…Oh, you heroes!

Crawling out on wet nights, mewling in the bitter cold,

you from your all-electric cities!

-Yvan Goll

One.

"I don't know right from wrong but they hung James McCloud on nails." That's something platoon leader Wallace used to mutter. I've thought a lot about him, chewing the damp wet stub of a green cigar as he manned the entrance gate to Fort McNamara. He'd be on the left and I on the right, both of us watching the endless streams of Venomian soldiers pour past us into the compound. Wallace would snort one of his piggy snorts every time some lizard would shuffle past, better fed and taken care of. Or at least looking like they were better taken care of.

"There's one thing I know," Wallace would call out, twisting at the hips and rocking on his feet slightly. "And I don't know right from wrong but they hung James McCloud on nails."

And I'd call back from my side of the road "I thought they blew his ass all over Sector Y!"

And Wallace would shout back "You hyenas! Always joking! Stereotypes exist for a reason, don't they!" And we'd both giggle. It was a good line.

That was the line going through my head when the turbo-cab jerked to a halt and jostled me out of my sleep. The pills they'd given me at the clinic worked extra fast with the hardware they'd put in me. The ride from McCloud Interplanetary had been the kind of thing I'd been experiencing for two weeks at this point. One minute I'm sitting on the four-engine, non-stop from Venom to Corneria. Then sleep. Then I'm at baggage claim, looking at the latest headline on my data pad from the Lylatian Star:

StarFox Pilot Krystal Announces Engagement With Slippy Toad

(AEP)—Aboard the Great Fox: Somewhere near Papetoon (Twelfth Season, 13). During an impromptu press conference following their bi-weekly status report on their war against the Fourth Venomian Empire, the StarFox pilot Krystal announced her engagement with team mechanic Slippy Toad. The confirmation of their relationship has driven followers of the mercenary team into a veritable frenzy with small riots breaking out in Corneria City interweb cafes and coffee houses. General Pepper, the liaison officer between the team and the Cornerian Military refused to comment. This announcement has come as a breath of fresh air to many Cornerians, especially in the heightened atmosphere following news reports of the incident at Camp Houldag…

Cool lethargy which slips into apathy, and I'm asleep again. I only wake up, then, with the bulldog cabbie staring at me from the rear-view mirror.

"You getting' out, man?" he asked, unblinkingly. "This is your stop, right? Fifty-eight Solsbury Avenue, right?"

I shook the thickest cobwebs from my frontal lobe and nodded. I started to reach for my wallet when the cabbie put his paw up.

"Nah man," he said, and shook his head for good measure. "Vets get this ride free. Need help with your bag?"

Again I shook my head. He reached back, then, and offered his paw to shake. "Welcome home, man. Hope ya get runnin' pretty soon!" He smiled, showing his collection of gaps and over-pearled stumps. At the apex of his gesture, another heavy-transport taking off from McCloud cruised up over the skyline with its navigation lights shining through the cab's windscreen and reflecting off what I only then recognized as structural rivets in his artificial ear.

We exchanged a few cordial nods, I muttered something like "well, then," and in a few moments I was dragging my sea-bag out of the trunk. I felt like I had to maintain some type of air of tradition, so I gave the cab's trunk a few pats with my paw. His turbine revved and whistled as he drove down the crowded street and was soon invisible in the sea of parked hover cars crowding the street. It was only then that something told me to actually glance up at the building I'd stopped at.

Fifty-eight Solsbury Avenue was such a new building nobody had bothered to think up a name for it yet. This was immediately apparent as I stood and stared at the blank space over the simple glass double door which dominated the front of the building. With the exception of some afterthought-looking window ledges, the front of the tower was remarkably unremarkable—just forty floors worth of windows dotting a reinforced, prefabricated concrete building. The overtaxed air-conditioning units whistled in my ears as I pulled open the doors and stepped through the building's airlock and into the lobby.

The desk was manned by yet another uniformed dog, which I'm certain are the lifeblood of this planet's machinery. He was slumped over, staring at the stationary televiewer on his desk, and barely made any attempt to acknowledge my arrival into his zone of influence. Perhaps I clashed too much with his lobby's gray marbled floor and brown plastiwood counter—I'll admit after several weeks transit from the front I was looking pretty bad. My brown tiger stripe cammies and the green infrared-beating parka I'd been wearing were still choked with red dirt and seemed to cough small clouds of it out whenever I moved too fast. Of course, when I approached his desk and absent-mindedly fidgeted with the faux-holly bunting lining the front of it, the dog sprung up, causing me to jump and snap my own attention to him.

"Yess!" he hissed, fixing his gaze at me. Mama gave me a lot of things in this life, but proper manners had never been one of those things. Greeted with what looked like a papillion with the yellow slit eyes and forked tongue of a monitor lizard which slithered and flicked between the needles dominating his jaw and mandible. "Yess, pleasse not to handle that!" he muttered again, pointing a spidery, fur covered finger at me. "What can I happen to help you with?"

"Uh," I grunted, still staring at him. "I'm…" I paused, swallowing hard. The equipment in my chest made a short, sharp grinding noise. "I'm Collins… uh… uh…" Something ordered me to shake my head and pay attention. "I'm a new Class Nine assigned here."

"Ahhh…" the dog-lizard nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. "You have your ID, yesss?"

"Yeah, I mean, yesss…yes. Yes." I said, still staring at him. I shook my head again and reached for my wallet. There was a fair bit of fumbling as I reached my sweaty paw into my pocket and grabbed the vinyl pouch and then finally produced the laminated card. The hyena in the photo was at least five years younger and three ranks lower than the beaten up old fleabag which handed the ID over.

The guard glanced the card over, then reached over and fed it into a slot that sat flush with the top of his desk. Past the dull ringing in my ears there was a small cacophony of whirrs and clicks, and then something flashed blue on the guard's televiewer.

"Yess, yess," he muttered, glancing over the info given to him. He looked up in my direction a few times, and then back to the screen. "You have only your bag, no furniture, yess?" he asked.

"Yes…yeah," I said, nodding, a bead of sweat making its way down my back. "I'm jussst…just starting."

The guard cocked his head and again crossed his arms over his chest. "Why isss it you keep talking like that? Iss you on druggsss? Do I need to call VicccceControl?"

The gig was up. He'd seen through my pathetic attempt to maintain an even strain. Folding my ears down I deflated—but kept staring at him. "Hey, hey, I'm sorry," I said. "I've just never seen a half Cornerian, half Vennie-"

"I'm not a goddamn Vennie," he interrupted, his eyes narrowing. "My mother iss Zonesssian," he punctuated that with punching a button on his desk, and snapping my ID card back as it popped up out of the slot, and then practically throwing it at me. Again, more fumbling as I caught it and then shoved it back into my pocket.

"Oh, hey!" I said, putting my paws up in defense. "I'm sorry-"

"No you're not-" he said, staring holes through my skull. "You're in suite thirteen-twenty-one." He finished with jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "Take your bag and get out of my lobby."

"Hey," I repeated. "Hey, I'm sorry, I'm just really out of it-"

"I bet." He muttered, not changing his expression or his pose.

"I mean it, man, dude, sorry! I'm on pain meds and,"

"I couldn't care lessss." He hissed. "Go."

I shrugged, defeated. Grabbing my seabag with one hand I walked around the desk and to the twin elevators taking up the rear wall of the lobby. My tail was literally trying to hide between my legs. Godess be damned, how could I have been so rude? What the hell was wrong with me? Damn my eyes…

I got onto the elevator and pushed the button corresponding with my floor. It dinged shut, and just before it closed securely I heard the guard's voice utter "Asssshole."