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.

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.

FYI: This was all done using Toon-FX.

When I came to, the first thing I saw was a bare light bulb swinging over my head, like something had just hit it.

I could feel Mrs. Brisby’s little heart beating wildly in my pocket. I went to move but my hands were tied behind me, strapped to the chair I was sitting on.

My head felt roughly like the time me and Aurora stole Jerry’s Jameson and drank the whole bottle before passing out at the Blood River lookout point.
I tried to get a decent look around, but my mask was sort of sideways on my face and I couldn’t see much. I was definitely in some kind of windowless, unfinished basement. Below the swinging light bulb I could see old wooden shapes, crisscrossed in chains.

I silently willed Mrs. Brisby to take pictures, document everything.

Then I heard a voice say, “Suspect 7 is awake, sir.”

There was a crackle of static, then the room swam around me and I must have conked out again because the next thing I knew, someone was adjusting my mask on my face and whispering, “wake up,” over and over.

I blinked. The man standing in front of me stood back and smiled. “I do have to apologize about the circumstances of our meeting,” he said pleasantly. “The basement setting, all these ancient contraptions. You’d think we brought you here to torture you!” He giggled.

The giggle was creepy. The guy was creepier. He looked like something out of A Clockwork Orange. His clothes did, anyway. He had a perfectly hairless head, no-color eyes, and a long, dark scar running down his forehead.

“Why did you bring me here?”

He laughed. “Only to talk, S7, only to talk! You don’t mind if I call you S7, do you? A bit of a pet name we have for you, yes?” He nodded in a very self-satisfied way. “You need not reply! You need not say anything. Only listen, S7, and listen well.”

As he spoke, I began to struggle with the restrains binding my wrists. I tried to be discreet about it, but then I noticed two guys on either side of the door leading out of the dungeon. One of them was holding the walkie-talkie; the other, a gun.

They both shook their heads at me very slightly, and I stopped struggling. Mr. Giggles seemed not to notice the exchange.

“I fulfill a very unique function on behalf of my employers,” he was saying. “Do you know what that is, S7?” He didn’t wait to see if I had an answer.

“I manage problems, and I turn them into non-problems. I see a threat, and I turn it into an asset. Do you see what I’m saying?”

“You work for JoyTech!” I blurted out, and stupidly, tried to jump out of my chair, which resulted in me tipping over on to my back. My head hit the dirt floor with a thump.

Mr. Giggles came and stood over me, his expression unperturbed. “Thusfar, Suspect 7, I’ve managed to turn your role as a potential threat into that of an asset.

“Each time you have brought something to light that ran the risk of reflecting unpleasantly upon my employers, I have made it blossom into an opportunity to for us promote our role as environmental stewards.

“Indirectly, you have participated in earning my employers acclaim as green thinking pioneers.”

I think at this point I made some grunting sounds and writhed around on the floor a bit.

“Hardly what you had in mind, I know,” his voice dripped with sympathy. “And unfortunately, my employers don’t see you in quite the same positive light that I do,” he paused and sighed heavily. “They’re concerned, S7. They’re deeply concerned that you are on the cusp of becoming more trouble than you’re worth.”

He walked a circle around me, tapping his chin as if deep in thought. I gave one last heave at my restraints and felt something snap, silently.

Suddenly, Mr. Giggles crouched down, bringing his mouth to my ear.

It was only then that I noticed the blood on the collar of his shirt.

Here’s another full comic. Images tooned, as always, by Toon-Photo!

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…

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!

The past few days have been totally crazy. My garbage trail didn’t work out exactly how I expected it to, because JoyTech started cleaning it up as soon as I laid it down, but I did manage to make a big enough mess to get noticed, which was the whole point.

Some early morning joggers found where the trail started at the Ridge, and they picked their way down to the bend in the river where the biggest part of the mess gathered. I guess it was bad enough for them to make a scene to the Conurban Council, because by Friday morning, they had boats out dragging the bottom of the Blood.

Me and Jerry went down to check it out, and we found out that about five miles downriver, the real trouble started.

There was a beaver dam built partially across the river at that point, and a ton of plastic and other junk got caught up in it. I don’t think any beavers got hurt or anything, but it was a pretty ugly scene, and by then there were crowds all over the river and all these people looking horrified.

In Saturday’s Daily Ringer, the front page story confirmed that the “deluge of waste discover in the Blood River does appear to be comprised primarily of recyclable materials.” But of course, no one at the Ringer is pointing the finger. Yet.

Yesterday was pretty quiet. I was dying to talk to Aurora about the whole thing, but I guess she went away for the weekend with New Guy’s family or something???

That’s what her mom said when I tried to call her house, and she said it in that apologetic mom voice, like so you know they feel sorry for you? Yeah.

Anyway, at least I’ve got some time to play with Toon-FX, which I haven’t in a while. Check out this cool effect:

Sorry about the lack of updates over the last few days. I decided to get out of town for the weekend, do some camping, and hide my freaked-out head.

Not very superhero-like, I know, but I figured it was a good idea to disappear until the heat died down a little.

I took my car because it’s probably the last time I’ll drive it before I sell its gas-guzzling ass.

I thought when I got my license and the car a couple of years ago that my life was complete. Then, I could never have guessed where I’d be right now.

Camping was alright. I hiked to the base of Mount Tar, where Jerry used to take me when I was little.

I spent all Saturday getting up the mountainside, only to find a condo development going up to the west, and to the north, a really spectacular view of some heavily deforested land!

Not the landscape I remembered.

I did see about eight eagles circling the mountain around me, which was amazing. I never knew they flew in groups. Apparently, it’s called a convocation of eagles when they all fly together like that.

If you’re life ever seems crazy or overwhelming, I highly recommend climbing a mountain.

Seeing the eagles made me feel really optimistic, because eagles used to be endangered. In the 1950s, there were less than 1000 left in all of the US. But we stopped hunting and poisoning them with DDT, and now there are over 100, 000 across the country, and they’re off the endangered species list.

I figured that kind of means that even when things are really bad, it is possible to fix the problem, and make the future better, instead of worse.

And believe it or not, things kept getting better from there. I thought I might come home to a mess, but when I got back yesterday, Jerry was all cool, and he said Aurora had dropped something off for me.

It turned out to be a copy of the school paper, except we don’t have a school paper, or we didn’t, until yesterday.

Aurora started it, I guess, because her name is on the front page under editor-in-chief, and all the photos are toonified, and who else would do that?

It’s called the Ring High Righter. And the very first front-page headline:

VIGILANTE RECYCLER EXPOSES JOYTECH BLOOD RIVER DUMP!

I guess on Friday, when I was mysteriously absent, some JoyTech thugs showed up at school asking a bunch of questions about the ‘vigilante recycler.’

Aurora asked them if it was true that the recycling was actually being dumped in the river, and they dragged her off and questioned her the whole day!

I haven’t talked to her yet, but the scene must have been bad enough to get her to start a school paper, and report the whole thing on the front page!

I don’t know if anyone will take the report seriously yet, but I’ve had a stupid grin on my face ever since I saw it. Did I ever mention that Aurora is the most perfect, wonderful person on the planet?

Yeah. She is. She’s perfect, and anything can be fixed.

FYI: All the images in this post were toonified using Toon-Photo…

Home safe. Just barely. I had to ditch Jerry’s truck and hide out around the school for five hours before the coast was clear to move. And I’m not crazy, because from the roof of the gym, I could see them in their fake riot gear cop suits combing the neighborhood.

Bad, bad, bad. Because that means they know what area I live in. I don’t even want to imagine what Jerry would do if he caught on to some JoyTech thugs sneaking around the house.

Last night was another sleepless night. Not as successful as previous nights.

I started out at the recycling plant to make sure there wasn’t any unusual activity, like extra security or anything. Then I followed the trucks to the river, and while they were busy, I started bagging garbage.

There’s so much down there, it’s unbelievable. And the water near the banks has started to take on this weird, oily look, like all these toxins are leaching into the water, or something.

Anyway, I got a lot done, because I couldn’t start returning the junk until the truckers were home safe in their beds.

By the time the trucks stopped coming, it was after 1 am. When I took my first load to the plant, it was completely dead, dark, nobody around, I swear, and no cameras, at least not visible ones.

Second load, same thing. I was racing, though. I didn’t have long til dawn, but I’d bagged a lot of recycling while the JoyTech trucks were dumping.

On the third load, I roll up like usual with my headlights off, just in case, and I jump out of the cab, and the next thing I know these guys in riot gear and facemasks are coming OUT of the pile of garbage I made.

At first I thought it must be the cops, but these guys were all silent, they didn’t shout anything at me, and they didn’t have flashlights or anything. Then, instead of running at me, this one guy puts his finger to the mouth of the mask - shhhhh.

I knew then that they were definitely not cops.

So I jumped back in the truck – thanking God I kept the motor running – and I drove straight at them. I don’t know what I would have done if they didn’t get out of the way, but they did, and it didn’t seem like they were going to chase me, so I stupidly drove like crazy back to my neighborhood, and ditched Jerry’s truck out at his buddy’s wrecking yard.

I figure I’ll head home on foot, but about a block away from the yard – and it’s dead silent predawn – I hear this static. Crackling. And all of a sudden, right in my ear, a voice, whispering.

That’s when I ran like hell. Off the street, through backyards mostly. I wasn’t even thinking, so it was a fluke I ended up at school, and I thought I lost them, but I took the fire escape up to the gym roof anyway, and two minutes later I see six of these JoyTech guys run by, stop, and mill around just past the fire escape like so.

How the hell did they find me? How the hell were they following me that far back?

This is me, sighing heavily, inside having a heart attack.

The rest you already know.