Check this out.

I realized that in my last post, I didn’t say anything about what Meegan’s situation is. And it’s actually weirdly connected to mine.

Obviously, she decided to find a way to take down JoyTech, but the funny thing is, she didn’t decide what she was going to do until she went to this protest (ring any bells?), and saw this guy in a gasmask start a riot!

Holy *@#!

She said that. Serious. She said that I was who inspired her to take action, and that I was her big hero or something, until she snuck down into the cave and saw me get shot in the foot.

She asked me what I do to train and I said, “huh?” and she rolled her eyes.

And then she made a big point of saying how totally unimpressed she is by me now.

And then we were sitting there staring at each other, and I realized that we both still had our masks on.

Talking to people when you’re in a mask is really weird, because you don’t know if you should take it off or not. It’s strange and kind of embarrassing talking normally when you’re wearing the mask, but you can’t just reveal your identity out of the blue.

So throughout our whole Q&A, we’re both firing questions at each other in these masks, and grandma is puttering around the trailer like nothing unusual is happening.

And then there was this lull. We’re both totally exhausted and I think I’ll probably pass out in two seconds, and I notice that Meegan’s gasmask is a lot more modern than mine.

Mine is, I think, from the Crimean war, but hers looks like it’s straight out of the Gulf War. And I’m checking it out more closely, and I guess I kind of leaned in towards her, because suddenly she raised her hand and made as if to pull off my mask.

My first reaction was to jolt backwards, but she followed me with her hand, so then I caught the strap behind one of her ears, and pulled at her mask.

We both hesitated for a second, like we were waiting for the other one to be ready, and then the masks came off.

THE THROTTLER, as she calls herself, took me back to her place. She lives with her grandma at a trailer park just up Blood River from the JoyTech plant.

She berated me the entire time for complaining about my foot, then she handed me over to her grandma, who rips off my shoe, pulls the slug out with a pair of pliers, then pours about an entire bottle of rubbing alcohol over the hole.

And the whole time I can’t even wince without the grandma saying sharply, “nothing broken, boy!,” and THE THROTTLER muttering insults at me for being, in her words, ‘a huge puss.’

To top it all off, somehow this chick gets her hands on Mrs. Brisby, and that traitorous rat just lies in THE THROTTLER’s lap like she just died and went to heaven.

So I’m lying on this family’s kitchen table, trying to catch my breath, and then suddenly my savior/captor is firing questions at me. “Why do you wear a mask?” “Why were you at JoyTech?” “Why did you attack the scientists?” “Why don’t you carry a weapon?”

I finally proposed a trade-off. I’d answer her questions, if she’d answer mine.

So check out these little factoids:

Turns out THE THROTTLER, whose real name is Meegan, is part of this tiny “non-recognized tribal nation” of American Indians that used to live in the area where the JoyTech plant now resides. They were politically autonomous until the whole Conurbation thing happened, and then they slipped under the Conurban Council’s radar, which is how JoyTech was able to buy their land.

The only thing Meegan’s tribe had going for it (her words!) were these Coal Mouth hot springs, that were originally discovered when the tribe sold the land to a mining company. But when the hot springs caverns were unearthed by digging, the tribe got all pissed off, said the land had some spiritual value or something, and took it back.

They were able to do this because all the miners had been hired by the mining company from the tribe, so they just kind of revolted. Meegan’s pretty proud of it. Her grandfather was one of the leaders or something. (Check it out: she let me toon his pic!)

Even since then, they’ve been sort of guarding it and keeping it a secret. No one knew about it because it never got put on a tourist map or anything, but apparently, JOYTECH knew about it, because they booted Meegan’s tribe off the land (literally, like, with giant booting machines), and set up some experimental geothermal lab down there.

Now, according to Meegan, her tribe’s been petitioning the Conurban Council to get their land back, to no avail, and the kicker is that they can’t even get it listed as an ecological preserve or anything, because no one knew about it in the first place. Again, according to Meegan, the whole area was covered in indigenous species of plants and animals that are on the brink of extinction, but JoyTech has all the power now and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.

Sound familiar? How do they get away with this stuff?

It’s a credit to how easy Toon-FX is to use that I managed to post this while shot in the foot.

With one eye on the Shovel and Burn bozos (wish I had more pics to toon of THEM!), I ventured deeper into the caverns that formed the base of the JoyTech smokestacks. There were maybe a dozen pools in all, some bubbling, some still.

I’d already guessed that this must be some sort of geothermal energy project. Halogen lights were strung up along the ceiling like someone had put time and effort into setting them up like that. Each pool was equipped with pipes and sensors going in and out.

Actually, they kind of reminded me of Aurora there, in that white hospital bed, all hooked up to machines and tubes.

The other thing I couldn’t help but notice was this rumbling noise, and a vibration coming from beneath me. I figured there must be levels below this one, but then, at the far end of the cavernous area, I came to a truck supporting some kind of machine. I can only describe the machine as looking a hell of a lot like a drill, only small and futuristic, like something out of Armageddon (lame ref, I know!).

I was still staring at the drill when the GeoTherm team clocked in. All of a sudden, a sliding metal door at the far end of the cavern opened, and a team of science-types in white lab coats spilled in, arguing noisily amongst themselves.

Not wanting to waste the element of surprise, I ran at them, reaching into my jacket as I did. Suddenly, I had six scientists calming pointing handguns at me.

Now I know why the Shovel and Burn guys are so jumpy.

I skidded to a stop in front of the group, producing from my pocket one very scared white lab rat.

That got their attention.

“Where did you get that rat?” One woman demanded, and then they were all talking very loudly, firing (excuse the pun) questions at me and arguing with each other. Who in their right minds would give these people guns, I wondered.

Then one man’s voice stood out among all the others. “On the ground!” he was screaming. “Get on the ground!”

Ah crap.

Mrs. Brisby began scrambling up my arm towards my pocket. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t let these scientists take me down, or get their hands on Mrs. Brisby. I needed answers, but how could I fight six hysterical people with guns?

“Hit the dirt!” yelled the guy who watched too many movies. He glared at me fiercely through his safety goggles.

I shook my head, “Can’t do it.”

That’s when I got shot in the foot.

For some reason, I reached into my pocket for Mrs. Brisby – maybe I did it just to freak them out with my pet rat – but immediately, they both jumped back.

“Don’t shoot us!”

“Shoot you…” Slowly, I pulled my hand out of my pocket, leaving Mrs. Brisby behind. “You guys won’t have anything to worry about, as long as you answer some questions.”

“Anything!”

The guy who had tried to run turned to his partner. “I told them! I told ‘em I wasn’t getting paid enough to deal with this shit!”

“Shh!”

“Shut up!” I realized I had to get control of the conversation fast. “You,” I pointed at the jumpy guy. “Stay shut up. You,” I pointed at the other guy, “tell me what you do down here? What is this place?”

The guy I was questioning raised his hands defensively. “It’s like I told the last one, this is just the Dump. All we do is shovel garbage.”

“Shovel garbage? What are all these pools and pipes for?”

The guy looked guilty. “Would you believe I have no idea?”

Before I could respond, the guy who couldn’t shut up interjected angrily. “We’re not on Geotherm! We’re just Shovel and Burn! I’m not gonna be…throttled again for some business I don’t know nothin’ about.”

“Throttled again?” I took a deep breath. “I’m not going to throttle you if you…wait, who’s throttling you anyway?”

“The last one of you came down here asking questions. What’d she say? That we were ‘violating the sanctity of mother earth,’ that ‘the Coal Mouth Hot Springs belonged to her family,’ and that we was thieves!”

“Thieves,” the second guy echoed.

I took in my surroundings with renewed interest. “The Coal Mouth Hot Springs?”

I’d never heard of any hot springs in Ring City. “Alright,” I said to the jumpy guy, “you talk.”

He glared at me for a minute, then began reluctantly. “All this used to be Indian land before it got absorbed into the Conurbation thing. These here are natural caves, and these pools were like, the Indians sacred area or whatever you call it.”

“So how did JoyTech get their hands on it?”

The guy snorted. “Man, I don’t know why you people don’t come down here when Geotherm is on shift. They’re the ones got all the information you’re lookin for. I told you, and I told the “Throttler” or whatever her name was – we shovel garbage. End of story.”

I decided to ignore the Throttler thing for the time being. “Fine. So when does Geotherm come on?”
“Not for another couple hours.”

I nodded. “Then I’m just gonna hang out here til they show up, maybe poke around a bit. And if you guys try anything stupid, I’m gonna get you worse than…the Throttler did.” I made as if to reach inside my jacket pocket again.

They both jumped again. I couldn’t believe how well the whole fake weapon thing was working. Much thanks to the creepy mask. I stared them down a bit longer til they got back to shoveling garbage. Then I went exploring.

I broke the surface to find myself in a cavernous room that looked like a cross between a spa and a garbage dump.

Pools like the one I had landed in dotted the room, ringed in black rock and piped with columns of snaking copper like something out of Steamboy or LoEG.

Every available inch of ground that wasn’t taken up by a pool was covered in piles of garbage that gave off an awful reek in the heat.

“Hey whatteryoudoindownhere?”

I turned to find myself being inspected by two guys in overalls and goggles. They stood in front of a set of massive copper boilers, and did nothing but lean on their shovels curiously as I swam to the edge of the pool and pulled myself out.

“Did ya fall from fixin’ somethin’ up there?”

I realized I must look like a JoyTech employee in my gas mask and hazmat suit. But I wasn’t in the mood to be sneaky.

I hauled myself out of the water and shook free of the suit.

“I don’t work for JoyTech.”

They frowned at me. One of them muttered something like, “oh dear,” and dropped his shovel, making as if to turn around.

“Don’t move, fella. I’m gonna ask you guys some questions.”

The guy who had made a move froze, and I saw his eyes travel over me nervously.

He was checking to see if I had a weapon.

And believe it or not, this was the first time I ever thought about carrying a weapon. I knew all superheroes have a weapon – it’s either their power, or a magical thing, or a super high tech gun – but I’d never actually had to whip one out before.

My idea of ’superhero’ was turning myself into a cartoon. And the fights I’d been in were all just fighting other kids with my fists. Now suddenly, I was planning on grilling these guys for information, and I had no idea how I was planning on scaring them into talking.

Much as I’d like to take the credit, I’m not much of an artist. All these pics were made into cartoons using super simple software.