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Fuck Them For Their Slavery

November 9th: Veteran's Day

"Thank you for your service," the cashier said.

Vassk stopped in his tracks, one hand on his bag and the other twitching at his side. The customer behind him had already started unloading his groceries, but try as he might, he couldn't just leave. Not after hearing that, not again.

"What did you say?" he asked, turning his head.

He'd give him one chance. One chance to walk it back, one chance not to sound like some idiot civilian that had bought the hype and the lies and everything else.

The human behind the till didn't take it.

"Oh, uh, I said 'Thank you for your service.' I thought -"

"No, you didn't."

"What - sir, I'm sorry. I just -"

"Calm down, man," the next guy in line, a young man in his twenties said. "So what if he got it wrong? Cool off. Hey, you can say it to me next year; I'm signing up after I'm done with this."

"...He wasn't wrong," Vassk muttered.

His fingers found the end of the weapon tucked just behind his pocket. They couldn't see it, of course; none of them would see through the field projecting an illusion around it. Just like none of them could see the real him through the abilities his species had to change their shape. He shook his head.

"It wasn't service. Never is."

"Come on. It's serving your country. Sure, it's a little shit sometimes, but -"

Defending it. That was the thing that he couldn't take. That was the thing that he'd never, ever take.

The gun came out, and he jammed it past the human's mouth. It lodged between his teeth, and he pulled the trigger. The subsequent pulse did no physical damage, but whatever else the customer was going to say disappeared, as did everything else in that excuse for a mind behind that skull.

He ripped the barrel free, turning it toward the clerk before he could make a move. Despite that, he never took his eyes off the idiot in front of him.

"The fact that they still get people to walk into the noose without a thought." Vassk shook his head. "And that stupid fucking phrase. 'Thank you for your service.' Thank you. For what? For what?"

"S-sir, you need to -"

"Shut up."

Vassk was shaking. He was overreacting, and he knew it. Nobody needed to be shot, even with something so minor as a neural redirector, but for something so fucking shit as this, he couldn't just ignore it. Couldn't look away. Couldn't let it just keep happening because someone thought they were hot shit and thought they could handle it.

"It isn't 'service.' It never was. That'd mean that they wanted 'servants,' servants of the state, servants of the people. Servants follow orders, sure, but they still get to think. They still get to be something other than goddamn tools.

"They never wanted servants. They wanted slaves. They wanted things that forgot how to question, forgot what it meant to be a person. 'Thank you for your service'? Fuck no. Fuck them for their slavery. Fuck them for making a world where it looks good to go out and do what they ask for a fucking pittance.

"If you're going to sell your heart, body, and soul, at least get a good price for it. And you...you stupid little..." Vassk's fingers tightened around the trigger, only to loosen up again. "You stay home. You never, ever go down to the recruiter. And you find a different job. Fucking model, for fuck's sake. I don't care. But never, ever go there."

"..."

"And you." He turned to the cashier. He adjusted the barrel of the gun so that it was aimed properly, right at the human's forehead. "You're going to forget that."

"Sir -"

Vassk pulled the trigger. The same blue pulse that had scrambled the idiot's mind did the same to the cashier. He whispered the same command, grabbed his bags, and walked through the screaming crowd of onlookers.

By the time he left the store, he wore a different face, and his neural redirector was hidden beneath the same field it had been in. He took a deep breath, his shoulders rising up before falling again.

"I need some anger management or something..."

Shaking his head, he glanced at the banner on the side of the store. 'Veterans Day Sale,' it said. What a joke, selling everything you were for a tiny discount every so often, and maybe, just maybe, a hint of a future if you were damn lucky and didn't get lost in the system.

Shaking his head, the alien turned down the street. Better to get lost before the cops showed up. If his transformation had been caught on camera, he needed to put some distance between him and the store and pull another one. Time to start thinking about getting out of town again.

This veteran had had too many days like this already.