Sorry to keep you waiting

But since my idiot brother took the advice that alcohol would defeat rampant paranoia and general directionless terror to heart, it seems I'm still in charge of telling everybody what happened.

We stayed in one place too long again, and I've finally realised what I was so stupidly missing that meant The New Girl was always catching up with us. The Operator Symbol skews the time it takes for whatever part of Him that directs her to find us, and I'm incapable of drawing one without bringing Him down upon us. But that's another story.

We were both asleep, right at about five am where it overlaps for a couple of hours before Ben gets up at seven or so, when The New Girl kicked the door to our room in - which is, incidentally, the first point I've found in favour of staying in more expensive hotels. Ben was a whole lot closer to awake than I was, and jumped right up, but he tells me she just pushed him aside and into a wall and lunged at me. Needless to say, I wasn't quite capable of getting from half-awake to defending myself quick enough, and she had a knife of her own. I was tangled up in the sheets, and she was absolutely insane and I couldn't get my blade to flick out without getting stabbed in the eye or something.

I don't know how long we fought, but there was so much blood all over me, and my arms felt like they were being torn apart. Eventually she wasn't even using the knife. She just tore at the cuts until her hands were covered with blood and I was starting to feel lightheaded from struggling so much and losing all that blood. And then she stopped, and for a moment I thought maybe she'd proved a point about how her threats were real and was leaving.

But then I felt it. I felt Him coming. I struggled out of the tangle of sheets, bleeding everywhere as I got to my feet and saw my brother writhing around on the floor in apparent agony, which I'm told was a result of a rather underhanded kick to a rather vulnerable area, if you catch my drift.

She was drawing The Operator Symbol from my blood, laughing maniacally as she did. It was a full on, completely deranged slasher flick laugh like you've never heard before, and it was all made worse by that paradoxical feeling of creeping dread and growing calm that meant He was coming. The symbol she was drawing wasn't very big, and it was awfully streaky, but it was obvious what it was and that's apparently enough.

I tried to stop her, but the sheets were all over the ground and I was bleeding everywhere and woozy as shit from the blood loss and I fell over like the useless idiot I am. And then she collapsed right in front of me and started groaning in agony like she always does when He shows up. And He was just there. He was so tall, towering above the three of us lying there in various states of agony and He was in my head and all I could see was Ben dying, over and over again. The blood all over me was his, not mine and I was responsible or I hadn't tried hard enough to save him or he'd killed himself because of me. The pain was gone from my arms and the wounds weren't real anymore but there was just so much agony. I couldn't breathe. My heart wanted to escape my chest and there was something shifting in the back of my head.

And then there was bliss. Pure, unadulterated bliss. I couldn't hear my brother shouting at me to run, I couldn't see him scramble across the bed to try to pick me up and get me away from that thing that is He, I couldn't feel the agony of countless open wounds all over my arms. I could hear the singing, though, the beautiful choir of souls caught in rapture. I could see Him, though, towering over us all from His seat on high. I could feel the loving warmth radiating from His heart to envelope the world. I just wanted to go home, back to those warm, loving arms.

I don't know how long it took for me to come back to myself, but I do know the first thing I did was vomit, and since I hadn't eaten for ages because I'd been alseep, it was mostly just stomach acid - and that shit burns. I mean, I still want to throw up.

He hadn't even noticed I'd vomited all over the floor of the car, he was that caught up in himself. I scared the hell out of him when I called his name, though, because apparently I'd been ranting and raving about the light of my God and a whole score of other crazy shit while he'd tried to get me away, and then once he'd gotten me into the car and done his best with my first aid kit in the boot and actually escaped the damned hotel I just fainted.

So once we'd figured out I probably wasn't going to die from the blood loss, on account of the fact I was awake again, we went back to the hotel and got all of our shit out of the room before we ran into another fiasco with the cops all over us again and cleared the hell out of there. We're getting the hell out of the state before we head to a hospital though, because as much as the bandages stop the bleeding and the neurofen kills some of the pain, I think I need stitches if these cuts are ever going to heal. Like, badly.

That took far too long and I need to change my bandages again because I'm bleeding everywhere. On that note, Ben'll probably be in charge of updating from now on, because writing fucking hurts.

New hotel, New game

"Which means there's a reason a bunch of super-powered freaks are running around and it's not because He needs them."

That reason is He is smarter than we are. We're supposed to be the ones weaving the stories, melting the facts of reality into something more palatable over time, and instead He's the one really pulling the strings, keeping us occupied elsewhere while He works whatever game He's working uninterrupted. Is Redlight's supposed rebellion just another part of His plan? Did Zero sacrifice himself because He wished it so, before the Sage of Nothing became a real threat? How far does the deception go, and are we living a lie right now, just one layer higher in a ring of false worlds?

Dear god I sound pretentious. I think I'm going to go hit my brother in the back of his head with a pillow, just so I can stop taking myself so seriously for a moment. Oh, and this one has free internet!

Backroom Deals and Secret Plans

I meet him behind the hotel at ten in the morning. Ben is fast asleep in the room and won't be up until sometime after twelve, so we're sure we won't be interrupted. It is difficult to look at his face, or it is difficult to remember looking at his face, but he's wearing that red hoodie and that smirk so it must be him. I ask him how Robert's doing just for kicks, and he sneers at me like I've insulting him. The New Girl is with him, ten steps back leaning against an obviously stolen car (it's missing the front right hand side window) and smoking a cigarette.

It's funny how nothing but a bit of tobacco and about six thousand poisonous additives can make someone so much less attractive. She refuses to acknowledge me when I say hi, but that's kind of what I expected.

"Information and skills." He says, like there's a whole list of places he needs to be today and I'm a very small but necessary interruption to his plans. It's obvious what he's doing, trying to dominate the meeting and make out like he's in charge to extract more information from me, so I just ignore him and start talking at the New Girl.

"How've you been?" She ignores me, so I decide to poke. "Writing in agony each time He visits?" She laughs quietly and takes another drag, before throwing the spare keys to Ben's car over her shoulder where he catches them, then sneering haughtily at me and leaving.

He's smiling now, like there's a huge secret I'm not privy to, as he plays with the keys in his hands.

"Information and skills, Andrew. You get your keys back for free as a show of good will, but I have everything the police have taken from you waiting in the boot of your young friend's newly acquired car." He gestures to the slowly retreating back of the New Girl in the distance as he mentions the car, just as she turns to cast one last look at me before disappearing around a corner. I wonder idly if they rehearsed that, so tiny a detail. "All you have to do is convince me you've got something worth it."

I show him all the notes he's quite helpfully stolen back from the police, once I root them out of all the other stuff. We spend about twenty minutes discussing several ideas I've had, and various things I've recorded or written down. I can tell he's impressed with some of the content, so I start probing him for answer of my own.

"So," I ask "are you in charge of Australia, or what?"

After a short pause, he glances up from a map of recorded occurrences of theopany in Australia, clearly annoyed.

"I may or may not simply be visiting Australia at this very moment. For all you know Andrew, there's only one of me, and I'm not going to be telling you otherwise since the first thing you're going to do after this is go running back to your laptop to write it all up and show everybody in a attempt to get the recognition you so desperately deserve."

"Well..." I start, about to ask him about what he (and possibly his comrades) is/are planning.

"Do you think I'm a fool? I'm only here because I have something to gain being here. You've clearly learnt a lot about our mutual employer - to borrow a term - in your time, and have countless recorded encounters with Him which provide a deep insight into how He reflects off of your psyche. Now it might all be useless drivel written by a deluded fool who only think he's sane, or it might actually contain some insight I'm not privy to..."

Clearly frustrated that I've made him explain something we both already know, he waves a rather worn exercise book filled with transcripts of 'conversations' I've had with Him and various half-sane rantings I've indulged in during the aftermath of such visitations.

"... but the more you know."

We talk and talk in circles, dance around the truths we don't want to reveal and dress up the lies we'd rather the other believe. In the end the entire thing takes less than an hour, but it feels like an eternity, with how much we've discussed and how many notes I need to re-write. I return to the hotel room to find a small piece of cardboard slid under the door.

So the threats have apparently started. I should have seen this coming, really, since this is the only time I plan for us to be apart in the foreseeable future.

And the other side. For anyone why can't read that, it says and I quote: 

Time is running out.

You will both come to Him.

One to save the other.

One to kill.

One soon.

One too late.

One to protect.

One to destroy.

One alone.

And no. I'm not particularly worried about what it says. Just an fyi for little miss newbie seeing as I know you're reading this. I figure this is your first chance at fieldwork and you obviously need the help so I'll make an exception this once and give you some pointers. This kind of shit doesn't scare me. Especially if this is the theme you're going to stick with. I'm looking foward to carrying out this whole thing out just by describing what we would've done if we could actually be bothered getting involved, so fire away. I'm a veteran of the art, baby, and you're going to have to do more than that to scare me.

And that's all I can manage, seeing as I'm falling asleep on my feet here. Whenever it is you find this Ben, please don't wake me up until I come to myself. It's hard enough getting sleep as it is.

McDonald's Coffee is the Nectar of the Gods

We're on the road again. I think we got out just in time. Something terrible was set to happen, of that I'm sure. It's closer, now. He's closer. Whoever He's got following us - any money it's James, if he still lives - is closer now.

It's kind of hard to explain how my old compatriots do the following thing, because most of it is going to sleep in one place and waking up in another having bought some train ticket or convinced some trucker to give them a lift, but regardless of how it works hanging around brings them closer just like it does Him. One day whoever it is will wake up with a train ticket or an address that'll lead them right to us, and that's when it gets interesting. I've got a lot of contingencies, and to be frank, I really can't wait to try some of them out.

Not that any of them are too violent, mind. I cringe every time I see the words "fucked up another Proxy" thrown out as an afterthought. It never accomplishes anything, killing innocent people who've lost their free will. All it does is stain your soul and make you that little bit more used to killing. Well, that and deny some family somewhere any chance of ever getting their son, or their husband or their daughter back.

Do you want to know what the Touched do when they're not wearing masks? I'll answer the question for you. You don't. But I'll tell you anyway, and we can see if you'll all just learn to deal with what you've done and what you're doing.

Mostly they stare at walls, dead inside - nothing but an empty shell being driven by a poor impression of a human. Sometimes, they convulse in pain or with the intensity of 'His rapture', or speak in tongues about creatures long dead, thoughts long forgotten and the corpses of Gods. But occasionally, when He's busy elsewhere, when He hasn't bothered with the theopany in a while, they sit in the corner and cry. Or write letters to family that they'll never send, because what the hell do you say to people from a life you were torn from by a faceless God? Once in a while, some might even beg me to kill them, if they're feeling particularly hopeless.

These are people you're killing. Violent, dangerous, insane, cunning, demented people, but people nonetheless. Sometimes, they're not even Hallowed - and I have to use that word because Touched doesn't mean the same thing. We're all Touched, the Heretics and Hallowed and Taken alike, and sometime when you're "stomping the shit out of some proxy trash lol" you're just killing somebody indistinguishable from yourself a few months from now. What do you think Damien was like in his last few days? How do you think Maudin's going to end up if a prank ever goes too far? What separates them from us? The world isn't black and white, people. It's grey, endless grey, like a really shitty video game.

This post isn't for all of you, obviously. There are people out there who clearly understand the moral conundrum involved with murdering the shell of a person that's been corrupted by Him. But the more often you delude yourself into thinking you haven't been killing people, and every time you dehumanize the corpse you've just created, you do just that. Dehumanize them. This whole game - this whole fight - is one fought in the head-space of countless unlucky victims. And when a good part of that head-space just accepts the fact anyone He Takes is no longer human, it makes it very difficult for what's left of them to cling to humanity.

I get it. Killing people is hard, and it's easier when you convince yourself they're not people. And to an extent they're not, especially when they're trying to claw your brains out for besmirching His name and daring to resist His light. But somewhere inside that mind, buried deep within that grey matter and hanging from a Tree that doesn't really exist is a person, and they might not feel the pain as their body is destroyed, but they'll learn soon enough that it has been when they realise His Tree is the sum of their existence from now on.

And maybe, just maybe if you'd shot them in the knee, or been content to leave them unconscious on the floor instead of stamping their head in, they might've had another day weeks from then to enjoy a chocolate bar or watch a slightly more sane friend play Fable, or just have a shower and feel the water one more time. Or sit in a corner and cry about how much they want their mother. Like the person they are.

Frankly, it figures

Maybe it's all true, everything I've heard. Maybe Redlight was the sinful son of Adam. And also the anonymous nobody who first encountered the Slender Man, aeons ago. Maybe he did build the temple to Him, wherever it lies forgotten. Hell, every story I've ever heard about him was probably true, once, for one of him.  It's a troubling thought. If there is a game he's playing and it involves Him, then we're all fucked. All of us. The Touched are like a lifeline of normality for Him. With them hanging from His Tree, he can kind of understand how people think, and he isn't so disgusted by us, so angry and violent. They keep Him watching, learning and growing. Without us, all He is, is wrong, and all He can do is what He does best.

And if Redlight goes, a lot of my former colleagues might go with Him. It's obvious enough that anybody with enough of themselves left to want out would have the best chance then, and losing Redlight might weaken Him enough - temporarily, that is - that they'd be able to break free.

I don't like it. Redlight's playing a game that's most probably going to end with everybody you've every talked about Him to dead. You can't game Him. He doesn't understand the rules of the world like we do. And He's been in enough heads to understand betrayal and it's appropriate response.

On a much, much brighter note, I think we've been here too long. It's a middle of nowhere town halfway between another two middle of nowhere towns, but it has free internet in the hotel and I can't bring myself to leave. So we're going tomorrow, whether I want to or not. I can feel whatever's coming getting closer and nothing good is going to happen once it gets here.

Or maybe Robert's just crazy.

Redlight, Robert and Revenants

First thing's first - what's been happening lately? Absolutely nothing. We've been heading back south towards our old hometown just for somewhere to drive to, since direction helps this kind of thing, and there's been no indication whatsoever we're being followed. Which is terrible, terrible news, because it means whoever is following us knows me. That's literally all the news about us.

So Redlight.

The guy's a celebrity. Seriously. Half of my old colleagues had crushes on him, and that includes a good deal of ostensibly straight males. He's like the Jesus of the Touched community, with the added benefit of still being alive. The stories I've heard about him are obviously false, because, well, I'm almost certain he's never been to Australia and half of them are told by people who insist they've heard it from the man himself. I wouldn't worry about his 'mystical origins' if I were you, even if he is a Revenant. Still, I've heard told he's the only living descendant of Cain, the sinful son of Adam. There are stories we used to tell that say he's the first man to have ever seen Him or the first person to build a temple to a quiet forest spirit that would rather have been left alone but for some quiet worship from a few faithful followers, who was rewarded for his devotion with eternal life in service of a changing God.

It's all bullshit, of course. He may not know himself, but he's clearly Jay. It's too perfect not to be true. That's the way this works, you see - we end up telling stories, because stories feed Him while He sleeps, when our minds can't. First, He corrupts them, turns them into something more palatable - the facts change over time and we forget that this didn't happen and that did. Eventually what once was, is no longer.

So whoever Redlight was when he made that first post on Robert's blog doesn't really matter. Because it fits best if he's Jay. One day soon, when Redlight's story comes to an end along with Robert's, there'll be some small hint. We'll argue about it, quibble on this and that point and get caught up with the tiny inconsistencies that always occur when a person tells stories about themselves. But eventually, years after blogging about all of this has become trite and overdone, or after somebody discovers that you get left alone a whole lot more often if you stop telling people about all of this, then as long as He endures (which He will), someday somebody will stumble upon the circuit and discover it has changed since anyone last looked at it.

He'll have won every engagement, for one thing. As long as He outlives the civilization He haunts, that's what happens. The cold hard scientific facts of the past fade into obscurity until all that's left are stories in which the monster wins - because that's what He did so why shouldn't the histories reflect that at every turn? And if he makes the cut and remains something He remembers, then there'll be Redlight, perhaps a central figure, perhaps an unimportant footnote. But I'd bet my life he'll be Jay, because that would make the best story.

Anyway Robert and Revenants and I'll leave you all to tear my theory apart with the kind of scrutiny only your fellow Heretic is capable of. If I'm ever stuck in a repeating loop of imprisonment and insanity like that and you're given the chance to put me out of my misery, then put me out of my misery. For God's sake just let me die with some dignity. I don't care if it's Redlight or Him Himself that's offering whatever 'deal' will end up killing me, I'd really rather prefer to die.

Oh, and Robert, If you ever come across our little blog here, I'd stay out of the Forest Paths from now on, if I were you. It's kind of like taking a shortcut through a Police Station to escape from the cops. Eventually somebody catches on and locks the back door.

That's about it.

Oh, and before I forget, since I've said the word now and that kind of thing always invites speculation, I've never met a Revenant in my life. I'm still struggling to accept that they're real. When He's crawling around in your head shouting twisted memories at you constantly and trying to explode your brain by sharing His twisted versions of an emotion, you do kind of get an impression on how He works. And besides from being so terrifying your brain erases any memory of it as soon as it can, it also gives me the feeling Revenants are just not his style. Which means there's a reason a bunch of super-powered freaks are running around and it's not because He needs them. Which unsettles me.

That doesn't mean I'm not carrying around a can of mace. Super-senses aren't really the best idea for your elite warriors, seeing as it kind of makes anything capable of incapacitating a normal person because of sensory overload into a viable murder weapon. I've been trying to convince Ben to fiddle around with the car alarm to install a switch for it, since he knows a bit about electronics and that thing fricken hurts to listen to with normal ears and I'm not a huge fan of my chances of successfully employing the mace if it come to it, but he's not such a fan of messing with the car, which I guess makes sense.

And, uh, that's about it. And I mean it this time.

I might've lied about when we were leaving

Which means we might be out of contact for a while and is also the reason Ben's throwing caution to the wind and (gasp!) talking to you guys for once. I don't know when we'll get back to an Internet connection, since we're planning to go off the grid somewhat and the only places that might have free wifi in the smaller towns will be few and far between. And James (or whoever James had in line to replace him as my 'consultant' if I ran and he died), if you're hiding out the front in that house waiting to ambush us, well, by the time this shows up we'll be long gone over the back fence, so better luck next time. Or not.

We left at 10 o'clock, or thereabouts - I'm not so good about writing about future plans as if they're past events. Suck on that. I'm a huge fan of time delayed posting right now, I just wish it wasn't raining so damn hard outside, even if it makes the escape significantly more stealthy.

Anyway, why we had to leave, and also why we had to leave earlier than I told you all: There's been a former colleague of mine living across the road from Ben for some time. I kind of had a suspicion there was when I discovered one of Ben's neighbors watching the house rather intently, but it's not exactly the kind of thing you can prove just watching some old guy watching your house.

I took a little bit of a risk, calling around to see if there was anybody in the area (I said I needed someplace to stay in-between two cities which I'm not going to name, because the town Ben lives in is really the only option insofar as accommodation goes). Fortunately for me, news of my car-crash apparently hasn't traveled, since nobody seems to know I've changed sides.

Turns out there was, and he had a phone number I could contact, so I gave him a call while I was watching the neighbor watch me. We had a nice little chat about how the Touched operate, and since he was pretty far gone I managed to convince him that he'd have to spend a couple of days staring at us creepily without doing anything, since that's what people think Touched do. I won't go into detail but as far as I know it kind of works in a feedback loop and makes it what Touched do, just like all of them writing in code all the time (though, admittedly, imprinted behavioural patterns also plays a part in the code-writing being so prevalent).

Anyway, I figured we had until the weekend before he started doing anything after our little chat, since he wasn't exactly the youngest or most spry Servant I've ever met. I also figured he had orders to alert whoever he's in contact with (which if I'm going to guess is most probably James if he's still alive) when we left, so as to help arrange an ambush or set up a tail. I also figured somebody was probably watching the blog (possibly him, since he was up with it enough to use a cell-phone). Hence 'leaving' on Saturday night and actually leaving now-ish. Actually, make that now, or the ten-ish minute it'll take to pack the last of our stuff. Ben's getting a little paranoid - which I don't blame him for, I am too - so I'm going to have to go. We've got his car parked two streets away, so as to not be seen leaving. Wish us luck.

Alright then

I can't say an awful lot, because James knows people who know the address of where we're staying at the moment and I'm not sure if he's still alive or if he's told somebody about the blog, but suffice to say I discovered some things yesterday that basically give us a week as of my arrival before we have to be out of here. To keep it simple I figure we'll be leaving Saturday night or the very first moment I see something I don't like. Fortunately my nocturnal habits have been paying off since Ben used to get up every morning at five for a jog. Insanity like that is inexcusable since there really shouldn't be a five in the morning, but it makes sleeping in shifts really, really easy since we're practically pre-programmed for it.

I'll tell you all about what happened once we've left.

Also all that worry about self-fulfilling prophecy was bullshit. "Ben is not safe anymore" was about right. I'll see if I can make Ben introduce himself tonight or tomorrow, but he's kind of absolutely terrified of making a blog becasue "whah, whah, whah posting makes it real like I'm admitting it or something whine, whine, whine. NO FACE!"

I might be taking the piss. But it is a whole lot more hilarious when you're here.

It worked

Sidekick's dead. There's a tree where his stomach used to be.

Not so sure about James - he wasn't too visibly hurt so he might have just been unconscious. Didn't check too hard for a pulse because I had to get out of there before He showed up.

By the way, crashed the car (if you missed that). I think I might've bruised 90% of my body and I can no longer turn my head to the left at will. Picked a car where I was the only one with an airbag and thought I was being smart making sure it didn't hit me in the nose. Not so much. Otherwise I'm more or less good.

Left the laptop in the bag with all our clothes to give it some bounce, so it's fine. I'll be seeing my brother soon. It should only take a few days on trains and such to get there.

Going now. They're closing soon anyway, but I'm being overly cautious for the moment and I already feel like I've been staying in one place too long. I'll sleep tomorrow morning on the train, I guess.

Can you believe I used to love the night, after I'd gotten over 'those terrible dreams' and before all this went down? It's almost funny now.

Worst. 24. Hours. Ever.

I am going to kill James one day. He got me up at seven o'clock yesterday morning. Seven. I went to bed at three and he gets me up at seven so we can go chase after some two-bit Heretic who had gotten more than enough sleep for the night and didn't feel like his insides were desperately trying to become his outsides.

Needless to say, we didn't catch him right away because I started to get dizzy spells after about twenty seconds of running and then threw up, which surprisingly made me feel a whole lot better and really, really hungry. I've never been the greatest runner anyway, and the two empty bottles of vodka back at what passes for home base at the moment certainly weren't helping matters. Sidekick, of course, was charging through his hangover like a boss (the guy also drank me under the table last night, which is just so incredibly unfair) and saw fit to ignore both James and I when we told him to stop. I did so through/in between vomiting, so I guess it's possible he misheard me, but James was perfectly alright when he was saying it, if a little pissed off.

So once I was able to move and James had finished screaming at me about how much he'd like to kill me and how much trouble I was, being unfit for His touch and thus incapable of acting as I should, we set out to find Sidekick. James got that 'I know which way to go how scary am I?' look, and marched off to the train station, from where we caught a train. Luckily, there was time enough between trains to go get some food and some breath mints, because man was I hungry.

And, um, next comes the part you won't enjoy, because we found Sidekick, and Sidekick had obviously found the runner, because he had the look that Touched get when they've been around Him quite recently, and the runner was nowhere to be found.

But that of course is not the worst part, because what started all of this was my brother getting back from Europe. I may or may not have had a plan to stab Sidekick in the neck and James in the stomach all within perhaps five seconds of time while Sidekick was asleep so that I could go pick him up and get the hell out of dodge, but of course there's a faceless monstrosity that apparently has access to all of my thoughts, because He was there before I could even fold out my knife, and He was angry.

He knew. I haven't told anybody - I didn't even tell you guys I was planning on killing them and running as soon as my brother got back - and He knew.

So now I don't know If James was just being the usual lunatic when he kept dropping those hints, and I feel like there's something skittering around in the back of my head watching everything I do and I can't get the image of Him and all those branches eating the sky out of my head and I feel like I need to throw up again.

But I'm okay, I guess. For now. My brother's back home, at least, so I guess there'll probably be more emails from here on in and I guess if by some miracle I'm able to avoid the boss stepping in whenever I try to quit then at least he's a little closer. So um, yeah, that's pretty much it.

I kinda wish I had it in me to write that all up so it was better and more entertaining to read. I swear there must be something wrong with me.

I figured out why we're on this trip

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned the phone network before, but suffice to say James invented a number substitution code and a phone-based network that allows His Servants in positions of authority and responsibility (be they Touched, Taken or simply Servants) to keep in contact and get the low-down on colleagues passing through their care, and this whole trip is basically one long enrolment/update program for all of Australia to make sure it's still working okay.

I guess before he met me and went off the edge his paranoia really paid off, because the whole thing is as close to foolproof as I could’ve imagined.

Basically, if somebody is trying to crack the code, stealing a phone book from one of us isn’t going to help you at all, since everybody uses their own phone number (and one or two supplementary numbers containing any numbers their own doesn’t have) as a key. They keep the real ones in their head and write the code ones in their phone book, along with everybody else’s numbers which are also in code. Because everybody can remember two or three phone numbers without having to write them down, this all means there is no written key to steal, which leaves you with something in the order of 3628800 possible combinations you’d need to try to crack one number that can’t even hold all of the code in the best case scenario. Better yet, even if somebody gets sloppy and does write down the key numbers to allow a faster conversion, you still don’t know which key numbers correspond to which code numbers.

We also don’t substitute for the area codes in the landlines or the 04 in the mobile numbers, because that’d just give away some of the substitutions to anybody with half a brain. Oh, and for anybody who doesn’t live in Australia and thus cannot make sense of the previous sentence, an Australian mobile number starts with 04 and then has eight other digits (so, for example, would look like 04 123 456 78), while the typical landline starts with a zero and then a number corresponding to the state the phone is found in and would look something like this (01) 1234 5678, with the second digit in the brackets changing for each state.

It’s not a perfect system, by all means, because it relies on people doing what they’re told to keep keys separate from the coded numbers, but it’s as close as they come, considering the people being told to do it are almost universally wired to be obedient and find solving codes is almost second nature to them. It’s also not a perfect system because most of the numbers are for phones that have been destroyed, lost or are flat for 99% of the year, but it’s as close as we can get. I will admit being unable to contact people more often than not when I try to make a call, but when a colleague shows up with the number of the place he last stayed and I do manage to get through and am told he’ll try to kill me if I say the word ‘banana’, well, it really pays off.

And yes, that was a hypothetical example. I’ve never met anyone who would’ve killed me for saying ‘banana’. That’s just absurd.

Anyway. I’ve started writing up a synopsis of the past week or so and everything that’s happened (which is so, so much), but it’s nowhere near finished and is going to have to wait because I have to go (my laptop’s finished charging and that was all the time James was willing to give me here on the Internet). 

See you all soon, hopefully, and sorry about the hurried and half done post and the boring content. It's about 4:00 am in the morning right now and it all kinda ran away on me.

Thank Heisenberg

So I'm stationary at the moment, staying in a hotel 'somewhere' with the boys (that's James and the sidekick he insisted on bringing). We're a little busy so I've not had time to write anything up and I'm not sure how much I'll get done at the moment, but I'm giving it a shot while I can. I'll not be telling you where I am, because that would make my blog title redundant and we really can't have that. :P

I can't tell you how happy I am to be in a hotel at the moment. I'm about fed up with sleeping on trains and breaking into the homes of vacationing families for shelter. Which is incidentally how I got my camera. Sleeping on trains, that is, not breaking and entering. We try our best to leave no evidence of our presence wherever we stay to keep the cops from looking into anything, and that means sleeping on the couch or the floor and not stealing, amongst other things. I'm told somebody left their handbag on the train and that Sidekick (that's how I'll be referring to the third member of my travelling party for the duration of our travelling) was only trying to be helpful when he took it, but I was asleep for the whole thing so I can't really comment. I'd guess he just stole it, but then James has never been one for lying about crimes he or our associates have committed against the Blind.

Regardless, I now own a pretty damn good digital camera, and a new cord to charge it from my laptop only cost me twenty bucks. So that covers Acquisitions, and being that Sidekick was nice enough to do my job for me on this occasion I kind of got that day off. Insofar as Administration goes, there's been about a million and one petty little squabbles that I'm sure everybody experiences while travelling, so I'll not bore you all with tales of choosing where to eat and feeling paranoid every time a cop drives past. Actually, that only happened twice, so I'm not sure it really warrants an 'every time'.

News for the new year (sorry if this all seems a little disjointed, I'm kind of doing more than one thing at a time here) is that my brother's on a trip to Europe, doing some European whirl tour or something. He only saw fit to inform me he's spent the new year in London the day after it happened, though, so I'm a little worried that he's no longer keeping me up to date with everything he does. I'm not sure if he's just grown bored of telling me everything he does or if there's some other influence here making him decide to tell me less, but it really worries me that he just didn't bother telling me. It would be just like the boss to somehow stop my brother sending emails before He makes a move, or it could just be that Ben's given up on my still being alive, despite being so sure he'd know if I'd died.

I'm worried. My brother's off on the other side of the world and he didn't even bother telling me. This is so obviously the time for everything to go to hell. I'm going to skip the subterfuge for a moment and just say it outright, because as long as I don't explicitly state what may be happening then I'm pretty sure He wont notice. James was so sure there would be an opportunity that would be perfect, and right now I'm in a situation that is precisely the opposite. I'm terrified tomorrow I'm going to wake up and there won't be an email from my brother, but I'm also terrified that there will be, and it won't be about how cold but awesome London apparently is.

Man, this is so not how my blog post was going to go. I was planning on writing about the two Touched we've been meeting with yesterday and today in the city, writing up their profile like I said I would. They're nice guys once you look past this whole mess. They're part of the lucky few, living the whole double life thing. They've got jobs and everything. It's steady enough for them that they've given me about two thousand dollars for the bank account, which is great because it's been slowly ticking down towards nothing lately and a nice boost like this is exactly what I needed to keep everyone fed for the next few months. I think it's only the two of them in the whole city, too, which is a bit different to back home with the six of us. They're certain it's only them living permanently (which is not something I can say with certainty about our little clan) but they do get more colleagues passing through than I do.

Anyway, this was going to go on, but I kind of need to go. James wants to go out tonight to try and find a passer-by our two new friends mentioned visited them a few days ago who apparently sleeps on the trains, and he's getting antsy that I'm taking up valuable search time.

Not a lot of time, all is well

So travelling with two insane cultists isn't all that fun, but I will have a nice little story or two for you all if we're lucky enough to stop somewhere that has Internet long enough for me to write something substantial up. Also, I've gotten my hands on a proper camera (it's one of the nice little stories I'll have for you all), so you might all be lucky enough to get photographs of anything I figure is important in the future. Though you will all have to deal with a lack of fingers in the shots. Sorry to dissapoint anyone.

You'll love this one, Broeckchen

So I wake up Christmas morning and all my colleagues are already awake, sitting in a semicircle around my bed watching me sleep. Just so everybody knows, that's not normal behaviour amongst Touched, although sometimes when they get too Taken they will just sit there and stare at people for a while, so I guess you could say it's like a very, very extreme version of normal behaviour.

Naturally, once I noticed them all sitting there I assumed they were going to kill me and flew upright in a panic, ready to defend myself to the death. Turns out they just wanted to wish me a Merry Christmas and give me some presents. So yeah, kinda awkward. Unsurprisingly, it was apparently James' idea to do so in such a manner, and he's also at least obliquely responsible for the presents I got. Or the present I got and the present I'm meant to pass on. Or the Christmas cards. I'm not really sure what they're meant to be.

Well shi- shoot. I was going to say shoot

I see you've all met James. 


If I could make a request, can we please not talk about the 'content' of his post and comments? I'm sure you understand why I don't want what he wrote about discussed where prying eyes can find it. But I can say that when he says "do Not listen tO The bliNd foOl, andreW. To defy his light is to Bring UtTer ruin down upon you. Safety can Only be fOund in eterNal service." I believe him, and will be doing what he has told me to do and when he has told me to do it. 


I don't have a clue how he managed what he did, but at least it puts a new light on one or two conversations we've had recently. Lately, when we've been going over whatever plans we have for my colleagues and I, he's been telling me not to do anything rash or foolish if I 'happened to be alive after the solstice' and he also said that I was not to 'act' until it became obvious 'now' was the perfect time, and I think we can all see what he was referring to. He stressed the word 'perfect' several times and dropped 'obvious' in almost as much, so while you all probably want me to do what he's talked about right the hell now, I will be waiting until the perfect moment shows itself, and does so in such an obvious matter that I will be unable to ignore it. And besides, James has been doing this job for a very long time, so I'm not sure how long 'soon' is supposed to be.


And if one of you mentions something that subsequently closes whatever gap James seems to think is coming up, I will find you and kill you and I am not even joking. And then if I'm lucky, He will reward me for destroying a Heretic, nothing will change and I'll keep on going with my job. So please, play it safe and don't mention anything. On that note, I've changed my password and had a little chat with James. He's acting particularly dogmatic and denies having any memory of posting on my blog. He's on record as saying he wouldn't have any part in something so blasphemous as a blog about Him, so I'm 99% certain all of James' actual mind is back hanging from the place I can't mention without bleeding out my nose and I'm just talking to the Taken he's become again. 


Which is a problem, because he won't leave me alone. He's quite literally sitting right next to me as I write this, muttering mutinously about heretical behaviour and foolish Servants. When I tried to talk to him about privacy, leaving me alone and what-not, all he did was rant at me about our duty and 'His work'. Best I can tell, we've apparently been given a task when the boss dropped him back here, and that task seems to involve watching me constantly and planning a trip around the country to visit everybody in my phonebook. If I'm going to guess, whatever opportunity I'm supposed to take will probably show up during it, since it's going to involve a lot of travelling.


Anyway, it's about dinnertime and James is starting to get angry, so I guess this is it for now, or at least until we've eaten. And if anyone's interested, nothing happened to me in my hotel room at all. Quite literally, the most interesting thing that did happened was my head ached and my nose bled a little bit on Monday night right around when James says He came visiting down the street at the Internet cafe, so I guess my internal migraine-and-blood-based warning system is still functioning. Yippee.


Also also (It's a vocal habit I have, ignore me.)


Writing stories? That was your grand plan? Sorry to sound so fatalistic, but I'm fairly certain if that's all you guys can come up with then we're all in a lot more trouble than I thought we were. Seriously, I was expecting some huge move against the Touched or something, or a massive fi 


Damn it. Migraine's back like you wouldn't believe. I guess can't talk about that, either. Although I guess it's not really a surprise. Burn? I can say burn. Burning things - things that most definitely don't involve my boss and are most definitely not (paraphrasing myself here) 'unable to move every few nights to stay safe' might've helped a bit. There's a reason He uses fire sometimes - being that it is the most destructive force He could possibly imagine. But then again, maybe He just doesn't enjoy it when you do that, rather than is actually weakened by it. Like I said, I'm not one for theories.


Anyway, I really do have to go, James is about to start preaching to the entire cafe about my heresy if I don't stop now, and I'm not even joking. I'll probably be back after dinner, but then again, I'll have to convince James to come so maybe not.

Questions, Answers and the Solstice

M asking about trees gave me an idea, so I thought I'd set up a nice little blog post for anybody to ask me questions they have about my job or my boss. It's basically midday right now and I'll be hanging around here for most of the day, I figure, so feel free to fire away if you're reading. I'll post a comment saying when/if I have to leave my Internet connection, so until then, I'll at least be checking the blog every few minutes. I'll probably be on tomorrow, too - since I know for a fact this weekend is going to be uneventful, barring an unforeseen emergency.

And another thing - three days, twenty one hours and fifty seven minutes to the Solstice (did I get that right? I'm still not sure I made the time conversions correctly when I set the countdown clock on my laptop), and I have the hotel rooms booked. Yes, that's right, my colleagues and I are going to ground for the Solstice. On my insistence, might I add. That's is, of course, if I'm lucky and He doesn't show up between then and now to Walk us all somewhere for the big showdown you all seem to think is going to happen. I'm not the kind of Servant you ever see bothering Heretics anyway, so I'm actually quietly confident that even if He does come to take my colleagues somewhere, He won't need me. Or at least, that's what I've been hoping and praying for. I'll be honest in saying I have absolutely no idea what's going to go down on the Solstice or if anything will be going down at all, being that I'm not the kind of person who's all that well informed in my little organisation.

If I were Him, and everybody on the Internet was talking about how they were investing all their hopes in fighting back on a particular date, then I'd probably do the smart thing and just not bother anybody on that particular day. Actually now that I think about it, has anybody considered the possibility that the Solstice will come and go, and all that will happen is you'll spend all day looking out for Him and His 'children' while we all hide? It's what I'm planning to do, and I've heard absolutely nothing about special plans from anybody.

Then again, I do live in Australia, where we'll be having the Summer Solstice, rather than the Winter one, so maybe the opportunity for whatever it is you all think you're going to do only exists in countries that lie above the equator. Personally I have no idea how or why the Solstice was picked as the date to fight back. Maybe there's something I'm missing, being relatively recent to Internet discussions concerning Him, but it never made much sense to me.

So I guess, in the spirit of this post being one for questions, I'd like to ask, why did you guys pick the Solstice to fight back, and what are you planning to do? And yes, I know I work for the enemy, so if you don't want to tell me what you're doing, that's fine. But why the Solstice?

Celebrities and Siblings

So I'm back from the walk and I feel a whole lot better (that's a relative better, not a 'better' better). If anyone cares, the theory I mentioned in my comments two posts previous was correct. We just happened to be a little less lucky than I would've liked in following through on it, and had to chase the theory further than might've been necessary. It's still better than chasing runaways halfway across the country, though, so I guess I can't complain.


Actually, I can. I've got a splitting headache, my trilby's at 'home' at the foot of my mattress looking like it's been trodden on (because it has) and my favourite business shirt is covered in blood from another god damn nosebleed. All together that means the next time I need one of my colleagues to listen to me, I won't be able to dress up in my 'business' getup to intimidate them. And these are just the practical concerns.

I don't know where He is, and it's been hours since I actually saw Him, but I still can't shake the feeling He's watching me, like He needs to know I'm not about to kill myself or start running because of what He's made me do this time. Last I saw Him He was staring at the new girl, waiting for her to wake up so He can start with the theophany and divine revelations all over again and make sure she doesn't break free this time. I'm not sure how far she's gone, because she was resisting Him when she ran, but I have a feeling she'll be hanging from the Tree for most of the night before she's singing his praises with the rest of them.

I did some things I'm not proud of yesterday and today, but the real kicker is that each of them seemed like the best thing to do at the time. The first few were good, morally sound choices, even. After all, nobody on either side of the game benefits from a Touched (or a Taken, at the time I wasn't sure if this wasn't just a symptom of her losing it completely) running rampage on their own, so why wouldn't I lead the chase to go get her from where I was sure she'd ran to?

Turns out that's all bullshit and she tried to escape because His Touch hadn't held as well as He thought it would. We hunted her down and led Him straight to her in the process. It's ironic - really and truly ironic, in the classical sense of the word. 

Maybe it's just what I tell myself, but I know when we were chasing her I believed I was saving somebody's life in the future, protecting all the people she'd have to steal from and would probably kill without me looking after her. Not that I don't expect people to be killed now I've brought her back. Anything I do leaves people dying eventually, so I just chose the options that might mean fewer do.

I'm sorry. I shouldn't try to rationalise it. If I'd known - if He'd come before we found her and made me understand what was happening, I still would've done it to protect my brother and because I'd die if I didn't. On the note of my brother and because it was asked, Ben's one of the lucky ones - Blind as they come.

Well, perhaps not as Blind as they come. He was always convinced being twins allowed us some kind of passive telepathy, though I maintained it was always bullshit and we could never prove it either way. We certainly never had the same dreams when we were young, or I wouldn't be stuck here trying to make sure we never do. If he was right though, then maybe I'm poisoning him just by being caught up in all of this. Maybe he's keeping me sane by being free of it. Who knows? Perhaps Ben will wake up one day to find a tall, faceless man in the closet and there'll be nobody to blame but me.

Heh. And I promised myself I wouldn't tell anybody I have a brother. It's a shame I also promised I wouldn't lie to you all, what with M asking why I can't just run. That's the problem with having principles and secrets. You can't keep both, and I'm not sure I can claim to have either any more, seeing as how I just doomed somebody to a lifetime of insanity today because I thought she already was. The road to hell, indeed.

I was going to spend a little while here answering your question as extensively as possible, M, seeing as our time zones make communication difficult, but I'm really not in the mood and 'My old teacher might be Taken, but he isn't crazy enough to have forgotten to check my loyalties once a month and kill my brother if they're wavering - after all, that is part of the job He gave him' really should suffice for now.

I was also going to say something about Zero commenting on my 'so I should probably explain' post, seeing as he's another hero of mine. Seriously, the shit he's been through nobody deserves. If you're both still reading this (why would you be?) you guys are the people I wish I could've become. But I'm not in the mood to grovel in front of people so much braver and so much less selfish than I am like I should, because today is not a good day for anything other than pouring all my self hate and pity into the Internet and letting you all join me.

Because some days I take comfort in knowing that my brother's safe and ignorant. Some days I take comfort in knowing I keep my colleagues from killing for food and money, or just because they're bored and it's all they know how to do. You all know already that some days I take comfort in the bottom of a bottle. On the worst days, the only comfort I take is from knowing I'm on the winning side, where eventually it wont matter what I've done.

And then some days I take girls from their homes while they beg me for things I can't give - like freedom from Him and their little seven year old sister back from wherever He took her, and I don't take any at all.

Sleep well. I know I wont.

Goddamnit

I'm back and i'm fine but damn if i can't type shaking like this. I thought it'd help trying to talk to some sane people. I cant even type fucking people out properly this is so much  worse than when I was drunk this whole thing took me forever to type and I've made about a million errors it's not helping at all I can still feel His eyes on me watching me try to comfort her He's in her dreams I bet you anything. I'll post properly later. I need a walk or something I need to get away.

God, that sounds crazy reading it back, but I cant be fucked punctuating it now. You'll all just have to deal. I'm fine. I really am. I'm just terrified and feeling really dirty and well you all know what it's like with Him watching you and I can't shake the feeling. Heh. Like the lizard on the rock all over again, I swearotfuckingBran.

Small comfort for you all out there hopefully He can't be in two  places at once over too long a distance because He's going to be so busy tonight, you have no idea. But then maybe there's  one for each country - that's one of the theories, right? So maybe just Australia. I'll explain later what I can anyway. This whole thing took me like an hour and it hasn't helped a bit I have to go and I mean it this time.

So this is extremely awkward

I'm hella tired at the moment, so I'm just going to make this quick, while I eat whatever you call the last meal of the day (dinner) when it happens at 11:30 AM (lunch) and you skipped eating at breakfast time because you were out partying, and just apologise for the drunken ramblings of my last post. I've been out all night/morning on something of a bender with the 'McCafe Chick' I mentioned, who does indeed like Vodka but is not so much into guys, which is pretty much just my luck. Though it did make for some nice discussions on the nature of sexuality. Anyway, I said I'd make this quick, so back to it.

Alcohol is something of a coping mechanism for me in the aftermath of a visit from Him, which is not at all healthy, I know, but I'm not much concerned with health these days. It's a painfully long story, but the conclusion is that I'm allowed to keep writing as long as I'm careful not to say something I'll regret, and I also have a new colleague to look after, which was the reason for His visit in the first place. Of course, He didn't say either of those things in as many words, being that He doesn't say words at all, but I'll tell you all about that when I don't need to sleep so much.

And don't fear, faithful audience of three, I have retained my sanity after yet another visit from Him, as I will always do. I don't know what you want to call His effect on a person's brain in the general sense, but I do get quite a bit of that whenever He's around. It's the lizard on a rock as the shadow of a hawk flies by it all over again, pretty much every time, but I've learnt to deal with it. I always recover, though, because He would prefer I remain as useful as possible, and that means near enough to complete sanity.

I'm sure there's a whole lot of irony in there that I could be exploiting for gallows humour (and gallows is about right), but I really am tired. I'll see you all soon.

Oh, and I'm going to go back and edit out that spelling mistake in the labels of my last post, but the rest of it will stay unedited as a reminder to myself of why I can't be trusted with alcohol and an Internet connection. You have no idea how difficult it is for me not to go back and fix every spelling mistake I made. I might not know the first thing about constructing a sentence or even be particularly good at spelling (thank god for spell-check), but I absolutely loathe misspelled words, you have no idea.

So I should probably explain...

...before I get inundated with hundreds of complaints and claims of wifin' (of course I know what wifin' is, don't even ask) when somebody who knows what I'm talking about finds this blog.

Some of you (and by some of you I mean none of you, dear non-existent audience) are probably wondering why I'm not a gibbering mess with half his brain missing and the other half filled with razor-sharp crazy, just like every other person you've ever seen working for Him. I can't say for sure, because my employer isn't really the talkative type and my colleagues aren't big on questioning His motives, but from what vague indications I have and a little bit of assumption, I'm going to say it's because I do my job best when I'm able to count higher than five and actually remember the vast majority of what I do. Not that I don't have my moments. Nosebleeds and migraines are the most of it, but whenever I try to write something down in pencil it's a real struggle not to put an 'x' through every 'o' I write. Pen's are a little easier to use without provoking everybody's favourite spelling mistake, and keyboards work fine, but it's not like I'm completely immune to His compulsions.

Which brings me to the reason for my blog. It's a theory I've heard bandied about before, that seeks to explain why there seems to be an awful lot of records concerning Him nowadays that continue even into the midst of madness or beyond anything approaching convenience as one attempts to flee from Him. It's correct, as far as I can tell, and goes something like this:

He makes you write, and record and long to tell anybody and everybody, because surely you're just crazy and somebody will point this out and everything will get better, or because surely you're not crazy and somebody else will point this out and nothing will change, but hey, at least they can see Him too. And apparently, as long as you've got a shred of sanity and a tall, faceless friend, you have to write about it and let people know, even if He's not chasing you and doesn't really consider you worth noticing unless one of His other friends needs a splint or a shower. 

Which brings me back to the second and third labels for this post, 'The Job' and 'The Colleagues'. I thought I'd explain what I could without getting anybody killed (especially me), just for interest's sake. It's probably not wise, but very little of what I do nowadays is, and we've already discussed the 'must tell everybody' compulsions I'm having so there's no need to rant on about that being my excuse until I've proved I actually am crazy. Anyway, to sum up my job, I'd say I'm something of a caretaker, provider and advisor for a network of loosely affiliated, partially brain-dead cultists intent on making life hell for people who interfere with their business. 

I've heard us called many things, but the names getting the most truck on the Internet are Hallowed and Agents. Unfortunately for everybody involved, the person who trained me to do what I do referred to the Hallowed as two distinct groups of people, and it's both a habit I've acquired and one which I have desire to change.

The first is the Taken, people who have been Touched so thoroughly by His will that they have almost none of their own left. Between periods of activity focused upon fulfilling His orders, they frequently need to be reminded to eat, bathe or move at all. Some even need me to feed/bathe/move them myself when they're not otherwise occupied pulling on masks, chasing people and writing cryptic messages on the walls of wherever I've got them stashed for now.

The second is the Touched, which my old partner renamed the Hallowed once he learned of the term from me. I don't think I need to tell you where I learned it myself, and I think He might be angry if I did and you subsequently learnt where it was from. Though He does enjoy a challenge and a chase (as far as I can tell), so perhaps not. Still, safe and sorry and all that. 

Anyway, my partner used to call them the Touched because that was what they were - Touched by His will but not Taken by it. For the most part, they're normal, and they can do a pretty good impression of sanity if they want to, but they still love Him with a fervour beyond comprehension and they still like to write in code and capitals all over the walls whenever nobody is watching.

What most of you call Agents he called Servants, believing them to be 'below His notice and unworthy of His touch' but 'aware of their place and eager to serve'. I, myself, am a Servant (neither aware of my place nor eager to serve) while he was a Touched when we met, a Hallowed when he rewrote his little 'Operator's Handbook' and a Taken when our employer came around one time too many times for a favour.

Actually, now I think about it, Hallowed would've probably served as a better title for the Taken, what with the originator of the phrase believing Hallowed to be nothing but the corpse of a person acting in concert with His will. But that is neither here nor there. For clarities sake, I will be sticking to the original titles of Taken, Touched, Servant and Heretic to describe those caught in His web, lest my contradictory definitions confuse you all (yes, that's right - with a grand total of nine page views, ever, I am now going to my non-existent audience as 'you all'). Heretic, obviously, is the title for somebody being hunted by Him who is resisting in whatever manner they've chosen, be it denial, running or even by fighting. If they're stupid, foolish or brave enough to fight. Finally, there is the Blind, who'll I'll probably be referring to as 'the lucky ones' whenever I write about them, since they're oblivious to His existence and untouched by Him.

Which leaves me with 'The Office', the last of the labels I wrote out so I'd remember what I was trying to cover this time round, and which I'm considering taking out. Basically I was being smart and trying to remind myself to work in a reference to my current living conditions on the sly, but I think I'll have to give it to you straight. At present, I'm holed up in an abandoned building with some colleagues of mine that's luckily only two streets over from a McDonalds with free wi-fi and a McCafe which stays open 24/7. Which is how this all started, since I've been sleeping during the day and doing my best to avoid my hide-out during the night because of all the damn sleep-walking and screaming. Since here is the only place open 24 hours a day anywhere nearby that I can charge my laptop, I'm pretty much stuck here. Not that I mind. My current setup is pretty perfect really, which means with my luck I'll be forced to move sometime in the next week.

Anyway, my head's starting to hurt, which either means I'm getting a visitor tomorrow night or I need another cup of coffee to wake me up properly. Either way, I'm going to go get one and call it a day (or a night) here. Who knows, maybe I'll steal somebody's wallet and go clubbing with the cash. God knows I'm starting to run out of ideas for entertaining myself with free McDonalds Internet in the middle of the night that don't involved getting kicked out for indecency.