My stomach lurched as a screen of blue replaced the White. It felt like I was on a high-speed rail. Indeed, at points I did think I could see shadows of things beyond the veil- the legs of something feral, the face of something human. Each shadow disappeared after only a moment, as though I was nothing more than a gust of wind passing by them. Then my stomach settled and the blueness darkened and became material, forming actual walls of painted stone.

​I was in a small room, with a bed and a desk and a lot of clutter. On the desk was a fancy-looking monitor, far cleaner and sleeker than Stanley's or Michael's. There was a keyboard with pink and blue lights. The desk was the only flat surface without piles of junk on it- scattered across the floor were package wrappers, empty cans of energy drinks, full bottles of piss, books, zines, and trading cards. I thought I saw a rare Ancient Mew card. There was also an array of sex toys- vibrators, buttplugs with tails attached, a chastity cage or two, and various attachments for a strange piston-based machine in the corner opposite the bed. It appeared to be a fucking machine, built by hand, which had since grown rusty. Next to it was another machine, this one even more nebulous in its intended use, attached to the desktop by a thick black cord.

Sitting at her desk was Ashe, in the flesh (and blood and viscera, I assumed). She was wearing black leggings and a pink t-shirt. I tilted my head this way and that to confirm that she was indeed occupying the third of our dimensions and was not, as I had last seen her, merely a sorry collection of 2-D tiles representing a person. Somehow she had done it. She had reversed the digital curse wrought by Joyce! But how? I realized that before I got any answers I'd have to answer a few questions when Ashe turned around in her chair and saw my head tilted in dumb doe-eyed amazement.

"What the fuck?! How the fuck did you get in here?" she asked accusingly, though she was clearly scared shitless as well.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. It was guy- you know that- you know that guy? You know, uh...?" I said and made an indecipherable gesture, flapping my hands near my head.

"What? Who?"

"Okay, okay- he wears a lot of black, and he used to be your boss, and he has powers. Might be God. He has this thing, it's lumpy... it's black too, kinda just looks like nothing... he used it to talk to me, and then he sent me here. He said I need to kill you-"

"What? Fuck!"

"It's okay! I'm not gonna! We got all those files from your computer in the mountain, and Stanley's dead. So everything should be fine now! I think I just need you to tell your old boss you don't want to kill a whole bunch of people anymore."

"But I do!"

"No, Ashe, no," I said, shaking my head and gritting my teeth in a painful grin, "Because then that would mean I really do have to kill you."

I stood awkwardly frozen for a long minute as Ashe's fear and surprise turned to doubt and confusion. 

"Never mind," I said, "Let's try this again. Ashe, how've you been? I noticed you're not pixels anymore!"

"No," she said, "I'm not Pixels starring Adam Sandler anymore, thank God. No thanks to you or that bitch of a program you call your friend."

"Actually I call her Mistress, and I'm not sure if we're still friends. How did you, uh, reverse the curse, exactly?"

"Well it wasn't easy. I had to wait until your lesbian buddies got through massacring the shit out of my roommates, and then drag myself out of that God forsaken mountain all the way back here to my parents' old place, so I could use that machine I built to bring me back into the third dimension. They're dead, if that's what you're wondering. Died in the first Restructuring while I was away at college. Most of my classmates died too. I ended up moving in with my boss at my internship at the time. You know him- the man who apparently just told you to kill me."

"I'm not going to, though! You just need to tell him you've given up on this genocidal shit! Come on, another 'Restructuring' is the last thing we need!"

"Actually it's the first. The reason everything is fucked up now is because last time, people got killed indiscriminately. A lot of accomplished, talented people especially. This time we'd get rid of all the problematic people, that are holding the rest of us back and causing disorder!"

"Yeah, rich people died last time. Because they destroyed the planet and ruined life for everyone on it. Also, 'problematic'?"

"Well guess what. You wouldn't be scrounging around with your kinky problematic girlfriend for housing and hormones if we still had landlords and doctors!"

"What's wrong Ashe? Was your mommy a landlord and your daddy a doctor? Who the fuck builds a fuck machine at their parents' house, anyway?"

"Actually, they were both doctors because women can be doctors, whatever your name is!"

"It's Riese."

"Fine! Riese!"

The two of us broke eye contact as I tried to distract myself from my own sexism. I sat on the bed and looked around the room. My eyes landed on the rusty fucking machine again and when I looked back Ashe was gazing at me oddly.

"I hid it in the attic while they were alive, you know," she said, looking away once more, "And my sex toys used to be in the closet, I'm not a weirdo. I just haven't left this room in a while. I'm scared to. I know it's a mess."

"Makes sense," I said, "But why bring it out of storage if you're not gonna use it?"

"H-hey!" she said, flustered, "None of your business!"

I looked at Ashe. She looked back. Slowly, she got up from her chair and sat next to me on her bed.

"I was going to," she said, "But... I think I'm just angry. I... might've been wrong about some stuff. Not my code, my code was great! I've always been good at my job, I know that. But... I think I'm bad at life. I used to think I 'won' at transition. Because I'm hot, and I pass, and..."

"Yeah, yeah" I interrupted, and smiled.

"...and so on. But it feels like I'm missing something. Like... I forgot to transition into a nice person."

"Yeah."

"It just stopped seeming like it mattered. I was so focused on the code. But my code was going to kill a lot of people. It... it was going to kill you."

Ashe looked back up at me. I gazed into her beautiful green eyes. Her bangs were even messier now, but the face below them was small and soft. Her eyeliner was still well done, but with a slight shakiness betraying her relatable imperfection. Her tiny mouth smiled slightly and I fixated upon her lips as we both sat there on her bed. I considered her long black lashes, took her by the hand, and kissed her. I pulled away slowly, but didn't get far before she kissed me back and brought my hand up to her tit.

I rubbed Ashe's nipple between my thumb and forefinger as I kissed her gently along her neck. When I nibbled on her earlobe she shivered in my grasp, overwhelming me with the softness of her body. She took off her shirt and I couldn't help but lap at her breast like an enthusiastic pup. She seemed inspired by the way I was gyrating there on the edge of the bed as I sucked and so she reached down to feel my crotch.

"Someone's excited," she said.

I smiled but pulled back a little. Despite my urge to do it in a way they might have shown on the Discovery channel, I was reluctant to do so with a bottom. After Joyce's death I had spent a lot of boring nights with recumbent pillow princesses, too ensconced in their own dysphoria to consider making moves. At some point I realized I was on the long narrow road to sexless lesbian marriage and had to stuff my own traumas concerning Michael and Joyce into the "deal with later" pile. I assumed a more active role in the bedroom, as I often had with Michael, but it was always a bit touch-and-go. The one good thing about almost everyone I knew dying had been the huge relief when no one left was expecting me to perform.

I looked at Ashe, who was looking back at me expectantly, her hand wrapped around my dick. I moved her hand gently and held it by my face. 

​"I... could we just cuddle?' I asked, lifting my hand off her breast.

"Yes, please," she said.

I laid on my side and Ashe pushed her back against me. I wrapped my arms around her waist. This time she didn't shiver in my arms but settled into them sweetly. The softness of her skin against mine actually made me shiver, and I felt that old warmth deep in my stomach. I slid a hand back up and held one of her boobs like it was a precious orb of smooth tinted glass. She moaned and pressed her ass firmly against me. She was submissive but hardly one of my inactive recumbent queens. I tapped Ashe lightly on the shoulder.

"Actually, do you mind if-"

"No, please do," she said, all her attitude and condescension replaced by eagerness.

With some effort I slid down her tight leggings and left them wrapped around her ankles. What I revealed beneath her panties turned out to be far more significant than what I had been expecting. Her two round and bubbly cheeks formed what must have been the cutest ass I'd ever caressed. Within a couple of hours I was fully drunk on the squishiness of it, rolling around on Ashe's bed with my cheeks pressed against hers and drooling like a dog. 

"Hey, Riese," she said, bringing out of my trance state, "I'm totally into what's been going on for the last two hours and forty-three minutes, but I was kinda hoping since I showed you mine..."

She looked down and I followed her gaze. I hadn't even realized her dick had been out the whole time. It was small, soft and cute. It laid nuzzled between her thighs like a store of food hidden between tree branches by a squirrel for the winter. Its cuteness actually made me hesitant to reveal my own womanhood, which had gradually stiffened and now rested hard against my belly. She had probably felt it against her leg at some points. Something about the hopeful way she had asked eased my anxiety, with some help from her ass.

I realized that beneath her jaded and contradictory nature, Ashe was very similar to me. She had acted as stubbornly as I did when I was alone with my back against the wall. Even though without Joyce and Nash I'd probably be dead by her hand, or her code, the patterns of her stupidity were familiar to me. Her heart ached as much as mine. We were both damaged and afraid but she had the bravery to be vulnerable with me in this moment and let me know what she wanted. And right now she was a woman, naked and beautiful, waiting patiently for me to open my chest and let my love out. 
​
By the time I had finished thinking it through and taken off my jeans my boner had diminished. When Ashe looked at its small softness she smiled up at me. Her reaction to its weak and dear state warmed me up inside again and I held her and kissed her again, this time while straddling her. I licked her tits and she shivered again. I pulled back and she looked up at me, panting slightly with her eyebrows raised in sweet wanting. She let out a long moan and I noticed my hardness had slipped between her butt cheeks on its own. I grinned at her and she blushed. I asked her if she had any lube.

"Oh yeah, the pile's right over there," she said, pointing.

I noticed a slimy sticky pile of a couple dozen bottles next to the bed. I pulled one out gingerly and read the label.

"Ah, 2017. An excellent year." I quipped.

"Was that a fucking quip? Would you fuck me already?"

I lifted Ashe's legs over her head and smacked her ass for disparaging my shitty joke. Then I squeezed the bottle and let some of the lube, cool and clear, drip down and decorate my dick with shiny transparency. I squeezed a couple long thin drips of the stuff onto Ashe's ashehole as well, pushing it in slowly with a finger. Ashe moaned and tightened, but there was enough lube inside her now to fuck her with my finger easily. Her hole was this tiny inviting abyss of a black eye in the center of lovely pink softness. I directed my cock to make its acquaintance and pushed the head in gently.

"Oooh fuuck... okay, keep going..."

There wasn't a great deal of it left and before long my pubic bone was bumping against her butt cheeks. I kissed Ashe gently on the lips as I pulled my cock almost all the way out. When I thrusted into her again it was much easier, and she moaned loudly as my cock slid deeply into her. She grabbed onto my shoulders as I held her hips and filled her, over and over again. Her moans grew louder and louder and as my thrusting pushed her to a frenetic tempo I slid my hand aside and rubbed the head of Ashe's dick with just my thumb like it was a clit, focusing on the spot where it met the shaft. The speed with which I rubbed increased along with my fucking and after a while Ashe's moans became shrieks as she came. I paused and after a moment caught the single drop of clear watery cum that leaked out of her. I licked it off my palm and it tasted like guava.

I wasn't done. I kept fucking Ashe until we were both sexy sweaty messes, kissing her with ever-increasing frequency and abandon. I came close to coming a couple of times but had to stop after a couple of hours from sheer exhaustion. When I pulled out and laid back on the sweat puddle we had made, she nuzzled against me with sweet affection. We laid there for a long time. She was happy and beautiful and lacking all pretension. I found myself vulnerable too and decided my exterior should match my soul's nudity. I finally took off my bra and my boobs spilled out, reveling in their newfound freedom.

"Whoa they're so cute!" Ashe exclaimed when she saw my pale tits and hard rosy nipples. She grabbed them both and smiled at me as if Christmas had come early for her. I placed an encouraging hand atop her head and patted her gently. This seemed to inspire something in her and she pushed me on my back and crawled on top of me.

"My turn," she said.

​Her cute cock, which had rested so peacefully during our sex session, had stiffened and grown a bit. It was still small though and with a little bit of lube she pushed into me. I beckoned her to choke me while I absorbed her strong, short strokes. This redirected more blood to my cock, which grew hard again. I stroked it a bit while Ashe brought me almost to the point of passing out. Soon after she found herself tired, and I mounted her and pushed her back up into me. I bounced on her dick, my tits bouncing in frantic rhythm along with my hard cock, which smacked repeatedly against Ashe's belly. This caught her attention and she grabbed it with her pretty little hand, stroking my dick until I came on her chest. There was more cum this time, and it was thicker and whiter. She ate as much of it as she could reach and then I helped her with the rest.

We collapsed together once again, this time both fully exhausted and satisfied. We quickly fell asleep in each other's arms. The next morning we got up with the sun and stepped groggily outside, where we took turns spraying the sweat and cum off each other with Ashe's late dad's garden hose. When we went back inside I taught Ashe how to make french toast with powdered eggs and powdered milk and powdered toast. We had sex a couple of times that day and then slept for ten hours, after which point a loose sort of daily schedule formed, with a morning fuck, a night fuck, and a midday fuck. This continued for what may have been months or years but was probably just a few weeks. I don't know, it's kind of a blur. At some point I was standing by the dryer after having just moved a load from the washer when I remembered something.

"Hey, Ashe," I yelled in the direction of her bedroom, "Did you tell your old boss that you don't want to kill anyone anymore?"

"What?" she yelled back.

I ran into her bedroom. Ashe was at her computer watching some anime about a cowboy at his computer. 

"The man in black?" I asked, "Did you call him? Or text?"

"What? I don't have his number!"

"Wait, what? Fuck! He probably thinks you still want to kill all those people! Remember, like you were gonna do?"

"Oh yeah! Fuck! He probably does think that!"

"Unless he really is omnipresent or whatever... Oh, maybe if you just say it? Could you, actually?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course! Okay... *ahem*... I don't want anyone else to die anymore, dude! I'm fine! Just keep everything as it is!"

The two of us waited, looking absentmindedly up at the ceiling, waiting for some sign or acknowledgement. When none came, my anxiety began to rise.

"Fuck!" I said, "What if he's already killed people? I have to stop him! Shit, what did he say... it's been so long..."

"It's been six days, Riese."

"Oh, really? Okay. Uhhh... oh, right, I was supposed to kill you!"

"You were? Oh, right, you were."

"Hey, Ashe, listen... could you..."

"Yeah, lemme try"

Ashe laid down on her filthy floor. She picked up a empty energy drink cans and sprinkled them on her body. Then she closed her eyes and held still for a minute. 

"Um..." I said

"Wait! One sec."

Ashe grabbed a sharpie from her desk and drew X's on her eyelids. Then she laid back down in the rubbish.

"Well, thanks for trying," I said after ten seconds.

"Oh well. Maybe we can-"

Ashe's voice was suddenly muffled as a wall of blackness bisected the room. It's emergence was so quick I had no time to scream before it surrounded me and my body shot straight up into the ceiling.

Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

When I opened my eyes I was in the White. My feet were standing upon the mere suggestion of the ground. The hairs on my arms stood up as I felt a chill course through me, but there was no breeze to sway them. I shivered at the cold and at the feeling I was being watched. The featurelessness and indeterminate size of my surroundings made me feel more naked than if I had been stripped down to my Savage X Fentys. I was experiencing being known deeply by something I couldn't see or hear. This something knew every secret I locked away, the things I had never told any partner after even the most intimate lovemaking sessions. It shook me to my core.

I turned around, hoping to see whatever was here with me, and know it as it knew me in this void I had been delivered to. When I moved, the whiteness stirred and I could see the limits of it. There were walls some couple hundred feet out in each direction, though they shook and flashed between white and gray. Shocked, I stopped and turned the other way, then started walking. As I did so the walls morphed and the whiteness dissolved in flashes, revealing some world or image beyond. In between each flash of white, each reassertion of the boundaries of this place, I could glimpse people, larger than life. I kept walking, faster now. Before me were rows of white men in suits, staring solemnly at me.

Flash!

A man in a plaid shirt tending bar handed a drink to someone whose back was turned to me. He smiled at me, a wide but painful smile.

Flash!

A large man in khakis with a shock of white hair held an iron pole. He whacked at something on the ground, and a bumpy white ball came bouncing towards me with incredible speed. It was about to hit me when-

​Flash!

I was almost at the border now. Fuzzy gray lines darkened and coalesced into the shape of a man. The man stepped out, dragging something behind him, and the flashing stopped. I had stopped running, but shifting my vision yielded no more apparitions. I stared at the White's new occupant. He was young, pale, and wore a black peacoat and black jeans. It was the man from the house Jim Davis had built. He was pulling a little red wagon behind him, with something on it under a towel.

The man in black waved at me as I stood in the pure silence of the void and stared.

"Thanks for coming," he said, "Can I offer you some snacks?"

I looked around. The fuzzy gray borders had faded back to white. There were no shadows in which to hide a pantry or even a box of Chex mix. I looked at the wagon with the obscured mass upon it and stared back at the man inquisitively.

"You wouldn't want to eat that," he said, "Here!"

There were plasticky fruit-flavored hexagons of delicious sweet loveliness in his hand, the kind that explode into divinely saccharine sticky juice with the slightest bite. They had always been in his hand now, except I could remember when they weren't. But was that now, as I took them from him? I wasn't sure. Time had grown drippy and vague.

"Hey," I asked as I bit into some blue-flavored sweetness, "Are you God?"

"Yeah," he said, "That's me."

I paused a second, caught off-guard. I opened my mouth like a ventriloquist's dummy, then closed it and waited for him to say something else. When he did not, I loosened my maw again in protest.

"No, no, no," I said, "That's not right. You're not Him. He wouldn't say 'That's me!' Maybe He'd say 'I've Been Called So Before', or something. No, I don't think so. Which means... this isn't Heaven, is it? Or 'The Place You Call Heaven'?

"Whatever. No, this is a place I created recently. It's called the White. It's very White. As you saw."

"Oh, yeah... golf... hey, don't look at me! You created it!"

"Yeah, I did. Can't remember why. Good for business meetings. You know, focusing on corporate synergy and all that. Though I don't honestly know what that means."

"Wait a second... Jim's House, the Computer, that shit Stanley said- it was you! You were his business partner, weren't you?"

The man in black sighed and pulled his wagon out from where the edge of the White, swinging the handle around and stopping it in front of himself so he could rest a foot upon it and pull out a pack of cigarettes. He offered me one, which I declined. Choosing to look like a loser in front of God, I thought, that's the final test isn't it? What am I afraid of, cancer?

"Again, that's me," he said, lighting up a cigarette (whichever brand you think is the coolest), "Ashe, one of my smartest, could transmit all the numbers or whatever with that big computer they have up there, but in the end if you're talking about wiping seventy-five percent of humanity off the face of the earth, there's only ever been one way."

The man in black breathed out his first puff of smoke and stuck his cigarette right back in between his sexy lips. He leaned down and pulled the towel off his wagon, after which it stopped being anywhere. There exposed in the wagon was a slightly pulsating darkness in this white. Around its lumpy blackness the wagon and even the surrounding whiteness seemed to grow gray, as if it had sucked in the light.

"This thing is really dense," he said, "And heavy. You wouldn't believe how long I've been lugging it around. It's worth it, though. If you want more gross sugary cum-filled snacks it'll make you as many as you want. I made the White, but I could make a better place, any place at all. A titty bar, they still have those right? Or a dick bar? Best dick bar you've ever seen, bunch of Hanses and Franzes with stangenbrots between their legs. They would just exist! How about a luxury pleasure dolphin bar? Do you even know what that is? I could throw in the male strippers too, if you want! You know what? I know what you want, I could give them all dad bods and tails! And one guy, his head could be a Ms. Pac-Man Machine! One you could actually get a high score on! And everyone could care, somehow! They'd totally metaphorically suck your dick about it as they sucked your actual, chemically-softened female-identifying dick! Who needs the world, right? If you want I'll get rid of all of it, let's start off fresh! Eh?"

"No, no, no! I don't want any of that! I just want to go back to the world as it is!" I said, stifling my urge to ask him to bring Nash back from wherever she had gone to, or to fix things with me and Joyce. Part of me even wanted Michael back, as fucked up as that was. But this guy's whole deal had a real monkey's paw vibe to it and I didn't want to find myself on the wrong end of some after-school special-style lesson today.

"Fiiine," the man in black said, rolling his eyes, "I figured, anyway. Would have been fun, but I've always been a sucker for jumpy girls, still full of hope somehow."

The man, or whatever he was, dropped the burning butt of his cigarette and it was gone. He still stamped at the place where it would have landed, though, and sighed. He looked up at me in this unexpected sad shaggy dog sort of way that made me want to touch him.

"If you want to go back to Earth," he asked hesitantly, "I'm guessing you're going to want the population to stay intact?"

"Uh, yeah!"

"Yeah, that's going to be a problem. See, I already promised another girl we'd wipe a bunch of 'em out. And she's put in a lot of work... I'll tell you what, I can send you to her, and you two can hash it out?"

"What?"

"You know," he said, as a growing aura of pastel blue appeared and formed a wall that enveloped me, "If you kill her or whatever, you can go back, and I'll keep it all as-is. Or, you know, if she kills you, we do the other thing. Either way, good luck!"

Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

Joyce laid into me ferociously with the switch, then paused. She looked down at me with disgust as my freshly reddened ass radiated heat. There was something different in her eyes now. I shivered in delightful fear as I melted further into moldable putty in my mistress's presence. 

Joyce pulled on my leash and brought me down to the carpet we had laid out on the creaky floorboards of our shack. She eased one of her feet- large for a woman's but small for a trans one- onto my back, then stepped down hard. My already shivering naked body was beset my wave upon wave of effortful pleasure. She brought her other foot up and stomped a bit. She was shorter than me, but heavier. I groaned and pressed my face into the carpet. Her feet stepped carefully but heavily lower and lower until one was on my waist and one was on my ass. By this time I was already shaking uncontrollably. With one expertly conducted foot she pressed hard into the lower cusp of my ass, right by my thigh. I bit into the carpet fibers as I came forcefully under her foot's direction.

I laid there shivering from the aftershocks of my orgasm. I didn't notice Joyce had left the room until she came back with a lighter and a red candle. She lit the candle wordlessly and began dripping hot wax on my back, causing my head to jolt back with every burning sting of heat. Soon she had formed tendrils of wax that spiraled from my shoulders to the crack of my ass. A few more drops on my thighs brought me to another orgasm. When she had finished pulling all the wax off, she fingered me and brought me to my third.

Her duties fulfilled, Joyce lay back on the bed, spreading her arms wide and letting me fall lightly into them. She had been administering pain nightly, in as many doses as I could ask for. She had seemed eager to, even happy at times. I hadn't seen her smile so much in years. But over the last week she had been distant, an attribute I found worrying despite the alluring quality it held over me. She had never been the distant one- that had been Michael. I found myself bothered by the possibilities and so when a different topic drifted into mind I was grateful and opened my mouth to share it at once.

"Did you talk to Zoe's doctor friend about the clinic?" I asked, "What did she say?"

I had been too busy fussing around with ink pens in the shack to come with Joyce to visit the former doctor. They had been a lucky find, from a desk in one of the bigger homes closer to the City, and I had been drawing some dicks with truly impeccable crosshatching. Walking to the City and back took a full day, and I had been only too happy to lean on Joyce once again for support. The unbalanced nature of our current relationship weighed on me at times, but it had become impossible for me to pay back all her favors. I hadn't even fucked her in weeks, which had once been my usual payment for dominance rendered.

"With the stuff she has at home and the stuff we found at the clinic, she said maybe she could do it. But she really doesn't want to attempt it alone- I mean she's never even performed SRS, Riese."

"There's books. She can learn!"

"How to perform a surgery she'll never even do again? The woman is sixty-nine, Riese. I don't see the point."

"Why do you think she'll never need to do it again?"

"We're the last of a dying breed, Riese," Joyce sighed, "Let's face it- when was the last time you heard of someone coming out as trans?"

"Cilantro did! A month ago!"

"As nonbinary."

"And trans!"

"You're missing the point. They're not getting surgery. Or taking hormones. Because the first one is impossible and the second involves a shit ton of scavenging."

"So? They'll learn how to synthesize hormones again some day! We still exist!"

"Kids these days are raised by gangs, Riese. Or unions. Groups with group mentalities and goals, that the kids share. They're not going to give up that safety for the kind of lives we've lived- foraging, missing doses all the time, feeling like shit. Nah. Well, maybe some will. Not many though. You remember when liberals used to call us 'brave'? Fuck that. Trans kids these days are fucking brave. It's like the Wild fucking Northwest out here."

I winced, sighed, and offered no rebuttal. We got up, took turns pissing, then moved to the couch. Joyce brought out a joint and gave me a hit. I stared at the smoke, then at her. It had been three months since she killed Stanley, and in all that time I had come no closer to deciphering the riddle he had posed in his last moments. He had claimed God's computer was nothing more than a statue, housing a tiny processor. That couldn't be true, because Joyce had been resurrected by the mighty processor that stony laptop must have housed. Every time I asked her she confirmed this. If there had been any logic to what Stanley had said, she would know. It had probably been a desperate lie. Yet I couldn't shake this weird feeling that in this last attempt at self-preservation Stanley had shielded himself behind at least a partial truth. I decided I was going to question Joyce yet again.

"Riese," she said, interrupting my thought.

"Yeah?"

"I... I'm seeing someone else."

"...oh."

​We sat in silence for barely a minute. It felt like an hour. My emotions swelled up but got stuck in my throat. I swallowed them down and bit my lip. I couldn't manage to look at Joyce- her mere blurry presence in the corner of my vision was a fiery star that singed my retinas. It was too much to bare, so I got up and went outside.

I sat down in Bryan the Wise's old rocking chair. He had insisted we take it after Joyce and I returned his gun to him. Thankfully Stills and Young were unharmed and safe. Stanley had come shortly after I left, and hadn't appreciated Bryan's buckshot greeting with the same good humor I had. He had taken Bryan's gun from him but Cosby had managed to fight him off. They were lucky the shotgun took so long to reload and that Stanley wasn't a gun guy. So I rocked back and forth for a bit. Joyce came out and asked if I was okay. I managed a shaky yeah and we sat together a while. 

"He lives pretty close," Joyce said, "In one of those McMansions they got a bit to the south. Only he totally gutted it. It's dope, I feel shitty about leaving you alone in the shack."

"The shack's okay. We fixed it together. How long?"

"A couple weeks."

"Fuck."

"I honestly didn't know it was going to piss you off. We were never actually exclu-"

"Fuck that, Joyce! Michael and Stanley are dead! We're living in a shack! Why do I have to ask you if we can be exclusive?"

"Uh, because we've never done that before? And I've definitely never done that with a girl before? Look, you're my best friend. We've been through some real shit. I like domming you. But this shit is messy as fuck. Thank you for bringing me back. I've got a whole new life now and I gotta figure it out."

"...I know. I wanted to help."

"Help yourself, first."

I cried a bit, and Joyce hugged me. Then she announced she was going to spend the night at her boyfriend's and walked off. The sunset kept me company after that. It grew more beautiful every year the atmosphere became clearer. Autumn had turned the leaves on the trees dotting the landscape to warm red embers of dying light. Soon the great fire on the horizon faded, but the night was warm and still and I stayed rocking. I felt my head grow heavy as I rocked myself to sleep.

Suddenly the night grew cold. Not just cold, but empty. I woke and everything in my vision was white. There was a wall of whiteness, growing, sucking the warm air away, leaving emptiness. I screamed, but the wall sucked that away too. I winced and braced off myself as my body was enveloped in the cold nothingness.

Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

Marc Siskel is a 28-year-old musician from Palouse, a small town in eastern Washington. In 2013 he moved to Seattle and started a band with longtime friend Dan Becker, who had moved there to attend the University of Washington. Both co-wrote and played various instruments, with Marc handling more of the vocals and Dan most of the guitars. Shortly after Dan dropped out, the pair, now named Spak, released their eponymous first album. Its twenty tracks were mostly recorded in the basement sublet they shared, and ranged from acoustic numbers like "Get the Fuck Up Outta Here" to rockers such as "I Am Tired" and "Rotting". "The Earworm" in particular showed their passion for emulating rock legends with finesse. 
Though primitive, this first effort proved the boys to be quite capable in different genres. They followed it quickly with a more refined album, Controls the Universe, in 2015. It added a lot to the band's mythos, in particular Mungie, a squidlike god the two seem to have a fascination with. The album was supposedly made under the influence of typewriter correction fluid stolen from Marc's grandma, and it shows on tracks like "Encino" and "Gawd Rest His Soul". It might just be the band's quirkiest album, and also boasted 20 tracks.
Yadda released in 2017, with a "mature" cover that hinted at the band's own strange maturation. Though there were still songs about fish tacos and strawberry headed humans, there was more depth to the lyrics, particularly on "Pagan Pie" which explored love and religion. Gunkhed, the band's last album, came out in 2019 and featured a combination of these aspects of Spak. Not much has been heard from Spak since the COVID-19 pandemic started, which has fans wondering what's become of them. I spoke with Marc over Zoom to understand the band's past and uncertain future...

Four days of solemn travel brought us back to the city, the few remaining phallic constructions of which loomed over us on that last day like incipient inevitabilities. As we approached the offices of Permanent Solutions, a familiar darkness began to permeate my brain. It was the same darkness that had driven me endlessly towards Michael, a darkness I thought I had finally quelled when I committed my first act of grisly murder. Here it was again, though, that bitter taste on my tongue and almost imperceptible ringing in my ears. I looked at Joyce and could tell the darkness was in her brain too, or at least her code. I reached my hand out and she grasped it tightly. Zoe and Thalia followed us obliviously, our stalwart protectors and, if need be, instruments that would serve out our required justice.

​Joyce and I walked up the stairs, hand in hand. We didn't stop at the landing where she had died, she just gripped me tighter and we pressed on. We finally reached the sixth floor and found the lobby empty and Stanley's office door shut. I motioned for Joyce to release my hand and she reluctantly obliged. I tried the door handle and found it locked. I slammed my shoulder on the door and succeeded in hurting my shoulder.

"Fuck that hurt," I said, "Zoe? Or Thalia?"

Zoe nodded at Thalia who strode past me and kicked the door right off its hinges. You had to admire that kind of raw strength in a woman. You just had to! She took a step into the dark office and flipped the lights on. Then she turned around with a confused expression.

I hastily squeezed by her and looked around. Stanley's office was even more minimalist than I remembered. Even his desk was missing. I made several full rotations despite there being nowhere for him to possibly be hiding. I stepped back out into the lobby and Joyce heard me groaning to myself.

"What?" she asked.

"He knew we were coming," I said.

"Well he's still gotta be here. He wouldn't abandon this place, ever. It meant everything to him."

"Maybe, but he could have backup. I know it was just him and that Jeremy guy before but if he knows I'm back he could have a dude with a gun in every office."

"Nah. Stanley was never good at making friends."

"Oh yeah," I laughed nervously, "That makes sense. Can't relate though, I definitely find it really easy to forge meaningful relationships with people I'm not sleeping with!"

Joyce gave me a condescending look and lead our group down the hall. She slammed open the first office door on the right and flicked on the light switch. The desk in there was missing, too. She did the same at the next door on the left and then slammed the door shut loudly. 

"Stanley!" she yelled, "Where the fuck are you?!"

After a moment the third door on the left slowly creaked open. We heard slow footsteps behind it and Zoe and Thalia stepped in front of me, forming a human shield which I was very glad for until I saw the face peeking out from behind the door. Joyce approached with her fist raised.

"Wait!" shouted Jeremy, terrified. A thin curtain of sweat inched down his face. "I just want to go home! Do whatever you want!"

I couldn't help but lose all my affection for Jeremy as he stood there whimpering. He had given up before even laying eyes upon the threat- in his office, I assumed, probably as warm urine soaked his boxer briefs. Then again, his boss wasn't the type to inspire much loyalty. In the end, it seemed he'd be forced to face us completely alone. This empty inanimate hellscape of postmodern design and fluorescent lights was all Stanley had left now.

Zoe walked behind Jeremy and grabbed his wrists. He began walking toward the stairs without any further provocation, but Zoe held on with what looked like a sturdy grip. He lead her out the door and out of sight, while Thalia and I carried on following Joyce down the long hall.

"Don't worry- she'll check him for weapons and make sure he doesn't come back," said Thalia.

"I wasn't worried," I said.

"Right, you're not really so small. Not like her. She's different..." she said, staring almost reverentially at Joyce.

"She sure is. I mean, she always was. She doesn't wait around for people, either. I'm always waiting for people to decide how they feel about me. But she doesn't."

"Do you love her?"

"...Probably. I feel like I need her. She told me she loved me once, but I wasn't ready. Then there wasn't anything romantic left between us, I guess. Then she died."

"I think you love her."

"I don't know, Thalia, maybe. Right now I'm just scared to shit."

"Don't worry, I'll take care of Stanley."

"Not of him."

"Hey, Thalia!" shouted Joyce from the very end of the hall, "Can you come help me with this one? It's locked."

Thalia patted my head and ran to Joyce, stopping at the locked door. As Joyce and I looked on, the Greek beauty widened her stance and slammed into the door, knocking it off its hinges. Then her body flew into the hall as shrapnel exploded out of her back. She slammed her head into the wall and fell back against it, her chest now a bloody mess. I recoiled in shock and horror.

Joyce screamed and started shaking. Regarding Thalia's destroyed body, she began to glow a light blue. She then turned around and stepped into the dark room before I could stop her. Her glow brightened and the room was soon illuminated. It was spacious, and seemed to have been used for storage. In the corner were a couple of vacuums and a mop, along with a shelf containing other supplies. The main feature of the room now, though, was the massive structure of flipped and stacked desks, all wooden with steel beams. They had been piled at least seven feet high, and formed a barricade with solid walls and a couple of peeking windows low to the ground. From one of these I caught sight of Stanley's bespectacled face, scared to shit.

"Oh, fuck!" he exclaimed, and started fiddling furiously with something. When he was done he stuck it through the hole in his barricade of desks. It was a shotgun that had once belonged to Hunter S. Thompson, but which I had only seen carried by Bryan the Wise. I was about to yell to her when Joyce grabbed hold of the gun barrel and pulled it, along with its carrier, through the hole. Stanley hit the cement hard with his shoulder and sprawled out on his back, writhing there in Joyce's glow. As she approached him he spun himself around and stuck his hands out in protest.

"Wait! Riese, tell her to stop! Come on!"

Joyce slowed in her approach not one tad. I did nothing to help Stanley, whose stammering reasoning had become more frantic.

"Hold on! Think about it! God's computer? Come on, that's bullshit! What was it doing there? Wh-why was it so huge? It's a statue, an artifact! A shell for a tiny processor that Ashe couldn't even access directly! Think about it! Riese, come on! Don't you care?"

"Actually no," I said, my face blank and bitchy, "I don't understand a fucking thing."

Stanley's eyes grew even wider as Joyce leaned in. She tossed Bryan's gun over her shoulder and reached out with her other hand. I had no idea what she was about to do but I couldn't look away. Not from the man who I still held such a seething envy for. Even now that he had nothing left, I felt the pain of Joyce being not quite mine, something I had needed ever since I had become not quite Michael's. It was a sharp and throbbing lack, and it turned my blood to toxic bubbly gamer fuel.

​Wordlessly, Joyce grabbed Stanley's shoulder. Hard. By increments, his skin started to blur and roughen. To my shock, the subtle and supple musculature of his nerd arms all turned to sharp edges, each a different shade of pale that reflected light with no particular care for detail. His face turned to a grimacing citrine skull, jagged and uncanny. It opened to scream and what came out was a distorted garble, rather like a dial tone from before the before time. He flailed against her, but Joyce grabbed him with both hands and pushed him down, straddling his suddenly weaker body.

Blue light ebbed and flowed from Joyce into the flailing skeleton. Seams started to emerge from within Stanley's skin. They glowed cold blue, and crisscrossed his body like well-designed city roads. As the seams split, the gaps between these segmented squares of Stanley's body surface grew. Blood spilled out of each, quickly forming a huge pool under my former dominatrix and her prey. I could see bone and viscera still floating within, naked and divided. Joyce bore down harder and suddenly all the squares collapsed. The bones and viscera were gone, leaving only flat squares like what Ashe had become. There lay Stanley, except he was only the vaguest approximation of the man I had known and obsessed over. Tears fell from my wide and fearful eyes as I looked down wordlessly at him.

But Joyce wasn't done. She pushed down on the flat squares, which had suddenly soaked up the blood like sea sponges. The blue energy kept coming into them, and they began to coalesce. Groups of four squares shifted and merged, and this repeated exponentially. Soon there was only one square- light brown and trembling slightly. Joyce smashed her fist into it. Then her other fist came down. Again. And again.

"FUCK!" cried Joyce, her tears dripping suddenly and heavily, "MOTHERFUCKER!"

A huge crack formed on the brown square, the shaking of which had become spastic vibration. Joyce's fists continued to rain down and the crack grew until it bisected the cube diagonally. With one more punch it tore apart and exploded into dust. For a moment I thought I saw 1s and 0s fly across my vision. That may have been mere fanciful allegorical trans metaphor. Or not. It didn't really matter.

​Stanley was dead.

​Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

I held Nash's hand and lead her into Ashe's computer room. Joyce was sitting alone on top of Garfield, her feet dangling in Ashe's coding hole like it was a pool on a cool day. She seemed almost serene, except for a certain guilt in her eyes- a rare thing to find in those deep black portals. I scanned the room for signs of Ashe and found none.

"We gotta go, Joyce, but where's Ashe?" I asked with Nash still tugging gently on my hand.

Joyce stared at me vacantly and motioned to a spot on the floor beside her. There appeared to be an intricate pattern of white, blue and pink tiles spread across the cement. It made no sense to me until I moved and shifted my perspective. The pattern came into focus and I saw a dissected two-dimensional representation of Ashe within it. Little white squares for her hair and little pink and blue squares for her clothes. I turned back to Joyce, my eyes as wide as a nice set of hips. This gave her the cue that it was time to explain.

"I was just trying to restrain her so I could copy all her data and wipe it," she said, "I guess I mighta lowered her res a bit. Just to make it go smoother. But she just got way bitchier, after that, believe me, and then things got kinda... out of control. She got so low-res that she lost a dimension. She's basically like a sprite, now, from some shit like Gex or something."

I sighed and looked back at the pattern. Ashe did look like something out of a video game, but this twisted version of her was all wrong. Every few seconds the tiles shifted slightly, and I couldn't tell if this was something she was doing consciously or merely in reaction to her environment. There was no way to communicate with her- Joyce had turned her into pixels and data, she had no vocal cords that were capable of vibration. I looked back at Joyce with her feet in the coding pit. The monitor in there was blank- there was no more code anyone could feed into that ancient computer outside and use to kill everyone Stanley's unethical program deemed unworthy. Joyce had certainly handled things thoroughly. I was now painfully aware of the huge divide between her very nature as a being of code and mine as a human. All I could do was try to be cautious of it.

​"If you have the code, there's nothing left for us here." I said, "Let's go- there's a lot of stairs."

The three of us descended slowly down the sparsely illuminated staircase. Joyce walked a little ways ahead of us, occasionally flitting out of view for a few seconds. I focused on making sure Nash didn't trip and fall in her state of shock. There was nothing by way of a railing there so I did my best to function as her railing, but in a different way than I had hoped she would function as mine. Even after everything that had happened I knew I would still be needing it soon. After a while we heard some excited chattering from the chamber we were circling around. I motioned for silence and peeked in. I caught a glimpse of robust and well developed shoulders on the figures below and ascertained it was the escaped iron-workers. I told Joyce and tried to help Nash hurry along downstairs.

When we reached the bottom of the stairs there were already a few iron-workers gathered by the large orange door. All three were muscular goddesses, tanned and statuesque. They recognized me instantly and began chattering amongst themselves. It was almost more than my ego could take.

"Hey," said one, "Aren't you that girl with the fake nails and the really loose asshole from last week?" 

I stirred and sputtered, my face turning bright red as I tried to pretend I didn't notice Joyce's wry smile. I explained to the tan beauty that I was also the one who had freed them, and she nodded and ran off into the chamber. She came back with another goddess, a pale redhead with an air of authority who I hadn't seen before. This woman introduced herself as Becky and, after cornering me against the stone wall, slapped the wall above my shoulder quite fiercely. Even Nash flinched at the bang her strong but elegant hand produced. Becky nodded at her then turned back to me.

"So you're the one that unlocked the cells, huh?" she asked, looking down at me, "Why? Because some of my girls helped you out that time?"

"No," I said, "I need your help."

"Of course you do. But it turns out we're busy. See, those fuckers still have one of our workers. Her name was Val. So now we gotta go out and search the mountain perimeter for the assholes that took her."

"You would die!"

"Probably. But we have to find her. We're Arbuckles- the union always has been."

Nash covered her face and I thought I heard a soft sob. I pushed myself up off the wall and turned my face up towards Becky's.

"You don't," I said, "Val is dead." But! She was one of them. A cat person. And we didn't kill her- it was Davis."

"What the fuck?" asked Becky, "Nash? Is that true?" 

Nash nodded.

"I'm pretty sure she was actually their leader," I said, "So we don't have to worry about the rest of them. They're just subby cats who can't organize for shit unless someone else tells them what to do. We can all just walk out of here."

Becky took a while to consider this. The greek-looking workers watched her with interest. She finally pushed herself off the wall and reached out her hand. I took it gingerly.

"If Val was a rat- I mean cat," she said, "Then thanks for taking care of it for us."

"It was Davis," I said.

"Sure. Look, we owe you one- probably more! There was no reason for you to help us- besides, well, I can tell you care about Nash. Which is good, I always thought she was too good for Val. Whatever it is, I'll put my best and brightest on it. But first we gotta get outta here safely. Can you do one more thing for me?"

"Sure, Becky."

"Take this- it was Val's. She was always a big fan of films from 1991 to 2001. The 'true nineties', she called them. Had quite a prop collection. This is one of them- an invisibility cloak."

She handed me a piece of cloth barely large enough to cover a single well-developed teenager. It was a dark purplish grey, and covered in moons and stars. I gave Becky a quizzical look and pulled the cloak over my head.

"Can you see me?" I asked.

"Uh, no. I can't. Where'd you go?" Becky replied dryly. Joyce flashed me a smirk.

"Really? I'm actually invisible right now?"

"Yeah, sure. Now go sneak a peek at those cat people so we can sneak outta here. Then we can help you or whatever."

I nodded and started walking off. Nash and Becky still followed me with their eyes despite the cloak. Joyce even ran up to me and stopped me at the narrow corridor. 

"Wait, Riese," she said, "You're sure you wanna wear that cloak?"

"Why, is it not working?" I asked.

"No, it's totally working," she teased, "But wasn't it created by a Terf? There might be discourse here."

"Maybe. But I think it's ok 'cause I'm reclaiming it."

"How?"

"By, like, being a chick with a dick and stealing a Terf's cloak."

"Ah, cool."

​I walked through the corridor with the shaky belief that I was doing something revolutionary. The inside of the mountain's stony rampart held a small screen with a lock symbol. I tapped it and the lock unhinged, which caused the wall to rumble and give way. I sidled out and saw no signs of man or cat. Lacking any sense of direction, I started off to my right and began searching the perimeter of the mountain. After a few minutes I came upon the couple hundred cat persons, some on guard while others lounged and chatted idly. As soon as I began stealthily approaching the closest ones stirred and stopped talking. They stared at me, as did those behind them, and then the masses beyond. Soon all two hundred were giving me a blank look. I stepped back and prepared to run for my life. Then, just as soon as they had stopped, they resumed their searching and lounging.

​I breathed an uncertain sigh and inched a bit closer- as close as I dared. From here I could see the faces of almost all the cultists. But there was one face that I didn't realize I was expecting to see until I didn't. I frowned and slowly turned around. I made it back to the front of the mountain and removed the pipe from its hole. I stepped inside and locked the entrance. Joyce, Nash, and Becky were waiting for me. I slid off the auspicious cloak and they all feigned surprise despite all having seen me and Nash having waved.

​"We can avoid them if we all just go left," I said.

"So they're on the north side, then," said Becky, "Good."

"Yeah, Becky," said Joyce, "Anything else, Riese?"

"Not really," I said, "There was this guy I met last week. I thought I'd see him here for sure. He seemed like a really big fan of Garfield."

I shrugged and Joyce narrowed her eyes. Becky ventured into to the main chamber and returned with two of the greek women. She motioned towards them.

"Thank you for your help, Riese. I'll start organizing my girls so we can move out. You can take Zoe and Thalia. They're some of my hardest workers. They can help you with whatever you need, just send them back to me after. Deal?

"Sure," I said, "Welcome aboard."

​Zoe and Thalia nodded. Becky thanked me again and then returned to her people. I gathered Nash and Joyce and after leading all four through some deep breathing exercises we all zipped up our coats and headed out through the narrow passage. I lead the group, with Joyce behind me, then Zoe and Thalia. Nash brought up the rear.

The mountain birthed us out into the wintery quiet. The snow had picked up and we couldn't even hear the group of cat people less than a hundred yards away. We stood their for a moment before taking a dozen paces south. I already felt chilled to the bone, but in that refreshing and invigorating way that I sometimes craved when exploring such climates. It would be nice to return to the moderate warmness of summer at home, and to the lingering pollution of the City.

I turned around to check if my group were in similar spirits. I saw Joyce smiling in her tank top and shorts, impervious to the cold as she was, and the greek unionists in their warm black coats with their unreadable faces. But to my shock I couldn't see Nash. I asked Joyce where she was and she looked around and shrugged. I ran back by the mountain, then further south and what I guessed must be west. I didn't dare go north without Val's cloak. 

"Nash!" I yelled. There was no reply in the stiffening cold. Just an empty silence and a smattering of yellow snow in the spot my tenacious travelling lesbian had vanished from.

Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

I came lurching down out of the shadows and into the warm glow cast by the panel lights of the control room. The door was wide open, and inside Nash stood slowly panting with her back to me. Her hand was wrapped around the throat of a the man who had been leading the Cat hymns and chanting down below. His hood was pulled back exposing his scruffy brown beard. He still held his microphone in one hand- the other was swatting weakly at Nash's sizable forearm. His eyes darted from her to the other man in black robes who also had his hood pulled back. He stood at the far end of the room, his long blond hair backlit by a sparking loose wire in Garfield's mouth. He held Val close against him, with a butterfly knife at her throat and her leash wrapped tight around his hand. She looked scared but very lucid.

The three hooded figures at the control panel seemed to be unconscious. One was on the floor, one was slumping off the side of the chair and one was stuck laying against the panel. The final figure still wearing a hood was crouching tensely by Jim Davis and the wire which had somehow broken loose. Jim was moaning and trying to push his head out of the tangled wires which engulfed him. I could see he was still in possession of a neck which he was jutting out, his veins bulging and muscles straining.

The blond man twirled his knife in his hand and brought it down by Val's collarbone. 

"This is ridiculous," he said in an accent that might have been Slovenian, "You're going to release Scrap now, and then we will talk this through. Yes?"

"You want me to release him?" Nash asked.

"Nash!" I yelled, stopping a couple feet past the door. She ignored me.

"Yes," said the blond European. 

Nash turned and smiled directly at me. She then grabbed the man Val's captor had called Scrap by the arm and sent him flying towards me. I panicked and tried to step backwards, my leg flailing as I did so. I ended up kicking him in the stomach, and he collapsed to the ground.

"Shit! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" I shouted instinctively.

"Grab his microphone!" yelled Nash.

I did as my travelling companion commanded and plucked the mic off the floor. Scrap was breathing but not moving much otherwise. Nash and I turned towards the blond man, waiting for a strained moment to see his response.

"Ah, fuck this!" he bellowed, "You can deal with her yourselves! Let me tend to the man Davis!"

The European drew his knife away and let go of Val's leash. Val stood staring at Nash as he retreated to speak in hush and hurried tones to his hooded friend. 

"Val!" Nash cried, tears welling up in her eyes, "Val, I'm so glad you're okay!"

"You shouldn't have come." spoke Val, her voice barely more than a monotone whisper.

Nash and I looked at each other uneasily as Val unclasped the leash from her collar and dropped it to the floor. In her torn leggings and black tank top she cut quite the imposing figure despite being the shortest iron-worker at five-foot-five. Her cat eyeliner was as sharp as the fake claws on her gloves. She approached us steadily, never breaking eye contact with Nash to look at me as I nervously tightened my grip on the microphone.

​"You weren't supposed to see any of this, Nash," Val said, "Why did you even leave your dad's farm? There's nothing you can do. Nothing any human can do in the age of the feline."

She was a hair length away from Nash, who seemed to be struggling and sweating now more than she had when fighting the hooded goons. The conscious two of which had now donned insulated leather gloves and were trying to grab hold of the sparking, writhing wires- there were three wires now! Scrap seemed down for the count so I nervously inched towards Nash and Val, the microphone now feeling very heavy in my hand.

​"I was going to come back for you, after all this was over," Val continued, "This is the only way for us- you need to understand that."

"I understand," said Nash, "I understand that you're a fucking catgirl!"

"I am a Cat Woman!" Val yelled furiously. She scratched at Nash's arm and I saw a streak of red open up. I ran to Nash in an effort to steady her. She stood there like a blinking statue. Val jumped back, crouched, and licked her bloody claws. Slowly she crawled towards me.

"Did you like that suppository, Riese?" she said, looking up at me with her green eyes, "I designed it myself. I hope it came in handy for you. Look- my partner and I have some things we need to discuss alone. Why don't you just give me the microphone and I'll wait 'til you leave to tell the kittens below what just happened. Give you a head start. That's more than fair."

I fearfully held the microphone up over my head and circled around Nash, trying to read her expression. She seemed too stunned to help me deal with her deranged partner. Was she going to let me die? From the back of the room, I heard the sparking intensify. Over that buzzing was a low and deep moan growing louder.

"The other option," she said, "Won't be as fun for you. I'm going to tear that thing out of your hand and call the kittens up here. You'll already be a bloody mess by the time they come, but when they do it's going to be a feast. Fancy Feast is nice fresh out the can, but fresh meat is just purr-fect."

"Wow," I said, my heart beating in my chest like Tommy Ramone, "You guys take pet play really seriously! Uhh, good for you!"

I tried to prepare myself to do to her what I had done to Michael two weeks ago. I didn't have anything sharp, just a blunt microphone, so there would be none of the quick and violent finality of a knife- just painful brutality. I wasn't sure if I was honestly capable of it. From the back of the room I heard a high-pitched wail and a Slovenian scream. The blond man and his friend were cowering in the corner- his friend had her hood off now and her small white face was contorted into a countenance of absolute terror.

On the ground rolled the head of Jim Davis. It tilted unnaturally from side to side, its jaw pivoting and clacking against the hard cement floor. From his open neck down Jim Davis was nothing more than a tangle of thin wires, mostly black and red. The red ones seemed to be tubes carrying blood from his heart, which was encased in thin transparent plastic and was currently being dragged across the floor along with the other organs visible in the tangle. Four thin clusters of long wires vaguely resembling limbs were in the process of pulling Mr. Davis across the cement, leaving a trail of blood in his wake from the red tubes that had already torn. He was moaning, his eyes staring right up at me desperately. He seemed to want something from me, as he was crawling right towards me. Val separated the two of us, but she didn't lose her focus for a second. I might have pissed my leggings but it wouldn't mean a thing to her.

"You don't need to die here, Riese," she said, "You're not like my former coworkers. You don't even need to die in the Restructuring. I can slip Ashe another note. You seem like a nice girl. Just give me the microphone and go. Leave Nash here. You can still leave. Go."

"No, Val," I replied, stepping out in front of Nash and standing up straight, "I don't think so. 'Cause, like, I'm actually really into your girlfriend and I want her to peg me."

Val snarled and crouched down again, preparing to lunge. Suddenly a mess of wires wrapped around her leg. She turned and looked down to see the smiling head of Jim Davis. His furthest wired limb was suddenly slapped by one of the frayed and sparking wires slamming up and down across the area in front of Garfield's tongue. The wires connected and 440 volts of electricity at a tenth of an amp passed through Val's body. She lit up from within like a mass of fairy lights and dropped to the ground. Jim's head rolled limply, his smile now plastered permanently upon it.

Nash stared at her dead lover for a few moments, then dropped to the floor, a small puddle of blood pooling around her arm. I ripped off Scrap's robe and kneeled to wrap part of it around her arm. She was still conscious, but wouldn't say a word. I stood up and shakily ran a hand through my hair and shook myself to feel a bit calmer. I quickly but steadily walked to the corner where the blond and the pale faced brunette were still cowering from the lifeless husks of Jim Davis and his first and final victim.

"What's your name?" I asked the blond man politely.

"Uh... it's Mister McFluffer," he said, dazed.

"No it's not." I said.

"No... it's not. It's Lukas."

"Lukas, can you help me? I don't know if I did it right."

Lukas followed me to Nash and tightened my makeshift tourniquet. His friend trailed behind. I approached her as calmly as I had Lukas.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Nadine," she said.

"Thanks for not giving me a cat name. Can you tell me where the iron-workers are? Val's co-workers, I mean? You know, the butch women?"

"They're in His left foot. Downstairs. It's a prison. But there are always a few guarding His feet. Even during the orgies."

I nodded, gathering that He was their lord Garfield. I remembered there being sexier anthro cats many long years ago, but somehow now only He remained. A shame, I thought. I pressed the button on the microphone and brought it to my face. Even from a thousand feet above, I could still hear my voice booming over the massive speakers in the grand chamber.

"PAPA OOH MA MEOW MEOW, KITTIES!" I said in my best impression of the unconscious fellow at the console, "WOW! THERE ARE NASTY PUPPERS OUTSIDE TRYING TO BLOW UP OUR MASTER'S MOUNTAIN! EVERYNYAH HAS TO GO OUT AND STOP EM! PWEEZE?"

I let go of the button. Lukas and Nadine were both staring at me bewilderedly. I flashed them a forced smile and a peace sign and put my head to the floor, listening. I heard from deep below what sounded like a mass migration of semi-nude bodies towards the mountain's entrance. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Okay, Nadine, open the cages down there," I said, "Or the foot. Open the foot. Whatever."

Nadine went to the console and flipped a few switches. Then she nodded at me and waved worriedly. I ran back over to Nash.

"Hey, hey- can you walk?" I asked her, "We gotta find Joyce and get the fuck out of here!"

​"I can walk," she said, "And getting the fuck out of here sounds great."

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The three of us entered and treaded through a narrow stone hall: Nash first, then me and Joyce.​ It soon widened to an area with a low ceiling lit by torches. A large wooden orange door with a black handle stood before us ominously. To our right a tight staircase curved up and away.

​"Do you think Val is here?" Nash asked me.

"I do," I said, and motioned for my companions to follow me up the stairs. As we quietly ascended, I noticed a low humming building in intensity. It was coming from a window up ahead pointing towards the core of the mountain. The window was a small and frameless, in the shape of a circle with two pointy ears. I glanced at Joyce, who was scratching her armpit nonchalantly, and peeked in.

Through the window I saw the enormous inner chamber of the mountain. It was bigger than most shopping malls. In the center of it, larger than could be believed, stood Garfield. Or, at least, his instantly recognizable body. His giant feet and tail provided a mighty base support for his plump little belly, while his thin arms and legs proved far more disturbing to perceive in this realm than in the daily strips. His head was missing though, and I saw far above me that his squat body disappeared directly into the flat ceiling at the top of the room. Below him, thronging around the feet, humming and swaying in unison, were hundreds of what looked like ravers or kinksters. There was very little clothing to be seen, save for bits of leather or nylon here and there. Facepaint and accessories were in abundance though, and from my vantage point just a few dozen feet off the ground I could make out at least a few people in fursuits. Some appeared to be orgying. Everyone seemed to be staring up towards Garfield or at each other's naughty bits but I quickly ducked my head back down anyways in case anyone were to turn around and spot  me.

"Is Val there?" Nash asked desperately.

"I don't think so," I said, "And there's way too many people down there anyway. We gotta keep climbing."

"But what if she is down there? Shouldn't we at least check?"

"It's like a thousand people down there, girl." said Joyce, grabbing Nash's beefy shoulder with one of her tiny hands. "And they're probably cultists. I don't wanna fucking die today."

Nash closed her mouth and we continued our ascent of the spiral staircase around the huge chamber. More humming and chants of "PAPA OOH MA MEOW MEOW" echoed from the windows every hundred steps or so. It took much longer than climbing the mountain from the outside would have, and even though it was warmer I felt like I was going insane by the time we finally stepped out onto a landing.

From the landing the staircase continued to the right, while to the left was another wooden door, this one with windows to either side instead of torches. Once again, I approached the left window to sneak a peek, but was toppled by Nash as she shoulder bumped me in her haste to do the same. Joyce and I gave her some space by sharing the view offered by the right window.

Val was inside, curled up on the floor in front of Garfield's gaping mouth. His huge sarcastic eyes stared her down as he might stare at Nermal before offering a biting and humorous rejoinder. Directly above his eyes was a black ceiling, with a few circuits and pipes jutting out in places. Val appeared to be asleep on a bed of tattered rags. Around her neck was a pink collar with a bell on it. Her long black hair was messy and slightly damp, with black cat ears peeking out from it. Her tights were torn. Nash seemed like she was about to break.

"Hold on, Nash," I whispered.

​There were six figures surrounding Val, all shrouded in black robes. They all had tails poking out, lifting the back of the robes and exposing some pretty awesome behinds. Three of them were sitting at a large blue console on the left side of the room, watching monitors and pushing buttons. One was monitoring Val- this figure held a spray bottle in one hand. The fifth figure had a microphone, and kept repeating "papa ooh ma mow mow" into it. The final figure was tending to something inside Garfield's mouth, the size of which easily doubled their height. When they left the mouth I saw who remained: it was Jim Davis. He was suspended above the ground, his body consumed by a mass of tendril-like wires connected to the back of Garfield's mouth. His head rolled to the side, but his eyes were still open. He looked old, though not as old as I had expected. There was no long gray beard, just the same white hair hanging on to the back of his balding head. There was a pain behind those eyes that betrayed the truth of his age.

I pulled my head away from the window and the disturbing scene it contained. I reached slowly for Nash's shoulder. She slapped my hand away hard.

"No! I'm not leaving her!" she yell-whispered.

"Come on- there's more stairs!" I whispered back, "Besides, whatever they're doing to her is no worse than how I like to spend a typical Wednesday evening."

"That's true... weird. She was always so vanilla."

"Uh, yeah, whatever! Come on, let's go up one more floor! We'll come right back."

"No, Riese. I'm staying here." Nash responded, staring at me with dead seriousness.

​"Okay, okay- just go in yet! Seriously, Nash- wait until me and Joyce come back."

​Nash nodded and planted her face back in the window. I hoped no one would see her sharp narrow face mad-dogging them through their black hoods while we were gone. Joyce grabbed my hand and lead me toward the staircase, and we climbed up together. Halfway up we came to a small gate, like the ones installed to keep babies safe. It had a tiny monitor by the lock mechanism. It flickered on and flashed the words single file across the display: Which Video Game Babe Is Hotter? Candy Kong or Lara Croft?

I considered my decision carefully- was whoever crafting it looking for the traditional answer, or were they a renegade like me? I recalled that we were inside the peak of a hollowed-out mountain right now and felt I had my answer. I pushed the button on the left and the display flashed green. The lock opened and the monitor displayed another message: Ah-a Femoid of Taste, I See! I pushed the gate open and climbed the final steps with Joyce.
​
We came up directly into the topmost chamber, where the ceiling ended in a point encased by the mountain's peak. It was half the size of the last chamber, and exponentially smaller than the first. A song by the legendary trans dreamgirl SOPHIE played from three speakers around the peak of the ceiling. The bulk of the floor was taken up by the top of Garfield's head. In front of his great ears, a hole was carved into the fat cat's head, revealing the squishy pinkness within. Sat in the hole was a girl wearing a pink sweatshirt and jeans. She was squatting in her seat, her head peering between her knees at a small monitor and keyboard poking out the edge of her hole. Her hair was short and white with messy bangs, and slightly longer in the back. Her winged eyeliner was impressively pointy- more so than I had ever managed to make my own. She had black lipstick too, and a spiked dog collar around her neck.

The girl turned around in her little brain hole and regarded us slyly. She pouted her lip in a show of mock despair.

"Oh no someone got in! And it's a human girl and her high-res friend!" said the comfily-dressed woman, "You found my hidden gamer pad! No one else has ever made it past the gate. Well, there's not much I can do- I cut off all communication with those annoying cat people downstairs."

"Who are you? And why are you in Garfield's head?" I asked.

​"My name's Ashe," said Ashe, "And that's how I control the biggest Mecha in the Pacific Northwest! Hahahaha!"

I braced myself for annihilation, wincing and silently bemoaning my deferred dreams. Who would stop the plague of buff nerds from doing vague untold evil? Who would write the great American novel? Who would suck the most dicks at Dick's Dick-Suckin Sundays in Sacramento? It was not for me to know. Annihilation missed its due date at this juncture, though, and I opened my eyes to see Ashe still laughing. Joyce looked pretty pissed off.

"Ahaha! I was just kidding. This is actually how I play games- the statue can interface with God's Computer outside. There are some really great games on that thing- wanna see?"

"No, our friend's downstairs," I said, "Look, I don't know what's going on here, but there's no way you're up here just playing video games all the time. They got fucking Jim Davis all wired up down there! Show me what else you can access on that computer."

Ashe stuck her lower lip out and pouted at me again.

"Please?" I added.

"Okay," she said, "Let me bring up the spreadsheet."

The snow-haired gamer girl pressed a hotkey on her keyboard and brought up said document. Rows and rows of names appeared, along with their IQs, BMIs, High Scores and Zodiac signs. Ashe scrolled down and I saw there were thousands of names, comprising of what could be the entire remaining population of North America for all I knew. 

"What is this?" I asked.

"Oh, there's a company called Permanent Solutions over in the City that I've been doing some contract work for. Just while I'm stuck in lobby queues in-game. They developed an algorithm that'll use God's Computer to restructure the population. I'm just managing the data and converting it to GCL. And the data the algorithm uses to make its decisions is all in this spreadsheet."

"Wow, what the fuck is wrong with you? This is going to kill people based on bullshit pseudoscience! And also Zodiac signs, but still that's fucked up!"

​"Yeah," said Joyce, "I was the one who added those. Sorry."

"Well, it's not like I'm saying all Geminis need to die- and they won't!" said Ashe, "The algorithm makes that call, and it uses all the determinants on a weighed scale. So, ethically, I mean- yeah it's gonna kill some people, but I'm not deciding who! It could kill me for all I know- except my IQ is 179. What have people done for me? Ever? Even when I had to scrounge for estrogen vials like you two- nothing! I didn't need them then and I definitely don't need them now! I'm doing fine here and I have everything I need!"

"Great, I'm glad you're doing so well," I said.

"No, seriously- the people who are going to get weeded out by the program- an OBJECTIVE program, by the way- are the ones who started all this crap in the first place. Once we delete them we'll be able to build society back up again! Things are going to be way better for you, believe me. I know! I had to make it on my own when the Internet fell! I didn't have friends, guns, I didn't have shit! I know how fucked up it still is out there. Thing will get a lot better when we weed out the SCUM, the Reich, the Arbuckles, those gullible idiots downstairs- all these stupid violent factions who can only think about the past. Not the future we should be headed towards! You, lady-" Joyce pointed at me, "You made it here! That means you must be better than them- a woman of the future. You'll do great."

Ashe turned around to close the spreadsheet on her monitor then turned turned back to me. She grabbed the sides of the hole in Garfield's head she was occupying and started pushing herself up and out of it. In a flash, Joyce was there before her on the head. She stepped on Ashe's thigh with her black vinyl boots, pushing her down and preventing her from leaving. 

"I'm gonna need you to transfer that data directly to me," said Joyce, "All of it."

"Even if your program could handle a file that size," said Ashe, "I can't afford to lose this job. He would find out, believe me, and I'd be sacked. Also, I don't want to."

From downstairs, I heard a door creak loudly open, and then some shouting. Some of it sounded like Nash. Then came a silence which was even more worrying.

"Joyce- can you handle this?" I asked.

"Yeah, you can go," she said.

I left her there with her foot pressing down on Ashe's thigh, eliciting some grunting and a lot of wiggling beneath her leg's weight. Joyce's eyes didn't leave Ashe for a second, and had the icy glow I remembered from the first night we shared together back when she was a human and not a computer program made flesh. I had very little time to think about any of this as I sped toward the stairs and down into the dark of the mountain staircase, plunging once more into the chamber in which Jim Davis spent his tortured days.

Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

"I hope Young is okay," Nash sighed wearily, "Stills is terrible with kids. She's got that chaotic bisexual energy- one time I caught her posting a thirst trap while Young was in the bath alone. Poor kid was freezing. And as for Cosby-"

"Yeah, yeah, can we not talk about Cosby?" I interjected, "I like your stories, I'm just hoping you could tell some that, like, don't have Cosby in them at all."

Nash fell silent, and I sighed in the tense quiet. We were camped out in the mountains, far north of the City. Nash had set up a tent and a fire, over which were skewered a couple large pizza rolls that were still thawing. She had lent me her Patagonia jacket, leggings, and boots. I was definitely wishing that clinic hadn't burned down before I could get my SRS and implant, it would have made leggings much more comfortable.

It had been a long and arduous journey and my relationship with Nash had been strained. At the beginning she had flirted with me, giving as good as she got. But the closer we came to finding Jim Davis the more worried she became about Val's fate. It had already been a week- neither of us wanted to say it, but there was every chance she was dead. Still, she couldn't go on without finding out, and I didn't stand a chance against Stanley's benefactors without the help of Val's friends.

Without saying a word, Nash crawled back into the tent. I waited a few minutes then joined her. I bundled myself under the flannel covers and turned on my side, facing the front flap. Nash murmured and wrapped her arm around my waist, pulling me back towards her. I was confused at first but soon succumbed to her warm embrace.

​The next day Nash and I climbed another mountain. I lost my balance every few dozen paces in the deep powdery snow, often tumbling in face first and relying on Nash to come help me up. At the top we finally rested to look out over our surroundings. Before us at the base of the nearest mountain was a great stone structure comprised of two ivory tablets, each the size and shape of a gas station awning. Vines stretched from the tablets up into the trees on the side of the mountain. A part in the clouds overhead shined sunlight on the clearing, distinguishing it from the surrounding wintery dark. 

​Nash gave me a hopeful look and I, looking down at the steep downward slope, gave her a scared one. She sighed and got down on one knee. I could hardly contain my excitement until I saw her motion towards her back. I still relished the opportunity to ride her down the mountain, despite my disappointment. I wrapped my arms around her neck and my legs around her waist and squeezed tight, feeling the weight of my emaciated body be supported easily by Nash's strong and sinewy muscles. She didn't slow down one iota, and descended quickly and smoothly. 

When we came upon the great tablets Nash and I noticed hieroglyphs upon both of their surfaces. One was laid back against the great mountain, which was uncommonly smooth and gray; its peak remained untouched by snow. The symbols upon it were too far away to distinguish individually but seemed to paint a large intricate picture when viewed from afar. Perhaps of a figure leading some great force against a foe? The other tablet spread out across the ground- it, too, untouched by snow. Among the hieroglyphs there I could make out a cat, different humanoids, a heart, and a rock or lump of coal. This last one, a carving of a little lump with a flat base, was glowing an anomalous green. I lowered myself off Nash's back and approached it. Cautiously, I laid my hand upon the glowing symbol.

The spot beneath my hand went dark just as a cloud overhead cast a shade over the clearing. Some of the symbols on the vertical tablet began to light up and glow that same green. I withdrew quickly and gripped Nash's hand tight as the glowing increased and tinted her face green as if we were watching the aurora borealis. A large cluster of the bright green symbols seemed to change shape and swirl together on the surface of the ivory tablet. They coalesced into a humanoid silhouette and I couldn't hold back a gasp of recognition. Nash turned away from the incredible display and lowered her eyebrows at me. From her green outline on the giant computer, Joyce emerged. She was alive once more.

The glowing stopped quickly and all was still and dark. I breathed heavily and regarded Joyce. She didn't move for a moment, but then turned slowly towards me. She stumbled a bit and I worried there was something wrong with her. What if it wasn't even Joyce at all? Then the clouds parted again and I saw something in her that told me it was my old friend and domme. I ran towards her and when she saw me she started laughing and embraced me. Her smell and the grip of her arms took me back mentally to the joyful times when she would hold my bruised and lacerated body against hers and whisper sweet things in my ear. I nearly fell to the earth, quickly as my body yearned to melt in those soft but powerful arms.

​"Riese! Oh my god-" Joyce laughed uncontrollably, "-it worked! Thank you so much!"

"How-" I sniffed, smiling and crying, "-how are you back?"

"It's thanks to that code I had you enter! Michael's old desktop connects to THIS!" she slammed her fist on the white stone structure, "THIS, God's Computer!"

"What?" I asked, but it already made sense as I looked up at the tablet and the mountain that bore its weight. I turned around to see Nash sunk to the ground, our gear strewn around her, sobbing silently.

"Nash? What's wrong? This is Joyce, she's my friend! I thought she was dead! She can help us, probably!" I said.

"Sure, I ain't got nothing better to do" said Joyce, shrugging.

"I don't care!" cried Nash, "This doesn't have anything to do with Jim Davis, Riese! It's got nothing to do with Val either! Where the hell does this pipe even go? There's no symbol for it on God's Fucking Computer! Those locals were full of shit! There's nothing here!"

"...Well I think God's Fucking Computer is pretty cool, bitch, but alright..." Joyce mumbled.

I approached Nash with some vague notion that I should comfort her. I reached my hand out towards her shoulder but then withdrew it. I looked to Joyce for advice but she was already retreating behind the Computer.

"Nash..." I said. 

Before I could decide what to say Nash hugged my knees forcefully, nearly toppling me. I regained my footing and patted her head, marveling at the texture of her short brown hair. I wiped a tear from her cheek with my thumb and winced at the tenderness of my companion who had been so resolute and determined.

"We'll keep looking for her, Nash," I said, "We'll 'interrogate' those locals again if we have to- I know how much you liked that. Joyce can help too! She's really sadistic- you'll love her. We'll find Val together. You're a good partner, you deserve to see her again. And at this point I really wanna find her just so I can start getting some attention from you, too."

Nash nodded faintly and started crying much louder. I was a little uncomfortable but as it continued I tried my best to connect to her pain. There was my usual longing to feel her pain so as to connect with her better, yes, but there was also a deep sadness from seeing a woman I respected so torn apart. I knew this all connected back to Stanley and my hate surged anew. It was beginning to turn into something really powerful.

"Hey!" Joyce shouted from behind God's Computer, "Come check out this little hole!"

I blushed, embarrassed that Joyce would call me by my nickname in public, then realized that wasn't what had happened. I ran back behind the computer, into the dark gap between the Computer and the mountain where the vines which slithered across the clearing disappeared into the mountainside. Joyce did indeed have her hand in a hole- but it was the mountain's!

​"Nash!" I yelled, "Come here! Bring the pipe!"

Nash came with the pipe, which fit the divot perfectly. It locked in place and the mountain opened itself to the three of us.

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​I strode out onto the street and ducked into the nearest alley. From behind a dumpster I watched Stanley's window for any sign of movement. There wasn't much to see there beyond the flicker of fluorescent lighting in the darkness of midnight that encased the city. I breathed a sigh of relief and laid down in the sewage. I hope this strange fluid doesn't soak through my shorts and make me pregnant, I thought to myself, then remembered how the clinic had burnt down before my appointment. As much as I dug scrounging around for estrogen vials and spare implants, I really did miss the medical infrastructure of society when it was decaying and not destroyed.

Wasn't Stanley talking about rebuilding society? I thought. The plan, it seemed, would involve eugenics. I wasn't too fond of the idea, and guessed that the rest of his plan probably involved even more ideas that I wasn't a fan of. I thought maybe somebody should stop him. Looking around towards the industrial zone, I remembered those lovely ladies with their iron tools and developed musculatures. They would likely have few problems stopping the grand designs of a couple of nerds. 

I began running through the blocks of rubble and past the small tent sanctuaries where neo-urbanites still dwelled. I was soon in the industrial zone but I heard no machinery whirring. There were no friendly butch faces either, the only face I saw peeking out from behind a steel press was a very femme raccoon. She dodged my questions and ran away to gossip about me with her friends. I came upon the site where I had received the suppository aid which just saved me from a life of IT work. The table I had dined at was laid bare, and the campfire was out. Smoke still wafted wearily across the scene.

At the far end of the campground, separated only by a thin metal fence from the worksite, was the iron worker's dormitory, made from plywood with a baby blue paintjob that looked barely dried. I stepped in to find the dorm room experience any aging lesbian would be happy to have. Three of the friendliest cats I'd ever seen came up to greet me by rubbing their backs on my legs. There was plenty of natural light and plants at every window. The floor was varnished and smelled great. I peeked in one of the rooms and saw posters of Sheryl Crow and Aimee Mann. The beds were all messy. The floors were littered with denim, plaid, athletic wear and boxer brief harnesses. The place was too wonderfully chaotic to search for clues as to my gay guardian angels' whereabouts. There was no time.

I felt my mind scrape at the walls of my skull as my face grew red and my stomach churned. I felt the stinging in my eyes that precipitated the flow of tears. No water sprang forth, as I was at that moment distracted by an ominous creaking from around the corner at the end of the hall. I grabbed the nearest armament- a blue 8-inch toy with a bumpy head that Erika Moen had given a good review before queers from the fractured revolution had cancelled her permanently.  Cautiously, I approached the corner, silent as a trans woman in a public restroom. I leaped out into the kitchen, wielding the phallic apparatus like a sword.

"Oh, hey Riese," said Nash from below the kitchen sink. She was dressed even butcher than the other day, in torn blue jeans and a dirty wife pleaser shirt. She barely glanced at me before turning back around on her knees and continuing her assault of the pipe with her wrench. Her strong arms worked with a confident ease and her steady but intriguing face seemed focused on the task at hand though I could sense her watching me in her periphery. I didn't move from my peculiar position one inch.

"Stop pointing that thing at me or I'll have to use it on you," she said without looking back at me, "And we both know you'd like that way too much."

"W-what are you doing here?" I asked.

​"I was supposed to visit my partner Val this weekend. But something's wrong. She should be here! I'm guessing you don't know anything..."

"No. I met Val though. She makes a damn good milkshake!"

"Careful, kid. This could've been the work of the Quentin Containment Force for all we know. Then we'd really be fucked."

"Kid? I'm probably older than-" I began, when the pipe finally fell loose and a ring fell onto the floor. It rolled a bit than stopped next to a promotional accent area Carol rug. Nash picked it up and examined it. I kneeled down next to her and gave her a hopeful look.

"Sorry, kid. Not much of a clue. Unless we're investigating lesbian marital drama, and Val doesn't believe in marriage."

"What I wanna know," I said fussily, "Is where the hell everybody went!"

"Yeah no shit Shelock," said Nash, "Why don't you look for clues too?"

I attempted to search the area, placing a tentative finger against my pursed lips and looking from the sink to the counter to the floor. I quickly made a rather startling deduction that I had no affinity for detective work whatsoever, and would be better employed as a cat masseuese or a reviewer of fine peaches found on countertops. I was especially adept at eating said peaches in a way that demonstrated no capability for performing cunnilingus and only my ability to make disgusting slurping noises that made Nash visibly shudder. While I snacked I leaned back over the rug and murmured happily at Cate Blanchett's tender and loving smile. The image of Rooney Mara stared out at me blankly, leaving no strong impression. Something about her face, however, stuck out.

"Hey, Nash, what about this? Is this a clue?" I said, pointing at the rug. Upon Mara's face was a thin black moustache. Not the image of one, but a real moustache laying on the rug.

"That isn't a clue," said Nash, "It's part of my costume for my drag character, Graham Cocks. I just put it there because I didn't want it getting wet."

"Well, best laid plans, am I right?" I teased.

"Riese I don't have time to have sex with you right now. I just want to find my partner."

"Oh of course I totally get it! I mean I totally ship you two! But unrelatedly, would you like to check my tits for any cancerous growths or the like?"

Nash groaned and turned to give me an unimpressed look. She then looked back at the rug and suddenly her eyes lit up.

"Wait a second," she cried, "Since when does Cate Blanchett smoke a pipe? I don't remember that from the press tour!"

The two of us kneeled down and she picked the pipe up off the rug, turning it in her hand to my awe. It was wooden, dyed purple and varnished, with a thin bit and a huge bowl. I could see that it was decades old if not more. 

"There's only ever been one pipe like this, Riese," Nash spoke slowly.

Of course that was true. I knew exactly where I had seen this pipe. It was from a comic strip published in 1978. The strip attracted very little public attention for many years, and it wasn't until 2017 that the meaning of "The Pipe Strip" was uncovered, on some dark corner of the internet. The pipe was a symbol- religious, political, sexual, and economic, and the ones smoking it had been doing so without our consent for centuries. These "Fat Cats" controlled everything, even public perception of who was being wronged and how. Racists, anti-Semites, homophobes and the like all had their ideas but their eyes were opened when the truth began to spread like wildfire. Not everyone believed in its message, but those who came to trust in the strip formed a political force that couldn't be ignored, or even catered to. The only satisfaction the Arbuckles ever received was through bloody conflict. This was right as society fractured, and there was no faction they wouldn't fight: the QCF, the True Scum, the Sixth Reich, the Himbos, and most of all the Cat Men and Women.

"Riese," Nash continued, "Tell me now: is Jim Davis alive?"

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