Episode I: The Mercenary Miners

Waiting.

Headaches like a knife in my head. Clickity-clickity-clack. All night. All day. I'm going soft. The light hurts my eyes sometimes. I haven't heard the voice of God since that day. I still listen. And the dreams.

I don't know if the bird-woman is going to wake up. We keep her with us because Goshi is after us. They said we were dead, but they know we're not, and now they want to make us dead.

I talk to the others about the surgency. What they're doing and where. Collapsing this tunnel, cutting the cables for that lift, setting ambushes. Sometimes they talk about killing and it makes me sick. But I don't know what to say.

They're just like us, they just don't see it. We're just like them. That's why its wrong to use us like we're tools. That's why its wrong to kill them like we're not supposed to care. But they're coming to kill us so what are we supposed to do? I don't have an answer.

The bird-woman wakes up! And things start happening. Ascetaline Sue fills us in on what's going on. They all talk about me like I'm something really important. I guess that's what being a Symbol is like. I don't really want to be a Symbol but I don't think I can say no anymore. If a Symbol makes us free then I'll do that. But it means I'm stuck here. A Symbol can't go anywhere. A Symbol can't get caught by Goshi. I know, I know. But I'm getting soft.

I learn what "extinct" means. It means that all of the bird-people are going to be gone. I don't know - I guess there used to be more of them. I don't know why they're being extincted. Maybe Mother Nature is doing it because they don't fit. Something like that. I don't know.

And the Zipsum, I think she's crazy. Maybe they all are - not many come down here. Maybe it makes them crazy. They live in trees, don't they? I think living in trees is crazy. I wrote on the pot so that no one cooks her while she's sleeping. And I thought about it and thought maybe she wanted a bed, so I found her a bed, sort of.

Meat! Its been so long! Damn that was good.

And then trouble! Mercenaries! Looks like they found where we were going. How did they know? Sue doesn't want me to go but I have to go. They can't come here and take our people and sell them. I have to breathe very deep and remember that they are just poor. Maybe they got Laid Off. I don't think I'd sell people if I was poor, even if I got Laid Off. But we have to stop them.

Its horrible. When we find them. Its horrible. It gets worse and worse and worse and nothing gets better at all. Everyone yells and screams and bleeds and leaks. I keep getting shot and stuff thrown at me. Kiyoshi and Rei almost die. Why are they still down here? Maybe they're surgents too. I guess they are now. And Rei looks at me like I'm a Symbol, but I don't think I'm a Biomade Symbol. I don't know.

It feels like a long time before I see that their eyes are gone. No one said anything, and I wasn'tlooking close, I was just swinging my arm and trying to make them stop. But they. Don't. Have. Eyes.

You can't see without eyes! But they can see. Kiyoshi said they were Oni-demons. I don't know what that is, but they're something...so bad. Like the bird-man in the Goshi tower. Worse than anything.

We fight and fight. Everyone is killing, and its horrible. Just a little, I want to smash Kiyoshi. What if I sledded down stairs on a Allskin!? Would you like that? Even if he didn't have eyes! And more fighting, and more killing. More and more and more.

Something tore parts off of my brothers and sisters and riveted them to the wall. Something gives off a horrible gas that only Mechified can get through. Something took my brother like bait on a hook. I don't want them to pay for me to be their Symbol. I'm the Symbol! I should pay!

How can we make them stop? What do we have to do? They keep coming and coming.

I want to tear their stupid tower down. Then they can build a new stupid tower all by themselves. And dig for their own stupid Blackrock. And cut out their own damn eyes.

And more of them come. Soldiers on lines from the surface. Yeah, shoot your stupid guns! See if I care! Now you can choke on dust and see if you like it! Go tell your friends where they can stick their guns! In their butts, that's where!

And I knew it. The Zipsum is crazy. Now she's green. Do they all do that when they go crazy? I think she needs to go back to the trees.

Worse and worse and worse...