? Produced By E.F.A. and L.F.A.

Lizz

Okay, yes. Ez defeated the evil shovel by talking robot. And of course, immediately after he tells you something like that, you’re like “Oh, that's so cool, can we get back to him?” and you just don’t care about me, huh? Well suck it, cuz I’m the true hero of this story, Ez is just along for the ride. But don’t tell him I said that.
Also don’t ask me the question he told you to ask because I refuse to speak her name much like Nick does. Also Ez is to blame because if the back stabbing shovel got an AI chip anywhere it would have been that drone he attracted. Even though that’s not totally his fault because that idiot is attractive. Wait,  forget I said that, we’re moving on.

So there we were standing around in shock, except for Nick of course who was still on his knees, wondering what to do next. Especially because the people who owned the property which the warehouse was on, aka Nick’s trash parents, knew where we were. Can’t solve that one with your robot talk, can you Ezra? Actually him and Hannigain probably could. But that’s not the point. The point is to show that your lives are in danger because of the Monocult. Don’t give in, no matter what happens, no matter what they do to you, you must never give in. If you give in all our hard work might come undone. And we can’t let that happen. The fate of the world depends on keeping the Monocult in check.

Al knelt down next to Nick and wrapped an arm around him. Nick leaned into him before looking over at Al’s face. “What are we gonna do?” he whispered quietly and I had a hard time hearing him.

“I don’t know...”

“But I do,” Hannigan interrupted, coming back into the room with an armful of notebooks and folders. In all the confusion I hadn't even seen him leave. He sat down at his main desk and talked as he rifled through the papers and played with his computer. “I’ve been playing with this idea for quite some time and now is the perfect time to implement it. It’s a way to keep us off the grid, a giant cloaking device, per say. I’ve already installed stuff around the warehouse. I just need to add some finishing touches here and there.” After a few minutes he slammed a finger triumphantly down on a key. “There, that should do it.”

And then all the lights turned off.

“Hannigan.” said John’s voice somewhere to my left. “What. Did. You. DO!?” Hannigan started shuffling toward us.

“Now is not the time to be angry, that was supposed to happen. Just swallow these, quick as you can. Our lives may depend on it.”

“What do you mean our lives may depend on it? Why didn’t you discuss any of this with me, Hannigin!?” Hannigin glared at John and raised a finger to his lips. Yes, I saw this, the pill seemed to let me see in the dark. But that theory was shot down immediately.

“The pill puts us within the cloak. It wasn’t that the lights went off, the warehouse turned invisible. And now we are too.”

“Cool!” exclaimed Ezra, because of course he would.

“Not cool! We are invisible, Ezra!” I said loudly before going over and punching that adorable idiot in the arm. Did I say adorable? I meant stupid. Yep, that’s it. “What are we supposed to do now? Just stay here invisible? We’re just getting more problems and questions! Like the Monocult? What the heck is that?! And what did you idiots do to get on it’s radar? It high-jacked Peggy for goodness sake!”

“Please don’t say her name,” Nick whispered from his fetal position on the floor and my anger and frustration suddenly faded.

I went over and knelt next to him, “Of course I won’t. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

He shook his head and got shakely to his feet before walking despondently away from the control room. Al headed after him and we didn’t see them for some time afterwards.

“Okay! We should follow their lead, there's nothing to do right now so go to your rooms guys,” John announced, herding everyone out the door.

I stood up and walked over to Ezra, “wanna hang out in your room?” I asked as we headed down the hall, not wanting to be alone. And Ezra is pretty good company. Don’t let him know that, it’ll get to his head. Everything gets to his head. But we love him anyway. Okay we are not talking about that any more new paragraph and subject please.

Okay that's better. He said yes we were chilling in his room, playing an old 4d game from the early 3000’s called Cluck Cluck. It was huge, and I understand why, total blast. And by that I mean I totally annihilated Ezra. I’m a little competitive, okay? For you young folk who don’t know what it is, go look it up. I know I know, 4d is ‘lame’ and why play it when we have 5d and are probably going to have 6d in the next fifty years or so. And I know 4d was old then as well but guys it’s amazing! Go play it! But only after you finish reading this book, okay? YOU NEED TO FINISH THE BOOK, OKAY!? DO YOU PROMISE YOU’LL FINISH IT?! YOU HAVE TO PROMISE! You promise? Okay, good. We can continue it now.

Where were we again? Right, Ezra’s makeshift bedroom (we’re in a warehouse, remember?) playing a really 4d game. Also eating some old fashioned stale snacks that were in the warehouse. Like McNnamian chips which were like all the rage 40 to 50 years ago. I know they have a bad rep but potato chips cooked in macadamia nut oil on low for days are actually really good. Also I’ve never tried Goodall Stonewalls before this and I’m addicted. I really need to stop getting distracted. So, Ezra won every game….NOT! Ha! As if. I won all of the games but one, and I’m pretty sure Ez cheated. Do hidden tunnels exist in that game? According to Ezra they do. And we didn’t have a rule book to reference.

But anyways, shortly after that, all hell broke loose. Hannigan ran stceaming bloody murder towards us, Nick put on two pairs of meantally controled mechanical arms and started picking up every shovel he could wield. Yes, Nick can effectively wield six heavy duty industrial shovels at once. If you were wondering, the one shovel he wasn’t using was Gerald. Al and John started picking up guns from underneath the ground and smashing them with hammers. They then proceed to swing wildly at anything that wore a federation jacket. Hannigan grabbed Ez and I and very rudely shoved us into the digitization chamber. He started punching in numbers so fast that I wondered if he was doing it at random.

“When you get there, head east of the corporate building. You should be safe there until I can rescue us. Sit tight, and don’t die.” He slammed the start button, and the world went dark.

Signing off-Lizzianna