The members of his team now stood up and walked past the coffin. 
They gave it a touch, and laid flowers across the casket. Other close 
friends filed past and paid their respects. Finally, when the line of 
people had passed, Dr. Louef himself walked to the casket, across 
the now standing audience, and laid one final wreath across the lid 
of the closed casket. Gamma-502 gave their team leader one final 
salute as Dr. Louef lowered his head and murmured quietly. 


“God my Father, protect this lost son of yours and brother of mine. 
Let him rejoice in Your kingdom, so that he may finally be at peace. 
Amen.” 


Father Richards nodded approvingly at Louef, before reciting a 
prayer of his own. 


Then the assorted members of Gamma Wing sat down, once again 
in respectful silence. Dr. Louef sighed, and set his shoulders tightly. 
He walked back to his podium, in front of rows and rows of caskets, 
some adorned with wreaths, and most without. 


This was the hardest part. 


*We are gathered here today to honor the memory of one of our 


dear friends and colleagues, Emily Hartford...” 


Jack, my son, | love you. If you can read this, please come home. 


(But this is a very old message, and even if heartfelt, is not for Jack 
to know.) 


return 


Every Damn Time 


The agent laughed indignantly. "Let me get this straight. You sit ina 
lab all day, writing papers or mixing test tubes or sitting on your ass 
pretending to do work, while I'm out there, fighting the same 
abominations you write your ever-so-precious reports on, and your 
job is harder than mine. How many of your coworkers have been 
shot, ripped to shreds, rearranged, broiled, or mutilated in the past 
year? Would it be zero? I'm pretty sure it's zero." He punctuated this 
last section with a harsh pound on the break room table. 


The doctor smiled, watching a bit of her coffee go over the rim of her 
mug. "Well, those of us that bothered to go to college," with a pause 
here for a patronizing chuckle, "know that research can be a lot 
more taxing than shooting or stabbing or brutalizing or trying to 
convince yourself that you're macho or whatever you guys spend 
your time doing. We actually have to make decisions and 
conclusions, and that involves thinking. You remember what that is, 
right? The stuff that you did with your brain before it all turned into 
action movies? Well, those of us in research have to do that all day 
long. And not the kind of stuff you can copy out of the back of a 
textbook either. | mean, we-" 


A D-Class, who had up to this point been minding his own business, 
cleared his throat. The two noticed him there for the first time, both 
having long since reached the point where they no longer even 
consciously processed Class D's. 


"Really, you assholes? | can't believe this crap. You," he pointed to 
the MTF agent, "get body armor and weapons and backup. And 
don't even get me started on you, princess," and he now turned to 
the researcher, "behind your steel doors and one-way mirrors and 
armed escorts. Both of you can't complain about anything. You guys 
just throw folks like me in with these skips or whatever you want to 
call them, and then see if we get torn up any differently than the last 
guy that got torn up. And then you talk about it with all your friends. 


Makes me fu-" 


A scream, somewhere in the residential quarters outside of the 
common room. The three, along with assorted other idlers and busy- 
bodies, rushed over to the scene. 


They'd already got the body covered in a blanket. It'd been thirty 
seconds since the body had been found, but the rumor mill was 
already in full swing: 


"Suicide." 


"Slit his wrists with a knife he stole from the kitchens." And then, 
pantomimed the action: "Just. Like. This." 


"Guy was an attorney or accountant, or something. Name was 
Something Neston, | think. Quiet, kept to himself." 


The first Security Officer to arrive shuffled through the deceased's 
meager possessions. A few books, photographs, cell phone, 
assorted files of no clear importance, and, finally, an ID. 


"Randall Weston, Clearance Level 1. Accounting Department, Site 
45," he quietly repeated from the card. Photograph on the card 
matched the corpse. 


The officer looked, reluctantly, at the area around the body. There, 
at the foot of the bed, a piece of notebook paper, just slightly stained 
with blood. 


He picked it up, and read it. 


"I'm sorry. | can't do this anymore. There is no way | can fit another 
tank into this budget, and not a chance in hell I'll be able to replace 
two fighter jets in addition to that! And that's not even counting the 
fact that my superiors decided not to account for food or the fact that 
gas costs-" 


It went on like that for quite a while. He skipped a paragraph, picked 
it up again somewhere in the middle of the next. 


"-do you expect me to find 300 sniper rifles? Nobody has a few 


Footnotes 

1. At this point, Lieutenant C logged off their personal 
computer for ten minutes. Internal sensors indicate that the mini- 
fridge in the quarters was opened, and a fifth of Jameson Whiskey 
removed. 

2. Post-Incident Analysis indicates that this was the point where the 
support vehicle's crane suffered a critical structural failure. 

3. In early missions, 25% of all Zeta Niner casualties were caused 
by aspiration of vomit caused by backflow against the suit faceplate. 
Second-generation isolation suits were redesigned with 
catchpockets, piezo-electric faceshield wipers, and self-clearing air 
intakes to prevent further incidents. 

4. Mission Time: 16:13 from start, 12:17 since capture. 


hundred M24s collecting dust in their att-" 
He flipped to the next page. 


"-pay the maintenance workers with the $4.23 we'd have left after 
that fiasco. It's a good thing we all shit pure gold, or we'd really have 
to worry-" 


Looked at the next paragraph. 


"-one bit of good news at least. The $300 that was allotted for 
heating leads me to believe that we have perfected time travel, and 
are now in 1925, when it would be possible to heat the facility for 
that price. I'd advise you have our lawyers work on patenting that, 
but they're going to have to work pro bono because we can't afford 
to keep them on retainer-" 


The officer gave up, went to the last couple of sentences. 


"| will the remainder of my earthly possessions to my sister. I'd ask 
for a proper Christian burial, but | just took a look at the amount of 
money assigned to corpse disposal. 

- Randall Weston" 


Eventually, the Site Director came down. This didn't really concern 
him, but he needed to keep up appearances. The Security Officer 
handed Weston's ID to the Director before he could even ask. 


The Director eyed it, and scowled. "Fifth fucking accountant this 
month." 


Second Date 


“Okay, listen,” says Kondraki from inside the bathroom door, “I just 
want you to understand that this is not my proudest moment.” 


It's hemorrhoids, thinks Alto Clef from where he’s standing outside 
the bathroom door in Benjamin Kondraki’s apartment, /’m calling it 
right fucking now, he cancelled our date because of hemorrhoids. 
It’s going to be a wasteland in there. Just fucking decimated. Like 
the scene in psycho with the blood bath. 


“Completely understandable,” says Clef. 


“| don’t- this doesn’t happen to me regularly,” says Kondraki. “Like 
seriously, if | thought | could drive like this | would, but it kind of hits 
a certain point where your body’s structural integrity is kind of 
negligible, you know?” 


He’s going to have ass stitches, thinks Alto Clef. He seems like the 
kind of guy who would be constipated to the point of ass stitches. 


“Of course,” says Clef. 
“Don’t laugh,” says Kondraki after a long, thoughtful pause. 


| bet he’s just constipated, thinks Clef. Like, he’s been holding in one 
massive shit for the entire time he’s been director and it’s time to 
give birth to that stress-based monstrosity. 


“| won't laugh,” says Clef. 


“We've been friends for, what, twenty years? Thirty?” says Kondraki. 
“| met you in ‘89. You watched me raise my son and everything, 
even, like, you know, | trust you, and you know, as we discussed 
recently | do have feelings for you, but it really is kind of a delicate 
situation here.” 


“Konny,” says Clef, “I’ve seen you half dead three whole separate 


times. No state | can possibly see you in at this point will surprise 
me, okay?” 


“So to reiterate the plan here,” continues Kondraki seamlessly, 
nervously brushing over Clef’s response, “You don’t have to look at 
it. Seriously. Just. Drive me to the infirmary, and if we can get there 
without anyone seeing us I'll consider it a victory. And we’re not 
telling Draven about this, either.” 


“Okay, yeah. Understandable. Do you need help like- god, | don’t 
know- getting up?” 


“Maybe a little.” 

“Okay.” 

“The door is unlocked.” 

“Alright.” 

“Really, | didn’t mean for this to happen.” 
“No one ever does.” 

“Okay.” 

“Okay, I’m coming in.” 


The Kondraki household is an apartment situated a short walking 
distance from site. It’s an overall happy and comfortable living space 
adorned with books, manuscripts, and scratches on the walls. 
There’s a bedroom for Kondraki and a now-empty bedroom where 
his son grew up; there’s a kitchen and a living room, an office, and a 
currently occupied bathroom. Clef has been here many times over 
the years, and has been here more often since the onset of 
Kondraki’s surprisingly potent empty nest syndrome several years 
back, beginning with Draven’s moving out and into the task force 
barracks for training and onward. He’d gauged easily, when they’d 
met up again for the first time after several years of working on 
separate sites, that he was feeling lonely- a destroyed marriage now 
a little over twenty years in the past, kid out of the house, moving 
through middle age in a strange and alien stupor. Clef himself was 


more acquainted to living on his own, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t 
prone to underfurfillment himself. They’d been close for years. This 
elevation of their relationship from strictly friends to testing the 
waters of a potential partnership was a very recent one, but not one 
that was necessarily unwelcome at all. There was an element of 
trust that wasn’t there before; an element of strange security and 
even something like affection, admiration, love. 


But Kondraki was lonely. Being asexual himself, this was an element 
that he admittedly may have underestimated in his newfound 
partner. He wasn’t quite sure why he didn’t consider it- Kondraki had 
been notorious for his sexcapades in his grad student years, before 
the Foundation and a child had tied him down- but Clef had really 
just assumed that he had it, for the most part, under control, and had 
therefore ignored his partner's impulsivity and stupidity when it came 
to mundane decision making skills. It was impressive he had been 
able to keep himself alive, and a downright miracle that he’d been 
able to successfully raise a child. Kondraki was brilliant- they 
wouldn't have made him a director if they hadn’t been sure of his 
capability, his grasp of spontaneity, his mental agility under 
pressure- and this is what he thinks about in defense of Kondraki 
when he reflects on the next thirty seconds of events unfolding at 
the Kondraki household, which are recorded as follows: 


Clef opens the door. He sees Ben there, pantless, which he 
expected. He sees him also without underwear, which he didn’t quite 
expect but wasn’t out of the question. Ben isn’t making eye contact, 
and Clef opens his mouth to say something along the lines of do you 
need help pushing or some equally snarky response when he sees 
a plastic cylinder between his legs and it dawns on him that 
Kondraki is a fifty-five year old Foundation administrator with a water 
bottle stuck on his penis, and he feels that thought curl up and die in 
his mind more quickly than anything he has ever experienced in his 
life. He feels his brain short circuit, then leans forward from the door 
to make sure that he’s seeing it right, and he is. It’s stuck. That’s the 
problem here. His dick is stuck in an Aquafina brand water bottle. 
The bottom of the bottle is rested on the toilet seat like a display 
case for an unfurled flag of surrender. 


“So you’re probably wondering how | ended up like this,” says 


Kondraki. “And | just want you to understand that the main problem 
here is really the aerodynamics of the thing. | kind of 
underestimated, like, when | was starting out here a couple hours 
ago-” 


Clef leaves the bathroom. He leaves the apartment, actually, and 
stands in the hallway. He has surpassed laughter into tears. He 
takes out his cell phone and dials. 


“Draven,” he says, “Kiddo, you’re not gonna fucking believe this.” 


Every Last Drop 


It felt like it'd been raining for ages. 


The beginning of my summer had practically been completely ruined 
because of the constant pitter-patter on the window panes. | will say 
that it has indeed helped me sleep when the time came, but | never 

slept for an entire day. And so, for the entirety of when | was awake, 
the rain only annoyed me. 


| made plans to hang with Jake not too long ago. Y'know, just 
regular things: bike rides, going to the movies, checkin’ out chicks, 
that kind of thing. But, then again, it wasn't pouring "not too long 
ago." Instead, all we've been able to do was sit inside and play Xbox 
Live and talk to one another with our garbage-tier headsets. 


| never liked the rain. It rained when my mom and dad fought. It 
rained on my father's funeral as if it was straight out of a movie 
where the ceremony of death is super cliche. It rained on me when 
the girl of my dreams broke my heart. It almost seems like the rain 
only exists to ruin my definition of a good time. I'd say all of that is a 
valid reason to despise when God cries. Plus, on top of that, all of 
our shit gets wet. Yeah, some people like the rain because it's 
calming, but all it does is make you cold and sick. 


We pulled a few all-nighters playing games we've never even heard 
before. Neither | nor Jake was a fan of video games, but it's all we 
could do if we couldn't go bike-riding and fuckin’ with annoying 
neighbors. 


When | got off of Xbox, | said out loud that "I wish | could just go 
outside without having to worry about the rain." 


| learned the hard way that the phrase 'be careful what you wish for 
applies to everyone. 


The pitter-patter on the window very slowly decreased in intensity 
until it stopped completely. The fact that the sound | had been 
hearing for the past week had suddenly stopped woke me up almost 
immediately. | ran to the window and there were still raindrops 
sliding down the smooth, fogged glass. My first instinct was to call 
Jake, hoping that he was awake. 


| dialed in his number and held the output end up to my ear. That 
calming ring soothed my ear as compared to the rain slamming 
down on my roof and slowly put a smile on my face. After a click 
signifying that he had picked up, | shouted excitedly. 


"Dude, it stopped raining!" | said. 
"| Know! Thank God, right?" he responded. 


"For real. Do you wanna go talk to your mom to make sure we can 
still go on a bike ride, or..." 


"Yeah, I'll go do that." 


"Yeah, same he—" | stopped as | realized that every single person 
of the neighborhood was stepping outside while looking up and 
recording something clearly abnormal in the sky. "I'll be right back." 


"Alright."