Author's Note: Whoo! This chapter marks the point where I've surpassed 100,000 words, I was not expecting the story to be this long when I first wrote up the outline.
A Learning Experience
New Beijing, Shanxi. March 15, 2157 AD
Too many people don't appreciate pain. They think it's a horrible product of evolution and dearly wish some biotech firm would figure out how to eliminate pain. How much better things would, they think, if we didn't feel pain. That really shows a misunderstanding of what the purpose of pain is. Pain is your body's way of telling you that you have been damaged. If you fall and break your leg the reason it hurts so much is so that you don't put weight on the leg and damage it further. If you are driving your car and a warning light comes on, you have two options: you can try to figure out why the light came on and fix the problem or you can unplug the light. Painkillers are nothing but various ways of unplugging the warning lights your body is flashing at you, trying to get your attention. And if you drive a car that has been flashing warning lights at you for six months, it may break down beyond repair when if you had just fixed the initial problem it would still be working fine. So, to sum up, pain is a good thing and should never be ignored. That being said, Howard Ackerman would not have complained if someone decided to give him a shot of morphine straight into the spine. In fact, he would have agreed to buy them a round of drinks, assuming he made it out of this alive which, given the current circumstances, was highly unlikely.
After the lower half of Howard's body had been riddled with bullets he had not expected to get out of the school alive unless reinforcements showed up. Howard had managed to get a hold of a nearby squad with heavy weapons but they had gotten held up at a hospital so Howard had been trying (unsuccessfully) to remember last rites. Things had improved when Eva fixed her particle rifle, the survivors of the platoon were able to halt the alien infantry. The situation had stabilized into a standoff, whichever side decided to make the push would get slaughtered by the entrenched other side. But then the aliens decided to start using their brains (or maybe they were having logistical problems and had to wait for the right guy to show up) because they started lobbing grenades and Howard and his platoon. The aliens, they timed it perfectly. It wasn't like one of them used a grenade and when they realized it worked they all slowly caught up with the idea. They simultaneously jumped out of their hiding spots and all threw their bombs. Eva had shouted a warning just a few seconds before the grenades detonated, barely enough time to duck 'n cover. As Howard sat up and assessed the situation he realized, as he looked around, that no else was still alive. Quite a few of the people weren't even recognizable as people at this point. The only reason Howard was still alive was because, due to his earlier injuries, he was sitting in the far back of the room. Howard glanced over at Giles and Fuller, they were the farthest two back from the barricade (besides Howard) so if anyone else had survived it would have been them but the two men were just lying there, unmoving, without the telltale rise and fall of their chests to indicate breathing.
Howard groped around, searching for his submachine gun (he lost his phaser at some point during the retreat). He had enjoyed his posting as a scout. It was fun being off by yourself, relaying information back to the platoon. The only problem was he had to travel light to be quick on his feet and boy did he feel under-equipped when it came time for a firefight. Howard knew it would only be about a minute before the aliens started advancing into the room and he wanted a weapon in his hand when they got here. He finally saw his submachine gun which, sadly, had been blown pretty far away in the explosions. However, Giles' guns were still strapped to his back and the man loved his assault rifles. He was the only one in the platoon to carry two (both of which were kinetic weapons, Howard didn't want to wish ill of the freshly dead but damn did he want to punch the man in the face for that, why couldn't one of them have been a phaser rifle?).
Howard fell forward on his stomach and used his arms to crawl forward as quickly as he could manage. When he reached Giles all Howard could think of was how glad he was that Giles had died face down. Howard did not relish the idea of having to roll a fully armored man over when he couldn't use his legs for leverage. He grabbed the closer of the two guns strapped the Giles back and let it unfold into shape. Huh, it had a Smith & Wesson logo on the stock. A lot of people preferred their handguns but there weren't many soldiers that used their rifles, tended not to have the same level of craftsmanship as the pistols. Howard didn't have time to grab the other rifle and do a comparison because the first alien came through the broken doorway and climbed over the (still mostly intact) refrigerator. He took aim and pulled the trigger for all it was worth. Luckily, he managed to keep a good grip on the gun so he didn't waste half of his shots on the ceiling above the alien. The alien dove behind a table but Howard refused to let up. He kept shooting, quickly blowing holes in the plastic table and this time he didn't see the flash of the aliens shields flaring up. Howard grinned, he must have unloaded enough rounds during his surprise attack that the alien's shields had shut down, he had to keep on the pressure before they recharged. Unfortunately, Howard wasn't able to kill the first alien as a second one came into the room and Howard was forced to switch to the second target lest he end up with an unwanted hole in his head. Howard was able to keep the second alien suppressed but couldn't switch focus back quickly enough because he heard the sound of the first alien's shields reactivating.
Howard cursed and weighed his options. He could continue alternating between the two aliens, forcing them behind cover but he wouldn't be able to kill either of them. He could focus fire on just one and hope he killed it before the other one shot him dead. Neither of those were very appealing. The decision was taken out of Howard's hands when a third alien hopped over the fridge and came into the room. He was barely able to keep two aliens busy, there was no way he was going to be able to handle three. Howard turned and lined up his gun sight on the first alien and pulled the trigger as hard as he was able. Howard saw the alien's shields flare up and also saw, out of the corner of his eye, the other two aliens take aim and fire at his position. It was a contest to see whose shields failed first and, sadly, those shields belonged to Howard. Howard's felt the aliens shots rip into his right shoulder and, despite his best efforts, his arm when slack and the rifle slipped from his grip.
Howard tried to shift his left hand around to grip the gun's handle but before he could properly aim the thing one of the aliens ran up and kicked Howard in the face. His head snapped back from the force of the blow, Howard was really regretting having taken off his helmet earlier. Howard's vision was fuzzy and he was having trouble focusing meaning he had probably just gotten a concussion. He felt alien grab his armor and haul him into a sitting position. Howard tried to ignore the pain shooting across his face to focus on the alien. Something was broken, his nose, his teeth, his jaw, Howard wasn't sure what exactly but based what he was feeling there was definitely something busted. He looked at the alien, well that wasn't really correct. He looked at the polarized glass on the aliens helmet. The glass was so dinged, scratched, and dirty that it couldn't even function as a halfway decent mirror. Howard sighed, he would have liked to see what part of his face was broken before the aliens killed him. He wished they would get on with it though, the alien that had grabbed Howard was shaking him and shouting something as more aliens filed into the room.
Suddenly, the shaking stopped. Howard forced his eyes to stay open and look at what was going on. One of the other aliens had walked up and grabbed Shaker on the shoulder. The two appeared to be arguing, probably about who got to kill Howard or something. Having given up on getting out of this situation alive, Howard was about to try to use his functional arm to punch Shaker when the aliens all jerked their heads up and began looking around. Howard would have assumed that they had just gotten orders over their radios but then he heard a familiar noise (guess that meant the aliens had better hearing than humans, useful fact to file away for later use). Howard wasn't sure if the aliens knew what that sound was but considering how many over-the-top action movie Howard has seen in his life, he knew exactly what that sound was. It was the sound of a gatling gun revving up to speed. Howard used his arm to smack aside Shaker's hands which resulted in Howard falling down to the floor. Just as Shaker started to reach down to pick Howard up the bullets started flying. It was fascinating how much the atmosphere and attitude of the room changed in that split second. One moment the aliens were looking around, trying to identify the whirling noise and the next moment they are diving to the floor to avoid the (loud) barrage of rounds cutting through the wall to Howard's left. Howard watched in awe as the wall seemed to disintegrate as the gatling gun continued firing, it was like if someone had used a high powered hose to spray water at styrofoam. The second an alien tried to return fire they were immediately targeted by the blast of death. And then just as quickly as it had started, the spray of bullets stopped.
Howard used his one good limb to push himself up so that he could look around. The alien corpses were almost in as bad of shape as those of his platoon. Explosions may take first place when it comes to messiest ways to kill somebody but damn if a gatling gun doesn't give grenades a good run for their money. Several of the aliens had been slicing in half (some vertically, others horizontally) by the sheer number of bullets.
"We were too late," a deep voice said.
Howard turned around to see three men in very bulky armor, with very big guns, walk through the hole that formerly was a wall.
"Well," Howard coughed. "Your timing could have been better but I appreciate the rescue nonetheless. I assume that you're Lion's Squad?"
"That we are," the man with the gatling gun said. "Looks like you're the only survivor. Any last words you wanna say to your people before we haul ass outta here?"
Howard looked around at all the death in the room. He shook his head. "No, there's no point swearing revenge."
Howard couldn't see so much as sense the eyebrows being raised behind the helmets. "Are you saying that because you don't think we can win and are feeling fatalistic or because you think we can and don't want to throw your life away?" asked the soldier that was holding what appeared to be a flamethrower.
"We don't have to win any battles with the aliens. Hell, we could pull a George Washington and lose most of them. We just have to survive the fights long enough for the brass at Arcturus to send in the cavalry," Howard explained.
"Works for me," said the man with the deep voice. "Chang, your incinerator is almost out of fuel and we don't have any more back at basecamp, toss it and carry Gimpy."
On the one hand, Howard wanted to object to the nickname he had just been given. On the other hand, it was accurate and he wasn't about to argue with the men that had just saved his life.
Jia Siang, Shanxi. March 16, 2157 AD
Schmidty had long since given up trying to keep track of where they were. His partner, Jingles, was leading the way using a paper (seriously, paper!) map he had gotten from some cavern tour company employee that had been hiding in the same strip mall that their platoon had been.
"I thought we weren't supposed to use the Labyrinth tunnels for travel because Command is worried the aliens will wonder how we're moving about and discover all the people hiding underground?"
"That is true Schmidty. However, we were also ordered to quickly travel around Jia Siang, kill some aliens, and disappear just as quickly so that the aliens think that there are more TR-116 snipers than just our squad," Jingles said without turning around. "Besides, we're only using some of the secondary tunnels, we aren't anywhere near the official 'Labyrinth' part of the Labyrinth."
"Yea but the second order came from the Lieutenant, the first one came from General Williams," Schmidty argued.
"True, but a good general knows to not micromanage when it comes minute details like squad deployment. Sometimes, the higher ups have to trust their officers on the ground and have faith that they will give the orders best suited for the situation."
". . .so basically the Lieutenant is going to ask for forgiveness rather than permission?"
Jingles chuckled. "You're catching on."
"Yea yea," Schmidty grumbled. "Look are we there yet? These caves creep me out. It's like we're in a low budget horror movie; it's just the two of us, we're hiding in hard-to-navigate tunnels, the only light is coming from our wrist computers. . ."
"You watch too many movies," Jingles said with a shake of his head.
"You say that now but if a glowing midget suddenly suddenly appeared in the cave you know you would shoot to kill."
"Why would I do that? Any dwarf we meet down here wouldn't be radioactive, they'd be horny."
Jingles and Schmidty managed to keep straight faces for a full five seconds before they both erupted into full belly laughter.
"Oh man," Schmidty said as he slapped Jingles on the back. "That didn't seem like the kind of movie you would be into so I thought for sure that reference was going to go over your head."
"Are you kidding? Who in the military hasn't seen Attack of the Radioactive Mutant Space Dwarves? I'm just amazed I actually got an opportunity to work that into a conversation and that it made sense," the older man said as he wiped the tears from his eyes. "But in answer to your question, we're almost there. The map says we take a left at the next split and then it's a straight shot to the surface."
While the laughter had helped ease the tension, Schmidty hadn't been joking when he said this place made him uncomfortable. The tunnel was barely wide enough for a man to walk through but the ceiling was so high that Schmidty could have stood on Jingles shoulders and he still would have had head room. Not to mention the fact that the light from their wrist computers cast weird shadows on the misshapen tunnel. Schmidty was constantly looking above and behind him, just knowing that some dangerous monster was going to leap out and disembowel the two men. Was it racist to wish they had brought along D'marcus as a decoy? The man was a good soldier and all but he would probably be the first one to get killed if anything came along because, well because that's how the universe worked.
"Hold it!" Jingles said as he stopped suddenly. "Do you hear that?"
Schmidty stopped moving and listened. He could feel the air moving through the tunnel so they were getting close to the exit but as far as sounds went nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Schmidty was about to respond when he heard a splash, as if someone stepped in a puddle. It came from somewhere ahead of them.
"Someone else is down here," Schmidty said to Jingles.
"That's what I thought too. Lights off, guns out."
The two men killed the illumination coming from their wrists and took out their close-quarters combat weapons. A shotgun for Jingles and a phaser pistol for Schmidty. They waited for the eyes to adjust to the change in light before slowly advancing forward. Because of how little room there was in the tunnel if they were forced into a firefight Jingles would immediately go prone so that Schmidty could fire without worrying about accidentally shooting him in the back. As they moved around a curve the two men saw a long red light coming from the right of a T-intersection up ahead.
"That looks like a laser sight," Schmidty whispered.
"Yea it does. . .but who walks around with the sight constantly on like that? It gave their position away to us and it doesn't look like it provides enough light to bother having it on."
"So it's either an alien that is using technology that we don't understand or it's a civvie that has no idea what they're doing?"
"Not necessarily, there is one other explanation," Jingles responded. "It could be a combat drone for the Borg."
Schmidty paused to think about the possibilities. "Alright, how do you want to play this then?"
"We get into firing position and wait for them to walk across our line of sight. If it's an alien we shoot, if it's not we'll go talk to whoever it is."
"Roger that," Schmidty said as they began inching forward. Once they were close enough that they were confident they wouldn't miss if they had to shoot at whatever it was that was coming they stopped and readied their weapons. Schmidty tensed as he heard footsteps getting closer and closer. His finger caressed the trigger, ready to pull it at a moments notice. Then the source of the red light came into view. It was a Borg drone after all, Jingles had been right.
"Oiy drone! What are you doing down here?" Schmidty shouted at the drone as it passed them by.
"That was weird, not only did it ignore me but it didn't even slow down and glance at us. Do you think the aliens infected its cybernetics with a virus or something?" Schmidty asked after the drone had continued walking.
"Oh, that wasn't that unusual. Getting a conversation out of a drone is like pulling teeth, except at least with the second one you have something to show for your effort."
"So. . ." Schmidty wasn't even sure what to ask at this point.
"Come on," Jingles said as he holstered his weapon. "We'll follow the drone. At the moment it considers us on par with the civilians in terms of usefulness in a firefight. Once we show it that we're worth noticing it will expend the energy to engage us in conversation."
Yushan Mountain Range, Shanxi. March 16, 2157 AD
"So," Kevin said as he took a bite from the sandwich he had made. "Learn anything yet?"
Michael glanced up from the alien body he was currently elbow deep in. "Yes, actually. When we first got the aliens out of their armor I assumed they were reptiles cus of all the scales but they are actually avian."
"Avian? You mean like birds? Is that why his blood is blue?"
"First, yes like birds. Second, I have no idea why the blood is blue, that's beyond my understanding of biology. Third, this is a she not a he." When Michael said the last part Kevin choked on his food in surprise.
"What? Seriously? How can you tell? I don't see any boobs," Kevin asked after he finished coughing.
"You really want me to explain the difference between men and women?" Michael deadpanned as he pulled an organ out of the corpse. "I mean, I suppose I can show you the plumbing but I would have thought you'd have learned the difference by your age. Furthermore, of course she doesn't have breasts, I just said it was avian not mammalian."
"Oh," Kevin said, suddenly feeling very stupid. "Yea, that makes sense. Just forget I said anything."
"No promises, that was pretty dumb."
Kevin huffed. "Did you learn anything useful at least?"
Michael shrugged. "Depends on what you consider useful. I learned they aren't edible."
Kevin stared at Michael in shock. "You ate one of them?!"
"Well obviously not an entire body. I cooked one of their thighs which actually tasted alright, bit gamey though. It did not sit well with me. I spent the majority of last night praying to the porcelain god and even now my stomach is still churning."
"Wh-why would you do that?"
"Kevin, I don't know if you noticed but it's not like people can go out and work the fields to harvest crops right now. Because of that there is a limited amount of food available right now, even less in a couple weeks once things start spoiling. I'm not saying I'm looking forward to it but we may be forced to eat things we would rather not in order to survive. However, the aliens are apparently not one of those things judging from how my stomach reacted."
Kevin just looked at Michael in disgust. "I'm not hungry anymore," Kevin said as he threw his sandwich in the trash.
"Were you not listening to what I just said you idiot?!" Michael shouted. "We don't know how long are food supplies are going to last and you just threw away a sandwich!"
Kevin couldn't even muster a response, he simply walked out of the room. As he moved down the hall he had to admit Michael may have had a point, they really didn't know how long the invasion would last and so needed to conserve their food and water. Then again there were plenty of goats on the mountain, course that would require them venturing out and possibly attracting more attention. Kevin didn't know what to think at this point. He just wanted things to go back to normal.
Worrying about how long supplies would last and how many aliens they would have to kill and all that stuff was just so depressing to think about. The only reason Kevin had taken this job was because it paid so well for how little work he had been required to do. He spent the majority of his time watching movies and playing video games.
Kevin still wasn't sure how he felt about having killed the aliens. It was one thing to 'kill' people in a video game or watch them get killed in a movie, it was entirely different to do it yourself. Anyone that says violent media desensitizes you to actual violence has clearly never had to fight anyone and then watch the light leave their eyes as they died. Yes, the aliens had invaded Shanxi and destroyed the fleet overhead. Yes, they had shot with intent to kill at Kevin, Michael, and Fred. Yes, Kevin did not want to die. But even with all that, Kevin still didn't feel right having killed the aliens. He had ended to lives of seven thinking, feeling people. Michael had said one of the aliens was female, was she a mother? Did she have kids and a husband somewhere, waiting for her to come home? Maybe her husband had died and she had only joined the military because it was a steady job to support her family and now she was dead, simply because Kevin was better armed than she had been. Kevin and the alien woman had found themselves in a zero-sum game, whoever won did so due to the other's loss. Kevin pragmatically understood the situation and from that viewpoint he knew he had done the right thing. But from a moral and philosophical perspective Kevin was still unhappy with his actions and didn't know if he ever would be comfortable with what he did.
Kevin reached the end of the hallway and opened the door into the warehouse where Fred had set up a firing range to test the aliens' guns. As Kevin entered the room he saw Fred was standing by a table with dozens of little machine parts scattered across the table's surface.
"I take it you finally decided to try disassembling one of their guns?" Kevin asked
"Yep. I'll be the first to admit my knowledge of guns is not very up to date but I've got to say that these guns are not that different from some of ours. Our eezo powered ones I mean, they're nothing like our phasers."
"You know, it's just odd that their shields didn't stop phaser fire. I remember the last time I was browsing around on the Borg's website I noticed that even the cheapest personal shield stops phaser fire, for a couple seconds anyway. And yet these aliens, the first soldiers of their invasion force, can't do much of anything to protect themselves."
"That's true," Fred said as he scanned the various pieces on the table with his wrist computer. "But you gotta remember that it's only the Borg's shield's that stop phaser fire. Devlon Industries and Rosenkov Materials both make personal shields but they only stop bullets and such. I think, though don't quote me on this, it's because the Borg tend to avoid using eezo in most of their products and so they had to find a different way to create shields."
"Devlon Industries? Rosenkov Materials? Who the hell are they? I have never heard of these companies."
"That's because you don't watch the news Kevin," Fred said with a roll of his eyes. "They are giant defense contractors for numerous governments, including the Systems Alliance."
"I don't watch the news but that doesn't mean I'm clueless. I've got friends that have Borg personal shielding but I don't know anyone with Devlon Industries protection." Kevin made sure to say the company name in a mocking tone.
"That because, unlike the Borg, Devlon and Rosenkov only sell to the military, law enforcement, and security firms. They don't want to go around arming potential criminals."
"Well, I suppose that makes sense." Kevin shook his head. "But we're getting off topic here, the guns?"
"Right. Like I was saying, they really aren't that different from some of the weapons Alliance marines use. About the same in quality, if I had to make a guess, which, as you sort of mentioned, is just weird. Aliens are supposed to be advanced, they built the phase gates, yet somehow our weapons are on par, or in the case of phasers superior, with theirs."
"How do we know that these aliens built the phase gates? Maybe they found them the same way we did?"
"Anyone with the ability to build the phase gates would have to be pretty damn powerful and considering the aliens seem to be having problems taking over Shanxi I would say that you may be onto something there Kevin."
"The bird brains are having trouble taking over Shanxi?" Kevin asked in surprise.
"Bird brains? Wha. . .nevermind. Yea, I've been listening to the radio broadcasts when I need to take my mind off things. " Fred jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the computer in the corner of the room. It was supposed to only be used for keeping track inventory in the warehouse but Fred had jury-rigged it ages ago to act as an all purpose communication device so that he could pick up radio stations. It got really quiet in the warehouse and Fred had been tired of burning through his wrist computer's battery. "The military stopped bothering to broadcast the message about arming yourself against the aliens, people have figured that part out by now. Because of that, and the fact that there aren't stations filling the airwaves with pointless music, I can pick up signals from anyone nearby that's transmitting. A lot of the military chatter is coded and I have no idea what they're saying but the police and civilians are a lot less careful. I'm pretty up to date on the situation in New Beijing. We aren't winning, but we ain't exactly losing either."
"What about the other cities? Or the small towns out in the countryside?"
Fred looked uneasy. "Jia Siang and Ba Sing Se are supposedly doing a pretty good job resisting but given how far away those cities are it's like playing a game of Telephone."
"What do you mean?" Kevin asked.
"The aliens took out a lot of communication infrastructure, including all our satellites. The only reliable way anyone's been able to talk over a distance is with radios but they have a limited range. So the only way I can find out what's going on in Jia Siang is to listen to a guy who talked to a guy that talked to a guy that talked to a guy in Jia Siang."
"Why don't you ask for clarification?"
"Are you kidding? I'm only going to listen. There is no way I'm sending out a message and giving away our position, we attracted enough attention as it is just from Mike's booby trap."
Kevin scratched his chin in thought as he asked, "Doesn't the Observatory automatically send messages back to Earth on the stars and other space crap that it's been looking at? I imagine that's got to be way more of attention getter than a shortwave radio transmission. Plus I would think that if any of the aliens were going to investigate the explosion they would have gotten here by now."
"I disabled the Observatory's communication equipment to prevent it from doing exactly that," Fred explained. "To your second point, that's not a sure thing. We could just be low down on the priorities. If that's the case we can't stay here forever."
"This again? Why can't we hold our ground here where we can dig in? Why do you and Michael insist on making our way through miles of forest to get to a city that we know is engulfed in a horrendous slaughter?"
"Because I've been hearing stories of some of the smaller settlements going completely silent after the aliens show up. They kill everyone when they take over an area. The three of us were just barely able to hold off the aliens and from what Michael told us they were under-supplied and possibly injured because he took out their transport. What happens when they make a legitimate effort to take over the Observatory?" Kevin didn't have a response to that question. Fred continued speaking, "They are going to kill us if we stay here. If we make it to New Beijing we at least have a chance of surviving."
"So what are we gonna do about the Observatory then?
"What do you mean what are we going to do about it?"
"We've already established that Borg technology seems to be better than what the aliens have and-" Kevin paused to make sure Michael wasn't about to come through the door. He lowered his voice just to be safe as he said, "seeing as how the Borg wanted this place built and have some technology lying around don't you think we should maybe make sure the aliens don't get their claws on it?"
"I doubt Michael has enough explosives to destroy the entire complex," Fred said. "Also, it's one thing that I told you about the Observatory's real purpose. I can probably argue my way out of getting in trouble, assuming I survive this. It would be something else entirely if I had to explain to the drones why I stood by and watched while this facility was destroyed. Our contracts don't have 'alien invasion' contingencies built into them, we would definitely be assimilated if we blew this place up."
"Oh but we wouldn't get assimilated if we just up and left?" Kevin asked sarcastically.
"No, we wouldn't," Fred said in a are-you-stupid voice. "Wait. . .you seriously haven't read the contract you signed to work here, have you?"
"Well. . .I sort of did. . .OK, not really. My parents read it and then told me the main jist of it."
Fred facepalmed. "Kevin, you should never, ever, ever sign a contract with the Borg if you haven't personally read it. They have all sorts of clauses and exemptions and rules in them and the most common punishment for violating the terms of the contract is assimilation." Fred sighed. "Alright look, I'm assuming your contract is the same as mine. Mine has a list of reason why I'm allowed to leave the premises, one of them being if my life is in danger and the only available help is not willing to come here. It was put into the contract in case there was some kind of medical emergency and I had to get transported to a hospital but," Fred paused for emphasis. "But the argument could be made that the aliens constitute, while not an immediate, at least an eventual threat that will endanger my life if I stay here. Therefor, I am allowed to leave without breaking my contract."
"That's. . .really ingenious. I'm surprised, I didn't think you were capable of that kind of legal fanegaling."
"I used to own a farm, remember? You've always been an employee Kevin so I doubt you can understand what's it like to be your own boss. You don't have a safety net, there's no one else you can pass the problem along to. If the business doesn't make money it's your ass on the line. As an employee, if you sign a bad contract the company will lose money. As the owner, if you sign a bad contract the business could go under and you might have to declare bankruptcy."
"That sounds really stressful."
"It was," Fred said emphatically. "Hence why I sold the farm and decided to do this instead, however I think the conversation has drifted a bit."
"Right, that it has," Kevin agreed. "Uh. . .what were we talking about?"
"How we're going to leave the Observatory and head for New Beijing," Fred answered.
"Yes that! And also how we shouldn't let the aliens get a hold of the Borg technology here."
"Other than locking the doors on our way out, there is not a lot we can do. Maybe if Michael had access to more of his supplies." Fred held his hands out in a what-can-you-do manner. "But those are either back at his house or ruined from the explosion."
"Speaking of Michael, I got to say that guy is messed up, like really messed up. I think meeting the aliens unhinged him a bit."
"Michael's been a little off for as long as I've known him but he's generally a good person, what prompted this?" Fred asked.
"He ate part of one of the aliens." Kevin shuddered. "I would have thought it would have taken a bit longer before we resorted to cannibalism."
Fred sighed. "Kevin, Michael had a very good reason for that."
"You knew?"
"Yea, he told me about it last night after I asked why he was in so much pain."
"And you're just OK with this?"
"You need to realize something important about Michael. He doesn't mind people thinking he's an asshole, but he doesn't want to actually be an asshole," Fred went silent as he tried to figure out how to put it into words before finally speaking again. "Michael will gladly let you think he's a nut-job that regularly chows down into aliens in order to find out if they're edible rather than you dying from starvation two months from now because he didn't explore the possibility while he had the chance. It's why he doesn't mind that people think he's weird for owning so many weapons because he knows he won't use them on anyone that doesn't deserve it."
"Are we talking about the same Michael?" Kevin asked. "Cus the one I know isn't as selfless as you're describing. I mean, he's not a total dick but he still looks out for himself first."
"I'll admit you're not wrong when you say that. But you have to look at things through the filter that Michael uses: that every government and big corporation is out to get him, out to take over the galaxy and control the everything. Michael is an asshole because everything is obvious to him and he's annoyed that we don't see the 'truth' and he's sick of trying to convince people. Every notice just how affable Michael can be when you're not talking about some hot button issue with him? It's because he's genuinely a nice person but because he thinks he's in constant danger he has to look out for himself before others."
"Are you sure you aren't just over-analyzing it?"
Fred shrugged and grinned at Kevin. "That's always a possibility."