Transplant’s Personal Diary

Blood has been spilled this day. While all blood matters, this was the blood of a martyr; some people think it matters more. Those people are why we have to do what we’re doing. They’re why the Lichen is going to take away the planet’s humanity. I’ll explain how our plans of destruction and interference have come to be judged by the Lichen as a failure.

I went with Pawn the other day to visit Salt Shaker and Sugarcane. He would have preferred to go alone, but the Lichen asked us to stick together. Since we’re unsure what agents of the Backers, Drill Baby, or the government might be watching her, we only show up when they’re away from home. We caught up with Salt Shaker while she was helping a friend with her pool’s salt content. The friend was picking up an algae-killer at the store, so she was alone. I did my best not to eavesdrop, but it was certainly awkward when Alpha Dog called her. She was careful to keep the phone angled in such a way that they could not see us. I could feel Pawn’s most familiar pain, the pain of being ignored. If Salt Shaker wasn’t supporting him, I think he might have thrown himself into the Lichen’s embrace as much as Venus. He would be a cloud of pollen without her keeping him tethered.

We knew Alpha Dog would think us traitors. I still don’t know what the others think. I know I don’t deserve it, but I wish I had Archive’s powers for a day. I want to look at them like little ant farms just so I can see how big the old stockpile of love is versus the new stockpiles of hate or disappointment. I haven’t spoken with anybody on Impala’s team, but they also haven’t shown up to fight us yet. Leave it to her to recognize when the spotlight is a trap, a sense Alpha Dog certainly lacks.

We were forbidden from telling Salt Shaker about the Lichen’s backup plan. At that point we were still hoping it wouldn’t come to that. I tried to pretend I couldn’t feel their kiss when my back was turned. Embarrassment is something the Lichen doesn’t grasp. I know Pawn appreciated the gesture despite its uselessness. We traveled underground to Salt Shaker’s mother’s house so he could have a few minutes with his daughter. Instead of returning to the Lichen immediately, we made a stop. Pawn showed me where it was. He suggested we go there just to relax for a little while.

It was a natural mineral lick, the place where Salt Shaker had gotten her powers. At first glance it looks like nothing but a pocket of light mud and stone tucked into a forest, but then you start to see all the animals that come along to lick the salts off the Earth. We sat in the shade under a shelf of rock and watched deer and raccoons come and go for a few hours. If only industry could do that, come along harmlessly and lick its fuel off the ground without disturbing nature. If only it wasn’t such a violent, penetrative, poisoning act. Then we wouldn’t be where we are now.

When we left this morning, we already knew we would be walking into a trap. Small delicate beings, inconspicuous molds and mosses that happened to be part of the Lichen’s network, informed it of a massive pipe literally pumping nothing but methane and carbon dioxide into the air. It was more than the standard gaseous runoff of the fuel industry by far. It had to be Drill Baby, baiting us with another glue trap. Still, we had to try.

Our entire force came along with us, all of the spores, all of the worms, and even the Lichen. It wanted to observe the battle directly this time. We warned it to stay underground. As much as I want all this to be over, I want it to get hurt or killed even less. We need the Lichen. This time we would have the winged spores for air support and we would be more prepared to face the guns.

Our travel pods slowed down as we drew closer to the source of the gas. The earth around them was getting thick like syrup. Even sealed underground we started to get whiffs of the industrial machines over top of us. The acrid smell sent Rot’s skin bubbling. Venus, who gave up human breathing ages ago, was unaffected, but the rest of us were eager to get back into the open air. We surfaced as quietly as possible. The spores funneled out of their burl and gathered around us, hunched over or on all fours. Their heads darted back and forth as they analyzed the curious place.

It was a Canadian tar sands site. I’d only heard about tar sand in school and on the news up until then. The stuff was thick, black, and crumbly. It was like the slimiest most cancerous part of a smoker’s lung finely diced and mixed with aquarium pebbles. The ground was dark and wet; I could see patterns in it where a thin skin of water was flowing over the sand, like one of those aerial shots of an alluvial fan. Processing that stuff into fuel takes a lot of work, and it showed. The expanse of land had plenty of mobile offices and trailers set up. Huge pieces of equipment sat nearby, sunk several inches into the ground by their own weight. There was plenty of litter, waste from man and machine alike: burger wrappers, soda cups, rubber hoses, drill bits, cigarette butts…

A few of the spores acted as bloodhounds, analyzing the air and leading us towards the methane vent. I was certain Drill Baby and his forces would pop out at any second, but the first things we saw and heard were Chomp and Bit. The two helicopters swooped over us and landed on top of two of the larger trailers before we got there. My old family got out and stood between us and the methane vent. I’d dreaded this confrontation since the call. The Lichen had let me warn them last time and send them away. It might not do the same this time, especially if they fought alongside Drill Baby. The other spores were more than ready to take them out; even Pawn was convinced our greater good was worth their lives if they forced us.

The spores, spurred on by the chemical trail, initially tried to walk past them. All of the dogs set up a fence with their bodies and started barking and growling until our forces took a few steps back. The other spores weren’t intimidated. Dry Worm raised her hands skyward; the sandy soil shifted as two worms the length of commercial airlines reared up like cobras. Venus’ many mouths opened and flashed their bright red interiors. I told them to wait.

“We have to shut this place down,” I said. Alpha Dog was about to respond when one of the trailers next to him popped open like a jack-in-the-box. The entire side of it flew off with an explosive force. Out stomped Drill Baby in his freshly-polished suit, splattering black sand as he went.

“Oh it’s good to see you Fido,” he bubbled as he patted a giant metal hand on a dog’s head. “I’m glad you folks decided to show your faces. I bet you’ll be getting a lot of new backers among my employees. You can start filling those fish tanks with money and backstroking around in them!”

“We’re not on your side,” Paladina said. “We’re here to apprehend them for murdering some of your men,” she pointed to us, “and we’re here for you Drill Baby. Maybe you forgot that you tried to kill Sportfish.”

“Alpha Dog!” he blubbered, sounding genuinely hurt. “Is that the truth? After all I’ve done for you?”

“Wait what?” Pawn questioned. “What have you done for them?”

“I did it for you too Pawn,” Drill Baby sneered. “You don’t recognize jolly old Saint Nameless? That stings, especially since I put such a nice roof over your head.”

“You were taking his money!” Pawn exploded at Alpha Dog. He marched forward.

“That’s far enough,” Drill Baby said and pressed a button in his helmet with the tip of his E-cigar. The side panels of a dozen other trailers blew off and clattered to the muddy ground. They were all full of men, some with military exoskeletons, all with guns pointed at us. “That was supposed to be a lot more exciting, but the Backers here ruined the surprise.”

We all stood, frozen as we waited for the first shot. Drill Baby seemed to be enjoying himself as he wiggled his fingers near his hips like an outlaw ready to pull his six guns. Every second we waited, more of that gas was pumped into the air. While the damage caused by something like that in the long run was probably negligible, Pawn and Venus were taking its continued existence very personally. Their anger pushed against the inaction of the moment, poking tiny holes in it. One of them was going to explode any second, so I made sure I had as much of the plant matter from our transportation under my feet as I could possibly control. The first thing I was planning on doing was putting another giant wall of flora between us and the Backers. It could possible buy us enough time to take out Drill Baby before even having to engage with them.

A rogue bullet fired. Pawn’s head exploded into white powder. Before the Lichen he would have missed the entire battle, but now his body didn’t even drop to its knees before his head was back. The other men in the guilty trailer looked at the new recruit who had fired prematurely. Pawn singled him out and ran towards him. All the other trailers started firing at him. The explosions of powder only slowed his approach to the man that had momentarily beheaded him. Alpha Dog dropped the leashes and the battle began in earnest.

Venus flattened herself against the ground, scuttled under a trailer, and flipped it on its side. She moved from trailer to trailer, forcing the soldiers to climb out of them like ants over the lip of a bowl. A second after I pulled up the plant wall meant to keep them safe, Act-of-Goddess had an earthquake swallow it right back up. I couldn’t control the situation. Everything became chaotic. I encased myself in wood and roots just in time to deflect a few bullets. Dry Worm grabbed me by the arm and pulled me onto the back of the biggest worm with her. We bowled over a dozen men slithering towards Drill Baby.

We found him desperately trying to impale Monkey Girl with a drill. She treated his suit like a jungle gym and kept out of harm’s way until he pressed another button that charged his exterior and electrocuted her. She was tossed into the air; I threw out a root and grabbed her so she wouldn’t hit the ground as hard. Then I set her down as gently as I could and tried to ignore the small smoke trail from her singed fur. Golden Boy picked her up and spared a second to give me an angry glance. Like I needed to get shot by anything else.

I looked ahead just in time to see Orb flying at us. He knocked us both off the worm and slid all the way along its tail like he thought he was Fred Flinstone. I hit the ground hard, dark semi-solid earth staining the side of my face. The end of Dry Worm’s staff wrapped around my forearm and then she brought me back to my feet. Orb swung around and came in again. Drill Baby smashed down in front of us and punched Orb with a spinning drill of a fist. There was a piercing sound and a brilliant flash of light as Orb’s psychic shell shattered and sent the old man rolling into the mud. That had never happened before. It was enough to convince the Backers to temporarily ignore us and focus on Drill Baby and his men.

Act-of-Goddess channeled what I assume was a Missouri tornado and had it toss the trailers around. The sight of it sent some of the soldiers running. The dogs pounced on them and bound their wrists one by one. Drill Baby responded to the attack on his people by shredding one of the dogs with his left drill and then kicking one of its severed legs up at Goddess. It struck her in the back and interrupted her tornado. Rot hopped onto Drill Baby and tried to gum up his works, but the drills were just too fast. He took a giant laceration on his side before Drill Baby bucked him off and into one of the overturned trailers. I needed to end this before someone got killed. We did have a plan for situations like this and despite the Saturday-morning-cartoon nature of it, it felt like the best option.

I called out to Venus and Rot. Since their bodies are largely composed of plant matter I can partially manipulate them. Venus came up behind me and wrapped her jaws around my arms and head. I pulled her around and essentially turned her into a suit of armor. Rot jumped on us and spread a layer of purple protective fungus as well, creating a messy triple-spore colossus. A worm came up underneath us and lifted us off the ground. A few chunks of our armor were blasted away by Tin Soldier’s rifle. We couldn’t quite get to him, so Pawn offered his services. I picked him up by the arm and threw him with all the force the three of us could muster. His arm ripped off and the rest of his body sailed through the air until it smashed into Tin Soldier and knocked him over.

All we needed to do was find Drill Baby. The worm crawled over a few trailers and lifted us as high as possible to scan the battlefield. I spotted our foe off to the left; he was busy shooting our winged spores out of the air. The worm coiled and then unfurled rapidly to fling us at him. Venus’ jaws became a huge pair of claws out in front of me. We struck with so much force that our plant teeth were able to slip into the seams between his chest plate and his shoulder armor. The three of us pulled outward, severing wire after wire. Sparks popped and flew. Drill Baby’s suit arms fell to the ground, leaving only his pale fleshy arms. I dug my roots into his suit’s legs and forced him into a kneeling position. We tore the helmet from his head. His suit shut down and left him paralyzed. His E-cigar dropped out of his mouth and rolled around the rim of his suit.

“They got Drill Baby! Retreat! Run!” His men scattered. We let them go; they didn’t matter. The three of us split up. Rot went to shut down the vent. I barely had time to breathe before noticing that the Backers had been captured. All of my friends had their limbs held behind their backs by spores. Act-of-Goddess had a leafy blindfold on as well so she couldn’t call up anything that might hurt her teammates. The spores had seen me drop Drill Baby to his knees, so they mimicked me and forced the Backers down into the same position while they held them. They would be witnesses to Drill Baby’s punishment.

Pawn’s hand gripped my shoulder. He silently told me that he was going to do it. I was grateful for that. I stepped back. Pawn paced back and forth in front of the immobilized Drill Baby for a few moments.

“I don’t got all day you toadstool,” Drill Baby spat. His sweaty forehead and trembling neck betrayed his fear. Even now he pretended he had a firm grip on the situation. He would only be in trouble if he had failed, and Drill Baby was not allowed to fail. Pawn dexterously grabbed the tip of the E-cigar, picked it up, and twirled it around in his fingers. He wrapped a fist around it.

“Pawn what are you doing?” Alpha Dog asked. The spore holding him pushed his head down to the ground so he couldn’t see, but he kept going. “Don’t do it! Don’t do what I think you’re going to do. I’m not letting you leave the Backers, not yet. I’m giving you a direct order to not kill that man!” Some of the other Backers shouted as well.

“Shut up!” Pawn cried. They quieted. “This has to be done. You know what? I’m not going to pretend I’m not enjoying this. For once I’m here. For once I stayed alive until the end of a battle. Today it’s someone else’s purpose to die.”

“If you put so much as a twig on my…” Drill Baby started to threaten.

“Choke on it!” Pawn screamed. He thrust the cigar and his fist into Drill Baby’s open mouth. He pushed his forearm down the man’s throat. The armor quaked and trembled. He exhaled powdered bits of Pawn’s arm from his nostrils. Still Pawn pressed. Baby’s face reddened, then the color collapsed into a gloomy purple. His eyes rolled into the back of his head. I wasn’t watching, but I was. I see what Pawn sees. The trembling stopped. The man had drowned in Pawn’s powdered arm. Pawn pulled his elbow out. Sand crawled out of Drill Baby’s mouth and reformed his arm. The cigar was left somewhere inside. It was done. Drill Baby was done making decisions for the entire world. That was up to us now.

“You’re a murderer!” Alpha Dog yelled, face still inches from the black ground.

“I am,” Pawn said matter-of-factly. “He didn’t have my permission to destroy my home.” The ground moaned. A swell appeared in the midst of us. The stalks of the Lichen poked through and rose into the sky. Its familiar fleshy tiers appeared and it sighed as its floral body settled into position. “Justice Backers, meet the Lichen.” The Lichen released a cloud of particles. The Backers, against their will, breathed them in. These were not altering particles, merely a medium for communication. The Lichen wished to speak with them. Poor Tin Soldier, whose metal body and mind lacked the ability to interact with the Lichen, was forced to rely on context clues.

“We’ll never work for you,” Act-of-Goddess said, fully convinced the Lichen was taking over her mind.

“Please let us go,” Monkey Girl whimpered. “We just want to help.” The spores lifted all their heads so they could look at the Lichen. The Lichen reached into one of its many folds with a tendril and pulled out a bundle of purple wrinkled seedpods. The pods rattled against each other on the end of their silky stems. The Lichen held the seeds close to them.

“These are for you,” it told their minds.

“What are they?” Orb asked.

“These are the seeds of the future. They will make you one with us and the Earth. You will lose the will to defy us. You will lose the will to destroy your own nest.”

“It’s goddamn mind control,” Alpha Dog panicked. He tried to wriggle free, but the spores’ grip was unrelenting. “It’s going to turn us into goddamn zombies.”

“You will keep your minds,” it told them. “You will lose only the urge to self-harm.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“What about the urge to you-harm?” Alpha Dog raged.

“Your people will return to the old ways. They will shrink and make room for the Earth to heal.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” my former leader growled.

“These seeds take years to cultivate,” it said as it delicately ran a tendril through the pods. “Their work is subtle. They do not control. They influence. You let yourself be influenced by a thousand human forces; why not let these, my gift to you, the first of the new tide of harmony, help you?”

“No thank you,” Monkey Girl chirped. “Our brains are fine; I promise.”

“You’ll learn to appreciate them,” the Lichen said. The tips of the pods split open. The Lichen held them closer to the Backers. If I didn’t say anything they would be forever changed.

“Wait, stop,” I said and stood between the Backers and the harmony pods. I gently pushed the pods back toward the Lichen with my palm. The other spores looked at me like I had assaulted the Lichen. Luckily the Lichen is less swayed by emotion. It calmly asked me why I did not want them changed. “They aren’t the problem,” I said. “It might seem like it because they keep showing up, but they’re some of the good ones. I want them to be complete. I want them to be themselves until… until they can’t be. I want them to have that time.”

“They have had plenty of time,” the Lichen told us. “They have already chosen these seeds. They’ve admired them for years while they grew. They have even settled around them in awe of them. They do not know it in their human minds, but their primordial urges drew them to it. The secret they keep even from themselves is their desire to be stopped.”

“I want their human minds, flawed as they are, to stay with them,” I insisted. “The little time left won’t make a difference. Please Lichen.” The harmony pods closed. The ruler of the spores returned them to his flesh.

“Goodbye humans. Soon we will be dear friends.” The Lichen twisted and pulled itself back into the dark damp earth. The Backers were free to glare at me instead. Pawn silently told me he would take their judgements. Again I was grateful. He stood in front of them with his hands on his hips and absorbed their anger. He was more secure in his certainty that we were the good guys in all this. His ideas for the future made him impenetrable. While he gloated and told them we were going to let them go, I quietly bound them with roots that would hold them long enough for us to retreat underground and get away. I was as gentle as I could be. It was a huge relief to go back to the darkness underground. The silence helped cure us of the lingering pains from the fight.

When we returned to the cloud forest I sought counsel with the Lichen. I went alone. It didn’t take long for news of Drill Baby’s death to spread. Less than a day and it was everywhere. We caught wind of the sentiments; Drill Baby was a hero. He fought for the human freedom to do whatever they want whenever they want. Rules are for the weak, even the ones that keep the cold out and grow the food. There was already talk of international cooperation to create Lichen-hunting task forces. Little did they know that by suggesting such things they doomed themselves. It showed the Lichen that they would fight it no matter what. It convinced it the backup plan was required.

We spores had always known the plan involved the harmony pods. The Lichen told us it’d formulated the plan years ago and that they’d been maturing the entire time. Once activated their particles would scatter to the winds and infect every human lung not protected by extremely high altitudes or private air supplies. They would lose their free will and become more like delicate grazers. In a few generations seven and a half billion people would become less than two billion. These were the decisions that had to be made for them.

There’s a bacteria that inspired the pods called Wolbachia. It infects all sorts of bugs and changes their reproductive behavior. Feminized males, fewer males, incompatibility between infected and uninfected individuals… Some animals have even become so accustomed to the bacteria’s effects that they can’t live without it. The pods contain the human equivalent.

What I didn’t understand was the pods’ origin or location. The Lichen had said something back in the tar sands about humans admiring the pods while they grew and even living around them. I asked what it meant by that.

“I wanted humanity to make this choice; I want them to feel the responsibility. That is why I put this decision in their hands.”

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“I put it in your hands Transplant. I planted the idea in you and let your unconscious mind decide if your people needed it. Then you planted the seeds and the seeds attracted an audience.”

“I planted them?” I said out loud. It was the loudest sound in that forest for days. At first I was extremely confused; I’d never planted giant purple seed pods. The Lichen nudged my mind, gave me a clue in the form of a soft flashing memory. A tree rising under me as I stepped into the sky. My first public act as the strange plant-wielding boy. The Justice Juniper. “The pods… the pods are in there?” I muttered. I had created them in the heat of the moment, the most powerful part of my mind shoving the conscious part aside and doing the necessary chemical manipulations with instructions embedded in me from the moment the Lichen visited me years before. For years they’d been maturing under the bark, just out of sight of the tourists that ogled my creation and bought postcards and mugs emblazoned with its image. “Why do you not activate them now?” I asked.

“As I said, I want this to be a human decision. The pods will be fully matured in a few days. I want you to return to the tree and release them. That is why I gave you your power. Only your hand can open its shell and bring the pods to split.”

“Why? Why did you pick me? Why not Pawn? He’d do anything you ask. Or the other spores. They think you’re god!” I retracted a little. I shouldn’t have spoken to the Lichen in such a way. It doesn’t deserve any harshness; I was just scared of being pulled into the biggest moment in human history. I wasn’t eager to jump into the label ‘the guy that killed the future’. The Lichen saw my fear and comforted me.

“It is your hesitation that makes you worthy,” it said. “Too often in your species has enthusiasm and certainty doomed you. You, Transplant, are the great cautious worrier of your kind. You will bear the weight of the decision where Pawn or Venus would let their morals do it.”

“What if I get there and I can’t do it? What if I decide you’re wrong?”

“Then mankind will continue as it has.”

“You mean they’ll kill the planet.”

“I cannot say for certain. You have taken my olive branch. The decision is yours.”

Monkey Girl Diary #494

(transcribed from video log)

Hello backers. I have much to say about. Yesterday was the day I did something about the depression. I asked for help.

The Bay was very quiet; it was like this since the tar sands. We train and eat in silence. Alpha Dog mumbled about the Lichen and Pawn and Transplant and Drill Baby. I have seen people do the dying before, but not like Baby. I knew that Pawn have some darkness inside him, but I did not think he would ever let it go. Maybe a little escaped every time his body broke. I cannot say if the same thing would happen to me. I just want them to be alright. I want all of this to go away, but the world is calling for their blood.

I found Orb sitting in the water of the tank in his room. He floated on top of a tiny piece of his shell, like a contact lens. His eyes were closed.

“Hello redacted,” he say. He only uses my real name when he thinks I am upset. He is never wrong. “What can I do for you?” I did not know how to ask him. The only thing he is ever stubborn about is telling people about his inner peace. I have known him years and I didn’t know any of his secrets.

“I am having a depression,” I say. It sound bad coming out of my mouth. My English always get worse when I am upset and I did a screw-up in the first sentence. I thought he would say to me I needed to see the therapist, but he just smiled at me. I saw another contact lens-thing form next to him. He say to me sit down. I vaulted over the glass tank and lowered my body onto the lens. At first I wibble-wobbled, but he steadied it for me. I crossed my legs to copy him.

“Why are you depressed?” he asked. His eyes still did not open.

“I do not know,” I say. It is the truth. I felt this way before the Lichen and Drill Baby, before I even came back to Alpha Dog’s team.

“If you don’t know, how am I supposed to help you?”

“I don’t know who else can help.”

“You need to help yourself.”

“So you… don’t have any ideas?

“Maybe I can help you help yourself.”

“I will take that please.”

“Alright. Close your eyes.”

“I don’t want to fall in the water.”

“We’re about to immerse in something deeper and more cloying than water. Relax.”

I do as he say. He say to me I need to be careful about what I say to all of you. He let me have a little tiny piece of his technique. A shiny piece of lightenment. I will be vague. It was easy to see how this stuff can hurt people if they don’t know how to do it the right way. Orb hummed something. It was not really a song, but it had notes. I peeked a little and saw beautiful ripples around his lens. The glass tank sang with the vibration. He say to me I need to let my feelings go.

I tried. I let the depression fog off of my skin like dry ice. I do not know how I knew, but I hummed with him. I started to see things. At first it was just colors. I imagined myself walking forward and all the colors became things. Trees. Pavement. I was suddenly blocked by a familiar door. I looked over and saw Orb standing next to me.

“This is the lab where you were held prisoner?” he asked.

“Yes,” I say. “I do not know why we are here. I am free of this place.”

“Are you?” He pushed the door open. It creaked. The inside was dark. “Don’t you think there’s anything in there?”

“I guess there is. I feel something. Do you… do you hear someone crying?”

“No, but since you do you might want to go help them. I’ll wait here.”

“Oh, okay.” Orb sat on the imaginary grass outside the lab and turned away from me. We had reached the ‘help myself’ part I guess.

It was not as I remembered inside. Cleaner isn’t the right word; it was dryer. Everything looked like paper, but paper I could not rip or punch through. There were guards and scientists walking around, but they were not the people who gave me fur and a tail. These new people had replaced them; they had settled into the monster-shaped holes those people left in my brain. They did not have faces; there were words stretched over the skin where there should be eyes. I do not want to type those words; I have already seen them too much. Their clothes and flesh were gray and they ignored me even as I tapped one of them on the shoulder. I guess they had work to do. I thought maybe the answers would be in the place I spent most of the time: the cage room.

The scientists were more interested in mixing us with animals than keeping us alive. After they succeeded they would forget about us and move on to the next person. They would forget to let us out to stretch our legs or they would forget to clean our cages. We were not allowed clothes. The cages were stacked on top of each other and sometimes when they wouldn’t let us out to go to the bathroom, some waste from the person over me would drop into my cage. People don’t even buy eggs when chickens are treated that way.

I opened the cage room door. My fellow prisoners were not there, but the cages were full. These people I knew. They had gave me their names because they trusted me. These people had very different cages in real life.

One of them was a girl younger than me from Nevada. I used to talk to her on the computer and tell her life was better than what her computer told her. We met when she asked me for help to deal with an internet jackass. He was sending her rape threats every day; he never missed a day to make her feel worse, like an anti-vitamin. She wanted to know how I handled it. I know it’s funny hearing a monkey say to you ‘hang in there’, but that was all I had to say.

All of the cages had friends from the internet. While I standed there, some of the word-faces came in and stared at them like zoo animals. They pointed and laughed even without mouths. The words on their faces flashed and throbbed. The caged people weeped and scrunched into the corner. The word-faces reached out and rattled the metal cages until their victims cried out. I couldn’t help them because they weren’t real. I could only help me.

I moved to my old cage. A twin of me was inside it, just as scared and weepy as the rest. She had no clothes. I could see the burn marks on her skin from the cattle prods because she was completely shaved. Her naked tail was wrapped around one of the back bars, trembling. Her mouth was open; she was baring her teeth to scare the word-faces away. You can’t scare them away, because they’re not really there. They are far away, typing. Sitting alone drinking your pain because they don’t want anybody else to see them do it. For some reason, people let them run the lab. They let them run a prison.

I tried to open my twin’s cage, but a word-face grabbed my wrist. The words on its face changed so it say ‘we’re not happy if you’re happy’. I yelled that I don’t care and fought him off. They’re mostly hims. Others grabbed me. It is my brain so I don’t know why it’s so hard to get rid of them. I say to myself over and over again that I don’t have to keep them there. They did not move. They pulled out batons and prods and hit me. It felt very real. They hit me until I died. My ghost did not rise to heaven. It sank through the floor. Cold darkness. I wasn’t breathing.

I forced my eyes open and realized I was sinking into the tank. I was already a few feet under the surface. I felt sick and crushed and scared and I just wanted Orb to help me. I saw his disk floating like a lily pad. He did not jump in to help me; I had to swim even though I felt like I was going to faint any second. I grabbed his disk and pulled the top half of my body into the air. I gasped like a bigmouth bass. He still sat there, legs crossed and eyes closed.

“Why didn’t you help me?” I choked out.

“I told you that I couldn’t,” was all he had to say.

“It didn’t work. That was the worst I ever feel.”

“Do you know why you felt it?”

“I… hmm… yes…”

“Then it did work.”

“It is all the stuff on the internet.” I spit out some more water. “It’s too much. Too much poison. It puts me back in that cage like I never left.”

“Have you heard the adage ‘everything in moderation’?” he asked me. I say yes. “People don’t realize that applies to the word ‘everything’ as well. There are only so many things people need to spend their time with.”

“Are you say that I need to stop going online? A lot of my friends are there. I need to do my diaries.”

“All I can say is that I find the ability to detach extremely useful.” I held on and kicked the water with my feet for a few minutes so I catch my breath. I got all the coughing out. I waited for Orb to say something else, but he didn’t. I guessed we were done. I won’t lie; I was hoping it would be easier. I wanted him to take away my pain. Now I know that is not the key to inner peace. If I wanted that I would have to give something up.

When I was dry and had changed clothing, I went to talk with the other Backers. I saved Alpha Dog for last. I say to them that I will be leaving the Justice Backers after the Lichen business is done. I wasn’t sure myself until about the fourth person I tell. They were mostly very understanding. You probably know how it is to leave somewhere, hugs and crying and blubbering. I got a nice handshake from Tin Soldier.

Of course Alpha Dog thought he could talk me out of it. He say he could put up better filters on our websites for all the harassment. I know they would find a way around it. I have stopped a lot of bad people in my time in the Backers, but I can’t stop them. I say to him it is time for me to be happy. Eventually he accepted it. I hope maybe he can get Sportfish or Armigo or Sacred Queen to join the team in my place.

I don’t know what I will do after yet, but for most of you this is one of the last times we will talk. I’m sorry if this makes you sad. I don’t know how long until the Lichen shows up again, but we have until then. These diaries have been great for me and the support here wonderful. Thank you all so much. I’m sure I will do at least one more and I will do goodbye questions then. For now let’s pretend we’re back to normal and do some silly questions.

Fatkiwi9: Is there going to be a Justice Backers movie or video game ever? Because I will buy them both.

Oh I hope not. I think our videos are close enough to a movie already. People will get even more tired of us if they have to see us all over the big screen.

Manlystudfinder: Who would win in a fight between Tin Soldier and three of the doggies?

I have a real answer for this one: Tin Soldier. That is because I know the dogs are designed to fight real people without hurting them a lot. A metal man definitely has the odds in his favor.

Jesustakethefeels: Have u tride new website where it use your webcam and micorphone to listening to your conversations and then the wheel it points to a color and tells u what evereryone in the room be feeling like? (Sry for grammer)

If you mean moodswinger.com, yes I have tried it. I put their app on my phone and for fun I held it behind my back during our meetings (I was still with the western Backers). I do not think it is very accurate because it say that Archive is always mad and that when Impala was saying about Loved One that she had a crush on him. I think maybe it just say that people have feelings for each other randomly to stir in drama in people’s lives; that is why it is so popular now.

Don’t worry about your English; it will get better with practice. I hope you are not a native speaker… I got in trouble for saying someone from Alabama had worse English than me.

Mentaur: I am a mentaur, half man and half role model. (My mother was a civil rights attorney horse) Will you join me on a magical journey across the lands of awkward social interactions and red solo cops so we can live happily ever after in a small cabin constructed from my beard trimmings? I will buy you all the honeydew melons you want until you get extremely melon-fat.

Okay, I think the internet is starting to be a little too internety today. Don’t worry everyone; this is not goodbye yet. I have a few more heroic things to do.