Hi everybody who reads this blog,

My name is Aurora. I just found out that this blog existed, but from what I’ve read, I’m guessing you know all about me.

So you know I’ve been in the hospital for a while. I’m out now, although I have to go back most days. Anyway, all that stuff is really boring.

I’m kind of freaked out and mad that Nemo’s been writing this whole blog about me secretly, but I don’t care about that, either, right now.

All I want to know is what happened to Nemo after he left JoyTech on Halloween. As far as I can tell, no one’s seen or heard from him since then. It’s like he totally disappeared.

I feel like when I was in the hospital, the world ended or something. Kevin’s gone. Nemo’s gone. Jerry – I think he’s in his house, but he won’t answer the phone or the door or anything.

I found this girl Meegan and talked to her. She said that she went to the Blood River lookout to drink after the show at JoyTech, but that Nemo never showed up there. Not that he would, anyway.

I read Nemo’s last blog, and I got my mom to drive me to Kevin’s place. I couldn’t believe that Nemo would ever do some of the stuff he was talking about – blowing up Kevin’s car? Taking him hostage?

But it was true what he said – the house was completely shut up.

The only strange thing was that all the basement windows were boarded up with plywood, like they had been smashed.

I don’t really know what to think about any of this. I’m really scared, and I don’t know if any of you know anything or can help.

I just want my friend back.

(P.S. - Sorry about the lack of cool pictures in this post. If you like the stuff that Nemo was doing, you can check out the tooning software that he uses here.

No wonder he was so afraid. Kevin was in hiding because he thought I was out to kill him. Me. An escaped mental patient. And from the way he was talking, it seemed like this kind of thing wasn’t totally out of the ordinary in his life.

Here I was, interrogating the guy I had pictured as the mastermind architect of all my problems, and suddenly I felt this overwhelming urge to explain to him what was really going on. I shoved my hands in my pockets and Mrs. Brisby bit one of my fingers. She’s kind of like my conscience in that way.

The next thing I knew I was turning around, walking up the stairs and out of the basement. Kevin was calling after me, “Hey! Where are you going! Don’t leave me down here!” but I had to get out. Blow off some steam before I did something I would really regret.

It was only when I got outside and saw the groups of kids running past in costumes that I realized it was Halloween. I had been about to pull off my mask, but now I kept it on, and joined the crowds on the sidewalk. I jogged slowly out of the remote Palm’s Reach neighborhood.

As I moved through the city, getting closer to my neighborhood, not really knowing where I was going, I started noticing these flyers. The first one I saw stopped me dead in my tracks.

An Environmentally-Friendly Halloween With JoyTech? I had a moment where I felt like they must be going out of their way to mock me, personally. Instead of letting your kids run wild in the streets, bring them to JoyTech where they can eat JoyTech candy, wear JoyTech costumes, and play JoyTech games. And at the end of the night, get a little printout showing you how much you can help the environment by buying everything you own from JoyTech.

Again I didn’t have to think to know what my next move would be. I called Meegan.

“Nemo?”

“Is your band playing a show tonight?”

“What? No.”

“How about a last-minute gig at JoyTech?”

We met in the parking lot just in time to pay off the family-friendly act that had been hired for the evening. Meegan and the guys in her band did their best not to look like gore-metal savages as they set up their equipment in the JoyTech cafeteria that had been converted into a ‘House of Horrors’ using enough cheap paper and plastic props to create a seriously spooky landfill come morning.

Meegan and her band got some weird looks, but they convinced the event organizers that they were just in costume for the occasion.

I had long since taken off my mask. It was too familiar a face to show around JoyTech, but I was letting Mrs. Brisby ride on my shoulder so she could take in the scene. The room quickly filled up with tiny kids, soccer moms, and doting grandparents.

“What do you think, Mrs. Brisby? Is Kill All Humans going to freak these people out or what?”
Mrs. Brisby sniffed at me, and call me crazy, but it seemed like almost a contemptuous sniff, like she thought my prank was pretty lame.

“Think you could do better?” I asked, and she cocked her head, like she was thinking about something. Then, I swear, my rat’s eyes suddenly flashed bright blue, like there was a little LED light in her brain.

Before I could take a closer look, the lights dimmed, and a voice said, “Is everybody ready to boogie down to the Monster Mash?” The crowd cheered, and then Kill All Humans started playing.

Meegan wailed like a banshee, and a guy in a leather vest and diaper spit fake (?) blood onto the crowd in front of the stage while the three guitar players competed with the drummer to see who could make more terrifying noises.

It didn’t take long for the crowd to start stampeding for the exits, but it was only once they got there that the real screaming started. Suddenly, people were climbing up onto table and chairs, kicking over apple bobbing games and candy bowls to get off the floor.

I craned my head over the crowd to see what was going on, and heard Mrs. Brisby squeak happily in my ear. Hundreds of rats were streaming in through every entrance to the cafeteria. There were so many you could actually hear them over the music, and the screaming. The scene was utter and total chaos.

As rats ran in a polite circuit around me, I looked down at Mrs. Brisby. Could I add ‘summoning other rats’ to her list of talents? “Did you do this?”

She squeaked again, then stretched one paw out and yawned hugely. Boring. No big deal. “I concede defeat, lady,” I said to her. “You are the Halloween prank master.”

Sometimes I forgot that no one had a bigger bone to pick with JoyTech than Mrs. Brisby. She had spent her life as a test subject in one of their labs until I rescued her. Obviously, she hadn’t forgotten.

People ran around me screaming. Meegan’s band continued playing in chaos-induced bliss. I grabbed a glass of punch that hadn’t yet been knocked off the table beside me.

Happy Halloween, Mrs. Brisby! Happy Halloween, readers! Happy Halloween, Toon-FX - thanks for the cool pics!

Oh, and Happy Halloween, JoyTech.

I pulled up a chair and sat down. Kevin squinted up at me, and mumbled something I didn’t catch. I ripped the duct tape off his mouth, taking most of the ‘stach he was working on along with it. “What was that?”

“Please don’t kill me! I’ll give you anything you want!”

It was only then that I realized I was wearing my mask, and he had absolutely no idea who I was. It was almost like i really was just a cartoon superhero, and nothing else.

That was a good thing, actually, but it meant that I would have to choose my words carefully.

“What could you possibly give me?” I asked in a gruff voice, and now I was kind of praying that I could get out of this without him finding out who I was.

He looked desperate, maybe more desperate than the situation demanded. “You must want something!” he babbled. “My parents, they have money, power. They know people. Whatever it is you want…”

“Shut up.” Kevin’s unhinged babbling was starting to worry me. I hadn’t pictured him as such a pushover. “Why do you think I want money, or power? You think those are the only things in the world that have any value?”

“Oh my god, you’re gonna kill me. Oh my god,” he started repeating it over and over. It was ridiculous.

“I’m not going to kill you,” I snapped. “As long as you shut up. Quit being such a baby.”

That’s when he started crying. “You are going to kill me,” he insisted. “I know who you are.”
Woah, wait, what? “Is that so?” I said cautiously.

“You’re Suspect 7!” He blurted out. “You’re the reason we had to move again! They said you were coming to kill us!”

I made sure my voice would be calm and level before I spoke again. “They told you?” I repeated. “Who are they?”

“People that work for my parents! Security people! Oh my god, they told me not to come down but I had to see for myself oh my god no one knows where I am oh my god now you know that they don’t know oh my god…”

“Shut. The. Hell. Up.” This guy was unbelievable. How did Mr. Cool end up being such a wimp? He had his chin tucked into his chest now, and he was sobbing quietly.

“Snap out of it, Kevin. I’m not gonna kill you,” then I added, “if you answer my questions.”

“Anything…anything.”

“Good. You can start by telling me everything you know about Suspect 7.”

He sighed heavily, and then looked up at me. The venomous glare in his eyes was more along the lines of the Kevin Joy I knew. “I know that you’re an escaped mental patient,” he said. “I know that you hate my family for being rich. And I know that you tried to kill my girlfriend, and that’s why we had to move again, because you’re planning to kill us all.”

FYI - All images are pics I took, then made into cartoons with Toon-FX. They’ve got some cool free stuff on their website you should check out!

Recap: here’s everything I know about Kevin Joy, a.k.a. New Guy

He started at Ring City High at the beginning of the year, right around the time that JoyTech moved their corporate HQ to Ring City and opened the new plant.

He was rich, he had a nice car, he was instantly six million times more popular than I was. He threw huge parties, all the girls LOVED him, of course, but instead of going for some braindead cheerleader, he hooked up loudmouth activist extraordinaire, my best friend, Aurora Lively.

He then proceeded to argue with her about everything she believed in, tried to stop her from organizing action against JoyTech for their crooked environmental policies, and he made anyone who disagreed with him look like a crazy person.

I made the mistake of just assuming he was a rightwing douchbag. We got in a couple of fights. Whatever.

His ‘mom,’ who is young, and blonde, and suspicious as hell, came and talked to Jerry about our ‘scuffles.’ She said some threatening stuff, and actually implied that she knew things about Jerry’s past that could get him in trouble.

Then I discover that for some reason, his family is VERY interested in ME. Like, taking surveillance photos interested in me.

Then I get shook down by the giggling man, a JoyTech enforcer who tells me to stay away from New Guy, aka Kevin Joy – the guy is actually part of the royal JoyTech family!

So it now seems obvious that Kevin wasn’t just some right-wing-capitalism-is-great nutjob.
He was actually speaking for JoyTech, trying to make everybody at Ring High just as Joy-ful as he was!

And now that Aurora is in the hospital, he’s suddenly gone. Nowhere to be found, no traces left behind. Except I figured out exactly how to find him.

I got up this morning and realized I could walk pretty easily on my shot foot, so the plan of the day was to go see Aurora. She’s still in the hospital. Still in a coma. No change, which is getting to be worse and worse news.

Usually if someone doesn’t come out of a coma within the first couple of weeks, they stay that way.

I felt guilty for not visiting for so long. Aurora’s mom even called, if only to ask me if I knew why New Guy wasn’t coming around. I almost shouted at her, “He disappeared because Aurora found him out for the fraud he is!” But I restrained myself, and I promised her I’d be around soon.

I was heading out the door when Jerry reminded me that I was supposed to be going down to the cop shop to give a statement. About Aurora’s ‘accident.’ But what was I supposed to say? “Oh yeah, officer, it was someone I call the giggling man, who hit her to punish me for fucking with JoyTech, or maybe to punish me for messing with her boyfriend, who was secretly a JoyTech spy. You see, this all started because I’m in love with a girl who will never hook up with me…”

And then I didn’t want to go to the hospital anymore. I didn’t want to sit there with Aurora in a hospital bed while whoever had hit her was roaming around free. And I didn’t want to talk to the cops about something they would never understand.

Suddenly, I felt more than just guilty. I felt massively, unbearably guilty. I should have been doing more for Aurora. Focusing on protecting her instead of getting all caught up in this fight with a company that I couldn’t even make a dent in. Going there, thinking I would, what? Storm the ramparts, draw the giggling troll out of its lair, and destroy all evil?

Trying to somehow punish JoyTech for what happened was like hitting my head against a brick wall. What I really needed was a soft spot. Somewhere I could apply pressure, somewhere I could pour out all this fucking guilt, and frustration, and ANGER…

If I wanted revenge, if I wanted to draw the giggling man out, there was only one thing I could think of that fit the bill, and that was stupid Kevin Joy’s stupid face.

Look out, New Guy. You’re about to become un-disappeared.

A video from back in the good old days, when I was still training with the parkour guys:

Cool effects done using Toon-FX toon video.

I couldn’t get another word out of jerry after I mentioned my parents. He just sat there with his hands twined together on the Formica tabletop, and all he would say was, “Mmm-mmm, I told you, Nemo, I don’t know.”

That’s the same thing he’s told me my whole life. He has no idea who my parents were, or are. And honestly, I never cared. I didn’t have some kids-movie-injected false sense of a perfect mommy and daddy waiting for me somewhere. I’ve never felt like I lived the wrong life. Even though I don’t really have many friends, and Jerry is weird, and I guess I’m kind of weird, I’ve always felt like I was where I was supposed to be.

This is all to explain why I’d never pressed the issue of my real parents with Jerry. I just felt, suddenly, like they must have played a part in all this. Maybe they were even in prison for something they did to JoyTech!

But even now, I gave up on bugging Jerry pretty quick. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know. Aurora did this whole thing last year where she trekked halfway across the world to meet her real mother. It was…really disappointing for her. Sometimes people have good reasons for giving up on their kids.

On the upside, she had a great time traveling and came back with all these politics and causes she wanted to crusade for.

Which is how I got involved in running around in a mask at night trying to save the world from evil corporations. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to try to prove that I’m the one Aurora should be with. Not because I was coerced into it by Jerry and his gang of old farts.

Me. The ultimate weapon against JoyTech? I couldn’t get that line out of my head, it was so kookoo. I couldn’t go a week without getting shook down by the giggling man, injured at the plant, or burned by New Guy, who turns out to be the latest in the long, noble line that is the JoyTech dynasty.

I was definitely feeling attacked from all angles. What could I do? What did great superheroes do if they were being overwhelmed by the opposition? I guess it depends on if they’re traditional heroes, or antiheroes. Do I identify more with Superman or Batman?
Hmm. That’s a tough one. Yeah right.

If I was Batman, this is the part where I would go out and knock down all my enemies one by one until Gotham was safe again.

I think I’ve mentioned once or twice that me and Jerry don’t talk much. About important stuff, I mean. If it wasn’t for Aurora, I’d probably have spent my whole life thinking that people just didn’t talk about how they felt, what they dreamed, or the past.

But I couldn’t let things go on like that anymore. Guys that I’d known my whole life, who were like brothers to Jerry, had just treated me like I was their enemy. They’d clearly had some kind of plan for me. Something involving JoyTech. And at the last minute, Jerry had put a stop to it.

But Jack had acted like it almost wasn’t up to Jerry to decide what happened to me.

WTF?

I needed to know what these guys had to do with JoyTech, so the next morning, I confronted the man who, for all intents and purposes, is basically my father.

At first, he tried to act like it had been just the usual drunken blustering, but I wasn’t going to be deterred so easily.

“They wanted to know about JoyTech, Jerry! Why would they ask me about that?”

“Aw, well, y’know, kid. I couldn’t just tell them nothing when you started all your sneaking around…”

“So they know I’ve been trying to bring down JoyTech?” I shook my head. “But so what? They’ve been watching my every move? What did I do to piss them off?” I couldn’t believe how many people seemed to have their eyes on me these days.

Jerry slumped down onto a kitchen chair. The cracked vinyl protested under his weight. “I guess it doesn’t matter much now,” he said after a long pause. “But I want you to know, Nemo, that I never thought…I mean, I thought in the end, I hoped, that you’d never be touched by any of this. When JoyTech came to Ring City, I wanted to get out. I wanted to leave, with you! But Jack wasn’t having any of it. He was happy! He saw it as the next chapter in his Book of Destiny.”

I nodded. I’d heard Jack talk about his “Book of Destiny” before. “So back in the 60s, when you guys were into all that radical activism stuff, you were going up against JoyTech.” I’d suspected this, but this was the first time Jerry had confirmed anything. He was nodding. “But what does it have to do with me?”

“Back then, the JoyTech Global Improvement Company wasn’t the feel-good, makes-life-great brand it is today. In the 60s, JoyTech was primarily invested in weapons testing and research. We felt strongly at the time that it was these big corporations that were behind all the wars, and the government was kowtowing to them.

“Me and the guys, we first met at these meeting where people were talking about what could be done. Their ideas were extreme, but at the time, I thought they were the only ones really stepping up.

”What can I say Nemo? We were young. We did some bad stuff. There was this JoyTech HQ in Des Moines…people got hurt. Two people died.

“It wasn’t long before some of us wound up in jail. Others on the run. Jack was one of those that went to prison, and when he got out, he was crazier than ever, and full of new ideas. We listened. We were desperate. By then it was the 80s, and radicalism was a joke. We felt starved for a chance to shake things up again…” Jerry’s shoulder’s drooped, and his head fell into his hands. The next words he spoke were muffled. “When me and…your mom started taking care of you, Jack saw his chance. An opportunity to raise a soldier, Nemo. To create the ultimate weapon against JoyTech.”

I had to snort my derision. “The ultimate weapon? Me, Jerry, seriously? I mean, you guys taught me parkour, but there’s absolutely nothing that makes me so special…”

Suddenly a thought struck me, a thought as absurd as it was obvious.
“Jerry,” I spoke carefully, keeping my voice level. “Jerry, who were my real parents?”

The craziest, worst incident went down last night. And since I’m lying here with a busted foot, I had plenty of time to toon it for you guys. Big thanks to Mrs. Brisby for all the pics!