Sledge

 “Excuse me…ma’am? Ma’am…the line’s…umm…”

    Shifting her two bags onto a single shoulder, a young vacationer extended her now-free hand to prod at the top of a very plush, empty armchair that was inexplicably located in the middle of the ticketing queue. Perhaps even stranger, however, was the sound of snoring emanating from it, and the small face that proceeded to form along the top of its back, mouth open wide in the midst of a lengthy yawn. Smacking its lips once or twice, the face spoke up with a gruff, irritated tone.

    “Zzz- hrm…? Whaddya want? We actually moving?”

    “Err, yes…if you wouldn’t mind just scooching forward…you’re almost up next…”

    “Jeez, finally. ‘Bout time we got somewhere- what’s taking them so long?”

    With a shudder, the armchair began to stir, its shape distorting in a fluid, lively fashion; melting, yet also gaining height simultaneously as its rounded features slimmed down and defined themselves. The base split in two, the arms lengthened, and the back narrowed down, the two golden buttons inset across it splitting into four as the face began to rise and swell into a more distinct region at its top. The colors of the cushions swirled across the surface, correcting themselves, and a rosy peach tone spread along the ends of three of the five distinct appendages that were taking shape. Within seconds, a female figure was dusting itself off where the piece of furniture once was, dressed in a sharp brown pantsuit accompanied by a short red jacket, and a tightly-styled blonde pixie cut atop her head.

    Waggling her hand, a watch breached to the surface of her wrist.

    Just past midnight…I must have dozed off for a moment…

    She tapped the watch face back down into her arm with her finger, and soft material she was made of sealed itself smoothly together, leaving no trace of accessory behind as it was tucked away for safekeeping. As she had been pulling herself back together into a walkable, talkable form, the last two people in front of her had cleared away, leaving her, at long last, at the front of the winding line.

    “Can I help the next customer?”

    The woman stepped up to the counter, her face initially barely reaching over the surface, but a simple stretch of the legs soon had her looking the attendant face to face.

    “Yes, hi. I believe I have a reservation? Twelve-thirty flight to New York?”

    “Name please?”

    “I should be down as ‘Sledge’.”

    Clacking a few keys on the keyboard in front of him, the attendant’s brow furrowed.

    “I’m not getting anything. First name, maybe?”

    “Oh- then ‘Marianne’.”

    He tapped his way through the list once again.

    “Nothing like that seems to be listed here…are you sure you’re--”

    Sledge sighed.

    “…try ‘Ternal’.”

    There were few more keystrokes.

    “Ah, found it! Let me just get that printed for you.”

    Of course. He just HAS to put his name on everything, doesn’t he.

    A ticket was soon noisily churned out and handed to her, which she proceeded to mutteringly read to herself.

    “Departing from SFO…no stops…boards at twelve-thirty…arrival at JFK.”

    Everything seemed to be in order, but then her eyes fell on the bottom of the paper.

    Checked Bags: 1

    Passengers: 0

    He DIDN’T…

    Sledge looked up from the ticket in her hands to see the attendant motioning her over to the luggage conveyor belt.

    “Ma’am, there is a line behind you. If you could please finish checking yourself in…”

    A whole host of unpleasant words bubbled up in the back of her mind, but Sledge wisely filtered them from coming out. She knew there was little point in arguing. Stepping behind the counter, she climbed atop the stopped belt, sitting with a pout as the attendant grabbed a tag from a disorganized stack and began tying it about her index finger.

    “Umm…we do have a policy to charge a fee for unusually-shaped luggage, and I’m afraid you might not stack properly like…that.”

    “…how much are we talking.”

    “It’s…an extra thirty dollars when on such late notice.”

    She knew she didn’t have that much on her.

    “Fine, fine. I’ll repack.”

    Sledge tucked her head in, curling up smaller as her limbs began to retract, flattening out and leaving her body as a nearly-perfect rectangular box, with only the tagged finger still sticking out for a moment before curving back to serve as a handle. Had it not been for the bright buttons and pair of eyes that still adorned her surface, she would blended in with the other suitcases ahead and behind her perfectly.

    “Here, does this work?”

    The attendant nodded dully, completely unreactive to what should have been a mind blowing display of shapeshiftery no ordinary human should have ever been able to accomplish. That always seemed to be the case with those around her whenever she utilized her body’s malleable nature in public; they acknowledged that she could do the things her powers allowed her to, but never batted an eye at its impossibility. She had come to assume that it must be a clause of her contract- a passive aura of unimpressiveness cast around her to keep her abilities from being too interesting for other people, lest it interfere with her all-important productivity on the job.

    With the click of a switch, the conveyor began rolling, and Sledge was soon passed through the wall behind the counter into a labyrinth of similar belts, bumping into bags and cases as the particular path she was on merged and branched alongside numerous others. Her current belt eventually ended, and she was dropped onto another, leaving her face-down as she continued in another direction. That belt proceeded to deposit her into a truck, and from there she was slung into the cargo hold of an awaiting plane on the tarmac.

    Sledge waited until the hold’s doors had closed and locked before morphing back into a humanoid shape and digging herself out of the small mountain of luggage with a huff. Sitting on a suitcase, she crossed her arms in frustration.

    “‘C’mon Sledgey- it’s just a plane ride! You get to sit all high and comfy for whatever many hours it takes to fly there all on company dime! Heck, YOU should be paying ME!’”

    She raised a hand to her face and watched as she began to mold it into a small figure that took on the likeness of Mr. Ternal’s suit and upper features. Once fully shaped, its mouth flapped open and shut like a sock puppet as she continued in a sarcastic facsimile of her demonic boss’s voice.

    “‘Listen, all I need you to do is run this little gift over to my good friend Liam D. Rich at the Empire State Building before he heads off to the beach for vacation at around six tomorrow- easy peasy, right? Nothing to it! Hey- get it all done fast enough and maybe you can even go see some of the sights around the Big Apple, how about that? Heh-heh-heh! Ahh…I crack myself up sometimes…we all know you don’t get time off. Anyhoo, I have you all booked up on the next redeye from SFO in about two hours, so you’d better get a move on before you miss your fli--’”

    Tragically, Puppet Ternal didn’t get to finish his sentence, as another hand, swollen well past its normal size, suddenly wrapped around him, mashing him into an unrecognizable blob as Sledge reenacted the way she wished some of her meetings with him could go. Sure it was pointless, and hardly professional, but still incredibly cathartic nonetheless.

    “Yeah, sure- ‘high and comfy’, my foot. Some luxury flight this is.”

    Her griping did, however, remind her of the reason she was on the plane to begin with. A pocket formed across the breast of her coat, and she rummaged around inside it until she managed to pull out a tiny box, gift-wrapped with a bright red bow. It seemed to be intact, and a quick shake didn’t cause any dreaded tinklings of shattered glass, so it was fairly safe to assume she was in the clear despite the bumps and tumbles she had gone through while being loaded onto the plane.

    Kinda curious as to what’s in it, but I know if I opened this thing, Ternal’d have my head…and probably not return it for a couple of weeks.

    The plane’s engines began to rumble. From the passenger section above her she heard the faint voice of the in-flight intercom begin to speak.

    “Hello, this is your captain speaking- we’ll be taking off in just a few minutes as we depart for Ha--”

    A pair of headphones morphed into existence around Sledge’s ears- she wasn’t really in the mood to listen to a bunch of squawking about seatbelts and such.

    If anything, I might be able to catch up on some shut-eye over the flight; this isn’t really the coziest place around, bu-uut…I can probably make do.

    Sledge pulled out her watch yet again, set an alarm for five hours, and then stuffed it securely in her own head- if that couldn’t wake her up, she didn’t know what would. She tucked the gift into her pocket and curled herself up tightly to lie down atop the softest suitcase she could find before nodding off to sleep.

    Five hours passed.

    Right on cue, the alarm in her watch began buzzing, nearly rattling Sledge’s eyes straight off of her face as she shot up with a jolt, her head smashing into the low ceiling with a splat atop a lengthened torso. Ears ringing, she reached back inside herself and hit the button to shut the noise off as her body slunk back into proportion, standing up.

    Well…that certainly did the job. We ought to be closing in by now, right?

    In her rising, Sledge accidentally bumped into a short stack of bags, causing something to fall, smacking her in the back of the head. Surprised, she turned around to see what had hit her.

    A…surfboard? Weird. Why would someone be bringing a surfboard…to New York…

    Oh no.

    Sledge whipped her attention to the tag on her finger, and in the dim light of the luggage compartment, read out the destination printed upon it.

    H--HAVANA? THAT KNUCKLEHEAD AT THE DESK GOT ME THROWN ONTO THE WRONG PLANE!

    Breathing heavily, she tried to compose herself.

    Alright. I still have quite a few hours left before my deadline, but the longer I stay here, the more off-track I’m going to end up. I can’t really go out the hatch I came in from- all the other bags in here would get sucked out too and, well, if any complaints got traced back to me, I might as well consider my infinity-year contract bumped up to infinity SQUARED. I’ll just have to find another way to slip on out of here…

    A lightbulb went off over her head- or rather, she noticed the lightbulb above her head.

    That works.

    The lone light illuminating the compartment was held in place by a few screws, but Sledge was never one to be short on tools. A quick morph of the fingers into a screwdriver and an even quicker unscrewing left a just-big-enough-to-fit-a-gift-box-sized hole in the ceiling, and like a water spout upside-down, her body began to pour itself upwards, flowing into the electrical nooks and crannies of the airplane itself. She fumbled around blindly, oozing amorphously in a generally upwards direction until a warm spot below her indicated she had found her endpoint.

    With one more unscrewing, a few dozing passengers were woken up as Sledge’s rope-shaped figure blossomed out of the ceiling from a removed overhead lamp, coiled up in the aisle and sprung back into her regular self. A concerned looking flight attendant walked up to her.

    “Excuse me miss, this is a fully-booked flight, we need everybody to stay in their assigned--”

    “Yeah, don’t bother, this is my stop. Can someone just grab the door behind me?”

    Before anyone could really do anything about it, Sledge walked up to the emergency escape door and cracked it open a few inches. This ordinarily would have been far more difficult for any one person to accomplish alone, but when push came to shove, Sledge could certainly shift herself in a way that packed as much of a wallop as her namesake would imply, and now was certainly a time for shoving. The resulting inches-wide gap didn’t create too much of a vacuum, but it was just enough to fling her malleable form off its feet, suck her through, and rocket her into the vast early-morning expanse beyond before slamming closed.

    The few passengers nearest the door looked up, confused about the random gust of wind, and then promptly went back to sleep.

    Sledge meanwhile, after popping out the other side of the door, was plummeting at over a hundred miles per hour towards the veritable wall of Earth spread in all directions below her. She however was completely unfazed by her unchecked descent, her expression being one of mild annoyance than anything more dire. After all, given a substantial résumé involving experience as a crane worker, window washer, a literal parachute, and far too many other jobs to count, it was far from the only long fall from a high place she had experienced. It was her first fall from an airplane specifically, but after one walks away from a thousand-plus-foot drop no worse for wear once, the rest tend to somewhat blend together, no matter how ludicrously large the altitudes get.

    First taking the most important step of making sure all of her belongings were still on her person even through all the squeezing and sliding it took to get off the plane, Sledge then set about orienting herself as she tumbled head over heels through the air. Thumb disappearing, the four other fingers on her left hand flattened out and stretched wide, becoming roughly the size and shape of palm leaves. Her newly-formed propeller caught the wind, and began spinning in place on her wrist, her less-than-entirely-solid nature keeping the rest of her body from doing the same as she rapidly decelerated into a gentle, drifting float. Finally stable and upright, she scanned the horizon.

    Let’s see…It’s still fairly in the morning and the sun is over that-a-way…

    Her other hand unfurled into a large sheet, stenciled with a map of North America. It was likely at least a bit inaccurate given that she didn’t have every coastline and border committed to memory, but she vaguely knew where she had started, where she wanted to be, and where her plane had been headed, so it fit her needs well enough.

    I’ll certainly have to find myself a some kind of actual transport, but for now if I just go in a north-ish direction I should be headed somewhat in the right way…

    She looked down, seeing that the ground looked no closer than it had a minute ago.

      …that is, if I don’t waste the entire day floating around aimlessly.

    Feeling precious seconds tick away, she knew she would have to pick up the pace. The propellers shrunk back down, and she curled up into a sphere, causing her to drop from the sky like a very soft stone, wind streaming past her all on all sides as the world came barreling towards her. From there, she shortly reached the ground, landing in a river with a tremendous splash as the impact fully unfolded her from her circular form. Righting herself as she floated back to the surface, a spot of bright red caught her eyes.

    Huh…kind of looks like the--THE GIFT BOX!

    With no time to catch a breath, she sprung into action, fins forming as she dove underwater, and seconds later a clay dolphin was blazing downstream. There probably were other, better, faster shapes she could have taken, but when it came to a split-second decision, it was the first thing that came to mind for ‘fast in the water’. Gaining what she assumed was a big enough lead, she swerved to a stop before stretching in every direction, grabbing both of the river’s opposite edges. She spread wider and wider, transforming into a thin wall, opening a few tiny holes, smaller than the box, across herself to let the water filter through. A light tapping by her shoulder caught her attention, and to her relief, it was the gift, which she quickly snatched up before pulling her entire body to one side of the riverbank.

    Twisting her midsection around a couple dozen times to wring herself dry, she put the gift back in her pocket.

    That was WAAAY too close…but it’s still not over yet. Still got a great deal of travel ahead of me.

    She looked back towards the river.

    Probably shouldn’t go with that route. Even that short stint in the river was enough to get me feeling a little softer than I’d like…It seems like I’m going to have to hit the road.

    Fortunately, said road was not far at all, laying only yards away from the river she had crawled out of, and even better, ran north-south if the sun was to be believed. It was a good sign- surely someone along this highway would be heading to the same place she was.

    Finding a long, straight stretch to make herself visible by, Sledge settled down on the side of the road and stuck out a thumb.

    No takers.

    After a half hour of not a single car even slowing down as they passed her by, it was clear some more dramatic measures were needed to be taken. Over the next several minutes, drivers were greeted by the sign of a woman with her arm transformed into a large arrow shaped sign, a small billboard reading ‘NYC Please!’, and even a flat, miniature recreation of the city’s skyline. Even if people never questioned her powers, a flashier display was still at least bound to turn at least a few heads. Finally, one agonizing hour later, a beat-up van rolled off to the side of the road, and a college-age looking man in a purple sweater rolled down the window.

    “Heeeey, I recognize those buildings! We’re headed there too- need a ride?”

    Sledge quickly took him up on the offer, morphing back into human shape and sliding into the back seat. As they pulled back onto the road, the bumps and rattles of the van’s ancient-sounding engines gave her some rise for concern, but the two owners didn’t seem at all bothered by it. Feeling somewhat anxious, Sledge poked the shoulder the person riding shotgun, a young woman in a green dress about the same age as the man, who Sledge later found out was her fiance, at the wheel.

    “Hey, so…I kind of have a deadline. You know if we’re going to make it there by six?”

    Looking up from a painting she was somehow managing to work on despite the earthquake-levels of motion, she smiled chipperly, and shouted over the van’s blasting music.

    “Shouldn’t be any issue there- as long as we don’t hit any hitches, everything should be smooth sailing!”

    Six hours in, they hit a hitch.

    The three of them stood outside the van, inspecting the damages.

    “Well, considering the truck that crashed ahead of us was carrying nothing but a shipment of nails, I guess we should consider ourselves lucky only one tire blew, right?…right?”

    Sledge rubbed at her forehead.

    “Just please tell me you have a spare.”

    The man scratched the back of his head with a embarrassed grin. “Yeah…about that…we needed the extra space for canvases.” His face lit up with inspiration. “Say…”

    Oh boy. Here it comes.

    “…you turned into that fancy roadside display, right? You wouldn’t happen to be able to--”

    Sledge sighed.

    “On it.”

    Hand turning into a wrench, she unbolted the old tire and flung it off to the side of the road, her foot wedged under the van in the shape of a jack to keep it stable. She then flowed underneath, wrapping herself around and around the axle in loop after loop until a swirly circle had taken the discarded tire’s place.

    “Alright, get in and tell me if we’re leveled out, and, well…try to drive a little more carefully, ‘k?”

    The next few hours were a bit of a blur for Sledge, quite literally, as she spun around and around, feeling quite glad she had never been all that prone to motion sickness. Every so often the spinning would stop, revealing a new location: a flat plain, a long bridge, a small town- though over time she stopped really paying attention and just let her mind wander. Eventually, they came to another, albeit far noisier, stop, with the sounds of dozens of car horns snapping Sledge out of her daydreaming. Looking out from where she was situated, she suddenly found herself facing dozens of skyscrapers looming on high all around her.

    New York. She had made it.

    But…

    After taking in the sights above her, her gaze fell to her current level. In every direction there were cars, honking angrily and crawling mere inches at a time down the street they were on.

    AAAAGH! I came this far only to hit the world’s worst traffic jam!? It would be faster to walk at this point! But then again…I couldn’t leave these nice folk with only three wheels…

    Over the clamor, a clock tower bell rang five times. She was down to an hour.

    …yeah, scratch that- I totally can.

    Sledge poured herself off the car, rapidly forming herself back upright atop two lengthening legs, walking as if on stilts over the mess of cars below.

    “Sorry folks! Hope someone can help you get towed!”

    Clearing a block every few strides, she made her way deeper into the city, keeping an eye out for her iconic destination, stepping over crowded sidewalks and crosswalks without even waiting for a light. Her neck stretched upwards, peeking over the tops of buildings for any sight of where she was headed, until at long last, she found it. Shrinking down to her normal size, she entered the historic skyscraper through the front doors of the lobby towards the elevators in the back. While she waited, she got out the gift, reading over the still slightly-dampened tag for the exact address.

    Room 6606…why am I not surprised.

    Looking up at the sound of a ding, she saw a set of elevator doors closing in front of her.

    “No, wait--!”

    She dove forward, reaching out to try and get in before it shut completely. Stretching out, she closed the distance, and cleared the entranceway- or at least, partially.

    Sledge’s disembodied head dropped to the floor with a soft plop as the doors shut completely on her outstretched neck. A businessman next to her yawned.

    “What floor, ma’am?”

    “…just hit two…” she replied, muffled with her face in the elevator carpet.

    The two stood and lay in awkward silence as some kitschy elevator music began to play over some tinny speakers.

    “So, uhh…Don’t think I’ve seen you around here before…are you-?”

    “Pretty sure you’d remember the person with their head falling off. I’m from out of town.”

    “Ah, right. Makes sense. Umm…how about this weath--”

    Fortunately, the elevator reached the second floor, where the rest of Sledge’s body stood, having walked up the stairs on its own. Picking her head up, she squashed it back on her shoulders, and returned to the stairwell.

    Not sure why I even bothered with the stupid elevator to begin with- that sort of nonsense ALWAYS seems to end up happening whenever I mess around with machinery.

     With sixty-four floors left between her and her goal, she began stretch the remaining distance, not even bothering with the stairs themselves as her torso climbed the railings. Every so often she had to pull her lower half to catch up and re-ground herself on a higher floor. She wasn’t quite sure how long her maximum stretchable distance was, but when it came to going straight up, she often found herself losing balance quite fast.

    She checked her watch again.

    Ten minutes- I can still make it!

    Vaulting herself over one last railing, she stood at a door labeled ‘66’, and slithered on through, not even waiting for her lower half to finish fully retracting. Bolting down the hallway, she looked over the office numbers, starting at one, and going up to-

    6606! There it is!

    She raised a hand to knock at the door, but before she could, it opened, and a man stepping out before stumbling in surprise, not expecting to see someone there. Instantly, she could tell this was the person she was looking for. He wasn’t dressed too unusually, with a dark green coat and a tie patterned curiously enough with a squid pattern, but he had that same sort of aura she often felt around her boss- an aura that betrayed their supernatural origins.

    “Are you Mr. L. Rich?”

    “I am, but I’m afraid I’m not seeing any more clients--”

    “Oh, nonono, I’m not here for that- here. Package for you- from Mr. Ternal.”

    “Ah! Mr Big Shot Devil himself- why didn’t you say so! How’s Ternal holding up?”

    “Just peachy…unfortunately”

    “Hmm? Sorry, didn’t catch that. Anyways, let’s see what that sly demon got for little ‘ol me…”

    Rich untied the bow on the box, opening it up to reveal a note reading “Soul Bargainer of the Month!” and a shiny dark turquoise pair of cufflinks, which he proceeded to put on, holding them up to the light and admiring the sparkle.

    “Well, whaddayaknow- they look great! Good thing I caught you coming out- I was just about to head off for the week. I trust it wasn’t much trouble getting here?”

    Sledge took a long, long, sigh.

    “No sir…no trouble at all…”