I stood in front of the door, trying to keep my knees from knocking together.  Remember, Harry, just be polite and open, I told myself inside my head.  Sure, you don’t want to ruin things with this girl by offending her family, but you’re a nice enough guy.  Just stay polite, and it will all be fine.

After one last breath, I reached out and rang the bell.  Here goes nothing…

For a second, I heard nothing, and then the strangest sounds started radiating out from the other side of the door.  If I had to describe them, I’d say that they most resembled a live octopus being slowly pressed through a pasta roller.  It was loud, rather wet, and decidedly unpleasant.

“Kiji, back!  No, I said back!  Kiji, we have visitors, you have to behave!”  I perked up.  I knew that voice!

A moment later, my girlfriend opened up the door.  “Hi, Jules,” I greeted her, stepping up and giving her a brief hug.  She grinned back at me, showing off that little smirk I loved so much.

Jules was, in a word, amazing.  I’d met her four months previously, and had instantly fallen head over heels for her.  From her occasional biting sarcasm to her sweet smiles, how she always gave anyone her full attention, as though they were the most important person in the world – I knew instantly that I was hooked.  And somehow, I managed to be charming and kind enough to catch her eye as well.

But now came the next challenge: meeting her parents.  And I was praying that I was up to the task.

“Come on in, Harry,” Jules told me, pulling open the door.  “Just watch out for Kiji.  He can be a bit.. enthusiastic, let’s say, when he meets strangers for the first time.”

I was expecting a large dog, perhaps.  But when I stepped around the door and inside, that was most definitely not what I saw.  What Kiji was, I just can’t say.

Instead, let me say what I did see:

I saw tentacles, covered in rubbery suction cups.

I saw scales, metallic and glinting in the soft glow of the wall sconces.

I saw at least three eyes, big and yellow and baleful as they glared back at me with deep-seated reptilian anger.

I saw scything claws digging into the carpet underfoot.

I saw what looked disturbingly like a proboscis.

In short, I saw the worst monster of my life, like something had crawled out of my assembled nightmares.

The thing hissed at me as I stood there, frozen in shock.  But to my amazement, Jules reached past me, towards it!  “Jules, what are you doing?” I yelped in surprise and fear.

My lovely girlfriend was scratching the thing, behind the crest that covered its third eye!  And somehow, she wasn’t getting disemboweled.  The creature was still panting heavily (was that its breathing?), but it didn’t look as angry when it glanced up at her.  “Oh, don’t mind Kiji,” she said, as if this was a totally normal occurrence.  “He’s not great at accepting in new people, but he’ll like you!  Let him smell my hand.”

Ever so gingerly, I extended my hand towards the monster, where it was immediately wrapped in a tentacle.  When I withdrew it, I found my fingers coated in a thin sheen of slime.  “What the hell is that thing?” I asked, trying in vain to find a place to wipe off my fingers.

“You know, I’m not quite sure!”

I looked up at the booming voice, and my still-slimy hand was immediately grabbed in one of the heartiest handshakes I’ve ever experienced.  “Mr. O’Hara, and good to meet you, Harry!” the man boomed, as he attempted to unscrew my arm.  “My little Juliet has told me so many nice things about you!”

“Er, great,” I said, finally managing to tug my hand free and wondering if my shoulder socket would ever work again.  “About, um, Kiji…”

“Ah, yes.  I found him in the woods a few years ago,” Mr. O’Hara bellowed.  “He’s an ugly bugger, to be sure, but he was half-frozen, and I guess I’m just a big softie at heart!”  He reached over and grabbed at the monster, sinking his hands deep into its squishy, fleshy side as he made cooing noises.

I glanced at Jules, praying that this was some sort of elaborate joke, but she was just smiling back at me.  “Come on, let’s get you washed up for dinner,” she told me, tugging at my hand and leading me into the house.  “We’ve got meatloaf and broccoli, you’ll like it.”

As we went around the corner, I spared one last look behind me.  Mr. O’Hara was down on the floor, and had wrestled the monster onto what, on a normal creature, might possibly be called its back.  He was rubbing it fiercely, and the long tentacles seemed to be coiling and uncoiling rhythmically.  It was making a low sound, somewhere in between a purr and a death gurgle.

This was definitely going to be an interesting night…

I knew from the moment that I woke up that something was wrong.

I sat up, groaned, and reached up to rub at my eyes.  My alarm was beeping on the nightstand beside me, but I had no idea how long it had been going off.  I reached over and scooped the little clock up, holding it up close to my eyes as I fumbled for my glasses.

“Shit,” I grunted, as I read the time.  I was most definitely late.

I set the clock back down on the nightstand, and watched as it slowly sank into the wood.  “Solids variable,” I diagnosed to myself.  At least it hadn’t yet affected the bed – although it did feel even softer than usual…

I looked down, and realized that I was trapped in the bed up to the wrist.  It took several yanks and some creative cursing before I was finally able to wrench free, sending up a spray of liquid down feathers.  I quickly climbed up and off of the mattress before I was trapped any further-

-and immediately slipped and landed on the floor.

“Ow,” I groaned through an aching jaw.  My teeth had snapped together at the landing, and I’d nearly chopped the tip off of my own tongue.

I put my hands down on the hardwood to lift myself up, and they immediately slid aside.  I tried again, to the same result.  “Friction,” I muttered to myself.  Man, couldn’t I take a single morning off without everything going to hell?

I noticed that my slippers were on the ground a couple feet away, and I managed to snag them with one outstretched toe.  Fortunately, their exclusion programming was still in place, and they provided firm traction against the infinitely slippery floor.  I slipped them over my bare toes and managed to shakily lift myself back up.

After one look at the M.C. Escher-esque nightmare that my stairs had transformed into, I headed for my upstairs office.  There was no way I was getting lost in that fifth-dimensional tangled nightmare.

Halfway along the hallway, a young man suddenly popped into existence, dressed in military fatigues and holding a rather large and foreboding rifle.  “Grandpa?” he called out, lifting up the gun to his shoulder.

I punched him in the face and locked him in my linen closet.

After a few more minutes of walking down the hallway, I realized that even though I kept on halving the distance to my office, I was never reaching it.  “Stupid tortoise and arrow,” I grunted, reaching down to lower myself onto my knees.  On the infinitely slippery floor, I was able to slide that last fraction of an inch to cross the threshold.

I really shouldn’t have even slept in at all!  Given that I was surprised by sleeping in, it shouldn’t have happened at all.  But then I remembered that I’d addressed the Unexpected Hanging last month, and so it could once again occur at random.

In my office, I grabbed for the coffee maker.  I’d built the thing around a Boyle’s flask, so at least it was always full and flowing.  I took a large sip, trying to get my brain in gear as I pulled myself up to my computer.

The machine seemed to be taking forever to boot… “God dammit, Zeno,” I told the air as I realized what was happening.  I hit the key sequence to skip ahead instead of attempting to boot every sector.

I should have expected this struggle.  After all, this wasn’t the first time I’d slept in.  But good ol’ Hegel always seemed to keep on popping up, no matter how many times I squashed it.

Finally, I was able to get to my program, where I quickly began countering the errors that had popped up.  If I just sat here as an Observer, I knew, this wouldn’t happen, but even I needed to sleep every now and then.

Finally, with the errors mostly in control, I sat back, stretching, trying to remember what was in my refrigerator.  Maybe my future self, after I took his rifle away from him, would like a bagel or something.

The scout could already feel despair setting in as he cut along the path through the thick brush of the jungle.  He stepped past the carefully positioned leaves, making sure to set them back into position once he had cleared them, and then hurried through the little concealed clearing.

“Carter!  Carter!”  he called out, as he slipped past the grunts as they sat on the wet ground and rechecked their weapons.  The whole camp had been waiting on his return, hoping for good news.

They would be disappointed…

The captain stepped out from where he had been bent over a particularly recalcitrant piece of mobile armor.  “Henson,” he greeted the scout.  Captain Carter had excellent control over his facial features, but Henson knew the man was anxious for good news, like the rest of his unit.

Henson hated to disappoint.  But even before he spoke, Carter read his lack of a grin and knew what was about to come.

Carter had known from the beginning that the plan was FUBAR, even before that division of Reapers managed to slip through and gut half their artillery support before they were put down.  In fact, it was only through their captain’s quick thinking that the unit managed to stay largely together, cutting their own path out of the push of the main enemy force.  By tacking obliquely, Carter managed to use the minor ridgeline of the jungle as a shielding bank, and they hadn’t lost a single casualty even while they hewed down at least three squads of their opponents.

But even that quick thinking hadn’t been enough to account for what would happen to the rest of the army.

From the reports coming in, the rest of the troops had marched straight into a bloodbath.  The generals hadn’t expected their enemies to also have air support, those yellow drones zinging in on the six vibrating wings to spew wide sprays of stingers down on the men below.  Unable to move quickly in the dense jungle, most of the troop squads had been trapped and easy prey.

And then the orbital lances started falling – on their troops.

Carter didn’t know what had happened up above the clouds, how the enemy had managed to gain superiority.  But he’d been trained in the academy to always consider the worst case scenario.  Right now, that maxim was the main point keeping his team alive.

“Talk to me, Henson,” Carter commanded, sweeping his tools off of the hunched-over armor unit to clear a space.

Henson stretched out a leaf, clicking on his eye scanner to project down at the flat space.  A relief map of the jungle flickered into view, marked here and there with dots to signify enemy encampments.  “It’s not good, sir,” he said, trying and failing to keep the moroseness out of his voice.  “The enemy squads have aggregated back into their platoons, and they’re combing through the jungle in blocks.”

The scout pointed at several squares projected on the leaf.  “They’ve already sterilized these areas, it looks like,” he continued.  “They know that their lance splintered up our forces, and now they’re systematically mopping up all of the surviving groups.”

Staring down at the map, Carter shook his head.  “Damn,” he whispered, more to himself than to the scout.  The squad lieutenants were also listening in, and their frowns showed that they didn’t have any ideas.

Carter’s hand suddenly jerked slightly, tracking over to point at another square, off to the edge of the map.  “Here,” he said.  “This is where our dropship landed.  Any chance-“

“Casualty of the first orbital lance strike,” Henson cut in gloomily.  “They knew enough to cut us off from retreating.  They’re aiming to eliminate us here, not just inflict damage.”

One of the lieutenants sighed at this, but Carter just looked considering.  “Wait a minute,” he interjected.  “So they’re bringing everything to bear?  What about the command ship?”

The scout pointed to large purple triangle, hovering near the most recently sterilized square.  “That’s how they’re finishing off their grid sections,” he said.  “If they find resistance, enough to hold off their platoons, they move that in for the gravity lance.  Cut down our armor, mop up the rest.  It’s their strongest weapon.”

But Carter was already shaking his head.  “No, that’s their weakness!” he insisted, stabbing down at the triangle that represented the enemy’s command ship.  “They’ve brought their head down into play.  We kill that, and we turn their army from a focused force into cut-off little groups, just like ours.  We might have a choice.”

The suggestion was utterly ridiculous, but none of the lieutenants spoke up against it.  Carter’s ridiculous suggestions had paid off before, in huge ways.  That was how they were still drawing breath.  But one of the nearby troopers (Johnze, Henson thought?) coughed loudly.

“Cap, we can’t crack that thing’s armor,” he cut in.  “Not to shit on your petunias, sir, but our pulse guns won’t even scratch that ship.”

“Oh, ours can’t,” Carter countered, a grin dancing around his lips as his plan took shape, “but our artillery ought to rattle it a bit.”

“They lanced our artillery,” Henson pointed out.  “First strikes hit there.”

Carter shook his head.  “Orbital lances would’ve scattered them, but some of the squad commanders would have had the good sense to shut down and go dark,” he insisted.  “Terrance was over there.  He’s got a good head on his shoulders.”

“So… what?” one of the lieutenants asked.  “We’re going to single-handedly charge back in, rescue our own artillery, and then throw ourselves at the most powerful piece in their entire invasion force?  That’s insanity!”

“No!” Carter shot back, turning on the man.  The captain’s eyes were alight with fire.  “Insanity is not adapting, simply rolling over and accepting that we’ve been beaten after the first hit!  We can still win, but not through attrition.  We need a killing blow, before they break us down further!”

The captain raised his voice, pulling in the other troopers in the clearing.  “Come on, men!” he called out, his eyes blazing.  “They got the first hit.  Let’s make sure that our counterstroke doesn’t just knock a few teeth loose.  Let’s give them a broken damn jaw!”

Most of the men were already nodding.  They didn’t like sitting around, and Carter had earned his stripes in their eyes.  He’d kept them alive, and now he seemed to be the only one with a plan, sticking to a strategy.  But Johnze held up his hand.

“What if the artillery’s gone?” he asked.

“Then we patch the dropship weapons to fire!” Carter yelled back, slamming his gauntleted fist down on the armor unit in front of him.  “Dammit, we kill that command ship, and we’ve got a chance.  We don’t, and we’re just waiting for death.  And if I’m up against death, I want to stare it in the eye!  I intend to meet that skeleton only after he can climb the hill of my opponents’ corpses!”

Most of the other men were now on their feet, nodding and picking up their equipment.  They had a leader, a man with a vision in his eyes and a fire burning in his heart.  But next to Henson, that doubting lieutenant still hesitated.

“Sir, it just seems like such a long shot,” he said, clearly wavering on this decision.

Carter turned to stare down at the man.  His voice dropped down, from burning fire to frigid ice.  “These are my men, lieutenant,” he hissed, frost coming off of each word.  “And I intend to save every last one of them.

“Right now, we are fucked.  But there is always a way to seize victory – always.  Either I will find that way, or I will make one.”

There was nothing the lieutenant could do but nod.

Carter reached down and flicked a switch inside the hunched-over armor unit, and the machine slowly rose up from the jungle floor.  He reached down and scooped up his rifle, checking the safety and slinging it into the mount over his shoulder.  “Let’s move,” he commanded, advancing forward.  “Daylight’s burning, and your mothers are waiting for me to get back to base!”

And as the captain marched, the troopers fell in behind him, their faces set in grim determination.