That's Just a Matter of Penis

After the fall of Agent Maine, AKA the Meta, certain investigative measures became imperative. Project Freelancer assets had been scattered and returned to a central point. Freelancers themselves had escaped the grasp of the UNSC and affiliated organizations, and were brought back for interrogation. Exactly what happened needed to be known- and that required thorough questioning of all involved parties.

For the first six, this was a simple matter of question-and-answer. Some embellishment, especially from the red sergeant, happened naturally, and some downplaying as well, such as from Agent Washington. Then the Counselor reached someone who neither embellished nor downplayed, but told the story in such a chaotically different way as to demand further observation.

"Could you repeat that, Private Caboose?"

"I think the Meta could have been a good friend! He had some anger problems but so did Tex and she was a nice lady. She helped me learn how to flirt with the tank!"

"Right." Price jotted this down in an illegible calligraphic scrawl only he could read. "And you say 'Tex' and the Meta shared a similar personality issue in the form of 'anger problems'?"

"Yes! They both had O'Malley!"

"O'Malley?"

"That is the AI who has the scary voice and makes people really strong. I do that without any special voices in my head!"

"You do... What, exactly?"

"I get really mad and get really strong and save the day!"

Price sat back in his armchair, brows drawn together in only the faintest sign of scrutiny as he eyed the giant of a private. Michael J. Caboose was quickly becoming interesting, in the way that Agent Florida and Agent North Dakota had been interesting- unassuming strength, an inner fire concealed behind a lie of a smile. They were Price's favorite sort to study, for their individual method of self-presentation. Agents like South Dakota and Carolina had been exceedingly boring, in that they were exactly what their surface suggested. Caboose had joined a rare group- those that invited Price to study further.

"I see," he said, pulling himself from reverie. "And what inspires this enraged state? Competition? A need for victory?"

"I have to keep my friends safe. They are usually good at doing that themselves, but sometimes they are tired."

"And you believe you can protect them?"

"When they need me to."

"And would you consider yourself... A good soldier?"

Caboose's head tilted to the side for a moment, blue eyes sparkling. "I think I am! I try really hard to take care of my team and stay in shape and I am really good at drill!"

"Drill? As in organized movement?"

"Yes! But we don't do that much. We kind of don't do anything until we have to fight somebody. We should really do more as a team, like bake cookies!"

Price was learning he could repeat a single word and Caboose would unravel more of what went on behind those beaming blues. "Cookies?"

"Yes! I love cookies!" Caboose dropped his voice, hushed with excitement. "Are there cookies here?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Can we get some cookies? We could bake some together."

This caught Price off-guard, though no outward flinch or movement suggested as much. "We as in you and I?"

"Yes! You seem like you could use a cookie."

"We are not here to talk about me."

"Maybe we should! Everyone needs someone to talk to."

Caboose smiled brightly, invitingly, and Price stared at him for a moment. Not even Agent North Dakota, known for being far too caring, had ever dared try to pry into the mind of the counselor. What interest had this private in Price's private mind?

~^~

"And Leonard- don't even get me STARTED on Leonard. I've never met a man so flexible. You must be to get your head that far up your asshole!"

"Leonard like Church?"

"The original. Director Leonard Church, the one who made the AI your friend was based off of."

"A-I..."

"Yes. The Alpha AI fragment you knew in Blood Gulch. When I speak of Leonard, I mean the original whiny bastard who created your friend."

"So you were friends with Church's daddy!"

"Er."

"That is okay. Did Church have a mommy, too?"

Those bright, innocent blue eyes. Price cleared his throat. "Not exactly. AI aren't made how people are. Though Alpha did split and form the Beta fragment- which made things even worse for dealing with Leonard."

"That must have been very difficult."

"Managing his mental health was clearly going to be impossible from the start; within two weeks of my assignment with Project Freelancer, I had decided simply to see where encouraging him would lead. It went exactly where I suspected it would."

"And where is that?"

"They're all dead now."

"Oh."

"Yes."

"Death only means they are not here right now!"

"I-" Price paused, reaching for a cookie. "What does that mean?"

"Exactly what I said! But I will slow it down so you are sure to understand. Sometimes people go away and you think they will not come back, but they always do. Church always does! He is still around, he is just in the Epsilon unit right now!"

"You don't think death is a permanent state?"

"I have not seen it be permanent yet!"

"You believe your friend will come back?"

"He always does!"

Price stared at those innocent blue eyes, and something dark in him craved to take them over and introduce Caboose to the truth of death. To tell him his friend would never come back. The Meta and Tex would never come back. Caboose's best friend was dead, and the Epsilon unit was not a replacement. It would be so easy to wreck that innocent, sweet naivety- and watch the ensuing chaos as Caboose's mind broke.

Price took another bite of cookie. It would be as simple as defining mortality.

"Private Caboose..."

"Yes?"

That bright beaming smile. Those wondrous blue eyes.

"Your friends are very lucky to have you."

"They do not think so."

An unexpected flash of indignation sparked in Price's chest. "Oh?"

Caboose whispered, "Tucker is kind of stupid."

"Oh. And Agent Washington?"

"He seems nice. I'd like to keep him. He is not Church, but he could be a Church."

Price's moment of chaotic desire passed. "How is that?"

"He is grumpy. And tired. And he thinks me and Tucker are not smart. I like him."

"You like people who look down on you and have unpleasant personality traits?"

"I think they need good friends to teach them how to be good people!"

Unexpectedly, Price laughed. A grating, breathy sound, one that rusted around his vocal cords from lack of laughing muscles being used, but a laugh nonetheless.

"Perhaps you can teach me."

Caboose took Price's hand. "I think that would be nice."

Price marveled at himself for being unable to bear the thought of destroying that innocence. He had never been averse to ruining minds and consequently lives- but this one time, with Private Michael J. Caboose, Price couldn't do it. Even as he had considered it, figured in a heartbeat how to do it, known that the power of a word could accomplish great and terrible things, he had been unable to.

Agent New York had a uniquely impressive dick.

Wash had seen lots of dicks. He was Wash, so of course he had. He only liked cats for the irony of liking some kind of pussy. And because the only animal with a phallic nickname was roosters, AKA cocks, and that just... Wasn't the same. He left that shit for Peckerman. Ha- pecker.

But back to the point: York's uniquely impressive dick.

Wash was one of few among the MOI's inhabitants privileged enough to have seen the thing. The first time he saw it was in the shower-room, by complete accident- he totally misjudged which shower stall was in use and which was empty, totally by accident, complete accident, like, totally unintended. He pulled back the curtain and, voila! York's dick, everything North had hinted it would be. And God, the fucking smirk York gave Wash- Wash hadn't been able to stop thinking about that dick for weeks because of that smirk.

He showed up in the mess hall two days later and knew he had a challenge before him. Mess hall was serving bananas. Wash always ate with his helmet on- not due to insecurities, but due to the Director's pointed induction of Wash: "An' so lahng ahs heh kehps is hellmit awn an thaht gawd-fuhsaykyen faise aht uh mah sat, heh cahn be uh Frieelahnceauh." So Wash had to find a way to eat a banana seductively while wearing a helmet.

This went about as well as you would think, for a socially awkward cat-loving dickophile, but damn did he manage. York noticed- whether his reaction was good or disgusted, Wash couldn't really tell, he was focusing on not dying while eating this banana. North caught Wash in the hall afterwards and congratulated him on his performance, and Wash replied that it had probably been his worst ever, of all time.

So about a week went by after that, no real progress made on the dick-front. A weird closet session with Maine, the resident "straight," and an uncomfortable conversation with Carolina, but that was about it. So Wash took more drastic measures.

There was a reason, you see, that York and Pork rhyme.

Wash came into the hall a few days later with his plan in place. He sat down with North and York as usual, took the greetings and insults they welcomed him with, and then withdrew a hot pink bendy straw from his pocket and inserted it to his drink. He saw the strangled look North had, like that one meme of the guy sitting in like a computer room or whatever with his veins and eyes bulging out of his head- yeah, North looked about like that.

York, on the other hand, stared with parted lips and wide eyes as Wash took a long swallow through the bendy straw. Wash had never really watched porn, so he didn't know just how pornographic what he was doing managed to look, but he'd seduced quite a few dick-bearers, and he pretty much knew what to do.

And the best part? It worked.

About twenty minutes after dinner had ended, York found Wash in the bathrooms and demanded to know: "Why?"

"Your-" Wash paused and rephrased. "You are uniquely impressive."

Because, after all, York was a dick.

"So- you-"

"Yes."

"But you can't take off your helmet. You can't suck dick with a helmet on."

Wash lowered down to his knees. "Oh really?"

Seducing York was easy; he was pretty basic. A few kisses planted here, use of his nails, a little hand-work. York was soon whining for Wash do whatever the fuck it was he was going to do. Which meant it was time to SUCC.

Wash tugged down York's shorts and the Dick itself whirled into view.

Wash wasn't really sure how a human had a corkscrew dick and he wasn't going to ask- he just knew it would probably work about like a bendy straw and that meant he could work with it. He threaded it through the hole at the bottom of his helmet and into his mouth and York made a soft noise like a cow.

Wash was particularly good at sucking dick and he proved it then. A lil slurp-slurp, using his hands to supplmement where his mouth couldn't reach, pulling and releasing. A basic, instinctive motion for a basic slut like York- a basic slut with an impressive corkscrew penis.

It was considerably underwhelming just how quickly York came. Wash swallowed, because that was one of his many talents, and then carefully removed the corkscrew dick from his helmet and rose to his feet.

Wilbert Neiss was a shrewd, unfriendly fellow, whose only redeeming qualities weren't his at all, but manifested in his step-daughter Daisy and his roost of prize-winning hens.

And he appreciated neither in any significant way.

Oh, the girl was alright. She had strong muscles from farming and would do the chores asked of her. A rebellious thing, always thinking too much, often drawing, and a peculiar attraction to older women. Wilbert hoped she would grow out of her unorthodox ways. He hoped that forcing her to spend copious amounts of time with the chickens would bore her to the point of becoming boring, and, while she would be even less interesting, she would at least be tolerable. Perhaps he could marry off a boring girl.

The hens, on the other hand, were initially quite what you'd expect hens to be. They were a common brown variety; he kept one rooster with them, allowing it only an hour with the hens a day. He hated roosters- cocky, nasty things, always spurring people when they didn't expect it. The hens clucked and pecked and squawked and shat all over the place. Quite ordinary indeed. A fat lot, fat enough that each year he'd take a few to the fair and win a few prizes, usually sell the best to a butcher sometime the following week. Daisy hated that.

And then came Henrietta.

The day Daisy came flouncing to the porch with news that one of the eggs had hatched, Wilbert already boasted a foul mood. He wanted nothing to do with the hens that day, only to do with his newspaper and his coffee. Daisy, with her strong arms and boyish hair, flounced up and held her chin high.

"Peggy's had her first chick!"

Daisy was neither fond nor forgiving toward Wilbert Neiss. He was her step-father, and their quarters would bind them for at least another year, and they were all each other had left besides the hens, but she felt no affection for him. He was a shrewd, unfriendly fellow, and she a rebellious girl, and so they did not get along. Still, in bouts of happiness, when good news happened by, she sometimes got carried away in her excitement and came to him with the good news. It was always a mistake.

"Toss it in the swamp," Wilbert said, sipping his black coffee, as bitter as his expression. "No need for more."

"It's a hen," Daisy said. She sought better reasoning. "Peggy's getting on in her years. She might not have anymore."

"Mightn't survive anyhow. Don't give it a name or no special care. If it dies, it dies. Now get back to mindin' the chickens, ya slavenly-"

And what came next was unpleasant enough to be left out of this tale. Wilbert Neiss said things not so nice, and Daisy responded with red-faced expletives and the whole scene was far from pretty. Daisy returned to the pen with ruffled feathers and a mind to throw Wilbert in the swamp.

She knelt in front of the chick, still only a day old, and made a promise to it then and there.

"You will always be safe here, and you will always be loved." She looked at Peggy. "We'll name her Henrietta."

And so it began.

uvu

For the next few months, Henrietta grew from a plucky young chick to a pretty young hen. Each day, she woke with her mother, enjoyed a meal of whatever was available, and spent time with Daisy. Daisy talked to her and she squawked back and sometimes she could swear Daisy actually understood. She was not fond of Daisy's step-father- he was cruel, and he kicked her, and sometimes he hypnotized her, and one time he stuck her in a box and she remained there for two days and thought she might die.

Daisy remained the light of her life through her lengthy early years. It felt as though an eternity passed, but it had only been seven months. The annual fair approached. Henrietta was average for a chicken, perhaps a bit plump, but her fellow hens were significantly larger than her. The rooster came in each day, and Henrietta knew she was gaining a shapely figure when he started to notice her like the other hens. Still, she was the youngest hen in the roost, and the smallest, and she felt it.

Daisy understood. Henrietta would squawk and bawk and cluck and scrape her foot on the ground and Daisy would tell her that it's okay, that we all feel small sometimes. Daisy was good for that. Henrietta's biological mother, Peggy, was also good, but not half as talkative as Daisy. The other chickens sometimes shunned Henrietta for being so close to a human- but Henrietta and Daisy had a bond that could not be broken.

Then Daisy started to talk about the war.

Frown lines started to groove her forehead and sometimes her eyes lost their light and color. Daisy's eyes were a warm shade of brown, like molasses and honey, and sometimes they were as colorless as peat when her emotions stole them away. It was the day Daisy came crying that her brother, a distant figure Henrietta had heard about but never met, had died for the war- that was the day Henrietta made the promise.

She would fight for this war. For Daisy's brother.

She warred with herself first. Henrietta was only a hen, after all- what could she do? But Daisy had never doubted her. As soon as Henrietta told Daisy of her new goal, Daisy wept a while and then began to teach her to make it on her own. By the time she was a year old, Henrietta had learned to read, do math, pick locks, and reach most surfaces on her own. The other hens distanced themselves even more; Peggy, never the brightest egg in the dozen, entirely forgot Henrietta was hers.

But Henrietta went unswayed. She tried harder and harder until she and Daisy could communicate entirely clearly. And then she started her plan to leave.

Daisy showed her how to get out, and the map that would lead her to the nearest recruitment office. Henrietta had no doubt that, once she got there, everything would go smoothly. It HAD to- she can't have tried so hard for so long to fail now. She refused to fail.

But Wilbert Neiss was a shrewd, unfriendly fellow. And one day he tromped down the chicken pens to retrieve Daisy and berate her for leaving a single cup by the sink, and he saw a quite unexpected sight: a chicken performing arithmetic.

He saw his fortune that day.

He berated her more for not telling him, for teaching the chicken in private, and he knew his argument was right because he was louder than her and whoever is louder is right, as that is the rule of arguments.

He readied for the trip. He'd have to take her all the way to Washington, D.C., and show her off in all her feathered intelligence to the president himself. Because Wilbert Neiss was shrewd and unfriendly, and he was also below the level of intelligence, evidently, of the common chicken. And the only logical response to seeing a chicken do math was to sell it to the government for money. (He didn't know that giving Henrietta to the military would be entirely aligned with her goals.)

Wilbert locked Daisy in her room so she couldn't warn the bird and he started to pack. Elsewhere in the house came a distinct pecking, and he tried to ignore it as he filled his bag- but it grew louder. Peck. Peck. Peck. Shirts, trousers, need socks- peck. Peck-peck-peck. PECK.

And then he realized.

Wilbert ran down the halls to stop Daisy, but it was too late. Henrietta, down in the yard in the pen, had received the message.

She pecked and pulled and tugged and bit but the wire that held the pen in place would not come undone. Frantic, she squawked for the other chickens to help- to no avail. Wilbert tromped closer to the end of the house, and Henrietta beat her wings and pulled and shrieked and-

A heavy thump came from within the house and something red splattered against the window of the backdoor. Henrietta stared in frozen horror. Red liquid dripped down the pane.

Daisy opened the door with hands on her hips and triumphant smile, the remains of a watermelon broken behind her, Wilbert Neiss collapsed on the floor.

And Henrietta knew everything would be fine.

uvu

Life, for a time, offered simplicity and peace.

Another year passed.

Old Man Wilbert Neiss moved into a nearby facility for the elderly, as that went more smoothly than a correctional facility or any sort of mental ward. Henrietta fattened and grew and learned and every day moved closer to the point of blending with human society. She never lost sight of her goal- not even when she laid eggs for the first time.

She was a good mother, and no one would disagree with that. Daisy stayed close, keeping an eye on Henrietta and her babies as they hatched and grew. She had never been so proud. Every day she knew she couldn't possibly love anything more, and every day she loved them more than the day before.

They were a month old and fluffing out beautifully when Daisy came to the pen with bad news.

Daisy opened the door and sat down right there in the muck with Henrietta and the other chickens. Several, including Peggy, raced forward to greet Daisy, expecting food. When she had none, they toddled off to their previous positions.

Henrietta eyed her chicks, pecking around the pen, and hopped over to Daisy, perching on her leg. "Bawk?"

Daisy sighed and reached down, running an idle hand over Henrietta's back. "Henrietta- things aren't... Going to be okay."

Concern rippled through Henrietta and she forced her feathers to lie flat. "...Bawk?"

Daisy shook once, forcing down a sob, and her voice came soft: "They're coming."

Henrietta jumped up. "BAWWWK! Cluck-ha-bawk! Ba-Gawk! Hawk-bawk-ba-GAWK!"

She pecked Daisy hard and Daisy jumped up. "Hey!"

"BAWK-GAWK!"

Daisy groaned. "What's the point? We can never make it out on time-"

"BAWK! BAWK BAWK BAWK!"

Daisy reached back and pulled the latch, opening the pen. She gestured to it. "Go, then. Go free. I'm... Staying here."

Henrietta felt torn. She couldn't force Daisy to leave- but she couldn't stay and leave her chicks to be slaughtered.

She had to pick her children.

She pressed her head to Daisy's arm and jumped down toward the door, calling her chicks to her. Three looked up at her with bright eyes and made soft chirping noises. She clucked emphatically, scuffed the ground, called them forward. One by one they came along. She glanced around and didn't see anymore and jumped out of the pen, trotting off toward the trees, stopping now and then to make sure her children followed.

They had just reached the tree-line when she realized she only had three.

There should've been four.

"BWAK!"

There- out in the field between the pen and the trees- the fourth tripped over its feet in its hurry to get to her. Henrietta commanded the others to stay where they were and raced for their final sibling-

uvu

She was too late that day. And it haunted her forever after.

Too late to save any of them.

Her nest sat empty, the roost quieter. Most of its old inhabitants were gone. None had left willingly.

For weeks, Henrietta wept, in the ways a chicken could. She barely ate. She barely slept. She barely drank. She just sat in her empty nest, filled only with her regrets. She lost the shapely plumpness that had brought the rooster's attraction. She didn't want it- she didn't want more eggs. She'd already had the perfect chicks and lost them. She couldn't bare that heartbreak again.

By luck of a shotgun, Daisy had survived. She'd gotten the motivation not to give up at the last second and sprinted for the house, coming out with a POW that downed an alien and didn't save Henrietta's chicks. Henrietta didn't blame Daisy. She blamed those damned aliens, and herself for leaving her fourth chick behind anyway.

One night, she could no longer stand to sit and do nothing.

She rose from her nest and hopped to the ground. It was time. Her goal had not changed- if anything, it was amplified now. The loss of her chicks would not go without vengeance.

She fluttered around and pecked Peggy goodbye. Peggy clucked and tilted her head to the side.

"Bawk-cawk," Henrietta said. "Bawk."

And her mother clucked again, not understanding a thing, and tried to eat a rock.

Henrietta proceeded to tear through the wiring with ferocity. She could just pick the lock- but she had a duty to the hens she'd grown up with. She picked and pulled and picked and pulled. Henrietta moved faster. Peck- pull- peck- pull- peck-

Beak together, she screeched, "BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK-"

And with a SNAP, the final piece of wire broke.

Henrietta tore the rest of it away and jumped through. It scraped her sides and she lost a few feathers, but she was free, and had widened the opening in the process.

For a heartbeat she stood under the starlight, her talons sinking into dew-blanketed glass, and looked up at the moon and understood she was free. Something most chickens never felt now graced her fellows: raw, untainted freedom.

She turned to her fellows. "Bawk? Baw-gawk?"

They huddled closer together in a corner. They would not come with her. She turned to them in earnest and tried one more time.

"BAWK!" She scuffed her foot across the ground. "Ba-cawk! Hawk-bock!"

They would not come. She had to go.

She looked at her mother one final time. This was goodbye.

And Henrietta charged into the trees and the future that awaited.

She didn't know yet about Allison, or Leonard, or Carolina, or anything that would come to pass. She didn't know about Project Freelancer or the role she would play in it. She knew only that she was free, and she had a goal. She would never see Daisy again- but she would never forget that humans can be compassionate, and humans can be good.

Sometimes everyone feels small.

It was Price's fault.

It was that goddamn counselor and his creepy eyes and monotonous yet condescending tone. It was all his fault. His entirely. No one else could be to blame, no one's poor impulse control or need for challenge. It was all Aiden Goddamn Price's fault.

It was Price's fault South Dakota was now in an ice cream eating competition with 479er.

South Dakota rapidly shoveled in spoonful after spoonful of Rocky Road while 479er, across from her, ate the equally challenging birthday cake ice cream. Gallon-size containers, because this is what professionals did. This is how a goddamn professional behaved. Chowing the fuck down on some Rocky Road to assert dominance over a smirking, cocky pilot, who was way too hot to win an ice cream eating contest. This competition was so South Dakota's to win. Fuck you.

South swallowed down bite after bite, so hurried she barely breathed, glancing up now and then to see 479er's tactics, methods, weaknesses. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. South didn't graduate top of her class to lose to a goddamn-

"Done."

South froze. "No!"

479er's spoon dropped to the ground and the empty container rolled across the table. South had never experienced pure hatred until that moment.

The other Freelancers cheered, laughed, paid off bets. South sat, red with fury, as the cocky asshole of a pilot accepted praise and high-fives and so on. She met South's eyes with that same stupid fucking smirk.

South knew what to do next.

She knew what she had to do. She couldn't do it here, but it would be done soon. She sat back in her quiet fury and planned it already.

South let the competition come to its end, the celebrations and uproar linger and dwindle. She waited as the crowd dispersed, as everyone moved on. She waited as life aboard the MOI resumed. As missions happened, trips, struggle, strife. She waited. She waited. She bided her time, till even Price had vanished from her life, till her brother became a memory. She waited.

And then the moment arrived.

"Theta? Close your eyes. You don't wanna see this."

Price's words lingered in her ears as South sauntered forward. 479er spoke up, "Oh! South! It's so good to-"

And not another word was spoken.

South consumed the pilot in her entirety, engulfed her, swallowed her down like a big ol' purple snake. Theta didn't close his eyes. He screamed. But the AI was not to stop her as South succed down 479er's toes, swallowing the final remnants of the pilot that had once been.

Price's words, the words that started it all, rang in her ears:

"Even 479er shows more dedication to maintaining a healthy diet than you."