and safety. My safety is also the reason why I’m recording my recounting of what happened in the first place. I’m not sure what to do next...
Snatching the usb drive from the laptop, I threw it into the sealed container we use for biohazard disposal. I was done, done with all of this. I was going to make sure that my boss was okay and then I was leaving. They could check the cameras in the hall to find out who had stolen the body or…however it had gotten out of there. I was going to play ignorant. Forget about the usb and the music, the healing corpse and hearing my voice say words I didn’t remember ever saying on a recording I’ve never made.
It all went smoothly enough. The EMTs arrived first and the senior M.E. woke up at the first sniff of smelling salts, looking confused but no worse for wear. It still took hours until we were able to leave, but the cops had seemed momentarily satisfied that someone had knocked us out and taken the burned body that had come in that evening. There were no cameras in the exam room, so they couldn’t know the rest unless I told them, particularly when my boss seemed to remember little after us first receiving the body.
It was well after midnight before I made it home, and after a long shower I climbed into bed with little hope of ever actually falling asleep. It would have helped if I’d turned off the lights, but I wasn’t quite able to.
I woke up to the sound of something sliding out from underneath my bed. Letting out a small scream, I saw myself, tufts of hair growing back in among other patches of black and red scalp. The eyes were bloodshot and sunken, but healed enough that they could focus on me clearly as this other me began to smile. A broken, bloody smile full of new teeth slowly pushing past the gums and the broken ruins that had been there before—pale white tombstones in red earth that’s gone sour.
Screaming louder, I try to back away, but its too fast and strong. It pulls itself up onto the bed and pushes me down, digging its grey fingernails into my cheeks as I struggle and squeal. It’s still naked, but there are only traces of the fire now, and down its center I can barely make out the pink ghost of my incision a few hours before. My mind is teetering now, balanced between self-preservation and buckling to the growing weight of madness as the air is forced from my lungs by his weight on me.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. It may look like me, but its far stronger, and in a matter of moments I’m bound to the bed with bedsheets and its placidly picking through my clothes before selecting something to wear. When it leaves the bedroom, I have hope it will just go away and leave me alone, but no. It’s in the other room. Talking. Using my voice, saying the words I heard on the seventh file and then going on, telling about last night and all that happened, even going into what is happening now while I struggle to get free. Using my thoughts, my words, though I’ve never spoke them aloud.
And then it stops for a moment and comes back into the bedroom, smiling a whole smile. Smirking down at me as I piss myself with fear and start crying, begging for it to let me go. Instead it just laughs and starts narrating again. Telling the recorder…my recorder I use during autopsies…what will happen next.
He will take me out to the woods, and there he will dig a shallow grave. The place is near an old cattle fence, and it only takes a few minutes for him to strip off a line of rusted barb wire to swaddle me in. A patch of my chest will stay free from sharp metal, because that’s where he’ll sit as he grabs my cheeks and tries to pry my mouth open. When I resist, he doesn’t miss a beat. He just picks up a rock and breaks in my teeth until it doesn’t matter if I fight. He can still fit the USB stick in, sliding it down my throat until I swallow.
Then he’ll wait awhile, just watching me cry and snot and shit myself as he hums along with the gentle music of some unseen star. Its night by the time I can smell the gasoline he’s siphoned from my truck. It’s cold on my skin as it splashes over me, making me struggle and scream when I thought I didn’t have any fight or noise left. I’ll beg again at the end, mind half gone, trying to explain to him that this can’t be happening. He is dead, which means he can’t be alive. And all this has already happened, which means it can’t happen again. And he’s me, but that can’t be. There can’t be two of us, can there?
When he pops the match in the night of the woods, his face is terrible and whole and familiar. If not for the past two days and the cruel look on his face, I’d think I was looking into a mirror. I recoil as he draws closer, and not just from the flame. He’s smiling, but there is a coldness there that is somehow worse than the blazing heat I know is about to come.
“You’re right you know.”
I feel a moment of uncertain hope. Maybe I’ve misunderstood something. But no. I know what is coming because he’s already told me. Line for line, thought for thought, word for word, its been recorded hours before as I listened. Despite myself, I can’t help but say the lines he told me I’d say.
“Right about what? That this can’t be real? Is this all a bad dream?”
He lets out a chuckle. The flame is to his fingertips now, but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. “No, no. The other part.” Leaning down next to my face, he set my cheek on fire as he whispers in my ear.
“There is only one of us.”

Alright y'all,
My last DD post aged quite well and figured I'd put something else together for you.
That last DD post was on ACU - Aurora Solar Technologies. Posted on January 9th, 2021 with a share price of .375. Closed February 12th, 2021 at a price of .74. With their new Saas product just being released, I still believe there is a ton of upside there. Here's the post if you want to take a look:
https://www.reddit.com/Canadapennystocks/comments/ktkod0/acuv_aurora_solar_dd_for_an_undervalued_green/
Let's get into the next company, shall we. CMC - Cielo Waste Solutions. This one is also in the renewable energy space and imo, is probably better upside right now at their current prices. Currently own appx. 190K shares of CMC at about .095.
Essentially what this company does is take waste, put it through their process, and end up with renewable transportation diesel, jet fuel, and naphtha fuel. They can take almost any feedstock other than glass and metals, including wood, plastics, tires, construction waste, and municipal organic and solid waste.
From their website -
"All developed countries throughout the world require a minimum blend of renewable diesel be used in all transportation diesel fuel. Cielo’s renewable fuel can be used in highway, air, ocean, and railway sectors, and as a fuel in remote off-grid communities. Cielo's renewable naphtha will be used in the diluent, condensate and gasoline blending markets."
They've been working on this process for 17 years and have gotten to the point at their main facility, where they are able to have the process creating 1000 litres per hour of renewable fuels. The site is operating 24 hours a day. As of right now, they have an agreement to take CP's old rail ties and are using that wood as the feedstock.
At this main facility in Aldersyde, Alberta, they will be upgrading the plant this summer to expand the capacity to 2000 l/h. They have also ordered the equipment they'll need for the desulphurization of the fuels they produce. This will allow them to get a better price for the fuels and also allow them to be used in more applications. This is expected to be installed by end of Q1 2021. In November they signed a pre-sale commercial deal to sell 60,000 litres in anticipation of this desulphurization, at $1.25 per litre.
The great thing is that Cielo has a very effective, easily duplicated process now. They have agreements in place with Joint Venture partners to build another 5 facilities throughout Alberta. They are expected to break ground in Dunmore(Q2 21), Grand Prairie(Q4 21), Calgary and Edmonton(Q2 22). They have also purchased land in Medicine Hat, unsure when construction starts there. The CEO has stated he wants 40 facilities underway throughout North America in the next 5 years.
For the Dunmore facility, the plan is to build it to allow for 12,000 litres per hour capacity or 100 million litres per year of high-grade renewable fuel. The CEO anticipates that they will convert 200,000 tonnes of garbage into fuel to meet these numbers per year.
There is an active group on CEO.ca where one of Cielo's board members, Lionel Robbins, frequently visits. He is a wealth of information and is very accessible to anyone with questions. I'd recommend anyone interested to go through his old posts where he covers pretty much everything. Here's his post history link:
https://ceo.ca/@lionel
As far as how the Joint Ventures work with Cielo, the JV partners are responsible for putting up 100% of the initial funds to build the facilities. Here's how the numbers work out, per Lionel:
"@Lionel - Good morning everyone. I have seen quite a bit of information with regards to Cielo's revenue share on JV's, short term cash flow, etc, so I just wanted to put out a bit of information from the MOU's and some previous PR's, to summarize... u/r.p.56 has most of the information correct here in terms of the JV agreements between RenewableU/Cielo, SeymouCielo and any follow-on JV's. The JV partner is responsible for sourcing 100% of the funds to build and commission the new facility, and then will receive 70% of the profits per year until they receive the equivalent of that build cost back, with Cielo getting the other 30%. Once the cap cost recovery is complete, Cielo will then receive 50.1% of the profits going forward, with the JV partner getting the other 49.9% That gives Cielo some significant cash flow even during the cap cost return phase, as they will have no debt involved in the project. In terms of the estimated 24 month period to build, Cielo has positive cash flow at that point as well, receiving 7% of the cap cost to manage the builds. They would receive the 7% as the build draws are taken, giving them some consistent cash flow throughout the 24 months before the plants actually fire up. With most of the JV projects estimated to cost in the $50M to $80M range (depending on initial volume planned), 7% on several JV's is not a small number for Cielo to see in their pockets while waiting for the cash flow from operations. Cielo will also be ramping up to the last phase of Aldersyde during that time, to produce 2000 LPH and have its own sales revenue for additional cash flow."
Here's some more info from Lionel on various aspects of the business and Process:
2020-09-09
"I am communications director for Don, as well as a board member so obviously I can’t divulge anything but already public information, but will do my best. Just a clarification on Aldersyde’s breakeven point, it’s about 350 litres per hour production, not per day. The upgrades recently completed and noted in most recent PR, will allow Cielo to ramp up to that point, and beyond to an estimated 1000 lph which will create some positive cash flow for Cielo while the full scale facilities are being constructed across the province and beyond. For the question of feedstock, every facility can accommodate multiple feedstocks so it won’t be a matter of directing a single source to one specific plant. Lots of excitement and positivity out in Aldersyde these days. The tour with the Alberta provincial government ministers, and others, couldn’t have gone any better. Alberta is setting themselves on a path to diversifying their economy to have less reliance on O&G, and have Cielo firmly in their sites now as a part of that plan. Finance Minister Travis Toews had positive comments on his social media feeds right after the tour. For anyone already in the Calgary area, or planning to be in the near future, Don loves giving tours so please feel free to check in with us on available date and times."
2020-09-10
"On terms of production for the commercial-scale facilities, the design Cielo has is “modular” in nature, where each unit will be able to produce an estimated 2000 lph. The goal for each facility is a minimum of 2 modular units, or 4000 lph capacity to start, but that can be increased quite easily, with the only holdup being the availability of feedstock volumes. It takes approximately 3.5 tonnes of feedstock to make 2000 lph. In large volume areas such as Edmonton, Calgary, etc, it’s conceivable that feedstock agreements could justify facility builds to accommodate much more than 4000 lph to start, with the JV’s in places like Grande Prairie, Medicine Hat, etc likely starting at the 4000 and ramping up from there at a later date.
In terms of interest for more refineries, there are several MOU’s in place for joint venture facility builds. RenewableU has offer to build in Grande Prairie, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge and Halifax, with plans for additional. Seymour Capital has a MOU for Calgary facility, and several indigenous groups have expressed interest for a JV as well. There is interest from US and overseas, but first focus is getting a few Canadian facilities built.
In terms of tinkering with the mix to allow multiple feedstocks, it’s more a matter of specific temperature mix by feedstock type, no actual adjustment to equipment is needed, so facilities can transition through various feedstocks quite easily and quickly.
Unfortunately most of the details on the CP Rail tie feedstock agreement aren't public as of yet so I can't answer your specific question just yet. CP is excited about the project, and wants to time the full release of details for when they are ready on their end. In more "generic" terms for feedstock handling and processing...
all type of feedstock eventually ends up in what essentially is "powder" form at the end of the day. The feedstock is first processed through a grinding facility that breaks it down into manageable size (about 2" or less), and then goes into a second grinding facility (which will be on site at all facilities, compared to using 3rd party feedstock processors to deliver it in the 2" format) which utilizes sound bombardment to pulverize the feedstock into a fine 50 to 100 micron powder (about the consistency of flour). That powder is then mixed with the used motor oil, to make it a slurry (it's much easier to heat up a slurry-type liquid than heat up a solid feedstock). The slurry then goes through the patented Thermo-Catalytic-Depulmerization process to convert into distillate, which then goes through a separation process to separate into diesel, kerosene and naphtha. So they won't really "drop the feedstock off at the gates" per se, but it will end up being processed into the manageable feedstock, to them be delivered to the facility where it is kept in a designated storage area, waiting to be converted into the powder, to then make it's way into the facility and through the process. I am definitely NOT the tech guy in this equation, so I may be over-simplifying it a bit. I've been through enough plant tours with Don and Mark to have a pretty good idea of that whole process, but will never profess to be an expert! I hope that answers your question.
typically I wouldn't see them "mixing" feedstocks at random, as there may be issues with specific contaminants, etc, but yes that would be possible. When we are using feedstocks that don't have much for nasty contaminants in it, we are analyzing some of the ash waste for potential fertilizer applications as a bonus revenue source, so if we can ensure that certain type of feedstock produce a "useable" waste, as opposed to landfilling them or putting down disposal wells, then we will want to ensure we are taking advantage of that by not mixing that feedstock with others that prevent that."
-
CMC has recently seen a share price spike in the last few weeks. I believe this is partially due to Bob McWhirter from BNN recommending the company in a National Post article. Anand Varun also mentioned them on BNN Market Call.
For anyone looking for more info on CMC, here's a few videos of their CEO going over their process and some investor materials.
Process explanation and facility walkthrough - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m44VPAjkwCA&t=2s
CEO Interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMYsasotbgo&feature=emb_logo
Investor Materials - https://www.cielows.com/investor-materials/
In conclusion, I think CMC is undervalued right now and will be on a lot of people's radar in the not too distant future. Part of me loves the play because I'm very confident I'll make good money from it. The other part of me loves the play because these guys are going to eliminate millions of tonnes of garbage within a few years and way more as time goes on. They'll turn that trash into renewable diesel, which would otherwise be decomposing in a landfill somewhere releasing greenhouse gases and polluting the local environment.
If you got this far, thanks for reading. Let me know what you think below.
All the best,
Kyle

RR link
Previous chapter (Intro)
​

#1 - RETRO COSMOS

​
No one knew what the nutrigel was made from. The official version advocated a mixture based on tholins harvested from the Outer System and gelled deposits from protein farms. A more fanciful explanation suggested the involvement of cockroach juice or recycled seniors for the common good.
Shaping food from this compote was an art. A craft so difficult to master that most stellar canteens offered the radiation-free nutrigel and its derivatives directly in raw form; usually an emerald colored gum cobble with an indeterminate taste and consistency that couldn’t be placed on any chart.
That said, the chefs of the lost stations on the space highway, stretching from Earth to Saturn, discovered how to make dishes worthy of the name. Sushi, burgers and tartiflettes; everything was imaginable with the nutrigel, because it could be shaped as desired. Thanks to a few spices and black-market condiments, it was even possible to recover the flavors of yesteryear; when humans were cramming into the Blue Planet.
It was nevertheless with deep sadness that I revel in such refined dishes as that day, a multi-cheese pineapple pizza. Because, alas, my cat’s stomach couldn’t allow me to eat them in their entirety.
“What an injustice! What a misery! What a suffering!”
In this outmoded diner, my last slice laid before me on the table, immaculate; within paws’ reach and yet so far away.
“Are you monologuing alone in your head again, Lee?”
Apparently, I had let the conclusion of my lament slip away.
But what could Ali understand about it? Now, she was gluttonously eating enough to feed a supercargo crew and their lot lizards. Crumbs were covering her black jumpsuit and she even had hot sauce on the blond hair that was falling over her shoulders.
This girl’s stomach appeared to be a bottomless wormhole. I, meanwhile, was overcome by a few counterfeit pieces of tropical fruit on a slice of fake bread despite a real appetite.
“My life is nothing but pain,” I concluded, rolling over the greasy table, only to rehash my sad failure.
I was morose. The imperial roundness of my overfilled belly reflecting through the empty Coke glass was nevertheless more to blame than my usual existential depression. I always had the blues when I had eaten too much.
My partner finally took pity on me. Or was I decidedly too cute to leave her indifferent? She washed her hands with a wipe that smelled like gasoline and took the opportunity to stroke my silky gray coat. After having scratched my white-haired chin, it was time, according to her, to pack up.
“But Ali… there are two slices left!”
Here we were again wasting while only a few days ago we were starving in Phobos’s orbit.
We had been browsing the system for weeks now, looking for a former pirate on the run. According to some information that we had collected when we passed through Ceres, in the belt, our target was near the Red Planet. Alas, it turned out that he had never set foot there. We had been scammed. Frustration added to exhaustion. Patience wasn’t my partner’s forte.
“Don’t make a big deal out of it…” she said while looking daggers at me with her blue eyes.
Once standing, my human had difficulty adjusting her Velcro belt, which she had loosened as a safe precaution before eating like the ogre she was. She ultimately left it open, revealing, with the opposite of grace, white boxer shorts and navel through the aperture. That night, this legendary black hole had reached its limits. There was finally justice in this cold universe.
With her pink plastic jacket back on her shoulders, Ali nonchalantly threw a few bills on the table where they got stuck on a stain of sauce. Then she took a piece of bubble gum and we left.
The restaurant of the cargo stop was now almost empty at this late hour. The VFD clock indicated 3:00 a.m. Martian Time, but this wasn’t of much help because outside the night was eternal.
Nancy Sinatra sang through the radio over the muted info-ads from the blurry color TV set. The chorus of Bang Bang barely covered the animated discussion of a few pilots in a cubicle near the toilets. Further on, a robot salesman in a worn suit and piano tie, who was staying at the adjacent motel, was trying to sell his electronic trinkets to a group of gullible tourists.
Of the staff, only one waitress with orange gloss remained in the room; busy cleaning the antique Mr. Coffee machine. She bid us farewell with a nod, bouncing her wrinkled jowls and dentures that held a rolled cigarette firmly in place.
Her skin was so white that it was no wonder she had never seen the real sunshine in her too long life. Here, on the road to the asteroid belt, its rays had already been lost in the void. A bit like us. And we liked it that way.
“She looks like a low-sugar Betty White,” Ali joked.
With my usual elegance, I positioned myself on her right shoulder, always covering her back when we left a public place. I had been doing this since we first met years before. It was the safest way to do so.
“You are a scandalmonger. And a very mean one.”
But when we finally reached the Plexiglas gates, they refused to open. We were locked in.
“Bogus! Has the waitress already bolted the door? What time is it?” Ali asked, confused.
It was ridiculous. Those diners never closed.
Through the glass, I glanced at the outside handle. It had recently been tampered using some acidified resin. Unfortunately, I couldn’t answer because someone immediately shouted behind us.
“All right, folks! Everyone stay at their table and keep being very quiet! This is a hold-up! You know the drill.”
The criminal stood on the counter with bowed legs to avoid collecting his share of cobwebs. His greasy brown mane, which was covered with poor quality hairspray, shone under the ceiling lights. His faux leather jacket gave off a strong smell of perspiration perceptible through the room. The coat was decorated with various faded veteran badges from the corpo-campaigns around Uranus. He had previously entered by the other door leading to the motel; or via the pantry.
As we returned to our cubicle, the man continued his plea, punctuated by coughing fits. Clapping his boots, he was now threatening the waitress with a blade sticking out of his palm. This wasn’t her first armed robbery, as there were no signs of panic from her. Or maybe they were just imperceptible under her thick Tinkerbell makeup barely covering her wrinkles.
The customers, on the other hand, reacted differently and began to get agitated. The tourists started filming the scene with their newly acquired camcorders.
“And don’t anyone make a fuss or I’ll cool it down! No hesitation!” he shouted. “I’m a wanted man on all the moons of the Outer System, to tell you how much you must not provoke me!”
The bar's neon lights over his skull illuminated his sweaty face with red, threatening to ignite the lacquer. He looked like a maniac and nobody moved after this new warning.
“Well… that is interesting,” I whispered to Ali as we had just returned to our table.
I was now lying against an empty napkin dispenser. The latter was resting on top of the bench covered with dusty forgotten gum wrappers, just behind where my human had taken place.
“Wait a minute. I’m checking the register,” she mumbled to me as she was holding one of the last, now cold, slices in her mouth.
She was tapping on her wrist terminal; a tiny console inlaid in the flesh of her left forearm now connected to the table’s network outlet. Lines of green squared characters flashed up on the monochrome monitor among poorly rendered pictures. I could hear the processor cramming megabytes of data from the interweb.
At first, I thought the man must have phonic implants, because he immediately rotated his head towards us. It turned out that he was just trying to pass the time while the waitress was completing filling a large metal box with cash. Luckily for us, Ali had already finished her research.
“I note that someone here don’t lose her appetite while traveling across space,” he said after leaving the bar. “How do they call you, blondie?”
He had that smug, intrusive tone, making this clumsy, old-fashioned approach even awry.
Even worse! He had ignored me. Me, the cutest face in the system. Lying on top of the back of the bench, hadn’t he noticed me? Or was that a challenge? Of course. I had to intervene. It was a matter of feline honor.
“Who do you think you’re talking to? Can’t you see you are bothering my partner, low rank human?”
He opened his eyes wide. Obviously, he had never heard a cat speak so eloquently. Perhaps he had never heard a cat speak at all.
“Come again, impertinent little rodent? Human… of rank what?”
“Rodent? Impertinent? I meowed. What insolence!”
With my ears back, I was fulminating.
“I happen to be a Maine Coon, Monsieur. I am only one gene away from the ruthless cougar!”
He laughed. Then his wrist blade shone under the dirty ceiling lights. From the tip of it, he was about to steal the leftovers of our meal.
“Listen, mutant, I’m chatting with the chick with the indecent, yet very appetizing cleavage. Not with her flea-covered Teddy Ruxpin, capishe?” he pursued.
Or rather, he concluded. For his lame tough-hearted speech was interrupted by a crash and the sweet scent of Saturnian gunpowder. The synthetic copper bullet had gone from Ali's gun through the table and plate so fast that the last piece of pizza resting on it had barely shaken. It had penetrated by his Adam’s apple then continued to the junction of the spine and the base of the skull before entering it.
The ballistic behind this was amazing; yet disappointing. There was no large sheaf of blood repainting the restaurant’s decrepit walls. There was no screaming or backward jump as you see in those bad direct-to-video movies.
Hollywood truly lied to us.
The thief was still conscious when he collapsed to the ground, following the gentle law of gravity, even if artificial. The fall was followed by a few spasms and a muffled hiccup.
George Orwell wrote: you have nothing, except the few cubic centimeters of your skull. That was true. At least until that airhead Ali just shot emptied his jammy cortex onto the turquoise tile floor and gave up his final breath. The few remaining molars and the pellet, which miraculously didn’t come out, had transformed his anemic brain into marmalade.
“That is not clever!” I exclaimed as I jumped to the ground. “Look at the mess you did!”
I landed a few centimeters away from a chunk of tongue and a pool of purple liquid with a dead-fish smell.
The gaze of the last customers who hadn’t taken the opportunity to leave through the utility room or the motel had turned towards our table. Once again, my sapiens offered a pitiful spectacle of our profession.
“This fucker wanted to pinch my slice,” Ali strongly defended herself while picking up the expelled shell from her massive iridescent Desert Eagle. 50 AE caliber. “So, I plead like, you know, self-defense or whatever.”
“Nonsense!” I replied.
Our sixth spat of the day was immediately interrupted by the cook. This fat man with a bull neck must have been slumbering in the scullery, judging by the sleep lines on his puffy face. He had finally summoned up his meager courage to intervene once the threat had been averted.
“Excuse me, Madam…” he began by replacing the safety catch on his old Remington.
My partner lifted her jacket to put her gun in the holster under her left armpit, revealing her badge on her lapel: a discreet palladium plaque the size of a quarter.
“Madam the bounty hunter…”
“We prefer the term ‘Auxiliary of Justice’,” I replied before my human, leaping to the table where the bills were still lying in the dried sauce. “Way more PR, you see.”
Ali shut me up with a slap on the head. She was the only person authorized to do so. And by ‘authorized’, I mean that I was endorsing this behavior with minor diplomatic repercussions.
The cook resumed while scratching his dreadfully shaved throat:
“Certainly… well… could you please hurry up and retrieve his identifier? We would like to dispose of the body. It’s pretty bad for business.”
“Alright… alright… right away,” Ali replied politely, her white sneakers bathed in the blood that was beginning to clot. “We just need his FID.”
The identifier, or FID for Finger IDentification, was a small visible ring that replaced the first phalanx of the right annular. A plastic and metal implant, anchored in you and containing your administrative, banking and medical information. Not fully trustable, it was, however, what hunters would retrieve to prove the fulfillment of a contract. Always more enjoyable than flying through the cosmos with a severed head in an ice tray. Well, I mean, from a sapiens’ point of view.
My partner summarily cut off the finger of our target with her right heel. And it was a match. She had found on her wrist terminal that his name was Joey Neill. And Joey should have run today. But who cares? He was a wastoid and murderer wanted for C$10,000 on Phoebe. C$10,000. That’s all we needed to know.
“Phoebe…” Ali mumbled again after sweeping the FID with her computer’s optic.
The moon S IX Phoebe was where we had to head for our reward. As I said before, the finalization of the contract had to be done in person: no mailing, no identifier scanning or holo-conferencing. We kept the Wild West spirit beyond the belt.
“I can already hear you ranting about making such an excursion back to Saturn,” I remarked to my human as she placed the FID in a special metal box. “You regret your intervention, don’t you?”
“It’s so far away! Why can’t the Outer System work like the Middle or Inner Planets? It’s so lame! I fucking hate road trips!”
“Take a chill pill! Thus, I think it is time to go back to the Rings anyway,” I said.
I then climbed again on her shoulder as we abandoned the restaurant for good.
“By the way, did you give a gracious gratuity for the pool of hemoglobin we left? And the huge hole in the table?”
“I didn’t know you had to tip before the belt too. It’s such an outdated custom anyway. God! The Middle System sucks!”
This girl was never happy.
She then proceeded to kick the door off its hinges, which the corrosive gum kept closed. The violence of the blow knocked the adjacent ashtray and its contents onto the asphalt sidewalk. As always, Ali was turning into a cheeky teenager while thwarted.
“Are you kidding?” I cursed her. “Yet another establishment where I won’t be able to come back!”
Miraculously, the sashes returned to slam against the twisted jamb, but the Plexiglas pane split in two.
“Fine! I’m getting tired of pizzas anyway.”
“Are you going insane?” I meowed.
I put one of my paws on her temple. My pad didn’t detect a fever. She was very serious.
“You will change your mind in less than twenty-five hours, as usual,” I premeditated, and rightly so.
As evidenced by the green LED on the station’s circular airlocks, the short stop parking lot was almost empty and peaceful. But it would soon fill up. Already, on the other side of the armored windows, a dozen luminous purple and blue dots appeared. These were flashing in the infinite night. It was certainly a convoy of supercargos on its way, like us, to Ceres. They would stop here for a few hours, or days, to rest.
Space travel wasn’t long but consumed a lot of energy for both men and ships. Lack of sunshine and confinement could overcome even the most robust of minds. Ali and I had found our parade: greasy fast food and the relatable Betamax. And we weren’t the only ones. Franchises like Pizza'n'Droid and Blockbuster constellated the invisible highway and attracted local and transiting wildlife; as well as criminals. The great distances had sparked a new boom in the age of smuggling and piracy. Good for us, right?
“Is the coolant full?” Ali asked the red-haired boy wearing leather fingerless gloves sleeping next to the main hangar.
Snoring against one of the huge heat pumps, he finally opened his eyes and took the helmet off his Walkman where we could hear the last notes of Don’t you forget about me.
“Huh? Yeah! Full load of Blue, Madam,” he stammered as he saw us approaching. “Quite a museum piece you have here, eh?”
Under his acne pimples, his skin turned bright red.
It was the same everywhere my sapiens went. Her black jumpsuit left her curves at no margin of imagination. Rotational gravity gently floated her golden hair and her silk-light jacket, giving her a fairy-tale air, or at least a supernatural presence. And her smile made many people’s head spin. Or maybe it was her freckles, shaped like the Milky Way.
You can’t imagine how many bottoms I had to bite to brush humans, from both sexes, off her bed every morning after we stopped on inhabited worlds. Short answer? Hella lot.
From crimson red, however, these suitors usually turned to the palest white when she lifted her top to reveal her badge and her much too large holster to grab her outrageously kitsch pink furry wallet.
“You… you’re a police officer? A darned Techno-cop?” he stuttered, ordering a robot to open the garage door. “No wait! An Auxiliary of Justice?”
“Quite right,” replied my human who, like me, noted here the correct use of the term.
“Dang! You have to hunt the worst criminals to be able to afford such a beauty!”
He turned on the dusty spotlights and the interior of the hangar was flooded with a pale blue glow, revealing a vast, and creepy, collection of Molly Ringwald’s posters.
In the center of the large room, vertically stood the Kitty, a marvel at the confluence of design and technology. A Swallow-2 military fighter of the former United Nations converted into a lone frigate. Twelve tons of alloys and ceramics with flaked coral paint; the legacy of a triumphant past. A 3,5 by 10 meters of earthen-armored hull in the shape of the eponymous bird surrounding a real next-generation post-nuclear Baltimore-IV engine from sixteen generations ago.
Weapons inventory: no laser beams certainly, nor electronic toys, but good 40 mm machine guns at the front and a railgun under the belly. Rusty, yet effective. The vintage class like these sapiens no longer did.
Finally, I will pass you the details about the control computer and the power of its IBM 16 bits 50 MHz data-core processor.
Impressed? Stop it! You’re making me blush, low-rank human.
“The rust really ties the ship together, eh?” joked the young boy.
As you now can see, he was abusing sarcasms on this splendor of times sadly gone by.
“How fast can she push at full cycle up there?”
“This pimply asteroid-faced uncouth is mocking my vessel!” I muttered between my lips so only my partner could hear it.
“I don’t know. I don’t fly it. Lee does,” she replied to him while he guided us on the footbridge.
“Yes! I am the pilot!” I fulminated before Ali stopped me by taking me in her arms.
This scoundrel was saved because I was about to make canned dolphins out of him. Too bad for him. He will never know how a cat could maneuver a medium starfighter. This pump attendant will remain ignorant until the end of his pathetic existence, shortened by the radiation from nuclear reactors.
But the chin scratching that was supposed to soothe me was promptly interrupted by a message. It appeared on my partner’s terminal which had just synchronized with the ship’s computer, now in range.
“New contract?” I asked. “At last!”
My sapiens opened the body of the announcement with a hand gesture and frowned.
“It’s a gig in the belt. It’s on our way, but… no homicide allowed. Capture only.”
I let out a groan of disappointment.
“We’re heading for the asteroid belt and the external stations of Ceres tomorrow,” I concluded. “On the way, we will check for other contracts and whether we can gather new information about this miserable pirate of Oswald Avery.”
Ali had already placed the contract in the virtual bin and we boarded the Kitty. The encrypted key in the ignition, I made the cooling pumps roar. The reactor started its cycle and the dashboard lit up at the same time as the Blaupunkt. This was the best part of the day.
Desireless’s Martian accent made the speakers vibrate to the sound of Voyage Voyage. With the paws on the controls sticks, we took off towards the starry sky, plus loin que la nuit et le jour.
Back to business!

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment,. The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days." The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations." The older lady said that she was right our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day. The older lady went on to explain: Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day. Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then. We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day. Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day. Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then. We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the "green thing" back then. Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint. But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then? Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off... Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.

​
Let us assume for sake of argument that this conversation actually happened as written.
Obviously the cashier's response was unprofessional and out of line; I'm not debating that part.
But considering how much of a lecture this old woman gave over that response, when the old woman's own original comment had carried none of the relevant context (such as, "we used reusable paper sacks instead"), that her use of the phrase "green thing" was vague enough to refer to all forms of protecting the environment and not just the cashier's original statement about trying to eliminate plastic bags for the good of the environment, it sounds to me like her comment was intended as bait for precisely the kind of response the cashier had given.
​
Consider this:
I grew up using (allegedly) single-use plastic bags because that's what was available for my generation. (They nearly replaced paper sacks in the US in the 1980s.) My generation and younger did not decide to reduce the use of multi-use bags, my parents' generation and older did. My parents did, however, occasionally use paper sacks once a year so that I would have them available for those book covers, younger generations than mine can get paper sacks for the same purpose, and the less-creative types can find book covers already colored to their liking and ready to decorate. Also, I grew up with "single use" plastic bags that were durable enough to survive multiple uses, the last of which was inevitably as a trash bag for receptacles much too small for a bag (also plastic because that's what's available!) made specifically for trash.
I grew up without returning milk bottles etc to the store to be washed and reused because that service barely exists if at all my generation and younger. (Nonreturnable bottles started in the 1930s.) My generation and younger did not decide that this service was not needed, my parents' generation and older did. Though I did grow up learning to clean my own recyclables and make them available for a recycling company to provide that service to whatever extent they were willing and able to offer.
I grew up with escalators (invented in 1892). My generation and younger did not invent them, nor were they invented specifically for our convenience. My parents' generation and older invented them for their use and we continue to use them.
I grew up with disposable diapers because that's what was widely available. (The disposable diaper replaced the washable kind in popularity in the 1960s.) My generation and younger did not invent those, my parents' generation and older did.
Rather than continue repeating every point that the old woman thinks she was making, I'll just summarize it with my generation and younger did not invent most of these things. We did not make these decisions about the cost of a home, the cost of a car, the way that house should be wired to hell and back, those decisions were nearly always made for us. Honestly, the only thing the old woman had right was that it is our choice if we wanted to spend our money on a TV for every room (if we could afford it), the gas to drive two blocks (if the car wasn't in the shop), or using the conveniences that their generations created instead of letting those inventions go to waste.
And finally, my generation and younger did not decide that cashiers should rely so much on a computer to verify the accuracy of a transaction that, even if we could calculate the transaction faster than the computer could (which is getting less likely thanks to sales tax unless you are a math prodigy or the computer is running very slow), we are still required to let the computer tell us how much change we owe you. And how's this for being a smartass: that the "old lady" needed to even mentioned the tattoos and piercings, that she needed to find problems with the person and not just the comment, tells me that her lecture was never strong enough to stand on its own.
​
So... how much older is this "much older lady" that the things invented by my parents', grandparents' and in some cases great-grandparents' generations invented weren't available in "her day?" And how old is this "younger person" who supposedly had so much agency in her life that she chose to have all of those conveniences in the first place instead of growing up being taught that they were normal?
​
Am I blaming the older generations for these problems? No! But I get pissed off when they blame us, when their only evidence that these problems have anything to do with us is that we grew up at the same time that these problems started and/or became so noticeable, especially when their only excuse for pointing fingers is for that sanctimonious and totally contradictory "look at how much more I suffered at your age/look at how few problems I had at your age."

I'm in the wind, I'm sure I'll be dead by tomorrow, but I need to let people know this thing is loose.
I'm an agent with the United States Government, and my station is Black Site 7. I won't tell you my name, it would probably be useless to you, but this was not how I saw my life going. I spent 6 years in Iraq, signed up right after high school, and nothing like the recruiter told me it would be. I spent eight years in the blistering heat, hauled my fair share of comrades out of firefights, and saw a lot of shit over there that would make normal people go crazier than I might be. I've had camel spiders crawl on me while I sleep, watched friends I've known since basic get decapitated through binoculars, burned houses full of insurgents and civilians to rubble, and when I was done, they gave me my papers, thanked me for my service, and sent me home.
I know I have no right to complain; many guys didn't make it back, but home was worse.
I'd spent the last eight years in an active combat zone, and now I was just supposed to come home and go back to civilian life? I spent three months home, two of those months spent in a shitty apartment because my parents couldn't handle the night terrors and the jumpy marine that had come back before I knew it was t gonna work. Every car horn, every barking dog, every firework rattling in the street had me reaching for my gun and breaking into a sweat when I couldn't find it. Before TJ found me, I was considering suicide.
Then one day, he's just at my door with that big shit-eating grin he'd always worn.
"You look like shit, Haus. Let's get some pancakes; I've got something I want to discuss with you."
TJ was my platoon leader in the SandBox. They called him the Comedian because he was always smiling, always cracking jokes. He was a functional sociopath, I guess most of us were, but I always admired his ability to laugh in the face of such fucked up shit. TJ was not his real name, but since he's still in this shit that I've left behind, I figure the best I can do is not remind them that he's why I'm here.
He took me to breakfast, and, in the back of a crowded Denny's, he laid it all out for me.
"You've got it bad, Haus." He said through a mouthful of pancakes, "but that's okay, cause ole uncle TJ has the cure for ya. I've got a new job, familiar work that might interest you. Ever hear if Two Trees?"
I had. Two Trees was a government institute that, on the surface, did a lot of medical research and clinics trial. Underneath, though, they did wet work, and anyone who was involved in covert ops knew about Two Trees. We'd worked with them a few times in Iraq, and their guys were spooky, to say the least.
"You're looking at the new Head of Black Site 7."
I furrowed my brow at him, "Congratulations, should I know what that is?"
"Of course not, it's a closely guarded government secret, and Two Tree's is paying me a small fortune to keep it that way too. Problem is, I need someone to curate the site for me. Someone with military training, experience with firearms, and a need for some normalcy. Know anyone like that?"
I knew what he was asking, but I didn't think I was who he was looking for. I hadn't found work in the three months I'd been back, and most of that was because I couldn't settle into anything. I was constantly jumpy, constantly on edge, and that makes it hard to find work. No one wanted you doing security work or minding a gas station when every backfiring car was an enemy combatant. What would happen if I had an episode in a government facility?
I shook my head, "Thanks, but no thanks. I don't think I'm fit for duty the way I am."
"Yeah, I thought you might say that." he said, putting a metal tin in front of me, "your medical files read like a benchmark for PTSD. Night terrors, irritability, being on edge, those irrational bouts of anger that got you thrown out of your parent's house," he added with a little smirk.
I felt defensive, "How do you know about that?"
"You'd be surprised what my level of clearance will get you. Your therapist's records were about as hard to get as a beer at a gas station. Well, I've got a little present for you, Haus. Welcome to the rest of your life." he said, indicating the silver case.
The case was about as big as an Altoids tin. There were no markings, no filigree or needless ornament, and a distinctly surgical look. I slid my hand toward it, but it didn't seem to want to touch it. Every sense I had told me to walk away now, not to touch it and just walk away from this unassuming little case.
I forced my hand to pop it open instead.
Inside was a pair of pale, gray gel caps.
"What are these?"
"These are the answers to your prayers. Two of these a day will make you feel as calm and clear as you did when you were a mere lad of eighteen. No more jumping at every noise, no more reaching for your gun when a dog barks or a car backfire, just peace of mind."
I imagine now that this is what Metastophalies sounded like when he spoke to Faust.
"What's the catch?"
"These pills are only available through the Two Tree's Corporation. Employees who agree to be part of the clinical trial get them free of charge, but they're only available to employees." he said with a little grin, "Take them, take a day to feel the effects, and let me know what you think. Call me tomorrow and give me your answer then. Enjoy a night of freedom, then make your decision."
I took the pills home with me, and after a few hours of staring at them, I took them with some vodka.
The effects were instantaneous. If you've never had PTSD, then it's hard to explain, but it's like having a loose wire that someone fixes, and then you go back to the way you were. My anxiety melted away, my fear dissipated, my unease and dread were gone, and my anger seemed like a distant memory. I was sitting in my shitty apartment, surrounded by the trappings of my depression and my anxiety, and suddenly I felt like I had before I'd boarded a bus in 2003 and headed out to basic training. I was finally comfortable in my own head, and it was like coming back to a comfortable place after years of running from danger.
After the first good night's sleep, I'd had since shipping out, I called TJ and told him I was in.
"One question," I asked, "what's in the pills that make them work so well."
He was silent for a long minute before saying, "You really don't want to know, Haus. Pack your shit. There will be a truck to move you to West Virginia in the morning."
And that's how I came to work at Black Site 7.
I must have looked like a junkie by the time I pulled up in front of my new home. I didn't have much. The truck had taken all of four boxes into the deep woods as I followed in my old compact. The journey took about sixteen hours, and by the time I got there, I was starting to feel the anxiety creep back in. I became angry at how slow the truck was going, afraid that this whole thing was a trick so they could kill me, and found myself wanting to die when I saw TJ standing at the gates of what looked like an old military checkpoint. He flashed that knowing smile and handed me another silver case. I dry swallowed the pills without a word and felt the inner peace worming back across my brain.
Then he showed me my new quarters.
It was a little bunk room with a bunk bed, a kitchenette, and lockers for clothes. There was a footlocker for my personal stuff, and I was told to keep the space clean. I would be responsible for the site and its security. He showed me a little terminal off the bedroom with monitors and camera feeds. The compound had cameras all over the place, but I appeared to be the only person actually here.
"The site is mostly for storage these days, but it's what we get up to here at night that may interest you. That's why you're here; I need someone I can trust to watch this site 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Four times a year, you'll be relieved for a week of R&R somewhere, but other than that, this is your world."
That didn't bother me, I had no problem being alone, but I was curious as to what I was doing out here.
"What am I looking for exactly?"
TJ pointed at three buildings on the camera, "Keep nosy people out of there, lethal force is authorized, and don't ever go in there, or I'll have to show you where Blacksite 8 is." he said it with a smile, but the smile didn't cross his eyes, "don't worry about being vigilant though. If anything bigger than a mouse moves out there, the alarms will let you know about it."
He told me that my food would be delivered once a week, mostly MRE's, and I could order anything I wanted from the terminal in the living quarter. There was a workout yard near the second building, and I could move through the woods if I chose as long as I took my phone with me so I could get alerts from the console.
"By the way, hand me your phone." he said, and when I did, he put it in his pocket and handed me another one, "That's your new phone. I'll take the keys to your car too and put the money from it in your account. This is your life now, Haus, so don't take this job lightly. If you leave the grounds, we'll know. If you try to update social media or try to tell anything on the outside about what you've seen here, we'll know. If you want to marry or feel like you need out, arrangements can be made after your first five-year tour. As far as anyone is concerned, you no longer exist. Don't be stupid. Put in your five years, and then we'll reassess your position."
He grinned again and punched me in the arm, "And lighten up; this will be the easiest five years of your life."
From that point on, I was an employee of Two Trees.
TJ had been right though, the first five years flew by. I lived on the site, spending my days working out or watching TV, playing the latest video games and watching the newest movies, and guarding this Black Site in the middle of the woods. I never tried to get into the warehouses, I had been a soldier long enough to know how to check my curiosity, and the scares were minimal. The food kept coming, the pills that kept me in my right mind kept coming, and it was pretty peaceful, all told. The alarms, to my knowledge, only went off three times in that first year, and two of those times, it was a deer who had wandered too close. The first time it happened, I had slunk out in a panic, service pistol in hand and boxer shorts flapping, as I rounded the first warehouse and drew down on a very surprised doe who darted away before I could draw a bead on her. It was kind of a special moment for me, I had never seen a deer up close, and as it ran away, I was glad I hadn't shot it.
The third time, it had been a person, the first person I'd seen in three months.
I had been sitting at the console one night, watching the latest Marvel Avengers movie, I think it was Infinity Wars when the alarm went off. I paused the movie, expecting to see a deer or a bear on the monitor, but my eyes went wide when I realized it was a person. He had a crowbar, and he was attempting to pry the door open. He must have come out of the woods because if he'd have driven up, I'd have known about him much sooner. It had been three months since I'd seen a person, not since Agent Daughtry had come to relieve me for a week of R&R in September, and the idea of seeing a person not connected with Two Tree's made me feel weird. Even when you were on R&R, you went to a company resort or a company place full of company people, so you didn't get a little too drunk and talk about all the stuff you did for your country.
I took my pistol outside and crept up on him in near silence. When my foot came down on an extra crunchy stick, he turned his head and noticed me, raising the crowbar as if to attack. The gun went off without me having even spoken to him, reflex taking over and dropping the threat before it could become a real danger. His left eye popped like an overripe fruit, and he fell down on the hard December ground.
I called TJ, and he and some other men in suits came to access the damage.
"You did just right, Haus. He was a threat to the facility and needed to be put down. Don't think for a minute that this reflects poorly on you."
"What will you do with him?" I asked.
TJ smiled, "Immediate disposal, Hause. Think you've got the stomach to help us?"
I found that I did, and once he was doused in gasoline, we set him ablaze on the edge of the property.
They gave me an extra week of R&R, and when I came back, TJ must have decided that I was worthy of being brought in on certain things.
The alarms went off a week after I came back, and I saw TJ stepping out of a black car and waving at me. I slid my shoulder holster on and went out to meet him. As I approached the vehicle, two other men in suits were bringing a man with a bag on his head out of the car. He was wearing scrubs, his hands bound behind his back, and I could hear him crying beneath the black hood he wore. I looked between them, waiting for an expansion, and TJ threw an arm around me and walked me towards the spot where we'd burnt the trespasser.
"Haus, I think it's time that we bring you in on the second reason for this Black Site. You see, sometimes Two Trees has assets that need to be eliminated. The Black Sites are often used for these purposes, but it's always the responsibility of the site's caretaker to carry out these eliminations."
"Why wasn't I told about this before?" I asked, feeling indignant, "I'm no murderer."
"Oh, well, those combatants in Iraq will be glad to hear that, won't they?" he said, almost snidely.
"That was war, TJ. This is murder."
"Think of this as war too, Haus. These people are the enemy, and they need to be eliminated for the good of public safety. It's part of the job, Haus, a part I know first hand that you're capable of."
They put the man on his knees in the middle of the burnt spot, and he knelt praying under the hood as we stood around him.
"Put him down, Haus, that's an order," TJ said.
I looked at him, icily, "And if I won't?"
The two men with him drew their guns, and TJ grinned, "Then I'm afraid that these men will have to execute both of you. Come on, Haus, don't throw this away over some nobody. He's no different than the man outside the warehouse."
I wish now that I'd just let them shoot me, but I guess if I had, you'd never know about any of this.
Instead, I drew out my gun and put a bullet in his skull, glowering at TJ as his buddies put their guns away.
"You made the right choice Haus. Who knows, you might not have to do this more than a dozen more times in the next four years."
I executed an asset a month after that. They were mostly people in scrubs, people in lab coats, doctors, researchers, people who had likely tried to steal from whatever facility they worked at. They were men and women, old men and scared twenty-somethings. I never bothered to learn their names, they were just assets to be eliminated, and I became kind of numb to the process. We burned them afterward, gasoline and fire made it like there were never there, and the spot near the edge had a charred look to it after a while.
At the end of five years, TJ came to see me and ask me if I wanted to re-up.
"What happens if I walk away?" I asked. I was eating dinner when he'd come by, and he had sat down to have a plate of fettuccine with me. Given my free time, I had learned to do a good number of things I couldn't before. I became a pretty good cook, learned to play the guitar, read every book on the shelf I had bought to hold them, and there was a chainsaw outback along with some sculptures I had made with it. I couldn't say I hadn't enjoyed my time here, the killings aside, but I was curious to know if they'd actually let me leave.
"You'll be allowed to return to the real world, your bank account fuller and your retirement substantial. Just watch what you say out there. I'd hate to have to bring you back for your replacement to put a bullet in."
I ended up signing up for another five years.
I shouldn't have done that.
I was eight years deep when they brought the girl in the black bag to me.
It was two am, and I started to think about bed when the alarm went off. I looked for TJ, but he was not the one who climbed out of the black town car. This guy had his hair slicked back, and his suit was an immaculate blue pinstripe. He did not wave at me, and I felt a sense of dread as I grabbed my gun. Somehow, I expected TJ to be under that bag this time.
The man's name was Stine, and he didn't have TJ under the bag. What he did have was a kid with a thick back hood over their head. I couldn't tell at first if it was a boy or girl. They were dressed in baggy clothes, Salvation Army rags that a homeless guy would be embarrassed to wear, and they were crying loudly under their hood. Two familiar men had the kid, and they looked stoic about the whole matter. Stine didn't say anything, just led the procession over to the charred spot and put the kid on their knees.
When he made no move to remove the hood, I did it myself. He winced but didn't stop me. This was my place, my job, and I had garnered a reputation for being a professional, a reputation I was about to ruin. The bag came off, and the little girl's tear-streaked face came into view in the harsh fluorescents. Her hair was cut short, dirty blonde, and hacked to pieces, and her face was covered in bruises. Her nose looked broken, and her lip was split, the blood trickling like red tears. I sighed, looking at Stine as the gun stayed at the ready.
"What the hell is this?"
Stine looked surprised, "It's an asset. TJ said, you handled these for us. Handle the asset."
"This is a fucking kid, barely old enough to wipe her own ass. What could she have possibly done?"
Stines's face was stony, "Yours is not to question, Soldier. Liquidate this asset or be liquidated."
I looked at the kid, her whole face shaking as the tears and blood fell, and thought about watching her head pop like a grape. This wasn't some scared adult, some stoic old man, some praying woman, or some cursing thing with sallow skin. This was a kid. I had killed many people, more in my time here than I ever had during the war, but I was still a professional.
And professionals had standards.
"No," I said.
Stine blinked, "What?"
"No, I won't kill a kid. Do it yourself."
The two men drew their guns, and I was transported back to the first time. I was standing there, two days after Christmas, watching TJ grin and tell me the rules. Now I was standing in the woods, the autumn leaves carpeting the ground, feeling sure they would soon drink both my blood and the girls.
"I will give you till the count of three to kill the girl. After that point, you will both be executed. 1,"
Their guns were unwavering, but so was my resolve.
"2,"
I closed my eyes, preparing to die.
"1,"
I heard a sound like wet concrete splitting open. It was followed by a high pitched scream and a pair of bodies hitting the ground. I opened my eyes and saw Stine running towards the town car, the two men who'd been holding me at gunpoint bleeding out on the ground from large grizzly neck wounds. As I watched Stine run, a rust-red something snapped out and caught him in the back of the neck, dropping him inches from the Towncar.
I looked back in the direction the thing had snapped out from and saw that the girl was now a mass of red spikes, segmented like spider legs. Her face had split long ways, forcing her face into a grizzly, sideways maw. The area between the "teeth" glowed a deep red, and I could see the eyes on the girl's face blinking erratically. The two halves of her smile grinning at me. I figured, for the second time that day, that I was going to die, but she scuttled off into the woods instead, walking on her strange spider appendages as she crashed through the trees.
I stood there for a few minutes, not quite sure I believed I wasn't dead, and then I started running too.
I crashed through the woods for hours, running in no particular direction, sure that at any minute, the creature or a helicopter from Two Trees would fall on me and either rip me apart or blow me away. I had blundered off with no wallet, no cell, just my gun and the clothes I'd been wearing. Was the phone how they tracked me? TJ hasn't said as much but...maybe…
When the ground went out from under me, I felt the airdrop out of my lungs.
I fell five feet off a mud ledge and skinned my hand. My knees hurt where I had landed on them, and I realized pretty quickly that I had fallen onto a road. If I thought it might be an illusion, the headlights that pinned me to the ground a moment later left me with little doubt. Thankfully, the truck stopped, and after a short conversation with the driver, he offered to take me into town.
That's how I came to be here, in this dingy hotel that just happens to have a computer in the lobby. I sold the gun for about five hundred dollars, and I figure I'll disappear as soon as I'm done writing this. They know I'm gone by now, but I don't know if they think I'm dead or if they think I fled. Either way, they'll find me, I'm sure.
I'm more worried about that little girl that's loose in the woods and whatever it is that's living beneath the surface of her skin. If you see a young girl with short, dirty blond hair, do not approach her. I don't know if she killed those men to get away or if she killed them because she wanted to, but she should be considered dangerous if you encounter her in the wild.
And if a man from Two Trees offers you a job, do not become the curator for Black Site 7.
The job is definitely not all it appears to be.

TLDR: The Van Didn't Go "Boom"; That Guy Went Fucking Flying.
WARNING: This story is a bit longer. It is not my typical comedy tale. This one is about an unusual, yet rewarding operation I was on while deployed to Iraq. There will be cussing, and there will be unorthodox terminology used to describe humans and their body parts. Again, if you are looking for my typical comedy-only tale, you won't find it. This story is a bit more serious, but there are some funny parts. I sincerely hope you enjoy.
War! "Dad. Do you like war?" Cake, my youngest humanoid, often asked that question when he was younger. Yes! However, the answer is more complex than a simple yes. It is a multifaceted yes, but there is the occasional "no". War is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most extreme of extreme sports. There are crazy adrenaline highs, but you can truly fail only once. It is one of the few professions in which you can do everything right, yet still die. Furthermore, it is one of the few professions in which your coworkers become family. I have worked with the majority of the same humanoids for years, but we are all a little different under the hood. We don't have the option to "quit" our job. Sometimes it is not about war; it's about survival. The best war stories, according to me, are the ones in which all your brothers are still whole at the completion of a successful operation. They are not all funny tales either. They go a little something like this.
Satan had just called wanting his weather back. It was fucking hot in downtown Baghdad. I could only imagine the amount of sweat being imposed on the females in all black dressed like ninjas and Pac-Man ghosts. There was a middle aged male that had just approached the gate to our Company Outpost (COP). He had information. Everyone has information when you pay them though. His name was Saad. Saad is a Muslim name meaning, "good luck/fortune." Well. Let's see if he lives up to it!
Saad: Hello. I would like to speak to someone. I have very important information.
OP: About?
Saad: Sir. Please. I have a lot of information.
OP: Specifically! What kind of information?
Saad: Terrorist in my neighborhood are building vehicle bombs. They killed my neighbor, and stole his van. I have proof. I will go to my car, and then I will return with proof.
Awesome. We like proof. Ensuring intelligence is reliable is important, but it takes time. Verifying the validity and integrity of the information or a source is not exactly a quick process. I sat there wondering what he was going to bring back. It could be something simple like a cellphone video or picture. Maybe HE was looking to get his Johnny-Jihad on and drive back with a car full of angry shrapnel ready to explode? He returned with a fucking box though. Not an overly large or small box. Just a fucking medium sized box.
Saad: Here. Look!
OP Brain: Jesus Christ in Heaven. You could have fucking warned me Saad!
OP: Ah. Yeah. That's a fucking head.
Saad: It's my neighbor.
OP: It's...(PAUSE) "SOME" of your neighbor. Well, I actually don't know if he is your neighbor. It is certainly a head though. Alright then! Come with me!
Saad had just secured himself an all exclusive trip into the compound. The price of admission was one human head, in a medium sized box. We pat him down to make sure he doesn't have any weapons, or other "loose" body parts and walk him in.
OP: Saad. Close the box!
Saad: Yes Sir.
I seat Saad in an empty room and get thee Platoon Sergeant and Platoon Leader. Dan, the Platoon Sergeant, entered the room first.
Dan: What's in the box?
I began to laugh hysterically. The only thing I could think of is the movie "Seven" starring Brad Pitt. (Google/YouTube and watch "What's in the box" scene.)
Dan: (Jumps back) Holy fuck it's a fucking head.
Dan closes the box just before Pat walks in. Pat is the Platoon Leader, and has only been in the chair for a month. He is a good Platoon Leader, but a little strange. Pat casually strolls in while eating his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He is immediately fixated on the box. The box was a "red button" and this Fucking New Guy (FNG) had to press it before introductions.
Pat: What's in the box?
Dan and I are smirk at another. We had both watched the movie Seven, and we were waiting for Pat's reaction. Pat sets his sandwich on the table with his RIGHT HAND, and then opens the box with his RIGHT HAND.
Pat: Would ya look at that. It's a head. I have never scene one like this before.
You know? Because it is totally fucking normal to see a human head like this; bowling ball style. Pat then reaches into the box and pulls this guy up by the hair. Don't worry Reader, I don't think he felt it. Pat is standing there in awe of this head. He's is looking at it as if he was trying to recall the mans name. Like, "I think I know you from somewhere!" We are now all, including Saad, looking at Pat. The, "Why the fuck are you still holding this head by the hair?" type of look. You know the look! Then Pat fucking does it. Pat does what I think we were all collectively wondering "if" he would do. Pat drops, not placed gently, but drops the head back into the box. Pat then picks up his fucking sandwich with this RIGHT HAND and eats the remainder of the sandwich, with his RIGHT HAND.
MIND. FUCKING. BLOWN.
OP: Sir...
Dan: WHAT THE FUCK?
OP: You just touched a human fucking head, and then ate the rest of your sandwich with the same goddamn hand!
Saad: (Laughing) That was gross. (Looking at me and pointing at Pat) This man. He is gross. He is really gross.
Pat: Oh! Why didn't you say something and stop me?
OP: BLANK STARE
Dan: I actually wanted to see it play out. I had faith that you were not that dumb. That faith...is now gone!
We now get down to business. We were eager to hear what Saad had to say. He first started by stating that he supported another government agency. This is good news to us. It is something we can confirm or deny via a simple phone call. Saad checked-out, meaning Saad was legit, and the information he had may not be collaborated by other sources, but was likely true.
DRAMATIZATION OF THE REMAINING CONVERSATION!
Saad: Terrorist in my neighborhood are building a car bomb.
US: THAT'S FUCKING GREAT! NOW LETS GO KILL THEM!
Saad provided the "5 W's" regarding the event, a means to contact him, and then we conclude the meeting.
Pat: It was really nice meeting you and we appreciate the information.
(Extends hand to shake.)
Saad: I am not shaking your hand. You are very gross.
Saad then turns to depart the room and go about his merry-way.
OP: Saad. Don't forget your box! You're not leaving that shit here.
It was now time to plan an operation. We had conducted numerous operations in this neighborhood thus far; it was our backyard. We were familiar with the area. We wanted to utilized the cover of nightfall. We had a distinct advantage with our Night Vision Goggles (NVGs). We did however have some minor concerns. It mostly had to do with being in close proximity to a giant Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED/Car Bomb) and starting a gunfight. It was not exactly a minor inconvenience. It's like smoking a cigarette while swimming in a pool of gasoline and lighting fireworks at the same time kinds of not-smart. May not be the best option, but an option nevertheless.
There was one hiccup in our plan. We needed the immediate approval of our higher headquarters. They said yes, but it was contingent on more information. We had relayed everything we knew, but they still wanted to know if the terrorist wore Ninja Turtle or Superman underwear? Do they prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream? We eventually confirmed the style and size of the underwear, and were given the go-ahead to launch the operation. Suppose we would figure the ice cream answer later. Additional elements were also brought in to support the operation. We HAD to know what flavor ice cream they liked.
CONCEPT OF THE OPERATION
The Assault Team would be dropped off a couple hundred meters from the objective and conduct movement on foot. They were to arrive at the objective as the gun trucks established their blocking positions. Then the orchestrated ballet of death and destruction would start. The Assault Force would turn any terrorist head into spaghetti-confetti, and the blocking positions would prosecute "squirters" with extreme prejudice.
That was Plan A. Let me tell you something about Plan A and this little fuck called Murphy. Murphy states that, "whatever can go wrong, will go wrong." We sat idle waiting to execute the mission, because the additional support was held up at the gate their Forward Operating Base (FOB). The base was receiving Indirect Fire (IDF), and they were not allowed to depart. It seemed to be some simple Army logic. Vehicles are staged at the gate ready to leave, so instead of letting them depart, we will wait to see if any of this hot and angry falling metal explosions hits a vehicle. Sounds good to me!?!
Scrap Plan A. I think we were somewhere around Plan Z by the time they departed. There was no more silent infiltration. It was now approaching dawn. It was like Ray Charles leading Helen Keller across a busy highway; it was a shit-show. The higher headquarters was now determining if we would "roll" the operation 24-hours, because terrorist probably were not in a hurry to drive it I suppose. Then, the moment the Platoon wanted to quit just happened to be the exact moment we got the order to "execute". It was like wiping your butt after pooping, getting up, washing your hands, and then realizing you have to poop...AGAIN.
MISSION GO
We were now off to the races. Plan Z was a go. It was almost like Plan A, but nothing like plan A, because it was now light out, we lacked a stealthy infiltration, or the motivation to even be awake anymore. We arrived to an empty objective area. Fucking crickets. Most of the neighborhood was still sleeping when we arrived. Everything went according to plan as far as isolating the objective. There was no spaghetti-confetti heads though. No death. No destruction. Just a couple vans about 100-meters to our front.
Aaron (SAW Gunner) : Think those are the vans Sergeant?
OP: I don't know. They could be.
Aaron: Are we going to check Sergeant?
OP: We? No! Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD), YES!
Dan and I spoke. There was nothing we, as door kickers, could really do. We were relegated to watching EOD confirm if the van(s) were in fact VBIED's, car-bombs. This particular EOD element was not organic to us. We hadn't work with them before. They moved like old people fucking, which is really, really slow. Hours had passed by the time they got their WALL-E looking robot moving down the alleyway to interrogate the vehicles. The Soldier at in control of the robot clearly never touched an XBOX of Play Station controller. It was like his first time touching a boobs. He wasn't sure what he was doing, but he was doing it. After another excruciating wait, the news came.
ALL CLEAR!
The EOD element gave the "All Clear", packed their shit up and left. Nobody went and personally inspected the car. Zero fucks were give and they simply departed with their escort element. Just gone!
It was not a VBIED? Were we lied to? Saad seemed legit. He brought us a human head in a medium sized box. Why would he lie? Who the fuck brings you a human head in a medium sized box, and then lies? NOBODY! That's who! The Platoon was staunchly convinced that Saad didn't lie. However, we couldn't just walk to the guys house. That would totally give him away as our source, and his head would end up in a medium sized box. Fuck it! We will search this entire block then. We will do quick sweeps in every house, and make our way to Saad's, and not out him as our source. EOD left, and we began our cordon and search. The search was just as fruitless as we expected, but we had finally arrived at Saad's house.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
We ensure our interpreter loudly conveys we are coming in to search the house!
Dan: You said the van was a VBIED.
Saad: It is!
Dan: Are you SURE?
Saad: YES.
OP: Which van?
Saad: Gray one.
OP: And you are certain?
Saad: Yes.
Dan: How can you be sure?
Saad: (Annoyed and angry) Because I helped build it!
*It Checked Out!
OP: What? What the fuck did you say?
Saad: How do you think I get this information?
OP: Is it remote, command, or both?
Saad: What?
OP: How does it go boom? Can you do it from a phone? How?
Saad: Button. You have to press a button in the van.
Dan: ARE YOU SURE THAT IS THE ONLY WAY?
Saad: Yes. On my family. That is the only way.
OP: Saad. In the future I STRONGLY encourage you to inform us of little details like that. You know we were coming here to kill them right?
Saad: No. I helped build it by getting them the supplies only. It is the gray van. There is a green tank in the back window. I am certain it is a bomb.
It was time to leave. We both believe him. He was already working for us, and we had validated that. It was time to go and make some moderately dumb, and highly questionable decisions. Yes, we were about to get close and personal with a likely car-bomb. Our logic? We were right. At least we thought we were. If we allow this gray van of certain death depart the area there was zero doubt in our mind that Americans and/or civilians would be killed or have a vivid story to recall later in life. If Dan and I mustered up the courage (STUPIDITY)!?! Only two idiots die.
We move to the best vantage point possible and see jack-and-shit from our scoped rifles.
Dan: What do think?
I had mentally had it. I was tired. I was hungry, and I wasn't certain I had the fucking will to live anymore. I just started walking. We were going to eventually talk ourselves into it. I just said, "hold my beer" before Dan. I make it about 50-meters and turn to Dan.
OP: There is absolutely no sense for both of us to abruptly find out.
Saad said it was a button. The only way to make it go "boom" was a button. So I convince myself that I would be safe. Then I hear the footsteps behind me. Dan is a good friend, and just as dumb as I was. I suppose he didn't want to live without me. That's okay, I can't live without me either.
I eventually make my way to the van. The windows are open. I visually inspect the van. I know the obvious visual indicators. I knew just as much to be dangerously stupid. Then I unlock the door from the inside and think to myself, "no boom yet". Then I look at Dan and totally have a "Hawk-moment" I have never lived down. I slowly reach for the handle of the van and left up. I then TURN MY HEAD, AND CLOSE MY EYES!
Dan: (Laughing. LOUDLY!) Hey OP NICKNAME! Did you just turn your head...and close you eyes? Like that was going to save you if the fucking thing blew up. "Hey, what happened to your face?" "Oh. I opened the door to a VBIED. Don't worry though. I TURNED MY HEAD AND CLOSED MY EYES. (LAUGHING LOUDER) It probably saved my fucking life!
Dan had his laugh. Dan then made an announcement on the radio.
Dan: ALCON (Everyone). The door to the VIBIED is open (It's a pause on the radio) . OP CALL SIGN turned his head and closed his eyes when he opened the door Probably saved his life!
I stood there just scowling at Dan. My knees were trembling. The door was open, but I was fucking scared. Has your child ever been kidnapped, or lost? Mine has (kidnap) and that was the fear I felt. Then I burst out into laughter. I realized the severity of the situation and the only thing I could do was laugh. I then went behind the vehicle and pissed. It was that exciting! Then back to inspect the vehicle.
The green tank was clearly in the back. There was also detonation (Det) cord protruding from all the seats. There was enough det cord for ten fucking jump ropes.
OP: (Looking at Dan) HOW IN THE FUCK DID EOD MISS THIS? WHAT FUCK WAS THAT GUY LOOKING AT?
Dan stood there just laughing. The seats were clearly modified. The bottom was encased in sheet metal. I took out my trusty knife and gently cut into the seat and exposed 2-liter bottles and oil jugs filled with Homemade Explosive (HEM). The seats were nothing but HME and ball bearings. More than thirty jugs of HME; LOTS! Dan starts to remove the HME from the vehicle. I then turn my attention to the front seat, and see the button. It was a big red button. There was nothing over it, just a newly installed red button on the dashboard. No protective "oops" cover.
OP: We need to offload all the HME before we call anyone else up here. Then we can check the other vehicles before we call anyone up.
Dan: Tracking.
OP: I found the boom-button too. It's a giant red button.
Dan: Tracking.
We are reporting updates to Pat the entire time. Pat is relaying the information to higher, and additionally requesting that EOD returns. Pat is a kid in a combat-candy-store. He is only a month-old. He wants combat-candy, and desperately wants to get his Combat Infantry Badge (CIB/Metal Bling). Dan and I are brothers and think on the same level though. In order to maintain our sanity, and safety, it was best he stayed away from this red button. Pat was anxious though.
Pat: Dan CALL SIGN. Moving to your location.
Dan: Pat CALL SIGN. Negative. Stand-by until we are done removing HME.
OP (Not Radio): Oh thank god!
Dan: I know. That fucker would totally push that button.
Dan and I had successfully removed all the HME from the gray van, and began checking the adjacent van and immediately found Rocket-propelled Grenades (RPG), the launcher, and identification cards. We were clearly dealing with some smart terrorists.
EOD had just arrived on scene again, and now Pat was leading them to our location. They, EOD, was FUCKING PISSED. I noticed the expression the the junior Captains (CPT) face and now I was FUCKING PISSED as well. It was contagious because Dan was pissed now too.
OP: He looks angry!
Dan: Probably because they just RTB'd (Returned to Base).
OP: Fuck him!
CPT Mo-Mo McFucko arrives and he wastes no time letting us know he is angry.
CPT: THE ABSOLUTE FIRST RULE (PAUSE FOR EFFECT)...with a VBIED is to NEVER, EVER, open the fucking door.
OP: Really? I thought the first rule would be something like, I don't know, identifying if it is in fact a VBIED.
Dan: SIR. EOD, YOU, gave us an ALL CLEAR. We opened the door to a fucking van! Do your fucking job next time!
He just realized the gravity of his error. You could tell his balloon knot (asshole) just puckered. The cogs inside his brain were replaying the sequence of life choices that lead him to his current position; royally fucked. He was in self-preservation mode now!
CPT: We have Gatorade and energy bars in the back of the JERRV (Joint EOD Rapid Reponse Vehicle) if your guys need them!?!
Dan: We just want to get the fuck out of here!
It was now full-on morning. People are gathering. We may have took a rolling bomb off the streets, but we were not happy. We didn't get our excitement fill. People were starting to gather in the streets as well. Everybody wanted to know what the hoopla was about. Just a bunch of gringos mobbing around in high-tech gadgets and guns; nothing to see here!
Might as well make the best of it. We may not like it, but we are certainly prepared to interact with locals. Specifically kids. Everybody loves candy, and I love little kids, and fucking old people. Why? They are the two candidates that are most likely to tell you the truth. Young kids don't typically understand the concept of lying, and old people, well they have zero fucks to give. One particular girl in the crowd of mini-humans is intently staring at the van.
I tell her to "Taste the Rainbow" and had her a bag of Skittles. Then we had the interpreter ask her if she know who owns the car, aside from Mr. Box-Head. She didn't but she did know the people that "worked on it" last night. She led us to two houses, and we detained three people. Our confidence levels increased when she led us to Saad's house. We "detained" him as well. We had wrapped everything up, and it was time to head back.
We were a little more than a stones throw away from our COP. It would have been a two minute drive, but Pat wanted to see if we pissed anyone off with our presence. Pat wanted to have a dismounted element patrol back in the hopes of ruffling some feathers, and starting a gunfight. We were tired, but it wasn't a horrible idea. We had used this technique before. I was tired, but I volunteered my Squad. I was a lucky human to be around if you wanted a CIB. I was typically the one getting injured, but everyone else is assured shiny hardware for their dress uniforms. Yay violence.
The vehicles screened our movement until we reached a simple two-lane road. We needed to crossit. The gun trucks would "pull security" (keep a lookout) on the other side of the street and we would file (singe line) across the street. HOWEVER, the specific spot we were crossing was open, and known to have a pretty impressive, and Iranian-trained, sniper. Some of our cameras at the COP had a perfect vantage point to his pray, which was basically anything that moved in the Sunni-dominated enclave.
We never knew exactly where he was shooting from, but it was not uncommon to see someone, in a dead sprint, fall victim to a superb shot. They were not random shots, or lucky. People were being plugged in the critical areas. We had ourselves a small predicament. It was common and we had a solution. Lots, and fucking-lots of smoke grenades. Yes! You can shoot what you can't see, but it is at least a little bit harder to get lucky.
SIX SMOKE GRENADES ARE DEPLOYED
Smoke is billowing to the left and right. We establish our near-side security, and send our far-side security across the danger area first. Then it happened. Something you could only see in a Jackass movie starring Johnny Knoxville or Steve-O. It was glorious. Just plain fucking glorious!
My near and far-side security is established. The Soldiers are sprinting across the street, but our country-bumpkin SAW Gunner, Aaron, is dragging ass. The kid's legs appear to be running, but he is moving like pond water; S-L-O-W! His Team Leader turns and yells, "HURRY THE FUCK UP." The billowing smoke has created an almost tunnel-like structure. You can see the Soldiers running through the middle. You can see the Team Leader turn, while yelling! CRASH, and then we see a FLAILING ARMS HUMAN MISSILE FLYING OVER HEAD of the Team Leader. Way over head, and way fucking fast. Grenade smoke trails behind him; that fucking fast.
Pat: (Turns to me) DUDE. DID YOU FUCKING SEE THAT? (MORE EXCITEMENT) DID YOU FUCKING SEE THAT?
OP: OMG.
Pat: HE IS TOTALLY FUCKING DEAD. THAT. WAS. AWESOME.
OP: Suppose we will find out in a second. Doc (Combat Medic) get up here.
Yes. We are a bunch of pricks that watched a human cement-torpedo skid across the concrete. Evidently Mr. Scooter failed to pay attention to the road, and rear-ended a taxi that that was patiently waiting, inside the smoke tunnel. We, Merica, created said smoke tunnel, and we have an obligation to care for the pour soul. We had a duty to provide medical assistance.
OP: Come on Doc. Lets MOVE!!!
We all rush across the danger area, and to the other side of the street. There are awnings on all of the building that provide cover and concealment. We establish a hasty security perimeter, while the smoke slowly dissipates. It manages to clear some of the confusion as well. We are not heartless bastards either, at least not all of us. It was certainly something to behold "in the moment." You find comedy, wrong or right, in the most unlikely places during combat.
THE NEAR-CONCLUSION OF A SUCCESSFUL OPERATION
Doc and I are performing an initial assessment on the casualty. I have been to multiple trauma medicine courses, but I am no doctor. However, I could clearly see this lump of flesh was not going to walk this off. He was dead. Every lose is tragic. Yes, I am no doubt "different" but I have a level of respect for the profession. I sincerely respect every person I have met on the field of battle. We are both fighting for a cause, wrong or right, that we believe with conviction. We are fathers, sons, brothers, and friends. We are humans. I stood silently wondering about this victim of war, and then I heard one of my Team Leaders on the radio.
Team Leader: OP CALL SIGN, this is TL CALL SIGN.
OP: Go for OP.
Team Leader: FUCK THAT GUY. He was trying to kill us.
OP: (Doc and I look at each other confused) Say again, over?
Team Leader: The scooter is just a small VBIED. This thing is laced with HME jugs.
Doc: (Bloody hands and all) Well then. (Looks at the now terrorist cement-torpedo) Fuck you buddy!
We had just escaped another asshole. We believe, didn't get to ask, his intent was to drive into the smoke cloud and detonate himself and his shitty scooter in order to kill Americans. However, he hit the taxi. The scooter undershot, his body overshot, and the failed to detonate.
Dan (Blocking Position/Inside Truck): Fucking Great! Lets call that prick from EOD again. Let him fucking deal with it.
We, yet again, called EOD to dispose of the scooter VBIED, and called the Iraqi police to notify them of the location of the deceased male. The entire ordeal last nearly 36-hours. Everyone, on our team, returned home safe. Not a single shot was fired, but we managed to detain three bad guys, one good guy, and killed one terrorist in the most unusual fashion I have ever seen.
For you humanoids that rely on Hollywood, or Call of Duty: Black Ops to provide you insight into combat. Yeah. It's "real". I have been on raids and gunfights that are somewhat similar. I have been on plenty of "dry holes" too. Long boring operations that never end. I have also lost some friends along the way. War is ugly, and humans can be vicious and cruel creatures. That's war. 50% boredom. 25% weight room.15% food and 10% pure chaos, fun, and a dash of Copenhagen.
Please understand, Dear Reader, that I do not intend to glorify war. We need to show appreciation to military Service Members, both men and women, that have sacrificed for our enduring freedom. The United States of America's foundation is built upon the blood, sweat, and tears of those that have gone before us. Lastly, if you ever see Pat...yeah don't fucking shake that guys hand.
Cheers!
Sorry for any future edits...it was a long post!
EDIT 1: Detailed that EOD failed to physically inspect the vans, and immediately departed scene.

I'm in the wind, I'm sure I'll be dead by tomorrow, but I need to let people know this thing is loose.
I'm an agent with the United States Government, and my station is Black Site 7. I won't tell you my name, it would probably be useless to you, but this was not how I saw my life going. I spent 6 years in Iraq, signed up right after high school, and nothing like the recruiter told me it would be. I spent eight years in the blistering heat, hauled my fair share of comrades out of firefights, and saw a lot of shit over there that would make normal people go crazier than I might be. I've had camel spiders crawl on me while I sleep, watched friends I've known since basic get decapitated through binoculars, burned houses full of insurgents and civilians to rubble, and when I was done, they gave me my papers, thanked me for my service, and sent me home.
I know I have no right to complain; many guys didn't make it back, but home was worse.
I'd spent the last eight years in an active combat zone, and now I was just supposed to come home and go back to civilian life? I spent three months home, two of those months spent in a shitty apartment because my parents couldn't handle the night terrors and the jumpy marine that had come back before I knew it was t gonna work. Every car horn, every barking dog, every firework rattling in the street had me reaching for my gun and breaking into a sweat when I couldn't find it. Before TJ found me, I was considering suicide.
Then one day, he's just at my door with that big shit-eating grin he'd always worn.
"You look like shit, Haus. Let's get some pancakes; I've got something I want to discuss with you."
TJ was my platoon leader in the SandBox. They called him the Comedian because he was always smiling, always cracking jokes. He was a functional sociopath, I guess most of us were, but I always admired his ability to laugh in the face of such fucked up shit. TJ was not his real name, but since he's still in this shit that I've left behind, I figure the best I can do is not remind them that he's why I'm here.
He took me to breakfast, and, in the back of a crowded Denny's, he laid it all out for me.
"You've got it bad, Haus." He said through a mouthful of pancakes, "but that's okay, cause ole uncle TJ has the cure for ya. I've got a new job, familiar work that might interest you. Ever hear if Two Trees?"
I had. Two Trees was a government institute that, on the surface, did a lot of medical research and clinics trial. Underneath, though, they did wet work, and anyone who was involved in covert ops knew about Two Trees. We'd worked with them a few times in Iraq, and their guys were spooky, to say the least.
"You're looking at the new Head of Black Site 7."
I furrowed my brow at him, "Congratulations, should I know what that is?"
"Of course not, it's a closely guarded government secret, and Two Tree's is paying me a small fortune to keep it that way too. Problem is, I need someone to curate the site for me. Someone with military training, experience with firearms, and a need for some normalcy. Know anyone like that?"
I knew what he was asking, but I didn't think I was who he was looking for. I hadn't found work in the three months I'd been back, and most of that was because I couldn't settle into anything. I was constantly jumpy, constantly on edge, and that makes it hard to find work. No one wanted you doing security work or minding a gas station when every backfiring car was an enemy combatant. What would happen if I had an episode in a government facility?
I shook my head, "Thanks, but no thanks. I don't think I'm fit for duty the way I am."
"Yeah, I thought you might say that." he said, putting a metal tin in front of me, "your medical files read like a benchmark for PTSD. Night terrors, irritability, being on edge, those irrational bouts of anger that got you thrown out of your parent's house," he added with a little smirk.
I felt defensive, "How do you know about that?"
"You'd be surprised what my level of clearance will get you. Your therapist's records were about as hard to get as a beer at a gas station. Well, I've got a little present for you, Haus. Welcome to the rest of your life." he said, indicating the silver case.
The case was about as big as an Altoids tin. There were no markings, no filigree or needless ornament, and a distinctly surgical look. I slid my hand toward it, but it didn't seem to want to touch it. Every sense I had told me to walk away now, not to touch it and just walk away from this unassuming little case.
I forced my hand to pop it open instead.
Inside was a pair of pale, gray gel caps.
"What are these?"
"These are the answers to your prayers. Two of these a day will make you feel as calm and clear as you did when you were a mere lad of eighteen. No more jumping at every noise, no more reaching for your gun when a dog barks or a car backfire, just peace of mind."
I imagine now that this is what Metastophalies sounded like when he spoke to Faust.
"What's the catch?"
"These pills are only available through the Two Tree's Corporation. Employees who agree to be part of the clinical trial get them free of charge, but they're only available to employees." he said with a little grin, "Take them, take a day to feel the effects, and let me know what you think. Call me tomorrow and give me your answer then. Enjoy a night of freedom, then make your decision."
I took the pills home with me, and after a few hours of staring at them, I took them with some vodka.
The effects were instantaneous. If you've never had PTSD, then it's hard to explain, but it's like having a loose wire that someone fixes, and then you go back to the way you were. My anxiety melted away, my fear dissipated, my unease and dread were gone, and my anger seemed like a distant memory. I was sitting in my shitty apartment, surrounded by the trappings of my depression and my anxiety, and suddenly I felt like I had before I'd boarded a bus in 2003 and headed out to basic training. I was finally comfortable in my own head, and it was like coming back to a comfortable place after years of running from danger.
After the first good night's sleep, I'd had since shipping out, I called TJ and told him I was in.
"One question," I asked, "what's in the pills that make them work so well."
He was silent for a long minute before saying, "You really don't want to know, Haus. Pack your shit. There will be a truck to move you to West Virginia in the morning."
And that's how I came to work at Black Site 7.
I must have looked like a junkie by the time I pulled up in front of my new home. I didn't have much. The truck had taken all of four boxes into the deep woods as I followed in my old compact. The journey took about sixteen hours, and by the time I got there, I was starting to feel the anxiety creep back in. I became angry at how slow the truck was going, afraid that this whole thing was a trick so they could kill me, and found myself wanting to die when I saw TJ standing at the gates of what looked like an old military checkpoint. He flashed that knowing smile and handed me another silver case. I dry swallowed the pills without a word and felt the inner peace worming back across my brain.
Then he showed me my new quarters.
It was a little bunk room with a bunk bed, a kitchenette, and lockers for clothes. There was a footlocker for my personal stuff, and I was told to keep the space clean. I would be responsible for the site and its security. He showed me a little terminal off the bedroom with monitors and camera feeds. The compound had cameras all over the place, but I appeared to be the only person actually here.
"The site is mostly for storage these days, but it's what we get up to here at night that may interest you. That's why you're here; I need someone I can trust to watch this site 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Four times a year, you'll be relieved for a week of R&R somewhere, but other than that, this is your world."
That didn't bother me, I had no problem being alone, but I was curious as to what I was doing out here.
"What am I looking for exactly?"
TJ pointed at three buildings on the camera, "Keep nosy people out of there, lethal force is authorized, and don't ever go in there, or I'll have to show you where Blacksite 8 is." he said it with a smile, but the smile didn't cross his eyes, "don't worry about being vigilant though. If anything bigger than a mouse moves out there, the alarms will let you know about it."
He told me that my food would be delivered once a week, mostly MRE's, and I could order anything I wanted from the terminal in the living quarter. There was a workout yard near the second building, and I could move through the woods if I chose as long as I took my phone with me so I could get alerts from the console.
"By the way, hand me your phone." he said, and when I did, he put it in his pocket and handed me another one, "That's your new phone. I'll take the keys to your car too and put the money from it in your account. This is your life now, Haus, so don't take this job lightly. If you leave the grounds, we'll know. If you try to update social media or try to tell anything on the outside about what you've seen here, we'll know. If you want to marry or feel like you need out, arrangements can be made after your first five-year tour. As far as anyone is concerned, you no longer exist. Don't be stupid. Put in your five years, and then we'll reassess your position."
He grinned again and punched me in the arm, "And lighten up; this will be the easiest five years of your life."
From that point on, I was an employee of Two Trees.
TJ had been right though, the first five years flew by. I lived on the site, spending my days working out or watching TV, playing the latest video games and watching the newest movies, and guarding this Black Site in the middle of the woods. I never tried to get into the warehouses, I had been a soldier long enough to know how to check my curiosity, and the scares were minimal. The food kept coming, the pills that kept me in my right mind kept coming, and it was pretty peaceful, all told. The alarms, to my knowledge, only went off three times in that first year, and two of those times, it was a deer who had wandered too close. The first time it happened, I had slunk out in a panic, service pistol in hand and boxer shorts flapping, as I rounded the first warehouse and drew down on a very surprised doe who darted away before I could draw a bead on her. It was kind of a special moment for me, I had never seen a deer up close, and as it ran away, I was glad I hadn't shot it.
The third time, it had been a person, the first person I'd seen in three months.
I had been sitting at the console one night, watching the latest Marvel Avengers movie, I think it was Infinity Wars when the alarm went off. I paused the movie, expecting to see a deer or a bear on the monitor, but my eyes went wide when I realized it was a person. He had a crowbar, and he was attempting to pry the door open. He must have come out of the woods because if he'd have driven up, I'd have known about him much sooner. It had been three months since I'd seen a person, not since Agent Daughtry had come to relieve me for a week of R&R in September, and the idea of seeing a person not connected with Two Tree's made me feel weird. Even when you were on R&R, you went to a company resort or a company place full of company people, so you didn't get a little too drunk and talk about all the stuff you did for your country.
I took my pistol outside and crept up on him in near silence. When my foot came down on an extra crunchy stick, he turned his head and noticed me, raising the crowbar as if to attack. The gun went off without me having even spoken to him, reflex taking over and dropping the threat before it could become a real danger. His left eye popped like an overripe fruit, and he fell down on the hard December ground.
I called TJ, and he and some other men in suits came to access the damage.
"You did just right, Haus. He was a threat to the facility and needed to be put down. Don't think for a minute that this reflects poorly on you."
"What will you do with him?" I asked.
TJ smiled, "Immediate disposal, Hause. Think you've got the stomach to help us?"
I found that I did, and once he was doused in gasoline, we set him ablaze on the edge of the property.
They gave me an extra week of R&R, and when I came back, TJ must have decided that I was worthy of being brought in on certain things.
The alarms went off a week after I came back, and I saw TJ stepping out of a black car and waving at me. I slid my shoulder holster on and went out to meet him. As I approached the vehicle, two other men in suits were bringing a man with a bag on his head out of the car. He was wearing scrubs, his hands bound behind his back, and I could hear him crying beneath the black hood he wore. I looked between them, waiting for an expansion, and TJ threw an arm around me and walked me towards the spot where we'd burnt the trespasser.
"Haus, I think it's time that we bring you in on the second reason for this Black Site. You see, sometimes Two Trees has assets that need to be eliminated. The Black Sites are often used for these purposes, but it's always the responsibility of the site's caretaker to carry out these eliminations."
"Why wasn't I told about this before?" I asked, feeling indignant, "I'm no murderer."
"Oh, well, those combatants in Iraq will be glad to hear that, won't they?" he said, almost snidely.
"That was war, TJ. This is murder."
"Think of this as war too, Haus. These people are the enemy, and they need to be eliminated for the good of public safety. It's part of the job, Haus, a part I know first hand that you're capable of."
They put the man on his knees in the middle of the burnt spot, and he knelt praying under the hood as we stood around him.
"Put him down, Haus, that's an order," TJ said.
I looked at him, icily, "And if I won't?"
The two men with him drew their guns, and TJ grinned, "Then I'm afraid that these men will have to execute both of you. Come on, Haus, don't throw this away over some nobody. He's no different than the man outside the warehouse."
I wish now that I'd just let them shoot me, but I guess if I had, you'd never know about any of this.
Instead, I drew out my gun and put a bullet in his skull, glowering at TJ as his buddies put their guns away.
"You made the right choice Haus. Who knows, you might not have to do this more than a dozen more times in the next four years."
I executed an asset a month after that. They were mostly people in scrubs, people in lab coats, doctors, researchers, people who had likely tried to steal from whatever facility they worked at. They were men and women, old men and scared twenty-somethings. I never bothered to learn their names, they were just assets to be eliminated, and I became kind of numb to the process. We burned them afterward, gasoline and fire made it like there were never there, and the spot near the edge had a charred look to it after a while.
At the end of five years, TJ came to see me and ask me if I wanted to re-up.
"What happens if I walk away?" I asked. I was eating dinner when he'd come by, and he had sat down to have a plate of fettuccine with me. Given my free time, I had learned to do a good number of things I couldn't before. I became a pretty good cook, learned to play the guitar, read every book on the shelf I had bought to hold them, and there was a chainsaw outback along with some sculptures I had made with it. I couldn't say I hadn't enjoyed my time here, the killings aside, but I was curious to know if they'd actually let me leave.
"You'll be allowed to return to the real world, your bank account fuller and your retirement substantial. Just watch what you say out there. I'd hate to have to bring you back for your replacement to put a bullet in."
I ended up signing up for another five years.
I shouldn't have done that.
I was eight years deep when they brought the girl in the black bag to me.
It was two am, and I started to think about bed when the alarm went off. I looked for TJ, but he was not the one who climbed out of the black town car. This guy had his hair slicked back, and his suit was an immaculate blue pinstripe. He did not wave at me, and I felt a sense of dread as I grabbed my gun. Somehow, I expected TJ to be under that bag this time.
The man's name was Stine, and he didn't have TJ under the bag. What he did have was a kid with a thick back hood over their head. I couldn't tell at first if it was a boy or girl. They were dressed in baggy clothes, Salvation Army rags that a homeless guy would be embarrassed to wear, and they were crying loudly under their hood. Two familiar men had the kid, and they looked stoic about the whole matter. Stine didn't say anything, just led the procession over to the charred spot and put the kid on their knees.
When he made no move to remove the hood, I did it myself. He winced but didn't stop me. This was my place, my job, and I had garnered a reputation for being a professional, a reputation I was about to ruin. The bag came off, and the little girl's tear-streaked face came into view in the harsh fluorescents. Her hair was cut short, dirty blonde, and hacked to pieces, and her face was covered in bruises. Her nose looked broken, and her lip was split, the blood trickling like red tears. I sighed, looking at Stine as the gun stayed at the ready.
"What the hell is this?"
Stine looked surprised, "It's an asset. TJ said, you handled these for us. Handle the asset."
"This is a fucking kid, barely old enough to wipe her own ass. What could she have possibly done?"
Stines's face was stony, "Yours is not to question, Soldier. Liquidate this asset or be liquidated."
I looked at the kid, her whole face shaking as the tears and blood fell, and thought about watching her head pop like a grape. This wasn't some scared adult, some stoic old man, some praying woman, or some cursing thing with sallow skin. This was a kid. I had killed many people, more in my time here than I ever had during the war, but I was still a professional.
And professionals had standards.
"No," I said.
Stine blinked, "What?"
"No, I won't kill a kid. Do it yourself."
The two men drew their guns, and I was transported back to the first time. I was standing there, two days after Christmas, watching TJ grin and tell me the rules. Now I was standing in the woods, the autumn leaves carpeting the ground, feeling sure they would soon drink both my blood and the girls.
"I will give you till the count of three to kill the girl. After that point, you will both be executed. 1,"
Their guns were unwavering, but so was my resolve.
"2,"
I closed my eyes, preparing to die.
"1,"
I heard a sound like wet concrete splitting open. It was followed by a high pitched scream and a pair of bodies hitting the ground. I opened my eyes and saw Stine running towards the town car, the two men who'd been holding me at gunpoint bleeding out on the ground from large grizzly neck wounds. As I watched Stine run, a rust-red something snapped out and caught him in the back of the neck, dropping him inches from the Towncar.
I looked back in the direction the thing had snapped out from and saw that the girl was now a mass of red spikes, segmented like spider legs. Her face had split long ways, forcing her face into a grizzly, sideways maw. The area between the "teeth" glowed a deep red, and I could see the eyes on the girl's face blinking erratically. The two halves of her smile grinning at me. I figured, for the second time that day, that I was going to die, but she scuttled off into the woods instead, walking on her strange spider appendages as she crashed through the trees.
I stood there for a few minutes, not quite sure I believed I wasn't dead, and then I started running too.
I crashed through the woods for hours, running in no particular direction, sure that at any minute, the creature or a helicopter from Two Trees would fall on me and either rip me apart or blow me away. I had blundered off with no wallet, no cell, just my gun and the clothes I'd been wearing. Was the phone how they tracked me? TJ hasn't said as much but...maybe…
When the ground went out from under me, I felt the airdrop out of my lungs.
I fell five feet off a mud ledge and skinned my hand. My knees hurt where I had landed on them, and I realized pretty quickly that I had fallen onto a road. If I thought it might be an illusion, the headlights that pinned me to the ground a moment later left me with little doubt. Thankfully, the truck stopped, and after a short conversation with the driver, he offered to take me into town.
That's how I came to be here, in this dingy hotel that just happens to have a computer in the lobby. I sold the gun for about five hundred dollars, and I figure I'll disappear as soon as I'm done writing this. They know I'm gone by now, but I don't know if they think I'm dead or if they think I fled. Either way, they'll find me, I'm sure.
I'm more worried about that little girl that's loose in the woods and whatever it is that's living beneath the surface of her skin. If you see a young girl with short, dirty blond hair, do not approach her. I don't know if she killed those men to get away or if she killed them because she wanted to, but she should be considered dangerous if you encounter her in the wild.
And if a man from Two Trees offers you a job, do not become the curator for Black Site 7.
The job is definitely not all it appears to be.