Ch 10

Ben had never been more pissed than the day he had to work and missed the hype surrounding the trillionth post. Sure, the Thread Replay allowed him to re-watch it in real time the next day, but it wasn't the same as actually being there. Truthfully, he, and many other anonymous users, thought the thread replay function had been developed entirely as a way to increase the financial burden of creating Endchan, and it wasn't the only feature which was suspected of such; the random language generator was an exceptionally egregious example, as well as the 'Pepe Narration' feature, which would take any pepe the frog image and animate it as it narrated your post, in the language of your choice.

Ben, for his part, thought the dead mom meme was a hoax. It wouldn't even be a particularly sophisticated hoax, as far as imageboard pranks went. He worried, somewhat justifiably, that the more extreme members of the community had actually killed their mothers as a sort of next level, meta, prank.

“So, meta is like when you take part in a meme ironically, right? Meta-Meta, is when you let the meme become your literal reality and control your actions-”

“Nobody cares, Ben!” Louden said with a loud huff, arm propped against her face as she leaned against the window in the passenger seat of his Honda.

They had all piled into Ben's Honda, all five of them; Vaughan was driving and Ben was smoking in the front seat. McCrea and Polk were in the back as well, McCrea in the middle. They were driving down a highway that saw basically no traffic, and was generally considered one of the most pointless roads leading out of Hope. Unofficially, it was called the Indiana Jones. The truck popped and jumped as it passed over potholes and broken asphalt, giving Louden a headache and causing everyone in the back to bump into one another occasionally.

“What are we looking for, Polk?” Vaughan asked. It didn't seem like he particularly cared. Vaughan had long ago stopped worrying about things. It would never become apparent, but Ben knew all too well about the numb sickness of nihilism that had taken root. Ben pulled another hit, and offered it to Vaughan, who took it gratefully.

“It's a mountain, real far out in the desert on the right,” Polk said, eyes bright, rolling down her automatic window. “I don't really know how to describe it, but it was really interesting.”

“They're barely mountains,” Louden said, grabbing the joint out of Vaughan's mouth and taking a deep hit, “Just little hills some people make a big deal about,” she said in her exhale, voice dramatically deepened through the smoke.

Ben and Polk both gave Louden a look. Her resentment of Polk had been growing at a steady, irrational pace for several months now. Best Ben could tell, she was growing to hate Polk for the same reason Ben had grown to love her.

“Well,” McCrea said, looking sheepish and emphasizing his squinting against the harsh sun, interrupting the catfight before the hissing started, “I know I should have learned my lesson by now, living in the desert and all," he said, trailing off.

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“No worries,” Vaughan said, pulling off his pair of tinted safety glasses and giving them to McCrea. Vaughan then grabbed another pair, there were half a dozen laying around near the front of the car, and put them on.

“Why did you give him yours, and why do you have so many of these up here,” Louden said, glancing over at the movement of Vaughan's hand when he reached for the glasses, in her direction. Vaughan didn't seem like he was going to bother responding, so Ben spoke up, primarily to keep the momentum of the conversation going.

“Because they're mandatory on the site,” Ben said, referencing his job in construction, “and they're free, and I forget to take them off. Polk,” he said as he turned and looked at her “What did the mountain look like?”

Polk had been surprisingly tight lipped about the entire thing, saying she didn't want to influence their perceptions or make them look for something that might not even be there. She looked like she was about to break, when Vaughan began to slow the vehicle down, pulling off the road. Her eyes brightened, and she practically jumped out of the car. The rest of them followed, in varying shades of high to contact high, their senses taking a moment to parse the new information.

They just stood there, getting scorched by the desert heat, as they stared off in the distance.

Way off in the distance, a mountain had broken desert dress code. It stood out as though outlined by the shimmering mirage seen on hot roads while driving, the entire mountain in higher resolution than it's surroundings. The sky above it was a weird, vivid aquamarine that stood out plainly against the blue sky.

Pure, absent-minded force of habit caused Ben to reach into his pocket and pull out another joint, light it with hands that trembled, and took a puff. Vaughan kept pulling his sunglasses down and squinting, then putting them back up for a moment, and repeating the process. McCrea, always carrying paper and pencil, had them out and seemed unable to write anything. Louden hawked a lougie, spat it, and sniffed.

“Well,” Vaughan said, looking over to Polk, who seemed charged with energy “You weren't wrong. I did know it when I saw it.”

“How far out do you think that is,” Ben asked, looking between Vaughan and McCrea, who both shrugged.

“Too far to make it out today, I'd wager,” McCrea said after some thought.

“Yeah,” Vaughan said, scratching his chin, “That's at least a day trip, the terrain looks crazy rough.”

“We'd need a case of water,” Ben said, getting caught up in the zeitgeist of the unspoken plan, “Probably some food too. If we were really serious about it, we'd pack some hiking gear.” Louden's face turned dark, then brightened considerably.

“Weird mountain party?” she said, “Oh, count me in. You can bring the hydration, I'll bring the liquor. And the party animals,” she said, making a 'rawr' motion with her hands.

“We could all just go together,” Polk said hopefully “You know, just as friends? We can still drink.”

Vaughan looked at Louden, Louden looked at McCrea, McCrea looked at Ben, and then Ben looked at Polk.

“Time to vote,” Vaughan said. “All in favor of a private, group only event, raise 'em.”

Polk raised her hand, Ben did as well. Louden rolled her eyes and said 'figures'.

“All in favor of a massive party, raise 'em,” he said, raising his own hand. Louden joined in, and McCrea raised his after considerable consideration. They turned their attention to Ben and Polk, who looked at eachother, shrugged, and raised their hands.

“We,” Louden said, an enormous smile on her face, somehow managing to wrap her arms around the entire group and bringing them into a huddle “are going to get so fucking wasted.”