"Our answer is no."

> Non-Aggression Pact Rejected

Bob looked at George, looked at the three-man group, swore quietly to himself. Why'd it have to come to this? He gulped; he couldn't believe he was going to do this. Bob couched down beside George, holding the dog's jaw in place so the dog didn't look around at him. Rad was standing directly in George's line of fire with Chad and Lad flanking to left and right.

Bob bit his lip—what choice did he have? Bob whispered into the dog's ear: "fire!" George peered over at Bob from the corner of his eye. The dog looked puzzled. He pawed a little at the ground, trying to get Bob to let go. Bob did not let go. He held the dog's jaw pointed straight at Rad. It was now or never: "Fire, George, quick, fire." George whined and tried to step back. Stupid dog. Stupid, bloody dog. You'll be the death of us all.

Bob stood back up and tried a wobbly smile. He eyed the three men in front of him. "I'm sure we can work something out. Don't be hasty now."

"This is what we've decided."

"Don't kill me. Please. Please. I'm begging you."

> System Contract Proposal - Non-Aggression Pact (Revised):

>

>

> Contract Details:

>

> 1. Parties:

> * Party A (Offeror): Bob, George

> * Party B (Acceptor): Chad, Lad, Rad

> 2. Terms of Agreement:

> * Party A agrees to transfer 2600 credits to Party B.

> * In return, both parties agree to refrain from engaging in hostile actions or any form of aggression against each other for 24 hours (starting on contract signing).

>

> Contract violation will be judged and punished by the system.

>

> Do you accept these terms?

>

> Yes/No

"What?" Rad had winced back at Bob's high-pitched scream. "Didn't you get the message?" Rad poked at the empty air in front of him, "You're not getting it?"

"Ahem," Bob cleared his throat. "Ah yes. Here it is. Bit of a delay it looks like. I see, you desire to revise the contract. Very well. I am open to deliberations."

"Yes," Rad continued uncertainly, "where was I? That's right. We've made two changes. One, the non-aggression pact is mutual. The old one was rather vague. It almost sounded like you could've attacked us and we couldn't have defended ourselves."

"A terrible oversight on my part. Deepest apologies." Was Rad a lawyer or something? Ordinary people weren't supposed to read the fine print. So much for Bob's little trap. Of course he'd never planned to use it, not really, but it was nice to have an advantage: "I agree 100% of course."

"Two, we've set a time limit. 24 hours."

"24 hours..." Bob echoed, his mind whirling at the implications: "That's a tad short, don't you think? I'm giving you all my life savings here."

"I'm sorry."

"I don't want to make... I'm not accusing you of anything, mind. But it's almost as though you plan to attack me as soon as the 24 hours are up. I'm reading too much into things, aren't I? I can be a tad paranoid."

"This was the only way I could get Chad to agree."

Now if that wasn't a "yes, Chad plans to attack you in 24 hours," Bob didn't know what was. Guess the man was really wedded to the idea of eating his cake and having it too.

"Can we negotiate on the time period? What about a week? Three days?"

"No; Chad doesn't want to wait. I'm sorry. You need all of us to sign. Chad can block the deal by himself. I already tried convincing him. 24 hours is the compromise."

"Is that right..." Bob deliberated for a moment, but he'd didn't really have a choice anyway. "Well thank you kindly Rad. You're good people." Bob reluctantly pressed yes. 24 hours of life was better than dying today.

> Non-Aggression Pact (Revised) - Agreed

Bob's checked his system bank account's balance and saw that 2600 credits had been automatically withdrawn. A new addition in the private contract tab let him see the details of the agreement and track how much time was left. The three men, on their side, were patting each other on the back and otherwise congratulating themselves. Looks like they'd got their payout just fine.

"Good doing business with you all." Bob nodded at the group and started to drag George off in the direction he'd pointed out. He glanced back, when he heard Chad advocating they follow him, but Lad just tapped his nose and smiled. "Oh..." Chad nodded and grinned in turn. That was not encouraging.

Bob marched George forward until they'd lost sight of the three men and then arched around towards their base. Their room abetted the largest hill in the area so it was an easy enough job to find their way back. Bob let George wander freely, while he brooded over the exchange.

He told himself he'd done well. 2600 credits was nothing to Bob. And nine times out of ten that encounter would have ended with Bob in the ground dead. He'd managed to escape a life-threatening situation for a token fee. It was a victory. A great victory. That's what he told himself. But he felt wretched all the same. Truth was he'd been powerless.

He was so weak. He was just surviving, dragging on from one moment to the next. It was one thing to feel weak in front of the system, it still hurt, but the system was some incomprehensibly powerful being; it was quite another to feel weak in front of three men in their twenties named Rad, Chad and Lad. Bob had been entirely in their power, to kill or free as they willed. And he hated the fact.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Bob tried his best to swallow down the humiliation. He asked himself honestly: what else could he have done? He tried to focus on the mud in the ground. He tried to pull on it with his mind, commanding it to float up, to do something, to answer his call. The mud was silent. The gods are always silent. Nothing, he could have done nothing. There was the plain, cold truth. Bob was worthless. He couldn't protect himself. He couldn't protect George. The initiation had been one fluke after enough.

George barked suddenly. Bob was snapped out of his thoughts, instantly tense. What had happened? Where was the enemy? The dog was jumping along beside Bob with a stick in his mouth. "You just wanted to play fetch?" Bob ruffled George's fur. "You scared the living daylights out of me." All the same, Bob took up the proffered stick (looking for the end with less saliva on it) and tossed it into the distance.

George ran happily after and Bob found himself watching. George tracked down the stick, snapped it up and bounded back to where Bob stood. "Good boy, good boy, George." The dog's ears perked up and he looked at Bob with bright, happy eyes. "You did good George." Bob reached out for the stick. "Drop it boy." George clamped down on the stick. "Drop it George, drop it." Bob pulled and George resisted. Bob sighed dramatically. "Fine, fine have it your way. It's your stick George."

Bob started walking away and George immediately dropped the stick to follow. He walked beside Bob, but kept glancing back at the stick and then up to Bob, whining in a low, pleading tone. "Dammit George." Bob kept walking a little bit, just to annoy the dog, but finally he took pity. Bob went all the back to the stick, picked it up again and lobbed it forward. George was after it like an arrow.

Bob couldn't believe he'd almost had the dog kill three defenseless people. That there was a good dog. George had known better than Bob. George knew best. Bob tossed the stick forward again and George ran after it. It had been life and death, sure, but Bob didn't want to turn George into some weapon. George deserved more than that. He deserved to be happy and free, to be able to throw himself whole-heartily into pointlessly chasing down a stick.

They'd almost made it back to their home bathroom. They'd played catch the whole way and Bob was pretty winded. He'd never had much of a throwing arm, preferring that plasticy, dog-throwing gadget. Even the dog looked a little tuckered out. George still went after the sticks. The unnatural attraction of his kind to broken pieces of wood dragged him forward, but his merry, bouncing trot had turned into a dogged, determined march.

When they finally reached home, they both crumbled down against the wall and took a minute to recover themselves. “George what about some breakfast? I’m starved. I feel like the only thing I’ve eaten in the past three days is one and half cheese-and-onion crisps, a martini glass of cherries and a barrel of apples.” Making the suggestion was one thing, procuring provender was another. Bob dragged himself to his feet, to attempt a hopeful rummaging through the bathroom cupboards. Unfortunately, even Bob hadn’t stored his food supplies in the toilet.

“No luck. George, we might have to hunt for our dinner I’m afraid. Golden retrievers are hunting dogs aren’t they? You’ll be back in your element. A return to nature."

A bark from George.

"Tragically, I am not a hunting person. I’m more of a sit-on-the-couch-and-watch-tv person. George you might need to do the heavy lifting.”

Who was Bob kidding? George was no hunter. He’d probably try playing with a wild rabbit before he thought about biting through its neck and dragging it home for dinner. A trait in George’s character that Bob couldn’t quite bring himself to lament. Not to mention they'd hadn't seen the slightest hint of an animal all day.

Bob sat himself down on the closed toilet seat. Were they all just meant to starve to death? It was ironic. Bob had never been richer in his life and he was going to die begging for a crust of bread. Except... Hold your horses, Bob thought he remembered something about a system shop. He called up the system interface and tracked down the desired tab; here it was: "Shop". He clicked through and was greeted with a very familiar layout.

Huh, it looked like the amazon might have been owed some back-royalties. Or maybe amazon owed them to the system? Independent, parallel development? That was for the courts to decide. Either way the system shop had a strikingly generic layout and design: a top level search bar, a list of categories on the left and a page filled up with featured offers. Only the color schema was markedly different, sticking to the greyscale, arcade video game style of his messages.

He peered through today’s offers. They were remarkably unremarkable. There was an assortment of varied and unusual clothing (Bob’s interest in fashion couldn’t have filled up a thimble), what looked like a water bottle, then a series of beauty products, and near the bottom a few newly-released books. Bob was a little disappointed. There had been some 70,000 other inhabited planets already incorporated into the system hegemony. Surely they couldn’t all be human? Maybe the system was automatically catering to him based on race and rank.

In the meantime, George had been puttering around the bathroom garden (was that an appropriate description?). He’d already started digging up a few holes here and there and peeing against the wall. Just, you know, doing everything he could to make the spot as unappealing and unlivable as possible. But then he started to hunt back and forth, sniffing along the ground, looking up and around, as though he were trying to square his vision with his memories. Finally he came up to Bob and sort of whined expectantly.

“Breakfast, George, right? I’m sorry.” George's appeal preempted what would probably have been a long and digressing exploration of the system shop. Bob quickly searched for dogs bowls. The system had a fine selection and Bob picked out a nice, red one to go with George’s bag. It cost a measly 180 credits. He pushed through the purchase window and reached the checkout page—the listed total was 1200 credits. What the? Shipping fee - 1020 credits. He pressed the little question mark beside the figure (it was nice how familiar and intuitive the UI was): "anywhere shipping - 10,000 credits per kg."

Bloody hell. What a scam. Now where was the prime subscription? That's what they wanted right. It was all a ploy to get people to sign up to some reoccurring subscription. Bob clicked around a little, dove into the myriad settings and account details, but alas the system shop had decided to diverge with amazon on this point. That must really be what shipping costs.

Bob grumbled and cursed. But every dog needs his bowl. He pulled the trigger, his credit total dropped and just beyond the thank you screen, a red bowl materialized and dropped to the ground. George shuffled over, sniffing the bowl’s insides hopefully and then looking disappointedly up at Bob. “It’s coming George. Give a man half a chance.”

A cardboard box with a smiling pug on the side appeared a moment later. Bob tore it open and poured out a healthy portion into the red bowl. George was hungry. And the dog deserved to eat. George proceeded to shove his face deep in the bowl and chow down.

Next Bob looked for some kind of human subsistence. Thankfully the system wasn’t quite as heartless as he’d thought. There were heavily discounted nutrition packets in a couple different flavors. They looked like space food. A jelly in a reflective pack with a plastic knob on top. Super calorie dense. Half a day’s worth somehow squeezed into an 50g pack.

He bought two. One roast chicken flavor and another grilled salmon (you know to be healthy). He uncapped the roast chicken and sucked. It didn’t taste like any roast chicken he’d ever had. No if Bob had to put a word to the taste, he would have said it tasted like dust. On the positive side, George seemed to be heartily enjoying his meal.

That was good because Bob had some after-breakfast business with the dog. Some magical business. Some magical, training business. Hell, Bob would turn that dog into a superhero.