alright chump. sound the klaxons because this is your last chance at getting laid. you’ve been here all summer with all of these attractive women in short shorts, hell you skinny dipped with trina and all those people! you were naked with all of them! and now your parents are coming to pick you up tomorrow and you haven’t even kissed one girl at this whole camp. what is your problem man?! there’s so much sweet puss out there you could be drowning in it! and look these girls they’re into you, man, they really are! trina even! listen to me, i know these camp girls, i’ve been going to this summer camp for five years now and yeah, maybe i should stop because i’m 22 but there’s no age limit on the contract and they just keep letting me in. but i know these camp girls, i know what they want, and they are young and they are horny, okay kid? now look, now, look, let me be clear: i do not want to have sex with these underage camp girls okay? okay? okay? okay? that’s what i want you to do man! because you’re underage too, it’s perfect, it’s perfect man, it’s perfect. but you know if a camp counselor asks about me you tell them that i’m not here to have sex with underage girls, okay? okay? because to be perfectly honest none of them talk to me anyway. but they’ll talk to you! they already do man! they love you! so by the end of the day man i want you to be balls deep in a lady, you hear me? balls deep! hey but don’t tell any of the counselors i told you that okay? okay? okay? balls deep!

diana if you get this message i am dead. long dead. i am skull and bones amid mounds of dirt, my flesh swallowed up by worms. but when you get this message i will be alive, in your universe, i am alive and unaware of the chaos my mutation is about to cause to everyone. you will not believe the level of energy required to send this message across countless parallel universes, diana. it would make your heart swell up with pride knowing that your fuck off brother actually did something with his life in universe 5.8.19e8920∞. maybe you’ll feel even better knowing that i am not a fuckup in over 62% of all my possible life outcomes. (unfortunately, out of that 62%, 28% is me dying before i have a chance to be a fuckup.) in this universe i found a cure, a cure for the multiverse cancer that is spreading like wildfire. so to you, this message: in the dresser drawer in my room, yes, back home, in the top drawer in my room is a shoebox, untouched, beneath socks and underwear. in that shoebox is the key to this whole mess, something i’ve gathered in .07% of all possible instances of my life. i’ve left instructions in the box for what you need to do. i can’t repeat them in this message, i’m sorry, but once you see it you’ll know, you’ll understand. thank you diana. i love you, in all instances of the multiverse.

august 2, 3101

i am the ghost of the future, a man trapped in an endless repeating artificial intelligence loop brought about by faulty hardware. i’m stuck on europa, a moon of saturn, due to the end of a space journey gone horribly awry. i won’t elucidate, but suffice it to say, the other crew managed to copy their consciousnesses onto pilot two, which is in orbit … somewhere. but my copy failed 74% through transfer when a coolant tube burst and shut down all non-essential programs aboard the ship. i know what you’re thinking: “isn’t copying your consciousness onto a VR simulator essential?” yes. but. it was that, or tier-1 life support; that is, the life support that keeps the cabin pressurized. both required a similar amount of energy, but having both on would cause the CPU to heat up to the point where the whole thing would fail.

captain lewis was the first one to be copied and the last one biologically alive, save for me in this moment in time. i was trapped in a hell between biological and digital consciousness. the copy is painless, usually, but only because you’re sedated. but the coolant leak. turned the sedation off. and i was in pain. a lot of pain. i could hear the shearing of the hull of pilot one as it started entering saturn’s atmosphere. tier-1 life support wouldn’t matter in t-minus 10 seconds and counting. lewis had to make a choice–stay alive and eject pilot two, or cut out life support and let me fully live in a VR machine that was destined to be destroyed in saturn’s atmosphere. the choice was obvious.

she dumped my consciousness, or whatever was transferred at least, into a dummy probe and had it auto launch after she was copied into pilot two. pilot one dissolved into saturn, along with captain lewis and the others, most of them dead by suicide long before. pilot two hopefully is still in space. and i am on a probe, stuck on europa. i crashed into the satellite hard enough that it damaged 4,862,925,188 of the 13 trillion memory chips installed onto this particular probe, which is only .03% of the total chips but enough to cause some serious issues with my memory and logic circuitry, even with redundant data stores. the point is: i’m stuck, physically, and mentally. my solar cells charge to full whenever europa passes in sight of the sun, and i have yet to have my batteries drop below 40%. so there is no chance of me dying, unless i turn myself off. but i can’t do that because i suspect that part of my memory chips was damaged–the ability to kill myself. so i sit and wait. humanity is gone but i am here until … who knows what.

i’m positive you’re full of shit. i’m absolutely positive about that. i may be wrong about a whole lot of things but i am not wrong about that. you and delia have been talking for hours now and all i do is listen, because i am your brother and i should be a nice helpful brother but all you two talk about is stuff that is patently false, or misleading. now why is that? why would you two mislead each other like that? don’t get me wrong, delia is full of shit too. maybe more shit than you, even. but your conversations are bordering on nonsensical at this point. you said brody has a vespa. no he doesn’t! brody barely owns a bicycle. and delia told you that brody’s sister trudy told him that she was more into delia than you. that’s also bullshit. how do i know? because trudy and i are in the same art class, and after class i saw her walk off with another girl. not you. not delia. then you said that trudy financed her own film–again, no. she’s a sculptor, kelli, she only does sculptures. why are you two so full of shit? it’s like you’re friends who want to destroy each other. why? why is that so important? brody and trudy are dumbasses, trudy failed her driving test four times. in math class the teacher asked her what a cosine is and she said, “someone who helps you get a credit card.” i’m not kidding! you’re all smarter than she is. nice girl, but dumb as a brick, and brody’s no better. trust me. there’s plenty of fish in the sea and not all of them look like halibut, okay? go swimming.

this melody reminds me of something. some old cartoon i watched as a child. no, don’t stop, keep playing. it’s soothing, even though i can’t remember it perfectly. do you recognize it? are you improvising? just keep looping that, it’s beautiful. you’re beautiful. i hope i tell you that enough. you need to know. you’re beautiful, stunning, captivating. your fingers so lithe on the piano keys. you’re so perfect. you’re the kind of woman i want to make pancakes for in the morning, you know what i mean? i want you to wake up to the smell of eggs and bacon. that’s just unheard of, i hate cooking and i hate breakfast food. i know i’m weird like that. trust me, there are other things about me that you could like if you wanted. life isn’t all about breakfast food, is it? i don’t know. people talk about bacon all the time. it’s okay. but i’ll cook it for you. i’d make you anything you want. just keep playing, it’s beautiful, i swear it sounds like a cartoon i used to watch on saturday morning. really jaunty, something … wait, this is the pokemon theme! you sly devil, you slowed it down. is it weird that i am really turned on right now?

justin hid every god damn liquor bottle in the house. hid them! now that’s not fair, that’s really not fair. if you think i have a problem then let’s talk, let’s talk it out, but for fuck’s sake, don’t make me fish for a fifth of vodka out of the toilet tank, please. don’t dehumanize me like that. i’m an adult and i can do what i want, and i want to slowly destroy my liver. that’s my choice. that’s my responsibility. you can hate that and you can hate me and you can tell me to stop but in the end, it’s my choice. it’s my choice! and i bought that fucking liquor, you hear me? i bought it, it’s mine, i want to drink it all. now i have toilet water hands. i know that water is clean, it’s not like anyone took a shit in the toilet tank but still. it’s dehumanizing. it makes me feel like shit. i’m a human being karen, i know what i’m doing is wrong but i want to do it and you absolutely cannot stop me. so please get out of my house and find a better way to stage an intervention. you and justin can talk to mom and bring dr phil in here or whatever the fuck it is people do. just let me drink in peace. also if you could get justin to tell me where the spiced rum is, that would be great. it tastes great with dr pepper. thanks.

bridget, i put the cat down. today. i had to, she was barely breathing, she was lying curled up in the darkest corner of the basement, just shuddering and barely breathing. dying. she was dying, bridget, and i couldn’t just let her die like that, all alone. so i scooped her up and took her to the vet, where they wrapped her in a warm blanket and put her to sleep. i know she was your cat and everything but she was dying, and i had to do something. i know you would want to see her one last time but it just wasn’t in the cards, okay honey? she was dying, she was hurting. i was thinking … maybe in a few days we could go to the shelter and get a new cat. what do you think about that? we could get a whole new kitten or maybe an older cat who needs a home. what do you think about that? bridget, maybe you’re too young to understand, but things die eventually. it’s just the natural process of life. you have to let your kitty go. just be glad she lived a long, natural life and that she died peacefully. we’ll get you a new kitty, okay? we’ll get you a new kitty. shh, it’s okay, it’s okay, everything dies, bridget, it’s just a part of life. it’s sad but we get through it because we have to. shh. come here. shh, it’s okay, it’s okay. we’ll get you a new kitty.

how many of these guys have they thrown at you? eight? twelve? looks like a lot. and look, now they’re all dead, or dying. [BLAM] or dead. it’s good, you’ve got some power there, kid. it’s raw and unstable, but it’s there. seething underneath your skin. that’s why i’m here. [BLAM] god damn, sometimes you think they’re dead and they just pop up like that. human resilience is amazing, isn’t it? that’s why you gotta step on their [he slams on a dead body’s genitals, the body doesn’t move] junk. people gotta protect their bits, you know what i mean? that’s how you know they’re still alive. instinctively flinch to protect their balls.

so. looks like you grew up in about fifteen minutes. what are you, eight? nine? certainly don’t like you’ve ever kissed a girl. it’s okay. i’m larson, i’m your protector until we get to the citadel. yes, that citadel. it’s important that we get the hell out of here as soon as possible, alright? things are scary right now but you have to get up so we can get out of here, before reinforcements arrive. these guys have an endless supply of mercenaries they can send after you. and they will. which is why you need the citadel. so come on, get up, god you look like a mess, i’m sorry about all the blood, don’t worry about your shoes, come on, let’s go, let’s go!