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.

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.

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.