Well, I didn’t get a lot of feedback from you guys on the whole animal testing thing, other than the criticism that my arguments were biased and poorly researched. But my teachers tell me that all the time, so that wasn’t very constructive.

Last night, I got to the animal storage facility a bit later than I did last time, hoping I’d miss whoever was working the late shift. My way in is a grate in the ceiling that I can crack just enough to wiggle through.

I have to roll over a bank of cages to get to the floor. Predictably, I bail out and land on my back, and suddenly I’m feeling all these tugs on my clothes.

I rolled away from the row of cages, and when I fixed my mask and got a look, I see the whole row is all these little monkeys, and they’ve all got their arms sticking out of their cages and they’re reaching towards me.

Oh, and did I mention? They’ve got no eyes and no mouths.

I guess I should have been worried about them being infected with unimaginably disgusting diseases, but I couldn’t help going back to the cages and letting them grab at my clothes again for a minute.

They were totally silent except these little snuffling noises. And they weren’t aggressive like other lab monkeys I’d been reading about. It was like they wanted to pat me all over and figure out what I was.

Meanwhile, the rest of the room behind me was weirdly quiet, also. I’d heard that labs often cut animal vocal cords to keep them quiet during testing, but the experience of it is seriously strange.

Besides the monkeys, most of the animals were sitting to the back of their cages. But even the animals that were moving forward aggressively didn’t seem to be trying to bark or make noise. Like they knew they couldn’t.

I wanted to have a good look at every animal, but I also wanted to see if I could get into the area below the cage storage. I was just looking for a button to open the panel in the floor, when it slid open on its own.

Again I heard voices coming up the stairs, but this time they were talking about knocking off for the day, and it was exactly 5 am. I scrambled out the window, but this time, I knew when to come back.

Tonight, I’ll go back to the JGIC plant and hopefully get a better look at their testing facility. First though, I did some research on the arguments AGAINST animal testing.

This was a lot harder than the ‘FOR’ stuff, because animal activists fill their websites with the most graphic images you’ve ever seen, and they make you feel insane with sadness, which is unproductive for someone who’s trying to be an objective researcher.

Animal rights activists have a bunch of different opinions on animal testing. The extreme view is that it is never justified, because the only difference between humans and animals is our giant egos and sense of self-importance.

One level down from that are those who say animal testing is justified when it saves human lives, but that animals should never be made to suffer unnecessarily. Which is really confusing, because that means some kinds of testing are okay, while others are not.

The other big part of the ‘Against’ argument is that there are lots of alternatives to testing on animals, and that often, animals are not similar enough to humans to make testing worthwhile. Hence, a lot of the experimentation done is pointless and often, useless.

According to the U.S. Animal Welfare Act, any procedure can be performed on an animal if it is scientifically justified. But what means ‘justified’? Who are we to say which animal’s life is forfeit for the greater good, and which isn’t? Who are we to say that species like dogs and chimps have rights, while rats, birds, and fish, have none?

Animal testing.
Hunting and fishing.
Deforestation and ecological damage leading to extinction of species.
Dog fighting.
Horse racing.
Factory farming.
Fur farming.
Animal entertainers.

In the future, they’ll look at how our so-called ‘enlightened society’ treated animals, and we’ll be seen as no better than the colonizers and slave-owners of the past.

I thought I’d start today by looking at pro-animal testing arguments, since those are the ones that I’m most naturally against. (Notice the unfairly cute rat toon.)

According to a lot of the scientific community, and lots of universities where testing goes on, animal experimentation is necessary to help human beings. Some of the greatest scientific advances of all time are thanks to animal experimentation.

Researchers argue that the things that humans and animals have in common make them invaluable test subjects. Untested products released on the market have led to the injury and death of humans in the past.

To make sure that animal testing is not done unnecessarily, or with unnecessary cruelty, various regulations are in place that apply to large animals, but not to rodents, fish, or birds…

It’s also long been debatable (and you’ll like this one) as to whether or not animals have feelings and experience pain the way that humans do. If they don’t, experiments that cause too much suffering and distress to be ethically performed on humans can be done on animals with clear conscience.

Finally, and this is a pretty dumb argument if you asks me, but the NCABR says that if you like having pets and eating meat, then you should shut up about animal testing, because way less animals get chemicals poured in their eyes than sleep at the foot of our beds at night…

Okay, that was over the line. Clearly, I am not an unbiased researcher here.

That being said, if I was dying of cancer, would I care about them growing tumors on rats if it meant saving MY life? Or Jerry’s life? Or Aurora’s?

I guess the question is: exactly what is JoyTech doing with these animals. Testing cosmetics and bathroom products? Or curing pediatric AIDS?

What do you think?

I wonder if I made my last post into a comic so it would seem less real and freaky. Like, if it’s just another crazy adventure of my superhero self, then it’s not a big deal, right?

I’m glad that so many people liked my comic on Friday. But I also feel like I have this huge problem, and I really want to know what you think I should do about it.

To get you up to date: I was snooping around JoyTech, and I overheard some scientists talking about these experiments they were doing on animals, and how all the animals were dying.

I snooped around a bit more, and I found this storage facility where they’re keeping all their “test subjects.” I didn’t have long to investigate, but what I saw was pretty horrible. All the animals looked rough, and some of them looked…deformed or something.

I don’t really know.

My very first instinct was to rip open all the cages, open the door and get those animals out of there, but I know it doesn’t work like that. I’ve seen 28 Days Later. I’ve seen Free Jimmy (which you should check out, if you haven’t).

Point being, I know it doesn’t work to just free animals from captivity.

According to Wikipedia, most of them are bred specially for testing, and euthanized once the experiments performed on them are over. The animals never know life outside of the lab, and would probably need special care, if they did.

That’s why there are now retirement facilities for chimps that have been used for entertainment or research purposes. They can’t go back to nature, we basically ruined their chance at a normal life, and now we are morally obligated to provide them with a decent home for the rest of their near-human lifespans.

The idea of chimp retirement communities is fine, but all of this seems like a nightmare to me.

I’m going to do some research, present for and against arguments, and you tell me what you think.

Is JoyTech perfectly within its rights here, or do these animals need to get out of that lab? I wish I could talk to Aurora about this…

On the night that I recorded the conversation in my last post, I had to get home before dawn, but I went back last night to have a look at that animal testing facility. I had to know what they were doing that so many animals were dying. And of course, I knew where to look, because I realized I had already heard the noises of crying animals…

No time for tooning today. I recorded the conversation between the scientist and the suit on my cell, and here it is, transcribed FYI. Read my last post if you’re lost.

The first speaker is the scientist:

“John, do you have a minute?”

“What is it, Barry? What time is it?”

“I just found out – from maintenance – that the entire R9 group died within the last 24 hours. But that can’t be true. Because you ensured me that I would be informed…”

“Barry! Is there any way we could not do this right now? With everything we’ve got on our plate, a handful of dead rodents and chimps hardly…”

“A handful of dead…John, two years of research, thirty million dollars in development capital down the drain! And they’re telling me we don’t even have enough data to assess whether cause of death was testing or extraneous factors!”

“Not this again.”

“Yes this again! How many times can I make the point that regular maintenance staff cannot be safely relied on to care for the animal testing facility! The dogs in R6 died from being fed chocolate, for Crissakes!”

“Barry, our research clearly indicates that a dedicated staff under these circumstances is inadvisable at best; at worst, disastrous…”

“Disastrous! You don’t call the deaths of our most successful round of subjects thusfar disastrous? This is completely unacceptable, John. We’re all working under impossible caseloads, there’s zero communication between departments, and now I’m seeing my life’s work slipping through my fingers. At my age, John. This is not what we discussed when I was recruited. I’m done.”

“Barry, be reasonable.”

“I’m done being reasonable. I came here from a nonprofit that barely had two cents to rub together. I thought JoyTech’s money would get me what I needed to complete my work, but this is nothing more that a bloated mess of a multinational with so much money they think it can just be flushed down the drain. And fine, do what you want with your money, but not with my time, and not with my work!”

[Long pause, maybe whispering?]

“Okay, Barry, okay. You’re right. Let me tell you what – first thing tomorrow morning, we’ll get all the department heads together, we’ll get the attorneys on the phone…”

“The Spencers, John. I want to talk to the Spencers.”

“I’ll do my best, Barry. You know I can’t…”

“The Spencers. In the morning. Or I’m gone. And you can call down and get me an escort to the ATF(?) right now, because I’m spending the rest of the night with my animals, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Sure, John. Whatever you say. You know we don’t want to lose you.”

“You could have fooled me.”

Finally, finally made it back to the plant last night, equipped with some recon equipment, a Phillips head screwdriver and, thanks to a flash of brilliance, some grippy kneepads for keeping myself attached to the pipe this time.

Fast forward to the spot where I was last seen bailing out and murdering my shoulder. This time, I swing down and make sure my grip is strong before I start working on the screws holding the vent in place.

I focus on the work, not the potentially crippling fall, and before I know it, I’m crawling into the JoyTech plant ventilation system.

To start, I’m so stoked I made it in that I don’t really think about where I’m going, or what my plan should be. I decided to crawl ahead a bit and see if I could get a look at anything going on below me without actually getting out.

When I do come to an outlet vent, it takes me a second to understand what I’m seeing. Clearly, the duct that I’m in is attached to the exposed ceiling of a giant white room. But instead of conveyor belts pumping out widgets or sprockets or whatever, the floor is covered with row after row of these long, stainless steel tables, covered in lab equipment.

The place is pretty dimly lit, and at first, it looks empty, shut down for the night, but then I see that there are a few guys left working at little stations. I realize that I must have made a ton of noise clattering up the duct, but no one seems to have noticed.

I watch them for a while, doing whatever it is that mad scientists do, then one of them get a phone call. He listens for a minute, then he swears, BASHES THE PHONE INTO TABLE, stands up, and walks quickly through a pair of sliding glass doors leading out of the giant lab.

Obviously, I need to follow this guy.

I looked towards my left, and I saw there was an intersection up ahead in the duct. So I slithered off down the duct in the general direction of the glass doors, trying not to bang around too much.

Once I got out of the giant lab space, moving was easier because the ventilation system was concealed behind a low ceiling. The outlet vents were beneath me now and I could see the scientist walking down a long hallway with rows of office doors on either side. The vent I was in only led off to every second office, so I prayed he was going somewhere I could follow.

Bingo. He turned to a door with an intersection in the duct above it. Quiet as I could possibly be, I turned the corner and sidled up to where the outlet vent pumped cool air down into a tiny cluttered office. A haggard-looking dude was sitting right below me at a desk heaped with papers.

The guy looked up, and did not look happy to see the scientist. When the scientist opened his mouth, I could see why.

You will not believe what this guy had to say.

Funny story. Turns out that dislocating your shoulder when you’re three years old is different from dislocating it when you’re sixteen. I woke up Saturday morning and I couldn’t lift my arm to save my life.

Instead I decided to spend the weekend working on tooning. I went down to the Ruby Ridge skatepark to take pics of some guys I used to go to school with practicing tricks. I thought the setting would be perfect for toonifying.

It was pretty cool. I hadn’t seen those guys since the neighborhood got subdivided and we went to different schools. For the first time in a million years I wasn’t obsessing about Aurora, and then guess who shows up?

One second I’m chillin’ out, the next she’s sitting right beside me. Doesn’t say anything, just acts all interested in watching people skate. Conversation goes thusly:

“Hey Aurora.”

“Oh! Hey.”

“What, you sat down and didn’t notice me here?”

“No. I called your house and Jerry told me you were here.”

“So you’re suddenly talking to me again?”

“I was never not talking to you. I was working some stuff out with Kev.”

“Right. You’re just not talking to me around New Guy.”

“Don’t call him that, Nemo.”

“What? New Guy? That’s his name, isn’t it?”

“You’re so selfish! You’re the one that’s making this hard for me. I mean, Jesus Christ, Nemo, you punched him right in the face! What am I supposed to do? Defend you?”

“You’re supposed to not go out with a guy that’s the total opposite of you, thinks everything you do is stupid, and tried to physically drag you away from the protest that you organized!”

After I said that, I was sure she was going to scream her head off at me, but she just looked off at the skaters for a while.

I tried to imagine we were hanging out and everything was cool. For a second, I caught the feeling. Then she stood up.

“I just came to say I’m sorry, Nemo. We’ve been best friends forever, but I don’t see how we can hang out at school or go places together or anything anymore. I really care about Kevin, and…” she broke off so I knew she was trying not to cry. I didn’t want to look up at her though.

I kept my mouth shut, and eventually, she left. The situation sucks, but for some reason, I’m not mad. I just know I’ve got to look out for her even more now. Help her with the stuff she’s trying to do because New Guy won’t. And if he gets out of line, I’ll be there.

I really tried to come prepared. I had my camera, for the purpose of documentation, and I had an old gray horse blanket I found in the basement that I threw over the top of the barbed wire perimeter fence. I took a running start and got up and over fast.

I had to cross a huge parking lot before I got to the first outbuildings, but it was monitored by cameras and floodlights.

I pulled the blanket off the fence and over my head, and I ran for it, trying to stay out of the light and look like a piece of pavement. It was probably the worst part of the whole night, because I had to guess where I was going and I couldn’t tell if there was a whole army of JoyTech thugs chasing me.

Eventually I hit a wall – hard. I ripped the blanket off my head, and rolled behind a row of garbage bins until I was sure no one was coming to investigate.

After all that, when I finally got up to take a look around, it was pretty hilarious. The place was dead. Now that I was out of the parking lot, there was minimal lighting, no cameras, and no patrols or anything.

I jumped up on the bins and pulled myself up onto the roof of the small outbuilding I had run into. It wasn’t very high up, but it gave me an amazing view of the compound layout. The plant itself was at the center, low and squatting like a dull metallic spider, with pipes and smokestacks coming out of every surface.

Even at 3am, the vents and smokestacks were still belching fire and noxious substances up into the night sky. No rest for the wicked, as they say.

All the pipes connected the main plant to about two dozen outbuildings of various sizes. And it really looked like some kind of malevolent creature with all its tentacles reaching out, feeding off the smaller creatures and the earth around it.

Before I could follow that train of thought to a creepy conclusion, I took off down the pipeline that led from the roof of the building I was on towards the main plant.

About halfway down the pipe, I realized that it was heading straight for the wall of either the main plant, or a big building attached to the plant. And it didn’t look like there was anywhere left to go.

When I got to the wall, it looked like I’d have to turn back. I was probably twenty feet off the ground, and the pipe fed into a blank wall made up of panels of some opaque synthetic material.

I sat down on the pipe a minute to think, and that’s when I felt a gust of warm air on my legs.

I hung over the side of the pipe, and saw a vent located just underneath the pipe! Score!

Using the ridges of the piping material for grip, I hung upside down from the pipe and tried pulling the vent off. No such luck. It was screwed on tight. What kind of idiot doesn’t bring a screwdriver on a recon mission?

While I was mentally kicking myself, my legs lost their grip on the pipe and I fell, straight into a giant heap of cardboard. I heard my shoulder pop. Dislocated. Hurt like a b*tch, but luckily I was one of those little brats who was always popping his shoulders out, so I held my breath and slammed it into the wall, jamming it back into place. Don’t try it at home, kids.

Getting out of the compound was no problem. I retrieved my trusty blanket (every superhero should have one) then looped around to a spot I had seen from the roof where there was only a few feet between a building and the fence. Much easier than running across the parking lot.

Only one really weird thing happened on my way out. As I was passing a small building that looked like it was a toxic materials storage shed, I thought I heard this little yelping noise. I stopped to listen, but the sound didn’t come again. Then, though, as I was walking away, I swore I heard this whole series of little squeaks.

JoyTech has a rat problem, maybe?

Anyway, I’ll go back tomorrow or Sunday night, with the right tools this time.

I get home last night and Jerry is having kittens because – get this – New Guy’s mom wants to talk to him about our ‘scuffles.’ Ha. Maybe she should read my toons. They’d make her feel better.

Not Jerry, though. He starts going off about how could I hit another kid, and since when do I start riots at football games? Since when do I even go to football games?

At first I was pissed at him for freaking out, but then I just started feeling really, really sh*tty, so I took off and walked for a while.

Am I actually becoming a different person? Somebody who acts all psycho over a girl that doesn’t even like him anymore?

It’s hard to explain, but sometimes, even when I’m not wearing my mask and hood, I feel like I’m still in disguise, and I feel…invincible.

I kept going over the last few days again and again in my mind. It was dark and late, and my feet took me down Blood River to the bridge. I wasn’t even thinking about where I was going until I realized I was walking the edge of the JoyTech plant property.

When I realized where I was, I stopped and looked up at the massive barbed wire fence surrounding the plant.

It was right then that everything got very clear. Stuff seemed messed up because I wasn’t focusing. It had been almost a week since I decided to snoop around the plant, and I spent the whole time avoiding Aurora or looking for Aurora.

So here’s the plan. As soon as I post this up, I’m going back to the plant. I’ll get a sense of the layout, and try to find a way to move around the buildings. Hopefully, I’ll find a way to get inside the main plant, totally undetected.

Main objective: DON’T GET BUSTED!