With nothing better to do, Fleer flipped over to the Guild's open jobs board.

One last spin through the vast fields of nothingness and no opportunity. One last nod to a world of contracts he could never land.

The list of jobs sprang up. He clicked through all the familiar filters, the long list narrowing sharply each time he clicked.

He ended up looking at fifty or so jobs, many with handsome sums attached.

"That's not right..." he muttered.

He cleared his filters and clicked through them again, paying attention this time. He found that "NO GUILD ASSOCIATION" was not checked. Again.

"Oh, I must have forgotten you," he sighed, his brief hope extinguished.

He clicked it. It remained empty. Looking more closely, he saw that it was grayed out.

"What the..."

He clicked it a few more times, then finally clicked the helpful question-mark bubble next to the filter.

"You cannot select this filter," it said, "because your organization does not qualify as having NO GUILD ASSOCIATION."

With mounting confusion, he clicked through to his company profile.

Company Name: Riotfish, Inc. Class: E - Small Operations (Various) Guild Membership Status: Provisional Guild Sponsor: Scootec

Fleer's brow furrowed. Who was Scootec?

He logged out and back in again, just in case. Same data.

Deeply confused, he started to do a little digging. Scootec's promo site was nothing special, they just looked like some local company in the northeast, manufacturing parts for vehicle roof racks. He went through their public finances. They were decently profitable, very stable. They were neither political nor strategic, and didn't have much land.

Hmm.

He pulled up their contact directory and punched the button to give them a call. After a few minutes of tediously navigating their phone system, he was able to get a real human on the line.

"Scootec Guild Relations, Andrew Philips speaking."

"Yes Mr. Philips, my name is David Fleer, I'm with Riotfish Inc., and I'm calling about a Guild sponsorship with your company?"

"Yes! Mr. Fleer! So glad to hear from you! Your sponsorship has gone through. If it hasn't showed up on your profile in a couple days, let us know and we'll sort it out."

"Right, no, it's there, I just... why?" he blurted.

"Why what?" Philips asked.

"I mean, why sponsor us? We've never done a job for you, I don't think..."

"Oh, Mr. Daugereaux didn't tell you? He worked with our owner, Mr. Russo, and asked us to sponsor your organization for Guild membership. Said you fellows did an outstanding job for him, really helped him out of a bind. Well, any friend of Daugereaux is a friend of ours! We've been looking for a small, quality organization to sponsor, for the visibility and marketing bump. And since our company profile is ideally suited for sponsorship, your application should have no issues sailing on through."

"You know Mr. Daugereaux?" Fleer asked faintly.

"Well, of course!" laughed Philips. "Who doesn't?"

"I think I understand. Well thank you very much, Mr. Philips. Your sponsorship means a lot to me and my crew. We will do our very best to represent your company honorably. Thank you."

"Not at all. If Mr. Daugereaux recommends you, I'm confident that you'll do well."

They said their goodbyes and disconnected.

Fleer sat dumbly for a few minutes, staring at the list of available jobs. He glanced over at the time.

One hour. One hour until Pearce arrived.

Fleer slammed to his feet.

"Mrs. Meade!" he yelled. "I need you now!" Shaking his arm out of its sling and grabbing his sport coat and datapad, he ran to the garage, throwing the coat on as he went. "Mrs. Meade!"

"Oh, Mr. Fleer, I'm right here, you don't have to yell so. Whatever's wrong?"

She and Oliver were sitting in the garage, drinking tea.

"I need you to get me downtown as fast as you possibly can."

"As fast as I can? Are you quite sure about that, Mr. Fleer?"

"Yes!" he said firmly. "I need to get to the Mercenary's Guild Branch Office. Oliver, don't let anybody in the building until I get back."

"But Mr. Pearce--"

"Above all you are not to allow Mr. Pearce in! Stall him. We might be able to save Riotfish, Inc."

"Oh, Mr. Fleer," Mrs. Meade breathed. "Do you really think we can?"

"Only if we get there in time."

----------------------------------------

Thirteen minutes later, Fleer was curled up on the floor of the Battle Wagon, retching and trying to remember the symptoms of a heart attack. He was on the floor because it seemed like the most stable part of the vehicle.

He cautiously lifted his head, gripping the arm of his seat, just in time to watch the Battle Wagon slide off the freeway onto an exit, shooting through a gap between cars that easily left two inches of clearance on either end of the Battle Wagon. Mrs. Meade casually spun the wheel, and the Battle Wagon wobbled and tilted, slowed enough to keep the vehicle on the road, then bellowed as she feathered the accelerator to drop a gear without touching the clutch.

The wheel spun the other way, and the Battle Wagon slid out onto a surface street, whipping around a red light and mounting the median. Roaring and spewing the stench of charred rubber, the Battle Wagon flew down the median, mowing down signs.

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They came to another intersection and Mrs. Meade slammed the brakes. The Battle Wagon shuddered, tipped off the median, and flew across two lanes of oncoming traffic. Fleer briefly sympathized with the look of terror etched across the features of the driver of a heavy cargo hauler as the Battle Wagon skated past it close enough to share paint. The Battle Wagon caught a couple feet of air as it bounced up over the curb. It slammed flat down on all four wheels on a cross street, in the correct lane for a change, and picked up speed.

Fleer gently lowered himself back to the floor. He didn't necessarily mind traveling at 80 miles per hour, he just wasn't used to doing it sideways.

Mrs. Meade smiled dimly as she slung the Battle Wagon around corners, engine screaming, all four tires pouring white smoke, sliding between oncoming cars and avoiding death by mere millimeters, second by second.

With a final, slewing screech, the Battle Wagon shot sideways into a parking lot leaving four sinuous curves of tire rubber on the pavement, and wobbled to a stop in a parking space right in front of the doors, rocking slightly.

Fleer was trying to cling to the floor and gibbering a little and desperately hanging on to the last thing he'd eaten.

"We're here, Mr. Fleer. We made good time."

"Oh thank you so much, Mrs. Meade," he whispered. He gingerly brought himself back up to a sitting position, pale-faced and breathing shallowly. "Give me a moment. I'll be fine."

His vision slowly cleared and he regained control of his faculties. He gazed through the glass doors into the Mercenary's Guild Branch Office #72, and beheld, ensconced behind her battlements in full lipstick and sneer, The Trog.

"Oh no," he said.

"What's wrong?" Mrs. Meade asked.

"That." He pointed inside. "That foul troglodyte. She is the slowest, angriest, most hateful customer service representative in the history of the world. I have to get this filed, but with her there--" He sank. "Well, it was worth a shot."

"What do you mean? Can't you file what you need to?"

Fleer waved his datapad around in frustration.

"I can, but I need to get this data into the Mercenary's Guild systems and get back to Riotfish HQ in--" he checked his watch-- "in 37 minutes. There's no way she'll expedite this. No way."

"Mr. Fleer, if I may make a suggestion, would you let me take it in?"

"Oh, Mrs. Meade, I don't want you to be exposed to her hatefulness."

"Please, Mr. Fleer. Sometimes these things take a woman's touch."

Fleer paused for only a moment.

"All right then. Go ahead. Signal me if you need anything."

Mrs. Meade nodded, took Fleer's datapad and stepped down out of the Battle Wagon.

She walked over to the front door and paused. She appeared to sink in on herself. She wasn't an imposing presence in the best of circumstances, but now she appeared to wither into nearly nothing. Back hunched, with one leg shorter than the other, and moving with evident pain, she hobbled to the door. With incredible slowness, she made her way inside.

Mrs. Meade sighed as she stepped into the building. The door squeaked shut behind her. She hobbled forward a few steps and sighed again, this time with a hint of a moan.

The Trog looked up as soon as Mrs. Meade entered, full of contempt and rage, but her countenance softened slightly as she watched Mrs. Meade make her painful way across the room to The Trog's desk.

As someone who felt that her own life was a high saga, the Trog had a refined appreciation for a rousing performance of melodramatic suffering.

Mrs. Meade slowly made her way up to The Trog's station, and stood there, hanging on to the counter and panting slightly.

The Trog raised an eyebrow in honor of the performance.

"Can I help you?"

"Ohhhh," Mrs. Meade began, "I'm so sorry, it's just that this weather has my joints aching. It started last week when the weather was so pleasant and then it cooled down and now I think there's rain coming."

The Trog nodded in spite of herself.

"I understand," she said, "I have that sometimes myself."

"Oh I knew you would. Thank you, you're such a sweet dear. Just give me a moment, I'll try not to slow down everyone else too much."

"It's fine, ma'am, there's no one else here right now."

"It's just that, that--" Mrs. Meade hiccuped a bit, "I'm trying to get this data filed for my job. I don't understand it at all, but my boss makes me do everything. He is so pushy. Can you imagine him treating me like that?"

"I can," The Trog growled. "I can just imagine."

"Oh I know you can. It's like some people turn into monsters as soon as they become bosses, don't they?"

"You're right," The Trog replied. "Just terrible people."

Mrs. Meade quavered a small sigh, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.

"But the truth is, he doesn't like how slow I am. And I know, I'm slow, old and slow and dumb. He keeps giving me all these hard jobs." Mrs. Meade leaned forward and whispered confidentially, "I think he wants to fire me."

"Oh, he does, does he?"

Mrs. Meade nodded.

"He brought me here, and now he's out there in the parking lot, watching me. I'm starting to think he wants to see me fail."

The Trog leaned over her desk and looked out at the Battle Wagon. Fleer was swaying slightly in his seat. Her eyes narrowed.

"That is disgusting. Just a terrible person." Her face, already a twist of anger, deepened. "What did he send you to do?"

"Oh, I don't understand it, some data he needs filed. I don't understand why he can't come file it himself." She handed the datapad over to The Trog.

She took the datapad from Mrs. Meade, scanned it, and a nasty little smile grew.

"Well, how about that? Your boss is filing for provisional Guild membership."

"Oh, yes, he was very excited about something with that. That's when he started talking about making staffing cuts, and getting some new people in. That's when--" Mrs. Meade paused, apparently to gather herself, her eyes pooling with tears-- "when I think he started looking for reasons to fire me."

"Hmm. Hmm hmm hmm. Well let me tell you something. Normally this takes a couple days, but here's what I'm going to do." Her voice dropped, and she leaned forward. "I am going to file this right now, because here's what your boss doesn't know: once he's a member of the Guild, we have a set of rules about how he can fire his employees."

"Oh?"

"Yes. So what you do is take this data card. This is an at-risk marker. If he ever tries to fire you, you scan this card at any terminal, and tell them you want to file a Form 212, that's a termination-without-cause complaint. They'll walk you through the process, and by the time our mediators are done with him, he'll crawl to you, begging you to come back."

"That's... so, so wonderful! I don't know how to thank you!"

The Trog sat back, smugly whipping data from the datapad into her system. An imprinter on her desk hissed, thumped, and spat out a card. The Trog handed it over to Mrs. Meade.

"There you go. This is the proof that your boss is locked into our system. As long as he's a member of the Guild, you don't ever have to worry about a thing."

"Thank you, thank you!"

"And if you ever want to give him a little panic, tell him to read up on Section 14, Part III of the Mercenary's Guild binding agreement. That section is the employment piece that covers you."

"Wonderful! I'm going to go do that right now!" She laughed, her eyes glistening. "He'll be so happy, then I'll tell him that and watch him crumble!"

The Trog let out a long, honking laugh.

"That's perfect! You let him have it, girl!"

Mrs. Meade walked out of the office, still slow, but with a spring in her hobble. She turned to wave at The Trog with a little smile as she walked out the door. The Trog sat back with a huge, self-satisfied grin, imagining Mrs. Meade slow-roasting her boss over the coals of pre-negotiated employee arbitration.

It was the best day she'd had in a long, long time.

Mrs. Meade hobbled away until she was out of sight of The Trog, then stood and moved quickly and firmly back to the Battle Wagon. She swung easily into the driver's seat, and casually held the provisional membership card out to Fleer.

Fleer's mouth dropped open. In Mrs. Meade's liver-spotted hand rested the culmination of three years' hope and work, his struggles and fruitless strife. He had dreamed of this moment for so long, for this slim bit of plastic and approval, and now here it was, still warm from the imprinter.

He took it with trembling hands.

"Mrs. Meade," he breathed, "you are a miracle. A marvel and a wonderment. This is amazing! How did you manage this? And so quickly?"

She smiled her dim little smile.

"I suppose I have a way with people," she said. "Now, do we still need to hurry back to Riotfish HQ?"

Starting, Fleer checked his watch.

"Shoot, yes. If we're quick, we may be able to beat Pearce there-- oof!" he finished as the Battle Wagon shredded a wicked J-turn and launched out of the parking lot.