Stewart Pearce sedately drove his sedan through progressively seedier neighborhoods, finally reaching a dead-end street. He didn't like driving on these poorly maintained roads; the uneven surface was rough on the gravwells. But he went where his job took him, and today it took him to-- he'd pursed his full lips when he'd read the name this morning-- the "Riotfish." Clearly, an organization that failed to take itself at all seriously.

He parked his car in front of their warehouse, lowering the parking skids gently onto the road surface. He winced a little as the car settled at a slight angle due to the uneven street.

His car, like himself, was eminently practical: neither flashy nor hard to maintain, a little out of date but running well.

He unfolded his thin frame from the driver's seat, patting his hair back in place.

He was tall and narrow, with a face that fell naturally into a disapproving frown. Slim spectacles perched low on his nose, and his hair, though receding at the temples, was meticulously coiffed. His suit was somber, old, and clean, and his shoes were well-polished, just so. He bore his slim datapad like a king wields his scepter, his source of authority.

He strode toward the front door and faltered almost immediately. There was a large green lump of something blocking the entrance.

The lump rolled over, revealing itself to be some kind of lizard creature lying on the ground in front of the door. Stewart Pearce had never heard of such a thing-- lurid tales of lizardmen and their kidnapped maidens were not his bailiwick. He backed up two steps when it spoke.

"Put your foot on meeeee..."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Put your foot on meeee..."

Pearce stood in stunned shock.

"We are out of welcome mats. I am a mat. Call me Matt!"

Now Stewart Pearce was a man who knew who he was and where he was going in life. Early on he'd decided upon and followed a carefully laid out plan, each step proceeding naturally and easily from the one before: earn these grades, go to this school, get that internship. So far everything had proceeded precisely according to his strategy. Surprise was not something he relished.

Thus he was not best pleased when Roger's hand shot out, grabbed his ankle, and attempted to drag him bodily over to wipe his feet on the welcome Matt.

Gibbering, Pearce wrenched himself away, losing a shoe to Roger's grip. Roger vigorously rubbed the sole of the purloined footwear on his face. With that done, he reached up, opened the door to the HQ, and carefully placed the shoe just inside.

"Next!" he hissed.

"No!" Pearce warbled, trying to balance on his one shod foot. "Return my shoe this instant!"

"Roger, what are you--" D'khara wandered up from inside lugging a bucket of some noxious chemical, and stopped dead when he saw Pearce in a stork stance a safe distance from Roger, who lay in front of the door, patiently waiting for the other shoe. "--oh, f'nharg drafl," he cursed softly.

He quickly set his bucket aside, and pushed Roger out of the way.

"Roger, no! Move!"

"But I'm the Matt!" Roger complained.

"No! We need to give the nice man back his shoe and let him in."

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"But the shoe germs! All bassy and funk! Others must know."

"Go, Roger! Just go!"

After a minor scuffle, D'khara managed to shoo Roger off, and return Pearce's shoe to him.

"I am sorry, sir. Roger's just a little excited that you're here."

Pearce stiffly returned his shoe to his foot.

"And this Roger works here?"

"Ah, yes. Yes, he does."

"As a janitor, I hope?"

"He's close support, actually. He's a phenomenon on the battlefield. A real terror to enemy forces."

"And their shoes, I'd imagine. And you are... a dwarf?"

"Uh, yes, sir. Racially, that is. Not genetically. If you catch my meaning."

A long moment passed while Pearce stared at D'khara.

"I do not. What is your responsibility here?"

"Oh! I'm D'khara Arilburr, and I'm close support as well. I also run the armory and repairs and so forth. Would you like to see?"

"I suppose, if I must." D'khara led the way inside.

They walked to the armory, their footfalls echoing off the concrete floor. D'khara was confident, smoothly walking in his newly-built leg extenders. He'd adjusted the controls slightly, only giving himself an extra eight inches, bringing him to the heady heights of five foot two. The purloined pants he was wearing puddled weirdly around the bottoms of the extenders, and smelled unpleasantly like Little Timmy, but it couldn't be helped.

D'khara nervously stuck his hands in his pockets. The motion accidentally triggered the fob, and the extenders suddenly extended to their full eighteen inches, launching the unhappy dwarf several feet into the air with a squawk. D'khara stumbled on the landing, but managed to catch himself. He looked at Pearce, who was looking back at him in utter confusion while D'khara, now an even six feet tall, stared at him eye to eye.

"Um, armory's this way," he said, breaking the confused silence.

As he walked, he tried to subtly wind the extenders down a hair, but he hadn't designed them for subtlety, and he walked with a stuttering gait that hissed and bounced and dropped him several inches every few steps.

They finally arrived at the armory. The sharp stink of fresh lacquer permeated the room.

D'khara waved his hands around awkwardly.

"Well, here it is."

"Hm. How... utilitarian." Pearce pulled out his datapad and punched in some data. "I shall be very interested to see how your records match your inventory."

D'khara pulled up short.

"Records?"

"Yes, documents detailing what weapons you have and where they are."

"I... will... look for those. Right now." He stiff-legged it over to a filing cabinet that had been in the armory when he was hired.

He could easily reach the top drawer now, at least. He pulled it open to find it completely empty.

The second drawer, consistently, was also empty. The third contained an old rat trap, and he couldn't reach the bottom drawer without falling over on his face. He stuck his hand in his pocket to lower the extenders, but the fob caught on the fabric, again triggering the extenders to their full height. With a barked dwarvish curse that he couldn't hold back, he bounced off the filing cabinet and into a wall. Muttering darkly, he managed to get his hand around the fob and lowered himself to a more normal height. The pants legs puddled around his feet. He pulled open the bottom drawer to find the remains of the rat that the third drawer trap had probably been intended for. He grimaced and slowly closed it.

"I'm sorry, are you all right?" Pearce asked.

"Great!" D'khara said. "Just getting those records you asked for. Maybe they're here in this desk." He shuffled over to the battered desk he'd barely used and started sifting through drawers while Pearce wandered over to inspect the Borkas.

D'khara looked up just in time to see Pearce reaching for one of the rifles.

"Oh, please don't--" he managed to get out as Pearce picked one up.

The unfastened barrel tilted out of the stock as Pearce lifted it, falling free and brushing Pearce's crisp white shirt, leaving a fat, nasty streak of jet black lacquer as it clanged to the floor with an ear-splitting ring.

"Sorry!" D'khara called, sweating. "Sorry, just, uh, doing a little maintenance on that rifle there."

Pearce put the empty gunstock back on the rack. The tacky wood stain briefly stuck to his hand, causing the stock to slide over into the next rifle, knocking the action loose just enough to allow the trigger group to pop out and zip across the armory with a comical "ping!" That rifle slowly folded out, collapsing as the unsecured action slid free of the stock.

D'khara watched in horror as it slid slowly over into the next rifle, and the next, and the next, a crescendo of ringing steel on concrete, clattering wood, and the rattle of tiny machined parts and loose springs falling and flying and spreading across the floor of the armory.

Pearce turned to D'khara.

"The records?" he asked flatly.

"Yes, let me find those," D'khara whispered.

It took D'khara twenty minutes to give up on finding the records, but he'd already given up long before that.