Conrad Verner

The injured woman shivered on the ground, trapped under the rubble. My Omnigel was only good enough to keep her going, but it would not save her.

"You're special."

She turned her head to look at me.

"What?"

She's not well.

"You're special."

I took in the night air and looked around at the death and destruction.

"Please help... me."

I patted her on the head.

"I tried and all I can do is keep you alive a little longer, you're pretty banged up."

She shivered.

"I got a doctorate in Xenotechnology, you know for all the good that did me."

I closed my eyes.

"All my life I wanted to be special, I wanted to matter. I hoped when I was a kid that I would be a biotic, I thought Xenotech studies would be the path but that never panned out either. No matter how hard I tried I was just weird and awkward and unwanted. I worked hard so hard my eyeballs bled. I graduated early, I got a degree, and at first I had work but I could never get up the chain. I was still the same awkward loser I've always been. Never special, not like you."

I opened my eyes. She was panting again so I injected her with more Omnigel.

"So I gave up on being special and concentrated on being fans of the people who are actually special, of Jane Shepard first human Spectre. I got to meet her and, while she told me she was busy, she told me she would have a real heart to heart with me after things were settled."

I smiled.

"The world changed, new hyperdrives, new humans, and Jane came to me and held out two pills. There was a blue one and a red one and she put them on the table. Then she told me that what she had to say was painful but I could either take the blue pill and walk away or take the red one and accept the painful truths needed to become stronger."

She faded in and out her eyes unfocused.

"I took the red one because I sensed that this was my first, last, and only chance to be something more. So she showed me clips of another in me another universe. I was a joke and not a very funny one. I got to see how pathetic I was from the outside and god was that painful. I wanted to leave right then and there but she held me down."

I swallowed.

"No one is born special, it's something you earn through hard work, through suffering and a willingness to do the kind of things no one else would. Then she told me I had one chance in life to be special, to matter, and she gave me a card."

I held it out.

"She had been offered membership in a very special club, the Z club, and she offered me her membership. The universe is so much bigger than you think, the multiverse, everything... and I had access to a small part of it."

I moved my hand and let it glow.

"I gained a small house on another planet and I could portal to it at any time, I gained access to things like Aura. I could become special. But I had to work at it. I traveled around, doing mercenary work, selling whatever I could, and finally I was able to afford something big."

I brought it out.

"This is a stamp. it's not mine but I paid for a sublet, to have this and all the power it has for a week, to go on a mission for an agent. They're powerful people."

I looked at my card, at the points. I got to the battlefield after it was over, plenty of aliens were dying and wounded. I didn't have a problem stamping them, selling them off. Especially since I knew what they were doing but this was different.

"The only thing that can save you is this stamp, but once I stamp you there is no going back. You would belong to me for the rest of your life."

She coughed.

"So I would be your slave?"

She was shivering.

"One way to look at it, wife is another way. I used to tell people I had a wife... even though she didn't exist. It kept people from asking painful questions."

"I'm scared..."

"If you want to die free then I will stay here with you to the end, you wont die alone."

"Please take off my helmet, I want to see the world with my own eyes."

I took it off and she looked up, she stared at the sky.

"I don't want to die."

She was crying.

"I was taken when i was very young, I never had a family, never got to choose anything, never got to live. You say I'm special? Maybe that's true but it's not worth the price. I don't want to die."

She looked at me.

"What happens after you stamp me?"

"We leave this place, this world."

"The war?"

"It won't be your war anymore."

She looked up.

"I don't want to die, do it."

I held out the stamp and pressed is against her neck. I heard a hissing sound and she twisted and turned and the rubble moved and she looked at me. She brought out a gun and froze and then chuckled.

"So... what are we?"

"It's complicated but I'm told every agent has to figure that out for himself."

She sighed. I put out my hand and a portal opened, I held out my other hand.

"My name's Kelly."

I blinked.

"If that means anything to you."

And that's how I met your mother.